morrison-dylan-fan Reading Kim Newman's excellent Nightmare Movies book,I noticed Newman mention that the first Human Centipede shared similarities with "mad scientist" movies starring George Zucco.Taking a look at a box set that an IMDber had kindly sent me,I was delighted to find a Zucco title starring James Whale collaborator Dwight Frye,which led to me getting ready to see a dead man walk.The plot:Attending his brother Dr. Elwyn's funeral, Dr. Lloyd Clayton hears whispers from the towns people that Elwyn is not really dead,due to him having been involved in the occult.Joining the hushed discussions of the residence,Elwyn former assistant Zolarr suspects that Lloyd knows more about his brothers death than he is letting on.Unknown to the towns people and his brother,Elwyn had made secret plans with Zolarr which would allow Zolarr to bring him back from the dead as a vampire.Coming back from the dead,Elwyn decides to sink his fangs deep into his Lloyd's life.View on the film:Filmed in just 6 days,director Sam Newfield gives the movie some stylish touches,with the overlapping reappearance/disappearing image of Elwyn Clayton giving the title a ghostly atmosphere.Running at a trim 64 minutes,the screenplay by Fred Myton offers a charming mix of "mad scientist" and vampire bite.Openly mentioning Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,Myton does very well at setting up expectations for a Hyde tale,which are gradually twisted into a clear divide being made between Lloyd & Elwyn,with Lloyd being a man of reason,and Elwyn being a creature of the night.Slobbering over the screen, Dwight Frye gives a cheerful performance as Zolarr,with Frye's bug eyes popping out as he tip toes in the shadows to do his masters bidding.Taking on two roles in this flick, George Zucco gives a wonderful performance as the Clayton's,thanks to Zucco giving Lloyd some shots of upper-crust charm,which are counted by the red-eye madness of Elwyn,as the dead men drop.

Bezenby George Zucco, who was brilliant in The Mad Monster, now ups his game by playing twin brothers, one good, one bad, one still alive, the other one recently deceased. The good brother is a doctor who had to kill his evil brother because he was messing around with the occult. We all know what happens when folks that mess with occult get deaded, right? Before you know it, evil George is back in vampire form, chomping down on the populace, and having his sidekick do his dirty working during the day.Worse still, he's appeared before good George and told him he's gonna slowly turn good George's niece into a vampire. This entails him using her like a human drinks machine every night, which makes her fiancé think that good George is trying to kill her, for some reason. Additionally, there's your usual locals up in arms and a strange woman snooping around.Zucco's great here in both roles, being the concerned Uncle one minute, and then appearing in people's rooms to threaten them as the evil one. While it does have a good set up and ending, the film flags slightly in the middle when Evil George just gets his nightly blood fix from one victim without killing her. When he turns his attention back to other folk, things pick up again for a cool showdown.Not the most exciting film ever, but yet again, it's no slouch either and won't take up a lot of your time. I was impressed by Zucco's menacing features when threatening folk - he was rather good at it.

bkoganbing Mary Carlisle who was a WAMPAS baby star back in 1932 and did three films with Bing Crosby at Paramount ends her career with this rather sorry horror film from poverty row Producer's Releasing Corporation. But she takes a back seat to George Zucco playing brothers in Dead Men Walk, a good and a bad Dr. Zucco.The bad Dr. Zucco was killed in a fight with the good one, but with the aid of his acolyte slave Dwight Frye he comes back from the dead as a vampire and he starts killing people. And since they're twins folks around the area think it's the good and live doctor just gone bad.The bad Zucco also bites Mary Carlisle and tries to put her under his influence as surely as Bela Lugosi did with Helen Chandler. In fact this whole film is a cheap imitation of Dracula without the great Gothic scenes and atmosphere that Lugosi's film at Universal a classic.I'll bet Mary Carlisle wished that Bing was crooning a love song at her again. She left the movies after this stinker and I'm sure at 100 years of age doesn't look back fondly on this one.

Claudio Carvalho During the funeral mass of Elwyn (George Zucco), the local Kate (Fern Emmett) accuses him of evilness. Later, his brother Dr. Lloyd Clayton (George Zucco) and tutor of his niece Gayle Clayton (Mary Carlisle) tells her and her fiancé Dr. David Bently (Nedrick Young) that his brother has become obsessed by mysticism and black magic since he traveled to India. During the night, Elwyn comes to Dr. Lloyd Clayton's house and accuses Dr. Clayton of pushing him in a cliff to die. Further, he tells Dr. Clayton that he will revenge, slowly killing Gayle and transforming her in a vampire. Dr. Clayton does not believe in what he has seen and heard, but when Gayle gets mysteriously sick and Dr. Clayton becomes the prime suspect of David and the locals, he finally accepts that his brother is a vampire and tries to find his coffin to destroy him."Dead Man Walk" is a creepy low-budget vampire movie visibly inspired in "Dracula", with a good story and acting. The cinematography of the DVD that I watched is a kind of blurred in the scenes in the cemetery, maybe because of a lighting problem in the shot, but the story is told in a dark atmosphere and I liked this underrated film. George Zucco has great performance in his double role. My vote is seven.Title (Brazil): "Mortos Que Andam" ("Dead That Walk")