Identity elements
Reference code
Name and location of repository
Level of description
Item
Title
G64.1-110
Date(s)
- 1932-11-03 (Creation)
Extent
Content and structure elements
Scope and content
It started out as a publicity stunt. The Blue Mouse Theater offered $10 to any woman who would sit through a midnight preview, on November 3, 1932, of the creepy horror film "White Zombie," alone, and without screaming. Eighteen year old Marjorie Yonk said she was up to the test. She was whisked by police car, sirens blaring, to Dr. F. J. Hansen's office to determine the strength of her heart, and then to the Blue Mouse. She is pictured here prior to entering the theater. Officers E.J. Schutz, left, and J.F. White escorted her into the blackened theater with their flashlights, seated her, and left her to the mercy of Bela Lugosi starring in the first zombie film. The movie was made in 1932, following Lugosi's phenomenal success as Dracula. It was a low budget film, produced by the Halperin Brothers, set in Haiti and it spawned a new genre of horror characters, zombies, that populate movies even today. (TNT 11/4/1932; pg. 7)
Blue Mouse Movie Theatre (Tacoma); Yonk, Marjorie; Schutz, E.J.; White, J.F.; Publicity;