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.”

I’ve been watching a lot of films submitted to me by talented film-makers, who usually make genre films (horror or science fiction) on zero budgets.   I make films with budgets lower than a pregnant ant, so I can relate.    What bothers me is that most of these film-makers make films that are imitating Hollywood successes. 
  
       One film that comes to mind is Florida based Writer/Director Michael Clinkenbeard’s Nightfall.   The film centers on a group of friends gathering for a backyard Memorial Day Bar-B-Q.  Newscasts off the living room TV tell of a sudden shower of destructive meteors.  One lands near the house, nearly wrecking the place.  Our barbequing heroes soon learn from the TV broadcasts that these meteors are a “vanguard of an invading army from the planet Mars.”  Recognize the wording?   It’s from Orson Welles’ famed 1938 The War of the Worlds radio broadcast.  In fact, Clinkenbeard’s TV newscasters here often recite the same dialog from the ’38 broadcast.   You would think Welles deserves a writing credit here.   The film feels too much like Cloverfield (both films have a big alien attack covered via hand-held home video camera), The Blair Witch Project (both films have mucho off camera monsters) and Night of the Living Dead (housebound monster-attack survivors arguing a course of action).    Nightfall sometimes has a genuine sense of claustrophobia.  You want his heroes to survive as unhurt as possible.  Clinkenbeard has potential for making Grade A horror, but he needs to stray from mimicking what Hollywood, and past indie directors have done.   George Romero made a name for himself because he took rules and clichés of Hollywood horror storytelling and kicked them down the stairs. 
      
       Film-maker Daron Ker’s documentary I Ride is a fascinating, heartfelt look at the more constructive side of American Biker culture.   After watching this constantly informative film, you learn bikers rise above the stereotype of drunken, bearded road-ragers with scary mammary-flashing wives.  We learn that many bikers are constructive members of society, who will even hold benefits to raise money to battle diabetes.   This film unearthed a long lost memory out of my head.  Forty years ago, my mother, my sister Wendy and myself (then a kid of about ten) were traveling along the Florida Keys.  We stopped at a Howard Johnsons for breakfast, only to find out the employees had all walked off their job, leaving many customers and us abandoned and hungry.  A biker gang pulled up, expecting quick service.  When they heard about the walkout, the bikers became waiters and waitresses, took our orders and served our food.  Other than oddball mix-ups like my orange juice served in a parfait glass, the food was fine.  I kept a permanent positive image about bikers.    If you have never been served breakfast by a biker gang, I recommend I Ride as a terrific eye-opening look at biker culture.

       Financially, independent film is slipping into an Ice Age.   The festivals and independent theatre chains cater mostly to indies made within the industry – directed by leading Hollywood actors and actresses.   This leaves true indies scrambling for venues to show our films, and to bring in a profit.   In fact, I just spoke to one independent film-maker who has won several international film festival awards, only to find out she has sold most of her possessions and furniture in order to keep her film playing at festivals.  This makes getting investors for your indie film production feel like a lost cause. 
  
       Many film-makers have successfully gathered production money by using sites like Kickstater and IndieGoGo.    Instead of offering a percentage in the film profits (which mostly likely won’t happen), a film project listed on one of these sites can offer real gifts for contributing.   For example, a film-maker can offer for a $ 25 investment, a copy of the finished film.    For a larger investment, let’s say of $700 to perhaps $10,000, a film-maker can offer invitations to the wrap-party, a piece of one-of-a-kind artwork associated with the film, a meet-and-greet with the film’s stars, or you or your business can make an appearance in the film.    According to a recent Wall Street Journal article, IndieGoGo has funded more than 24,000 projects since 2008.   According to the same article, in October 2011, The House Financial Services Committee backed legislation that would make it possible for small businesses to use “crowd funding” sources like IndieGoGo to raise money from percentage-sharing investors. 

       I welcome feed-back, and requests to review films.  I can be directly contacted through my e-mail address Gandreiev@aol.com or on my Facebook Page. 

