White Zombie (1932): watch the full film free, legally

A wedding interrupted in Haiti

White Zombie is a 1932 pre-Code horror film independently produced by Edward Halperin and directed by Victor Halperin. Garnett Weston wrote the screenplay, based on William Seabrook’s non-fiction travel book The Magic Island. Set in Haiti in 1932, the story concerns a young woman’s transformation into a zombie by a voodoo master. Bela Lugosi plays “Murder” Legendre, who commands a crew of zombies, while Madge Bellamy plays Madeleine Short.

Madeleine arrives in Haiti to reunite with her fiancé, bank employee Neil Parker, before their wedding. Their coach passes Legendre, who watches Madeleine and takes her scarf for voodoo rituals. The couple stay with Charles Beaumont, a wealthy plantation owner whom Madeleine met while travelling from New York. Beaumont is obsessed with her and secretly visits Legendre’s sugarcane mill, where zombies work. He wants Madeleine to marry him. Legendre tells Beaumont that a potion can transform her into a zombie, and Beaumont eventually agrees.

Beaumont gives Madeleine the potion hidden in flowers for her wedding. Soon after the ceremony, conducted by missionary preacher Dr. Bruner, Madeleine apparently dies and is entombed. Legendre and Beaumont enter her tomb at night and bring her back as a zombie. Neil finds the tomb empty and seeks Bruner’s help. Bruner explains that Legendre has used potions to turn rivals into living but soulless servants. Neil and Bruner travel to Legendre’s cliffside castle to find Madeleine.

Eleven nights of production

Joseph Cawthorn plays Dr. Bruner and Robert W. Frazer plays Beaumont. John Harron is Neil, Brandon Hurst is Beaumont’s butler Silver, and George Burr Macannan plays Von Gelder, a formerly rich man under Legendre’s spell. The cast also includes Clarence Muse as the coach driver, Frederick Peters as the zombie Chauvin, John Printz as Ledot, and Claude Morgan as Garcia.

The film entered development in early 1932 under the title Zombie, amid American interest in voodoo following Seabrook’s 1929 book. Its zombie theme was inspired by Kenneth Webb’s Broadway play Zombie, though the screenplay was not based on it. Webb sued the Halperins for copyright infringement and lost. Producer Phil Goldstone helped secure funding, much of it from Amusement Securities Corp.

Production cost approximately $50,000. Filming took eleven days in March 1932, at the Universal Studios lot, RKO-Pathé, and Bronson Canyon, with night shooting required by the budget. Ralph Berger used rented scenery and props from earlier films, including great halls from Dracula, corridors from Frankenstein, pillars and a hanging balcony from The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and chairs from The Cat and the Canary. Legendre’s castle interiors used RKO-Pathé sets from The King of Kings.

Abe Meyer supervised music recorded specifically for the film. The score drew on works by Mussorgsky, Richard Wagner, Franz Liszt, Gaston Borch, Hugo Riesenfeld, H. Maurice Jacquet, and Leo Kempenski. The opening uses “Chant,” a composition of wordless vocals and drumming by Universal Studios employee Guy Bevier Williams.

Mixed notices and later interest

White Zombie had distribution problems and passed through several studios before United Artists acquired rights to release it. A 74-minute first-cut preview was shown in New York City on June 16, 1932. Regular distribution prints ran 69 minutes. The film premiered at New York City’s Rivoli Theatre on July 28, 1932. Its initial box-office response was mixed, although it became a major financial success for an independent feature. It later had positive box-office figures in small American towns and in Germany, where it was released as Flucht von der Teufelsinsel.

Contemporary reviewers often criticized the acting, dialogue, and story. William Boehnel of the New York World-Telegram called the plot ridiculous and objected to the acting. Thornton Delehaney of the New York Evening Post thought its effort to be thrilling overreached. The Film Daily was more favourable, calling Lugosi impressive and saying he made the picture worthwhile. Harrison’s Reports thought horror audiences would enjoy it despite judging it below Dracula and Frankenstein.

Modern reception has been more positive about the atmosphere while remaining critical of the acting. Time Out London described the film as a bridge between classic Universal horror and later Val Lewton productions. TV Guide gave it three-and-a-half stars out of four, compared its atmosphere to Carl Dreyer’s Vampyr, and made an exception for Lugosi when criticizing the acting. Footage filmed for White Zombie was reused in the 1936 Halperin Productions follow-up Revolt of the Zombies.

Film details from the Wikipedia article “White Zombie (film)”. Text adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0.