1935 - THE WALKING DEAD, modest but entertaining horror/crime film

Boris Karloff is a man framed for the murder of a judge.  After being sentenced to death in the electric chair he is brought back to life by sort of mad scientist played by "Santa Claus" himself Edmund Gwenn.  As is the way with a 1930's Karloff film he lumbers around seeking revenge sort of like Frankenstein looking for the people who set him up for murder.  Karloff is a very good lumberer.

This is a Karloff horror film not produced by Universal for a change.  Warner Brothers probably offered Karloff more money than he was getting at Universal to play yet another sort of monster.  One thing you have to say Karloff was very good at playing the sympathetic monster.  You actually feel sorry for the guy by the inevitable climax.

The film was directed by one of Hollywood's greatest studio directors, Michael Curtiz.  If any director knew how to move a story along it was Curtiz, this film races along at top speed.  Curtiz had an amazing career starting in the silent era and finishing in the early 1960's.

 

The Walking Dead was the usual good Warner Brothers production with an interesting mix of Warner's character actors.  Hal Mohr was the cinematographer his chief claim to fame was as the cameraman who filmed the first talking picture, The Jazz Singer.

The film was written by Ewart Adamson, Peter Milne, Robert Andrews and Lillie Hayward.  The running time is a brisk 66 minutes.