It appears the studio Archives are doing the heavy lifting this year. Some exquisite delights and rare turkeys have crept out of the vaults by the way of internet orders. These titles include THE BLACK SLEEP (wonderful), CURSE OF THE FACELESS MAN (really bad), BURN, WITCH, BURN (good), THE BABY (good), THE COLOSSUS OF NEW YORK (good), THE SANDS OF THE KALAHARI (terrific), THE QUATERMASS XPERIMENT (remarkable), PLANET OF BLOOD (very good), THE INCREDIBLE MELTING MAN (dreadful), and SUGAR HILL (bad, yet fun).

Doled out the old, traditional way, as well as an archive item or two, are the following titles, which are causes for rejoicing and/or cautious consideration:

THE ISLAND OF LOST SOULS (Criterion) DVD & BluRay. 1932. 70 mins.

This is the last treasure of Horror’s Golden Age to hit the stores. It’s full of mutations playing at being human, the brainchildren of vivisectionist Dr. Moreau, interpreted with sadistic and gay-tinged gusto by Charles Laughton. His delicious performance is the centerpiece of a truly eerie excursion into H.G. Wells’ perverse tale, framed by heavily shrouded cinematography that makes for intentionally hard-to-see the images, rendering them all the more creepy. A reviewer at the time called the atmosphere suffocating, and Richard Stanley, the original director of the 1996 remake, in his supplementary interview, refers to it as an atmosphere of oppression and pain.

Richard Arlen is picked up at sea, the lone survivor of a shipwreck. He’s dehydrated and practically delirious, but his misadventures are just beginning. Deposited against his will on an uncharted island, he becomes part of the grand scheme of exiled bio-experimentalist Moreau, and we cringe every time he upbraids the loose-cannon scientist, as we know more than he does about the perils of existing on the savage island.

A rogue’s gallery of half-human creature make-up designs, from what must have been a small army of application artists under the leadership of Wally Westmore, adorn Moreau’s experimental surgery rejects, who lurk in the jungle, just a hair away from reverting to their primitive states. Moreau’s laws have been laid down to keep them thinking they should act like people, and the ‘sayer of the law’ is an unrecognizable Bela Lugosi, looking as if he’s wearing Jack Pearce’s wolfman facial application upside down with every hair sticking straight out as if he’d jammed his finger into an electric socket. It was another dubious career choice for Lugosi within a year of his ground-breaking turn as DRACULA. He had nixed the role of Frankenstein’s monster because it offered him no opportunities to flex his Hungarian vocal chords, and he certainly summons all the majestic notes he can in this role, but that distracting eruption of facial hair makes one wonder just what animal he’s devolved from – a giant Polynesian hedgehog perhaps?

The visual quality of this title has always looked degraded – lots of gauze over the lens in addition to whatever else the years have done to the vault materials; I remember it looking thus from screenings and TV broadcasts fifty or so years ago. I think that, given the Criterion make-over, this is as good as we’re ever going to see it. There’s a band of negative wear on the left center of frame, which is visible in some scenes, but usually slides under our conscious notice. The sound is decent, though one no longer senses why audience members vomited upon hearing it eighty years ago.

Arlen looks like my former LA manager, Randy Warner, who is now a practicing therapist in Hollywood. Arlen is intense and forceful. You believe him when he agrees, out of an acknowledgment that he is an unwanted guest, not to talk about what he sees, nor violate the area he is consigned to within Moreau’s compound, and you believe his moral indignation upon learning the extent of the doctor’s procedures causing him to say drastically unwise things which could place him in danger at any moment. A feeling of dread hangs over the entire running time, and that’s a neat achievement. One can still feel it today.

Special kudos to first time actor Kathleen Burke, plucked (possibly) from a job in a dentist’s office to play the sexual, sympathetic panther-woman, Lota. A nation-wide search was whittled down to four women, who came to Hollywood for the final judging at the hands of directors like Cecil B. De Mille, and Ms. Burke walked away with the coveted role. She’s particularly well directed by Erle C. Kenton, who did a few other equally fast-moving, juicy horror items – GHOST OF FRANKENSTEIN and HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN among them. He’d been around since the early silent days, and would hang around long enough to make the transition into TV, dying in 1980 at age 83.

