The Vincent Price Movie Review

aka “The City Under the Sea”

Released in 1965
Directed by Jacques Tourneur
Written by Charles Bennett and Louis M. Heyward
Based on the poem “The City In the Sea” by Edgar Allan Poe

“The waves have now a redder glow —
The hours are breathing faint and low —
And when, amid no earthly moans,
Down, down that town shall settle hence,
Hell, rising from a thousand thrones,
Shall do it reverence.”

War Gods of the Deep puts a new spin on the AIP Poe movies of the 60’s. Instead of a spooky castle by the sea, they put the castle in the sea this time. And way down there living inside it are a bunch of pirates, their sinister smuggler Captain (Vincent Price), and some freaky humanoid sea monsters. Oh yeah, there’s an active volcano down there too. And the pirates are immortal.

The movie starts out appropriately with Vincent Price reciting some Edgar Allan Poe, which is never a bad idea. The action begins when a local washes up dead on shore, and then a woman named Jill Tregillis(Susan Hart) gets kidnapped by one of the gill men. (they were saying Miss Tregillis, but I kept hearing Mr. Gillis) What other choice do Ben (Tab Hunter) and Harold (David Tomlinson) have but to investigate? Unfortunately, while exploring a cave they both accidently fall in a swirling maelstrom that sucks them all the way down into the underwater city. You will probably recognize David Tomlinson from Bedknobs and Broomsticks. His character in this movie provides a bit of lighthearted comedy. For some reason he carries around a British chicken in a basket for the entire film. There’s a scene in the movie where Vincent Price spots the chicken for the first time and he points to the basket and simply says, “Chicken.” Inadvertently hilarious.

After they arrive in the city under the sea they encounter the pirates and their Captain. In a really long exposition, the Captain explains everything to them while they watch the gill men hunt fish with crossbows. (how does a crossbow work underwater?) The rest of the movie is more or less occupied by Ben and Harold trying to escape with Miss Tregillis, which reaches a “climax” in an excruciatingly long and uninteresting underwater chase scene. (back in the 60’s this would be a prime spot in the movie to start fogging up the windows with a hot date at the drive-in)

I tried to give this movie a fair shot but it just doesn’t hold together. Vincent Price’s performance is not bad at all, though. He plays it straight, serious, and subdued. But there’s only so much he can do to prop up the rest of the movie. The unnecessary scenes and Ed Wood-esque underwater sequences all contribute to making this movie a bit subpar.

Released in 1971
Directed by Robert Fuest
Written by James Whiton and William Goldstein

“Nine killed you. Nine shall die.”

“Bravo!”
“How bizarre!”
“How did this movie ever get made?”

These three thoughts alternated repeatedly through my mind while viewing the Abominable Dr. Phibes for the first time. (i’ve seen it about 20 times since then) How do I begin to explain this wonderful movie? It’s a combination of horror and black comedy that is mixed together with a refreshing amount of style and a sense of the bizarre.

Dr. Phibes (Vincent Price) is an independently wealthy genius with multiple PhDs. He also has a beautiful but dead wife, a beautiful but mute servant (Virginia North), the coolest looking organ ever created, and a penchant for revenge…Old Testament style revenge. The latter is unfortunate for the British doctors who failed to save Phibes’ wife during surgery. Blaming them for their lack of skills and neglect, Phibes starts bumping off the doctors one by one, each in a novel fashion inspired by the biblical ten plagues of Egypt. (bats, frogs, bees, boils, etc)

Dispatched to stop the gruesome murders is the good-natured but incompetent Inspector Trout,(Peter Jeffrey) who always seems to be one step behind Phibes. His bumbling antics and dry dialog provide much of the black humor in the film.

What really makes this movie special is the way it’s infused with style and a touch of whimsy. The sets are done mostly in the 1920’s Art Deco style, and look very slick. (the movie is set in the 1920’s) The music is great as well, and features some songs from the 20’s that most people will recognize and also some interesting organ instrumentals.

