Welcome to Zombie Strains, the podcast where we watch every zombie movie ever produced. Yes, all of them. How many is that? The current total is more than 600, and we will try to watch them in order of release date, with a few flash forwards for fun. We look forward to watching zombie cinema evolve and become what it is today. I'm John, and I'm joined by my co-host Andy and our producer Brad. Join us for this journey to see which of us makes it to the end alive. Hello, welcome to Zombie Strains. I'm John.

I'm Andy.

I'm Brad.

Hello, producer Brad. Everybody knows you as producer Brad, so.

It's not a habit to say it that way.

I know, I know.

I'll work at it.

Just let us know when your wife starts calling you producer Brad, then we'll know we all won.

Well, that'll be our amazing victory. So Valley of the Zombies today. We have a lot to say about this movie, I'm sure, but spoiler, there's no valley, and I'm not sure there are any zombies. But that doesn't mean it's not worth talking about.

So for as little substance as this movie has, I actually feel like we're going to have a lot to talk about it as far as zombie movie stuff.

I do. And I, you know what, I'll save it to the end. I have thoughts about this movie that are sort of not zombie thoughts, but also, I don't know, I'm very curious about it. So, okay.

All right. And as always, at the beginning of the show here, we like to share any kind of content warnings that you need to be aware of and either watching this film or listening to our discussion about it. There is not a lot to be concerned about, I don't think, with this film beyond. The general trope of the female lead in this movie is portrayed as a wimpy, scaredy cat sort of character, so that strain of sexism runs through this movie. Beyond that, there's not a lot that I picked up on. Anyone else want to add anything?

No, I feel like we traded racism for sexism in this one, in the sense that the chauffeur of the valet, who would have been black in our previous movies, is that sort of scaredy cat character has now been swapped for this nurse.

It does feel like the female lead has picked up that exact role.

She gets all the funny lines.

She does get all the funny lines. Yes, it's true.

All right, so Brad, do you want to tell us a little bit about this movie's production and release?

Valley of the Zombies was released on May 24th, 1946 by Republic Pictures. Republic was formed by Herbert Yates, the owner of a film processing lab called Consolidated Film Industries. Many Poverty Row studios were in debt to Consolidated, so he merged them all into Republic in the 30s.

Oh, interesting. So a lot of the places we've been, like Monogram and we don't know the specific ones, but we've been watching a lot of Poverty Row movies, and that's the kind of studios that got snapped up here.

Monogram is one of them, and it gets confusing because he merged them in, and that's one of the names as part of Republic, but later some other people gained control of it. So I couldn't figure out in my research how that happened, but yes, Monogram was part of it in the 30s.

I have a distinct memory of the Republic logo being a bald eagle, but I don't think we get that logo in this movie, so that might be a later logo.

Now, the big movies of 1946 were The Best Years of Our Lives, which won the Oscar, Song of the South, Notorious, and Duel in the Sun. There were close to 20 horror films released in 1946, highlighted by Bedlam, starring Boris Karloff, She-Wolf of London, directed by Gene Yarborough, who directed King of the Zombies, and The Beast with Five Fingers.

Whoa.

The film was directed by Philip Ford, nephew of the legendary director John Ford, who directed classics like The Grapes of Wrath, How Green Was My Valley, The Quiet Man, Searchers, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. But for the IMDb, Valley of the Zombies is one of the films that Philip Ford is best known for. He didn't make any big classics. He did direct a bunch of B movies and then moved into TV, where he directed eight episodes of Adventures of Superman and 50 episodes of Lassie.

Oh, Lassie. I remember Lassie.

The music is by Edward H. Plumb, and it's per IMDb, but there's no onscreen credit. Plumb also did a lot of work for Disney, receiving Academy Award nominations for Bambi, Saludos Amigos, Victory Through the Air, and The Three Caballeros.

I did make a note here that said, the music is a lot.

It is, and specifically this movie, like others I noticed, it has a lot of like oboe and bassoon and just instruments that don't get prominence in soundtracks these days, I don't think.

I heard the bassoon and all I could think it was Andy yelling at the TV. It's not the right time for a double reed instrument.

Yes, exactly.

Doral McGowan and his brother Stuart are credited with the screenplay based on an original story by Ryan Cole and Sherman Lowe. Cole was one of the writers for the Captain America serial that, as we keep mentioning, starred Dick Purcell, who was in the King of the Zombies. Cole also wrote on Adventures of Superman, Captain Video, Master of the Stratosphere, and the 1949 Batman and Robin serial.

Oh, wow.

Captain Video. That one piqued my interest.

That's very curious.

I have a lot of geeky friends, and they know about it. So it's something that I guess maybe we should watch as a little side project.

Okay.

All right.

Robert Livingston plays Terry Evans. He starred in many Westerns in the 30s and 40s. And at the end of his career, he was in two sex comedies from the 1970s called The Naughty Stewardesses and Blazing Stewardesses. Wow. In fact, if you go to his IMDB page, the video that runs at the top is of Blazing Stewardesses. So if you start the mindset, you're here for Valley of the Zombies, and you go to his page, it's very jarring.

Yeah. This happens to old actors. Who played Bond on Her Majesty's Secret Service?

George Lazenby.

He ended up doing the similar thing. I think he was in one or two sort of sex comedies or sex.

He was in Kentucky Fried Movie.

Yes. Yeah.

So I appreciate it when like a filmmaker, you know, has a has like kind of a unifying vision. Stewardess is in this case.

Well, the blazing was blazing saddles had just come out. So they grabbed that title to try and get people in the door.

Our next podcast project, after we finished this one, Stewardess Movies. So anyway.

Adrian Booth plays Susan. She was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan as Virginia Pound.

Hey, that's where I live.

That's why I mentioned it.

Yeah.

She changed her name to Lorna Gray after a couple of years in Hollywood. She was in comedies and westerns in the 30s and 40s. She was even in You Nasty Spy by The Three Stooges, and co-starred with John Wayne in Red River Range.

She's funny. She's funny in this movie.

She changed her name to Adrian Booth after signing with Republic, and she and Dale Evans were the only women to get billed as co-stars at Republic.

Is the name change, is that just a personal quirk of her, or was that a thing that is like a woman actor you had to do?

Well, I think a lot of actors did. Like Cary Grant was born Archibald Leach, and he became Cary Grant. I'm blanking on Judy Garland. I think her last name originally was Gum. So a lot of time, the studios would come together and try and figure out what's a more marketable, cool name for you. Interesting. Reading between the lines, I didn't see this printed anywhere, but when she left her contract at Columbia, I went to Republic, that's when she changed her name. I think she wanted to have a break in her career and start anew. So I think that's another reason to do it. And it's probably easier back then than now.

Yeah, we have a whole conversation about the evolution of celebrity culture, but that's another story.

Now she co-starred in our favorite serial, Captain America.

Yes.

So again, I think there's a side project watching that serial.

It keeps popping up.

Guys, we need to start writing down all the future podcasts that we are committing to, because I think we're up to like six or seven at this point.

Yep. That's fine. I'm comfortable.

And in 1998, she received a Golden Boot Award, acknowledging her contributions to Western films and TV shows. And the Golden Boot was given out from 83 to 2007 by the Motion Picture and Television Fund.

Interesting.

Ian Keith plays the villain Orman Merckx. And there are many mentions online that he was considered to play Dracula in 1931, but the part went to Bela Lugosi.

I am not surprised by that.

Not even one bit. No.

