Corman/Poe Month 4. Tales of Terror (1962)

I have no idea if Roger Corman was deliberately trying to atone for doing one Poe adaptation without Vincent Price by following up with a package of MULTIPLE adaptations featuring him all at once, but that’s what we ended up getting with Tales of Terror. If you’re struggling to remember which Edgar Allan Poe story “Tales of Terror” is, that’s because there isn’t one. Rather, what we have here is actually an anthology of several short films, covering multiple different Poe sources. Now, one would THINK that this would be the ideal way to approach the art of adapting Poe, seeing as how one of the most common complains about Poe movies is the need to invent padding to fill out the run time. And yet, even dealing with three shorts, screenwriter Richard Matheson still feels compelled to pad out or drastically alter the source material. In fact, this time around, he takes the even more drastic step of padding out one story by inserting AN ENTIRELY SEPARATE POE STORY! That’s right, Tales of Terror may be a three-part film, but it delivers FOUR Poe adaptations. And honestly, as much as I may point the changes out, I’m not actually enough of a Poe purist to really CARE if the story is changed, just so long as I’m entertained by the end result. Does Tales of Terror entertain me? …well, it depends on which part we’re talking about.

The first part is “Morella”, in which young lady Lenora (played by Maggie Pierce) comes to the home of her father, played by Price, of course. Daddy Price sent Lenora away since he could never forgive her over the death of her mother, the titular Morella, shortly after childbirth. Now that Lenora is also fatally ill, however, the pair finally decide to make amends… except it turns out that Morella ALSO blamed Lenora for her death, and since this is a spooky story, she can still do something about it.

I don’t dislike “Morella” by any means, but if I told you this one was meant as an incredibly straight-faced parody of Corman’s Poe films, you’d have good reason to believe me. Corman and Matheson may not have a lot of runtime here, but they still pile on plenty of familiar twists and recognizable props and that same old stock footage of the barn burning down. If you’re watching these things in chronological order like I do, this is the point where you really start to notice the recurring bits. Thankfully, though, we DO finally get a break from anybody being buried alive… if only because that one’s being saved for later. In fact, Matheson sort of does the OPPOSITE here by working in a bit of a swipe from William Falker’s “A Rose for Emily,” which also results in one of the best pure Horror movie moments of the whole film. Regardless, the condensed runtime makes the melodramatic moments seem all the more theatrical, with characters' whole personalities seeming to shift from scene to scene with little warning. Les Baxter’s soundtrack doesn’t help matters much either, punctuating moments with big, swooning, epic orchestral stings that I can’t help but find unintentionally funny. I’d almost say it borders on camp, if I didn’t already know what Price would be getting up to in the NEXT segment. And hey, “unintentionally entertaining” is the sort of thing you just need to accept from Roger Corman movies.

And make no mistake: intentional or not, I am still entertained by “Morella.” Corman may be mixing and matching the same props over and over, but the decrepit mansion still has a very unique look thanks to one special ingredient: spider webs. SO many spider webs, just all over the dang place. The establishing shot of an abandoned dining room just BURIED in cobwebs, to the point of absurdity, gives this place a personality quite distinct from any of the other locations in these films. Or maybe it’s just my fear of bugs causing me to react more, I dunno.

One thing I DO know is that Price gets to show off one more aspect of his acting arsenal here: being just a straight up jerk. I’ve mentioned before that Vincent Price COULD give a simple, naturalistic performance when he wanted to, and the early minutes of “Morella” are prime evidence of that. When Lenora first shows up, Price is a bitter, short-tempered, drunken old crank. No theatricality or bombast here, just mean-spirited bluntness. Oh sure, he dials up the energy as the melodrama increases, and that’s just my point: the performance here matches the material. And what’s more, even within the limited run time, he manages to pace himself, so that it ALMOST feel natural when he goes from hating Lenora’s guts to being worried about her in mere minutes. Maggie Pierce doesn’t manage that trick as well, starting out aggressively cheerful before suddenly going full fatalist at the drop of a hat, but at least she holds up her end of the interactions with Price alright. Oh, and Leona Gage is also in this as the title character… and I totally forgot about her outside of an appearance in which she’s basically a prop. That pretty much says it all, right there.

Honestly, though, "Morella" ultimately amounts to a distraction before the part I ACTUALLY want to talk about: “The Black Cat.” In case you’re not familiar, “The Black Cat” is basically “The Tell-Tale Heart” except the victim is bricked up in a wall instead of stashed under the floorboards. Also, the narrator isn’t given away because his guilt makes him THINK he hears a beating heart, but rather because of the very REAL meowing of the victim’s cat, which was accidentally walled up at the same time. Oh, and it’s not as good. I remember really being surprised that Tales of Terror chose to adapt “The Black Cat” instead of “The Tell-Tale Heart,” especially since Price’s bits of narration between the shorts are all based around… a beating heart. It really seems like this was supposed to lead up to the more famous story, not the one we actually got. I can only assume Matheson chose to go with “The Black Cat” because this segment is the one that pulls double duty, also incorporating material from “The Cask of Amontillado.” Wouldn't you know it, that's the OTHER Poe story about a guy getting buried alive behind a wall. (THERE’S our premature burial! Mark that spot on the Poe bingo card!)

