DEAD MEN WALK (1943) ** Why, oh why, do the angry villagers always go after the wrong guy? What kind of town can only muster five or six of them? And what good can they possibly do without their pitchforks? This scene isn't nearly as scary, or entertaining, as the one where Pat Buchanan exhorted the faithful to "grab your pitchforks and march to the sound of gunfire" in New Hampshire in '96. Someone should have told these villagers to grab their pitchforks. You can't really be a proper mob of angry villagers without pitchforks. This film looks even older than it is, harkening back to the days when all you had to do was touch on the basics of the Dracula legend in order to scare the good people. So that's what Sam Newfield does. He cuts his scenes quickly, probably to save film, but really blew it when he cut the one where Dwight Frye starts chasing Fern Emmett. They walk funny, it could have been a brilliant scene. Even better than the one where George Zucco battles Frye by holding a chair. Not doing anything with it, just holding it. I can just hear the set: "Cut!" "I tell you Sam, these fight scenes are wearing me out."
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