The Walking Dead

The Walking Dead (1936) begins as a snappy, fast-talking gangster film, following the prosecution of a swindler. The brilliant but down-on-his-luck pianist John Ellman (Boris Karloff) is set up as a patsy for a mob killing and sentenced to death. His lawyer Nolan (Ricardo Cortez) is on the mob's payroll and does as little as he can to help Ellman. Two witnesses, a young couple named Nancy and Jimmy in all-American fashion (Marguerite Churchill and Warren Hull) are too afraid of the gangsters to speak up. However, they both work as assistants to the prominent scientist Dr. Beaumont (Edmund Gwenn), who is doing experiments with keeping human organs alive outside the body. After the execution Ellman's body is wheeled to Beaumont's lab, filled with crackling Strickfadens ripped straight from Frankenstein's castle, where the doctor is able to revive him with the help of a so-called Lindbergh heart. But the formerly mellow and jovial Ellman is turned into a brooding, pale, almost zombie-like Walking Dead, shuffling around dark alleys as if partially paralyzed on one side of his body. As one reviewer puts it: "a still, silent figure with a stiffened left arm and hand and a white streak in his hair, whose deep, sad eyes seem to hold a universe of unspoken secrets." Ellman now becomes a murderous avenger, and one by one the mobsters start turning up bereft of life. Interestingly enough, because of the Hays Code, we're not allowed to see the film's "hero" actually killing anyone, instead he stares them down until they meet with "accidental" deaths.