In the late 80′s the archivist and author John Kobal began in earnest to create a large coffee table book to honor the films of Cecil B De Mille. He chose to call it DEMILLE AND HIS ARTISTS. John had the full cooperation of the DeMille estate and the surviving heirs of De Mille himself. John was allowed to do his research in the DeMille home in Los Angeles and at the time had acquired a treasure trove of costumes and props from all of DeMilles greatist films. During this time he employed me to do research along with Mark Wanamaker, so the two of us would trade off doing whatever John felt was needed to make this book the definitive study of one of Hollywood’s most outlandish yet respected producer-directors. John was always amused at my devotion to the artisans of the Horror genre, whether it was spending the day with Robert Florey to discuss MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE or working on my cable interview show THE SINISTER IMAGE. It was during this period, when I was taping shows with Vincent Price and Cameron Mitchell as well as directors as varied as Waris Hussien and Russ Meyer, that John asked me to interview John Carradine on his early days working for De Mille. I had planned to tape a SINSTER IMAGE show with Carradine to follow the one I had just taped with Vincent Price.

John at that time was living near Santa Barbara in the smaller community of Monticeto, we had already taped an audio interview in preparation for his Sinister Image appearance, so it was relatively easy to persude Carradine to talk about his early days as an actor in Hollywood just before he established himself in films like John Ford’s STAGECOACH. This interview has been a long time in seeing the light of day, as John Kobal died before his cherished project could be completed. This Camp David is dedicated to the memory of both John Carradine and especially for John Kobal, who made Hollywood all the more special by being such a champion of its glamour.

John Carradine’s interview was conducted in his home on November 10th, 1984.

DAVID DEL VALLE: Your first encounter with Cecil B. DeMille was SIGN OF THE CROSS.

JOHN CARRADINE: Yes. Well, I’d heard that he was about to do it and I lived just across the street almost from Paramount Studios. I went over there to the casting office and they sent me to wardrobe to put on what was called an Class-A costume. And I went on the set and the assistant brought me to DeMille, who looked at me and said, “Your face is too narrow. The camera wouldn’t record anything from your face.” But I did a bit in the film. I don’t think I even had any dialogue. And that was my first meeting with DeMille.

DDV: Then thee was CLEOPATRA.

JC: And then I was in CLEOPATRA, and I saw DeMille do something in that…no, that was THE CRUSADES. I worked on THE CRUSIDES too.

DDV: Did you have a speaking part in THE CRUSADES?

JC: Very briefly. He never let me do very much because he said my face was too narrow. In THE CRUSADES I saw him do an extraordinary thing. He had a scene of men in Gothic armor under which were suits of chain mail, all of which together weighed about 115 pounds. They were on a fighting tower which was truncated, wider at the bottom than it was at the top. When the bottom was against the castle wall, the top was about twelve feet away. And he wanted his stunt men in their Gothic armor to leap from the top of the fighting tower to the castle wall, and no one would try it. DeMille put on the armor and did it himself, and he was then over fifty years of age. I saw him do it.

DDV: What kind of man was he?

JC: A lot of actors hated his guts. I didn’t. He had no compunction about criticizing people who didn’t know their business. He never directed actors. He directed the camera. He just hired the best actors there were and let them do their job. I never saw him tell an actor how to read a line. Never. On the other hand, he hated homosexuals. And there was an unfortunate Englishman who had a speech to read, and I’ve forgotten what picture it was, but his voice had a lisp, and DeMille fired him. But he was brought back because DeMille’s top assistant explained to him that this poor guy was using, for the first time, his whole set of false teeth.

DDV: So he just had a lisp from the false teeth?

JC: He had a lisp from his false teeth, which didn’t fit very well. And the dentist found out that they had to make two little indentions right in there otherwise you have a whistle or a lisp. DeMille was a martinet in some ways.

DDV: Did he also know that you were an artist and a sculptor?

JC: I did an heroic bust of him. I can show you a picture of it.

DDV: Oh, I’d love to see it. What year was that?

JC: Oh, let me think. I was living in Livingston Court, which is just off Van Ness Boulevard in Hollywood, which isn’t far from Paramount Studio. DeMille never posed for me. I just sat on the set and sketched him, and then took it home. I’d spend the night half on studying dialogue and half working on the bust. And he paid me $750. for a bronze, which didn’t pay for the molding, only for the bronze. He never got it, though, because my landlord was a Fin by the name of Svend Holm and he had hooked the studio on the basis of his acquaintanceship with Jack London. The front of the building was covered by a huge mural of Jack London, and on the top was a handrail with a fish net stretched over it, the top of which was a schooner head that belonged to Jack London. Holm came into my studio and destroyed the bust, which was still in clay. By the time I got back it was in a million pieces. I said to myself, “Well, there goes my career with DeMille.” But not so. When I had the guts to inform him of the situation, he didn’t bat an eye and didn’t ask for his $750. back.

DDV: What was his relationship between case and crew up until THE TEN COMMANDMENTS?

JC: Let me tell you a story that truly sums up DeMille, both as a man and as a director. We were nearly finished with THE TEN COMMANDMENTS and there was but one really important scene that remained to be shot, involving a number of extras going through the desert. DeMille always worked with at least ten yes-men at his side at all times, including his cameraman, whose name for the life of me I can’t remember [Loyal Griggs]. Well, DeMille decided to shoot the sequence from the top of a very steep hill. It was obvious to most of us on the crew that he wasn’t well. His appearance was ashen. Well, as they marched halfway up the hill, DeMille grabbed arm of his cameraman and collapsed, sinking to the ground. He lay there for almost twenty minutes. As people went to find a doctor, DeMille collected himself and looked up at his cameraman and said, “Let’s go. I want to finish this Goddamn shot.” It was the last piece of film that DeMille ever directed. And that, for me, summed up the essence of the man, who always finished what he started.

DDV: Was that the last time you saw him?

JC: Absolutely. And it’s the way I want to remember him.

DDV: How would you compare and contrast the working methods of DeMille with someone like John Ford?

JC: Well it’s quite simple. I never saw DeMille give an actor direction. However, John Ford would take as much time as he felt was necessary to coax an actor into a performance. You must remember that John Ford was a theatre man and an artist. I don’t think anyone would consider De Mille anything other than a brilliant showman.

DDV: I suppose John Ford enjoyed your Shakespearian acting style as DeMille enjoyed your work as a painter and sculptor.

JC: No, no. Totally the reverse. DeMille would have never hired me if he hadn’t been fascinated with my somewhat startling Shakespearian highs and lows. I had very little dialogue in THE CRUSADES, but every single word was accentuated or it was done over. Whereas all Ford was fascinated with was trying to make me squint, which is the reason I have the mannerism, which is so noticeable in all my work with him. He would literally position the lights so that they would go right into my face, and many times I couldn’t see without my now well-known scowl. That I owe to John Ford.

DDV: How would you describe John Ford as a man as compared to DeMille?

JC: They were quite dissimilar, but Mr. Ford, like any other man, was not without his flaws. And he could be, on occasion, very petty. I remember quite well doing one film, I think it was DRUMS ALONG THE MOHAWK. Ford had a habit of always having as a treat for his cast and crew a large campfire every night complete with musicians and a lavish buffet. And this tradition was part of every Ford set. Now during the filming, one of the script girls, or somebody, I can’t remember who, pissed John off in no uncertain terms. Well now, instead of reprimanding the girl, there was no campfire or entertainment for the whole crew that evening, and no explanation was given then nor to my knowledge ever was. That was the way he expressed his displeasure.

DDV: Did you ever hear of a special meeting of the Screen Director’s Guild to oust Joe Mankiewicz as President, when John Ford stood up and said, “I don’t like you C.B, I admire you, but I don’t like you.”?

JCC: No. Where did you hear that? There was no public feud with Ford or DeMille that I ever heard of. And as you know, I’ve been in Hollywood more than most.

DDV: Did you ever discuss Ford With DeMille?

JCC (laughing): Good God, man! That’s like asking a woman her age. Of course not. Mr. DeMille never mentioned or expressed any admiration for any other film director on the set, which as I’ve told you before is the only recollection I have. I will tell you one last and rather funny story about John Ford. As you may or may not know, John Ford lived up above the Hollywood Bowl. This was in the early forties. And unlike it is today, you could walk onto the stage at any time, day or night. Barrymore was coaching me to learn to project for an upcoming Shakespearian play. So on his advice I would sneak into the Hollywood Bowl and boom out, “Oh, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!” which was my favorite soliloquy from Hamlet. I did this till the wee hours for at least three days, and on the fourth night, I had just begun when a squad of police cars enveloped the Bowl. I made a run for it in the forest area up above. Now several days later, I was on a set and Mr. Ford saw me. He walked over and without saying so much as hello, he said, “Well, I’m glad you’re not in jail, cause I’m the one that called the police. You see, you son of a bitch, I need my rest as much as you need your rehearsal time. And it might interest you to know your projection is just fine. You have a director’s approval.”

EDIE’S: A COCKTAIL BAR ON FIGUEROA

Sometime during the summer of 1982 I found myself at Duke’s Tropicana Café, then located on Santa Monica Boulevard. Duke’s had become a Hollywood rock-and-roll institution since both Jim Morrison and Janis Joplin had nursed many a hangover within its greasy walls and booths during the summer of ’68, when Duke’s first opened its doors.

On this particular morning (a Saturday, if memory serves) the joint was jumping with a cross section of Hollywood and rock-and-roll personalities. In the corner booth sat a very familiar-looking older gentleman with two other men around the same age. Now at this point I must tell you I am really good at recognizing former film stars and the like, and on this Saturday morning I was staring at one of the only surviving stars of CASABLANCA, Paul Henried, famed Warner Bros. leading man and then TV and feature film director. If Paul had never directed anything he would still deserve my attention but this man, who worked with Bogart, also directed one of my all-time favorite guilty pleasures, DEAD RINGER, one of the macabre films Bette Davis made in the wake of her WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE? success. Paul had been her co-star in NOW VOYAGER where he famously lit two cigarettes and then handed one of them to Davis at the film’s teary finale.

As I watched Mr. Henried begin to collect his things I knew I had to do something fast to let him know I was aware of who he was, but how? At this point in time I still smoked and the guy I was with that morning also had the habit, so I waited until Paul Henried had made his way up to the cash register and then I made my move. He sort of noticed that I was grinning at him as he walked over to where I was standing, still waiting for a booth, and at that moment I took two cigarettes out of my coat pocket and yes, I did exactly what you are thinking I did: I lit two of them and handed one to a startled Henried who, as it turned out, was a real sport, accepting it with panache. By now a couple of the customers caught on to what was transpiring at the cash register and, with all eyes on the two of us, applauded the situation.

I was so impressed with the grace he displayed at what could have been a real moment of embarrassment for both of us if he had not been so gallant about this blatant display of Hollywood nostalgia. I introduced myself and then told him how much I enjoyed his films at Warner Bros., especially NOW VOYAGER, and then I brought up his film DEAD RINGER. He smiled and while he paid his check he gave me his card and then said to me, “I enjoyed making that film probably more than you did watching it…Bette is such an enormous talent that it was a pleasure to direct her in anything.”

This was the first time I was able to articulate just how much this film has stayed with me since seeing it as a kid at the drive-in and then again countless times on television. I had brought up what is acknowledged by most film buffs to be a highly enjoyable piece of camp from a totally over-the-top Davis riding the crest of her popularity from BABY JANE. Her co-star Joan Crawford was doing exactly the same thing that year, starring in her own variation of BABY JANE mania with STRAIT-JACKET over at the Columbia lot with William Castle.

The “divine feud” between Joan Crawford and Bette Davis has been well documented elsewhere, but in discussing DEAD RINGER it always amused me that even though Davis’s film was a first class Warner Bros. production, photographed by Ernest Haller, with a suitably macabre score by Andre Previn, and with a hand-picked collection of top Hollywood character actors, the fact remains Crawford’s trashy low-budget William Castle howler (with Joan playing at being both 25 years old and 55 within the same film) did twice the business DEAD RINGER did that year (1964) because Crawford went out and sold it in major cities across the country. Bill Castle knew how to sell a horror film but he had no idea how much wattage a star like Crawford could put out when it came to her career.

When I first met Bert Remsen he was moonlighting as a casting director with another actor, Dick Dinman. The combination of these two became Remden Casting, and very successful at it they were. Bert was a great guy and loved to talk “Hollywood.” He told me that Bette Davis had cast approval on DEAD RINGER: “The first time I met her she was in make-up sitting in her chair in front of one of those very theatrical mirrors with light bulbs all around it….She had just taken one of her huge eyes and lifted the lid until she looked positively freakish glaring at me with one eye-lid extended….Without missing a beat she said, ‘Can you mix a cocktail and stay on your mark?’ I laughed and told her, ‘Most definitely I could do both and sing Irish while I’m doing it.’ She laughed that famous cackle of hers and told the producer, ‘He’s in. I like him just fine,’ and that is how I got the part of her bartender at Edie’s. During the filming she came in one day with a copy of the Hollywood Reporter and was really excited. She said to me, ‘Bert, have you seen the crap Crawford is up to over at Columbia? I mean, she is doing Lizzie Borden in blackface!’ and with that she just broke herself up laughing. I was then convinced that the Crawford/Davis feud was an ongoing concern with no holds barred…”

The first thing I realized with DEAD RINGER is how old-fashioned a film it was for 1964. It adheres to many film noir conventions, yet was marketed as a horror film, which it decidedly is not. The murder of Margaret De Lorca by her sister Edie is so bloodless as to register disbelief that she was actually shot in the head in the first place. Much attention is placed on Edie removing her dead sister’s stockings and jewelry before donning her sister’s widow’s weeds and making her hasty exit from the poverty that was her life on Figueroa Street.

While her rival was over at Columbia filming “crap” and beheading most of the cast in the process with an axe, Bette was at that same moment being exceptionally photographed by Ernest Haller with much attention to noir shadings in the opulent surroundings of GREYSTONE, the Doheny estate which had been used in films as varied as THE LOVED ONE and the 1991 remake of DARK SHADOWS. Gene Hibbs was assigned to do Davis’s make-up and he managed to give the star a streamlined “glamour” look that took at least 10 years off her appearance in DEAD RINGER, something Joan Crawford could have really used in her Columbia fright flick since STRAIT-JACKET required her to do those flashbacks (sadly ineffective) as her 25 year-old former self.

