First, here’s the first ten minutes or so (Part A) of the 1940 MGM version of “Pride and Prejudice,” starring Laurence Olivier and the wondrous Greer Garson and directed by Hunt Stromberg (who?). The rest appears to be available on YouTube as well. Just go on to Part B, Part C etc.

And here are the zombies, as in “Night of the Living Dead” — the complete movie all in one handy embed, in fact. (In perhaps the single the biggest rights foul-up in movie history, George Romero’s classic fell into public domain pretty much right after its release.)

Thank me. I’ve just saved you all years of anticipation and roughly $10-$22.00 (if they do it in 3D).

H/t to Mike Fleming for this.

Looks just a bit corny and silly, perhaps? Well, corn can be fun, especially when its silly. And, speaking of fun, I’ve got some thematically related bonus videos after the flip.

Now, a bit of George Romero and Donovan, plus a challenge right at the end for people taking Spanish classes.

With 124 make-up credits and 64 effects credits to his name so far, Greg Nicotero is one of the busiest and most respected make-up and effects professionals in Hollywood. Originally inspired to take up special effects after seeing “Jaws,” he broke into the business working for the legendary gore-effects maestro Tom Savini on zombie-master George Romero’s 1985 splatter opus, “Day of the Dead. ”

A few years later, Nicotero had decamped from Romero’s Pittsburgh’s to show-biz’s Los Angeles and formed the multi-award winning KNB Efx Group with friends Robert Kurtzman and Howard Berger. Aside from his intimate involvement in such effects heavy films as “Sin City,” “Kill Bill,” “Minority Report,” “Serenity,” “Spiderman 3” and, yes, “Ray,” Nicotero has also branched out into directing, helming the second unit on Frank Darabont’s “The Mist” and making his own short subject, a funny and endearing homage to several generations of classic movie monsters, “United Monster Talent Agency.”

When I met with Nicotero and last Summer’s Comic-Con, however, it was to promote the already highly buzzed new AMC series, “The Walking Dead,” which reunites Nicotero with writer-director Darabont in an adaptation of Robert Kirkman’s Eisner Award-winning comic book series. Premiering Halloween night, the show will be taking a more dramatic look at the cannibal zombie mythos originally created by George Romero in his 1968 “Night of the Living Dead,” combining slow-moving zombies with the kind of in-depth characterization and complex yarn-spinning that’s making the onetime “vast wasteland” of television into something more like the last refuge of classical storytelling.

There’s only one problem. I’m kind of scared to actually watch the thing. You see, much as I admire the craft of someone like Greg Nicotero, I’m not exactly the usual gorehound media-fan for whom the more, and more realistic, cinematic gore he can create, the better. There was no point in hiding it.

Premium Hollywood: This is going to be a highly ironic interview.

Greg Nicotero: Good, I love irony.

PH: It’s ironic because, inasmuch as I’m known at all, I’m known for being squeamish. In order to watch the original “Day of the Dead” [I actually meant “Dawn of the Dead” ], I’m old enough to remember the original release, and I got myself completely plastered to see it.

GN: Did it work?

PH: Actually, it worked just fine except I couldn’t remember it the next morning. I watched it again sitting about 18 feet away from the TV set.

GN: That’s interesting.

PH: The funny part is, if I were on the set — and I have been on the set of movies with blood and gore, to some degree — I’d be fine. I’ve been covered in stage-blood, no problem. But watching it, the magic of cinema being what it is…

GN: Wow.

PH: Anyhow, and I think I know the answer to this question, how many drinks do you think I’ll need to get through a typical episode of “The Walking Dead”?

GN: How many did you need for “Day of the Dead”?

PH: [Not realizing I had misspoken earlier] “Dawn of the Dead” — I think “Day of the Dead” would need more, from what I understand.

GN: You know, it’s hard to say. I haven’t seen the finished cut. We certainly didn’t pull our punches. We shot this as if it was a theatrical feature in terms of the amount of gore. AMC never said “You can’t do that.” They just said, “You know, use your own best judgment.” They said that to me and Frank and we’re like “Okay. Our best judgment is ‘let’s make it awesome.’ Let’s just go gory and horrific and real. We sort of went to back to the holy grail of the original ‘Night of the Living Dead’ which was the inspiration. What’s interesting about this is that there’s been a lot of movies lately that take the zombie genre into different avenues. The idea is just to steer back and make zombies creepy and make zombies scary and make zombies unsettling. Frank knows the genre so well and is such a fantastic writer that he knows what beats to hit. He’s putting his dramatic sensibilities [into it].

