Tales of Terror
Page Two

"Poe's Tales of Terror"

Trilogy of terror, in handsome, eerie color production. Price, Rathbone, Lorre lend sinister quality. Good grosser.

The sinister world of Edgar Allen Poe is with us again in this ambitious Eastman Color-Panavision undertaking by AIP. the time audiences are asked to journey down three separate paths of suspense and frights, and it looks as if this trilogy of terror will pay off with strong Summer grosses in all situations, especially the action and ballyhoo houses. Poe regular Vincent Price is on hand again, now in the company of two of screenland's more colorful personalities, Basil Rathbone and Peter Lorre, and lovely Debra Paget. Producer-director Roger Corman has mounted his production with polish and quality, and has adroitly blended humor and fright into 85 chiller-diller minutes. Dan Haller's sets strike the right note of eerieness (sumptuous rooms, yards of cob web, a roaring inferno), and Floyd Crosby has lensed some goose-flesh-raising photographic effects. The opener (all three tales were scripted by Richard Matheson), "Morella," tells what happens when beautiful Maggie Pierce returns to her now gloomy and decay-ridden birthplace to see her recluse father (Price) for the first time in 26 years. Constantly drunk and half-mad, Price blames her for his wife's death. When father and daughter seek a reconciliation, the mother (Leona Gage) returns to life and destroys them in a finale of flames. Tale number two combines the classics "The Black Cat" and "The Cask of Amontillado." Here, drunkard, near-maniacal-tempered Lorre meets foppish, expert wine-taster Price (their drinking contest is a comic gem), and introduces him to his unhappy wife, Joyce Jameson. When Lorre discovers they are having an affair, he walls them up in the cellar of his house. A nightmarish finale has Miss Jameson's black cat, accidentally walled up with his mistress, giving Lorre away to the authorities. The concluding tale, "The Case of M. Valdemar," relates what happens when a dying Price allows himself to be put in a neither-life, nor-death trance by unscrupulous hypnotist Rathbone. The latte refuses to give Price the peace of death and forces Price to agree to allow his wife, Debra Paget, to marry him. Price breaks the hypnotic spell, rises from the deathbed an oozing, liquid putrescence, and envelops Rathbone. The three male stars play their Poe parts to the hilt.

—Independent Exhibitors Film Bulletin, June 11, 1962

Tales of Terror

Three macabre items presenting Price, Lorre, Rathbone. Promising bet in the goose-bump market.

Now comes the fourth in American Internationals cycle of horror pix, each based on the works of Edgar Allen Pie. The fourth, "Tales of Terror," has three spine ticklers for the trade: "Morella," "The Black Cat" and "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar." The three tales make a heavy dose, even for thrill-prone teenage set.

It's to the credit of producer-director Roger Corman that the first two, "Morella" and "The Black Cat" trip through the horror hoops in a mad grace going beyond strictly fan appeal. Corman and scenarist Richard Matheson do get bogged down in the long-winded latter story, "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar." It's only the final scene in "Valdemar" which is a shocker—and a real ugly one at that.

Whether audiences will have been rendered limp by the Poe cycle is anybody's guess. Producer Corman, though, plays his latest entry for all it's worth and has assembled some tasty ghoulish acting talent which have marquee strength. Vincent Price leers, is mad, is tender—and even laughs straight. Peter Lorre has a madcap time of it and Basil Rathbone is a heavy's heavy. Price, Lorre and Rathbone have a special marquee meaning to the skull and bones trade. There's also some feminine decorative lure in Debra Paget. Supporting cast is competent, color lavish and music eerie.

The best realized nightmare and the shortest of the trio is "Morella." This has Vincent Price dying a living death since the sudden demise of his wife, Morella, played by Leona Gage. She died soon after the birth of her baby. Twenty-odd years later, the baby grown up to a living doll, revisits her mad father in his haunted mansion. The doll, whose moniker is Leonore, is portrayed by Maggie Pierce. The short piece is played for its nightmarish terror and it clicks, hitting hidden human recesses. Simulating a woman's face after 20-odd years of death is a matter of taste. This reviewer found it repulsive.

"The Black Cat" comes next. It is too long, but as a mad caper it has its moments. Peter Lorre, reeling and leering, plays a drunken husband who drives his wife int the hands of another man. (Every vice has its Vincent Price.) Lorre, in revenge, murders his wife and entombs her and Price behind a brick wall in the cellar of his house. The domestic cat which he hated proved his undoing, for its yowling behind the wall informs the gendarmes. Why Lorre would leave his wife nightly for the bottle appears to be a special sort of madness. For his wife, portrayed by Joyce Jameson, seems far more fetching than the bottom of a glass.

The last of the trio and the weakest is "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar." The commanding performance of Basil Rathbone and the beauty of Debra Paget cannot save this long-drawn out talky tale. Price is there again and David Frankham joins in a supporting role. Only the last few moments have moments of horror, liquid putrification. Ugh. By this time the dead flesh had worn thin.

Horo.

—Variety, May 30, 1962