Silver Screen Standards: Vincent Price

Silver Screen Standards: Vincent Price

Vincent Price
Vincent Price, “The Merchant of Menace”

During the Halloween season we naturally think of Vincent Price, that undisputed icon of horror whose many roles in the genre put him in the exalted company of Lon Chaney, Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, and Christopher Lee. Price became so associated with horror that he earned nicknames like “The Merchant of Menace,” but the actor with the distinctively plummy voice was truly a man for all seasons, with a long career that encompassed many different genres. Like most Gen Xers I first encountered Price in the late 1970s and early 80s, when he was making kid-friendly fare like Vincent (1982), The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo (1985), and The Great Mouse Detective (1986) as well as Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” hit (1983) and Edward Scissorhands (1990). Once I started seeking out classic movies, I realized what an amazing and diverse career Price actually had and how we don’t really appreciate him fully unless we look at his roles outside of horror as well as his performances in the creepy classics we most remember him for today.

Vincent Leonard Price Jr. was born in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1911, where his father was the president of a candy company. His wealthy upbringing gave him access to quality education and the opportunity to travel; he earned degrees in the humanities at Yale and then moved on to study art and history in London at the Courtauld Institute. Price made his stage debut in the UK in the 1930s but soon moved into film with his first screen appearance in Service de Luxe (1938), a romantic comedy in which he took the lead role opposite Constance Bennett.

Service de Luxe (1938) Vincent Price and Constance Bennett
Vincent Price made his film debut in the unlikeliest of places, as the leading man to Constance Bennett in a romantic comedy called Service de Luxe (1938).

After that he worked regularly, amassing an astonishing list of over 200 credited roles before his death in 1993, with at least one for almost every year. Along the way, he also became known as an art collector and chef and lectured about both of those passions as well as literary topics. Despite his cultured interests and Ivy League background, Price never seemed to take himself or his work too seriously; he played villains with relish and gleefully hammed it up in horror comedies and special appearances like his guest-star turn on The Muppet Show in 1977. Although he was never even nominated for an Academy Award, his fans were legion and his legacy assured when he died of lung cancer at the age of 82.

The Baron of Arizona (1950) Vincent Price as James Reavis
As odd as a Vincent Price Western might seem, Price is perfectly cast in The Baron of Arizona (1950) as James Reavis, the daring fraudster who tried to steal a state.

It’s strange to think that an actor so known for horror got his first film role in a romantic comedy, but Price always had a talent for the comedic, whether that comedy was light or pitch black. It would serve him well in horror comedies like The Raven (1963), The Comedy of Terrors (1963), The Monster Club (1981), and House of the Long Shadows (1983), among others. Price also seems an unlikely choice for a Western, but there he is in the lead role in Samuel Fuller’s The Baron of Arizona (1950), a biopic about a real-life swindler who tried to claim ownership of the entire state of Arizona in the late 19th century. You can also find him in Curtain Call at Cactus Creek (1950), in which he plays a hammy actor, a type he would most memorably return to in Theater of Blood (1973). Even in his later years’ Price still turned up in surprising places, most notably in the gentle, intimate drama The Whales of August (1987), in which he joins other icons like Lillian Gish, Bette Davis, and Ann Sothern.

The Three Musketeers (1948) Vincent Price and Lana Turner
In the 1948 adaptation of The Three Musketeers, Price plays the villainous Cardinal Richelieu, seen here scheming with Milady de Winter (Lana Turner).   

Price worked more often in genres that had certain elements in common with his horror pictures, particularly historical dramas where his talents as a heavy came in handy. After his romantic comedy debut, Price made a number of period dramas and demonstrated a high degree of comfort in tights, Elizabethan ruffs, and other antique costumes that he would don many times in his horror roles. His second film was the star-studded spectacle, The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939), starring Bette Davis and Errol Flynn, in which Price plays Sir Walter Raleigh. From there he went to roles in Tower of London (1939), Brigham Young (1940), Hudson’s Bay (1940), The Song of Bernadette (1943), and The Ten Commandments (1956). He was always a solid casting choice for a dissipated nobleman, a corrupt priest, or an ambitious schemer of any stripe. His curling sneers and dripping sarcasm made him an actor audiences loved to hate in a juicy villain role. In the Gothic period thriller, Dragonwyck (1946), Price gives a delicious but perfectly serious performance as the Byronic husband of Gene Tierney’s naïve heroine, and in The Three Musketeers (1948) he tackles the role of the main villain, Cardinal Richelieu. Even if he had never become a horror icon his work in these films would have ensured him a place in Hollywood history.