PH: I overheard something very interesting in one of your other interviews. I know your first movie was “Day of the Dead” and you talked about misdirection, which you learned about from Tom Savini, “the wizard of gore.” This is a very interesting concept to me because in film, you can just not show something you don’t want the audience to see, as opposed to a magician who has to literally distract you. How does that actually work in an effects gag?

GN: It’s like a dance. Everything is choreographed so that you set it up like a magic trick. It’s set up for the final trick. You’ll do a lot of ‘Hey, how many cards do I have?’ and you pick somebody out of the audience. It’s all set up for one punch. It’s the same with a make-up effects gag. You to build it up and set it up.

The thing that I always loved about Tom was that he was very inventive in terms of, you know, the screwdriver in the ear from “Dawn of the Dead” or the machete in the head. He took a machete and he just cut it out and did it in reverse. You see him knock the zombie off the motorcycle, he puts his foot on his shoulder, and he says his line, “Say goodbye, creep,” and then he swings down. It’s the fact that he choreographed it so that the angle of seeing him swing the machete down would never in a million years make you think that when the machete makes contact that it actually is being pulled away. It’s the set-up. It’s the fact that those shots that lead up to it are all about setting up the gag so that the gag sells.

One thing that directors want to try to do now, and have more flexibility to do because of visual effects, is that you can get more in one take. “Oh, it would be great for this guy to run in here, grab that zombie, and chop his head off and then keep running.” Sure, if you want to go for that sort of hand-held kind of feel where you’re running through the streets with Rick [i.e., “Walking Dead” protagonist Rick Grimes, portrayed by Andrew Lincoln] and he’s shooting zombies…you can do that. But, you know, that’s just a factor of current filmmaking. In the day, they would cut, and then we would have a fake head and he would run by and chop the fake head off and we’d cut back to the wider stuff. Now, for some of this stuff — zombies’ heads being blown off, some of the head hits and stuff — it’s easier for the actors to just run through the shot and go and then, later, CGI will add a little blood spray, just to make it more gory and gruesome. It times out. Visual effects and CGI is a great tool just like prosthetics are a great tool. You sort of marry the two.

PH: Speaking as somebody who’s a little bit squeamish, I actually [will think] “oh, it’s just CGI gore.” If you really want to sell it, I imagine you’ve got to be pretty clever so that the audience isn’t aware.

GN: That’s why you’ve got to mix it up; the audience knows the difference.

PH: I know that one of the things you’re using as a touchstone is the original “Night of the Living Dead.” So that, I assume, means slow zombies, and also no brain eating.

GN: Correct. I’ll have extras on the set and somebody will say, “Ah, I’m really looking forward to eating some brains, tonight.” Wrong movie. I literally will say that. [The brain eating meme started in the late Dan O’Bannon’s 1985 “splatstick” horror comedy, “The Return of the Living Dead.”] I’m pretty clear with my zombie extras in terms of what the proper etiquette is and isn’t. So, if one of them says, “Oh, yeah, this is what we’re doing.” Wrong movie. No, we’re not doing that. It’s not about eating brains. Which is funny because even AMC gave us hats when we started to shoot that said “I heart brains.” I didn’t have the heart to tell them.

PH: [Laughing]. The comedians, I think, just love to talk about <in zombie voice> “braaiins.”

GN: It’s not the right movie.

PH: I’ve never seen that one. Everyone tends to focus on the gore, but are there other important effects [on “The Walking Dead”] that aren’t associated with blood and guts?

GN: Just the look of the zombies themselves is more critical than even the gore stuff. Because if you really think about the arc of the show, the gore is there to serve the purpose of how disposable the zombies are. It’s really about the relationships of these characters, with the zombies as a backdrop. The gore is there to serve the story, it’s not just “Oh, let’s do gore for the sake of making something controversial.” But the gore aspects that we’ve done to serve the story — did you see the one picture with Rick with the intestines and the body parts hanging over his neck?

PH: I didn’t see that. I saw the partially gone head. [Which you can see to in my earlier interview with producer Gale Anne Hurd.] I’m getting better. I did watch [Frank Darabont’s underrated apocalyptic monster apocalypse film] “The Mist” last night….

GN: Ah. That’s not so gory.

PH: It’s not so gory. A couple of shots. I’m slowly [making progress]. Speaking of just doing the zombie characters where you see someone as a human…I’m actually not familiar with the comic. Is the transformation the same as usual, where you would get bit and become a zombie?.

GN: The rules are the same.

PH: So, do we see a lot of [zombies], who we used to know as people?

