Review(s): DVD The Haunted Palace / The Tower of London
A Warlock's Home In His Castle... Forever!
Made at the height of Roger Corman's successful Edgar Allan Poe series (with his perennial star Vincent Price), these two pictures, while similar in tone to the Poe films, adapt two different writers. Tower of London, a remake of the Basil Rathbone/Boris Karloff film from 1935, is a version of Shakespeare's Richard III, with Price taking on the role of the villainous hunchback, plotting and killing his way to the throne of England. The Haunted Palace, meanwhile, takes its title from a Poe poem, but in every other respect is an adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft's The Case of Charles Dexter Ward. Here Price comes to the creepy town of Arkham to claim his inheritance: the palace of the title. Once there, his mind is taken over by the vengeful spirit of his warlock ancestor, determined to continue his attempt to conjure Lovecraft's Elder Gods. Fun as Tower of London is, the real gem here is The Haunted Palace. Some budgetary limitations aside, it is the film most faithful to Lovecraft with the exception of John Carpenter's In the Mouth of Madness (which adapts the spirit of the tales, rather than one in particular).
Not too many extras (but then, you are getting a double-bill here). Both films comes with featurettes where Roger Corman (joined by his brother Gene for Tower of London) recalls the making of the films. All featurettes should be as interesting as these. The Haunted Palace is also accompanied by its theatrical trailer. The menus are basic.
Great prints, the original ratios, and a top-notch double-bill. Chalk up another bull's eye for the Midnite Movies.
Great.
Both movies are fabulous, although Vincent Price seems more at home with his role in The Haunted Palace. Highly recommended.
Corman at his best and not so good
The two films on this DVD are an interesting package, as they represent one of Roger Corman and Vincent Price's best teamings, "The Haunted Palace," and one of their least successful, "Tower of London." Even though it was nominally part of the Poe cycle, "Haunted Palace" is based on H.P. Lovecraft's only novel, "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward." As they would increasingly do in the coming years, AIP drafted Price to recite a few lines of Poe in the credits and presto! it's a Poe film (under this criterion, Howard Hawks 1967 western "El Dorado" is also a Poe film). But Poe or not, "Haunted Palace" is a stylish, well made horror film that belies its small budget. Price is excellent in a difficult three part role: (innocent Ward, reincarnated warlock Curwen, and Curwen in Ward's body pretending to be Ward), and Corman's direction gets the most out of every shot. Most notable for AIP at this time, though, is the supporting cast, one of the biggest and best Corman ever assembled: Lon Chaney, Debra Paget, Leo Gordon, Elisha Cook, John Dierkes, Frank Maxwell and Milton Parsons. Chaney gives one of his best late-career performances and the lovely Paget is a strong heroine, but it's Gordon who nearly steals the movie with his ferociously bitter turn as a victim of the Curwen curse. Even tiny roles are inhabited by such top flight character men as Stan Jolley and Bruno VeSota. In terms of scripting, sets, photography and acting, this is the closest an American picture ever came to the low-budget class of a Hammer film. "Tower of London," on the other hand, stands as an interesting failure. It shows every bit of its lack of budget (battle scenes are cribbed from Universal's 1939 original with Price superimposed overtop) and at times the actors look like they're having a hard time staying awake. In fact, it looks more like a 1962 television production than a feature film. Here Price plays Richard III and, alas, loses (he'd do much better by the role in "Theatre of Blood"). He has the physical afflictions and quasi-Shakespearean delivery down pat, but in an apparent attempt to immitate the pained look that appears on the one and only painting of the real Richard, he adopts a perpetual curled-lip sneer that borders on parody and comes off looking like he's suffering from a terrible gastro-intestinal problem. Corman's commentary on both films, though, is incisive and informative, and the background materials are interesting. Altogether, a disc worth having.
Related DVD's The Haunted Palace / The Tower of London
The Masque of the Red Death (1964) is Roger Corman's, and most people's, choice as the best of the Edgar Allan Poe pictures. Masque offers the expected creepy atmosphere and violence against peasants, plus metaphysical ponderings and pointed satanic cruelty. (Corman was operating as much under the influence of Ingmar Bergman as of Edgar Allan Poe.) Nicolas Roeg's color cinematography and Daniel Haller's elaborate production design would be stellar in any Hollywood A-movie; the mono-colored rooms of the prince's castle are a startling effect. Vincent Price is in fine fettle as Prince Prospero, the devil-worshipping sadist who throws lavish parties while the countryside is ravaged by the plague.
The Premature Burial (1962) substitutes Ray Milland in the usual Price... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Vincent Price Director(s): Roger Corman DVD Release Date: Released the 27 August 2002 Usually ships in 24 hours
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"The Tomb of Ligeia" was the last of Roger Corman's eight Edgar Allen Poe adaptations, and he went all out. Instead of the usual cheap studio setting (although these were used for all the interior scenes), this movie had breathtaking photography of the English countryside, as well as a creepy graveyard. I consider "The Tomb of Ligeia" to be one of Corman's very best, if not his finest, Poe adaptation. It has wonderful performances from the entire cast, great cinematography, and haunting music composed and conducted by Kenneth V. Jones.
Vincent Price is Verdan Fell, a depressed man who's wife Ligeia has recently died and been buried. But at the funeral he remembers her final words: "Man need not kneel before the angels, nor lie in death forever save for the weakness of his... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Roger Corman DVD Release Date: Released the 26 August 2003 Usually ships in 24 hours
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I enjoy the master of horror Vincent Price in movies like this one, along with Boris Karloff and Peter Lorre. This is a cult classic that anyone who enjoys comedy mixed with a little terror will surely want to watch. This very early performance by Jack Nicholson is great to see. The picture quality of this DVD is very good. More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Vincent Price - Peter Lorre - Boris Karloff Director(s): Jacques Tourneur DVD Release Date: Released the 26 August 2003 Usually ships in 24 hours
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This movies are great, but the only thing that can be detracted is that Rue Morgue its somewhat very slow.I mean, you have time to really gess what is going on.This until the end when the action start to flow and you get a surprise after surprise.Death after death over and over again. More Info about this DVD Director(s): Gordon Hessler DVD Release Date: Released the 15 April 2003 Usually ships in 24 hours
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These are two fun slices of horror from director Gordon Hessler. The Oblong Box, loosely based on a story by Edgar Allan Poe, features Vincent Price as the rich man with a dark secret, and Christopher Lee as the amoral doctor in 19th-Century England. Scream and Scream Again is a riotous mix of horror, police procedural, science fiction and political thriller. The plot is almost indescribable (at its most basic, it concerns the creation of synthetic supermen), and doesn't completely hang together, but is so much fun and so insanely inventive that you won't care about the holes. Just sit back and enjoy the ride. Lee and Price are back here too, along with a brief appearance by Peter Cushing.
