THE TOMB OF LIGEIA (1964)

(Director: Roger Corman. Screenwriters: Robert Towne and an uncredited Paul Mayersberg.)

Storyline

A newly married woman’s relationship with her husband is threatened by his obsession with his dead wife.

 

Review

The last of Roger Corman’s six Poe-inspired films, TOMB has a different feel than Corman’s other Poe flicks in that it was mostly shot outdoors─the other films were largely interior works. In it, the second wife of a rich man finds that her husband’s obsession with his first, dead wife is causing her to have ongoing nightmares, even as the first wife’s black cat stalks and slashes at her. Vincent Price (SCREAM AND SCREAM AGAIN, 1970) played the husband, Verden Fell; Elizabeth Shepherd (DAMIEN: OMEN II, 1978) played The Lady Rowena Trevanian (second wife, with ginger features) and The Lady Ligeia (the first wife, with long black hair). John Westbrook (THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH, 1964) played Christopher Gough.

Made from a screenplay by Robert Towne and an uncredited Paul Mayersberg, TOMB is a lesser, okay entry in Corman/Price’s Poe series. That said, this is not terrible film, given the talent behind it─it merely, compared to its predecessor flicks, recycles themes and visual elements that were more richly shown in the first five films. If you’re a fan of Corman’s Poe-cycle movies and a completist, it might be worth seeing once, but don’t expect too much from it.

THE MASQUE OF RED DEATH (1964)

 

(Director: Roger Corman. Screenwriter: Charles Beaumont and R. Wright Campbell.).

Storyline

While the Red Plague stalks the peasantry, a cruel prince and his fellow deviants shelter in his castle.

Review

Based on Edgar Allan Poe’s story, MASQUE is an excellent, possibly perfect film, from R. Wright Campbell and Charles Beaumont’s tightly penned script, its top-notch acting, its vivid, symbolic splays of colors and lighting, to producer Roger Corman’s waste-no-shots directing. (If Beaumont’s name sounds familiar, he was a staff writer on the original 1959-64 TWILIGHT ZONE series.)

MASQUE stars include: Vincent Price (THE TINGLER, 1959) as the cruel Prospero; Hazel Court, who played opposite Price in THE RAVEN (1963) and whose last film was an uncredited role (“Champagne Woman at Hunt”) in THE FINAL CONFLICT (1981); Patrick Magee, as an envious, toady-like Alfredo─two of his later films include A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (1971) and THE BLACK CAT (1981); and an uncredited JohnWestbrook as Man in Red (a.k.a. the Red Death); Westbrook also appeared in THE TOMB OF LIGEIA (1964). Be sure to look for the background/visual cue callbacks to earlier Corman/Price films, THE RAVEN and THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM (1961)!