Supplementals, a la the Criterion treatment, are lavish. Greg Mank provides the commentary track, overflowing with fun into, but trying a bit too hard to connect the dots. John Landis sits and discusses the film with make-up great Rick Baker and horror historian Bob Burns. David Skal weighs in. And as mentioned above, they’ve even interviewed Richard Stanley, who was unseated by John Frankenheimer on the most recent version of MOREAU, which starred Marlon Brando in a wacky performance as the titular doctor and Fairuza Balk as the panther woman/Cheyenne Brando character. In between there were a few other versions – one with Burt Lancaster and Michael York which was terminally sedate, and another from the Phillipines (TERROR IS A MAN) with Francis (RETURN OF DRACULA) Lederer and Greta Thyssen, a good ‘B’ effort. Harder to find is the adult film version, THE ISLAND OF DOCTOR PORNEAU.

According to Mank, H.G. Wells hated the film. He was overly critical.

THE HOWLING: REBORN (ANCHOR BAY)

I was very happy and pleasantly surprised with this franchise reboot. Victoria Alexander, our first string film critic, is always moaning that directors and cinematographers no longer know how to light their leading ladies beautifully. Well, here’s the exception to that recent rule. Leading lady Lindsey Shaw looks lovely all the time – it’s near impossible to take your eyes off her. The director, who must have been enraptured by her, even gives her one long close-up reaction shot where she’s crying, snot is pooling in her left nostril, and he’s literally daring me – “C’mon, Roy! Do you still think she’s beautiful?!” Well, yes, I still do; I just don’t think that particular shot belonged there. But a director, especially one who wrote such a clever script and kept the narrative moving at such a brisk pace despite what appears to be a dangerously low budget, deserves an indulgence or two at the expense of a little dramatic momentum.*

Now there’s nothing unique about the plot. High school nerd, high school fox, high school jocks/bullies, high school monster of some sort. We’ve all been there…so many times. But Hollywood lives by playing it safe, so then it becomes a matter of what do you do with the clichés to freshen them up a bit? And that’s where this film also shines.

By the way, protagonist Landon Liboiron is also shot attractively, and Ivana Milicevic, as a key figure whose identity I shouldn’t reveal, also looks just great all the time. Ms. Milicevic is a sensational actress whose ability to completely change her emotional state at the drop of a film frame is given dozens of opportunities to flaunt this gift.

On the commentary track (which happily features Ms. Shaw who, I failed to mention two paragraphs ago, is an intuitive and engaging actress), director Niziki sounds a little as if he’s been inhaling helium. I’m bewildered that he hasn’t done another feature film (according to IMDB) since1989. I really can’t figure it, as he displays such a confident and successful directorial hand. He hasn’t been idle, but his recent work has been mainly short form.

Also worthy of praise are DP Benoit Beaulieu who makes the director’s vision come palpably true, and Editor James Coblentz who takes us for quite a spin, leaping the 180% line repeatedly to great effect, and getting us in on the action for long, poetic stretches of time.

I’m not sure the effects work was everything the crew had hoped for. There’s a lot of dodging around the werewolves rather than showing them off (we see less of them then we saw of the creature in ALIEN), and fortunately they’re less central to the film than the romance is. Also, there’s a sermonizing voice-over from the protagonist at the end which clobbers the pacing, but the earlier voice-over moments are good, and there’s a whole lot of good spoken dialogue, so even though third act missteps are harder to forgive, this is in balance a very effective screenplay.

* I checked out an earlier film featuring Ms. Shaw – DEVOLVED (2010) – a variation of LORD OF THE FLIES with High School nerds and jocks stranded on an island. She is not photographed nearly as well, a testimony to Beaulieu’s work, but she does show all the intuitive physical gifts that really shine in THE HOWLING: REBORN.

THE QUATERMASS XPERIMENT (MGM Archives) 1956. B&W.

The release of this ‘B’ budget level classic is a cause for rejoicing. The first of several theatrical adaptations of Nigel Kneale’s brilliant meditations on science/scifi/horror/and the supernatural, all blended into captivating narrative fiction, this was originally a BBC miniseries, much of which, sadly, has either deteriorated or disappeared. But Val Guest’s condensation of the script, and his documentary-flavored direction, have created a timeless adventure into the unknown (in fact, in its US release, it was called THE CREEPING UNKNOWN). I have been showing the PAL disc in my History of Horror class for years with unanimously positive reactions from the students

An accident has befallen three astronauts in space. Only one returns, and he is not who (or what) he was when he left. Professor Quatermass, who pioneered the rocket program, tries to put the pieces of the solar mystery together as the death toll mounts and life on earth is threatened with disaster, as it usually is in the Quatermass films. ‘Ticking Clock’ syndrome drives the third act.

