Night of the Living Dead was released more than half a century ago, made by a small group of filmmakers from Pittsburgh with George Romero at the helm. Armed with a shoestring budget, a limited crew, and a cast composed mostly of amateur actors, the filmmakers would go on to create a horror classic. In addition, Night of the Living Dead would become one of the first films to star a black man in a leading role characterized without regard to his race.
Duane Jones was cast as Ben, the male lead, who did his best to protect the people trapped with him in the farmhouse as a horde of zombies attacked. He was also be the last survivor of the group, ultimately meeting a gruesome end at the hands of a roaming group of small-town law enforcers trying to wipe out all of the ghouls, a poignant final scene made even more striking by Ben being a black man, but that hadn’t always been George Romero’s original intent for the film.
Between Duane Jones and George Romero, the part was completely changed and rewritten from its original iteration after Jones was cast and shooting began for the film. Thanks to both of their input, Night of the Living Dead would become an iconic movie within the zombie sub-genre as well as the original film to use zombies as social commentary.
How Duane Jones Changed Horror History
While many horror fans consider Night of the Living dead to be the premiere zombie movie, combining gruesome effects with brilliant social commentary on the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Much of what fans love about the film was due to input from the starring actor, Duane Jones. When the film was released in 1968, it was extremely rare to see a person of color in a starring role, especially in a role not written about race. In the past, George Romero frequently said it was the first film to cast such a role, and while this isn’t technically true, it is certainly one of the first, and definitely the first to get as much recognition as Night of the Living Dead.
In the original script, Ben was written as a crude-talking, rough-and-tough trucker and was originally intended to be played by Rudy Ricci. When Duane Jones auditioned, thanks to a mutual friend of the producer, everyone agreed that he was the best person to play the part of Ben, even Ricci. Romero decided not to re-write the script after the new casting decision; he didn’t want Ben’s race to be part of the story, and decided just to shoot the script as written.
While that instinct was good, Jones had other thoughts about the script. Jones was a very well-educated man, fluent in a number of languages, with a B.A. from the University of Pittsburgh. He had studied in Paris, and was even completing an M.A. in Communications at NYU between shoots. He didn’t want to portray the character as being so low-brow, and upgraded the dialogue to better reflect how Jones felt Ben should portray himself.
In addition to changes Jones made to the dialogue, he also advocated for the original ending to remain intact when Romero approached him about rewriting it so that Ben could live. In the book, Night of the Living Dead: Behind the Scenes of the Most Terrifying Zombie Movie Ever by Joe Kane, Jones said, “I convinced George that the black community would rather see me dead than saved, after all that had gone on, in a corny and symbolically confusing way.” He continued, “The heroes never die in American movies. The jolt of that and the double jolt of the hero figure being black seemed like a double-barreled whammy”.
Duane Jones chose to play the character of Ben as a regular guy who’s not a hero and dies in the end despite his best efforts, a decision that not only creates a more compelling story, but results in a thoroughly engaging and high-tension horror film. Night of the Living Dead was brought to life and championed by George Romero, but it also would not have been the same without Duane Jones.