Night of the Living Dead - Duane Jones

It was about 3am and I was about to go to bed when I noticed that the original "Night of the Living Dead" was playing uncut on the ENCORE channel (I think. Or it might have been SHOWTIME). I decided to watch a little bit of it and I'm still impressed with the quality of the movie (I'm talking about the script, story, the performances and the way the movie was filmed). But I was also very impressed with actor Duane Jones. This guy was good. Was he a professional actor at the time? Or did George Romero just pick him out of a group of hopefuls? I couldn't watch the whole movie that night because it was getting close to 4am and I was really tired. But the scene where Duane Jones talks about watching a truck being chased down by zombies, then watching it explode in a fireball while hearing the scream of the driver and then looking back at the diner as it was being surrounded by the living dead... I found it to be a pretty powerful moment. There were other powerful moments in the film, but this particular scene really stuck with me because I went to bed soon after and didn't get a chance to see the rest of the movie (sorry, but I was just too tired! ) Duane Jones was simply terrific in this movie. I know he's gone now, but I just wanted to say that.

I had a feeling he was a friend of George Romero but wasn't sure. Thanks for clearing it up. Like you EOD, the first time I saw the original "NotLD" was also on a UHF station . I was around 10 at the time and I remember the TV reception being extremely poor. But I was very curious about the movie...especially after my parents warned me not to watch it. Did I listen? No . I remember the station was airing a double feature: the first movie was "NotLD" and the 2nd one was "Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things". I watched both and was temporarily traumatized lol. I don't think I slept a wink that night--I was so scared. But I loved it.