Themes: Miscarriage of Justice, Zombies, Out For Revenge
Main Cast: Boris Karloff, Ricardo Cortez, Edmund Gwenn, Marguerite Churchill, Warren Hull, Barton MacLane
Release Year: 1936
Country: US
Run Time: 66 minutes
Plot
In one of his most successful portrayals of a "living dead" man, Boris Karloff plays John Ellman, an ex-convict who is framed by the mob for the murder of the judge who first put him away. Evidence proving Ellman's innocence arrives seconds after he is electrocuted. Officials allow Dr. Evan Beaumont (Edmund Gwenn) to experiment with putting a mechanical heart into Ellman. The device revives the dead man, but he has become a white-haired, monster-faced zombie who hangs out in graveyards and seeks revenge on the conspirators who framed him. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide
Review
Hell hath no fury like a Karloff scorned. Or, to be more exact, a Boris Karloff fried for a murder he didn't commit. Just like Frankenstein, Boris' John Ellman is brought back from death, but The Walking Dead was made by Warner Bros. rather than Universal and instead of the torch wielding villagers with their quaint superstition, Ellman is up against fast-talking racketeers like Barton MacLane, Paul Harvey, and Joseph Sawyer, in other words, the Warner Bros. stock company of dangerous misfits. The difference is between a slightly disturbing nightmare and the all-too-real dangers of modern city dwelling. But just as his most famous character, Karloff's The Walking Dead remains the drama's most sympathetic character -- in fact, the drama's only sympathetic character, bland ingénues such as Marguerite Churchill and Warren Hull notwithstanding. Even the usually so kindly professor Edmund Gwenn turns against his "creation" in the end. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
John Elman (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. But Dr. Evan Beaumont (Edmund Gwenn) retrieves his dead body and revives it, as part of his experiments to reanimate a dead body.