The original title of DEAD RINGER had been the noir-ish WHO IS BURIED IN MY GRAVE? They even retained this title into the advertising stage of the promotion as several posters were released prior to the release date from the studio with that title before Warners decided that the only way to go with a Bette Davis film after BABY JANE was to milk the connection for all it was worth: In BABY JANE the poster art maintained the catchphrase “Sister, sister oh so fair, why is there blood all over your hair?” Now with DEAD RINGER the phrase was “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest twin of all?” It is a supreme gesture that after the well-publicized feuding that ultimately ended the Davis/Crawford partnership on HUSH, HUSH SWEET CHARLOTTE, which also came out in 1964, Davis realized that the only actress with whom it was worth sharing the screen was herself, and that is exactly what we have here with DEAD RINGER. Except for some minor upstaging by the wonderful Jean Hagen in what became her final screen performance as Margret De Lorca’s flighty high society confidant, Davis is free here to act herself literally off the screen. The support she gets from top-flight character actors like George Macready and Estelle Winwood only enhances her own performance even more. The standout performances from Karl Malden and Peter Lawford never get in her way. The most poignant character in the film is played beautifully by Cyril Delevanti as her butler Henry, who knows the score from the moment Edie leaves the De Lorca mansion at the onset until Margaret/Edith is taken away by the police for poisoning her husband. It is Henry who sees the goodness in Edith and maintains his silence until the bitter end, giving Davis one of her most heartfelt lines: “And I thought I was all alone.” Davis understood the importance of such moments and made sure her co-stars were solid in her support.

It was always my impression that DEAD RINGER was designed to follow Bette Davis’s success in BABY JANE and to a certain extent it was. However there was another version based on the source novel LA OTRA that was filmed in Spanish around 1946 showcasing Dolores De Rio.

After that the script sat dormant for years at Warners until the studio dusted it off as a possible vehicle for Lana Turner, whose work for producers like Ross Hunter made her a natural for this kind of film. Turner had achieved a certain reputation by then by way of the scandal sheets that had a field day after the murder of her lover Johnny Stompanato by her teenage daughter. This was most likely the reason Lana Turner turned it down, not wanting to do another murder mystery, even one in which she got to play opposite herself. Bette Davis had been offered a role in the “Rat Pack” western FOUR FOR TEXAS and withdrew to make DEAD RINGER. Her co-star, the Oscar-nominated Victor Buono, was also in the cast of this film, making it a reunion of sorts for them. One can only imagine the quality of scripts that were being sent to both Bette Davis and Joan Crawford if STRAIT-JACKET is any indication at all.

The motif of famous actors playing twins is a long one and just this week seeing Dominic Cooper in THE DEVIL’S DOUBLE play both Uday Hussein and his double was a reminder of just how well it can be done now, yet the real test rests with the actor and in Cooper’s case it has made him a star. Bette Davis was already a legendary actress by the time DEAD RINGER came her way. She had played twins once before in A STOLEN LIFE (1946) and this may have been a factor in why it took so long for Warner Bros. to convince Davis or any other actress to tackle such a project. When Davis made life such a living hell for Joan Crawford that she left the location for HUSH, HUSH SWEET CHARLOTTE after filming nearly half the film, Crawford was later replaced by Olivia De Havilland, another actress who had some experience playing twins in THE DARK MIRROR ( a well-done thriller made by Robert Siodmak, very similar in theme to DEAD RINGER; this film also had two sisters, one homicidal, the other less so).

The best of all the films involving famous actors playing opposite themselves has to be (in my opinion) the 1988 DEAD RINGERS with Jeremy Irons in a tour-de-force performance under the direction of David Cronenberg. Recently I watched Edward Norton, another fine actor, play twins in a very underrated film, LEAVES OF GRASS. The list goes on with special mention to the creepy “Grady daughters” in THE SHINING, Tony Randall in THE SEVEN FACES OF DR. LAO and of course Jack Lemmon in THE GREAT RACE. Bette Davis does not have to suffer her twin beyond the first reel since she summons her to Edie’s cocktail bar right after their tense encounter at the De Lorca mansion where she shoots her sister in the head…reminding us all of the tagline from BABY JANE (“Sister, sister oh so fair, why is their blood all over your hair?”). In the case of this film there is no blood, period, and even when Edie has to see Margaret’s body at the morgue it is a very dead but altogether perfect corpse. The lack of gore and blood in DEAD RINGER simply confirms its status as an LA noir masquerading as a horror film–at least in the advertising.

In spite of the “Addams Family” harpsichord that does its spidery best to keep informing us we are in a macabre situation there at the Doheny estate, the film is decidedly a thriller with noir overtones. The great Dane “Duke” who could not stand Margret De Lorca takes up with her sister which proves the undoing for glamour boy Peter Lawford. His death scene is as close as we ever get to a classic horror film moment in DEAD RINGER. I have always been fine with that, considering we already had a full-throttle performance from Davis that same year with CHARLOTTE. Davis clawing her way down the stairs as the swampy remains of Joe Cotten stands above her, a living corpse, is classic Grand Guignol.

I have to believe one of the reasons a film like DEAD RINGER stays in one’s memory so vividly is the staying power of one of the cinema’s most enduring stars. In her earlier work in films like THE STAR, Davis proved once again that she would take on a role that was unflattering and risky only to walk away with another Oscar nomination for her bravery. In BABY JANE she appeared in clown make-up that I doubt any other actress of her generation would ever have dared to do. Bette Davis deserves her iconic status alongside Joan Crawford and Olivia De Havilland. De Havilland has always given Oscar caliber performances in her work on the screen, and even in her moment of despair, making LADY IN A CAGE–an unfortunate misfire and not her fault–she still gave a stunning performance. The film itself is just too nasty for its own good.

I still have not seen the remake of DEAD RINGER, done around 1986 as a made-for-television affair entitled KILLER IN THE MIRROR. I remain confidant that it will have little effect on my admiration for the 1964 version which still, like all cult films that you revisit time and again, is “Like seeing an old friend” come to life, another line from BABY JANE, when Crawford finally is allowed to read her fan mail…this was a remark made by a fan of Blanche Hudson after watching MOONGLOW…a fictitious title for one of Crawford’s early films for MGM.

Both Crawford and Davis had their careers revitalized after BABY JANE. Davis fared a little better for the rest of the 60′s whereas Joan had to suffer for the likes of Herman Cohen and Bill Castle. Davis did not get out of this unscathed either; Joan may have bowed out in a cave in England with TROG as her swansong, yet never knowing when to quit seems to have died with Garbo because Bette Davis just had to make WICKED STEPMOTHER before saying goodbye to her adoring public. We must forgive them both since it was never about the money, it was just one more curtain call–or as Edie would have put it, “Where am I going to spend it–OUTER SPACE?”

Films in Reviews’ own David Del Valle will be signing copies of his
book LOST HORIZONS BENEATH THE HOLLYWOOD SIGN on October 8th at 2pm
at DARK DELICACIES BOOKSHOP in BURBANK (3512 West Magnolia Boulevard, Burbank, CA 91505-2818).

Curtis Harrington’s NIGHT TIDE, which opened the Venice International Film Festival in 1961, secured the director a reputation (already known, like his colleague Kenneth Anger, for an avant-garde style of film-making) as an auteur in the horror genre at a time when very little had been written about such films. Curtis himself was a pioneer in the field of film scholarship having written extensively on the subject as early as 1952. There were two directors that became influences on Curtis’s work, the most important being Joseph Von Sternberg, to whom Curtis would devote an entire monograph for the Museum of Modern Art. The second would be Val Lewton, whose work at RKO on a string of B-horror films served as a blueprint for much of what we admire in NIGHT TIDE today.

There is an irony in having NIGHT TIDE open a festival in Venice, Italy, when the film itself represents a time capsule of a now-vanished era that was Venice, California, circa 1960.

At that time the California version of Venice (complete with faux canals, used to great effect a couple of years before by Orson Welles in TOUCH OF EVIL) was inhabited by a sub-culture of coffee house beatniks, free-thinking bohemians adrift in a sea of jazz and cigarette smoke. Curtis opens NIGHT TIDE in just such an atmosphere, staging Dennis Hopper’s first encounter with Mora (a suspected sea siren played by Linda Lawson) in a smoky jazz club called the “Blue Grotto.”

This introduction differs considerably from, say, Simone Simon’s introduction in Val Lewton’s CAT PEOPLE, which takes place at the zoo where she charms Kent Smith. Yet the connection is the same, for both these women share a repressed dread of their inner selves; both are morbidly drawn to folklore regarding their backgrounds, and neither can escape the past. This theme is also found in Lewton’s other films, especially THE SEVENTH VICTIM, which was one of Harrington’s personal favorites.

The psychosexual tension between Mora and her admirer, played rather timidly by Dennis Hopper (of all people) at a stage in his career where he was still untouched by what was to come so he was still able to convey innocence. Hopper is dressed in what has been described as a “Homoerotic sailor suit” by some in Harrington’s inner circle since Curtis always told the story of how he went to a tailor and had a specially-designed costume for Dennis that was very tight and revealing in a way the Navy would never have sanctioned. The outfit was then re-dyed to an off-white so it would not photograph so bright; the result nearly got Hopper thrown in the brig since he was stopped one night after filming by the Navy patrol for being out in a dirty uniform. Curtis was very amused by Dennis telling him that he was propositioned by men several times during the filming–but only when he was wearing his sailor suit. Curtis would always end the anecdote by saying, “Well, I never really knew if Dennis ever took any of them up on it.”

For the record, Dennis Hopper has gone on record saying that at this early stage in his career he did “flirt with homosexuality as just another life experience.” Otherwise I do not share the theory held by some critics that NIGHT TIDE has a “homosexual agenda,” just because of the director’s orientation. Curtis brought this up with me once when I was interviewing him about another director–James Whale. He reminded me that in the 30′ and 40′s these kind of questions were never asked and as far as any of Whale’s films having a “gay agenda,” he replied, “Bullshit.

Jimmy just made damn good movies, the only thing that might hold water in that regard was his camp sense of humor, which I share as well.. In fact Harrington cast his films in much the same manner as Whale. In NIGHT TIDE for example we have the actress Marjorie Eaton as the fortune-telling Madame Romanovitch, very camp, dressed in such a way that she looks a bit like Dr Pretorius in Whale’s BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN; in fact in close-up she almost looks like him in drag.

Curtis explained to me the genesis for the film during one of our interviews done over the nearly three decades we knew one another. “As a boy growing up in Beaumont, California, there was nothing much to do except go to the library and it was there in the stacks that I discovered Edgar Allan Poe. After that I was hooked on the macabre for the rest of my life. I found more to read at the local drugstore that stocked all the pulp magazines of the day including WEIRD TALES and another one called BLACK CAT. They introduced me to H.P. Lovecraft, Robert Bloch and William Hope Hodgson. It was Hodgson’s HOUSE ON THE BORDERLAND that led to me trying my hand at writing. One of my first efforts was under his influence, THE SECRET OF THE SEA, since much of his weird fiction involved the sea. I was always drawn to the ocean and of course reading Lovecraft at the same time gave me a sense of dread and horror about the sea since he used it as a metaphor for all manner of horrors. In any case this bit of writing paved the way for my first real screenplay, NIGHT TIDE.”

Curtis had acquired some distribution grants through Roger Corman’s Filmgroup. With that in hand he then found a partner in a young Armenian named Aram Kantarian. Soon the two of them managed to raise money (the total budget for NIGHT TIDE was about $75,000). Now they were ready to cast the film and Curtis remembered meeting a rising young talent at one of the local coffee house screenings for his experimental films; that talent was of course Dennis Hopper.

Hopper had scored some attention in small roles for director’s George Stevens and Nick Ray and was now ready (at least in Harrington’s eyes) to play a lead. As Curtis recalled, “Dennis was a bit of a firebrand by then, inventive, energetic, emotional and sensitive, all the qualities I needed for Johnny to be.” The only person on set not to respond to these charms was Hopper’s leading lady, Linda Lawson. Long before I thought about writing about this film I discovered that Linda lived about six blocks from me, having run into her at the local post office. I was invited over for a drink one evening and she had this to say about her co-star: “Dennis Hopper had a lot of issues both professionally and personally. I thought he was attractive enough yet there was something in those eyes of his that warned me off on some level. He was fine for the first couple of days and then out of the blue he shows up at my apartment saying to me, ‘We need to relate better if we are going to work together, okay?’ So he come into my apartment and immediately goes into my kitchen and crawls under the table. I mean, it frightened me! He rolled up into a ball and refused to come out, acting like a lunatic. When I finally got him to get up and talk to me it was obvious he was on something. I knew very little about drugs then and now, so I was not prepared at all to deal with somebody who was. The next day I confronted him on the set away from Curtis and told Dennis if this or anything like it ever happened again I would walk off the picture for good. From that point on we were clear with each other but my coldness towards him affected my relationship with Curtis, who began to dislike me and to this day he never attempted get in touch for screenings or anything. As far as the film goes I still receive fan mail about it… If I am remembered for anything it will be for playing the mermaid Mora in NIGHT TIDE.”

Perhaps the most fascinating character in NIGHT TIDE is that of Marjorie Cameron, the mysterious woman in black who speaks to Mora in the Blue Grotto. This is the famous connection between this film and Lewton’s CAT PEOPLE. In Lewton’s film Elizabeth Russell, made-up to resemble a cat-woman, speaks to Simone Simon in a strange language referring to her as “my sister.” Harrington pays homage to this moment by having Cameron do much the same thing, speaking to Linda Lawson in phonetic Greek, a task Cameron achieved by memorizing each word at Curtis’s request.

Since nearly every review regarding NIGHT TIDE considers it a kind of remake of the 1942 CAT PEOPLE, I think it is important to comment here that without the presence of Cameron as the “sea witch” the comparison simply does not hold water because CAT PEOPLE is a legitimate horror film with a supernatural shape-shifter whereas NIGHT TIDE explains the supernatural away in the final reel as a ruse concocted by Gavin Muir’s sea captain as a means to eliminate all of Mora’s suitors. The wonderful thing about NIGHT TIDE is how Harrington creates a void for speculation since even the sea captain has no knowledge of the lady in black whatsoever. Cameron appears at key moments in Mora’s courtship with Johnny. She appears to great effect during Mora’s fever dance on the beach which ends with her collapse. More importantly in a sequence Curtis considered the best in the film: Johnny follows the lady in black across the seedy landscape of Venice until she leads him magically to the captain’s front door (a location which turned out to be silent screen actress Mae Murray’s old villa) and then disappears once again. Cameron even figures in Johnny’s dream of Mora reclining on a rock with her mermaid tail; as Johnny reaches for her she dissolves into Cameron. Elizabeth Russell, the counterpart in Lewton’s version, only appears at the wedding table to utter the famous “My sister” line. There is no need to see her again because the audience has enough visual proof that Simone does indeed belong to a race of cat women. Only in Johnny’s dream while Mora is taking a shower do we get any sense that if Mora was to have sex with him she would then morph slowly from a mermaid into an octopus, strangling him to death. Every supernatural event can be accounted for in Harrington’s film except the lady in black–the elusive Cameron.

