3/26/2015

Dead Men Walk (1943) - Basic but entertaining Newfield picture



A rather primitive but colorful poster for Sam Newfield's Dead Men Walk

QUICK REVIEW:

A kind doctor kills his deranged magician brother and attends his funeral. But dark powers keep the magician among the living even after his death!

Dead Men Walk is an exciting and good b-movie, written by Fred Myton (Blonde for a Day (1946)) and directed by Sam Newfield (The Lady Confesses (1945)).
George Zucco (Madame Bovary (1949)) is totally amazing in the double role as the living, sympathetic, murder-accused doctor and the dead, malicious, murderous brother. The film has fine story build and basically good dialog with some exceptional lines, like, "The power is only with me during the hours of darkness." (From the evil Zucco.) It also has a fine, fiery ending.
Minor mistakes, - perhaps due to the fact that the film was shot in just 6 (!) days - and its crudeness weigh down, but this short feature (64 min.) is not at all bad.




Watch the beginning of the film here (in lieu of a trailer, which isn't to be found on Youtube)

Cost: Unknown
Box office: Unknown
= Unknown
[Dead Men Walk is the final film of b-movie blond Mary Carlisle (Triple Trouble (1934)), and it also stars Dwight Frye (The Bride of Frankenstein (1935)) as a hunchbacked assistant named Zolarr. Newfield is credited with an astounding 277 movie and TV titles, which might be explained by the fact that he was a degenerate gambler who wound up ending his career penniless.]

What do you think of Dead Men Walk?
Seen other films by Newfield?
If so, tell us about it/them

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