KING OF THE ZOMBIES (1941)

 It's kinda hard to find any movies that starred Mantan Moreland. Outside of the all-black cast films he made in Harlem, many of which aren't even around anymore, he usually just plays a supporting role. In this one he's pretty close to the top though. Mantan, as Jefferson Jackson, crashes on an island along with 2 not as entertaining white fellows and ends up in a mansion that happens to have a mad doctor, played by Henry Victor but was originally supposed to be Bela Lugosi and then Peter Lorre who both backed out, and some old-timey shambling zombies. At one point a couple of zombies try and put the bite on Mantan but this was was before zombies were synonymous with flesh-eating ghouls so perhaps it was just some coincidental general monstrous hijinks they were getting up to. This is a pretty good example of a not very serious but still entertaining goofy classic and it was so popular at the time that they cranked out a sequel, REVENGE OF THE ZOMBIES, 2 years later which I need to check out pronto.

 

SPIDER BABY OR, THE MADDEST STORY EVER TOLD (1967)

 This is one of my favorite weirdo 60s horror flicks so it's hard to write anything about it that is not gushing with love. It's the most classic of director Jack Hill's output, it's the last great role Lon Chaney Jr.(who gets to reference THE WOLF MAN here) got to play before his excessive alcoholism did him in and it's just a strange enough plot that it lingers in your brain for a long time after watching it. It also seems to me to be very influential on stuff like THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE and other insane-family-type horror flicks that would explode in the coming decades. The message of this movie always baffled me a bit. I mean I assume we aren't meant to sympathize with a family of retarded murderers but, mainly due to the way Chaney plays his role, they are portrayed in a pretty sad light. The whole cast is pretty amazing in this which includes a young Sid Haig as a mute wack-a-doo and Mantan Moreland from the old Charlie Chan movies as an unfortunate mailman. I think more than anything else it's the opening of the film with the fate of Mantan, who we are so used to seeing in goofy light-hearted horror stuff from earlier times, that lets the viewer know that this is going to be a darker ride than what you might expect. A must watch for real horror fanatics. AKA THE LIVER EATERS and ATTACK OF THE LIVER EATERS

LAW OF THE JUNGLE (1942)

 Being a big fan of Mantan Moreland this movie works for me since you get quite a bit of Mr. Mantan which you don't normally get in movies like this. He's not the star but he's definitely the #2 man here and actually ends up saving the day for our white hero(cowboy actor-'Dusty' King). Without him this would be a pretty boring story about espionage and cannibal natives in the jungle but you do get a big fat native gal so that's something. If you dig the old-timey comedy hijinks and can overlook those old-timey racial stereotypes and pretty dull "action" bits check it out.
 I have this film in a DVD set of gorilla-themed films which is a little misleading since a gorilla(guy in a gorilla-suit) only shows up for about 2 minutes before being shot to death in a ridiculous scene.

 

BLACK MAGIC (1944)

 Not to be confused with that crazy-ass Shaw Brothers movie, this BLACK MAGIC is actually the 33rd Charlie Chan movie(there were still 14 more to go) and features one of my favorite actors, the great Mantan Moreland(from SPIDER BABY and a bunch more of these Chan films) as the nervous butler character Birmingham Brown. The plot concerns a phony seance where this dude gets shot. You get a skeleton on a wire, a bullet made out of frozen blood, a lady walking right off a building to her death and Mantan doing his eye-poppin' comedic best! AKA MEETING AT MIDNIGHT and CHARLIE CHAN IN BLACK MAGIC

LUCKY GHOST (1942)

 Before watching this I'd only seen Mantan Moreland in supporting roles in stuff like Charlie Chan movies and the great SPIDER BABY but here he stars in his own film. Apparently they made a bunch of these all-black-cast films back in the 30's & 40's and many of the ones starring Mantan, like MANTAN MESSES UP and MR. WASHINGTON GOES TO TOWN, have been lost over the years. This one features Moreland and his buddy, F.E. Miller, as a couple of gambling bums who win a nightclub by shooting dice then they get spooked by some ghosts and a couple of skeletons. It's all pretty basic and I can't help but feel Mr. Moreland's schtick works better in smaller doses but this movie is only about an hour long so it never feels too tedious. Worth a watch for it's novelty value and just too see what's essentially the first wave of blaxploitation films even though these were much sillier and didn't have much of a social message beyond the most superficial. AKA LADY LUCK
 I've read that Moe Howard had considered Mantan as a replacement stooge after Shemp died and after watching this I can see why he thought he would be a good fit. There's gotta be some crazy-ass alternate universe where The Three Stooges broke racial barriers and are seen as modern-day Abraham Lincolns or something.