Laura (1944) Gene Tierney and Vincent Price
A young and rather dashing Vincent Price appears with Gene Tierney’s title character in the noir classic, Laura (1944).

Classic noir is another genre where Vincent Price’s screen persona works well, and his years at Fox saw him in a pair of notable noir pictures starring Gene Tierney, the justly beloved Laura (1944), and Leave Her to Heaven (1945). The less successful Shock (1946) merged themes of noir and horror with Price as a murderous psychiatrist who runs a private sanitarium. In His Kind of Woman (1951) Price got another memorable noir role as – what else? – a ham actor who befriends Robert Mitchum’s protagonist. Unfortunately, noir roles dried up fairly quickly, and Price spent much of the 1950s bouncing around in television roles and smaller film parts while House of Wax (1953) and The Fly (1958) prepared the way for the great horror performances that were on the horizon.

House of Usher (1960) Vincent Price
Films like House of Usher (1960) made Vincent Price one of Hollywood’s greatest horror stars.

Most classic movie fans know and love Vincent Price as a horror star, as well they should. It wouldn’t be Halloween without movies like House on Haunted Hill (1959), The Tingler (1959), House of Usher (1960), Tales of Terror (1962), and The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971). Still, we shouldn’t forget about Price once November rolls around and the jack-o-lanterns get traded in for pumpkin pies. Whatever the season, from The Eve of St. Mark (1944) in April to The Whales of August (1987), there’s a Vincent Price picture to match it.

— Jennifer Garlen for Classic Movie Hub

Jennifer Garlen pens our monthly Silver Screen Standards column. You can read all of Jennifer’s Silver Screen Standards articles here.

Jennifer is a former college professor with a PhD in English Literature and a lifelong obsession with film. She writes about classic movies at her blog, Virtual Virago, and presents classic film programs for lifetime learning groups and retirement communities. She’s the author of Beyond Casablanca: 100 Classic Movies Worth Watching and its sequel, Beyond Casablanca II: 101 Classic Movies Worth Watching, and she is also the co-editor of two books about the works of Jim Henson.

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Western RoundUp: Lone Pine Film Locations

Western RoundUp: Lone Pine Film Locations

In past Western RoundUp columns, I’ve written on multiple occasions about Westerns filmed in Lone Pine, California.

Countless Westerns were filmed in Lone Pine’s Alabama Hills and other nearby areas. Past columns include a look at Hop-a-Long Cassidy (1935) On Location in Lone Pine and Lone Pine Favorites; the latter column includes photos of Lone Pine locations from Rawhide (1951), 7 Men From Now (1956), and The Hired Gun (1957).

It’s great fun for a Western fan to explore the area and see where favorite films were shot. For this month’s column, here’s a look at a few more Western locations filmed in the Lone Pine area.

The Cisco Kid and the Lady (1939)

Cesar Romero plays the Cisco Kid in a very enjoyable film which I saw for the first time at this year’s Lone Pine Film Festival.

In a story somewhat reminiscent of the oft-filmed Three Godfathers story, the genial bandit the Cisco Kid and his friend Gordito (Chris-Pin Martin) find a dead miner’s baby in the middle of the desert. The baby ends up in the care of a lovely schoolteacher (Marjorie Weaver); meanwhile, the Cisco Kid works to locate the mine which is the baby’s inheritance.

After seeing the movie, we went on a tour of the locations with guide Greg Parker, who prepared a booklet of screenshots for us to compare to the actual locations.

Here are two examples of screenshots and my photos of the actual Alabama Hills locations, which haven’t changed a bit since filming. A few decades are but a blip of an eye in the history of these rocks!

The Cisco Kid and the Lady (1939)
On location today
The Cisco Kid and the Lady (1939)
On location today

Yellow Sky (1948)

Yellow Sky is a terrific William Wellman Western starring Gregory Peck as an outlaw, with Anne Baxter as a woman Peck and his gang (including Richard Widmark and John Russell) meet while hiding in a ghost town.  

I wrote about the movie in my 2018 Lone Pine Favorites column, but at the time I didn’t have location photos to share.  This year we did some exploring on our own and found the water hole seen in the movie.