Yeah, he's pretty creepy. Charles Trowbridge and Leroy Mason, who both had minor roles in the Valley of the Zombies, were also in the Captain America serial. It's adding up. Wow. And lastly, Wilton Graff plays Dr. Garland. And I mentioned him because he was in the movie, The Corpse Came COD. So that's another film for our podcast of movies we watch because of title like The Pillow of Death.

Yes.

Okay. Well, hey, thanks for that rundown, Brad. As always, we like to talk a little bit about the cultural context in which these films came out. So John, what was going on the year that this movie came out?

Well, it's 1946, right? So there's a lot of the world is tired of war, right? Europe is still an absolute disaster, especially Germany, but the world is tired. I think they're looking for escape. It's the Nuremberg trials happen here. There's a lot of heavy stuff going on. Actually, interestingly, ENIAC, the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer, is introduced. It's like the first computer and it had, it uses transistors and vacuum tubes and it was room-sized, but it is the first electronic calculating machine for general purpose. I bring that up because I think there's a lot of technology. We just heard about a serial, Captain Video. Bela Lugosi in two movies has had these crazy advanced video surveillance systems and computer systems, so I think that's just in the air. Two other things I'd like to bring up. First of all, the modern bikini was first shown off in Paris, but it wasn't called the bikini. It was called the Adam. I'm sure that was very scandalous. And then I hate to mention this one, but in this year, for some reason, the US proposed to purchase Greenland. So everything that was old is new again. We'll just leave it at that and move along.

Oh, that's great. So do you want to take a look at the poster again before we jump into our discussion of this movie?

Yeah, I would like to.

All right, so let's pull up the poster here. I'll describe it and then, John, you want to kind of give me your gut reaction. We have the centerpiece of this is a cloaked, like almost grim reaper looking figure with, is that a knife or like, I think that's a knife.

It's a knife and I remember because I commented on it last time that it has a skull at the end of its pommel.

Oh, yes, it does. So it looks pretty modern serial killer-y.

Yeah, they're wearing a green hooded cloak.

Yes.

But the knife is glowing red. So if it glows blue because orcs are nearby, what does a red glow mean?

Well, spoiler, we'll never know because there's no green cloaked figure holding a bloody skull-pommelled knife in this movie at all.

Yeah, this is mysterious. If you look at the green cloaked figure's hand, it looks pretty skeletal and like just nothing like that comes into this movie. But above the green cloaked figure kind of as if puppeteering him is the villain of this movie. And John, you want to describe what he looks like?

Yeah, he has a sort of drawn face with like long, like deep creases in his face. He looks sort of like a trickster or a magician, and he wears a bowler hat. He's got black hair, very pale skin, and sort of sinister eyes.

And lastly, in the bottom right corner, we have a feature that's pretty common to these posters, and that is the two romantic leads kind of looking with alarm at something off screen.

Which are photos, actually, where the rest is an illustration.

Yes, that's a good point too. So, does this movie, what does this movie suggest to you that you're about to experience, John?

Well, it suggests that there's some sort of zombie master who has a sinister creature under his control that are going to menace our romantic couple here. That's what I thought we were going to watch. And that creature would be like a zombie.

Now, I felt that this movie probably could be classified, and maybe it was classified, as a comedy. There's a lot of gags and kind of one-liners in this film.

Yeah.

Do you think that that would have been a surprise to moviegoers who went in having seen this poster? Do you think that sort of quippy comedy was just kind of baked into people's expectation of horror movies at this time?

I feel like it was baked in, though. There's more of it here than in other movies. For example, we'll get into this, but there's a police detective who has a bunch of sort of deliciously silly lines and uses sort of lingo and slang in a very, what I thought was humorous way. But I think the character of Merck's is actually a little scary. So and he plays it straight.

Yep. Okay. Well, hey, John, why don't you start us out with a 60 second overview of the plot, such as it is, of this movie. And then I will lead us down into the valley of this film by discussing some specific scenes that are interesting to me.

So the plot is basically this. We start with a doctor, Dr. Maynard, and he has an assistant doctor, Dr. Evans, also known as Terry, and a nurse, Susan Drake, and one other worker, person who works for him, Fred Mays. They run a doctor's office. But at the very beginning, someone breaks into the office, kills Maynard, takes his blood, and embalms him. We find out that this character is Ormond Merckx, and he needs blood, but only of his blood type, to stay alive because he went through some ritual in the Valley of the Zombies. The rest of the movie is us chasing Merckx around, trying to solve the crime, with the help of some police detectives. Terry and Susan undertake solving the crime. They go to Merckx's estate. They go to his mausoleum. They return back to the doctor's office. There's like three locations in this film. But as they're chasing him, he's killing and embalming more people. And that's how they tracked him, leading to a final sort of concentration with him, on the roof of the building, which is actually where the movie started.

Yeah, very fitting. Somebody says the word embalming about every two minutes in this film. So we'll talk about that, but.

Yes.

All right, so shall we jump in, John? Thanks for that summary.

Yeah, let's do it. I have so many thoughts.

I am always intrigued by just the opening 60 seconds of these movies. And we already talked about the music, which is heavy on the woodwinds. But the thing that.

The double reed woodwinds.

Thank you. Yes, thank you.

Didn't we have a, do you remember? Sorry, I have to do a high school member with Brad. Do you remember Mrs. Dats?

Oh, yes.

Oh, she would say double reed players who had to make their own reeds like oboe players were, and I quote, a little off. So I'm just saying maybe that's why they used oboes.

In my high school band, those were like the elite members of the band.

Yeah, but elite in like a crazy way.

If you had to construct your own piece of the instrument, that would put you in a league above.

Yes. Yes.

Okay. But anyway, we get some ominous music, but I just wanted to point out, nowhere in this movie do we hear the sound of voodoo drums.

No.

I'm so used to this as an audio signifier of dread and exoticism and that sort of stuff. We do get church bells, which did make me wonder if the ominous church bell is like the Western equivalent of the spooky sound cue.

Right.

Maybe. A cloaked man is making his way across a bunch of rooftops. I'll skip along because John, you summarized this quite well. But basically, the opening scene here is a doctor's office.

Wait, Andy, you got to back up.

Okay.

When he's on the roof.

You got to do the thing with the cloak. Yes.

I thought he was going to be like a creature or something the way he did that.

Yeah.

He is cloaked. He has this almost robe-like cloak and a hat, and which he, I guess, manipulates with great flourish. Is that what you guys are getting at?

Yeah. I think what he does is when he climbs the ladder onto the roof, he stands on the edge of the roof and spreads his cloak out, like this black satin cloak.

Like Dracula does.

When Brad told us he was considered for Dracula, I was like, well, that makes sense. There's that same vibe.

Here's something I didn't mention in our earlier Bela Lugosi films. I don't really understand that Bela Lugosi pose where he pulls his cloak up above the bottom half of his face. Is that just a Bela Lugosi thing?

I think it was a Dracula thing, and I wonder if it wasn't to focus on his eyes while he was mesmerizing people. But I don't know exactly why. But yes, that is a little odd. Why would he do that? To hide his teeth? I don't know. It doesn't make sense.

We're going to meet this cloaked figure later. This is Merckx, the villain of the piece. Maybe we just want to talk about him now, John. I am not even remotely surprised to hear he was considered for the role of Dracula. I want to go out on a limb here and say, you can't really complain about Bela Lugosi's performance as Dracula, because it's just so iconic. But apart from Bela Lugosi, this guy is my favorite, I guess, mesmerist zombie master villain that we've seen in these films. Do you want to talk a little bit about his screen presence? Yeah.

