(1960)
Dir - Roger Corman
Overall: GOOD
The first of American International Picture's Roger Corman/Vincent Price/Edgar Alan Poe adaptations was House of Usher, (The Fall of the House of Usher, The Mysterious House of Usher). AIP took a gamble on it after primarily spitting out cheap, black and white drive-in movies, upping the budget, shooting in Technicolor, and getting a bankable screen presence such as Price on board. The results were not only profitable but considering that there would be seven more such entries in the series and that various other filmmakers both abroad as well as localized in America would follow the blueprint laid down here, this would prove to be an influential work. Corman's infamous reputation as a cost-cutter first and an auteur second is given some leeway here as he proves to have a keen eye for overwhelmingly Gothic imagery, helped largely by Floyd Crosby's cinematography. The director also manages to wrack up the tension in Richard Matheson's somewhat monotonous script, with Les Baker's over the top, ghostly choir soundtrack feverishly building at regular intervals. Price played many eccentric characters in his long career to say the least and as Roderick Usher, he provides an adequate level of camp for a hopelessly self-loathing nihilist with overtly delicate senses. This remains one of the most macabre and atmospheric of all horror films.
(1962)
Dir - Albert Zugsmith
Overall: MEH
If not the strangest entry in Vincent Price's hundred-movie deep filmography, Confessions of an Opium Eater, (Souls for Sale, Evil of Chinatown), is certainly in the upper running. Thomas De Quincey's novel Confessions of an English Opium-Eater serves as a basis in only the loosest sense and the plot structure is baffling in more ways that one. Price is cast a bit against type as the only Caucasian on screen, trying to uncover a human trafficking ring where young Chinese girls are auctioned off to wealthy men. Along the way, he trips balls in an opium den in the movie's single best scene where nightmarish visuals randomly spring up on the screen and men silently chase him in slow motion. Also, women are kept in hanging cages, a never-ending stream of secret passages link an underground labyrinth of shady dealings, every character including Price talks in stereotypically arbitrary, Asian aphorisms, and there is a sing-song midget. Director Albert Zugsmith does not really keep all of the nonsensical parts working together and despite its rather fascinatingly singular "story", it drags heavily and becomes more odd than properly entertaining.
(1965)
Dir - Normal Taurog
Overall: WOOF
Easily one of the most atrociously unfunny comedies ever made, Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine is American International Picture's horrendous attempt at making a beach party spy film with Vincent Price sending up his macabre image. It sounds like a concept conceived of under the influence of drugs already, but the finished result is wacky in all the wrong ways. On the mild plus side, Price is impossible not to love even in an abysmal offering like this and he does seem to revel in playing straight comedy for a change. One scene involving him reenacting the ending of The Pit and the Pendulum at least seems amusing on paper. The theme song by The Supremes of all groups is kitschy and fun, plus producer James H. Nicholson's wife Susan Hart gives the material a solid go at least. Of course the material in question is unbearably stupid and the "jokes" are so pedestrian and cornball that even a toddler would roll their eyes at them. Most unfortunate of all is that the movie actually turned out to be a hit and an even worse sequel followed the next year. For Price fans, these are easily the last two entries that should ever be looked into.
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