For their
second collaboration, producer Val Lewton and director Jacques Tourneur were
keen to build on the overnight success of Cat
People (1942) that had greatly exceeded studio and audience expectations.
RKO’s punishing release schedule however gave them no time for ‘difficult
second album’ musings. Val Lewton was contracted to deliver his next production
less than four months later, (a total of four by the end of 1943). It would
take a workaholic to manage this workload and yet still imbue each film with
quality far beyond the typical cranked-out schlock – and that he was.
I Walked With a Zombie, like its predecessor, hampered
Lewton with a title forced upon him that he would need to work against, while
at the same time somehow fulfilling. The zombie horror film was also tarred
with racist and cheapjack connotations. Since the sub-genre emerged with the
dire White Zombie (1932), the only
major studio picture to attempt a Caribbean voodoo-flavoured horror was
Paramount’s The Ghost Breakers (see
my review of 4/11/2016) and this was played for comedy as a Bob Hope vehicle.
While it gave us the first example of a nightmarish, undead soul in Noble
Johnson’s unsettling zombie, there was an uncomfortable imperialist racism embedded
that tarnished all of the first decade’s iterations. Indigenous West Indians who
believed in the undead returning to life were exploited superficially as a primitive
device for shocks, rather than a culture to understand. There was no better
treatment for the black western characters either that accompanied the white
heroes. Whether played by Willie Best in The
Ghost Breakers or Manton Moreland in Monogram’s awful King of the Zombies (1941), they were as denigrated as the natives,
but more sharply-detailed as comic-relief, wide-eyed, lazy cowards.
By the early
Forties, Monogram was in fact the only studio still churning out zombie
pictures. This Poverty Row outfit was an ideal place for the living dead in
more ways than one. Cost-wise, there was zero requirement for talent or extra
outlay for costumes. All they needed were a few glassy-eyed shamblers who could
be upgraded for a few dollars into monotone delivery day-players. If you’ve
ever seen a Monogram film, there were plenty to choose from.
Lewton and
Tourneur worked hard to distance themselves from any association with past
tawdry efforts in the field. The source material was as much a hindrance as an
inspiration. RKO bosses had handed them I
Walked with a Zombie as the title of an American
Weekly newspaper article by Inez Wallace which was basically a fabricated
riip-off of Walter Seabrook’s The Magic
Island, itself a questionably lurid account of his own first-hand experiences
of voodoo practises in Haiti. Although the veracity of Wallace’s article could
not be relied upon, in his superb history of undead cinema, Book of the Dead, Jamie Russell argues
that “The finished film mimics Wallace’s uncertainty and hesitation, absorbing
the inherent paradoxes between the clash of knowledge and ignorance found in
the article”.
Tales of
roaming zombified slave-workers and black magic ritual were far too crude and
flimsy for Lewton’s refined taste when overseeing Kurt (The Wolf Man) Siodmak and Ardel Wray in their screenplay. He rejected
Siodmak’s populist early drafts and asked them to ground any depiction of
Haitian voodoo in genuine research (possibly inspired by the integrity that his
mentor David O. Selznick instilled in him), and to use Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre as a blueprint for the
emotionally engaging story.
The result
had more in common with Cat People
than its quality beyond the call of duty. Both films share such strength in
their plot, characterisation and brooding atmosphere that if the supernatural
element was removed, each would still make a gripping story of doomed love. I Walked with a Zombie is even more
subtle than its predecessor. There are no murders or jump shocks, and even its
single presumed figure of terror is ambiguous and sympathetic.
There are
emotive echoes of the Bronte novel’s structure underpinning the film. We see
events through a first person narrative by a female character (Canadian nurse
Betsy Connell, played by Frances Dee) sent to work in a caring role in an
unfamiliar environment, who cannot help falling in love with a tortured, reserved
employer (Tom Conway). Both struggle to remain principled while haunted by his
alive yet mentally-disturbed first wife that she is treating. Events will
ultimately reveal dark secrets that impact on all. I Walked with a Zombie weaves in other relationship complexities
and a rich, respected Caribbean culture alien to Betsy on its way to a downbeat
ending open to interpretation.
From the
opening scene, Tourneur immediately provides a tone designed to mystify and
intrigue the viewer. Betsy’s voiceover draws us in with an almost light-hearted
wistfulness, recognising the absurdity of how “I walked with a zombie. It does
seem an odd thing to say” while we see her strolling along the beach in
silhouette with a very tall unidentified person, presumed to be him. This scene
is never referenced again. Before we can dwell on this, she is being given a
cursory interview for a nursing post that would take her to exotic San
Sebastian. She doesn’t leap naively at the opportunity, and when knowledge of
witchcraft is vaguely asked about, she claims ignorance facetiously.
Once on the
island, Betsy is gradually drip-fed its history, made up of a minority white
ruling community and a happy, deferential black majority descended from the old
slave trade. Straight away we see a radical and welcome difference in how
Lewton and Tourneur depict their world and behaviour compared to Hollywood’s
usual portrayal of anyone dark-skinned. There is as much gentle respect accorded
them as shown by them. The maid Alma (Theresa Harris) is gracious and pleasant
without being a servile ‘mammy’ stereotype spouting slang (much as she was
allowed to be as Minnie the waitress in Cat
People). Nor are the men relegated to being grotesque pantomiming dimwits
with outrageous, cartoony voices. Even the musicians dress spotlessly in white
suits and carry themselves with a serene dignity.
