The House On Haunted Hill

Another Vincent Price classic.

On Vincent Price

Vincent Price was, simply put, the best B film actor ever, and the best horror film actor ever. Yes, yes, that may be like saying one was the best swimmer on the Titanic, but still....give a legend his due.



As I said, in my review of War-Gods Of The Deep:

....even were this film not helmed by a true talent like Tourneur, it would have gained a few notches simply by Price’s magisterial presence. He could bring pathos and depth to even the most absurd situations and dialogue, and does so here. He has kidnapped Jill because she looks just like his dead wife from over a century before- an old trope that never seems to lose its usefulness in inspiring B film madmen, especially Price, who made a specialty out of longing for dead spouses on film. Of course, what makes this film work is that Price never concedes, with even a wink nor nod, that he is in a B film. If only he had been allowed to do Shakespeare in an A film, how much richer American cinema would have been, but he was consigned to B films because of his odd physical features, and slightly fey mannerisms.

Yet, even though he suffered a sort of typecasting, the man never let it ruin his career. Check out how he makes lemonade from lemons:


Like many horror films, I went to see the Price films of the 1960s and 1970s while sneaking into theaters, and loved his acting. But, here is an interesting snippet of the man, as the man:

The Fall of the House of Usher

Edgar Allan Poe, Roger Corman, Vincent Price. A trio of terror, and perfect together!

Gamera

Never liked Gamera, the giant turtle from the Daiei Studios, rival (mostly inferior) to Toho Studios' Godzilla.

He was slower and more awkward than Godzy, and his rival monsters were very weak in comparison. I was a fan of the original series of films, as a kid, though, and often on the 4:30 movie, after school, I'd see Gamera and Godzilla films.

The best film was the original Gamera, made in black and white, in the year I was born, 1965: Gamera The Invincible.

Like the Godzy films, Gamera was rebooted a few times, but the original magic was always missing. And, as noted, Gamera never had the magic load Godzilla did, anyway.

Here is the opening to the first film:


I did not realize it until posting this clip, though, that Albert Dekker, of Dr. Cyclops fame, was in this film, in the Americanized inserts.

It's interesting how some actors, like Dekker, Vincent Price, or Faith Domergue, got stuck in certain genres, not just for years, but for decades.

Anyway, Gamera eventually was killed off in 1980, then restored in a later series of films which I've not seen, and likely will never see. To me, Gamera was always a Teddy Bear version of Godzilla, and that seems just about right.

Vincent Price and Edgar Allan Poe

Vince and Ed: great team:

The Last Man On Earth

I have yet to watch the film I Am Legend, starring Will Smith, aka The Fresh Prince. Richard Matheson's source novel, though, is a great book.

There were two prior adaptations of the novel. In the 1970s, Charlton Heston essayed the role as The Omega Man, and though I loved ol' Chuckles, it was not nearly as good a film as Soylent Green, nor the first filmic adaptation, the 1960s version, called The Last Man On Earth, starring another of my all time faves, Vincent Price. Who could not love Vinny?

The shots in this black and white film are excellent, and that's likely because it was made at the height of Fellini and Antonioni-mania, in Italy. Price made every role he played better than it had any right to be. He brought intelligence and pathos to some of the silliest characters ever invented. That's a great actor. Watch the scene where he has to stake his infected dog, and then you see a blanket with a stake in it. But he was doomed, by his non-leading man looks, to B films. Watch the film, and the case against voiceovers is rent. This film makes excellent use of such.

Here's the trailer:



Here's the film for free:



Now, of only The Unearthly Stranger or Planeta Burg were in public domain.

BONUS POEM:

VINCENT PRICE IN THE DRAPERY FOLDS

An indignant resign resides in the box
that shapes his eyes within the frame of the world
windowed and decorated and fluttering
in the motions of motion you largely see
but choose to ignore: his earlier career
was a banal extravagance into here
where the flesh remembers no time he was not
creepy and old and decaying with silent
eyes that entwined you like the billowing cloth
which frames your gaze away from television
and into the real world or out into it
because all is tragic when one is without
as he in between the cloth and the glass or
the divine chaotics of wish and snowflake.