Today, the word “zombie” is associated with hordes of mindless, unstoppable, flesh-eating people that destroy civilisation. In earlier times, “zombie” had a somewhat different, although still sinister, meaning, and such zombies were motifs used in Classic Hollywood horror films very different from those made by George A. Romero. Best known among them is I Walked with a Zombie, a 1943 film directed by Jacques Tourneur.
The protagonist and narrator is Betsy Connell (played by Frances Dee), a nurse in Ottawa who gets a well-paid job that would take her to the Caribbean island of San Sebastian. She is to take care of Jessica Holland (played by Christine Gordon), the beautiful wife of Paul Holland (played by Tom Conway), owner of a sugar plantation. Her patient is near-catatonic, although able to move and obey simple commands. Her physician, Dr. Maxwell (played by James Bell), explains Jessica’s condition as the aftermath of a tropical fever that affected her spinal cord, but Holland’s black employees, descendants of people who were brought to the island as slaves, claim that she became a zombie.
Betsy meets Paul’s half-brother Wesley Rand (played by James Ellison), who is resentful towards Paul and tries to drown his sorrows in alcohol. She later learns that Paul tried to run away with Jessica shortly before her illness. The situation for Betsy is complicated by romantic feelings she develops towards Paul, and later Mrs. Rand (played by Edith Barrett), Paul’s and Wesley’s mother, makes a shocking revelation related to voodoo rituals.
I Walked with a Zombie was made on a low budget and produced by Val Lewton, following the great success of his previous film Cat People. The film was nominally based on an eponymous short story by Inez Wallace, an account allegedly based on the author’s experiences with real zombies in the Caribbean. Lewton disregarded this and instead opted for scriptwriters Curt Siodmak and Ardel Wray to take a much simpler idea based on Jane Eyre, the classic novel by Charlotte Brontë.
The result was a simple but stylish film in which director Tourneur put less emphasis on plot or conventional horror genre narrative devices and much more on atmosphere. That included excellent black-and-white cinematography by J. Roy Hunt (which used “day for night” technique in a number of scenes), effective production design, and the presence of Darby Jones as the memorable zombie-like Carre-Four. I Walked with a Zombie benefits from music and includes Trinidadian singer Sir Lancelot, best known for making calypso music popular, as a sort of Greek chorus; his song “Shame and the Scandal in the Family” would become a great hit, covered by many artists in subsequent decades.
However, despite some memorable images and effective atmosphere, I Walked with a Zombie suffers from an undeveloped plot. While there are some interesting details in it, mostly revolving around the tragic legacy of slavery and suggestions that voodoo and the whole mythology of the “living dead” might be its reflection in modern times, it is reduced to simple clichés. Some characters are underdeveloped, most notably Paul, who, despite being played by the regal Tom Conway, doesn’t develop proper chemistry with Frances Dee. Despite being a very short film, I Walked with a Zombie has problems with pacing in the middle, and the finale is disappointing and anti-cathartic.
Although far from the high standards of the horror genre and definitely very different from any of today’s films with “zombie” in the title, I Walked with a Zombie can be recommended to today’s viewers mostly thanks to Tourneur’s way of showing that Classic Hollywood could produce quality content even with low budgets.
RATING: 6/10 (++)
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