I'll have a white zombie on the rocks . . .

Not that long ago I saw Ed Wood, the black and white Tim Burton flick about the legendarily bad director. I felt that Martin Landau stole the show as Bella Lugosi. I had never really knew much about Lugosi until seeing this movie and vowed I'd find out what he did. It was director's Tod Browning's Dracula role that type cast Lugosi for the rest of his life as the monster. Prior to that he had an acting career that started in Hungary at the beginning of the First World War. He played leading roles and was accomplished on the stage as well.

In 1931 Dracula made him a houshold name in America. He played several dramatic roles in other movies then starred in Murders in the Rue Morgue in 1932, followed by White Zombie the same year. This movie is widely acknowledged to be the first zombie film ever. Directed by Victor Halperin it brings the Haitian zombie lore to the screen for the first time. Which is important as popular zombie movies tend to present the zombies as facts and build a story around them being their.

To put things in perspective, the United States had occupied Haiti from 1915 to 1934. As a result, many returning soldiers brought back stories and memorabilia from Haiti. Voodoo and zombie stories were rife and the movie public needed White Zombie.

A sequel was made in 1936 called Revolt of the Zombies, also directed by Halperin but did not star Lugosi. And for those regular readers to my blog you'll be happy to know that White Zombies was released on laserdisc in 1992. What a relief.