First, here are a couple of screenshots of the area as seen in the film.  That’s Baxter standing on a rock while holding a rifle; Russell is drinking water at the bottom of the photo.

Yellow Sky (1948)
Anne Baxter and John Russell in Yellow Sky (1948)

Compare those scenes to the actual location, seen below; the water hole was located in the foreground. We were delighted to discover that a tiny man-made “dam” created by the filming crew to create the water hole still exists today. 

On location of Yellow Sky (1948)
Man-Made Dam

Visitors to the Alabama Hills can also find permanent changes left behind by the crews of several other films, including Army Girl (1938), Gunga Din (1939), The Hitch-Hiker (1953), and King of the Khyber Rifles (1953); they might not be readily apparent to the casual observer, but those in the know can spot them easily.

The Law and Jake Wade (1958)

Robert Taylor plays Marshal Jake Wade, who repays an old debt when he busts outlaw Clint Hollister (Richard Widmark) out of jail.

The ungrateful Clint later takes Jake and Jake’s girlfriend Peggy (Patricia Owens) hostage, and they ultimately have a confrontation in a ghost town.

Unlike many Westerns shot in the Lone Pine area, The Law and Jake Wade didn’t film in the Alabama Hills; instead, the crew built a ghost town on the opposite side of town, in the same area where a town was built a couple of years earlier for Bad Day at Black Rock (1955).

Like movies filmed in the Alabama Hills, the ghost town scenes have the same great views of Lone Pine Peak and Mount Whitney in the background.

Here’s a screenshot of the town from the movie
Here’s how the same area looks today

and I also have a 2019 photograph of tour guide Jerry Condit holding a still of the ghost town set:

The Tall T (1957)

The Tall T is one of the outstanding Westerns Randolph Scott made in collaboration with director Budd Boetticher.

For the majority of the film, Scott and Maureen O’Sullivan are held prisoner by outlaw Richard Boone at a cave.

The Tall T (1957)
The film crew added the “cave entrance” to an imposing “mountain” of rocks, as seen here

Ride Lonesome (1959)

I wrote about another Scott-Boetticher film, Ride Lonesome, in my very first Western RoundUp column. It’s a film I’ve seen multiple times, which gets better on each viewing.

This year our friend, Lone Pine tour guide Don Kelsen, took us and a few other people on a hike to a location seen at the beginning of the movie. It was a bit of an uphill climb getting there, but very worthwhile!

Here’s a screenshot of an opening scene in the film where Randolph Scott captures James Best:

And here’s the location today. The rocks in the screenshot can easily be matched up with this photo.

Visiting film locations such as these is both fun and informative, giving the Western fan new perspectives to appreciate when watching films made in Lone Pine.

The photographs of the Alabama Hills accompanying this article are from the author’s personal collection.

– Laura Grieve for Classic Movie Hub

Laura can be found at her blog, Laura’s Miscellaneous Musings, where she’s been writing about movies since 2005, and on Twitter at @LaurasMiscMovie. A lifelong film fan, Laura loves the classics including Disney, Film Noir, Musicals, and Westerns.  She regularly covers Southern California classic film festivals.  Laura will scribe on all things western at the ‘Western RoundUp’ for CMH.

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Classic Movie Travels: Agnes Ayres

Classic Movie Travels: Agnes Ayres

Agnes Ayers Headshot
Agnes Ayres

While many women worked alongside the great Rudolph Valentino, Agnes Ayres was able to do so alongside him in the notable silent classic The Sheik (1921). Though known for this role, she appeared in many other silent films of the era.

Agnes Eyre Henkel was born on April 4, 1891, in Carbondale, Illinois, to Solon Augustus and Emma Henkel. She was the youngest of two children, growing up in Comden, Illinois, with an older brother named Solon William. When her father passed away, Emma remarried a farmer named Franklin Rendleman. Ayres would end her education in the 8th grade when the family moved to Chicago. Though she intended to study law, her ambitions would change.

While working as a bookkeeper, Ayres was spotted by an Essanay Studios Chicago director and offered a role as an extra in a film. Inspired to act, her family moved to Manhattan, where Ayres pursued an acting career. Due to her strong resemblance to actress Alice Joyce, Ayres was cast as the sibling of Joyce’s character in Richard the Brazen (1917). During this time, she married army officer Frank Shuker, though they would divorce in 1921.

