Tales of Terror

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You know, I think certain films are just right for October, Halloween month. Roger Corman’s Tales of Terror (1961) is Edgar Allan Poe in anthology form, with the first and final tale played straight and serious while the middle tale (with Peter Lorre) an absolute comedy (despite a rather morbid “walling up” of two people).

I think the first tale—Morella—is the traditional Corman Poe story developed with Price full bore tortured lonelyheart, toiling forlornly in his decaying mansion, for twenty-plus years pining for the wife who died not long after giving birth to the daughter he longed for death due to her “being responsible” for his beloved Morella’s demise. So twenty-six year old Lenora (Maggie Pierce) returns to see her father to tell him she’s dying. Morella (Leona Gage) claimed prior to her death that she would be getting revenge on Lenora for supposedly taking her life. Price is always fun to me when he has that look of torment, melancholy, and agony. Torn between the love of his wife’s memory and anger because of her early death and the need to embrace the re-introduction of the daughter he has never truly known (and soon to lose), Price’s woebegone castle hermit has to decide how to contend with a rush of differing emotions. Out of the three, this tale to me is the most familiar with an ending that is quite Corman-esque as the castle burns asunder in the truest fashion of the Poe films we know and love. Morella “replaces” her daughter and “gets even” with her husband. Not sure I ever quite understood why Morella wanted to exact pain on her husband but nonetheless she is full of fury and a face twisted with hate towards him. The one who is punished the most in the tale is Lorena, simply being born is what she’s blamed for. Nevertheless, she is the pawn to be used so that the castle burns in an inferno. Using the fog at the beginning as Lenora’s coach approaches and stops off at the castle, wrought with cobwebs and containing plenty of critters (disregarded and dying, the castle has been untended to and left to age badly), Corman immediately provokes similarities to Usher and Pendulum which is never a bad thing as far as I am concerned. The rest is father-daughter “bonding” (not quite without its tension and pointed fingers) and Morella’s reawakening.

The second tale—The Black Cat—is a Peter Lorre showcase where Corman allows him to act drunk and ornery. Price is finally allowed in a Corman story to be silly as a prissy, expressive wine-tasting connoisseur. Mocking those wine experts who slosh wine in her their puckered mouths and consider their authority in such knowledge quite unchallenged, Price is still able to make him innocuous and harmless enough. Lorre, on the other hand, is a letch. He’s a pitiful waste of humanity who frequents pubs until he can no longer pay and the barkeep tires of his presence. Half the time he’s so wasted, Lorre’s basic dialogue maintains a slur. When he’s downtrodden (but gorgeous) wife, Annabelle (Joyce Jameson) has endured longsuffering and tolerated his odious treatment of her far enough, she finds solace with Price’s wine-taster, Fortunato Luchresi. Lorre’s name (Herringbone) ought to tell you all you need to know regarding the tone and approach of this particular tale. It does have Lorre getting rid of the two sources fueling jealous rage (although he’s solely responsible for driving her into the arms of another man) that overtook him. The black cat Annabelle owns which Herringbone despises (and vice versa) “outs” the no-good, sad-sack drunk. This is something I think you’d see turn up in an Amicus omnibus.

The third and final tale—The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar—has Basil Rathbone offering up a deliciously nasty villain in the form of a devious hypnotist who causes a dying client (his hypnotherapy keeps M. Valdemar from enduring pain from his ongoing illness) to “not pass on” to the afterlife, holding the poor guy hostage within a dead body and functioning mind that wants release. The corpse shell of Valdemar with Price’s haunted voice terrified of the darkness that shrouds him is quite a macabre dilemma as Rathbone’s Carmichael makes demands for his client’s lovely wife, Helene (Debra Paget) in return for freeing the dead guy’s soul. Soon enough, Carmichael makes a move on Helene when she incites his ego (she makes demands of her own and he will have none of it; she will listen to him and do as he commands) and spurns him to just attempt to get him some lovin’ whether she wants to give it up or not. The great finale has the decaying corpse of Price rising from his deathbed to stop Carmichael, his body deteriorating quickly as he descends upon his hypno-captor while Helene tries to get out of the room. This has David Frankham as Valdemar’s loyal and honorable physician, a direct thorn in Carmichael’s ass. He could smell a rat and just knew something wasn’t right about Carmichael, but the pain was so great that Valdemar was willing to take that risk. To me, this is the best of the trio of tales as it offers a unique method behind how a cruel man uses a specific skill to get what he wants and how that backfires in grotesque fashion. This is all about a superb actor in his final years effortlessly sliding into a part of the manipulative scoundrel that gets his just desserts thanks to a walking dead man. Price prior to the whole “dead in the bed” predicament is sweet and accommodating to his Helene, giving his doc the blessing to marry her once he kicks the bucket. Well , Carmichael will have none of it, using the hypno-hostage crisis as a means to get what he wants…Helene.

All three tales are period pieces, using sets from films quite familiar to Corman/Price/Poe fans. The device Carmichael uses to cast the trance on Valdemar should call to remembrance “The Terror” with Nicholson and Karloff. Each tale is atmospheric or blackly humorous enough, and none of them favor the other. I do think the third tale (unless you just love yourself some Peter Lorre) is the strongest of the movie just based on its own uniqueness. The first tale, while quite Gothic and tragic, is perhaps too close in the vein to films Corman is known for, while the second tale is maybe too desirable for wicked grins and pining for amusement.

I almost felt like watching this in April was a sin, haha. It just seems made to order for October.