“The Black Cat” is also interesting because Vincent Price isn’t the star of this one, instead playing a supporting role opposite Peter Lorre. Like Price, Lorre is a figure I mainly knew as a wacky caricature in cartoons. Tales of Terror is one of the first times I’d ever actually seen the man act, especially in a leading capacity. And OH MY LORD he’s a delight in this. His bumbling drunk routine is JUST fun enough to be entertaining and almost-not-quite-charming enough to be slightly sympathetic (which also helps sell the idea that he not only managed to bag a wife, but also that it’s a woman who looks like Joyce Jameson). Yet, at the same time, he’s also capable of being a genuinely menacing threat, which is obviously important given where the story will end up. Lorre plays drunken lout Montresor, who caps of a night of knocking is wife around for booze money by stumbling into an exclusive club for Stuffy Rich Dudes Who Go Harrumph. There’s a wine-tasting demonstration going on courtesy of wine expert Fortunato, played by Price, and… oh my. If you’ve ever thought Vincent Price’s performance were a bit too broad, you can’t IMAGINE him camping it up as a foppish dandy here. He’s explicitly serving as the comic relief, so it works in the context of the short, but still... WOW. Anyway, Montresor challenges Fortunato to a wine-tasting duel, getting utterly wasted in the process, which leads to Fortunato walking the lush home and subsequently meeting Montresor’s wife. Suddenly, Miss Montresor can't give him money to get him out of the house fast enough, and when Montresor eventually catches wise to what’s going on... well, Fortunato finds himself invited over to try a nice Amontillado.

The scene that follows, roughly adapting the key sequence of “A Cask of Amontillado,” is the highpoint of not just “The Black Cat” but also Tales of Terror as a whole. I can’t say enough good things about this scene. Lorre does a fantastic job of walking a thin line between funny and creepy and menacing, and Price is quite good in the atypical role of the victim for once. The pair bounce off each other beautifully, clearly having a ball with the ghoulish proceedings. My only real complaint is that the scene is over too soon, or more accurately that this chapter isn’t over soon enough. After all, we still need to get to the part that’s actually based on “The Black Cat.” Oh, did I mention that Montresor’s wife had a cat he hated? Gotta get that ironic comeuppance in. The final stretch isn’t bad, exactly, just not as good as the middle bit. Corman’s obligatory trippy/experimental/dream sequence crops up here, and is a bit more creative than the usual interpretive dance nonsense. This time around, Montresor has a nightmare of his victims tossing his severed head around, which is memorable… but like most of “The Black Cat” it goes on far longer than it should. And even after the nightmare, when the police come looking for Montresor’s missing victims, the movie makes a misguided play at SORT of referencing “The Tell-Tale Heart” that doesn’t really work. Both his wife and Fortunato start taunting Montresor in voices only he can hear, and once again, the bit drags on far too long and to far lesser effect than intended. As much as I love the pinnacle of this chapter, I still find myself wishing that freakin’ cat would hurry up and meow so this whole thing can finally wrap up.

And speaking of not wrapping up when things really should, Tales of Terror has its final chapter: “The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar.” This is NOT a strong way to end the anthology, I’m afraid. Price plays the titular Valdemar, a fatally ill man taking part in an experiment to see what happens if a person’s body passes away while his mind is held in a mesmeric trance. Sadly, what this boils down to is scene after scene of Price laying motionless in a bed while a slooooooooooow voiceover plays and other people stand around talking about him. If you ever wanted to see why so many Poe adaptations feel the need to work in extra subplots and action sequences, it’s because if they DON’T add stuff, they just end up with scene after scene of talking and narration.

And the funny thing is, Richard Matheson actually DID add quite a lot to try and spice up the proceeding. Along with some dashes of Cosmic Horror and general background for the title character, this version of “The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar” tries really hard to squeeze in a more conventional narrative by turning the hypnotist, Basil Rathbone’s Mr. Carmichael, into the villain of the piece. I don’t think it works. For one thing, Rathbone doesn’t get a chance to BE much of a villain for most of the story. The other characters spend scene after scene standing around talking about how horrible and unnatural the experiment is and how Carmichael isn’t what Valdemar thinks, but that’s all it is: talking about stuff we haven’t seen. Frankly, the other characters come across as alarmist sticks in the mud most of the time, and by the time Carmichael DOES show his true colors, it’s way too late. Indeed, while Rathbone is clearly trying to give Carmichael a creepy, conniving vibe, there’s just nothing of substance in the script for him to latch onto. That is, until the climax, when the whole story turns into a convoluted love triangle around Valdemar’s WERDLY too-young-for-him wife (played by Debra Paget), by which point Carmichael’s heel turn simultaneously feels way too late but also jarringly abrupt. And in case you didn’t pick up on the implication earlier, this short largely sidelines its main attraction, giving Price extremely little to do throughout. In fact, most of “M. Valdemar” could have replaced him with a wax dummy or a stand-in wearing a Vincent Price mask and nobody would notice. To hearken back to my thoughts on House of Usher, that’s just a wasteful misuse of resources. Well, at least the final set piece is memorable, a nice goopy bit of gore that actually DOES manage to build upon the source material in ways that the rest of the story didn’t.

So yeah, Tales of Terror doesn’t exactly end strongly, but thanks to the anthology format, it’s at least not all that long. Every time I revisit this one, I keep feeling disappointed that a collection of Poe shorts didn’t turn out better than it did. This really seems like a concept that should have been a slam dunk. As it stands, I find “M. Valdemar” forgettable, “Morella” acceptable, and ‘”The Black Cat” exceptional. None of them are full-on BAD, mind you. I’d absolutely rather watch “M. Valdemar” than The Premature Burial, even if it does suffer from many of the same defects. Still, if you can find a posting of just “The Black Cat” somewhere online, that’s the only part of this film I’d actually recommend going out of your way to find. As a whole, I think Tales of Terror is a bit middle of the road as far as Corman’s Poe cycle goes.

Then again, maybe I shouldn’t be making such sweeping statements. As we get deeper into the second half of the cycle, my personal, emotional reactions and my objective critical opinions are going to start getting harder and harder to reconcile…