Subtexturally the narrative is an examination of the British population’s distrust of science after the bombardment of World War II, and of departmental hostilities within the government. It stars American actor Brian Donlevy (a popular practice with ‘Quoto Quickies’ and larger budgeted films in the UK after the war was to secure a second tier, affordable American actor for the cast, to help with foreign and US sales) as the cantankerous, egomaniacal ‘old man’ of rocketry, Bernard Quatermass. He tolerates no fools, and for him, everyone other than himself is a fool. Kneale despised Donlevy’s interpretation of his creation and never missed an opportunity to rail on the guy when doing commentary tracks or interviews. But I disagree. I find Donlevy’s rude characterization fun, exhilarating, even amusing, as it pumps the narrative relentlessly forward. Hammer Films produced this little gem. My advice to you would be to go buy it. Even people not into the horror genre find it compelling. (But if you have the PAL version, don’t dump it just because you’re getting this one – the European disc has good supplementals, such a commentary track from director Val Guest).

A SERBIAN FILM (Invincible Pictures) 2011. Unrated (even with a few seconds edited out to avoid legal problems [and with good reason]).

Boy, this calls for careful handling, possibly with asbestos-lined gloves. If you were looking for the sub-genre in which to place it, ‘Torture-Porn’ would do the trick. Except that unlike, say, HOSTEL, which is a key title in that sub-genre, where the appellation ‘porn’ is meant to stress how brutal the narrative is, A SERBIAN FILM really is about torture and really contains pornography. So please, while it is totally defensible technically and aesthetically – beautifully made, extremely effective, and about something beyond just the exploitative thrills – please be careful about who sees this one with you. What can I compare it to? Pasolini’s SALO? Buddy G’s SLICE OF LIFE? Wes Craven’s original THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT in its day? Respectable films created by respectable directors, but aimed at viewers with extremely specialized, tolerant tastes.

An ex-porn actor is lured back into the biz by an offer of mucho cash, which he desperately needs to support his lovely family – a tall, beautiful, loving wife, and a sweet young son (who he talks to guardedly about masturbation). You know this is going to go bad, you just don’t know how bad.

While there are clear instances of directorial restraint, nothing is finally left to our imagination. Gory violence, graphic nudity, hard-core scenes (even if the guy’s penis is bogus, a la BOOGIE NIGHTS, it appears real in a few shots). What makes it painful to watch, apart from the obvious qualities listed above, are it’s unsympathetic characters. Our main guy maintains one disenchanted expression almost throughout, which can also be read as the cluelessness that seals his fate. His cop brother lusts for the protagonist’s wife to the extent that, while visiting their home, he has to excuse himself to jerk off in the bathroom.

The filmmaking is slick (it would almost have to be to support this narrative for audience consumption), with pleasing lighting, often harsh color design, experimental editing and imaginative art direction, most of it in line with the hard-edged tone of the film. Referring back to HOSTEL, while I like that film very much, it cops out on the nudity level: when the young tourist protagonist is tied in the chair, about to be eviscerated, the ‘client’ leaves the kid’s underpants on. I just didn’t buy it, but this was, after all, a film out of Hollywood, and some concessions had to be made. No such concessions are made here.

I had a few reservations. The lead villain is distractingly over the top (that’s a directorial choice which called for a less flamboyant approach), and there seemed to be illogical elements in the narrative. It’s not bereft of inner logic like, say, a Dario Argento film. I has inner logic; it just doesn’t let us in on it, which is a different kind of problem.

I couldn’t help thinking, during the film (as the film was no doubt prompting me to), about the entire story being a painfully bleak metaphor for what Serbia is actually going through in these desperate economic times. I hear there are other, similar-themed films in the Serbian pipeline waiting to be picked up and released here. Things are bad in the U S of A, but probably considerably worse in some Eastern European countries. And all this depravity, the film says between the frames, is what a country in precipitous decline leads to. Metaphorically, I hope.

