Review #183: 'I Walked with a Zombie' (1943)

In the beautiful Caribbean island of Saint Sebastian, nurse Betsy (Frances Dee) is called in to help care for the near-comatose Jessica Holland (Christine Gordon). Jessica is awake, but is seemingly unaware of anything around her; a 'zombie', if you will. She is the wife of Paul Holland (Tom Conway), who is a sullen and brooding man, and who runs a sugar plantation along with his half-brother Wesley (James Ellison). One day in town whilst having drinks with Wesley, a calypso singer begins a song of how Wesley had an affair with Jessica, and how Paul drove her to madness when he found out. Curious about her condition, and of the voodoo antics that are being undertaken by the island's inhabitants, Betsy searches for a cure, and for the reason behind her zombie-state.

I've long been a fan of French director Jacques Tourneur, who at the age of ten moved to America with his father, also a film director. Tourneur is an uncelebrated master of his trade. Apart from this, I've only seen two other of his movies, but they were enough to convince me that Tourneur is extremely underrated when compared to the likes of James Whale and Terence Fisher. One of these films is Cat People (1942), a masterpiece in the art of sound and lighting, and the other is Night Of The Demon (1957), an enjoyable hybrid of horror and film noir. Tourneur was the master of a forgotten art - scaring the audience without actually showing anything. The popular scene in Cat People is a fine example of this, when our heroine is stranded in a swimming pool at night, and the sounds of a screeching panther coming from all angles. Nothing is seen, but everything is felt.

While I wouldn't say this film is scary by any means, the atmosphere is certainly rather sinister and creepy, and the cinematography by J. Roy Hunt is outstanding. The lighting and camera movements allow what should be a standard horror story to become almost poetic. The film itself is rather slight, clocking in at around an hour and 10 minutes, but it keeps the story snappy and fast-paced. But the story itself takes a backseat to the visuals, and there's nothing at all wrong with that. This is a gothic horror full of style and atmosphere, with some good performances to boot. But the real star here is Tourneur himself.


Directed by: Jacques Tourneur
Starring: Frances Dee, James Ellison, Tom Conway
Country: USA

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie