I feel compelled (I'm not sure why) to report on the movie JZ and I watched last night.

When I'm selecting things to TiVo I scroll through every listing on Turner Classic Movies and there was one title there just taunting me. I let it pass the first time, but finally gave in to the irresistible title Zombies On Broadway.

It's squarely in the mold of Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein and, the comedy duo was modeled very exactly on Abbott and Costello. Except they weren't funny at all. As the movie made it's way to the Carribbean I kept thinking "That looks like the set to I Walked With a Zombie. Hey! That's the guy that was the zombie in I Walked With A Zombie." So this was made by RKO and they just recycled some of the set and cast for a quick B feature.

The movie was very short (69 minutes) and briskly paced, which as JZ noted - makes its lack of genuine funniness highly tolerable. I'd never heard of the female lead, Ann Jeffreys, but checking on IMDB found out that she had a very long interesting career. She did only B Movies for RKO and Republic, then became a major stage performer hand selected by Kurt Weill and Cole Porter to work on their musicals. She did 887 performances of Kiss Me Kate. Went on to form a very successful nightclub act with her husband, which got them the role of the ghosts in the TV version of Topper in the 50s. She was always very beautiful, and when we checked her gallery were surprised to see the most recent shot of her was just a few weeks ago and looks pretty freakin' good for 82. She was doing the soap Port Charles as recently as 1997. She was David Hasselhoff's mom on Baywatch, was on Falcon Crest, and also on the original Battlestar Galactica.

I can't recommend the movie as such, but it was a fascinating tour through the back alleys of the studio era. I always love finding movies that recycled sets or props (the mad scientist gear in Frankenstein probably being the all time champion for reuse). The Spanish version of Dracula (shot on the same sets as the Lugosi version concurrently, but during the middle of the night) is another example.

Also, as evidenced by the photos on this site, Anne Jeffreys was seriously gorgeous as a young'un.

She looked very odd in the movie -- she has what reads to the '05 eye as a very contemporary face, kind of like a smart and snarky-minded mashup of the youngish Cybill Sheppard and Teri Garr, surrounded by a brazilian very, very mid-40s looking Z-grade character actors.

And, yeah, the pacing was great. I've seen lousy movies that were really rather better written than this and even better acted, that just torpedoed themselves with their own deadly slowness. All they did was give you time to notice just how bad they were; Zombies On Broadway just zipped right along like it was trying to outrace a mildly irritated audience's attention span, and mostly succeeded.

Also, incredibly low-grade but effective creepifying effects (big glassy fake eyes pasted over the zombie actors' entire eye socket cavity, giving them horrid bulging glazed expressions, made considerably worse when one of them smiled an idiotic smile that looked unspeakably wrong with the fake eyes). And two tiki bars! And a monkey! eta: And, best of all, a swanky NYC nightclub crowd swellegantly rioting with the immortal chant, "WE WANT A ZOMMMM-BIE! WE WANT A ZOMMM-BIE!"

Really not in any way, shape or form a good movie, but thoroughly satisfying.

So this was made by RKO and they just recycled some of the set and cast for a quick B feature.

Also to set up the two male leads as a comedy team. Kind of a low-rent Abbott and Costello.

Yeah, no classic, but the kind of low-key amusement they don't make any more. With Bela Lugosi.

Zombies on Broadway sounds exactly like what I need right now.

I meant to post a couple more comments about Finding Neverland (beyond repeating how sculpturally perfect Johnny Depp is). I was not expecting the chick from Pitch Black to be in it! And it turns out that the commentary on PB is correct, and she is actually an accomplished actress.

I also noted, a bit after the movie ended, that the inspirations for Captain Hook and Peter Pan were the ones to co-guardian the children. Which is perfect.

We use "He slimed me" all the time these days.

Pretty much every line in Ghostbusters is quotable, but I don't think they've transcended their source the way quotes from Casablanca or The Wizard of Oz have. I mean, what Nutty said about meta applies: People say "I'm shocked. Shocked." without realizing what it's from; likewise I know people who say "Lions and Tigers and Bears Oh My!" without knowing the source.

A friend of mine says that we quote movies today the way people 200 years ago quoted the classical authors. I disagree somewhat, but would be interested in other folks' take on that.

A friend of mine says that we quote movies today the way people 200 years ago quoted the classical authors.

Woah.

I see it, in most cases, as a function of bonding rather than wisdom. If I meet somebody about my age and say "Why would anybody steal a screw?" generally it's an icebreaker. And if I meet a stranger and say "Lost art, ducking." and they Get It, I tend to think certain things about their world view and taste in entertainment...but sometimes I'm wrong.

The only way to do Cthulhu.

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I just want to say that it's about damn time: [link]

I just want to say that it's about damn time

No SHIT! Yeah! Gotta go with you on that, Corwood. I actually have my taped version of PAT GARRETT... labeled "The Smiling Cobra Version"

Granted, in a lot of ways, it's RIDE THE HIGH COUNTRY getting a decent release that chuffs me most.

I'm even excited about Cable Hogue. Ah, Cable! Cable! Where ya been? Why'd you leave me for so long?

Sorry, John Cale took over my brain for a moment.