Marjorie Cameron was so much more than just a cameo in the lives of those who knew her. A woman of vast intellect and abilities, she moved in both artistic and occult circles in Los Angeles and anywhere else she traveled during her lifetime. She appeared in films for both Curtis Harrington and Kenneth Anger, influencing both men for the rest of their lives. Cameron’s appearance in Anger’s INAGURATION OF THE PLEASURE DOME was a mind-bending experience for Kenneth as he saw in her the Scarlet Woman as described by Aleister Crowley. Cameron was accustomed to this title, having received it originally from her late husband Jack Parsons, who recognized her power early on. With red flaming hair and piercing green eyes she dominated all in her circle, so much so that she eclipsed the great Anais Nin as the dominant figure in Anger’s film. In fact the two occultists would move in together after the film was done. Curtis devoted one of his short films to her, THE WORMWOOD STAR. The title alone is important as it represents a magical child created by ritual. Cameron and her late husband devoted much of their time to performing this dangerous ritual known as “The Babylon Working.” Cameron is such an important figure in her own right that rather than try inadequately to explain it all here I suggest you read the new book regarding her life, also entitled THE WORMWOOD STAR. Curtis’s film documents her paintings for posterity since she burned them all after the film was completed as per the instructions laid down in the aforementioned experiment.

NIGHT TIDE is paced like a fever dream populated with eccentric well-meaning characters who attempt to save the young man from himself as the object of his affections moves closer and closer to her pre-determined end. This was a staple in Lewton’s universe and it applies here as well. It would take Curtis a few more years to develop his style more along the lines of his idol Von Sternberg, which would culminate with the making of GAMES and later WHATS THE MATTER WITH HELEN. For the time being Harrington’s obsession with film history would take the place of his later obsession with decor and the grandstanding of diva-like personalities such as Shelley Winters and Simone Signoret.

The other personality to emerge from this film was actress Luana Anders, whose grace and beauty made her a natural for the kind of films about to be made as the 60′s came into their own. Dennis Hopper was taken with her straight away, using her much later in his own film EASY RIDER. Curtis would also work with her again in his THE KILLING KIND.

Luana recalled her time with Harrington with great joy, as she sensed his abilities as a director from this first encounter. “Curtis knew his business and how to handle his actors. His knowledge was encyclopedic when it came to film history and more to the point he knew exactly what he wanted in each shot. We had a great cameraman in Vilis Lapenieks; he did all of the exteriors on our film with Floyd Crosby, then working with us on the interiors. I would work with Floyd again with Roger Corman soon after this.” Luana would also attract the attention of Jack Nicholson who would employ her whenever he could.

Curtis would most likely not have shared Luana’s view of his directing skill with actors at the time of shooting NIGHT TIDE as he admitted to me on several occasions he shared the same plight as Roger Corman did in his early days of directing films, which is a total lack of understanding of the acting process. Both Dennis Hopper, and then later on Shelley Winters, were versed in the Actors Studio and the process known as ‘sense memory.’ Both Corman and Harrington would go to acting workshops like Jeff Corey’s to learn more about how to handle their actors. The result of course gave them both insight, although Roger would later rely on hiring actors that already knew their business (like Vincent Price), allowing him to do what he did best which was to produce. Curtis Harrington was never a producer but learned to guide his actors, pro and novice, into doing their best work for him in his later films. Dennis Hopper was only 24 years old when they did NIGHT TIDE and yet he trusted Curtis to present him for perhaps the only time in his career as the embodiment of youthful energy and optimism.

One of the great assets in NIGHT TIDE is the score by David Raksin, who came onboard as a personal favor to Curtis. The result is a musical evocation of the Venice beach culture with its coffee house poetry and jazz underscoring, and when necessary the danger that shadows Johnny as he pursues his siren into the depths of the ocean to the seedy underbelly of Venice itself. Raksin was known for his score of the classic Film Noir LAURA, a film which is referenced here by Curtis’s casting of Gavin Muir as the old sea captain who may have discovered a lost race of Sea people” of which Mora is a direct descendant. As played by Muir, he resembles Clifton Webb’s Waldo Lydecker from LAURA more than the father figure he is meant to portray. Curtis had wanted to cast Peter Lorre in the role, which would have brought him closer to working with another of Von Sternberg’s stars since Lorre had made CRIME AND PUNISHMENT with the great director in 1935. Lorre would have brought a real manic obsessive character to the table, rather than the decadent, effete personality as played by Muir.

Curtis once told me a story of running into his idol Von Sternberg at a screening of THE DEVIL IS A WOMAN at the County Museum where the great director asked him why he kept coming back time and again to see a film he already knew by heart. Curtis replied, “Well, Joe, why do you listen to great music over and over again? The answer is because it gives me pleasure,” and this is how I feel about the films of Curtis Harrington. I have seen NIGHT TIDE many times and each and every screening allows me back into the sinister chiaroscuro landscape of his films. He always tried to broaden the poetic meaning of all his films no matter how absurd the premise might be. Curtis always lived a supernatural aesthetic. One visit to his home spoke volumes about his personality and his art. The Trompe L’oeil moulding that laced the ceilings of every room in his Art Nouveau retreat, props from his films, an evening slipper worn by Dietrich, and framed prints of Vampire bats (of which I now have two–a gift from George Edwards, Harrington’s oft-time producer). You literally stepped into the house of Poe, or better still, the house of Harrington.

NIGHT TIDE is probably one of the most evocative representations of Edgar Allan Poe in a film to date even though it is not formally based on any one literary work of the divine Edgar. The atmosphere and tone are Poe’s, as is the fatal woman our sailor lad Dennis Hopper pines to be with. Whether she is called Morella, Lenore, Annabel Lee or even Mora she is still the radiant maiden whom the angels called by name.

Curtis Harrington might have been marginalized in his lifetime, however his legacy as an avant-garde, esoteric, occultist film director can no longer be ignored. To the end he dedicated his life to self-expression of the highest order and I for one will remain in his debt for the remarkable body of work he leaves behind forever more in this kingdom by the sea.

HELLO, I’M BUTCH: A TRIBUTE TO THEATER OF BLOOD

The most defining moment for me in what may well be Vincent Price’s signature film, THEATRE OF BLOOD, comes towards the end of the second act when Coral Browne arrives to get her hair done with a policeman in tow, since half of her Critics Circle has been gruesomely dispatched by a very irate actor named Edward Lionheart, played to perfection by Vincent Price. Coral as ‘Miss Moon” seems to have missed her appointment at first, or so says the rather gay-looking young man (Diana Rigg in drag) complete with a shaggy moustache on duty at the reception booth.

However ‘Butch” is available and it appears to be her lucky day because “Butch is very chic, does Princess Margaret’s hair, and chicks like that.” Miss Moon is persuaded, and at that moment, ascending a spiral staircase is Butch, a rather tall man with a fuzzy Afro hairdo wearing a white blouse emblazoned with very Tom of Finland male nudes. “Hello, I’m Butch. Hey, dishy-dishy hair, can’t wait to get my hands on it.”

The film is overwrought with black humor and gay humor like this.

During her appointment, Miss Moon has her hands tied as Butch remarks, “This is something new from ‘Gay Paree,’” for what will become her final hairdo. “Oh, I wish you would let me do something camp with the color, Darling, I mean, like flame with ash highlights.” Price then proceeds to fry her to oblivion while quoting the Bard’s ‘Henry IV, Part One.’

The real genius of Antony Greville-Bell’s screenplay is how seamlessly he weaves Shakespeare’s most violent moments with clever bits of homage to Vincent Price’s long career onstage and in films. For example, the first time we see Price he is made up to look like a policeman. Vincent’s very first appearance on a stage was that of a policeman in the play CHICAGO. “I won that role by being the only one around at the time in London that really knew how to chew gum.” His reputation as a gourmet cook is exploited in the sequence where he exacts his revenge on another one of the nine critics; this time it’s Robert Morley playing a flamboyantly gay reviewer, in pink suits with two poodles, both wearing bows in their hair. “This is your dish, Meredith Merridew.” Price is faux-French with a goatee. The two actors would later appear on Vincent’s televised cooking show COOKING PRICEWISE, which aired in the UK not long after this film wrapped. Morley is disgustingly done-in by revising the text of Titus Andronicus so that Queen Tamora is now a decidedly different Queen, devouring large portions of poodle pie until he chokes to death on his “babies.”

Antony Greville-Bell only wrote three screenplays (the other two being THE STRANGE VENGENCE OF ROSALIE and PERFECT FRIDAY), both quite different in design from this film, which is without question his best work. At first glance the concept for THEATRE OF BLOOD does indeed look like a cash-in on Price’s former success with THE ABOMINABLE DR. PHIBES and its sequel, DR PHIBES RISES AGAIN, since both films deal with revenge –this time around in exceedingly spectacular ways. But these films, as directed by Robert Fuest, bear little resemblance to what would follow, since Fuest’s visual sense always came first, creating an Art Deco fantasy landscape where little if any blood is actually shed on camera. He perfected this on the hit TV series THE AVENGERS, which never duplicated any real violence or bloodshed during its long and successful run. If Robert Fuest had directed THEATRE OF BLOOD the result would have been visually stunning but it would not have had the Jacobean cruelty Douglas Hickox gave the proceedings.

One of the delights to be found in THEATRE OF BLOOD is of course the elaborate ways in which Lionheart uses Shakespeare’s text to exact his revenge. The only one of the celebrated actors not to be put to death was Jack Hawkins, who is instead made to follow Othello’s lead and strangle his wife played by the much loved Diana Dors,( one of the UK’s reigning sex symbols of the 50′s, she remained a favorite by turning to character acting with great success). There is a six degrees of separation at work here because Hawkins, who was battling throat cancer at the time of filming, had his larynx removed so it was necessary for an actor to dub his voice for film work. The actor chosen for this job was Charles Gray (widely known for his role in the ROCKY HORROR SHOW as the narrator as well as the Bond villain in DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER).

Charles was also a close friend of Coral Browne, having appeared with her on stage and screen. Charles Gray was most certainly introduced to Price during the making of this film. The three of them would work together less than two years later when Gray joined Vincent and Coral for what would be their first appearance on stage together in the West End performing Jean Anouilh’s ARDELE at the Queens Theatre. This Production, while lavishly produced with these three respected actors, should have been more successful than it was, especially with the lukewarm reception Price received from the critics. It would take the life of Oscar Wilde to finally place Price back into the,spotlight of the theater world he abandoned so many years ago for Hollywood.

I had an opportunity to question Vincent Price about this film during our time together in San Francisco where he was being honored at the Palace of Fine Arts. He was staying at the Clift Hotel for the duration and invited me up to his suite for one of our many taped interviews regarding his career. A portion of this interview is available on my DVD, VINCENT PRICE: THE SINISTER IMAGE. For many years Price always cited TOMB OF LIGEIA as his personal favorite, however time can alter many a perception so that afternoon he amended that by making THEATRE OF BLOOD his most enjoyable experience in filmmaking.

“I always knew something wonderful would happen to me before I turned 65,” he said. When Price made the film in 1973 he was at a crossroads both professionally and personally as well. His contract with American International had long since soured to the point of no return; MADHOUSE had been a disaster, which was a shame since the concept of a horror version of both ALL ABOUT EVE and SUNSET BLVD. was enticing to be sure. His off-screen hostility to actor Robert Quarry could have been an asset if the powers at AIP had not rushed the production with shoddy production values, not to mention cutting the film during its editing stage until it made little sense.

“I didn’t want to do THEATRE OF BLOOD at first since I had just been offered a summer season at the Rep Theatre in Missouri. They offered me a chance to play Becket in Elliot’s MURDER IN THE CATHEDRAL as well as O’Neill’s LONG DAY’S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT. This always seemed to happen to me when I had a chance to return to the real craft of acting, something to feed the soul.” Price had to decline the engagement in order to make the film. His apprehension melted away when he finally sat down and read the screenplay. “The script was absolutely brilliant with wonderful dialogue. I simply could not wait to play this character of Edward Lionheart. I mean, what actor would not jump at the chance to give back some of his own to the critics?”

The cast of THEATRE OF BLOOD was also a factor in Price’s enthusiasm for the project. Hickox had assembled the crème-de-la-creme of the British stage for extended cameos as the nine critics Edward Lionheart dispatches with the aid of the Bard’s text. Aside from Coral Browne and Robert Morley there were also Jack Hawkins, Arthur Lowe, Dennis Price, Robert Coote, Harry Andrews, and Diana Dors. Vincent’s co-star was Diana Rigg, whom Price adored from the very first meeting. “Diana is one of the best actresses in England as well as being a great deal of fun to know…She worked in drag during portions of our film, during the scene where I murder the lady that was to become my wife, Coral. Diana came on set wearing these tight trousers with a large sock stuffed in her pants. I roared with laughter, as did the crew. They loved her, as do I.”

The father/daughter chemistry between Price and Diana Rigg helps establish his character as more sinned against than sinning even in his most gruesome moments of mayhem. Her death scene towards the end, taken from Lear, is quite moving as she lies in Price’s arms reciting the lines she had played ten years before under the direction of Peter Brook with the great Paul Scofield as Lear.

Price would go on from this project with the support of his new wife to finally return to the stage where he would triumph with his magnificent one-man-show DIVERSIONS AND DELIGHTS, playing Oscar Wilde, the role his late friend Laird Cregar also played back in the forties.

Both men were under contract to 20th Century Fox at the time. Vincent did the eulogy at Cregar’s funeral and then replaced his friend in DRAGONWYCK playing the Gothic character he would later perfect in HOUSE OF USHER. Price had enjoyed a resurgence in his career after the success of these eight Corman Poe films, which firmly established him in the film world as the new master of the macabre.

It would however be the unexpected critical success of THEATER OF BLOOD some ten years later to restore his confidence as an icon Vincent remained over the moon during the duration of the filming of THEATRE OF BLOOD, for here he was, at last surrounded by his peers, all respected actors in the theater, being directed by a young and talented man, with brilliant dialogue allowing him the opportunity to speak some of Shakespeare’s most profound lines while basically being Vincent Price as well. His soliloquy from Hamlet, spoken in front of all these wonderful actors while billowing curtains fly around him as he moves outside along the railing of the high-rise offices of the Critics Circle, is a tour-de-force beautifully played by one of America’s most underrated actors. In this moment, both the personal and profession lives of Vincent Price became one, allowing his audience who had remained faithful for five decades to finally see him reach beyond the cardboard castles of Roger Corman’s Poe-scapes into a Brave New World of both Gods and monsters.

