Reading most of the other viewer comments on this board, I was surprised that virtually no one had anything to say about the whitish 'L' shaped band in Boris Karloff's hair. It was reminiscent of Humphrey Bogart's skunk like streak in "The Return of Dr. X" where he portrayed a vampire of all things! In "The Walking Dead", Karloff is an ex-con brought back from the dead after being framed for a murder he didn't commit. Once revived, he exacts his revenge on the gang that set him up, using a psychic link from the beyond to track them down and lead them to their doom. For the premise of the story to work however, one has to get beyond the point where the murdered Judge Shaw was connected to the car John Ellman (Karloff) was driving. With no one around, why wouldn't Ellman simply have found a place to dump the body?
The other thing that bothered me was why the conflicted young couple working for Dr. Beaumont waited until the evening of Ellman's scheduled execution to come clean with their story. I mean Jimmy (Warren Hull) was jumping right out of his skin at the trial to tell what he knew, and it didn't strike me convincingly that Nancy (Marguerite Churchill) would let an innocent man die. I know, then there wouldn't have been a story, but gee, that makes them the film's really, REALLY bad guys, doesn't it?
I must say, I was unusually impressed by the size and scope of Dr. Beaumont's (Edmund Gwenn) laboratory. It looked like Warner Brothers might have been trying to outdo their Universal counterparts in the technical gadgetry department with all those beakers and scientific looking gizmos. They even did one better on the Frankenstein operating table with one that see-sawed during the back to life process - pretty clever. The other Frankenstein connection saw Karloff's character walking through the cemetery after his last two victims using that distinctive halting gait.
Fans of Boris Karloff might not consider this one of his better performances, but it still carries some punch whenever the camera closes in on his gaunt expressionless face. After all, he was dead you know. Which is kind of interesting, as this is one of those rare films where the zombie brought back to life is actually killed again before it's all over. Better not to try and explain it, just tune in for a frightfully good show.
The other thing that bothered me was why the conflicted young couple working for Dr. Beaumont waited until the evening of Ellman's scheduled execution to come clean with their story. I mean Jimmy (Warren Hull) was jumping right out of his skin at the trial to tell what he knew, and it didn't strike me convincingly that Nancy (Marguerite Churchill) would let an innocent man die. I know, then there wouldn't have been a story, but gee, that makes them the film's really, REALLY bad guys, doesn't it?
I must say, I was unusually impressed by the size and scope of Dr. Beaumont's (Edmund Gwenn) laboratory. It looked like Warner Brothers might have been trying to outdo their Universal counterparts in the technical gadgetry department with all those beakers and scientific looking gizmos. They even did one better on the Frankenstein operating table with one that see-sawed during the back to life process - pretty clever. The other Frankenstein connection saw Karloff's character walking through the cemetery after his last two victims using that distinctive halting gait.
Fans of Boris Karloff might not consider this one of his better performances, but it still carries some punch whenever the camera closes in on his gaunt expressionless face. After all, he was dead you know. Which is kind of interesting, as this is one of those rare films where the zombie brought back to life is actually killed again before it's all over. Better not to try and explain it, just tune in for a frightfully good show.