He has an enormous presence and he has a very deep gravelly voice, and he says all his lines like this. And he has a look about him. It almost seems like he never blinks. And the word is tall and gaunt. I think the only reason Bela Lugosi, I mean, not the only reason, I'm sure there's lots of reasons, but one of the reasons that Bela Lugosi was Dracula is half of Dracula is being horrifying but half of Dracula is being charming. And I can't see Ian Keith who plays Orman Merckx here being super charming. Maybe he could pull it off. I don't know, but his smile is absolutely sinister as well. You know what I mean? He just oozes this sinister nature.

Ian, his face, I don't know what the term for it is, but his face has a lot of kind of crags and contours that really, really jump out in a low lighting movie like this.

That's a great point. The way they shoot it is often shot with bright light from one side and half his face is in shadow, but it creates all these sort of lines on his face.

Everyone else in this movie is like an attractive 25-year-old, well, most of them, with a clean, smooth face. But his face has contours to it, and it just adds so much to his presence when he's on the screen. Like I said, I would love to see him doing this type of role in other movies because I really enjoyed his performance.

You know, I didn't look it up beforehand, but now I'm curious. Like I could see him playing a cowboy villain with a black hat with that craggy face.

Totally.

But I cannot see him playing a good guy.

You know what I mean? No, not at all.

He may have, but it would surprise me.

Well, to help with the lighting, I don't know if you noticed that in the doctor scene, everyone leaves and leaves Dr. Maynard there. And Maynard turns off all the lights except for his little desk lamp so that when Ian Keith enters, he's in the deep shadows.

Yes. They do stuff like that a lot and stuff that we would never do. Like when I'm in a room reading a book or something, I don't turn off every other light in the room. Sorry.

Yeah. I noticed that definitely going through this film. We got some good feedback from a listener a couple episodes ago. That a lot of our complaints about the visual quality of this film is really more about the modern channels that are presenting them than about the quality of the original film. But this movie is very dark, even setting aside the question of that we might be watching degraded versions on cheap streaming services.

There's a lot of darkness for Mercs to emerge from. That's definitely like a setup in the movie they're doing sort of all the time. All right.

So thanks for indulging me there. I just wanted to get that Mercs talk out of the way, because I think he is the most compelling figure in this film, and I would love to see more of him to be totally honest.

Like I'm not sad that Bela Lugosi is, if he's not, have we already put Bela Lugosi in our sort of hall of fame? Because we're going to by the end, I'm sure.

Founding member.

Founding member. Okay. Thank you.

All right. So that said, I do want to pick up the pace here because we're still in the opening sequences.

But so this just know Ian Keith has over 100 credits, so there's a lot for you to go watch of his.

Okay, good. I'm I'm I hope that we run into him again in this podcast.

Yes.

So, okay. But this is a doctor's office and in the doctor's office, we meet all of well, most of the main characters and protagonists of this film. We have Dr. Maynard, an elderly doctor, and his assistant, Dr. Terry Evans.

Yep.

And his other nurse assistant, whose name is Susan.

Susan Drake.

Susan Drake.

It's a very dramatic name.

That is a very cinematic name, yeah. And Terry and Susan are an item, I think, right?

There's a moment early where he's hiding on the examination table, and she pulls back the cover, and he gives her a kiss. So I think they're together.

That's a good scene. We'll get to it in just a sec. So when we meet them, though, they are gathered in the doctor's office discussing a problem. And the problem is that a vital medical supply has been going missing. And let's hear that in this audio clip.

Fred and I have been checking the blood supply record. It's happened again. You mean there's more of it missing? Twelve pints. I can't understand it. Why would anybody want to steal blood? I don't know. But I'm going to report the matter to the police in the morning. And Fred, I want you to put a lock on that refrigerator.

Yes, sir. Yes. So Fred is, by the way, just so all the voices there you heard were Dr. Maynard, Terry, Susan, and then Fred is a minor character. He's like the lab assistant.

Yes. So I don't know whether to talk about this now or a little bit later.

I think we should talk about it now.

You think we should talk about it now? Okay. Yeah. So blood. This is interesting. So we know we're watching a zombie movie because zombie is in the title of the film. Right. I think this is the first time that blood has been associated with zombies. John, do you want to correct me if I'm missing something?

I do not. We've talked about brains and serums and all kinds of stuff, but I don't think blood has been part of it. And I'm curious. I have thoughts, but go ahead.

In a minute, Merck's is going to break in and confront Dr. Maynard and basically demand blood from Dr. Maynard. So our villain, who is, I think, our quasi zombie of this movie needs blood. This is interesting to me for a number of reasons, because first of all, this is really what we would call a vampire, right?

Yes, though he doesn't, the movie, I think it's good that he doesn't drink it, he takes it as a transfusion.

Yes. So I think we are looking at a, I think as we've mentioned when watching previous movies, the concept of the zombie, I really feel like they are still flailing around for the hook that makes zombies compelling.

Yes.

And at this stage, the concept of a zombie is fluid enough that it's still overlapping with other scary monster archetypes, like a vampire or a ghoul.

Right. And I think one thing, and I've mentioned this before and I'll probably keep hitting on it because I think we have a notion, that's what our four pillars are all about, of what a zombie is, how they work. One of my four pillars does not mention what zombies are, because I took it as read, is that they're mindless cannibalistic humans. I didn't put that as one of my pillars. But I think it's important to remember that with a lot of things, these categories get imposed on stuff later. My favorite example is ancient Greek mythology, like Bullfinch's mythology codified all that into stories about those myths. But in the original, it's all over the place. Like Zeus sometimes is one thing, sometimes they're another thing. That detail and rigor that we appreciate, especially when we're doing a project like this, of being precise about the difference between a vampire and a zombie, I think people didn't care or it wasn't important, and that's something we're imposing on horror, and it gets imposed more as we go. Does that make sense?

It does, and I will say as much as, we're doing this podcast because we love the specific tropes and definitions of what a zombie is, right?

Yes.

But there is always something delightful when you watch a horror movie and you feel like you don't know the rules.

I agree.

When you watch an alien movie, you know all of the rules by which an alien operates, right? So that's fun. You're there to watch that. But then I think, just to continue with my alien talk, then you get a movie like Prometheus, which shakes up a little bit of those rules that you're accustomed to. And you may love it or you may hate it, but it is a disorienting experience. And I got some shades of that watching this, where I felt like I didn't know what rules this thing followed, if any.

Right. And we can talk about this when we summarize more, but I think there's an interesting horror movie in here that isn't necessarily what we expect from either vampires or zombies.

Yes.

Okay.

I have actually more to say about blood and vampires, but I want to get a little further in here. I want to get to our next audio clip in a sec. So when Merckx confronts Maynard, we get, I think, our first flashback scene that we've seen in this podcast. Is that correct?

Yes. We had the flashback voiceovers with I walked with a zombie.

That's true. Okay.

But there were no filmed flashbacks that I can recall in any of our previous zombie movies.

So the gist of this is Merckx is a former patient of Dr. Maynard, and Dr. Maynard operated... I was a little confused by the plot, but we get a flashback scene where we see Dr. Maynard's first encounter with Merckx, four years previously. And so it's at the same doctor's office, and Merckx has been brought in, and he seems to be dead. Again, this is four years ago. So they're basically sort of pronouncing him dead. There's nothing we can do. And Dr. Maynard and the other doctor there kind of chat a little bit about Merckx's weird case here. Do you want to tell us what's kind of weird about Merckx?

Well, the doctor is a Dr. Garland, and I think he brought this case to Maynard because Garland works at an insane asylum. And Merckx has a special sort of insanity where they said that Merckx is looking for immortality. Like his goal is to become immortal. And it's described sort of as a rare brain disease, but that's what's going on with him.

Yes, exactly. And specifically, it's mentioned that he, Merckx believes that regular blood transfusions would keep him in a state of sort of extended life or immortality. Yes. Merckx kind of confirms this in this audio clip that I want us to hear. So let's hear the next audio clip.

Or I have discovered a world in between. A world of living death. In my former profession, death was an everyday occurrence to me. I began to wonder, would it be possible for a man to appear to be dead and still be alive? The thought fascinated me. It became an obsession. I gave up everything to find the answer.

So to be clear, Merckx was a mortician, I believe, in his former life.

Yeah, he doesn't say that explicitly, but they...

We pick it up a little bit later, just from some context clues.

Yep.

And so Merckx is here because he needs regular infusions of a specific type of blood. And if he doesn't get them, then sort of it's suggested that true death will claim him. But as long as he gets that regular blood, he can remain in this state of sort of living death.

And this is, to me, why he's not... See, he feels like a vampire here. But I think what he's describing is not literally just a vampire. I think it's something else. And they're trying to sort of stitch the two things together.

Yes. So a couple things here. First, we've been teased with this Valley of the Zombies. That is the last time you will hear of the Valley of the Zombies in this film. We will never travel to that valley. We will not hear more details about the rituals he observed there. I guess it's just a slightly tantalizing offhand comment that lends a little bit of depth and texture to this, but I found myself wishing for more. John, what do you think about that?

I think so too, and I wonder if it's sort of like a prequels kind of thing. Like if we actually got to the Valley of the Zombies, would we be horribly disappointed? But I think, yeah, you know, I kind of wanted to see the Valley of the Zombies. We know what would have been nice is a flashback to him becoming a zombie or something, a little more tantalizing, but they don't give us anything.

It's a great title for the marketing team.

It's a great title.

It's a great title. All right. So at the risk of belaboring this, John, I want to park on this blood business for a little bit longer.

Yes.

So because it's interesting to me. Like I said, like we both said, this really screams vampire to us modern viewers more than it screams zombie. But we have a number of things here that I think are pretty interesting. So Merckx's scheme, it turns out his brother works as an assistant in this medical lab, and has for some time been basically sneaking him blood on the side. For various reasons though, well, this is interesting to me. So I didn't mention this in the historical context, but I don't think as modern viewers, we can appreciate how crazy, new and exciting the idea was of storing blood for later use. So I did a little bit of digging, and the practice of being able to have a refrigerator full of blood vials, that's relatively new. In World War I is when like some early advances in being able to like take blood out of somebody and store it for more than a very short period of time started.

Interesting.

And in the 30s is when the first, like what we would call a blood bank was established in the US. And then in World War II, there was a lot, there was a big blood banks like flourished, and there were a lot of drives to like donate blood to have it stored and then shipped off to the troops at the front. And this movie is just a couple of years away from what is considered like one of the biggest breakthroughs in kind of blood store, like medical blood storage, which is in a couple of years, somebody is going to invent the plastic bag to store blood. Up until now and including in this movie, it would have been in like a glass vial. So I mentioned that not because I think people would have been scared by this, but I think like the psychology, modern psychology talk we've seen in earlier movies, I think if you were in 1946 watching this, you, I mean, a decade ago had been the Great Depression. And now you were living in this world where like the scientific and medical advances were just coming right and left.

And yeah, because this is also the time we get antibiotics.

Yes.

And just a little before this, we got the polio vaccine. This is a time when medical science makes a huge leap between 1930 and 1950.

Yes. So I, I don't think this movie is, you know, exactly playing with this idea to be scary with it. But I do think it is tapping into the sense that, that the world is like you are living in this crazy science fictional world, where stuff that was unimaginable when you were a kid is now like a global industrial phenomenon, right?

Yeah. And I find that interesting. And I, just as a side note for historical context, one of the things I hate to admit is that sometimes something like a war, whether it be a Cold War or World War II, leads to incredible advances in technology very quickly. You develop a way to transfer blood over long distances and store it for a long time because you have millions of people dying and they need this blood desperately.

Yes. So my last point here is that this reads so much as a zombie or a vampire, right? It made me wonder if we are looking at one of the earliest instances of a vampire-like creature using artificially stored blood instead of the blood of a living, breathing victim to power itself. So just a couple of notes, the vampire movie genre is really only about a decade older than the zombie movie genre at this point.

Although, of course, because movies are also fresh. Yeah.

I mean, vampires have more literary precedents, I think, of course. So I will just say that in my fumbling around on the Internet, the earliest example I could find of a vampire movie where a vampire drinks blood out of a vial or a medical bag was 1970s Count Dracula.

Interesting. Is that star Christopher Lee?

It does. Okay. It wouldn't surprise me if this trope of the, I guess, I've seen this referred to as the vegetarian vampire.

Yeah. I was just thinking of another movie that'll tell you about when you're done.

Yeah. I couldn't find an example earlier than 1970 of this, and that just made me wonder if here in 1946, we are seeing something that the first example of a trope that will be ported into the vampire movie genre and become a commonplace thing by the 1980s. Do either of you guys have any thoughts about that?

I'm super curious about this because the movie, and I actually saw this in the theater, that jumped to mind was a movie from 2009 called Daybreakers, starring Ethan Hawke, where he actually plays a vampire scientist who's trying to develop a blood substitute so they won't be dependent on human blood, that they can manufacture their own blood. And that actually has, that is a very unsettling movie in some ways, and one is that all the humans that currently live are just farmed for their blood, and they live sort of unconscious in these huge warehouses full of humans, and they're like cattle essentially. And he's trying to basically, like you said, a vegetarian vampire, find a meat substitute, a blood substitute. So yes, I think this is fascinating, and that's why I think there's an interesting movie in here, because he's not a vampire. He's stealing blood to live, but he's still very human. I don't know, I find it really interesting.

Agreed. So I won't belabor that except to say, listeners, if you can help us out here by sending us some examples of other movies that use this vegetarian vampire.

True Blood, HBO.

Yeah, so by the 1980s, there's like numerous films and series that feature this. So, but I'm just interested in where it started. And I don't know enough to say that it started with this obscure zombie film, but this feels pretty darn early to me for this trope to be cropping up. And I think that medical science needed to be at a certain state where that was even something you could plausibly present as an option.

Yes, yeah, interesting.

Listeners, write in and let us know what you think. Okay, back to the movie, which seems like I've been trying to avoid getting back to you. I'm just going to skip over this. So Merck's kills Dr. Maynard, and then he has a confrontation with his brother who's been sharing blood with him. And this is a good scene, so I do want to hear the audio for him when Merck's brother is horrified that Maynard has just murdered. I'm sorry, I'm getting too many names in this movie. Merck's brother is horrified that Merck's has murdered the doctor just for his blood. So even though he's been helping out for years, he did not sign up for murder, so he threatens to call the police. And then we get this scene as his brother tries to phone the police.

I'd think twice if I were you, dear brother. Remember, you're implicated in this also. I'll tell him that you kept me under a hat, not expel. For four years? So they don't believe me, I don't care. I'm not going to be a party to murder.

Isn't that a delightful scene?

Yes, it is. So what is happening in sort of the silence there is Merckx is mesmerizing his brother.

Yes.

But I also love that clip because it shows off his voice. You're going to put me in my, like, it's just so good.

I hate to say it. I find him more compelling at this role than Bela Lugosi. I know that's kind of blasphemy to say, but like just listen to his voice. He just, that voice is a real skill he's got. I'll just say that.