THE EAGLE HAS LANDED: A look back at NIGHT OF THE EAGLE a.k.a. BURN, WITCH, BURN

“I DO NOT BELIEVE.”

Written emphatically on a blackboard in the presence of his students, Professor Norman Taylor (Peter Wyngarde) dispels belief in witchcraft and all the trappings of the supernatural. However, Taylor’s wife, Tansy (Janet Blair), has been liberated from so much scientific logic by a mind-expanding experience in Jamaica, where a witch doctor literally brought the dead back to life, and it is Taylor’s discovery of her convictions that serves as the catalyst for BURN, WITCH, BURN.

Produced in England in 1961 under the title NIGHT OF THE EAGLE (at a time when studios on both sides of the Atlantic were making exceptional genre films) American International Pictures chose to distribute the film as BURN, WITCH, BURN, adding a deliciously demonic rendering of an incantation voiced by Paul Frees to protect the viewing audience from deadly forces from the pits of Hell. This created yet another similarity to the already renowned Jacques Tourneur film NIGHT OF THE DEMON (1958, known as CURSE OF THE DEMON stateside).

Both films are now staples in most retrospectives of the Horror genre anywhere around the world. They have secured the reputation as two of the finest examples of black magic ever put on the screen. Terence Fisher’s masterful THE DEVIL RIDES OUT (1967) joins the trio, even having its title changed as well for American consumption to THE DEVIL’S BRIDE to cash in on the world wide success of ROSEMARY’S BABY.

NIGHT OF THE EAGLE was directed by Sidney Hayers, whose only other excursion into fantastic cinema was 1960′s CIRCUS OF HORRORS (featuring the icy villainy of Anton Diffring) regarded now as a truly “Sadian” motion picture whose reputation was linked to Arthur Crabtree’s lurid potboiler HORRORS OF THE BLACK MUSEUM as well as the infamous PEEPING TOM by Michael Powell. I must interject however that Powell’s film is now regarded as a masterpiece while the other two films pale in comparison; they still however form a rather unholy trinity of genre films of the period that created X certificates for all three by the British censor. This of course only made these films more desirable in the future as video nasties, constantly on-demand by collectors and fans alike.

After the success of NIGHT OF THE EAGLE Hayers went on to helm many memorable episodes of ‘THE AVENGERS in Britain, continuing to work on both sides of the Atlantic until his death. NIGHT still remains his most accomplished work. The fortuitous collaboration of writers Richard Matheson, Charles Beaumont with George Baxt, turned Fritz Leiber Jr.’s thrice-filmed novel CONJURE WIFE into a taut, gripping screenplay, mysteriously overshadowed by the literary ghost of M.R James, whose own excursions into the supernatural – OH, WHISTLE, AND I’LL COME TO YOU, MY LAD – is referenced in Hayers’ film, not to mention Val Lewton’s I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE. Peter Wyngarde had just completed a career-defining role in director Jack Clayton’s version of the James novella (his performance was spellbinding as the lustful ghost of Peter Quint without relying on a word of dialogue), when he was cast as Norman Taylor in Hayer’s film.

Leiber’s work first arrived on the screen as part of the Inner Sanctum series Universal Pictures had created to showcase Lon Chaney Jr. after the success of THE WOLF MAN. WEIRD WOMAN featured Evelyn Ankers in a part similar to Margaret Johnston in Hayers’ version. This adaptation is certainly not faithful to its source, making NIGHT OF THE EAGLE the definitive version of Leiber’s novel. In 1980 a third, somewhat-pirated version, WITCHES BREW, was made without giving Leiber a screen credit. This time it was played for laughs, attempting a “horror comedy” with Richard Benjamin and Teri Garr, and featuring screen legend Lana Turner in one of her final roles. I am sure the producers were hoping for a “Baby Jane” moment here as we watched yet another Hollywood leading lady finally playing a witch.

The witch in Sidney Hayers’ version fares much better in the capable hands of Janet Blair, perhaps the least likely candidate for such a role, and she surprised her director and co-star by rising to the challenge, playing Tansy with great style and conviction. I interviewed Janet Blair for the premiere laser disc presentation of the film. The still-vivacious actress remembered the production with enthusiasm. She recalled that her first day of shooting was Tansy’s drowning scene off the Northern coast of England: “It was bitterly cold and I had to go over this rocky cliff and continue to walk into the ocean for what seemed to be an eternity. By the time I was retrieved out of the water, I was frozen and soaked to the bone. One of the grips ran up to me and made me drink from a thermos which was filled with Brandy. Being a non-drinker, I immediately spat it out; so much for the glamorous work of a movie star.

“Originally I was told Peter Finch was to be my leading man, but he became ill so Peter Wyngarde took over at a moment’s notice. I quickly became utterly bewitched by my co-star, who was so dramatic and sexy that I nearly forgot I was acting. I do believe this was one of Peter’s largest film roles at the time, and I remember after a day’s shooting he drove me to my hotel and continued that atmosphere of a happily married couple. I adored working with him.”

As Sidney Hayers fondly recalled to me, the shooting was very quick and fun to do. After some initial misgivings about the casting of Wyngarde and Blair, he was quite pleased to find these two professionals had great chemistry together. He remarked that even Ms. Blair said at the time that she gave this role her all and considered it to be some of her finest work in film. Hayers also remembers that the actress playing the true villainess of the piece, Margaret Johnston, had by then become a theatrical agent representing one of the actors in the film. Hayers persuaded her to play the unbalanced Flora, ruthlessly driven to practice the black arts against Tansy’s white magic, thereby creating one of the screen’s most memorable witches alongside such greats as Kay Walsh, whose turn in Hammer’s THE WITCHES set such a standard.

THE INNOCENTS

The giant stone eagle which terrorizes Wyngarde was in actuality an eight foot styrofoam figure that could do no harm should it fall from great heights. The script called for a full camera shot as this prop is transformed from its solid state into a living, winged gargoyle. As Hayers put it, “It is Peter Wyngarde’s acting and intense focus that really allows the audience to suspend disbelief, that and of course having a cameraman like Reggie Wyer, a real craftsman with monochrome photography, as well as an editor like Ralph Sheldon.”

Peter Wyngarde made a lasting impression in THE INNOCENTS, leaving audiences wanting to see more of this charismatic performer. As Hayers recalled, “Peter was quite a performer both on and off camera. The crew was very amused by one thing in particular: you see Peter was very aware of his physique at the time, since he took great care to be in perfect shape, and remember, in those days it was not so common to see actors going to the gym to work out. We even had him shirtless at one point in the film. However we had to keep tightening his long shots as he wore the tightest trousers in England! I mean, he left little to the imagination as to his endowments if you follow me. I don’t think this ever came up again as long as I have been directing!”

NIGHT OF THE EAGLE was one of those films I saw for the first time at the drive-in, and I carry that memory with great pleasure since it is difficult to explain to today’s film buffs the weekend ritual of going to see a film in your car, at night, out of doors, under the stars. The nocturnal trappings of the Horror genre lends itself to such circumstances perfectly.

Of course it helps to be at a certain age as well and the drive-in was a haven for teenagers to escape from the rigors of school and parents. Almost all of the films produced by American International were shown at the drive-in, and BURN, WITCH, BURN was no exception. I can still see myself sitting in the car, windows rolled up, speakers turned to full volume, as Paul Frees begins to speak to us from a pitch-black screen. By the time he is through and we are all under the protection of his spell, the titles begin to appear: BURN, WITCH, BURN…

I DO BELIEVE.

THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT MARY: A CARNIVAL ENCOUNTER

While the drive-in was a rite of passage for the baby boomers of my generation I must give television its due as an influence as well. Outside of the Shock Theater packages of Universal Horrors televised in the early 60′s the one film that really made a lasting impression on me was CARNIVAL OF SOULS. This low-budget mood piece is best served if you are by yourself late at night watching it unfold between station breaks advertising used cars.

While not a great film by any means, the lack of star power (in fact the whole film was done by unknowns in front of and behind the camera) allows the viewer to drift into a dream state within the film itself. vThe scenes that really make you jump all involve the film’s director, the late Herk Harvey. His phantom-like performance while in white face–a walking dead man the likes of which we would see again in the films of George Romero–is a tour-de-force.

Now, this is a film which those of us that saw it at an impressionable age best remember as being much better than it really was, and much more frightening when convincing one of your friends to sit through it as well. I held a place of honor for CARNIVAL OF SOULS in my memory for decades until 1997.

In 1997 I was sitting in my kitchen on the corner of Beverly and Oakhurst when I noticed a tall, blond woman walking across the courtyard; even from a distance I seemed to recognize her as someone familiar to me from my distant past. She continued down the path until she reached the manager’s apartment and then went in. The manager was a woman who had worked in Hollywood for years and was now doing script-doctoring to make extra money since she had been long retired from any professional endeavors. The woman in question turned out to be none other than Candace Hilligoss, the lead in CARNIVAL OF SOULS.

Candace had the kind of face, with sharp features and large expressive eyes, that made you notice her, especially when she appeared to be frightened. Candace had in fact written a script entitled DAKOTA ASHES, a Western of sorts in the manner of LONESOME DOVE. Helen, the manager, told me later that she thought Candace had written a very commercial script and should find an agent to help her place it for a potential mini-series.

The entire afternoon was so surreal …I mean, to see someone you had watched as a child on the late, late show all of the sudden materialize at your front door really needed to be fully taken in. Candace came over to my apartment after she finished her business with Helen as she wanted to meet me, having heard I had been an agent in the business as well.

A plan had begun to take shape in my mind as she sat in my living room sipping a cup of tea: here was a bona-fide cult figure from a highly regarded horror film who had never done the convention circuit that was so much a part of my life that year, having just come back from Kevin Clement’s Chiller Theater in New Jersey. I had taken both Martine Beswicke and Barbara Steele to that venue as well as Mary Woronov.

Candace was at that time doing temp work as a secretary and was not the least bit adverse to making some money signing autographs. I explained the situation to her as best I could, knowing that at least for the first few shows she would more than likely do very well since none of the fans had ever seen her outside of midnight screenings of the now-legendary film that forever sealed her image with that of Mary Henry, a young woman trapped between the veil of life and death. Now, I need to explain that in spite of the passing of time from 1962 until what was then 1997, Candace Hilligoss looked exactly like she did in the film. This coupled with the fact that she seemed to be Mary Henry in almost every other way as well. I remember joking with her about it at the time and she quickly explained that she had studied the method with Lee Strasberg in New York as well as having done a great deal of stage work back east before marrying Nicolas Coster another New York actor who was quite successful in his own right working non stop in TV soaps as well as commercials. They divorced in 1981, and not on good terms. In fact it was her dream to sell this script of hers to television where it would then become the next LONESOME DOVE. Then it would be her great pleasure to rub all this in his face when the series went on to glory at the Emmys.

After our initial meeting Candace and I began working together in earnest to launch her first appearance as a cult star at the RAY COURTS AUTOGRAPH SHOW at the Beverly Garland hotel. The first order of business was to secure photographs from CARNIVAL for her to sign. The real problem with a film like this is that the advertising was almost non-existent. The posters were amateurish, with only half a set of lobby cards (with only two featuring her). The video poster was the best artwork so we looked around for as many of those as we could, to sell at a higher price. It would be the 8×10 stills that would provide the foundation for a table at the show. There were no National Screen Service stills from the film to be found, so in a moment of inspiration Candace decided to call her late director’s wife Pauline, who was nowvery old and nearly blind. The next day Candace came by my apartment with the news that she had indeed spoken with Pauline Harvey and she was sending us all she could find on the film to help with Candace’s plight. Candace was somewhat concerned about whether or not a nearly blind woman could locate much less choose what would be useable for fans to purchase at our table. After a few days the package arrived and she was horrified to discover that all Pauline Harvey could come up with were 35mm frames from the film itself. As soon as I saw what they were I calmed her fears by explaining that these were pure gold as they were all the great moments from the film, many of which were fantastic shots of Herk Harvey himself as the leader of the undead in that amazing pavilion at Saltair.

Director Herk Harvey in the background.

It took us nearly two and a half months to get the material ready for the show. One of the more time-consuming aspects of this were the tee-shirts that Candace insisted upon producing at her own expense, which were costly and in my opinion not the wisest of investments for a show like Ray Courts. Barbara Steele and I made the same mistake with BLACK SUNDAY tee-shirts in New Jersey and we were still trying to sell them months later at the Dark Shadows Con in LA. However, Candace would hear none of my arguments, so CARNIVAL OF SOULS tee-shirts we would sell, with Candace’s ironic signature across them saying, “Hauntingly yours.”

Director Herk Harvey

During this time I tried to discover just what did happen with her career that she only had two feature films to her credit CARNIVAL and the Del Tenny film CURSE OF THE LIVING CORPSE, whose only real claim to fame was introducing Roy Scheider to films (which of course led to a very successful career, including an Oscar). Candace could really barely remember making the film, but did tell me that Roy Scheider was okay on that particular film and that they socialized a bit after it was done; but in her own words, “Roy was never really interested in helping other actors and really never tried to help me secure parts after he became a star.”

CARNIVAL OF SOULS is still highly regarded by genre fans and certain critics who observe that while the film itself is cheaply made with amateur performers, except for perhaps Candace and Sidney Berger (who by the way was selling his autograph at conventions as well), who play well in their scenes together, the real power of this movie resides in what we imagine long after we have watched what has become a collective nightmare for all that have fallen under its spell.

Herk Harvey with Candace Hilligoss

Whatever John Clifford or Herk Harvey had in mind when they began this project, while far removed from their educational films as Centron Studio employees, the film somewhat looks like an educational film about the dangers of reckless driving as well as the pitfalls of straying too far from God’s grace, as Mary Henry surely does to find herself in the hellish limbo of non-existence. Perhaps CARNIVAL OF SOULS is best served as an influence on more prolific directors like David Lynch, and especially Francis Ford Coppola, whose APOCALYPSE NOW has Martin Sheen emerge from the water in much the way Herk Harvey does in CARNIVAL’s best moments of ghostly splendor.

