A few down-market independent productions were more ambitious: "White Zombie" (1932), directed by Victor Halperin and starring Béla Lugosi, is now regarded as the archetypal zombie movie, though it was poorly received at the time. It was picked up by United Artists for distribution after it lost deals with Columbia and the small Educational Pictures. On occasion, a low-end movie would get separated from the pack. Reviewing the 77-minute Universal crime melodrama "Rio" (1939), the "New York Times" declared that director "John Brahm's impact on the Class B picture is producing one of the strangest sound effects in recent cinema history. It is that of an unmistakable B buzzing like an A."