The Walking Dead (1936 film)
| The Walking Dead | |
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| Directed by | Michael Curtiz |
| Produced by | Jack L. Warner |
| Screenplay by | |
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| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Hal Mohr |
| Edited by | Tommy Prat |
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| Distributed by | Warner Bros. |
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Release date
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Running time
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66 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Budget | $217,000 |
| Box office | $300,000 |
The Walking Dead is a 1936 American horror film distributed by Warner Bros., directed by Michael Curtiz, and starring Boris Karloff, who plays a wrongly executed man who is restored to life by a scientist (Edmund Gwenn). The supporting cast features Ricardo Cortez, Marguerite Churchill and Barton MacLane.
John Ellman (Boris Karloff) has been framed for murder by a gang of racketeers. He is unfairly tried and despite the fact that his innocence has been proven, he is sent to the electric chair and executed. Dr. Evan Beaumont (Edmund Gwenn) retrieves his dead body and revives it, as part of his experiments to reanimate a dead body and discover what happens to the soul after death.
Dr. Beaumont's use of a mechanical heart to revive the patient foreshadows modern medicine's mechanical heart to keep patients alive during surgery. Although John Ellman has no direct knowledge of anyone wishing to frame him for the murder before he is executed, he gains an innate sense of knowing those who are responsible after he is revived. Ellman takes no direct action against his framers; however, he seeks them out, wishing to know why they had him killed. Each dies a horrible death, and in the end it is their own guilt that causes their deaths.
Confronting the last two villains, Ellman is shot. Having fulfilled his divine mission to bring about justice, he dies, just before he would have explained death and the afterlife to the curious Dr. Beaumont. Beaumont is warned not to continue his experiments, citing the Biblical Scripture, "For the LORD thy God is a jealous God (Deut. 6:15a)."
The Walking Dead's executive producer Hal Wallis wrote to the production supervisor Lou Edelmen on August 16, 1935 that he has sent him a six page outline for a film titled The Walking Dead . The original story for the film was written by Ewart Adamson and Joseph Fields. On November 1, director Michael Curtiz was sent the draft of the film. A few days before shooting was scheduled, actor Boris Karloff voiced problems involving his character John Ellman. These issues included Ellman's lack of speech which he felt was too close to his role in Frankenstein (1931), and Ellman's Tarzan-like agility which he felt would induce laughter. Wallis brought in three more writers for the film.
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