Directed by Victor Halperin
On the strength of their independent horror film White Zombie, a freak success in 1932, Victor and Edward Halperin landed at Paramount on a one-picture deal. For the only time in their careers the Halperins worked at a major studio with access to first-rate production facilities, competent supporting players and a major star in Carole Lombard. The result is a disturbing programme picture that reprises the dual performance that had just won Fredric March an Academy Award for Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931) and the exposé of spiritualism that Paramount explored in Darkened Rooms (1929). But while the spiritualist in Supernatural is a fraud, its spirits are genuine and not gangsters in bed sheets, nor the whimsical dear departed à la Thorne Smith.
Supernatural has been overshadowed by the goofy high school pageant that is White Zombie, lacking its predecessor's fairy tale poetics and bursts of Lugosiana. White Zombie may be maddeningly amateurish with a reach far exceeding its grasp, but it resonated with audiences then and continues to radiate a cultural half-life today. Smarter and better made, Supernatural was not a success and has been largely forgotten. For modern critics the operetta revenants of White Zombie reflect the army of forgotten men milling on the breadlines of the Great Depression; the social subtext of Supernatural (which opened a month after Roosevelt's 1933 bank holiday) needs no critical studies interpretation. Its malevolent ghost and trickster are denizens of Greenwich Village and the Lower East Side, trekking uptown to work their wickedness in plain sight among the Yacht Club and Polo Pony set.
Carole Lombard is said to have despised being assigned the movie, making the vitality of her essay in demonic possession all the more impressive as she channels the brassy hysteria of Vivienne Osborne's doomed-to-die murderess, seen indelibly in the first reel. Arthur Martinelli's constantly roving camera, punctuated with unexpected lightning set-ups, is complemented by the uncredited music by Karl Hajos and Milan Roder. It is among the first original dramatic scores of the 1930s (and includes a brief but surprising quotation from Bruckner's Symphony No.3).
Perhaps the most unusual aspect of Supernatural is its depiction of characters who laugh in the face of death, a risus sardonicusthat occurs three times in the course of the story before its apotheosis at the climax.
Scott MacQueen
A Victor and Edward Halperin Production/ Paramount Productions, Inc. Producer: Edward Halperin. Story and Adaptation: Garnett Weston. Screenwriters: Harvey Thew and Brian Marlow. Based on a story by Garnett Weston. Cinematographer: Arthur Martinelli. Editor: James Smith. With: Carole Lombard, Allan Dinehart, Vivienne Osborne, Randolph Scott, H.B. Warner.
35mm, b/w, 65 min.
Preserved in conjunction with Universal Pictures from a 35mm composite nitrate print and 35mm acetate fine grain master. Laboratory services by The Stanford Theatre Film Laboratory, Audio Mechanics, DJ Audio, Simon Daniel Sound. Special thanks to Bob O’Neil.
