60's Vincent Price Part Three

TWICE-TOLD TALES
(1963)
Dir - Sidney Salkow
Overall: GOOD

After a handful of Edgar Allan Poe vehicles had been collaborated upon by Roger Corman, American International Pictures, and Vincent Price, the latter jumped ship temporarily to star in and narrate the similarly designed Twice-Told Tales for United Artists.  Switching the author from Poe to Nathaniel Hawthrone and titling the film after his short story collection of the same name, (though only one of the segments here actually came from said publication), Last Man on Earth director Sidney Salkow utilized Price in an identical fashion that Corman did in the previous year's Tales of Terror.  In fact there is even more tie-ins to Price's earlier work in that the final segment to this anthology "The House of the Seven Gables" was already adapted two decades previously and likewise featured the actor.  Twice-Told Tales is a period piece of course, but is very scant on the Gothic atmosphere that Corman feverishly utilized.  This is not a handicap though as the comparably brighter colors and more streamlined cinematography differentiates it some.  The stories themselves, (particularly the aforementioned "Gables" and opening "Dr. Heidegger's Experiment"), certainly partake of some gruesome bits though and for a change, Vincent Price pretty much plays the doomed, barely if at all sympathetic bad guy in all three.

THE TOMB OF LIGEIA
(1965)
Dir - Roger Corman
Overall: MEH

The final installment in Roger Corman's Edgar Allan Poe film series for American International Pictures was The Tomb of Ligeia, though Vincent Price would continue to appear in future Poe vehicles.  A bit of a conundrum in that it looks and feels like any of the other Corman-styled vehicles of its kind, yet it seems less vibrant and inventive that the others in the series.  Tales of dead wives haunting their still living, now eccentric husbands are a common staple, as are said husbands yielding to mania, cobwebs being everywhere, disturbing dream sequences, and setting the castle on fire for the finale.  There are also some remarkable props and scenery on display, (including Egyptian statues and a diabolically decorated chamber room), and Vincent Price even gets to battle a tiny cat to the death.  Still, this easily stands as the weakest entry into this franchise due to a draggy pace and again, perhaps too much familiarity making it tedious.  On his personal end, Price is impervious to disappoint, but he still ends up short-changed here as his character's plight never really becomes all that engaging.  He does look rather cool in those glasses though.

THE HOUSE OF 1,000 DOLLS
(1967)
Dir - Jeremy Summers
Overall: GOOD

Far more neglected than appreciated, The House of 1,000 Dolls is a Euro-trash thriller that is very atypical of Vincent Price's usual work at this point in his career.  Supposedly, he signed on to the project without knowing what it was going to be about, (he was under contract still with American International Pictures, who distributed the film), and it is believable that he would have passed if given the opportunity.  Script wise, the film is decidedly silly with a number of on-foot chase scenes, sleazy set pieces, doofy dialog, and an on-going mystery with a twist that would impress no one.  That said, Jeremy Summers, (who is mostly known for directing a large number of episodes of The Saint), has a panache behind the lens that is auspiciously entertaining.  The film is noticeably styled as an Italian giallo, (though that is not what it is), and has an odd, amusing sound design as well as much inventive camera work.  There are also a few moments early on that are enticingly creepy, when the enigma of the plot still looms large.  The films opening scene ends on just such a "hmmm...interesting" jump.  Though it is easy to see why this is not one of the more well regarded Vincent Price movies, it may deserve a little more applause than it has gotten and can freely be relished as a hokey bit of fun at the very least.

60's Vincent Price Part Two

TALES OF TERROR
(1962)
Dir - Roger Corman
Overall: GREAT

Installment number four in Roger Corman's Edgar Allan Poe series of adaptations for American International Pictures, (seven of which featured Vincent Price), Tales of Terror is as very good as the best of them.  It is the only chapter in the series to be an anthology piece and the first to enter into a comedic contour with the middle "The Black Cat" segment which in turn forges the "The Cask of Amontillado" story into it as well.  Said section could very well be the highlight, with Peter Lorre stumbling around drunk and screaming profanities at felines and Price being just delightful as a pretentious sommelier ponce.  The opening "Morella" is basically a mini-version of House of Usher or Pit and the Pendulum and the final "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar" features Price in some gruesome, squishy monster makeup.  Aside from the middle portion of Tales which clearly goes for and achieves morbid laughs, the rest of the film has the same straightforward, spooky vibe that every Corman/Price/Poe movie does and Price logically impresses in three thoroughly different roles.