GN: No. We certainly will deal with some of our characters that come across that dilemma, but it’s not like we have reoccurring zombie characters.

PH: Or people that in the first episode start out as people…

GN: There’s not enough of ’em. And we don’t know. If the show is successful and goes into a second season sure we’re not a hundred percent sure where it’s going to go. [Note: Weeks before the show aired, AMC had already ordered a second season. Isn’t cable great?]

PH: I know you were talking about some of the differences from past films. I know Frank Darabont has more of a kind of earnestness in the stuff he does, whereas you said that George Romero is known for being a little bit more satirical with social commentary. I’m sure that guides the effects. Would you say you’re going for greater realism here?

GN: Oh, without a doubt. With George you’ll have your Santa Claus zombie and your priest zombie and your cop zombie, your nurse zombie. He really is using that to sort of satirize what humanity has become. Whereas, in this series, the zombies are sort of a collective menace. They’re relatively easy to dispatch if you come across one or two of them. It’s just like a pack of piranha. You have ten of them, you’re probably not in such bad shape as if there’s a hundred of them.

PH: What about other work you’ve done that you’re especially proud of?

GN: Oh, good lord. [My company] started in ’88, so this is our twenty-third year. We’ve done everything from “Dances with Wolves” and “The Green Mile” to “Sin City” and “Spawn” and “The Chronicles of Narnia” and “Land of the Dead” and “Transformers” and “Inglourious Basterds.” We do all of Robert Rodriguez’s movies, we do all of Quentin Tarantino‘s movies. We did “Predators.” We did “The Book of Eli.” We did [“Piranha 3D“]…

PH: How is the whole 3D thing effecting you?

GN: We did the 3D “Final Destination” as well. It doesn’t really effect us. I mean some of the gore, some of the gags — if you want something specific to go right at the camera, it winds up being a visual effect. When you’re doing a blood gag or something, blood is inherently difficult to track in terms of where it’s going to land. So, you just kind of let it spray, [then] figure out what’s going to happen.

PH: It’s interesting when you talk about working with different directors. I loved, and had a great time, to my surprise, with “Planet Terror.” The bag of….

GN: Testicles.

PH: I couldn’t remember whether they were eyeballs or just balls. Why doesn’t that bother me? I found it very humorous.

GN: Because it’s ridiculous. It’s so over-the top. The whole intention of that movie was to sort of play on that seventies John Carpenter exploitation scenario. Which is funny because I was talking to Robert [Rodriguez] about this show. I think I sent him a couple of zombie pictures just to say, “hey, man, check out what we’re doing.” He said, “Man, makes me wanna do another horror movie.”

PH: Okay, I think we’re done. Thanks, it’s been a real pleasure.

GN: Good luck with watching you’re horror movies!

In some ways I think a little overrated, John Carpenter’s science-fiction/action/creepy alien monster flick from 1988 ,”They Live,” seems to me a thorough-going and obvious from-the-left savaging of the Reagan years and the consumerist, bland cultural mentality that went with it. Yet, oddly enough, it’s imagery has been picked up online by some Reagan-worshipping teapartiers. Well, history probably isn’t their favorite subject.

More clips and  commentary after the flip

Moving on, via Cinematical, we have the first quarter hour or so of a subtler and less strictly partisan commentary from the Jimmy Carter era (it was short, but he had an era), 1978’s “Dawn of the Dead.” Regular readers know of my rather fraught relationship with this zombie splatter classic and while I’ve only been up to watching the first five minutes or so of this clip recently, I can say that this one has it all: our questionable media, police attitudes towards minorities at the time, and NSFW head shots, language, and cannibalism, not to mention the scariest carpeting in film history and George Romero’s genius for pacing, intensity, and making the most of a not very experienced cast. Even if you’re a cinema chicken like me, try to watch the first few minutes. (Scaredy-cats and fellow gore-phobes may want to think about stopping after Romero’s credit appears and they leave the TV station.)

And, finally, I’d love to present a clip from my pick for the greatest of politically themed horror films, Guillermo del Toro’s remarkable “Pan’s Labyrinth,” which is also more than a political film, or a (possible) fantasy film, it’s real art. On the other hand, it does shine a light on the shameful bit of history in which the late-World War II-era Western Allies sold out the people of Spain to a brutal fascist dictator in preparation for the coming Cold War.

However, for whatever reason finding embeddable videos — even of relevant videos with del Toro, is next to impossible. I am therefore forced to show a brief reenactment by the ingenious Brandon Hardesty not because it’s particularly relevant to the discussion, but because it’s hilarious and seems to shown that Hardesty might have paid attention in Spanish class, which these days is itself a political act.

