BORIS KARLOFF & MARGUERITE CHURCHILL IN 'THE WALKING DEAD'

Boris Karloff and Marguerite Churchill in THE WALKING DEAD Year: 1936 Rating: ****

With all the ingredients of a 1930's Warner Brothers Gangster Flick including villain-actors Barton MacClane and Ricardo Cortez, here working in backrooms to set up murders and double-crosses to keep their crime syndicate from further courtroom bulwarks, the casting of Boris Karloff not only adds an element Universal Monster from his then-recent FRANKENSTEIN legacy, but after he's brought back to life from being falsely imprisoned and executed, scientist Edmund Gwenn actually utters the line, "He's Alive!"

This while surrounded by two somewhat innocuous but perfect-looking lab assistants: insanely gorgeous ingenue Marguerite Churchill and handsome boyfriend Warren Hull, both backing Karloff's John Elman, originally a meek and not very crime-savvy musician that the mobsters set-up/wrongfully accused of killing their own targeted judge...

Boris Karloff in THE WALKING DEAD

With formidable pathos written into Karloff's signature expression: heightened during the best sequence as his reanimated self plays a piano concert while observing all the gangsters that set him up... followed by a neat succession of body count murders that includes another Warner Brothers regular Joe Sawyer...

The biggest star beyond Karloff is director Michael Curtiz, who, a few years before CASABLANCA, uses creative camera angles including quick zooms and intense closeups within gothic/seedy interiors: making THE WALKING DEAD more of a fully-satisfying film-noir revenge thriller than the horror built into the (now extremely famous because of cable television) title.

Marguerite Churchill in THE WALKING DEAD

Boris Karloff in THE WALKING DEAD

Boris Karloff in THE WALKING DEAD

Boris Karloff in THE WALKING DEAD

Marguerite Churchill in THE WALKING DEAD

Ricardo Cortez in THE WALKING DEAD

Marguerite Churchill in THE WALKING DEAD

Boris Karloff in THE WALKING DEAD

Boris Karloff in THE WALKING DEAD

Joe Sawyer in THE WALKING DEAD

Boris Karloff in THE WALKING DEAD

Boris Karloff in THE WALKING DEAD

Boris Karloff in THE WALKING DEAD

Marguerite Churchill in THE WALKING DEAD with Edmund Gwenn

Marguerite Churchill in THE WALKING DEAD

Marguerite Churchill in THE WALKING DEAD

Marguerite Churchill in THE WALKING DEAD

Barton MacLane and Ricardo Cortez in THE WALKING DEAD

Marguerite Churchill in THE WALKING DEAD

Barton MacLane and Ricardo Cortez in THE WALKING DEAD

Barton MacLane and Ricardo Cortez in THE WALKING DEAD