DIARY OF A MADMAN
(1963)
Dir - Reginald Le Borg
Overall: GOOD

Based off the fabulously mustached Guy de Maupassant's short story Le Horla, Diary of a Madman is a prime example of the quintessential Vincent Price role; that of an upper-class nobleman who grudgingly submits to malevolent forces of the mind.  There are some ghastly turn of events here, (including one involving a clay head statue that ranks as the most memorable), that rigidly merit its inclusion in the horror genre.  As does the premise of a peculiar type of supernatural haunting that drives Price's French magistrate Simon Cordier to act as a man possessed, leaving the audience with little doubt that the strangeness is "real" and not exclusive to his subconscious.  There is plenty to make this a strange standout for its era, though to nitpick if we must, a few of the performances outside of Price's of course are a bit stiff.  There is also some forced religious subtext that is too incidental to appear plausible, but these really are petty points to even bring to light.  It is Price in very respectable form during feasibly his best decade as an actor.

THE OBLONG BOX
(1969)
Dir - Gordon Hessler
Overall: MEH

Two real life deaths unfortunately cast a shadow on the 1969 Edgar Allan Poe adaptation The Oblong Box.  The first was filmmaker Michael Reeves', who had previously worked with Vincent Price, Rupert Davies, and Hilary Dwyer and was developing the script for Box at the time of his accidental overdose.  Lawrence Huntington was then another writer who died suddenly in the pre-production phase.  The completed work does see Price and Christopher Lee together for the very first time, (though they only share a single, quite brief scene), and has a rather macabre, grisly premise, but it is a bit cluttered and periodically sluggish.  The script was heavily re-worked to the point of barely if at all resembling Poe's original story, not that that is a bad or even uncommon thing.  Its twists though come off as a little flat and Price and Lee, (both of whom had the ability to carry a film in spades), have minimal screen time.  Plot elements kind of pile up on top of each other and it is not a good thing when that makes the reasonable running time still seem like it is too long.  Though not as essential as much of Price's other work or the Roger Corman helmed Poe vehicles, its mediocrity is still somewhat enjoyable.

60's Vincent Price Part One

TOWER OF LONDON
(1962)
Dir - Roger Corman
Overall: MEH

Roger Corman was embittered with the Tower of London co-producer Edward Small's continuous involvement and interference, only discovering that the film was to be in black and white just before shooting began.  The end product contains a marvelous portrayal from Vincent Price who deforms his own body and shows many different facets of Richard III, from almost childlike awe, terror, and confusion from his ghostly tormentors, to ruthless, evil ambition, to genuine grief from his actions.  Aside from that, the film is somewhat blotchy.  It is basically a scrambled conglomerate of Shakespeare's Macbeth and Richard III, (obviously), as well as random moldings of the real-life historical figure and Corman's own stylistic interpretations of Edgar Alan Poe.  Being in black and white though, it ends up unintentionally cheapening the movie and removing it from the expressive, Gothic tone of Corman and Price's Poe works.  Also, the rushed plot, (due to numerous re-writes on Small's insistence again), flows distractedly, where everything seems to happen in about the span of a few days when it should have transpired over years.  Still, Price kills it and Corman's hands seemed to have been tied to a large extent, so its marginal failure is easily forgivable.

THE HAUNTED PALACE
(1963)
Dir - Roger Corman
Overall: GREAT

Out of the eight Vincent Price/Roger Corman adaptations of Edgar Allan Poe's works, The Haunted Palace is the only such one to be shoe-horned in there, primarily due to American International Picture's urging.  Corman deliberately wanted to step away from Poe for this go-around and instead do a H.P. Lovecraft story, (The Case of Charles Dexter Ward in this case).  Yet to keep the same marketing strategy as they already had in place, AIP had him change the title and add a line from a Poe poem at the very end, thus its inclusion in the series.  No matter the source material though, as this is thankfully a textbook Corman/Price vehicle with all the Gothic, fog-laden, dead trees, spooky castle, secret passages, hidden caverns, angry villagers, and setting fire to things hallmarks.  Some brief screen time from a Lovecraftian entity is also a nice touch.  Speaking of which, Lon Chaney, (in his only Corman-helmed appearance, allegedly stepping in for Boris Karloff who was suffering from an ailment at the time), is here playing one of Price's caretaker/fellow sorcerers in the two horror icon's only on-screen pairing.  Price then of course is stellar in a familiar duel role, where both madness and villainy gradually overtakes him.

