The Dead Don’t Die (1975)

The Dead Don’t Die (TV, 1975) 74 min color DIR: Curtis Harrington. SCR: Robert Bloch. PROD: Henry Colman. DOP: James Crabe. MUSIC: Robert Prince. CAST: George Hamilton, Linda Cristal, Joan Blondell, Ralph Meeker, James McEachin, Reggie Nalder, Ray Milland, William O’Connell, Yvette Vickers.
Original Air Date: January 14, 1975 on NBC. (Douglas S. Cramer, W.L. Baumes: Executive Producers)

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Nostalgia was quite the trend in the 1970s. Many films paid tribute to the 1930s, either in form or content. The big screen had such films as Movie Movie or Paper Moon, which were either set in the Depression era, or at the very least, offered romanticized versions of the movies made at the time. Director Curtis Harrington too was enamoured of Old Hollywood, as evidenced in his thrillers made for the big or small screen, with their veteran casts, and atmospheric art direction.

The Dead Don’t Die is, for my money, the best of his TV movies: a pulpy horror thriller set in the 1930s, written by Robert Bloch, based on his own short story of the same name, which first appeared, appropriately enough in a pulp magazine (Fantastic Adventures, July 1951). It is set in 1934, and feels like a B-movie made at the time, right down to the Art Deco design in its opening credits.

Don Drake (George Hamilton) returns from a long voyage at sea to visit his brother on Death Row, just before he is executed. Although he has arrived too late to save his brother (who was convicted of murdering his wife), Drake however vows to clear his name. His clues lead him to the Loveland Ballroom, owned by Jim Moss (a nicely gruff Ray Milland), who holds one of those 30s dance marathons, in which (literally) the last couple standing wins prize money. 

It is soon revealed that Drake’s brother’s death is part of a mastermind’s plot to create an army of undead people to do his bidding! The walking dead is comprised of people who had passed away with little or no family, so that they wouldn’t be recognized.

To some, it may be argued that the movie succeeds all too well in capturing the look and feel of a 30s movie. The screenplay is full of implausibilities that would’ve seemed ludicrous even for a 1934 second feature (though they would’ve been used). It may seem ludicrous for a modern-age film to stick to the old Phantom Lady plot, where all the evidence of macabre events or murder is nicely covered up by the time that Drake drags the exasperated police lieutenant (Ralph Meeker) to the scene. It is more about the effect.

Drake sees his own brother walking the streets, and follows him into a store owned by a husband and wife (Joan Blondell, Reggie Nalder; now there’s a Hollywood couple!), where a scuffle emerges, and Drake accidentally kills Perdido the husband, or so he thinks. This leads to perhaps the film’s most famous scene, in a superbly creepy moment when Drake visits Perdido’s body at the funeral home, and then the corpse gets out of the casket and makes its way to him! Nalder, whose disfigured face lent him a long career in villainous roles (including Salem’s Lot, Seven, and a Star Trek episode), is suitably menacing here.

The mingling of a They Shoot Horses, Don’t They milieu with the walking dead is a nice touch, because these contest hopefuls are closer to death than life. This, and the rest of the film’s set pieces are shot in hard shadows to give a fittingly otherworldly texture to a narrative with characters who walk that line between the natural world and the hereafter. If the story is as corny as a drugstore paperback, the movie however is a terrific mood piece.

The colourful cast brings the material a lot of dignity, including Linda Cristal as a helpful “walking dead” victim who helps Drake uncover this bizarre plot, James McEachin (aka- Al Monte from Play Misty for Me) as a mysterious man, and it’s nice to see Yvette Vickers (the “other woman” from Attack of the Fifty Foot Woman) in one scene as a dance hopeful.

As far as I know, The Dead Don’t Die has only been released to VHS courtesy of the Goodtimes label, whose tapes “in glorious LP mode” adorned many department store racks back in the day. The transfer is too dark (it is difficult to see what is going on in a couple of nighttime exterior scenes), but it’ll do, until some boutique company releases a new master on Blu-ray.