Philip (Mark Damon), long in search of his beloved Madeline (Myrna Fahey) ends up going to the manor house of "the Usher house," where the woman has isolated herself, along with his brother Roderick (Vincent Price): the latter suffers from a hypochondriac disease (hypersensitivity of the perceptual organs, with particular response to noise and light rays).Madeline is also subject, in a complementary way, to increasingly intense catatonic seizures.
Roderick, during the evening, tells Philip the story of the "curse" that hangs around the mansion: it is a kind of nemesis that affects the descendants whenever there are more than one child in the family; in the circumstance, the siblings go mad before finding death due to horrible contingencies.
The house itself seems shrouded in a cloak of decay, presenting itself (outwardly) increasingly in an eerie state of decay and abandonment.
The night will be very eventful, while as dawn approaches, the effects of the curse seem to be revealed, with all the consequences...
First-and as successful as the later The Well and the Pendulum-a work dedicated (by Roger Corman) to the series of short stories written by Allan Poe.
Although the subject has been revisited several times (both in earlier and later occasions), none achieves the formal and stylistic perfection of this very successful film adaptation.
First of all, credit goes to Vincent Price, who is able (as always, for that matter) to sustain a part exclusively centered on a purely verbal role, aiming to make the main narrative a combination of literary and descriptive suggestions (e.g., the long and intense circumstantial dialogue about the evil qualities of the house)...
Of the cycle it is the one that, financially, had the most substance (about $100,000) and is the result of the director's imposition on the producers, who initially wanted to make two different films (in black and white).
The success with audiences repays, handsomely, Corman's idea: The Living and the Dead, in fact, ranks among the 5 most-watched films of 1960 and allows the continuation of the series, centered on Poe's tales.
First of all, credit goes to Vincent Price, who is able (as always, for that matter) to sustain a part exclusively centered on a purely verbal role, aiming to make the main narrative a combination of literary and descriptive suggestions (e.g., the long and intense circumstantial dialogue about the evil qualities of the house)...
Of the cycle it is the one that, financially, had the most substance (about $100,000) and is the result of the director's imposition on the producers, who initially wanted to make two different films (in black and white).
The success with audiences repays, handsomely, Corman's idea: The Living and the Dead, in fact, ranks among the 5 most-watched films of 1960 and allows the continuation of the series, centered on Poe's tales.
From a narrative point of view, the only weak element of the film lies in the fact that, to the viewer no explanation is given as to, how, the young Madeline manages to get in touch with Philip (there is no justification either in Poe's story or in the film); but it is clear that only an external "element" can bring to light the madness and the state of apathetic abandonment experienced by the protagonists, prisoners of an asphyxiating and declining manor.
In view of the limited budget made available, one is remarkably impressed by how well the final product turns out: sets and scenes are, to say the least, perfect and render a demarcated idea of the abandonment and decay of the house (and the protagonists). The story is on a dual reading level, analyzing the evil structure as if it were, in fact, an entity and a metaphor for the characters themselves; as, over time, the house is in danger of falling apart, the family that inhabits it also undergoes a kind of unstoppable degeneration.
Although violent or purely horror sequences are totally absent from the film, the overall tone of the film is very aggressive and disturbing. There are few (if any) special effects, for a film based solely on excellent cinematography, impeccable sets, inspired music (works by Les Baxter) and a confined characterization as Roderick rendered, by Price, in a very believable manner.
In view of the limited budget made available, one is remarkably impressed by how well the final product turns out: sets and scenes are, to say the least, perfect and render a demarcated idea of the abandonment and decay of the house (and the protagonists). The story is on a dual reading level, analyzing the evil structure as if it were, in fact, an entity and a metaphor for the characters themselves; as, over time, the house is in danger of falling apart, the family that inhabits it also undergoes a kind of unstoppable degeneration.
Although violent or purely horror sequences are totally absent from the film, the overall tone of the film is very aggressive and disturbing. There are few (if any) special effects, for a film based solely on excellent cinematography, impeccable sets, inspired music (works by Les Baxter) and a confined characterization as Roderick rendered, by Price, in a very believable manner.
Some curiosities about the making of the film concern the opening sequence, when Philip arrives at the house by riding, through a forest: the sense of subsidence (The Fall of the House of Usher is, not coincidentally, the title of the story) and desolation is well rendered by the setting (a forest in the Hollywood Hills) deliberately used by Corman following a fire; the scenery was presented composed of the remains of burned branches and logs and the gray ash, remnants of the burning (symbolically the graphic aspect of Roderick's twisted and destructive personality). Whereas, for the final sequence of the liberating and purifying burning of the Usher house, Roger Corman, for a fee of $50 (!!) convinced the owner of a large shed to let him burn it.
Slogan at the release of the film in theaters:
“I heard her first feeble movements in the coffin… we had put her living in the tomb!"
“I heard her first feeble movements in the coffin… we had put her living in the tomb!"
Review by Undying1