WITCHFINDER GENERAL
(1968)
Dir - Michael Reeves
Overall: GOOD

One of Vincent Price's most troubled film shoots inadvertently gave him one of his best, subdued performances as the self-appointed witch executioner Mathew Hopkins in Witchfinder General.  Filmmaker Michael Reeves, (who only directed three movies in his short lifetime, dying of an accidental alcohol and drug overdose only nine months after General's release), clashed endlessly with Price throughout the entire process.  The feeling was mutual as both parties greatly detested their working relationship, (Reeves aggravated nearly all of the strife by openly disrespecting Price and proclaiming how he was being forced to work with him, having initially written the part of Hopkins for Donald Pleasence).  Yett despite Reeve's unhealthy inability to convey his instructions or appreciation to his actors, the result was a camp-less one from Price and a rather bleak, primitive look at the lawless witchcraft hunts during the English Civil War.  Historical certainties are greatly compromised to keep the film's running time moderately sufficient, but the grim tone is kept in check despite the Hopkins character ultimately being too imprecise to get a foot hold on.  As one of Price's darker and most unsympathetic roles though and as an entry into the agonized witch trial sub-genre, it is a stellar piece of work.

The Shining

THE SHINING
(1980)
Overall: THE BEST

Well it is October and that means two things; pumpkin spice horseshit is unfathomably everywhere and yay horror movies!  Now for me, the month that Halloween is in holds no substantially greater weight than any other month for watching horror films.  I will only bust out A Christmas Story or Die Hard during December generally, but Night of the Living Dead, Rosemary's Baby, or anything with Bela Lugosi in it pretty much hits the same spot no matter what time of year it is.  As is basically the case for any horror dork such as myself.

Now The Shining is a film which I have seen many, many times over the course of many, many years and in many, many different months.  Yet it is also the most appropriate to single out and analyze for a festive blog entry this time of year.  It is the absolute best horror movie ever made and if not for 2001: A Space Odyssey, I would go as far as to say it is the best film the best filmmaker Stanley Kubrick ever made as well.

Pretty hard to fuck with this shit right here.

Kubrick's meticulous and methodical process to making movies is well documented by film historians and experts everywhere.  Each project he took on would take longer and longer to complete, as he garnished more and more control over his work and therefor, more and more patience was at his disposal to see his vision through.  Very few filmmakers are granted such a luxury of near limitless resources, funds, and time to see their undertakings come to life and the results Kubrick routinely attained are matchless in his field.

The seeds were planted for The Shining to become a movie when after filming the brilliant yet commercially inaccessible Barry Lyndon, Stanley Kubrick decided he wanted his next project to have a wider appeal.  So he set about a journey to find a novel to adapt what would keep him as artistically fulfilled as ever at the same time.  Having never made a horror movie, Kubrick was intrigued with basically how he could achieve something in a genre often stifled with cliches, but also one that connected profoundly to a dark human element that was universal.  After getting embittered with a stack of books that were not what he was looking for, Stephen King's The Shining stood out and ultimately became the victor for adaptation.

Here he is literally bursting with joy after reading it.

Now King's condemnation with Kubrick's finished product has also long been a topic of discussion and made very public by the author.  I for one find it humorous and certainly in later years, it seems that King at the very least accepts what was cinematically done with his novel, if not necessarily agreeing with it.  Because really, they are two differing angles to tell the same story and the contrasts between them are many.  Even at its core, both the film and the book tell very different tales, simply because the focus of protagonist is not the same.

The book is about Danny Torrence.  The film is very much about Jack Torrence.  In the book, Jack is a recovering alcoholic who is genuinely struggling with his dependence in a sincere, benevolent way.  The movie Jack has an off-kilter and troubling menace to him from scene one.  Which calls to mind  King's problem with the casting of Jack Nicholson.  This is because King's Jack Torrence is not the kind of guy who is crazy to begin with, but instead is the type of guy who unwillingly succumbs to supernatural forces that feed off his own internal, conflicting struggles as a husband and a father.  Kubrick's Jack Torrence on the other hand is meant to be a little wacky all along and Nicholson embodies that unease in his physical appearance and mannerisms alone, not to mention the fact that The Shining went underway not long after the actor was hot off his success in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Next, playing an insane asylum inmate.  So going in, the audience knows that seeing Nicholson on the screen as this character plants the seeds subliminally that something is awry before it becomes blatantly so.

