This one from 1963 has a lot to recommend it with Roger Corman directing and the writing by Richard Matheson who also gave us the ‘Omega Man’ book ‘I am Legend’. The cast is also stellar with Vincent Price, Peter Lorre, Boris Karloff and even a young Jack Nicholson all hamming it up. It would be impossible for the film to be as good as the sum of its parts but it’s still plenty of fun.
We open with a 16th century Price reciting the Poe poem ‘The Raven’ - just forget it wasn’t written until 300 odd years later. He plays a magician who has fun creating a large neon raven with his fingers before he is interrupted by a tap, tap tapping on his window. He is surprised to find a raven trying to get in and is even more surprised when it starts talking like Peter Lorre. The bird explains it is the victim of an enchantment and it needs Price’s help to restore himself to his human form.
Price agrees to help and after mixing up a potion Lorre is largely restored to his normal self, albeit with the feathers still in place. They need more potion but are lacking the vital ingredient of dead man’s hair - luckily Price has a handy source in the shape of his dead dad in the family crypt. He gets his lock but is surprised when his departed daddy tells him to ‘beware’. Price is a bit spooked and even more so when Lorre tells him that Price’s dead wife Lenore has been seen in the castle of local mystery man Boris Karloff. He checks that Lenore’s rotting body is still in place, and it is, but he worries that Karloff may have her soul.
The pair resolve to visit the old mystic and take along Price’s daughter and Lorre’s son, Jack Nicholson, for good measure. The coach ride takes an age but eventually they are at Castle Karloff (it’s only a model). Will our troupe solve the mystery of Lenore? Who is the best at throwing bolts out of their fingers and how many times can they squeeze ‘nevermore’ into the script?
I quite enjoyed this film despite it being nothing like what I expected. I went in expecting Gothic horror but instead got camp comedy for my troubles. It wasn’t an out and out laugh fest, but the mirth out scored the horror by five to one. Price was his usual, reliable self and good value as the aged magician. Lorre was good fun as the raven and as the duplicitous Dr Bedlo. Karloff was marvellously hammy as Dr Scarabus and a young Nicholson did OK as the son, but I’m not sure why he was wearing a Robin Hood costume throughout.
The action largely took place on a couple of sets, but there was enough going on to keep my interest. I liked the magicians’ duel with Price shooting green beams from his fingers whilst Karloff’s were blue - C’mon Boris!
Bits of Poe’s poem were laced throughout the script, but it certainly wasn’t a rigid adaptation of the source material, with Lenore for one taking a radically different character arc. At only 86 minutes the film doesn’t outstay its welcome and it was good fun to see an array of stars at different ends of their career trajectories.
A real historical treasure trove that, whilst never a classic, is well worth a look.
The Tag Line : Beam Me Up! 69%
No comments:
Post a Comment