Silly Monsters, Super Creeps

Another oldies double bill - this time a pair of horror comedies: You'll Find Out/Zombies on Broadway (1940/1945).

Although it features Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, and Peter Lorre, You’ll Find Out is actually a Kay Kyser vehicle. Kyser was dance band leader who also had a radio quiz show: Kay Kyser and his Kollege of Musical Knowledge. A debutante, Helen Parrish, booked his band to play at her house party - an old, not that dark, house.

They arrive on a stormy night and meet batty Aunt Alma Kruger. She has been hosting mystic medium Bela Lugosi, who her lawyer and old family friend Boris Karloff is suspicious of, but admits that he does seem to have some powers. Of course, everyone listens to Karloff because he seems like such a kind and trustworthy sort. Parrish has invited a debunker of the supernatural, but with the road washed out, he might not make it. Wait - here he is, and it’s Peter Lorre! Another trustworthy sort, just look at him.

I’m sure you can imagine the hi-jinks, including the full suite of spook tricks that Lugosi employs for his act. Dennis O’Keefe is on hand as Parrish’s boyfriend, and makes little impression, which is kind of his trademark.

Although I’d heard of Kay Kyser, I didn’t realize that his cornet player was Ish Kabibble - who was not what I was expecting at all. He looks like a mixture of Jerry Lewis and Moe Howard (around the hair) and maintains a deadpan look of puzzlement throughout. I was expecting someone more Yiddish.

Zombies features the comedy team of Wally Brown and Alan Carney, a knockoff Abbott and Costello. They are PR men for Sheldon Leonard’s new nightclub, the Zombie Hut. They promise to get him a real zombie in time for the opening, and he promises them they’ll be in trouble if they don’t. So after some silliness in a museum, they head for the island of San Sebastián, the only place where real zombies can be found.

Does that fictional island sound familiar? Wait until you hear calypso singer Sir Lancelot serenading them when they arrive. Or when they meet skeletal zombie Darby Jones. These are all clear callbacks to I Walked with a Zombie. Except that the mad scientist making the zombies is Bela Lugosi - for a touch of White Zombie.

This is far from hilarious, but it’s kind of cute. It’s basically forgettable. At least Bela got a paycheck.