As Betsy’s suave
English gent employer, Conway is well cast as Paul Holland. He has the air of
languid privilege reminiscent of the British Raj and an impassive coolness of
manner that conceals passion and torment. His half-brother and
mostly-functioning alcoholic employee Wesley Rand (James Ellison) is another
who masks private pain. Before we peer into his sozzled soul, Betsy is
distracted that night by plaintive weeping and goes to find the cause. The scene
pulls back the discreet veil that the household dissembles in front of; Tourneur
builds tension with a staircase tantalisingly lit by J. Roy Hunt, the top of
which is hidden in shadow. Betsy is pursued by an ethereal woman in white who
heads straight for her with a chilling, silent directness. It’s a
claustrophobic moment and shows what an unsettling effect can be achieved on
camera with simple, deliberate intent devoid of any tricksiness. Fortunately
Betsy is saved by the appearance of Paul. This is an unforgettable way to
introduce her to Jessica Holland, the woman she has been hired to look after.
Betsy is
told that Jessica’s trance state is the result of a fever that damaged her
spinal cord into a ruinous helplessness. She learns even more when drinking al
fresco with Wesley. His aw-shucks folksiness beguiles her until the unwitting
calypso singer (the marvellously-named Sir Lancelot) sings a lilting tune whose
lyrics lay out Wesley’s thwarted elopement with Jessica by Paul. Suddenly
Wesley turns from mushy to venomous, rounding on him for resurrecting the
heartache Wesley medicates daily with booze.
Betsy meets
Mrs Rand, a doctor and mother to the men who is also not as straight-forward as
her friendly bedside manner. Playing the piano one evening, Paul reveals to
Betsy a tenderness and self-critical fear that he feels responsible for his
wife’s state. Betsy was already falling for him; his confessional intensifies
her anguish to the point where she sublimates it by promising to cure Jessica.
From here
onwards, Betsy becomes more than just a white colonial spectator as she
ventures into the secluded world of voodoo ritual. Alma gives her and Jessica directions
through the corn fields, and cloth brooches that function as all-access passes
when they encounter the film’s single yet fascinating zombie guardian. Our
first sight of the towering Carre-Four (Darby Jones), shot from below and lit
by moonlight, is an unforgettably potent sight. His glazed-eyed guardian
symbolises the gateway for Betsy into the supernatural – if she dares. Despite
his size, he offers no active threat, but neither can his calm stance be taken
for granted either. Coupled with the sighing wind amid the high corn rows dwarfing
Betsy and Jessica, this no-going-back sequence staged by Tourneur is thick with
atmospheric foreboding.
The arcane
practises choreographed at the houmfort worshipping site are mesmerising and
utterly credible. The sabreur wielding a sword’s ceremonial power, the two dancers’
jagged thrusts before meeting their foreheads over the drummer, not to mention
the insistent earworm incantations driven by the beating heart of drumming, images
like these have a fierce, eerie commitment far removed from the dodgy Hollywood
musical moves typically passed off as exotic rites in horror movies. What
follows though reveals that actually even the preserved mystery of the locals
has been devious claimed by the white colonial settlers, masked as being for
their betterment. Mrs Rand has been posing as a voodoo priestess to dispense
modern medicine under the guise of serving the gods. She tells Betsy that Jessica
is beyond salvation. Meanwhile, the Sabreur is conducting his own occult tests.
He pierces her arm with the sword, convincing the attending folk that she is a
zombie. This prompts the ancient world to impact on the sanctity of the present
in return when Carre-Four is sent to collect Jessica for their further examination.
The formidable Mrs Rand denies him, and then fuels further ambiguous mystery by
springing on Betsy that she believes she was a possessed conduit for a voodoo
god who cursed Jessica into zombification.
To further
muddy the swirling dark waters, Wesley and the Sabreur both duel over the soul
of Jessica, the latter enacting the piercing of a voodoo doll effigy of her as the
still-lovestruck Wesley stabs her with the symbolic arrow of Ti-Misery (Saint
Sebastian). With Carre-Four striding silently after him, Wesley sacrifices
himself and Jessica in the sea. Wading out with her in his arms suggests a
religious, almost baptismal ceremony to the sad reuniting of their ill-fated
love.
This mournful,
poetic ending adds to the lingering enigma of unanswered questions in the film
that have aided its longevity. And let’s not forget that opening which now
seemingly identifies Carre-Four as Betsy’s companion on the shore - but why?
When? Where were they going? Such musings haunt the viewer as though we’ve just
awoken from an evocative yet unexplained fever dream. At a time when most
horror pictures followed a routine plot often wrapped up with unimaginative
haste, I Walked with a Zombie
resonates for its daring bid to obscure easy answers. I remember vividly the
aftermath of seeing The Blair Witch
Project (1999) with friends at the cinema, and how the passionate debates
about its own ending was a lively and wondrous antidote to forgettability. Val
Lewton and Jacques Tourneur had taken audiences to that delightfully maddening
place decades before…
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