"Something is Awry" - The Jack Nicholson Story

To me, this is a brilliant piece of casting by Kubrick, truly showing that the director conceivably thinks of everything before shooting a single frame.  Often times it is more believable for a movie to have a cast of unknowns so we are not going "Oh look, that's Tom Cruise pretending to be somebody else up there", but Kubrick was so deliberately sure of himself that casting an A-lister like Nicholson worked entirely in favor for the response he was going for.  This brings us to Shelly Duvall who was tormented to the point of losing her hair, having full blown panic attacks, and a nervous breakdown due to the arduous shooting schedule and Kubrick's tyrannical direction approach with his actors.  Whether admitted or not though, the ends justified the means depending on how big of an art fan you are because Duvall's performance is outstanding.  It could not be more "real" than if she really was defending herself from her axe-wielding, manic husband while witnessing a bunch of ghosts perform fellatio on each other in animal costumes.

Kubrick may have been a brute that intimidated his cast and crew to the point of emotional and physical pain, but no one can deny that the effect achieved was not absolutely perfect.  I can assume that signing up to participate in a Stanley Kubrick project was to know that you were going to be played like an instrument regardless of how you felt and that an incredible amount of trust was necessary on your part to give into it.  So yes I sympathize for the amount of people Kubrick on paper tormented, (like his poor assistant who had to type out pages upon pages upon pages of Jack's wonderfully engaging novel in several different languages for real).  Yet I also very much get what Kubrick did and admit that since I was not personally thrown through the rigamarole of his sublime madness, I can simply sit back and watch his masterpiece and appreciate how magnificent of a thing he accomplished.

And you thought I was not going to post this picture after moving on from the last paragraph.  Mwa ha ha ha!

The setting for The Shining is of course the fictitious Overlook Hotel, inspired by King's actual stay at the Stanley Hotel, (which is a funny coincidence), in Estes Park, Colorado.  For the film, the Timberline Lodge in Oregon was used for some exterior shots, while nearly the bulk of the shooting was done on the then largest set ever build at EMI Elstree Studios in Britain.  Kubrick based most of the set's interiors closely off the Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite National Park.  The amount of detail put into these sets is on another level of dedication and excellence.  There has been anecdotes told as to how Kubrick insisted on all the canned food labels in the walk-in pantry being up to date, foreseeing an era past 1980 when nerds with way too much time on their hands, (cough, Room 237, cough), would pause his film in high definition and examine each and every frame looking for any hiccups.

The rest of the Overlook Hotel's rooms though look precise to a point of awe.  More importantly is what role all the painstaking minutia of the design plays in the experience.  Intentionally, the geography of the Overlook Hotel's authentic composition is never explicitly depicted.  We never quite know exactly where we are in the place and numerous, wide angle shots give it an eerie quality that only enhances the isolation of the characters.  This and the soundtrack, (like famously when Danny is riding around on his tricycle and the turbulent sound of the hardwood floors clashes with the feather soft sound of the carpeting), give us a mix of ordinary yet vibrantly contrasting noises that throw our brains off ever slightly.  "By five o'clock tonight, you'll never know anybody was ever here" is one of the most subtly creepy lines in any horror movie.  Many other scenes of essentially nothing sinister going on being shown in broad daylight as well all work on the viewers psyche that something otherworldly is existing in the Overlook itself.

Nothing sinister going on here folks.

This is one of the reasons that King deserves such admiration for the premise of The Shining alone.  Certainly influenced by Shirley Jackson's seminal The Haunting of Hill House, Kubrick sets up the Overlook as a physical place that is inherently evil and in that way, is also as alive as any "living" thing could be.  So the idea to trap a very small family inside of it under the pretense of voluntarily being there gives the setting the foolproof concept that malevolent forces can gradually overtake human beings who are cut off from any form of escape.  Furthermore, by our protagonists having all the logical excuses to willingly stay put, that "why don't you just leave?" annoyance with ghost stories does not apply.  Once again, the natural human element is tapped into of an unconscious fear of being alone and truly disconnected from the world AND having the very foundation of closeness with loved ones that are supposed to protect each other gradually begin to shift in the worst possible way in the opposite direction.