Oh, and please vote this Tuesday.

There aren’t many producers around these days whose name can help sell a movie or TV show, but Gale Anne Hurd is the rare exception. Probably best known as one of the co-creators of “The Terminator” franchise, Hurd has been an important player in numerous mega- or merely major productions, including both “Hulk” and “The Incredible Hulk,” “The Abyss,” “Armageddon,” “The Punisher,” and the underrated 1999 comedy “Dick,” which starred Dan Hedaya as Richard Milhous Nixon and a young Kirsten Dunst and Michelle Williams as a couple of teenagers who wind up bringing down a presidency.

Clearly one of the more hands-on producers around, Hurd is pleasant and businesslike when talking to a member of the show-biz press, but clearly has the gumption to deal with the biggest and most difficult of personalities, which is how I segue into the obligatory mention of the fact that she spent the part of the late eighties and early nineties being married to first James Cameron and then Brian De Palma. Moreover, she began her career working for one the most fascinating and effective producers in the history of the medium, Roger Corman, but more of that in the interview.

Still, nothing she’s done is quite like her current project, the zombie horror drama and comic book adaptation, “The Walking Dead.” The AMC television series, adapted from a series of acclaimed comics by Robert Kirkman primarily by writer-director Frank Darabont (“The Shawshank Redemption,” “The Green Mile,” “The Mist”) is currently receiving maximum exposure on the web. The publicity train was only just getting started when I spoke to Ms. Hurd at a mammoth new San Diego hotel adjacent to the Comic-Con festivities last summer.

I had typed my questions on my laptop, which I was afraid might be a little off-putting. So, after a quick greeting, I tried to explain why.

Premium Hollywood: I’m using this because I couldn’t find paper.

Gale Anne Hurd: No worries. You know, it’s much greener.

PH: Is it really? I guess so. Anyhow, you’re one of the people I requested, because I’m a kind of a big movie geek.

GAH: Good!

PH: You’re kind of an important person in recent film history — let’s go back to the beginning. You were a P.A. [production assistant] on movies like “Humanoids from the Deep”…

GAH: I was a PA on “Humanoids from the Deep”….

PH: …”Rock and Roll High School,” “Alligator”…

GAH: I actually worked up to Second A.D. [assistant director] on “Alligator.” I got a promotion.

PH: You were a fast rising person, but you were part of the Golden Age of Roger Corman films, actually the second golden age, I guess.

GAH: I wasn’t there with the Scorseses, Demmes, Coppolas.

PH: That would actually be the third golden age, then, because if you count the movies Corman made mostly himself [in the 50s and 60s], and then there was the 70s group and the 80s.

GAH: [Laughs.] I fell in love with, I saw his films at the drive-in when I was growing up, especially the Edgar Allen Poe adaptations that I loved.

PH: Those were wonderful. So, what do you think that experience with Corman taught you about the kind of sort of high-class [by which I meant “big budget] producing you do now?

GAH: If you look at the films that he made, the tent-pole summer films of now are versions of what he was doing, with bigger stars, although when you consider that Jack Nicholson started his career with Roger Corman…I’ve got a bigger sandbox to play in, but I’m just as much a fan now as I was then. I come to Comic-Con even when I don’t have a panel or a project to promote.

PH: Really.

GAH: This is so much fun for me. I’ve already been over, checked out the hall, [been] comic book girl and checked out my friends at the various booths.

PH: What are your favorite comics right now?

GAH: Well, obviously, I love “The Walking Dead.” I’ve got one, actually, that I’ve launched, “The Scourge” written by Scott Lobdell and artwork by Eric Battle, which is from Aspen Comics, I’m very excited about that. There’s also the new adaptation of Phillip K. Dick, “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” [the novel that was the extremely loose basis/inspiration for Ridley Scott‘s “Blade Runner”]

PH: I didn’t know they were doing that — you probably know more about comics these days than me. That sounds interesting.

GAH: Very cool.

PH: Maybe they’ll decide to make a movie of it again. [Laughing]

GAH: It’s interesting when you think about it.

PH: Maybe they’ll do the actual book. Now, I’m famously squeamish. The most popular blog post I ever wrote was me getting myself drunk to watch the original “Dawn of the Dead” after putting it off for over 20 years. Approximately how many drinks will it take me to get through a typical episode of “The Walking Dead”?

GAH: It depends on what makes you squeamish. We should probably have some sort of alert so that when the character drama is interrupted by something a bit gory, you can avert your eyes. AMC has not given us the kind of restrictions that I think that the fans were afraid of.