Ayres’s career continued to progress Paramount’s Jesse Lasky learned of her and gave her a role in Held by the Enemy (1920). She and Lasky also struck up a romance at this time.

The Sheik (1921) Movie Poster
The Sheik (1921)

Ayres’s pivotal role came in The Sheik, in which she portrayed heiress Lady Diana Mayo. Following the film, she took on additional starring roles, including The Affairs of Anatol (1921), Forbidden Fruit (1921), and The Ten Commandments (1923). She would play the Mayo character in The Sheik’s sequel, Son of the Sheik (1926).

As her relationship with Lasky ended, Ayres went on to marry Mexican Diplomat S. Manuel Reachi. They would have a daughter named Maria before divorcing in 1927.

In addition to appearing in her last major film role in The Donovan Affair (1929), Ayres lost her fortune and assets in the stock market crash. Struggling financially, she sought work on the stage, returning to vaudeville and hoping to execute more starring film roles. Unfortunately, she was unable to achieve star billing again and carried out mostly uncredited roles before retiring from acting in 1937 and turning to real estate.

Agnes Ayers Headshot Hat
Agnes Ayres

Once retired, Ayres was committed to a sanatorium and lost custody of her daughter. She passed away on December 25, 1940, from a cerebral hemorrhage. She was 42 years old and interred at Hollywood Forever Cemetery.

Today, the Union County Historical Society has a collection of Ayres memorabilia that was exhibited in 2019 in conjunction with a screening of The Sheik in Cobden, Illinois. In attendance was Ayres’s daughter, Maria, who had never visited Cobden before. The Union County Historical Society is located at 117 S. Appleknocker Drive in Cobden.

Union County Historical Society at 117 S. Appleknocker Drive, Cobden, IL
Union County Historical Society at 117 S. Appleknocker Drive, Cobden, IL

The former Essanay Studios Chicago is located at 1345 W. Argyle St., Chicago, Illinois.

Essanay Studios at 1345 W. Argyle Street, Chicago, IL
Essanay Studios at 1345 W. Argyle Street, Chicago, IL

In 1900, Ayres is documented as living in Cobden with her mother, stepfather, and brother. By 1910, she was living at 4008 W. Adams St. in Chicago and working as a bookkeeper. In 1930, Ayres lived at 1615 Martel Ave. in Los Angeles, California. In 1940, she resided at 834 N. Alfred St. in Los Angeles. Unfortunately, none of these homes exist today.

Ayres does, however, have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, located at 6504 Hollywood Blvd. in Los Angeles.

Agnes Ayers Walk of Fame Star
Ayers’ Star on the Walk of Fame

Ayres continues to be celebrated through her silent film roles.

–Annette Bochenek for Classic Movie Hub

Annette Bochenek pens our monthly Classic Movie Travels column. You can read all of Annette’s Classic Movie Travel articles here.

Annette Bochenek of Chicago, Illinois, is a PhD student at Dominican University and an independent scholar of Hollywood’s Golden Age. She manages the Hometowns to Hollywood blog, in which she writes about her trips exploring the legacies and hometowns of Golden Age stars. Annette also hosts the “Hometowns to Hollywood” film series throughout the Chicago area. She has been featured on Turner Classic Movies and is the president of TCM Backlot’s Chicago chapter. In addition to writing for Classic Movie Hub, she also writes for Silent Film Quarterly, Nostalgia Digest, and Chicago Art Deco SocietyMagazine.

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Charles Boyer: The French Lover – Book Giveaway (Nov)

“Charles Boyer: The French Lover”
We have Four Books to Giveaway this Month!

CMH is happy to announce our next Classic Movie Book Giveaway as part of our partnership with University Press of Kentucky! This time, we’ll be giving away FOUR COPIES of Charles Boyer: The French Lover” by John Baxter.

In order to qualify to win this book via this contest giveaway, you must complete the below entry task by Saturday, Nov 27 at 6PM EST. Winners will be chosen via random drawings.

Charles Boyer: The French Lover

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We will announce our four lucky winners on Twitter @ClassicMovieHub on Sunday, Nov 28, around 9PM EST. And, please note that you don’t have to have a Twitter account to enter; just see below for the details.

To recap, there will be FOUR WINNERS, chosen by random, all to be announced on Nov 28.