I would say this is one of our better examples and our early examples of somebody chewing the scenery.

Yes, exactly.

In our little zombie world here, like he's chewing that scenery to bits. Yeah.

It's also an example that even though these are low budget and not a big studio, these actors have worked a lot.

Yes.

They're very experienced even though they're not necessarily big time and famous.

Yeah, absolutely. So I picked this clip not just because I love the Merck's performance there. But so we get a couple of things that should be familiar to listeners of this podcast. Merck's is some kind of mesmerist. I think it's suggested that when he went to the Valley of the Zombies and he figured out whatever the ritual is that gives them this extended unnatural life, he gained some of the powers we associate with zombie masters like Bela Lugosi's various characters. Yeah. Later in this film, he's going to mesmerize. They'll use the word hypnotize somebody else in this film. So that's clearly part of his power set as a zombie master. We also just get confirmation from his brother that like, this is unnatural, you really ought to be dead. Merck's kills his brother. Then there's the middle part of this movie is kind of long and tedious. So I'm going to try to pick out the stuff I think is interesting, John and Brad, but speak up if I miss something. So basically through a series of shenanigans, the police believe that Terry and Susan remember them, or there are lovebirds from the beginning who work in the doctor's office. They believe that they must be the murderers, and so they get arrested, there's extended interrogation scene. There is my favorite shot in this movie.

I think it's same as my favorite.

Then describe it. I bet we're talking about the same thing.

When the interrogation begins, the room is completely dark, but there is light only on Susan's face, and she starts screaming, no, no, I don't know, I didn't do it. It's got this mystical horror quality to it, where they're interrogating her, but you only see her, and she's sort of resisting them. Was that the show you were thinking of?

Absolutely, it has the quality of a nightmare.

Yes.

And it's so good, and this along with the Merck's performance, and this is, I mean, just spoiler here, this isn't a really good movie, I don't think.

No.

But really talented people are getting in little really talented performances and bits, both acting wise and filming wise in this movie.

They're not helped by the script because I would like to highlight one thing that happened just before the interrogation, which is he buries his brother, the police find, they see him digging and he escapes. And then there's two lines here that I loved. One is the first policeman says, what do you think he was doing? And the second says, well, he wasn't digging potatoes. And then the other one is when the detective shows up, they realize that the brother has been embalmed. So Merck's kills people and embalms them. I have a question about how long it takes to embalm someone, but that's a different question.

I have answers to that question, John.

Okay.

So yes.

But the lead detective says, and I quote, this particular party has a passion for pickling. And that's how he describes the murderer embalming all his victims. And I don't want to skip that. We don't need to talk about that scene, but I didn't want to skip that line.

Yeah. Okay. So then we do need to talk. So while this is happening, Susan and Terry are eventually let go by the police because more dead bodies are cropping up, dead embalmed bodies. So a couple of things here. First of all, this, I said earlier, this feels like vampire. This now feels to me like serial killer.

Yes. This feels like a crime movie to me now, right? Like yes, he takes their blood and takes it via transfusion, but he's really a serial murderer in a scary way.

And so his, I guess, his calling card is that he, I think the suggestion is he drains these, he kills people that have the blood type that matches his. He drains their blood and then he embalms them. John, how long do you think it takes to embalm a body?

See, I always thought it was like eight hours. Like I thought you had to drain it, you had to be very careful, you had to prepare it, the embalming, like I thought it was a whole thing.

So it's not eight hours, but it is two hours. One, if you get a really lucky, but it can go up to three hours. So this is not a fast process. And secondly, how much embalming fluid do you think is required to embalm a body?

I would say, I'll take a guess, four gallons.

Yes, exactly. It's about a gallon per 50 pounds.

Right. And it's also similar to the amount of blood we have. I don't remember the exact number, but it's in that.

So I just had this picture during this movie of Merck's lugging around gallon milk jugs of embalming fluid. And so I think-

And with the empty ones, he puts the blood in, and then he's got the embalming ones.

Leaping from rooftop to rooftop with them.

Leaping from rooftop to rooftop with 20 pounds of embalming fluid strapped to his back.

Yes. So clearly, this movie is just enthralled with the idea of embalming. I feel like the word this movie should have gone with is just exsanguinated, right? They should have just been finding bloodless bodies. I don't know why they added the detail that he's taking the time. One of the murder victims is like a taxi cab driver, which suggests that it was like a quick crime of opportunity. But then now we're asked to believe that he spent two hours embalming the taxi cab driver.

Yeah, I think that they didn't really think that through. I think they're counting on people in 1946 not to know how long it takes.

I think so, too. If you know more than we do about the embalming process, and there's some way that this makes more sense than it seems, please let us know about it. I'm going to get off that horse. I actually have only one more horse I'm going to beat in this movie and we're coming up on it before too long. So a lot of stuff goes on. I have a note in my notes here I marked down. First of all, we're halfway through this movie and they have just finished the setup for the movie.

Yeah. I was asking myself at this point, do we have a lead character? Do we have protagonists yet? I think it's Terry and Susan, but they've had so little screen time until the interrogation that I didn't know that. You know what I mean?

So Susan and Terry, they've been released by the police, but the police are still suspicious of them. I do have my notes. It was during this police interrogation scene that I noted. There's like, this is another movie where there's like 300,000 indistinguishable white guys wearing, with dark hair, wearing dark suits. Like they're just indistinguishable from each other. Like I...

Yeah. The only policeman that stands out is that detective with the party with the passion for pickling line, because he has the more distinctive accent, but the rest of them just kind of blend together. There's Tiny, there's Blair, but I'm like, I couldn't tell you which one was Tiny and which one was Blair.

Yeah. It just... I mean, again, I don't know much about this era of filmmaking, but like you got to... You're filming in black and white. All of your actors have dark hair and they're white men. At least give them like different color suits or something.

Well, it's funny that you say that, because they talk at one point about Dr. Garland being murdered and the way he's described, the only things they give to describe him are the color of his suit, his tie, his shirt, and his shoes. They don't say it like white male, six feet tall. They're like, a man wearing a dark suit, blue tie, white shirt, and black shoes. I'm like, what?

Did you catch Dr. Garland's first name by the way?

I did not.

It's Lucifer.

I did not catch it.

Who names their child Lucifer? There's really only like seven names you probably don't want to give your child. You don't want to name him like Hitler. Maybe Lucifer is probably in that one.

Yeah. That does remind me of a different horror story that I will mention briefly just to throw something interesting out there. I can't remember the name of it, and it's too far away to grab, but it's by Carl Edward Wagner, and the plot is the lead psychiatrist at a mental institution, which is Lucifer Garland's job. Throughout the course of the story, you realize that all of the patients are in hell, and he's actually the devil. Anyway, the name Lucifer made me think of that.

That's fine. I'm going to go into fast-forward mode here.

Yes. Because they do an investigation of the mausoleum and the house, and it's really boring. The only thing I wanted to mention here is that still, Terry is like, they have Susan as the scared child, and Terry is like, come on. And he's like, excusing everything. At one point, he falls into a pit. He's like, oh, it must be their composting pit. I'm like, what movie are you in? Everybody else would think that was a grave. What are you doing?

Yes, exactly. Yeah, so what's going on here is Terry and Susan, they've been let go by the police, but they realize that they're still kind of on the suspect list. And so rationally or not, they decide that they need to solve the mystery of who killed the doctor on their own. So they do some sleuthing that didn't make a lot of sense to me, but they pick a destination, they're going to go investigate the Merck's Family Cemetery. I don't remember exactly. It wasn't clear to me exactly how they made these leaps.

But it's like a mausoleum on the estate, I think is what it is. Yeah, and they find the patient's card and they dismiss it because he's dead, but then they're like, wait, what if he's not dead?

Yeah, so 30 seconds of investigation and they've pinpointed the villain's lair, basically. So they go to the cemetery, it's really boring. The only thing I wanted to mention, just a filmmaking thing. So they are presenting Susan as this scaredy cat figure, who I think you're correct in saying is picking up that role from some of the chauffeurs and valets that we've seen in earlier movies. This is just a note for these filmmakers in 1946. If you want to convey a personality trait of a character, you don't have to have them embody that trait in every single line of dialogue that they say in the movie. It's okay to have them be scared like twice instead of having a scaredy cat line every 40 seconds, which is what happens in this movie. So every twig that snaps, every gust of wind that blows, there's a little sequence where Susan freaks out and wants to run away, and her brave man insists on going forward.

Every cow that they run into randomly in a field?

The most important thing that happens in this scene is they run into a cow. John, what made me pause the movie and do 20 minutes of cow-related research?

I don't know how short the cow is.

Well, first there's a question, what's the cow doing in this wooded private cemetery?

At the middle of the night, yes.

So what did they call the cow, John?

I don't remember.

He called the cow Bossy.

Bossy, not Bessie?

So that bugged me because cows are called Bessie, right?

B-E-S-S-I-E, that's a cow name.

Yes. So I Googled around, and I don't know if we want this to be a regular segment where I do like a cow fact update, but the term Bossy is the original generic name people would use for cows when summoning the cows. So they would say, here Bossy, here Bossy.

Really?

Because Bossy is linguistically related to the Latin like species name of cow. And over time, it evolved into Bessie as people that didn't understand that Bossy had sort of scientific roots started, just shifted to Bessie. So now we say Bessie, but we are looking at a real blast from the past, John, where people still called cows Bossy.

Please listen to our next podcast where we discuss the etymology of all animal nicknames.

Yeah. Producer Brad, I don't know if you want to have a music sting for this segment in each episode going forward.

I think we just have a moo.

There you go. Okay. That's my cow fact. That was more interesting than anything that happened in this long sequence where they run around the cemetery. They do find the Merck's family mausoleum, and the big reveal is that there's a crypt there for Merck's, but it's empty.

Right. I don't want to rush you through this, but later Merck puts Garland's body in there.

Yeah. Another embalmed corpse shows up. I am planning to just fast forward through all this. If there's anything between now and let's say the car chase John that you want to mention, now is the time.

I do want to mention one thing, which is, again, more delightful cop talk by the lead detective. Terry convinces them that this is a whole plot, and they're like, come in the house and I'll show you, and he says, what the heck, I've always been a sucker for a sleigh ride.

A sleigh ride? People just talked in a better way, I think, in 1940. There is one audio clip I want us to hear. This is when they are exploring the mausoleum, and they discover that Merck's crypt is empty, and Susan and Terry do a little bit of hypothesizing about what might be going on.

Susan, do you suppose it's possible that Merck's isn't really dead? How could that be? We saw the record. Maybe Dr. Maynard was mistaken. Say for example that Merck's was in a sort of a cataleptic state, which only simulated death. It's happened before, you know. But the embalming was. How do you know he was embalmed? His brother claimed the body, he might have been in on the deception. The first thing you know, you'd be saying he's a zombie. Well, there aren't supposed to be such things.

Pretty dramatic.

Yes. So there's the second use of the word zombie in the second and last. No, there's one more mention of zombies later, but that's only our second one.

Yes, we'll get to that. So long story short, Merck's starts chasing them and doing shenanigans to harass them. There is a very Bela Lugosi moment where Susan is standing up against this window and Merck's reaches a hand in that Bela Lugosi way where he's super slow motion, making menacing claw motions with his hand, like reaching towards her. I think we're supposed to be in suspense that he almost grabbed her and she didn't see it.

Yes.

But this mostly reads as just comic, and maybe it was intended to be comic because no one who was actually attempting to grab somebody else would be so slow and inefficient.

Yeah, that's interesting. It reminds me actually of, there was a similar, not similar, but it reminded me of a scene from Revolta of the Zombies where one of the characters was stabbing the Buddhist priest from behind the altar and the arms sort of crept out and then crept back and crept out and crept back. Yes.

Yes. So what we learned from the way the scene wraps up is that they find the, I guess, mortuary office where Merck's lives and I guess has been doing his embalming and blood transfusion.

Which they refer to as, and I quote, an undertaking establishment.

An undertaking establishment, yes. It winds up, the police show up, there's various shenanigans happen, and basically at the end of the scene, Merck's kidnaps Susan.

Yes.

So I like this scene. As it happens, Susan has been handcuffed by the cops to a piece of furniture, and then Merck's knocks out the cop and he just advances on her, with a very Bela Lugosi style focus on his mesmerizing eyes.

Yes. I don't know why he didn't kill that cop and embalm him in five minutes, like he did everybody else.

Yes. Take a couple quick hours to embalm him like he's been doing so far. He kidnaps Susan and he steals a cop car and drives into town with Susan as his hostage. And so the others realized what's going on. It's detail that probably is tedious to listeners. But earlier in the movie, there was this scene where a policeman in the cop car that Merck's is later going to steal is radioing to dispatch.

Yes.

And it's like a very long scene. And the cop keeps going like, oh man, there's something wrong with this transmitter. Like the button is stuck down. So this transmitter only transmits. It can't hear anything. It only transmits. So he says that like, he says it like eight times.

Yes.

So we have, just in case, checkoffs like police radio with a transmit button.

They spend more time pointing out that this radio's transmit button is stuck on than they do telling us Merck's was an undertaker before becoming a serial killer.

So, and that pays off just deliciously, of course, when they pursue Merck's in the stolen cop car by, because in that stolen cop car, that transmitter button is pressed down. They listen to like environmental sounds of like trains that Merck's is driving by. And there's like four different sounds that they identify. Like the movie clearly thinks you are just, your jaw is dropping at this.

Yeah.

My favorite is there's interference with the transmission. And the doctor goes, hey, there's a power plant nearby. Maybe they're driving by that and that's interference. Zip over there.

Yeah. I love this only because it reminds me of a, this is now a trope in movies, right? There's a great one like this in Sneakers, right? Where somebody gets put in a trunk and they record the sound and have David, and they play back for David Strathairn to help them figure out where they were. And there's another one in The Fugitive with Harrison Ford, where they play the tape and they're like, wait, is that an elevated train? So this is, I don't know the first instance of this, but like definitely I can remember a bunch of others, so.

Well, this has to be one of the earliest instances of it. I mean, don't you think? Yeah, it's got to be. This movie just full of firsts.

Full of firsts.

It's just staggering. So Merck's, we're now in the finale. As is typical of these movies, there's like four minutes left and they crash everything to a halt here really fast. Merck's has taken Susan back to the original doctor's office. I think because they only had the budget for like three sets. Correct. And he has hypnotized Susan to be his nurse assistant. So that looks really sinister. It looks like he's going to escape.

With Susan.

He's going to take Susan. Merck's takes Susan up onto the roof, you know, in a brilliant parallel to the opening minutes of this movie. And when the good guys start to chase, Merck's turns around and orders Susan to shoot Terry.

Yes.

And so this is our, we saw this all the way back in White Zombie, right? The woman is ordered to kill her love interest.

Yep.