PH: The gorehounds are going to be happy.

GAH: I think you’ve actually got some of the stills that are out there [in the hall]

PH: I actually don’t think I’ve seen anything.

GAH: I’ll take you next door and there’s something I want to show you that will give you an idea. You know, it is the zombie genre.

PH: No, I understand. You’ve got to have a little bit of that.

GAH: You don’t want to make it seem like it’s got the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval for all ages, but it’s not what we’re focusing on. Because this is on AMC. It’s story. It’s character. But it is a zombie apocalypse. Although we call them “walkers,” people will know them as zombies and we have to be true to the genre.

PH: And with zombies comes zombie apocalypse. You’ve actually worked on a number of movies with apocalyptic themes.

GAH: I have.

PH: Even in the title, “Armageddon,” “Judgment Day.” Why do you think that’s obviously such an appealing concept? I was watching “The Mist” [written and directed by Frank Darabont] last night. The end of the world seems to be such a popular sub-sub genre. Why do you think that is?

GAH: Regardless of your religious or ethnic origin, all traditions of the human experience deal with some sort of end of time, end of days. What people disagree on is what happens after that or what’s causing it. With [“The Walking Dead”] it enables us to not have a natural disaster but the aftereffects are such that you’ve got a small band of humans dealing with the exigencies of survival.

PH: I’m not too familiar with the comic book — actually I’m not familiar at all with it — but I imagine there’s the usual group dynamics in these things where sometimes the people are the bigger threat than the monsters.

GAH: You can predict what the zombies are after; you can’t always predict human behavior.

PH: Was “The Mist” — like I said, I just watched it last night — was that directly related to how Frank Darabont ended up on this project?

GAH: No. You know Frank is also an enormous genre fan. I think this may be his twentieth Comic-Con. He’s been a fan of Robert Kirkman’s work since the very first issue. It’s issue 75 at this point. In fact, it was at last year’s Comic-Con that Frank and I sat down with Robert and said, “We want to take this to AMC.” Who would’ve thought that a year later we’d be here, in the middle of shooting episode 4?

PH: I understand Mr. Kirkman’s very excited about it and wants it to last 27 seasons. [Laughing.]

GAH: At least! He told us he’s got 250 issues mapped out.

PH: So how closely are you following the [story] of the comic?

GAH: We’re not slavishly following it. It’s a different medium to begin with. We have the opportunity to explore characters in a way that a comic book is limited. It’s limited in the number of panels that you’ve got. The amount of dialogue. So, we’re able to dig deeper there. And Robert was very, very upfront saying “I don’t want all of the fans of the comic book to be able to predict exactly where it’s going.” So, we change it up. In fact, the episode we’re shooting right now…which is the fourth episode, Robert Kirkman wrote.

PH: How was he in handling that transition [from comic book to film writing]? Had he done any screenwriting before?

GAH: No. First of all, he was involved from the very beginning as an executive producer. In the meetings, talking about where the arc of the six episodes would take us by the end of the season. He worked very closely with Frank and the writer’s room. In fact, he was in the writer’s room and he’s been on set.

PH: AMC is really developing an interesting, very eclectic pattern. They started with “Mad Men” and “Breaking Bad“…

GAH: And “Rubicon.” But the interesting thing is they’re going to have a block of programming in October called “Fear Fest” which is a collection of the best of the genre and we’ll be premiering during that block, so it’s actually perfect.

PH: So, they’ll schedule you right after showing “Night of the Living Dead”?

GAH: I don’t know. That’s up to them. But we’re in good hands. [Note: The movie preceding “The Walking Dead” premiere turns out to be Zack Snyder’s 2004 remake of “Dawn of the Dead”]

PH: I understand that, in terms of the rules of your zombie universe, you’re following the ones set up in [George Romero’s] original “Night of the Living Dead.”

GAH: Our zombies are not Usain Bolt. They’re not world record sprinters. They’re dead, they’re not moving as fast as when they were alive.

PH: “They’re dead. They’re all messed up.” Right. So, looking at the history of all these zombie movies, what do you think is going to be the contribution of “The Walking Dead” to the genre?

GAH: The great news is we have at least six hours starting out to explore the characters and this world. If we continue we’ll have 13 hours next years [Note: AMC has already renewed the show, so they will.] No one’s ever gone as in-depth as we’re able to in any kind of zombie series in the United States. We want it to be great television as well as something where the fans of Robert Kirkman’s comic book will say that it’s also a great adaptation.