Jack Torrance works as a character in the Overlook Hotel, regardless of whether he has "always been the caretaker" or is simply at the wrong place at the wrong time and his intentions are pure and unwillingly corrupted.  One can examine each step to his breakdown and theorize as to what is "real" or chimerical.  In the opening job interview scene, it is disclosed to us that Dilbert Grady had two daughters "about eight and ten".  Danny is the only one who sees twins, (ergo, clearly not two years apart in age), who we presume to be the Grady girls, so these scenes could mean a number of things.  They could be physically manifesting themselves from Jack which is then lost in translation to Danny, the episode of Grady murdering his daughters could have been told to Danny from Jack off screen and this is how Danny or "Tony" is showing it to him, Stuart Ullman simply could have had his facts wrong, etc.

In any case, Danny positively needed to change his under garments after this.

Similarly, the hand-print on Danny's neck and his, (again off-screen), story that a woman choked him in room 237 is not shown to us from his perspective, but this time from Jacks.  Is Jack imagining what he thinks it to be?  Is the hotel showing him some kind of warped version of a "ghost" mixed with his own sexual frustrations and second-hand account of his son's claim as to what happened?  Danny's "shining" name-drops room 237 out of nowhere when he is talking to Dick Hallorann earlier, so is that room something random that he fabricated an entire vile presence in or is it connected to actual events from the hotel's past?  Then, is what he fabricated made "real" to Jack, just as it could have went visa versa with the twins?  These are only but two moments we can play with and debate and they work in the film because Stanley Kubrick is portraying the horror of confusion and lunacy, which is all brought to dreadful "life" by his ominous setting.

Stephen King the author though is not one for ambiguity.  That is certainly not a bad quality and in fact is one of the reasons he is so popular.  If anything, King can easily be accused of giving his readers way more information than they reasonably need.  Besides dedicating pages upon pages of exposition to nearly every speaking character or location he ever uses, he also continues on where nothing can possibly be left to anyone's imagination as to the outcome of the story.

Image unrelated.

In the book, Dick Hallorann is a far more fleshed-out character and he and Danny Torrence's initial "shining" exchange is considerably longer than what is shown in the film.  This is also true as to his eventual arrival back at the Overlook at the end, which is given an entire, suspense ridden stream of events to slam home how difficult the plight truly was.  Now this is the kind of stuff that understandably is going to get severely trimmed down when it comes time to make your movie.  Hallorann and Danny's one and only face to face encounter is wrapped up in a few brief though very important minutes.  The fat is trimmed.  Same case with his would-be rescue of the Torrances back at the Overlook.  One scene he is in Florida, the next he is on a plane, the next he is in Colorado in a gas station, the next he is in a snow cat on his commute up the mountain, and then next he is meeting Mr. Axe in the Back, (spoilers, my bad).  The full fledged and detailed account in the book was not at all necessary here though.  Hallorann really only shows up so that Danny's psychic abilities can manifest and there can be a level of tension as to whether or not he can truly remove them from harm.  Besides that, it is still the story of Jack's ambiguous place in the Overlook's malicious scheme.

So now that we are here, the ending to the two versions of The Shining in book and cinematic form could not be more unalike.  In the novel, Danny, Wendy, and an only injured Dick Hallorann escape after Danny reminds Jack to mind the boiler, which inadvertently blows the Overlook to smithereens.  There is then an epilogue that shines, (huh, huh), even more light on what really went down and has a far more pleasant air to it than a single shot does in the movie.  This wraps up the book nicely because IN the book, Jack was a tragic character and his relationship with his son is treated as such, with Hallorann comforting Danny in the following winter's aftermath.

And then comforts himself if you know what I mean.

We assume that Danny and Wendy get down the mountain to civilization after the events of the movie, but that is not shown because it is not important.  The final moments of the film are of Jack Torrence so far gone into complete and utter madness that he cannot even enunciate words.  After being physically injured and exhausted, he is a broken man in every sense and as he frays about hopelessly and wildly in the outside maze, slowing freezing to death, the severity of how inescapable his fate truly is hits us.  In a film where practically every scene is as memorable as the last, Jack's dire and disturbing dance and then the silent image of himself no longer alive and looking up in a shot that Kubrick adores using time and again is as unsettling as anything you could hope for in a horror movie.  By this point the audience is nearly on sensory overload as to how deliberately we have been lead through the goings on of the villainous forces at work in the Overlook.  Then we see just what Delbert Grady means when he says Jack has "always been the caretaker" in a moment that offers more unrest for the viewer, just as the hotel itself will remain restless still.

Mmm...trademark imagery.