Charles Boyer

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And now on to the contest!

ENTRY TASK (2-parts) to be completed by Saturday, November 27, 2021 at 6PM EST

1) Answer the below question via the comment section at the bottom of this blog post

2) Then TWEET (not DM) the following message*:
Just entered to win the “Charles Boyer: The French Lover” #BookGiveaway courtesy of @KentuckyPress & @ClassicMovieHub – #EnterToWin http://www.classicmoviehub.com/blog/charles-boyer-the-french-lover-book-giveaway-nov/

THE QUESTION:
What is your favorite Charles Boyer film and why? And, if you’re not familiar with his work, why do you want to win this book?

*If you do not have a Twitter account, you can still enter the contest by simply answering the above question via the comment section at the bottom of this blog — BUT PLEASE ENSURE THAT YOU ADD THIS VERBIAGE TO YOUR ANSWER: I do not have a Twitter account, so I am posting here to enter but cannot tweet the message.

NOTE: if for any reason you encounter a problem commenting here on this blog, please feel free to tweet or DM us, or send an email to clas@gmail.com and we will be happy to create the entry for you.

ALSO: Please allow us 48 hours to approve your comments. Sorry about that, but we are being overwhelmed with spam, and must sort through 100s of comments…

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Don’t forget to check our chats in our Screen Classics Discussion Series with University Press of Kentucky and @CitizenScreen. You can catch them on Facebook and YouTube:

Jayne Mansfield: The Girl Couldn’t Help It — with Author Eve Golden

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Vitagraph: America’s First Great Motion Picture Studio – with Author Andrew Erish:

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Jane Russell and the Marketing of a Hollywood Legend – with Author Christina Rice:

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Growing Up Hollywood with Victoria Riskin and William Wellman Jr:

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About the Book: Charles Boyer: The French Lover is the first biography of Boyer to exist in English in almost forty years. Author John Baxter artfully presents the often-tragic life of this often overlooked, yet profoundly impactful French actor. Baxter relates how Boyer (1899–1978) established himself in the theater and cinema of France, confidently transitioning from silent film to sound and making a name for himself as a romantic leading man in Hollywood through the early 1940s. During World War II, Boyer put his career on hold to become politically active on behalf of his occupied home country. Upon returning to the stage and screen, Boyer adapted effortlessly to postwar character roles in both Europe and the United States. He entered television in the 1950s as both producer and performer, and then remade himself as a comedy performer in the 1960s. Nominated four times for Academy Awards, he was honored by the Academy only once―a special honorary award received for his activities on behalf of France during World War II.

Click here for the full contest rules. 

Please note that only United States (excluding the territory of Puerto Rico) and Canada entrants are eligible.

Good Luck!

And if you can’t wait to win the book, you can purchase it on amazon by clicking below:

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–Annmarie Gatti for Classic Movie Hub

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Film Noir Review: 10 (More) Film Noir-Horror Crossovers

10 (More) Film Noir-Horror Crossovers

Horror and noir are the demented cousins of cinema. Dark in style and content, they approach the worst elements of mankind from different angles, though they often arrive at the same morbid destination. Given how much these two styles have in common, it’s no surprise to see how often filmmakers intermingle them.

We here at Classic Movie Hub have already provided a Whitman’s sampler of noir-horror crossovers to watch during the Halloween season, but there are so many choice options that we decided to take a page from the horror genre and craft a sequel post. With that said, here are 10 (more) film noir-horror crossovers you should consider.

The Seventh Victim (RKO, 1943)

The Seventh Victim (RKO, 1943)
‘The Seventh Victim’ was Mark Robson’s directorial debut.

The Seventh Victim is a chilling entry from director Mark Robson and producer Val Lewton. The latter had previously blurred genre lines with classics like Cat People (1942) and The Leopard Man (1943), but here, he pushes the feverish uncertainty of the unknown to its breaking point.

The film details the efforts of Mary (Kim Weston), a woman desperately seeking to rescue her sister from a shadowy cult organization. There are genre-defining images littered throughout the film, whether it be the cult depiction that anticipated Rosemary’s Baby (1968) or the anxiety-inducing shower scene that feels like a preamble to Psycho (1960). There’s a wealth of chills and amoral thrills here, and it’s aged like fine wine.