An Excellent Halloween Book:

THE HORROR HITS OF RICHARD GORDON – A Book-length interview by Tom Weaver. BearMountain Media. $24.95

I’ve always referred to him as the British Roger Corman, and yet I’ve always felt that it was a troublesome analogy, not because Richard Gordon produced far fewer films than Corman, nor because he didn’t ‘discover’ talent such as Jack Nicholson, Martin Scorsese, Joe Dante, Francis Ford Coppola, Jon Davison and scores of others as Corman did. I felt uneasy about the comparison because Gordon’s ratio of admirable films to misfires in the 1950s was actually far better than Corman’s. He was a true film lover from early childhood on, and though he, like Corman, produced his projects cheaply, he always maintained a dedicated eye toward quality and class.

Most of Gordon’s horror flicks are out on DVD, most gratifyingly the five that Criterion has released. It’s wonderful to see FIEND WITHOUT A FACE sitting on the Criterion-reserved shelves in stores along with the films of Bergman, Fellini, and Dreyer. They have also released four films from Richard’s and his brother Alex’s canon as a collection. And with Universal joining the ‘Archive’ distribution model, could THE PROJECTED MAN be far behind?

Tom Weaver’s book-length interview goes in depth into not only the making of each film, with plentiful anecdotes supplied, but also into the state of the film industry here and in the UK during the 50s and 60s, since Gordon had offices in both countries. Gordon’s memory is razor sharp and this is not only a fun read but a valuable text about the film biz in the decades covered.

Gordon is the last man standing who worked with Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. His recollections about the two stars of Universal’s Golden Age are priceless. He is a staunch defender of Lugosi’s image and character (which he maintains were diametrically opposed to the Martin Landau portrayal in Tim Burton’s ED WOOD), and he paints a warm, genteel portrait of Karloff. THE HAUNTED STRANGLER and CORRIDORS OF BLOOD are two of Karloff’s finest late-career performances.

The soft-cover coffee-table book is amply illustrated, and while I don’t care for the quality of BearMountain’s replication of stills, they are nonetheless wonderful shots, meticulously selected to give the interview ample visual support.

When it comes to the horror genre, Weaver is the planet’s foremost archeologist. I’m thrilled to see that this entertaining, edifying biographical journey was a stand-alone volume, and not part of a collection of interviews as is more often his wont. You should buy this book; you’ll get lots of revisitation use out of it.

Even at this late date, with so many titles having appeared on DVD, there are still some that are yet to see the light of a home theater monitor. Among these are:

THE MONSTER OF PIEDRAS BLANCAS

THE BEAST WITH FIVE FINGERS

C’mon guys! Dig ‘em out and hand ‘em over!

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).

I have sitting on my desk two constant reminders of the Brothers Coen: one is a snow globe from FARGO, their hit film crossover to the Big Time. In this globe stands a wood shredder with a bloody leg sticking out as the last piece to be disposed of. It is delightfully macabre, especially when you shake it and it begins to snow like a Christmas in Hell. The second item is an 8×10 photo of Boris Karloff bowling from SCARFACE, given to me by Peter Bogdanovich in gratitude for an early review of mine for TARGETS, the film which proved to be the swansong for the iconic Karloff.

The task is of trying to put a new spin on what has become a phenomenon in film history. THE BIG LEBOWSKI has followed the classic trajectory of Cult films by not being successful when it first came out since the critics were waiting for a follow-up to FARGO and were greeted with this very strange dark comedy which references so many other film styles and directors. I will say right now that I am not going to spend the next paragraphs comparing THE BIG LEBOWSKI to THE BIG SLEEP. If there is anyone still in the dark about this just watch the many supplementals on the anniversary edition DVD to savor a wealth of trivia on the subject. For the record that film was indeed a blueprint for what follows in the Coen brothers film, however it is a disservice to say that is all it is for this film. I believe it will be discussed and reexamined for decades to come.

THE BIG LEBOWSKI is one of the very finest cult films because you can watch it endless times and find new details to savor.

Boris Karloff bowling in SCARFACE.

