White Zombie revisited

[sethb]

I happened upon WHITE ZOMBIE (1932) on Amazon Prime Video a few days ago. Since it's been awhile since I last saw it, I watched it again.

Yes, some of the acting is straight out of a high school (or even an eighth-grade) play. And yes, some of the sets are on the cheesy side, and some of the "special effects" aren't too special. But overall, I was struck by what a good movie it was! The storyline was pretty good, even if parts of it weren't too plausible, and some of the glass art was very impressive. I also thought Lugosi did a good job as the spooky zombie master.

Incidentally, the end title indicated that the film was released through United Artists, which I thought was a little odd, considering the type of product that UA normally distributed. Was UA the distributor for the original release, or perhaps just for a later reissue? SETH

[Mike Gebert]

The Halperins were independent producers; they seem not too different from other such producers UA distributed in the 30s, eg., Edward Small, Walt Disney, etc. Maybe even cheaper, but it was the early 30s; Paramount distributed their next film, Supernatural, so...

[Harold Aherne]

Incidentally, the end title indicated that the film was released through United Artists, which I thought was a little odd, considering the type of product that UA normally distributed. Was UA the distributor for the original release, or perhaps just for a later reissue? SETH

Yes, United Artists was the original distributor of White Zombie. Date of general release was 04 Aug 1932.

UA had a small number of other releases in 1932-33 from “one-off” independents, or at least who released nothing else through UA: The Silver Lining, Samarang, The Emperor Jones.

—HA

[sethb]

Thanks for the additional information! SETH