Nightmare Alley (20th Century Fox, 1947)

Nightmare Alley (20th Century Fox, 1947)
Stanton Carlisle (Tyrone Power) plots his next move.

Nightmare Alley has gotten a boost recently, thanks to the Criterion Collection release and the upcoming remake helmed by Guillermo del Toro. The Oscar-winning director may seem like an odd choice to helm a film noir, but one need only watch the 1947 version to realize that del Toro’s grotesque aesthetic is perfectly suited to the source material.

Nightmare Alley is a nihilist masterpiece that chronicles the rise and fall of Stan Carlisle (Tyrone Power), a manipulative carnival barker who betrays everybody he knows and pays the ultimate price. The film boasts Power’s finest performance ever, and the ending ranks among the most devastating in all of noir.

Night Has a Thousand Eyes (Paramount Pictures, 1949)

Night Has a Thousand Eyes (Paramount Pictures, 1949)
The Mental Wizard (Edward G. Robinson) copes with his torturous skill.

Edward G. Robinson is most often associated with gangsters, but he was often at his best when he was playing men racked with insecurity. One of these fascinating men is John Triton, the “Mental Wizard” at the heart of Night Has a Thousand Eyes. Triton’s ability to predict the future is no sham, but the price for accuracy is that he’s helpless to save those he cares about.

Things take on a more salacious angle when Triton’s best friend Whitney (Jerome Cowan) discovers he can profit from these morbid epiphanies. We don’t spoil the ending, but noir director John Farrow does a good job of keeping the viewer guessing until the very end. 

Dementia (Exploitation Pictures, 1955)

Dementia (Exploitation Pictures, 1955)
Silent screams in ‘Dementia’.

Dementia is a strange little film. It follows a young woman’s nightmarish experiences during a single night in Los Angeles’s skid row, and has no dialogue or discernable plot. It makes up for these deficiencies with a chilling atmosphere and a foreboding rhythm that becomes hypnotic.

Oftentimes horror films explain away too much, but Dementia is frightening because of how little in divulges. It makes sense in a sort of dream logic way, and one could easily draw a parallel between the film and David Lynch’s abstract noir outings like Lost Highway (1997) and Mulholland Dr. (2001).

Les Diaboliques (Cinedis, 1955)

Les Diaboliques (Cinedis, 1955)
Attempted murder takes on a surreal twist.

A landmark French film, Les Diaboliques tells the story of a woman and her husband’s mistress who conspire to murder the man. Once they’ve committed the crime, however, they lose sight of the body and begin to have surreal encounters with those around them. The disorienting tone of the film is its greatest asset, as one can never really tell where reality ends and the nightmarish headspace of the main women begins.

Similar to The Seventh Victim, there are tons of elements here that have gone on to inspire generations of domestic horror films. The premise and the sterile atmosphere by director Henri-Georges Clouzot were integral to the making of Psycho and the popularization of the “plot twist” in modern pop culture.

The Night of the Hunter (United Artists, 1955)

The Night of the Hunter (United Artists, 1955)
The dichotomy of love and hate in ‘The Night of the Hunter’.

Charles Laughton is rightfully heralded as one of the greatest supporting actors of all time. It’s a shame, however, that he never felt compelled to make a second directorial effort, given how brilliantly his first turned out. The Night of the Hunter is a Gothic hybrid of horror and noir that drops the audience into the perspective of terrified children.

Laughton’s direction is remarkably assured and realized for a rookie, as is his ability to get strong performances. Shelley Winters and Lillian Gish are perfect as the victim and the matriarch, while Robert Mitchum, with his tattooed knuckles and righteous drawl, delivers one of the creepiest performances ever committed to film. Love it or hate it, The Night of the Hunter leaves a big impression.

Psycho (Universal Studios, 1960)

Psycho (Universal Studios, 1960)
Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) checks in and fails to check out.

In his book Dark City, historian Eddie Muller points to Psycho as the swan song for classical film noir. He asserts that the first act of the film, dealing with Marion Crane (Janet Leigh), and her decision to steal money, constitute a classic noir premise. It’s only when Marion’s quest is cut short, and she’s murdered in the Bates Motel bathroom, that the film takes a violent turn into something different; something new.

It’s for these scholarly reasons that Psycho warrants inclusion on the list. The film will always be recognized as horror, but Hitchcock’s manipulation of classic noir tropes, right down to the casting of Leigh as a vulnerable woman at a motel (Touch of Evil, anyone?) makes it an important cultural bridge as noir matured into the 1960s.

