Customer Reviews

Zombies on Broadway [VHS]

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Paramont had Bing Crosby and Bob Hope; Universal had Abbott and Costello. RKO responded with Alan Carney and Wally Brown--and although they never challenged Crosby and Hope or Abbott and Costello, they were popular enough to justify a dozen or so "B" pictures during the mid-1940s. The best of these is ZOMBIES ON BROADWAY, a weird little parody similar to Crosby and Hope's ghost-busting flicks and Abbott and Costello's meetings with every classic monster from Dracula to the Werewolf.

What makes ZOMBIES ON BROADWAY fun is the absolute absurdity of its plot. Carney and Brown are publicity agents hired by gangster Sheldon Leonard to promote a nightclub called "The Zombie Hut"--and much against their will find themselves sent to the island of San Sebastiane with instructions to bring back a real Zombie for the club's opening. Once on the island, they encounter none other than Bela Lugosi, who can still do that voodoo that he did so well in such 1930s classics as WHITE ZOMBIE. This isn't a classic by any stretch of the imagination, and it certainly won't make any critic's short list--but it is just strange and weird enough to hold your attention through its fairly short running time. The entire cast plays very broadly, and the script is about as subtle as a wrecking ball, but its all in good fun. Recommended as ultra-light entertainment.

Much in the same way "The Monkees" were manufactured by Hollywood to take advantage of Beatlemania, the comedy team of Brown and Carney was created by RKO to try and clip off some of Abbott and Costello's huge success in the 1940s. While the Brown and Carney films are not objectionable, Bud and Lou did not have to stay awake at nights worrying. The chief distinction of this team is that in each film they made they played the same characters: "Jerry Miles" and "Mike Steager." Why they didn't just use their own names, in the fashion of Laurel and Hardy, The Three Stooges, and occasionally Abbott and Costello, is a mystery. The single biggest problem with Brown and Carney, though, is that they aren't funny. In particular, Alan Carney seems completely incapable of generating a laugh -- and he's supposed to be the comic partner, though Wally Brown is actually better at timing and double takes. Chubby and rubber faced as he is, Carney nonetheless misses every opportunity to finess a gag through a reaction. His "comic" expression of fright looks more like David Hedison's as he's about to be eaten by the spider in "The Fly," and his constant, high-pitched, babyish scream "Miiiiike!" (Carney's version of "Heyyyy, Abbott!") is just annoying. That said, "Zombies on Broadway" is probably their overall best effort. The plot is suitable insane, the acting suitably broad, the music suitably brassy, and there are even a couple of suitably creepy moments involving Darby Jones as a shuffling zombie. What really makes this film worth a look, though, is the performance of Bela Lugosi, which belies the frequent comment that he never really understood comedy. His rendition of the old Three Stooge "dresser-with-a-life-of-it's-own" routine is funnier than anything Carney does in the film! "Zombies on Broadway" is pleasant, but your sides won't ache.

Wally Brown and Alan Carney prove they are no Abbott and Costello in RKO's bizarre horror-comedy. The only saving grace of "Zombies on Broadway" (1945) remains Bela Lugosi as a truly mad scientist. When Bela is off-screen, the movie stumbles in the dark. A strange curio directed by the always-reliable Gordon Douglas.

This scared the pants off me (figuratively) when I was a little kid. And it did the same for my daughter when she saw it some years ago, when she herself was 7 (child abuse? no: she's a sane 21-year-old now). As reviewers below note, it's a pretty sappy comedy, but amusing for all that. And if you're a kid, the zombies are SCARY! And the hypos full of zombie juice are REALLY SCARY! So: watch this for mindless fun if you're an adult, or show it to an impressionable kid for a creepy thrill. This gets 5 stars for nostalgia value (for me)-- your mileage may vary....

This film was pretty bad on several levels. It starts off with a former gangster who has two PR agents promoting the Zombie appearance at his new restaurant/night club. The guy is trying to go straight but has a newspaper guy teasing him and razzing him.

The former gangster still got the gun and the gang and forces the PR guys to go find a real zombie, since hiring a guy to imitate one won't work. Too much bad publicity, ya know.

Most of the film is a knock-off of Abbott & Costello -- one fat, one skinny; one the fall guy, the other the straight guy. So the slapstick and bad lines just don't flow or really work, very predictable (Bud & Lou would have been masterful).

The film has the mad doctor played by Bela Lugosi, whose zombie serum works, but only for short periods of time. Bela overacts a bit but I can't blame him, considering the script he had to work with.

Overall, pretty bland and boring rendition of a zombie film.

Cast & Crew:

Directed by Gordon Dines
Gordon M. Douglas Produced by Benjamin Stoloff

Written by Short Story Author:
Robert Faber
Charles Newman

Screenwriters:
Robert Kent
Lawrence Kimble

Starring Alan Carney
Bela Lugosi
Wally Brown
Anne Jeffreys
Sheldon Leonard

This movie is a strange little video featuring Alan Carney, Wally Brown and the "star", Bela Lugosi. The plot is 2 public relations men, Carney and Brown, are promoting a former gangster's (ably played by Sheldon Leonard)new nightclub "The Zombie Hut" They advertise that a real zombie will be at the opening. The gangster sends the two daffy guys to the island of San Sebastian to find a "real" zombie for the opening. Bela Lugosi plays the mad scientist who creates zombies on the island. The plot is pretty predictable as the two PR guys get into one misadventure after another in the land of voodoo. Lugosi has become a caricature of himself by the time this movie was released in 1944. Not the worst movie ever made, but for die hard Lugosi fans only.