And we know how this is going to play out because there's one minute left in the movie. But they do that. It was interesting to see this way of filming it as early as 1946. They do the thing where there's a gunshot and the camera looks at Terry who you think has been shot.

Yes.

And then you see him realizing that he hasn't been shot. And then of course, we, the viewers understand that in fact, Susan has shot Merck's despite being hypnotized, and she either, she overpowered the mesmerism or whatever. And Merck's dies and that's a wrap on this movie.

No, there's one more very important last line that Brad and I will be discussing at length during the discussion. They say they need a drink.

I have the actual clip if you'd like to hear it.

Okay.

Here's how the film ends.

Terry.

You're all right now, darling. I feel like I've been dreaming. Well, I'm glad you woke up when you're dead. I think I need a drink. I think I need one too. Let's get a zombie.

Zombie? Oh.

So, this is our second mention of the Cocktail of the Zombies. So, there will be a segment during the discussion on cocktails in the 1940s.

So, quick quiz, John, which previous movies have made a zombie drink gag?

I walked with a zombie.

Yes.

I had a gag.

Did zombies on Broadway also make this joke?

Oh, I can't remember.

I'm like 60 percent sure it did.

It wouldn't surprise me.

So, what is the zombie? I've never had one and can like, what is it?

Oh, Andy, here we go. So, I'll start, but Brad's got more details. So, according to the Can Can Awards about cocktails, I have no idea if this site is legit or not, but one of the points they make is during the 1940s, it was hard to find a lot of common ingredients for alcoholic cocktails. So, some things became more popular during that time. The famous ones are the Mint Julep, the Manhattan actually, and the Champagne cocktail. There's a lot of obscure ones. My favorite one is the Suffering Bastard. But there's also one called the Zombie, and it's a fruity, tiki style cocktail. The recipe I saw online had three kinds of rum in it, but lime juice, pineapple juice, and grenadine served in a tall glass. So, it's a very 1940s sort of tiki style cocktail that became popular at this time because of lack of other things to drink due to the war. But that's as far as I get. Now, Brad, producer Brad, if you don't know.

Well, it started in the 30s.

Started in the 30s.

The drink was created in 1934 in Hollywood by Don Beach at his place called Don the Beachcomber.

I've heard of this, haven't I?

I don't know. The restaurant's not still around. But because it had all that alcohol on it, there's a lot of sweet juice in there to sort of mask it. And some places would limit the drinks to two per person because of the strength of the alcohol.

Gotcha.

But the tiki craze is a big thing. It started in the 30s after Prohibition ended. So, there's a whole craze of that, which led to, in 1945, a bar in Sacramento called the Zombie Hut.

Aha!

And that lasted until 1990. But then, after 9-11 in Brooklyn, a new Zombie Hut was opened. And it's still there. It opened in 2002.

Well, that's the name of the bar in Zombies on Broadway.

I know. I wish we had thought to find this during that podcast.

So anyway, yeah. So there literally was a cocktail called the Zombie. And 1934 cannot be a coincidence, right? Because this, again, is near the time of White Zombie. It's when the US is sort of fascinated with voodoo and Haiti. And I gotta believe that that's where that comes from.

Well, the Wikipedia entry says that someone walked into the Beachcomber Bar and said he turned into a zombie and he needs a drink to help him to recover. And that this is made. And that's so, but it was that that term was used.

Interesting, okay.

Which was which was floating around in the culture.

All right.

All right, thanks for that. The main thing that struck me about that little clip is how often John, when talking to your beloved wife, do you like utter her name? Like that clip up and she said like, oh, Terry.

Yeah, I don't. I use my my pet name for her. I call my wife and I call each other babe. That's we've been doing that for 30 years.

So I know my wife's name and she's confident that I know. So I don't really say her name very much in conversation.

But actually, I know I'm in trouble when I hear my name.

So yes, well, there's that too. So shall we call a wrap on Valley of the Zombies? Was there anything else that either of you guys wanted to call out about the movie before we go into our wrap up questions?

Yeah, there's a lot to talk about here, but no, I have nothing else.

So let's jump right into our questions. John, is there a hero party in this movie?

Yeah, I think Terry and Susan constitute a hero party.

Yep. How do they do? What's the zombie fatality rate here in this film?

So the zombie does kill several people. It's more like murder victims that are tangentially related to our heroes. That's another reason why it feels like a serial killer movie. It's like one of those movies where somebody's paranoid that they're killing people because people keep dying around them, but there's nothing happening to them. You know what I mean? Yep.

Is there a zombie horde?

No. I'm not even sure there's a zombie, much as the horde.

Yeah. Some of these questions aren't going to apply to that. How are zombies destroyed or killed in this movie?

They don't really make a point of it other than shooting him. He just gets shot.

They do say that I was intrigued by the idea that the state Merckx was in was an unstable state between life and death, and that without transfusions, it was suggested that true death would come for him. So I guess the zombie in this movie could be killed by just denying it sustenance.

Yeah. Starvation, essentially.

Is the world threatened in this movie?

I don't think so.

No. Yeah. Pretty local serial killer type killer. But here's the interesting thing where I think we'll have more to say. What type of zombie strain are we dealing with here?

Yeah. So it's a mishmash, right? It feels like actually maybe the other movies have been leading up to this, but we haven't quite seen it because he goes to, just based on his own narration, he goes to the Valley of Zombies to become a zombie. He says, look doc, your science doesn't mean anything here. But blood transfusion, like we spent a lot of time talking about blood here, isn't technology. It's an advanced scientific technology. So it is like mystical meets science zombie, but they have a special need that none of the zombies we've seen so far have, and it's like the vampire's need, but it's not the same.

Yeah, this blood thing is going to be relegated to vampires, I think, pretty soon.

I think so.

But the sequence of a vampire drinking blood out of like a medical vial feels to me like the echo of the conversation many of our zombie movies have been having about is the zombie state a mystical occult state or is it explainable by science and medicine? To me, a vampire drinking out of a medical blood bank-

Or getting a blood transfusion, yeah.

Right. Is that subgenres version of this conversation of like, what is this? Is this supernatural or is this scientific?

Yeah. And I think again, this movie wants it both ways, right? Like he got really far into figuring out how to be sort of this living dead, but he couldn't flip the switch. It's sort of like Bela Lugosi talking about his inability in Zombies on Broadway, his inability to duplicate what the Natives can do. He can make a Zombie, but he can't make it permanent. And I feel like this is the evolution of that idea where he does become a Zombie, but it's this technology that allows him to stay a Zombie.

Agreed. I also think that the... So in this movie, we have not to date seen a Zombie master, like a mesmerist Zombie master who is himself a Zombie.

Oh, that's a good point.

In all of our movies so far, there is a Zombie master who creates Zombies.

And they're a scientist or a sorcerer, it could be either or both.

But they are not Zombies, and they wouldn't want to be because Zombies have no will or volition of their own.

Interesting.

So I think we are seeing a... To the extent that we can call Merckx a Zombie, and I agree, it's pretty sketchy according to most of our definitions.

You know which one thing he lacks that vampires have in our movies today or most movies is a compulsion, right? He's not compelled to drink people's blood. He needs it as sustenance. And there isn't that sort of addiction compulsion kind of...

It's the, be careful what you wish for. He sought immortality.

Yes.

And to get it, this is the state he ends up in.

Yeah, the trade off is he has to steal blood and transfuse himself.

So we don't see... I feel like I could be wrong because we have like 500-something movies to watch that could all prove me wrong. Right. The, there, it is relatively uncommon to see a zombie who has intelligence and will. This is something that there are some modern, very recent shows like I think iZombie.

Yep.