Meanwhile the day of the Ray Courts show is finally at hand – three days of sitting at a table with Candace Hilligoss, meeting her public and hopefully selling much of what we spent the last two and a half months preparing for this celebration of all things ghostly. At this point all of our conversations had been about the show or her plans for her script but now another bitter demon was coming out of the closet: the dreaded remake of CARNIVAL OF SOULS produced by Wes Craven and without any input from Candace, which was all the more galling for her because of a long-cherished treatment of her own design that she showed me. In it she was back from the dead with a ghostly assistant to bridge the portal from one dimension to another. I was rather impressed with her concept of filming all the sequences in the land of the dead in black and white while the living remained in color. Candace naturally assumed that any producer intent on remaking the film would have to have its original star in tow or else the legion of its fans would fail to pay to see a remake without her.

Well, we all know what happened with the remake: it went straight into Video Hell, but unfortunately it took Candace’s dreams of a comeback with it. The irony of Candace Hilligoss is that her character in the film was a cynical, bitter woman whose lack of faith literally placed her soul in a netherworld of non-existence. Herk Harvey never made any more films like CARNIVAL, nor would Candace ever act in anything like a lead role in her career, such as it was. She always told me her ex-husband did not want her to work and as a result she let the momentum go in favor of raising two children, both of whom were now grown up and successful in their own lives.

During the three days of the convention many people came to our table with glowing things to say about Candace, how well she looked and so forth. It seemed at least for that weekend that Candace Hilligoss was at last a star. On Sunday a middle-aged woman approached the table and asked for one of the stills of Candace looking quite lovely, I think a headshot of her made right after the film. The woman began to tell Candace about the first time she saw CARNIVAL OF SOULS and how the film haunted her for years afterward, and then she fished around in her purse for a photo of her daughter to show Candace. The woman proudly displayed the picture to Candace, exclaiming, “You know, I named her after you!” For a moment Candace was speechless and seemed quite touched. Candace smiled and then said, “Oh so this young lady is named Candace, too.” The woman looked at her for a moment and then replied “Oh, no dear, I called her Mary Henry.” Candace Hilligoss changed her expression ever so slightly after hearing this, looking even more like Mary Henry than she had all afternoon.

“The Oval Portraits of Vincent Price”

Vincent Price in MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH

I have always maintained that one of the more important reasons we still revere Roger Corman’s screen adaptations of Edgar Allan Poe in the 21st Century must surely rest squarely on the shoulders of Vincent Price, who created these unique screen portraits of Poe’s most famous characters in all but one of the films directed by Corman between 1960 and 1964.

The worldwide success of THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN in 1957 and then HORROR OF DRACULA in 1958 firmly established the market for literary adaptations of classic tales of terror. This fact was not lost on Samuel Z. Arkoff and his partner James H. Nicholson who were at the time the undisputed kings of the drive-in, zeroing exclusively on the lucrative teenage audience that flocked to see their monsterific double features during the late fifties and sixties. In calling their company American International Pictures or as it was better known among the fans AIP, Arkoff and Nicholson seemed more than the right choice to take the American literary genius Edgar Allan Poe and recycle his works for the consumption of the more than receptive teenager of the 60′s – the baby boomers. The circumstances of how and why this came about are now part of the urban legend that is AIP.

It is my belief that casting Vincent Price in the HOUSE OF USHER and then following that with PIT AND THE PENDULUM cemented Price as the new King of the Horror film, replacing Boris Karloff as the new master of the macabre. The mantle could have come much sooner, in fact right after another “House” film – the ultra 3-D sensation HOUSE OF WAX and yet it did not. so we now arrive at the year1958 when Price also took a gamble on a then-unknown producer named William Castle, making what else…another “House” picture this time the tongue-in-cheek HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL. This film made Vincent Price a very rich man and still the crown of horror king was just out of reach, however his audience was beginning to identify him as a villain to relish with his unique brand of sinister performances enhanced by years of stage work, giving him style and polish. By the time Roger Corman came along with an offer to take a chance on a dream, Vincent Price was posed for greatness. His intuition to play Usher without facial hair, and with his face and hair bleached white, became a tour de force not seen in the cinema since the days of Conrad Veidt…an idol of Price’s…

Corman told me on several occasions that Vincent Price was his first and only choice to play Roderick Usher. The role established Price as the on screen voice of Edgar Allan Poe for a generation. I was one of those lucky 11-yr-olds who stood in line for that first matinee to see THE HOUSE OF USHER at the Pix theater in Hollywood during the summer of 1960. Not since 1939 had so many great films come out in the same year, not the least of which was Hitchcock’s PSYCHO. The impact of seeing Price for the first time as Roderick Usher, speaking in hushed tones, inspired one critic to refer to him as “decayed plush.”

David Interviews Vincent at Home, 1988

Many years later Vincent allowed me to tape one of his only on-camera interviews regarding his reputation as a “horror star.” The result is the now out of print DVD, “VINCENT PRICE THE SINISTER IMAGE”. During the taping I told him of my plans to do a book someday regarding his work with Roger Corman. As those who knew him well will tell you, his generosity was boundless when it came to the press, and especially to those he came to trust regarding his legacy. Vincent and I would sit down on six separate occasions to tape interviews regarding his career in films.

It is the result of one of those tapings that I am about to share with you now. These are what I like to call, out of deference to the Divine Edgar, the “Oval portraits” of Vincent Price’s Poe period. I asked him to comment on all seven films, which he did with pleasure. He generously commemorated the moment by autographing a still of himself from each film when we were through taping. I brought dozens of photos with me at the time to jog his memory. He enjoyed doing all this with that wicked sense of humor very much intact. So it is in honor of the one-hundredth anniversary of Vincent Price’s birth that we present for the first time his personal observations on his work with Roger Corman.

HOUSE OF USHER

“This film was a gamble for all of us and yet I was prepared to take a gamble because I believed in the works of Edgar Allan Poe. I felt audiences would enjoy seeing them on the screen. When I first read {Richard} Matheson’s screenplay I was a bit taken aback by the altering of relationships from Poe to what became the film HOUSE OF USHER. However, I have been down this road before with another film based on another American master, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES {1940} which I did over at Universal with a wonderful actress, Margaret Lindsey. In the novel they were brother and sister, in the film they were lovers… In both cases the spirit of Hawthorne was retained and I still feel Matheson did much the same thing when he decided to make Madeline Usher cataleptic, as well as in love with the young man who came to take her away. In Poe’s tale the man is his good friend who arrives at the House of Usher in time to witness its collapse, and has no romantic interest in the sister at all.

“The young actress who plays my sister, Myrna Fahey, was very good I thought…it was also very ironic that both she and Mark Damon looked like brother and sister. Their coloring and hair seemed to match in a truly uncanny way. Mark was prettier, of course, and I told him so every chance I got…. {laughs}

HOUSE OF USHER

“I prepared for the character of Roderick Usher by going on a crash diet before we actually started filming, the result was astonishing as I looked in the mirror I saw an albino version of Nicolas Van Ryn. I watch DRAGONWYCK on television no too long ago… I was struck by the similarities in the two characters. That was really no surprise, since Anya Seaton had placed references there in her novel in the first place. Our screenwriter Matheson is a great film buff and must have seen the film–it was obviously a reference he had in mind when he began to put the screenplay together. Roger had pitched the project to AIP as the house being the monster and it really is, especially when you see the matte work for the house itself and that coupled with Les Baxter’s music just invests the house as a living breathing entity of pure evil…looking back, Usher might be the best of all the Poe films we did, although I still think very highly of TOMB OF LIGIEA with those marvelous ruins to work with–as an actor, simply wonderful.”

PIT AND THE PENDULUM

David Del Vallel intro: As with USHER this film made a lasting impression on me as child of 11, I saw this one at the Fox theater in Sacramento. The theater itself was one of the last remaining movie palaces of the day, large and ornate in design. They placed a giant pendulum over the marqee that rolated back and forth much like it did in the film. The dual role played by Price in this film forever cemented his image as the on-screen voice of Poe for my entire generation. This one broke boxoffice records everywhere it played in 1961.

“PIT AND THE PENDULUM was a much bigger production and far more attention was paid to it in the press. I remember countless set visits from every trade paper in Hollywood and a few New York ones as well. The set and costumes were more elaborate than USHER and for once we had a pretty good cast. The young woman playing my wife was especially effective as she had this amazing face and presence that was tailor-made for this type of film. We got on almost at once. Barbara Steele was her name, although we didn’t get to know each other well; we certainly had fun making this one film together. I remember that she was rather shy and dear. She arrived on her first day barefoot…the opposite of what one would expect an Ingénue to be. She was without pretense and head over heels in love with Italy at the time.

PIT AND THE PENDULUM

“Roger had this one mapped out to perfection as far as what he was going to do with his camera and we rehearsed with the little time we had, knowing full well what was basically expected of us on the floor. Marge Corso found a beautiful dress for my wife while I wore the most uncomfortable collar since the one I had to wear over at Warner Bros years before when I was playing Sir Walter Raleigh with Bette Davis. I loved the cowl that I had to don when I was playing the evil father…that outfit is how I am remembered whenever the Poe films are brought up. I took a lot of flack for that performance with some members of the press at the time of the film’s release and even later on. It was of course my choice to go out like that, I imagine it was to be expected. Roger and I had discussed this at length and since my performance in USHER had been so mannered and fragile, I really needed to try something just the opposite in the next one. The screenplay was filled with all these grand gestures and florid dialogue…it seemed everyone was expecting this kind of performance from me…I simply let go whenever I could, hoping I was in the moment as it were.

“It was not lost on me that our writer, Richard Matheson, had done his homework, at least regarding my career. I now believe he saw LAURA in the fact that you believe my wife is dead only to have her return, and not from the dead mind you… The paintings and the harpsichord are right out of DRAGONWYCK, as is my character’s name – Nicolas. He {Matheson} did tell me during filming that he enjoyed HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL, although there was none of that tongue-in-cheek humor present in his scripts during our films together.

“As I told you before regarding casting in the other two films, the real disappointment for me was trying to do period costume pictures with young actors who were simply too modern in their approach to really make these things work. The actress playing my sister {Luana Anders} was far too young in the first place and totally wrong for period films. She is a fine actress—but not in this type of film. I would say the same thing about Jack Nicholson and we all know how his career went! Once, during another interview, I was asked why it was so difficult to make pictures in this genre. I always remember something Boris Karloff used to say about being typed in horror films as he was…he said “I am grateful for the Frankenstein monster since he gave me what success I have achieved in this business, and I make the unbelievable believable. Bogart could not do what I do and neither could Gable.” I am in the same situation, you see. Jack Nicholson cannot do what I do and neither can Robert Redford, so we are all typed as to our different ways of speaking, and especially our looks.”

TALES OF TERROR

David Del Valle intro: This was an experiment on Roger Corman’s part to adapt three of Poe’s tales in one film. The result was uneven, yet it marked the beginning of a fascinating on-screen partnership with Peter Lorre that would last until Lorre’s untimely death in 1964. The wine-tasting scene is a classic moment in the cycle. My dear friend Joyce Jameson shines like a diamond in this one and her reward was to appear with Lorre again in COMEDY OF TERRORS this time with Peter as her lover!

The Morella Segmant - TALES OF TERROR

MORELLA…tale number one

“When Roger and I started to work on TALES I had already suggested earlier that we might try and include “The Tell Tale Heart” since it was the best known of Poe’s short stories and second only to “The Raven” in popularity. Roger felt it was much too violent for the screen and was usually done as a spoken word piece. Peter Lorre used to do it on the radio to great effect. All that remained of that idea, as it turned out, was the beating heart at the film’s beginning, which was a nice touch in the spirit of Poe shall we say {Laughter} I really worked on the character of Locke. Much like Usher he was trapped in his own torment and remained housebound in much the same manner. Marge Corso found me a marvelous robe with a pattern very much in the manner of Aubrey Beardsley. Marge was one of the shining stars of our little ensemble, along with Danny Haller and Floyd Crosby. They really created the atmosphere from which I was allowed to make these characters breathe. With USHER I was bleached white as a man who never saw daylight, so was Locke… I was inspired by the illustrations of Harry Clarke, a wonderful Irish artist who died much too soon and created some of the most stunning stained glass windows I have ever seen. A fan of mine sent me a book after USHER came out and it turned out to be the complete works of Poe all illustrated by Harry Clarke, who worked in both mediums. I was struck by the long shallow faces of the men he drew and I tried to make that the foundation for my character, with a long sullen face blacked out around the eyes just Harry Clarke envisioned them. Danny Haller’s sets were simply magnificent. He told me at the time that the dining room where the wedding party was to have taken place made him think of Miss Havershim in the David Lean film {GREAT EXPECTATIONS} which I also admired so much. We had a laugh at this point since this was our third film and those tarantulas were really worked into overdrive. One of the crew mentioned that we really should show more spiders, since tarantulas do not spin webs {laughs} The script was well done. Although not much of Poe survived, we did remain true to his spirit. The real problems with this particular piece was in the casting of the two ingénues. Now I had actually met Maggie Pierce. I think after USHER came out, as she was dating Mark Damon at the time. Maggie was very attractive but simply was not trained to act. Unfortunately we needed a proper actress in this role as the script was written for the two characters and the daughter needed to be strong. I complained to Roger but it was hopeless. The other woman who played my late wife had less to do, not to mention she was a stunning-looking woman and very funny. The make-up man put long vampire nails on her, turning her into his concept of a ghoul…which made us both burst out laughing. I really liked her as a person but again the role required someone like the girl we had in PIT {Barbara Steele} The segment simply could not hold up without solid performances from all of us, so the life just went out of it.”

THE BLACK CAT {tale number two}

“Peter Lorre was very depressed by the time we made TALES OF TERROR and there was very little I could do to make it otherwise. He had long ago abandoned any kind of respect for acting in films–it just paid the bills. I deliberately played Fortunato as the fop of fops because I knew it would bring out the devil in Peter. And it did. Our wine tasting scene is one of the most popular moments either one of us ever did in films, and this man worked for Fritz Lang, as I did, but years later and under less than stellar circumstances. Roger pretty much let us alone, so the kudos should go to us. Peter perked up when the professional wine taster turned up to train us in the art of wine tasting. We were both drunk by noon and having a ball. It was during this moment that Peter came up with his business of saying “it’s very good” that was an ad lib the way he did it. Personally I like to follow a script but with Peter you have to just go with the flow or lose some simply brilliant improv, as he was a master of the double take and a scene stealer of legendary proportions.”

The Black Cat segment - TALES OF TERROR

THE CASE OF M VALDEMAR

“Valdemar was an intriguing concept and at least here we had one of Poe’s most famous tales to adapt, one I believe was never filmed until ours. The most wonderful aspect of doing this one was working with Basil {Rathbone} again after many, many years. When I was first starting out in Hollywood Basil was one of my idols. His reputation on Broadway was unsurpassed. Basil was a great star on the stage and later on the screen. For this film Basil gave a grand performance in it, really evil as only he could be, I brought up his performance in David Copperfield during what little rehearsal time we had and I think he tried a little of that stony resolve that had become his stock and trade as an actor. I think he steals the scenes he is in. We had a coach on this one, as well a doctor, who was brought on set and taught Basil the art of mesmerizing me …Basil was truly one of a kind.

“One thing I do remember about this film was the make-up as Valdemar begins to rot and literally melt away. Poe wrote some very specific prose describing just how Mr. Valdemar makes his untimely exit and we did our utmost to film it that way. The process involved covering my face with this substance that was very hot so I could only wear it for a short time. I just could not stand it more than a few minutes at a time.

“I am always given photos of myself in that make-up by the fans to autograph. The ones with Debbie Paget recoiling from me are hysterical because we just could not stop laughing at the sight of me with what looked like caramel oozing off my face…it was really too much.”

THE RAVEN

David Del Valle intro: I will always remember being somewhat taken aback the first time I saw this one as audiences had no idea this was a comedy until Vincent kept bumping his head on a telescope. By the time Peter Lorre arrives, as a voice-over on a live Raven, we are very much aware that this was as far from Edgar Allan Poe as AIP dared to get without placing the series at a beach party. Boris Karloff joined the cast, and then signed contracts for more films at AIP for the remainder of his life.

“THE RAVEN was a highpoint in making these films because it brought all of us together in one film. Boris was one of the most joyful men I ever knew and lived each day to the fullest. I began my career in films with him and was there at the end of his as well. We did a Red Skelton TV show the last year of his life and he was by then in a wheelchair. During rehearsal he sensed the pity from the crew at seeing him this way, so once we were about to do the show live he stood up and walked on to the stage to do his song, and believe me there was not a dry eye in the place. That man was universally loved, especially by me. Boris was in better shape when we did THE RAVEN, walking about even with arthritis, yet he was always a total professional, as we all were on that film.

THE RAVEN

“I remember LOOK magazine sent a reporter out to cover the film and he was planning to make fun of us. After two days on that set he was so impressed with our attitude and humor that he remained for the whole shoot and returned to New York a fan. You cannot make this type of film without a sense of respect, not just for the genre and its fans, but for yourself as an actor. Even Peter Lorre was a professional, he just got away with murder because he was so dammed funny and dear.

“Hazel Court is a close personal friend, as is her husband Don {Taylor} She knows how to do this type of film and has a range that is still untapped by directors, I think she was such a good sport on THE RAVEN since Peter loved his practical jokes and she was usually the object of most of them. I remember watching from the sidelines as she and Boris did their final scene together and it just broke me up to watch Boris stare unto her more than ample cleavage as she did her lines unaware…it was bliss…

“The film was of course a comedy, and we went with that, as it did not start out that way. I think the fact Peter and I had this chemistry, and our previous film for Roger was comic as well. It just seemed to the producers why mess with a good thing, and so we were expected to let history repeat itself. I think it did to a certain extent, although it was different to work with both of them at the same time. As Boris and Peter were like oil and water as actors…very different approach to their craft. By the time Peter and I did these Poe films he had simply given up trying to be a proper actor and just did Peter Lorre for the camera, and believe me nobody could do it better. And yet, he was disenchanted with Hollywood and his career by that point. It was a bit like Orson Welles really gaining all that weight and then lampooning what it was that made you famous in the first place. It is a real tragedy to observe, especially in someone you admire, since you are painfully aware of what they could be doing with that talent, yet they choose to throw it away. I have seen this happen over and over in this business.”

THE HAUNTED PALACE

David Del Valle intro: This film will always be remembered historically as the first adaptation of H.P.Lovecraft for the screen, and it remains one of the best. The thrilling score by Ronald Stein set the mood for one of Price’s best performances in the dual role of Charles Dexter Ward as well as his evil ancestor Joseph Curwin. Price achieved this effect with very little in the way of make-up, using mainly his voice and eye movement to denote which character was in control. Lon Chaney Jr adds so much in a small but effective role as a fellow warlock who remains painted green throughout the film.

THE HAUNTED PALACE (Price as Charles Dexter Ward)

“At the time we were making it, I know Roger felt we were starting to exhaust the catalogue of Edgar Allan Poe stories available to us. I had always admired the short stories of H P. Lovecraft and even included a few in the horror anthologies I used to put together over the years. I know Boris {Karloff} admired them enough to do the same thing when he was asked to put together his collections of terror tales, as he always liked to refer to them. You know Boris was originally to have been in the film but he had a conflict so we were lucky to persuade Lon Chaney Jr. to do it. Chaney proved to be a pro in every sense of the word. I had known Lon for years, yet on that film he was not well and kept to himself quite a bit of the time. I did what I could to bring him out of his depression but it proved hopeless in the end. We had Elisha Cook on that film as well and he had known Lon from the old days when they were both contract players, yet he could not bring him around either. Lon did, however like to cook, as I do, and loved to make his own style of chili, so we did have one or two bright moments watching him make his specialty – which by the way smelled to the high heavens, as he liked it to be as pungent I must tell you. I liked him enormously, a talented actor perhaps at odds with that giant shadow his father cast over his life who was indeed a true genius in our profession…very sad he could not overcome this obstacle emotionally.

“I adored Debbie Paget. She was such a beautiful creature. You have no idea what a great beauty she was at that time…somewhat like Gene Tierney, in that the camera was in love with her. She really should have been an enormous star because that girl could act. We were in the DeMille film {THE TEN COMMANMENTS} although I did not get to know her well at the time. But all the men were simply in love with her and why not? What’s not to love?

“We had a ball making THE HAUNTED PALACE and Roger got very cross with us for breaking up so often. We had a couple of scenes in this giant four-poster bed and every time she got under the covers I would goose her causing her to laugh, as she was insanely ticklish. I really could not resist doing this to her — very wicked of me. This became her last film, you know, She actually did her last two films with me and then left the film business forever marrying Mr. [Louis} Chun King, the successful oil mogul. {King and Paget divorced in 1980}

“Roger had some great people, not to mention talented writers, on these films. Danny Haller was amazing with his designs and with what he did for so little money revamping existing sets on a soundstage…remarkable. Marge Corso made wonderful costumes–even my wife Mary admired her craftsmanship. Our cameraman, Floyd Crosby, was a genius. From day one on USHER he always set the tone, especially with the way that camera moved with each individual set up. Any success we with the Poe films was because of the them.

THE HAUNTED PALACE (Price as Joseph Curwen)

“I really enjoy the acting process; you know — leaving yourself in the make-up chair, and then stepping into these fantasy roles. In playing the warlock {Joseph Curwen} I had some real help from our make-up man, Ted Coodley, who created a green skin tone which also hardened my face a bit especially around the eyes and mouth. This allowed me to develop the character as Curwen, who was ruthless and cruel. I certainly got into character while wearing such a ghoulish make-up. Poor Lon Chaney had to stay in that make-up throughout the filming. I remember the young woman {Cathie Merchant} who played my mistress in the film causing me no end of amusement. She had this great buxom figure to begin with, but the wardrobe heightened her already ample cleavage giving her more room than the Rocky Mountains, and every time that I would glance in her direction my eyes would head down that mountain along with my concentration. She proved to be a great sport. I kidded her once as she remarked that she had no dialogue so I told her with what she had going for her there was very little that needed to be said, which made her laugh. I will always remember these films with great pleasure, even though they were hard work, we all had such a good time making them.”

MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH

David Del Valle intro: We owe a debt of gratitude to Charles
Beaumont for coming up with the concept of Price as a Devil worshipper
in his first draft of MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH. Vincent shines as the evil Prince Prospero whose faith is shaken by a peasant girl whose beliefs rival his. Hazel Court is stunning as his consort whose own pact with the devil creates a fantastic moment in the film due in part to the camerawork of Nicolas Roeg.

My transcript for this film was unavailable for this article yet it will appear in my forthcoming book on the Corman/Poe cycle “SEE TO THE CRYPT” due out in early 2012.

MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH (note the goatee on the statues drawn by price)

TOMB OF LIGEIA

David Del Valle intro: Vincent always said this was his personal favorite in the cycle…filming it out of doors gave a breath of freshness to the proceedings. Yet it proved too late in the game for Corman to film another one, ending one of the most successful cycles of Horror films since the golden days of Universal studios. Eliizabeth Shepherd became a close personal friend later on in my life and we had a moment late one evening when she came to see me, allowing me to come to my front door dressed in a black dressing gown. When I opened the door I got to say Vincent’s line to her as Verden Fell would have done: “Never,Never come here unannounced!!” she was taken aback to say the least.

TOMB OF LIGEIA

“This film was a shared passion between Roger and me. Early on we had fantasized about shooting one of the Poe films in a ruin, an actual location for a change of pace. He found the perfect location in Norfolk, and it was everything I had hoped it would be. I enjoyed making these pictures with Roger because he had a real understanding of the material and was an absolute genius at getting the most out of his actors and crew. In this particular film we were fortunate to find a real actress to play both Ligeia and the Lady Rowena, Her name is Elizabeth Shepherd, a classic English beauty but more importantly a very fine actress with a solid background in theater, which is something that I can appreciate so well. In Hollywood there is a stigma against theater by film actors because they don’t really understand that it is all part of the same craft. However I do understand the difference in learning a part for the stage as opposed to doing a film, acting out of continuity in bits and pieces with long breaks between. The concept of creating a part and acting it on your own in front of a live audience can scare an actor to death, and yet it can also take that same actor to paradise if the magic is there for you, and then nothing can take the place of that applause.

“The Poe films we did in Hollywood were small casts, and sadly the younger actresses were just not up to it. Of course I am not referring to our friend Hazel or your pal Barbara, both of whom we know did beautiful work in those films. I still remember what a performance Elizabeth gave during the scene where I mesmerize her in front of the fire. In rehearsal she was as always spot on so when we came to shooting that sequence she did the whole thing in one take, playing both personalities. She was absolutely wonderful to work along side. Now our Elizabeth was saddled in the film with a dual role, and if I could show you my shooting script you would see a riot of notes as to who was playing who at any given point. We could not keep track.

“Now of course script confusion is one thing, but almost catching fire is another. Roger had this notion to simply burn the set at the conclusion of LIGEIA, and even through I have been through many on-camera fires in my career, and most of them with Roger {laughs} Elisabeth and I barely escaped with our lives in that one. Not to mention that poor black cat. We went though at least a dozen cats before it was over. The poor thing would just disappear never to return, so the animal wrangler we had would have to locate another one.

TOMB OF LIGEIA (with top hat)

“As far as LIGEIA being the last Poe film with Roger, well I could see it coming even after we did THE RED DEATH. Roger was still young enough to want to do more and was getting offers left and right. It was for him the right thing to do, of course, and he certainly deserves his success. I felt remorseful at the time when we came to the last one since no one could do these films quite like Roger. I did a few more after LIGEIA…all of them in England as a matter of fact. I found myself regretting making more than a few of them to be sure. Even the English locations cannot prevail against bad scripts. By the last days of filming LIGEIA the light was about to leave the tower signaling the end of one period and the beginning of another for us both. I shall always consider the films I made with Roger to be among the highlights of my career in film.”

Vincent Price 1911-2011….shall be lifted nevermore…..POE.

The process of understanding much less appreciating a Quentin Tarantino film depends largely on which of his films you saw first. With me it was RESERVOIR DOGS, which became rather personal for me since one of its stars, Lawrence Tierney, was an on-again off-again house-guest, so I was on the ground floor with that film and Larry’s problems with Quentin which almost cost him his role in the film. Harvey Keitel saved the day by acting as a go-between since Larry had been on the film too long for Quentin to fire him without costing the production dearly.

I have only been in Tarantino’s company once and that was at a screening of Mario Bava’s NIGHT IS THE PHANTOM (also known by the far more intriguing title THE WHIP AND THE BODY). He arrived at Producer’s Studios with his then-amorata Mira Sorvino in tow and sat down right beside me. As the house lights dimmed I was treated to a live audio commentary on the film and Bava’s oeuvre for the duration of the running time. Tarantino was always a film geek when it came to cinema and its history; his legend was that of a video clerk whose sadistic fantasies became reality when, unlike most video clerks you encounter, he also happened to be a genius–not to mention one of the most original directors since Cassavetes.

After the success of PULP FICTION most of the naysayers in Hollywood were of the mind this young Turk was a two-hit wonder, soon to be working at a Blockbuster near you. However, all that was about to change after a period of inactivity with the release of JACKIE BROWN. This was to be his homage to 70′s Blaxploitation Queen Pam Grier and indeed it was that and much more. The reception awarded this film was underwhelming since it was so different in tone and concept from the other two films that were still very much in the mindset of his public. His iconoclasm was so ingrained with Pop-Culture references mixed with a male code of honor, a masculinity which invested both films, that the notion of a Quentin Tarantino film told from a female perspective (that of a 44 year-old flight attendant working the most downtrodden airline in the business) was jarring to say the least.

One of the charms of JACKIE BROWN is in the details, especially with Tarantino’s ear for dialogue that almost always sets the tone, if not the mood, for exact moments of realization for each character in the film. My favorite exchange of Pam Grier’s is early on when Max Cherry bails her out of jail and they stop off at a local bar to unwind. Jackie is a woman who has lived and loved, yet Tarantino avoids playing the femme-fatale card with a personality like Pam Grier. She is a hip, independent woman who knows both the time and the place to bring on the mating call if she so desires. After a much-needed drink, Jackie explains in her most adorable right-on way that she must get back to her apartment and “wash the jail out of her hair.” Jackie does not succumb to a guilt trip of humiliation for having been in the slammer, she just washes away its trappings. After all, this is a more complex side of one of her old personas: a sadder but wiser Foxy Brown.

Every film Critic has had to come to terms with the fact that JACKIE BROWN may be his greatest film, a stance not taken when the film was making the rounds the first time out of the gate. It was too slow and lacked the Tarantino touch of Peckinpah violence; it was also racist, since Samuel L. Jackson says the N-word so often the word loses all shock value (which is the point, if you also throw the word “fuck” into the mix). Yet everyone I’ve talked to about this film keeps coming back for repeated viewings and each time walks away with something new and remarkable. It gets better and better with every viewing and that, to me, is the definition of a classic.

JACKIE BROWN is based on the novel RUM PUNCH by Elmore Leonard. The novel’s action takes place somewhere other than Los Angeles but Tarantino makes such great use of the City of Angels that one soon overlooks any of his embellishments as an improvement over the novel; yet he is pure in his intent, making JACKIE one of the best film adaptations yet made of any Elmore Leonard novel, certainly superior to GET SHORTY or OUT OF SIGHT. In fact Tarantino’s well-worn facility as an intellectual sponge is put to the test with a series of images of coolness throughout JACKIE BROWN. From the mall to the mean streets of East L.A., Tarantino has a positively Brechtian grasp of 70′s genre camera set-ups and framing devices. He is Hollywood’s quintessential Auteur.

From the first frame of film we see flight attendant Pam Grier in profile gliding through the airport, not unlike Dustin Hoffman in THE GRADUATE. The difference is the soundtrack, as far away from the Simon and Garfunkle soundtrack as you can get, with Bobby Womack’s ACROSS 110th STREET, last heard in a Yaphet Kotto crime drama from–you guessed it–the fabulous 70′s. Randy Crawford’s STREET LIFE is also referenced, enhancing the already potent cult status of Ms. Grier, whom Tarantino places on a well-deserved pedestal; yet the film is, like all of his work, made in his own image.

From her very first appearance as a party-goer in Russ Meyer’s masterpiece BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS Pam Grier never looked back as she went from atmosphere-player to action-star in such films as THE BIG DOLL HOUSE, COFFY, and the film that gave Tarantino his inspiration for adapting the Elmore Leonard novel RUM PUNCH in the first place: FOXY BROWN.

Pam Grier took Feminism and kicked it up a notch in a series of films that reinvented what it was to be a black leading lady in the 1970′s. Her beauty and style mixed with her kick-ass martial arts savvy made her the poster girl for a generation of movie fans around the world. Tarantino was a child of the 70′s and spent a good deal of time going to see just about every Blaxploitation film going down, soon discovering the cinemas that showed these films non-stop with an active black audience who tended to talk through and at the screen. This was a life-changing moment for the future auteur as he saw firsthand the power a woman like Pam Grier had on her target audience.

At some point during the winding-down period of this genre Pam Grier decided to step down as the Queen of the Blaxploitation to pursue other roles. This proved to be a bumpy transition as roles were not forthcoming and she managed to make the best of a bad situation by accepting a showy turn as a hooker in the Paul Newman action flick FORT APACHE, THE BRONX, then John Carpenter’s ESCAPE FROM L.A. and Tim Burton’s MARS ATTACKS.

Tarantino had seen Pam audition for PULP FICTION but was already a fan so he bided his time before offering her what was to become JACKIE BROWN. There was a window of nearly two years before he had a screenplay for Grier to see, and by then she was living a reclusive life in Colorado, far removed from Hollywood and the glare of the spotlight that once was hers to command.

What moved her so much was the respect Tarantino showed not only for her work but for her beauty as a human being. The script was filled with special moments in which she could shine, especially with co-star ROBERT FORSTER as bail bondsman Max Cherry, who develops a crush on Jackie but remains a loyal friend who must pine from afar as he is not a man to move too quickly with his emotions. There is a great moment when he purchases a tape of the DELPHONICS, having heard it at Jackie’s apartment; the range of expression Forster allows his character to express is acting at it most subtle. For Pam this role meant showing just how sexy a 44 year-old woman could be. All of her past experience would be channeled into this character and she did not let her mentor down; from day one Pam Grier was allowed to develop her persona to a place where she could finally let Foxy Brown relax into Jackie Brown, and it was a joy to watch her hold her own in the company of such actors as ROBERT DE NIRO, MICHAEL KEATON and SAMUEL L. JACKSON.

In the time that has passed the roles for women approaching 60 are few and far between, yet Pam Grier is still in demand, having just completed a recurring role on cable’s groundbreaking THE L-WORD and having begun work on the WB hit series SMALLVILLE. The lady still moves effortlessly from across 110th Street to wherever her remarkable talent wants to take her.

The reception JACKIE BROWN received from most of the American critics was understandable in a way, since what could a young film director who reinvented the face of American Cinema with his first two films expect to follow them up with–PULP FICTION PART TWO? If he had, then the critics would have roasted him as a one-trick pony, so he waited three years to make this a more conventional, less violent film than the previous ones, but a great film nonetheless. JACKIE BROWN is a mood piece and at its heart a love story for the grown-ups. The relationship between Pam Grier and Robert Forster is sublime in its honesty regarding the nature of life and love after the glow is long gone and middle-age has swept away the optimism youth keeps pumping into the veins to keep it real.

I have read so many reverse reviews about this film from critics who at first thought the film far too long at two and one-half hours with none of the real action scenes that Tarantino admirers had come to expect. There are only four deaths in the film and a great deal of conversation, some of it funny, with even more somber moments between bail bondsman Max Cherry and Jackie Brown as their mutual admiration turns slowly into something more; yet these two are too sensible to fall into the sack as the danger is ever-mounting in Jackie’s life thanks to Ordell Robbie, played with a hipster dandyisim by Samuel L. Jackson.

In this film Jackson is much more violent than he was as Jules in PULP FICTION. His character is crafty and savvy in the ways of his turf, which is Los Angeles in all its spaces and self-contained environments. Tarantino treats Elmore Leonard’s novel with respect, keeping much of its content intact except for moving the action from Florida to Los Angeles and changing the race of the characters around. It is still RUM PUNCH in thought and deed. It can also be said that Elmore Leonard’s novels tend to move too slowly – the raw action of desire slowed down by gentle conversation, and that the adaptations move too fast. The film remains, like all of Tarantino’s films, in his own image.

The postmodern sensibilities we come to expect from Tarantino are all here as well. His ability to work with actors from every level of stardom, both past and present, is one of the attributes that makes him great. For example, he brings in Sid Haig from Pam Grier’s past to play a scene, always reminding us just who Pam Grier is in the history of films (especially the neglected genre of Blaxploitation, in which this film fairly glows with familiarity while also tipping its hat to Film Noir and the crime drama). Tarantino knows his genres inside and out, yet he fashions a slow-paced mood piece out of JACKIE BROWN and I for one wanted to bask in its light for as long as it took to tie all of the threads up to his and our satisfaction. With Jackson’s star-turn here I was reminded of another performance way back in 1987 by a newcomer named Morgan Freeman who received his first Oscar nomination for playing a pimp in STREET SMART, a film starring the then-hot Christopher Reeve as a reporter falling into a scene way out of his depth. Now, Freeman was every bit as scary as Jackson and could have played this kind of role forever but since the release of STREET SMART Morgan Freeman has never again played anything close to that. Now Samuel L. Jackson has played his share of positive role models since PULP FICTION, however it is in his work with Tarantino that he remains a delightfully politically-incorrect sociopath; his choice of dialogue alone repeats the N-word more than any film character, black or white, in recent memory.

What you also miss from a first viewing is just how special Tarantino treats Robert De Niro as a actor and an icon in his own right. Many felt De Niro was slumming a bit playing such an oaf as Louis who is dumb, not so young, and still somewhat full of cum. Tarantino had the audacity to cast De Niro as a loser, having embarrassing on-camera sex with bimbo surfer-girl Brigitte Fonda, while they both hit the bong for all it’s worth. These are not likable people yet their performances are flawless. I haven’t seen De Niro give this degree of performance in most of his work since JACKIE BROWN. After PULP FICTION nearly every major star wanted a chance to work with Tarantino and yet look who gets the leads in this film: Robert Forster, who peaked in the early 70′s with films like MEDIUM COOL and REFLECTIONS IN A GOLDEN EYE, and Pam Grier, who found fairly steady, if less high profile, work after her glory days with films like SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES (and major guest roles after JB in television, like THE L-WORD).

The music in JACKIE BROWN is an integral part of the film’s success. Tarantino never simply hires out a film score. Each and every one of his films is filled with music cues and songs that were a part of his life experience as a youth, going to see everything he could, then to working in a video store where he had access to all the titles he could ever hope for. In JACKIE BROWN we have many homages to the films of Pam Grier, including her own singing of LONG TIME WOMAN from THE BIG DOLL HOUSE, down to VAMPYROS LESBOS from the infamous Jess Franco. His choice in music has always been personal, from a world view made up of Pop-Culture references that are now his trademark.

What Quentin Tarantino has accomplished with JACKIE BROWN is remarkable on so many levels. As a meditation on middle-age crisis, the longing of desire, the knowledge of what is lost in youthful bravado, it is masterful in the way he creates a universe for these characters to take the time to flesh-out and breathe life into three-dimensional personalities. It is yet more proof as to what a master Tarantino has become in his time on the world stage. Tarantino himself said in a profile in GQ magazine, “Jackie Brown is a mature piece of work made when I wasn’t even that mature.”

JACKIE BROWN is a mature film, filled with humanity laced with humor, a landscape of rotting values, wasted lives lived in shopping malls, beach towns and the east L.A. hoods, making good the lyrics of lawyers, guns and money. It is also about the bittersweet infatuation of two middle-aged people too old to follow through on their dreams but not too old to make a stand. Yet when all the dust settles on the shelf-life of a film like JACKIE BROWN it is my humble opinion that it will continue to age well and unfold into a classic. And the American Godard (as some critics have chosen to refer to him) has by this year, 2010, made his mark on Cinema and will go on to astonish as long as he chooses to make films.

This month’s CAMP DAVID is taken from an essay commissioned by Gemma Lanzo and first published in the May 2010 issue of the Italian-language film journal MOVIEMENT (Check out www.moviementmagazine.com for more information).

This marks the English-language debut of my essay on Quentin Tarantino’s highly underrated JACKIE BROWN. My deepest thanks to Gemma Lanzo for permission to print the essay here on the FILMS IN REVIEW site.

My introduction to the films of Eric Portman was not an easy one by any means. He was brought to my attention by an alcoholic Hindu princess by the name of Rukhmani Singh Devi. She was odd even by my standards of eccentricity, Rukhmani was a bit like the willful princess that tormented James Mason with their past lives in James Ivory’s sinister AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A PRINCESS.

She behaved like a member of the British Royal family if they’d been brought up on Hammer films, and who am I to say they weren’t? She was supremely intelligent, world weary and drunk, in that order. Rukmani worshipped at the altar of British Cinema, with actors Eric Portman and Peter Cushing as the jewels in the crown.

They say every actor has a special follower and I mean much more than just a fan since these people tend to personally morph into the object of their affection in act and deed. In Rukhmani’s case she was to be referred to in these circumstances as “Patty” or “PC two”…her devotion to all things Peter Cushing was something to behold. For example she could tell you how many wardrobe changes Cushing had in say THE CREEPING FLESH…which, in case you were wondering, happens to be an amazing 12 changes in one film. I never really thought about what an Edwardian clothes horse Peter Cushing was until I met the princess, and afterwards I never ever regarded him as just a film star. Saint Peter was now an experience never to be taken lightly.

Paul Mangin {Eric Portman} lives in a dream world of his own making...

Edana Rommey as Mifaney dressing in priceless gowns to please a madman.

Eric Portman and Edana Rommey.

During this period she and I were meeting regularly, every weekend, in Berkeley to see films at the fabled “Telegraph Rep” cinema which at the time {1973} was more like seeing a film at somebody’s apt while sitting uncomfortably in rickety wooden chairs – inhaling pot smoke until you had a contact high. It was there that I first saw Eric Portman in Powell and Pressburger’s World War II epic THE 49TH PARALLEL {1941}. In it Portman played a Nazi U-boat commander to perfection. I was hooked. Who was this suave, slightly psychotic gentleman and where had he been all my life.

Rukhmani quickly filled me in on all things Eric by telling me she had a girlfriend, also from India, who was to Portman what she was to Cushing. This woman was to be known to me as simply Eurika Portman, a name she created to be on a more personal footing with the object of her adoration. So here I was living in San Francisco in the early 70′s, leading a very exhaustive night life, to now be further complicated by knowing these two wacky divas, both completely outre personalites of the twilight fringe of celebrity mania. The one saving grace of it all was the fact that these ladies approached it all with style, wit and class, all courtesy of the on screen persona’s of Messurs Cushing and Portman.

Eventually I began to seek out the films of Eric Portman on my own without the distractions of having to count their costume changes or how many cigarettes they lit during their various running times. One of the first things Eurika ever imparted to me regarding Portman was this comment he gave regarding acting, which is of course priceless: “Acting is like masturbation, one either does it or one does not, but one never talks about it.” Lord Olivier could not have said it better.

American teaser one sheet advertising THE NAKED EDGE trying to follow the example left by Hitchcock's PSYCHO...even written by the same screenwriter however that is all the two films had in common.

Even in today’s world of entertainment men like Eric Portman remain sadly forgotton I am ever hopeful that he will be rediscovered as his films turn up on you tube and netflix with fairly comtemporary titles like THE BEDFORD INCIDENT with Sidney Poriter and Richard Widmark. Eric Portman became a star on the British stage in 1929 with a breakthrough performance as Romeo at the refurbished Old Vic and this in turn led to many roles in Shakesphere there. He quickly created more modern roles as well.

By 1935 he was well known as an actor with great presence and range. by 1942 he began making films for directors like Michael Powell. Yet he always returned to the stage. In the early fifties he created the role later played on film by David Niven in Terrance Rattigan’s SEPARATE TABLES…in the play as well as the film the character was disgraced by being caught in a local cinema making unwelcome advances to a young girl, years later the playwright revealed the orginal script in which the character was gay and the offence was with a boy. Almost all of Eric Portman’s characterizarions had this coded sexuality, both on stage and screen.

In the early 1970′s Norman Hudis (a well known screenwriter of the “CARRY ON” films), wrote a play about Eric Portman entitled DINNER WITH RIBBENTROP which was a bit like the recent play about Tallulah Bankhead doing sound bites for DIE DIE MY DARLING…only in Hudis’s play we discover Eric Portman’s Nazi leanings as well as his homosexuality, and how he managed to avoid ever discussing it with the press even as late as 1960. The truth of the matter is Eric Portman was a unique personality and the more we learn about him the more fascinating he becomes.

Among the many films Eric Portman would make during and after the war, the two I remember the best are the ones he made towards the end of his life. THE NAKED EDGE is always remembered for being Gary Cooper’s last film, he literally died before it could be released. And DEADFALL, made just before Portman would pass away as well. In THE NAKED EDGE Eric plays Jeremy Clay, a seedy opportunist who has a line towards the end, after much suspense has been made of a straight razor. Eric prepares a scalding hot bath for Deborah Kerr to cut her wrists in, and before he can put her in the hot water he looks up into the camera and says “Tell me, do you think women really like to get naked before they kill themselves”.