The Coens are a bit like Preston Sturges in their off-kilter humor concerning the American dream. Like Sturges they have a stock company of actors like Steve Buscemi who turn up with regularity in their films; in fact you will never understand why Buscemi is always being told to “Shut the fuck up” by John Goodman’s character if you have not seen him in FARGO…you see, he can’t shut up in that film to save his life. My personal take on THE BIG LEBOWSKI is more like a riff on the most overused passage in film, O FORTUNA from Carl Orff’s CARMINA BURANA. In it, the known world is ruled by the empress Fortune on whose wheel mankind spins, stopping at points no human being can fully depend on for his lot in life …and so it is with The Dude.

I don’t think so many years later you can separate for one moment the performance of Jeff Bridges from the success of the film with its now legendary fans. The Coen brothers wrote this film for Bridges and it fits him like a glove. First of all Bridges has aged into one of the best actors of his generation, fully coming into his own after the death of his father Lloyd. It was as if Jeff knew it would have been wrong to so totally overshadow the elder Bridges as an actor in his own lifetime, although Bridges has been nominated for the Oscar from almost the start of his career. The photo from Bogdanovich is always a reminder of that since Jeff was up for the Oscar for THE LAST PICTURE SHOW.

I have noticed that a lot of ink has been spent on describing this film as a “Neo-Noir” and while it does adhere to that genre I think it is more appropriate to refer to THE BIG LEBOWSKI as an L.A. Noir since, like Polanski’s CHINATOWN and Boorman’s POINT BLANK, it is so much a part of the Los Angeles scene. The Film Noir tropes are in abundance throughout the film but always within the landscape of this city of angels, however fallen. Perhaps it is safe to say the film is a post-modernist L.A. Noir as we follow The Dude into the now-defunct Holly Lanes Bowling Alley in Santa Monica, where I observed we never see The Dude actually do any bowling. My favorite character, played by Coen Brothers regular John Turturro, is wildly over the top as Jesus (to be pronounced with a hard J). The competitive bowler is in fact a rival who also happens to be a convicted sex offender; one of the great moments is where Jesus has to make himself known to the neighborhood in which he has recently relocated, so he goes door to door with a hard-on in his pants. Only the Coen brothers, or perhaps John Waters, would have thought of that.

Much has been made of the Busby Berkeley-inspired dream sequences, in particular the one involving a cover of The First Edition’s JUST DROPPED IN (TO SEE WHAT CONDITION MY CONDITION WAS IN). This is the piece de resistance of THE BIG LEBOWSKI for me and is set in motion by an homage of sorts to MURDER MY SWEET (also a Marlowe), this time with Dick Powell instead of Bogie. Bridges is dressed in a workman’s overalls with movements right out of Robert Crumb’s KEEP ON TRUCKIN’, constantly reinforcing The Dude’s counterculture persona, which Bridges can summon with ease since he is a well-known stoner in real life as well.

The current success of the Coen Brothers reboot of TRUE GRIT, which also stars Bridges, allows one to observe the progression of The Dude in reverse, even in the final days of the Old West. I don’t think it was an accident that we have Sam Elliot’s iconic sage cowboy known simply as The Stranger introduce THE BIG LEBOWSKI in the first place.

From the very opening cues of TUMBLING TUMBLEWEEDS the film references the Old West (that perhaps exists now only in an alternative universe) from the current west coast of stoners and freaks, but as The Stranger tells us, “Sometimes, there’s a man, well, he’s the man for his time and place.” The Dude is that if nothing else as he tries to avoid hassles but, once involved, does what he can to abide–and we all know The Dude abides.

I was one of many film historians who arrived late to the party when it came to appreciating the charms of THE BIG LEBOWSKI since it was such a departure (or so I thought) from what we expected from the Brothers Coen, yet after repeated viewings it is my belief that this is their masterpiece. As with most things in art you have to reexamine the work over and over to fully come to terms with what you are seeing, perhaps for the first time.

This film will always be Jeff Bridges’ signature role even though he has reached further in his craft with films like CRAZY HEART, in which he ceases to act and simply inhabits his characters like a second skin. It staggers me to recall the bronzed glamour boy Jeff was in films like AGAINST ALL ODDS and THUNDERBOLT AND LIGHTFOOT and then watch as he transforms into old age with a range one could not have seen coming. Bridges has always observed the conventional form of masculinity, only to play a different take in each of his films of what it really takes to be a man. For all his ineptness in LEBOWSKI he remains a man, in fact, The Dude. You can urinate on his rug but never on his pride.

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.