And maybe a few others. I have not seen them where there are free willed protagonists who are zombies. And there are little hints in movies like Day of the Dead, that the zombies might have some capacity for intelligence and free will action. But, overall, overwhelmingly, zombies are not smart, savvy criminals in movies that I'm aware of, right?

This feels like, in many ways, a crime movie where the MacGuffin is stealing blood and embalming people. You know what I mean? Like it's a killer crime movie where that's the MacGuffin and that's this excuse for stealing it in some ways. But yes, I think you're right. And I think his agency is also different. And I would say he has more agency than Dracula, right? Because he doesn't care about the sun. I mean, he walks around in the dark because he's stealing blood. But like his weakness is starvation. He doesn't have the limitations. But he also doesn't have the superpowers of a zombie, except for the mesmerism. So, or sorry, he doesn't have the superpowers of a vampire, except the mesmerism. So he's definitely not like just a vampire. I think that's a dismissive reading of what he is.

Yeah. So I'm going to stop harping on this. But I think my sense of this strain of zombie is this is a little bit of a faint. This is a little new take on zombies that doesn't really stick. And instead, the interesting parts of this get ported over to the vampire genre. Yeah. And zombie movies do not really pursue this strain, this direction.

Yeah. It feels like part of the evolutionary tree that died.

Yes.

It was a way zombies could have gone, but it didn't go this way because they didn't end up having agency.

Yep. All right. So John, let's move on to your four pillars of the zombie movie. Is there an apocalypse or something like it in this film?

No, there is not.

Is there a contagion in this film?

No, because you have to willingly go through a process.

Yes. Are there tough moral choices in this film?

I don't think so. It's a Cops and Robbers movie, so I don't think so.

I think you're right. This one though, we might get a different answer. Do loved ones turn against you?

Yes. Once again, loved ones do turn against you. So of the pillars we've got, and I'm starting to feel there should be more here, but of the ones we have now, this is the one we've seen most commonly so far, and it's definitely here.

Yes.

Susan is ordered by the Zombie Masters to shoot her lover, Terry, and she doesn't. But you think she's going to, and there's a little bit of tension there. So this is the one that's emerging as the front runner of the most important pillar to start.

Yes, agreed. All right. Then lastly, would we survive in this zombie world? You, me, Brad?

I don't know. I think that if I had this guy's blood type, he's pretty scary. One thing I wanted to say, so we've been hinting at is, there's a good horror movie in here. It's a little tedious, it's a little boring. But if you take Ian Keith and you support him better, with a little bit better movie, I think there's a genuinely scary movie in here.

Yeah, I think so too. He could totally get me. If I had his blood type and he broke into my house at night, he could totally stab me to death and embalm me.

And he would know your blood type, too.

Yeah, that's another-

He knows your blood type, he goes, you have my blood type. How do you know?

That's his other superpower, I guess. It's like X-ray vision, but only for blood types.

So do we recommend this movie to listeners of this podcast and to zombie movie fans in general?

That's a tough one. I didn't hate watching it. And Ian Keith's performance is wonderful, but that's really the only big thing I can recommend about it.

I think so. The good parts of this movie are not the zombie related parts, I don't think. So I don't think I would recommend this to a zombie fan, because like you say, it feels like a dead end in the zombie family tree or whatever we're calling it. Right. That said, I mean, if you do watch it, the high points are Ian Keith's performance.

100 percent.

Yeah.

I actually enjoyed it. I thought it was a fun little 56 minutes.

Yeah. There's one scene we forgot, which is where they go to a gas station, and there's the mechanic under the car, working on a car in the middle of the night like you do. He says, gas station is closed, get out of here. He's got this accent and then it's revealed that it's Ian Keith, which I should have seen coming, but he's actually able to be convincing enough as somebody else that I didn't pick it up right away.

I even have that in my notes. I was going to challenge you to, on the spot here, John, what's the previous movie we've watched that hinged around a sinister gas station attendant?

Yes, there was another one starring Bela Lugosi and John Carradine. It was, I can't remember.

Voodoo Man.

Voodoo Man. That's right.

Yes. Well, that's all I've got. It's time for the scariest part.

Actually, there's one question, which is, did the poster sell the movie accurately? And my answer is-

You're ruining my little spooky voice bit, John.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

Sorry. Carry on.

No. And the answer is no. There's no cloaked figure in green with a knife.

Yeah, this was a weird one. Like just the marketing of this movie is strange. The title is not really evocative of the movie in any way. The poster shows stuff that straightforwardly does not appear in the film. Right, right. I never know what to do with this sort of thing. It's just really strange.

It still happens today, though, with movie trailers that you're like, what?

Like every now and then there will be like a micro controversy about a movie trailer that shows footage that doesn't appear in the final movie because it was cut out for some reason. But I am struggling to think of a movie that has posters or marketing imagery that just doesn't appear in any way in the film. That feels like something that clearly they were getting away with in the 30s and 40s that I don't know.

Yeah, exactly.

Maybe they're just looking through the art they have on hand with which to assemble a poster. We're still in that, the poster is not a cohesive piece of art created with a vision by an artist. It's still more in the clip art. Here's like four things we're going to, different photos we're going to paste on.

Right.

The phantom in the green hood is nowhere in the film, so where did that come from?

It's bizarre. No one is killed with a knife as far as I know in this film. Yes. Okay. Thumbs down for the poster, I guess.

Will you do your spooky voice bit again? I apologize for interrupting.

I will do. I'm always happy to do my spooky voice bit. This is the scariest part of each episode where we learn what producer Brad has chosen for us to watch next.

What is next?

Let's hear it. Give us your worst.

All right. For next week, we need to do some catch up. We started the podcast expecting to watch most, but not all zombie films. But since we've started, we are now fully committed to trying to see all zombie films.

Are we? So far.

Carry on.

John, I don't think we told Andy that we're in for the long haul.

Yeah. You're in now, Andy.

All right. So we skipped a few. So we need to go back to 1919.

Whoa.

Here is the poster.

So it's French.

It is French.

Do you want to describe the poster, Andy?

Yeah. I mean, I'll try. There is a... It features a man with a head bandage on, as if he's been wounded. He's standing in a cemetery or possibly a battlefield. Yes. And he is presenting to us, the viewer, a bunch of papers, like as if he's issuing a pronouncement. Am I describing that well?

I think so. It's a drawing. There's no photo here. It's got two large crosses, I think, indicating graves. And the word jacuz, I think, means I accuse you. And there's a bunch of stuff we could talk about, which we'll probably talk about when we watch the movie. But what it tells me is, this is France in 1919, tells me this is just after the First World War. Yes. Jacuz is a famous essay about the military's involvement in anti-Semitic conspiracy, which I don't think this movie is about. But the term Jacuz means, I accuse you and sort of is a very, very French, like some people pull it out of their hat when they need to accuse someone of something. You know what I mean? Like title an essay or a newspaper article or something.

I have absolutely zero knowledge of this film. So this is really intriguing.

It's a full 15 years before, 13 years before anything else we've watched. So I'm very curious.

Okay.

All right. Now we got to figure out where to watch it. I think one of the reasons we skipped it initially, Brad, is there was no obvious place to watch it, but I think we'll figure it out.

It's out there. It's available.

All right. Okay, folks, join us next time for our first French film. Thanks everybody. You've been listening to Zombie Strains. We'll be back next episode to talk about another zombie movie. If you enjoyed our podcast, please take a moment to rate us in your podcast app of choice. Tell a friend, follow us on Instagram at Zombie Strains. All of this helps like minded people find the show. See you next time.