Cast: Dwight Frye, George Zucco, Mary Carlisle, Nedrick Young, Forrest Taylor
(How ironic that Dwight is pictured on the cover but not credited on the cover.)
Welcome to another edition of Saturday Night Horror at the Psycho Ward! Tonight we're going to Disc 4, Side B and reviewing one of the two Dwight Frye films on my collection: Dead Men Walk.
THE PLOT: A town doctor, Lloyd Clayton's (George Zucco) evil twin Elwyn (also played by Zucco) dies and comes back to life as a vampire by way of his assistant, Zolarr (Dwight Frye). He's a vampire now, so obviously he has an immediate attraction to Clayton's niece, Gail (Mary Carlisle). At first, her boyfriend David doesn't believe Lloyd's story about Elwyn being a vampire, but once he sees Elwyn standing in the doorway, he believes. Boy needs to read the story of Thomas in the Bible a bit more.
Anyways, so the entire town is on a manhunt against Dr. Clayton, while the man himself struggles with Elwyn and finally kills him. Zolarr, all the while, is being a selfish brat (as much as I love Dwight, I feel like all of his characters are selfish brats) and yelping, "Master! Master!" as flames envelope the tomb where Elwyn is supposed to be buried. At the end, Dr. Clayton, who died when the flames burst (really cool, by the way), gets a funeral and Zolarr doesn't. Dwight Frye being mistreated again. Shocker.
THE REVIEW: SO SO interesting to see how Dwight Frye aged in the 12 years since Dracula, yet he was still mind-bendingly insane as Zolarr. 1943 was the year of Dwight's death, November 7th the day. This film was released on February 10, 1943. When he first appeared on-screen in this film, I literally said to myself, "He sounds (and looks) terrible" and it was true. He had many wrinkles and he sounded very hoarse. Poor Dwight. And he gets killed on top of it. Didn't really go out with a last hurrah, but I still love him. <3
As for the rest of the film, I felt like I was watching Dracula again. Even so, I can't understand why many Dwight fans hate this film. Despite his age and frail state, Dwight is still very good and the film is decent. 3 out of 5 stars.
No comments:
Post a Comment