This is definitely not your average cookie-cutter film and as such I know some people will not like it. But for me, this makes my Top 10 Vincent Price movies, and is one of my favorite films period.

They did make a sequel that, like most, is not as good and is “more of the same.” Another movie that is similar in style is Theater of Blood, which I found to be interesting but ultimately couldn’t capture the original magic that The Abominable Dr. Phibes had.

Released in 1946
Directed by Alfred L. Werker
Based on a story by Albert DeMond

“you’re losing your mind, Mrs. Stewart….”

Shock is a relatively obscure movie hidden way back in Vincent Price’s early career. I put it in my Netflix queue randomly, as I had never heard anything about it, but was pleasantly surprised when it turned out to be a solid thriller.

The film opens when a young woman named Janet Stewart(Anabel Shaw) arrives at a hotel to rendevous with her husband who has recently returned from serving in World War II. As she waits in the room, she peers out the window which is facing another room of the hotel, and witnesses an argument between a man and his wife. The quarrel soon takes a violent turn as the man bludgeons the woman to death with a candlestick. Upon seeing the horrible death, Mrs. Stewart succumbs to psychological shock. She is found later by her husband, who promptly takes her to a doctor in residence at the hotel. The doctor recommends a reputable psychiatric specialist named Dr. Cross (Vincent Price) who conveniently resides at the same hotel. Unfortunately for Mrs. Stewart, the man she witnessed murdering his wife is none other than Dr. Cross himself!

Knowing that Mrs. Stewart can implicate him in the crime, Dr. Cross immediately recommends that she be taken to his private sanatorium, where he is the head physician. Dr. Cross keeps her under heavy sedation while he vacillates in his next course of action. His mistress(Lynn Bari), who is also his nurse, eggs him on to murder Mrs. Stewart. Not being the cold-blooded killing type, Dr. Cross initially dismisses the idea. In the meantime, he has to arrange his wife’s death to appear an accident. His schemes start to unravel when Mr. Stewart and a police detective both start sniffing around and putting the facts together.

-

I love it when you pick out an obscure movie at random and it turns out to be good. There was nothing bad about this movie except maybe what happens to his nurse at the end. The story was solid, the dialog was decent, and the performances were good all around - especially Vincent Price’s.

This is the type of role Vincent Price was born to play; he excels at portraying complex villains that evoke the viewer’s sympathy. The Dr. Cross character, who is an emotionally weak person as well as being an intelligent and powerful man, allows us to see a nice range of performances from Price.

And now a random bit of trivia…

Shock is the only movie or book I can recall where someone gets murdered by a candlestick, other than Clue, which came out in 1949.(the boardgame) Shock was released in 1946. Coincidence? Maybe Vincent Price inspired the creator of Clue to include a candlestick in the gallery of weapons. (i also suspect he was the first on-screen villian to lovingly stroke a cat in The Three Musketeers - somebody look that up)

Trivia aside, Shock is a good movie that is definitely worth watching. It’s a shame that nobody has even heard of it.

Released in 1939
Directed by Michael Curtiz
Based on the play by Maxwell Anderson

Filmed way back in 1939, The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex was Vincent Price’s second movie. I was taken by surprise after popping it into my DVD player. Instead of seeing an ancient, grainy, black and white screen, the film opened in marvelously restored technicolor. It looks fantastic.

The movie is based on the play Elizabeth the Queen, which is a fictional dramatization of the social affairs of Elizabeth I (Bette Davis) and the Earl of Essex (Errol Flynn). Their relationship is a complex one. Both of them are headstrong and vain, and their affection for each other is in competition with their stronger loves of power and England. Even though Essex goes to war in Ireland, the film stays focused on the relationship between Elizabeth and Essex. Their relationship, already strained, is further complicated by the machinations of people in the court who would like to see it fail.

One of these scheming persons is Sir Walter Raleigh, played by Vincent Price, who doesn’t have much to do in this film. If I remember correctly, Price had previously played Essex in the theatrical version. It was reported that Vincent Price had to repeatedly feed Errol Flynn his lines. Flynn, being a notorious cad, often came in late and unprepared for shooting. This may have fueled the enmity between he and Bette Davis. (pay close attention to the slap scene, Flynn looks pissed after Davis smacks him upside the head!) Flynn does a decent job as Essex, however, and performs with casual ease. He seems to fit well with the vain and fiery nature of the character.

Davis’s portrayal of Elizabeth is interesting. The first thing you will notice is how fidgety and nervous she is. I found this a bit distracting the first time I viewed the movie. This must have been a deliberate choice by Davis in order to add more nuance to the character. Keep in mind Davis was only around the age of thirty when this movie was made, and Elizabeth at this period in time was around sixty. Although Davis’s performance does exhibit frequent tenderness, she seems more effective playing Elizabeth as cold and shrewd.

The chief problem I had with this movie is the chemistry between Davis and Flynn…there isn’t any. The movie is primarily a love story between two people, but I found myself unable to believe that they actually held affection for one another. The story is already fictional, so why not go ahead and make Elizabeth a tad younger and a bit better looking to complement Flynn’s handsomeness. (or pick an older looking Essex)

Overall, I found this movie a bit so-so. It’s not really a bad movie, but the aforementioned lack of chemistry between the main characters hampers would could have been a much better film. If you’re thinking of viewing this because of Vincent Price, then give it a pass. He has hardly any screen time. If you enjoy romance films set in Elizabethian England and/or seeing lots of men in tights, give it a shot.

Released in 1963
Directed by Reginald Le Borg
Written by Robert E. Kent

“whenever evil exists in the heart of man, the Horla lives…”

Diary of a Madman is a lesser known movie which Vincent Price made in 1963 between a string of his more famous Edgar Allan Poe adaptation movies. Despite being less popular, I found the movie surprisingly well-executed. The plot remains true to itself and the performances are solid.

The idea is based on a short story by Guy de Maupassant entitled “Le Horla.” This namesake creature (or being) exists in another dimensional plane, and appears from the human point of view to possess supernatural powers, such as invisibility. In the movie, the Horla states that it can access the plane that humans live in only through evil. The most powerful ability of the Horla seems to be that of human possession; the creature can take control of a human’s thoughts and actions, and even drive them to commit terrible acts of murder.

Vincent Price plays Simon Cordier, a magistrate who has sentenced a murderer to the guillotine for his crimes. Upon visiting the criminal in his cell, the man(Harvey Stephens, also starred with Price in The Bat) is rational at first and begins to explain to Simon that he committed the murders unwillingly. The criminal claims that an outside force took control of him and perpetrated the ghastly killings. Immediately following this, the entity takes control again and forces the criminal to attack Simon, who defends himself and accidently kills the criminal. The entity(Horla) then takes an interest in Simon, and begins to haunt his thoughts.

The movie continues with the Horla trying to exert its control over the willful Simon, who documents the process in his diary. Thinking he might be suffering from mental illness, he takes a hiatus from work and concentrates on his sculpting hobby to relax. He hires a beautiful young woman(Nancy Kovack - remember her in Star Trek?) to model for his latest work, and they gradually fall in love. Her husband is not too happy about this.

The Horla continues to work on Simon, and eventually gains complete control over him. Dark deeds follow soon afterwards, but Simon continues to resist and deduces a possible way to destroy the Horla. The final confrontation proves that the Horla does have a weakness after all.

Not having heard anything about this movie at all, I was expecting the worst, but instead I found myself being pleasantly surprised. While the movie does have a “low-budgetness” to it, it’s generally well done and reminiscent of the House of Wax. All of the performances are good, with Vincent Price carrying the movie. (he’s in almost every scene) The plot, like it or not, never wavers from its premise or wanders off target like so many of the low budget horror movies.