806 - THE UNDEAD (1957; NR; 75m)

a.k.a. THE TRANCE OF DIANA LOVE (working)

double-billed with VOODOO WOMAN

Ad: "Terror...That Screams from the Grave!"

Plot: Using hypnosis, a doctor returns the mind of a 20th century prostitute to a past life in the Middle Ages, where she's being wrongly accused of being a witch.

Exec: Samuel Z. Arkoff and James H. Nicholson
(*309-The Amazing Colossal Man; 311-It Conquered the World;
313-Earth Vs. the Spider; 315-Teenage Caveman;
317-Viking Women and the Sea Serpent; 319-War of the Colossal Beast; 701-Night of the Blood Beast; 807-Terror from the Year 5,000; 808-The She-Creature; 809-I Was A Teenage Werewolf;
912-The Screaming Skull; H01-The Day the World Ended)
Prod/Dir: Roger Corman* (311/315/317/H01;
503-Swamp Diamonds; 511-Gunslinger; exec/701;
406-Attack of the Giant Leeches; 618-High School Big Shot)
Asst Dir: Lou Place
(dir/307-Daddy-O; actor/503; pmgr/311; 815-Agent for H.A.R.M.)
Scr: Charles B. Griffith* (311/511; Atlas)
Scr: Mark Hanna* (309/511; pcoor/807-Terror from the Year 5,000)
Cin: William Sickner (203S-Phantom Creeps; The Mummy's Ghost)
Ed: Frank Sullivan (She-Gods of Shark Reef; The Philadelphia Story)
M/U: Curly Batson (Not of This Earth; She Gods of the Shark Reef)
Prop Master: Karl Brainard (311/315/701/808/H01)
Chor: Chris Miller (511)
Score: Ronald Stein (311/511/808/H01;
418-Attack of the Eye Creatures; 509-The Girl in Lovers Lane)

Diana Love & Helene / Pamela Duncan (Confidence Girl)
Pendragon / Richard Garland*
witch Livia / Allison Hayes
(511; *106-The Crawling Hand; 320-The Unearthly)
Dr. Quintus Ratcliff / Val Dufour (The Lonely Night)
gravedigger Smolkin / Mel Welles (Little Shop of Horrors)
witch Meg Maud / Dorothy Neumann (The Day the Earth Stood Still)
imp / Billy Barty (Jumbo; various Sid & Marty Krofft TV series)
Scroop / Bruno VeSota
(*307/406/511; 515-The Wild, Wild World of Batwoman)
Satan / Richard Devon (317; Kid Galahad; Teenage Doll)
Dr. Ulbrect Olinger / Maurice Manson (Creature Walks Among Us)
tower guard Gobbo / Aaron Saxon (511; Spartacus; Gun Fever)
knight on horse / Don Garrett (Rumble on the Docks; Plunder Road)
leper / Richard Miller (*311/511; Bucket of Blood; Gremlins)
dancer / Chris Miller (511; Valley of the Redwoods)
corpse / Paul Blaisdell (H01/311/808; sfx/309/313/315)

Classic Line: "Rest thy corpulence."

Classic Line: "I shall give tongue, Pendragon. Hear me out."

Trivia: In the mid-1950's, a book called The Search for Bridey Murphy was a best seller. It supposedly was based on a true story about a woman who regressed to former lives via hypnosis. In 1956, a movie based on that book and with the same title was released by Paramount, starring Louis Hayward and Teresa Wright. By the time ROGER CORMAN was able to get a rip-off story filmed, the reincarnation craze had peaked, so they changed the title of the film from THE TRANCE OF DIANA LOVE to THE UNDEAD prior to its initial release...to at least cash in on the zombie craze. (There are no zombies or other undead beings in this movie). American International distributed another movie about hypnosis just the year before: 808-THE SHE-CREATURE.

Most of the scenes set in the Middle Ages were done in a small studio converted from an abandoned supermarket. Scriptwriters GRIFFITH and HANNA had originally written those scenes in iambic pentameter (rhythmic poetry, that is). Unfortunately just before filming began, Corman ordered a rewrite into plain old American lingo, so the dialogue is odd-sounding and stilted.

When Livia and her imp change into bats, their appearance may look familiar to you...Corman used them a year earlier when he filmed 311-IT CONQUERED THE WORLD in which the cucumber alien creature emitted those bat-thingies.

RICHARD GARLAND (1927-1969) was once married to another actor in the Corman group, BEVERLY GARLAND (see 311-It Conquered the World). His films include: 1951-Cimmaron Kid; 1952-Son of Ali Baba; 1955-Untamed; 1957-Attack of the Crab Monsters; My Gun Is Quick; and 1962-Panic in Year Zero.

Last Updated: 3/28/1999