DEADFALL was made at the time of Michael Caine’s emergence as a star, and much is made of his sex appeal. The film was advertised as a heist caper, however the real plot was given to Eric Portman as the homosexual jewel thief whose daughter is used as bait to lure Caine into their web. The fact that Portman is supposed to fancy Caine is supposed to shock the audience, as is the revelation of incest later on, but through it all Eric Portman remains a legendary performer who commands the screen, making audiences wish to know far more about his character than Michael Caine’s. It was a bittersweet way to say goodbye to such a remarkable career.

US half sheet poster for DEADFALL Eric Portman's character is openly advertised as gay in the poster art.

The stage work of Eric Portman is lost to us now but I was told that during his reign upon the British stage his performances were the stuff of legends. He apparently ran up against the equally legendary Tallulah Bankhead on more than one occasion causing the press at the time to speculate on which one of them was going to kill the other after screaming matches during and after performances, both actors fueled by alcohol. Tallulah never referred to Eric Portman in her memoirs as the scars were just too deep. She also managed to keep her encounter with Stephanie Powers all to herself after making her final film, DIE DIE MY DARLING.

Perhaps the most flamboyantly artificial of Eric Portman’s film appearances would have to be his star turn in Terence Young’s CORRIDOR OF MIRRORS which, if remembered at all today, is because the future “Bond” director introduced both Chistopher Lee and Miss Moneypenny (Lois Maxwell) in the opening scenes of the film, giving each a line or two.

A romantic pose for two star-crossed lovers from the past.

Eric Portman is confused by Edana Rommey's lack of interest.

CORRIDOR OF MIRROR’S is a marvel of genre homages all in one beautiful package. It references Cocteau’s LA BELLE ET LA BETE even down to having Georges Auric compose the music, which is quite beautiful. The exquisite photography recalls REBECCA and JANE EYRE, with shadowy staircases and billowing curtains with a large white cat roaming the castle to invoke Lewis Carroll for good measure.

Eric Portman plays a wealthy Londoner who is traumatized on a visit to Venice where he catches sight of a portrait of a vixen named Venetia, and spends the rest of the film trying to find a reincarnation of her, which of course he does in the character of Myfanwy Conway played by new comer Edana Romney whose presence in this film is no accident since she is one of the producers along with Rudolph Cartier, who also wrote the screenplay to favor her as well. But no matter, the film belongs to Portman whenever he chooses to enter the frame. His performance is romantic, dashing and of course slightly psychotic, as this was how the British film industry coded gay actors since the days of Ivor Novello

Belgian poster for CORRIDOR OF MIRRORS--A British attempt to create a fantasy along the lines of Cocteau's LA BELLE ET LA BETE.

Yes, it is true, Erich Portman, like Michael Redgrave, Alec Guinness and Dennis Price were all gay actors working in the British film industry and doing their utmost to play straight. Fortunately for the viewing audience this still did not prevent screenwriters from coding most of their parts with tell tale signs of Wilden allure. In CORRIDOR OF MIRRORS for example, Portman plays Paul, an artist and from the looks of it an interior decorator who furnishes not only his mansion with antiques and all manner of Object’Art. No, he does not stop there, he also installs a lavish wardrobe of ballgowns that would put Cher on fashion alert and place Elton John under house arrest until he got his game on.

How Edana Romney could not suspect her phantom-like lover was gay is just a device of cinema we must refer to as fantasy. For her role in the film, Edana comes across much too mature to really be taken in romantically by his posturings of love. By the time she does sleep over at his gothic abode, our poor Eric is so worn out with all the costume changes that he finally hands her a set of velvet pajama’s and toddles off to parts unknown for the evening. They never kiss or make love on camera he might as well have worn one of those Jean Marais beast make-ups to justify his reluctance to go further than a waltz or an embrace.

The plot of CORRIDOR OF MIRRORS is really divided into two distinct halves, the first being the fairy tale world represented by Paul’s Regent Park estate, a re-creation of a palace in fourteenth century Venice. His gothic quest for the ideal woman, the Borgia-like Venetia who was wanton in the past and then again in Edana’s recreation of her later on. The films greatest moment arrives with Paul’s staging of a renaissance Venetian ball with masked party goers all behaving like the guests in Corman’s MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH.

The second half of the film darkens and changes mood as we observe Paul descend into what we mistake for madness, leading to his death and then retribution through the faithful manservant that was looking out for his master all along. We also have a madwoman living in the villa not unlike the first Mrs. Rochester in JANE EYRE.

The first meeting between Eric Portman Edana Rommey in a vintage Hansom cab.

What really holds all this together is of course the performance of Eric Portman who has the style to carry off the costumes much like his colleague Peter Cushing, He does lack the necessary glamour of a matinee idol and knowing that, instinctively invests all his characters with breeding and intelligence, which makes him appear more attractive than he actually is. When it is apparent his character is going to his doom after the trail for a murder he may have committed, Eric is given another classic moment that even Dirk Bogarde (perhaps the most closeted of all British actors) could not have improved on. Portman tells his lost love the following

“There is a time to be born and a time to die, so please don’t spoil the exit I’ve chosen for myself. You ought to know I’ve always had a liking for dramatic effect.”

What an exit for a remarkable performer. Eric Portman would make a number of other films before his demise in 1969, all of them graced with his impeccable sense of timing and a desire to entertain.

“WILBER WHATELEY HAS A GIRLFRIEND”

It is early February of 1970; former teen princess Sandra Dee is in between takes reclining as best she can on a faux Druidic altar, surrounded by lighting experts–focus pullers, hair and make-up stylists. Completing the picture is a continuity girl running lines as Ms. Dee puffs on an endless string of cigarettes to quiet her nerves. Her own mother, Mary, comes to her speaking words of wisdom: “Keep your clothes on, Sandy, wait for the body double.” In other words, “Let her be,” to a lurking assistant director eager to get on with it…

This was to be a radical change of image for Sandra Dee, whose last two films, in 1967, were ROSIE (a Roz Russell comedy) and the ironic (under the circumstances) DOCTOR, YOU’VE GOT TO BE KIDDING with George Hamilton. One can only assume the “doctor” in the title would have said something along those lines if he had been informed that Sandra Dee’s next role would be that of a willing sacrifice to an inhuman deity known only as “Yog Sothoth,” with the end result of her being impregnated with his unholy seed.

Rare poised shot of Sandra Dee's body double on bed ...onlooking are the Medocino warlocks and demons seen briefly in Dee's drug induced nightmare.

The difficult transition from debutante to mature actress was simply not happening fast enough to suit Sandra Dee and her then-management, which included of course her mother. When this project was offered it must have seemed like a golden opportunity for Sandra Dee to mature practically overnight — that is, if the film achieved any of the same success ROSEMARY’S BABY did with Mia Farrow. Ironically, both actresses would be divorced during the time of each of their respective films –Mia from Frank Sinatra, and Sandra from Bobby Darin. Sandra would miscarry during DUNWICH’s post production, compounding the depression that was about to envelop her for the rest of her life. DUNWICH sadly did not energize the career of Sandra Dee; in fact this would be her final motion picture. The seventies would yield only occasional work in Television as she retreated more and more into the shadows of depression and substance abuse. Iconic status as a pop-culture figure would finally come for her, but not until nearly the end of her life.

The film in question is, of course, Daniel Haller’s production of THE DUNWICH HORROR, based somewhat on H.P.Lovecraft’s 17,500-word “short” story of the same name, first published in WEIRD TALES magazine in 1929. Lovecraft was at the time unknown to the general movie-going public, making his name above-the-title an impossibility in Hollywood terms. However, with this his third adaptation for the screen, all-produced by American International Pictures, after eight successful collaborations with his only rival in the Horror genre, Edgar Allan Poe, all that was about to change.

The first attempt to bring Lovecraft to the screen was fumbled by the suits at AIP who had no confidence in Lovecraft as a box-office draw; so THE HAUNTED VILLAGE became Edgar Allan Poe’s THE HAUNTED PALACE, grafting Poe’s poem onto the conclusion of THE CASE OF CHARLES DEXTER WARD, making it the sixth Poe film directed by Roger Corman. The second attempt retained the Lovecraft name…in small caps. But at least the master did not have to masquerade as Poe. Another novella was chosen this time, THE COLOR OUT OF SPACE, retitled from the stylish THE HOUSE AT THE END OF THE WORLD to the oddly Germanic DIE MONSTER DIE, a rather unfortunate name for a Boris Karloff vehicle since it was well-known how many years the then-78 year-old Karloff had to act under the shadow of the Frankenstein monster.

If all had gone as planned Karloff would have been one of the stars of THE DUNWICH HORROR alongside Christopher Lee, with Italian horror master Mario Bava directing. But this was not to be, and after languishing on production schedules since 1964 the project finally got greenlit as DUNWICH with a decent cast headed by Peter Fonda, Diana Varsi and Ralph Bellamy as Professor Armitage. However by the time the script went from Ray Russell to a very youthful Curtis Hanson, the cast changed again with Dean Stockwell replacing Fonda, having just done PYSCH-OUT the year before. Sandra Dee assumed the role of “Nancy,” known amongst the crew as the “Mia Farrow” part since ROSEMARY’S BABY became a world wide box-office success, paving the way for this film to get produced. More than likely this was the reason for casting Ralph Bellamy as the academic, since he was the infamous “Dr Saperstein” in the Polanski film. (Bellamy’s character name so intrigued Polanski that he named his pet dog after him). Bellamy would bow out soon after, leaving a mad scramble for a replacement in the guise of another equally respected character actor, Sam Jaffe (GUNGA DIN. THE ASPHALT JUNGLE).

Original Poster Art from AIP notice the star was to have Peter Fonda with a different screenwriter.

With the cast now in place, Daniel Haller would finally have the long-awaited opportunity to utilize all the set decorations and symbols that he had designed around Joseph Curwen’s dungeon altar beneath THE HAUNTED PALACE, then continued on in the UK with the decor of the Whateley mansion of DIE MONSTER DIE. As the art director and set designer for all of Corman’s Poe cycle, Haller brought great style and beauty to the floor during the making of THE DUNWICH HORROR.

Daniel Haller always regarded Roger Corman as his mentor and well he should, considering working with Roger was a crash-course in filmmaking like no other at the time. With Corman producing DUNWICH, he was given a free hand as long as things flowed smoothly on the set, and more importantly, that the film be brought in on time and under budget.

The first order of business was to modernize Lovecraft’s tale, originally set in the backwoods of New England, circa 1928, into the counter-culture phenomenon that existed in Mendocino County throughout the late 1960s, playing out in early 1970. Haller had done the very same thing with his previous film, DIE MONSTER DIE, changing the locale to rural England, and in both cases setting the scene in Gothic mansions rather than the farmhouses favored by Lovecraft.

Boris Kaloff and Daniel Haller confer on the set of DIE MONSTER DIE.

I know that this change in time and location separated THE DUNWICH HORROR in terms of Corman’s Poe cycle. While it is true that everything AIP did since then in the Horror genre was based almost entirely on the initial success of HOUSE OF USHER (1960) with each film that followed using the same basic formula as it were, DUNWICH remains unique because of the pop-culture references it reflects, both the success of Polanski’s film and the devastating aftermath of his wife’s murder at the hands of the Manson family, forever changing the landscape of Hollywood from that day forward. It is no coincidence then that Dean Stockwell would adopt a “Manson vibe” or, depending on your point of view, a “Timothy Leary” vibe as well, since the hippie movement of the day was all about getting high or following a cult — at least this is how Hollywood chose to interpret the lurid headlines.

None of this material was lost on Dean Stockwell (an avid Lovecraft fan) who realized early on that to play Wilber Whateley as written in Curtis Hanson’s screenplay was to abandon Lovecraft’s concept enough to make his “goatish features” sexy rather then repellent. In Lovecraft’s tale Wilber dies attempting to steal the Necronomicon from the library wherein the reader is given the payoff of discovering just how otherworldly and deformed he really was under all those bulky clothes. All this was abandoned to give Wilber the plot points involving Sandra Dee’s character, to make the film more like ROSEMARY’S BABY instead of the monster on the loose tale Lovecraft originally created.

Ever since the film’s debut in 1970 much has been made over how far it has strayed from Lovecraft’s original short story: by including a love interest for Wilber Whateley, also allowing him to live beyond the attack at the Miskatonic Library to perish on Sentinel Hill while performing the ritual, and allowing his cosmic sibling to have his way with Sandra Dee, thereby satisfying the fans of ROSEMARY’S BABY as well as producer Corman.

In spite of all this THE DUNWICH HORROR is as faithful an adaptation as one can expect for a low-budget film with few resources at its disposal. During my interview with Daniel Haller he remarked that the only way to keep his film from becoming “another Poe film in the Corman cycle” was to update the storyline and take full advantage of the psychedelic flower children motif which, by 1970, was about to fade from view.

The mythos as created by Lovecraft was long-considered un-filmable since his prose is clear about this unimaginable race of beings that exist outside of our known reality. Cthulhu and his followers worship Yog Sothoth, who is described as being composed of giant spheres of light. Yog is the keeper of the way, as Robert Bloch once described it. He has the power to open the gates, allowing the old ones to re-enter and take back the earth they once inhabited long ago. The Whateleys used the Necronomicon to summon Yog Sothoth long enough to interbreed with their women. The blood of Yog Sothoth now flows through Wilber’s veins and, because of the ritual at the film’s end, Nancy now is creating what Lavinia had created in the films opening credits: another offspring of Yog Sothoth.

In reexamining the film, Nancy’s drug-induced nightmare (in which she awakens only to find herself surrounded by demonic-looking flower children in body paint) makes more sense if you understand that this is Her reality of what she is experiencing in her dream state. When we glimpse the “old ones” walking side by side looking for all intent like witches in long flowing robes, could one interpret this to be the only way such deities can reveal themselves to human kind without them losing their mind completely? In the 1997 film CONTACT with Jodie Foster a similar device is used when she finally confronts the alien life forms. They choose to reveal themselves to her in the form of her dead father. Everything Nancy experiences is on her level of reality, which for American International would certainly be the Haight-Ashbury/counterculture of the late sixties (not to mention easy to present budget-wise). The psychedelic effects work for the film in the sequence in which Nancy’s friend Elizabeth confronts Wilber’s twin. The sound effects, coupled with the shock visuals, filmed with a distorted lens, allows the only bit of real nudity in the film when the inter-dimensional twin made up of tentacles ravages her, pulling away her bra revealing her breasts before devouring her completely. The camera-work as the Horror moves across the Dunwich landscape towards the Devil’s Hop yard is beautifully realized and very much in keeping with Lovecraft.