The Cabinet of Caligari (20th Century Fox, 1962)

The Cabinet of Caligari (20th Century Fox, 1962)
The surreal landscape of Dr. Caligari.

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) was a seminal film in the German Expressionist movement. It laid out many of the style’s core themes and values, and would eventually lay the groundwork for what became American film noir. It’s fascinating then, to see what American producers did with the 1962 remake.

The Cabinet of Caligari, as it is renamed here, does away with the more outlandish designs of the original and focuses more on the disconcerting tone. It plays more like a Twilight Zone episode with noir trimmings, and a damn good episode at that. The ending may not differ too much from the original, but the solid execution helps it to maintain its impact.

Eyes of Laura Mars (Columbia Pictures, 1978)

Eyes of Laura Mars (Columbia Pictures, 1978)
Laura Mars (Faye Dunaway) attempts to eradicate her visions.

Faye Dunaway was talent personified in the 1970s, and Eyes of Laura Mars is only one of the many films that can attest to this. She plays the titular Laura Mars, a fashion photographer who begins to have visions of violent murders. Her attempts to prevent the murders before they occur lead her to join forces with a skeptical cop (Tommy Lee Jones) who may be hiding a secret of his own.

The film feels purposely modeled in the Hitchcock/DePalma mold, so much so that one would never guess the director was journeyman Irvin Kershner. In truth, the film bears the fingerprints of its screenwriter, John Carpenter, who delights in melding the pulp genres of his youth. Coupled with the commanding lead performances, and this is one horror-noir you won’t be able to take your eyes off.

Manhunter (De Laurentiis Entertainment Group, 1986)

Manhunter (De Laurentiis Entertainment Group, 1986)
Will Graham confronts pure evil.

The world of Hannibal Lecter has always been one that teetered on the edge of film noir. It flirts with many of the same tropes as classic noir, but it always skirts it slightly, to focus on horror or broader drama. The only time Lecter truly felt a part of noir was when Michael Mann deigned to make the neon-tinted masterwork Manhunter in 1986.

The film is utterly chilling, not only in the grotesque depictions of Lecter (Brian Cox) and the Tooth Fairy Killer (Tom Noonan), but the twisted headspace that allows FBI profiler Will Graham (William Petersen) to track them down. The gloom of the film is oppressive, and the setting of the finale is covered in so many neon lights and creepy sound effects that you’d swear it was a haunted house. FBI work has never been so frightening.

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You can read all of Danilo’s Film Noir Review columns here.

–Danilo Castro for Classic Movie Hub Danilo Castro is a film noir specialist and Contributing Writer for Classic Movie Hub. You can read more of Danilo’s articles and reviews at the Film Noir Archive, or you can follow Danilo on Twitter @DaniloSCastro.


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Silents are Golden: Silent Directors – The Ingenious F.W. Murnau

Silents are Golden: Silent Directors – The Ingenious F.W. Murnau

F.W. Murnau Headshot
F.W. Murnau

Very tall and described as having an “icy, imperious disposition,” F.W. Murnau certainly fit the stereotypical idea of a German silent film director. Highly cultured, his love of the arts and extreme attention to detail resulted in some of the finest works of the silent screen–and indeed, of cinema in general. Some would even say his masterpiece Sunrise (1927) is the finest film ever made.

George O'Brien and Margaret Livingston in Sunrise (1927)
George O’Brien and Margaret Livingston in Sunrise (1927)

The future director of Nosferatu (1922) and The Last Laugh (1924) was born Friedrich Wilhelm Plumpe in 1888, in what was then the province of Westphalia in Prussia. He had two brothers, two stepsisters, and his father owned a cloth factory. A precocious child, he enjoyed staging plays at the family home and was voraciously reading Shakespeare, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche well before he was a teen.

As a young man Murnau studied philology in Berlin and then art history and literature in Heidelberg. While in Heidelberg he met Max Reinhardt, the legendary Berlin theater director who was highly influential in encouraging Expressionism. While acting in the director’s theater he adopted the stage surname “Murnau,” after a small town south of Munich. Upon graduation he stayed with Reinhardt, learning the ropes of directing, until World War I broke out. He joined the Imperial German Flying Corps and flew numerous missions in northern France. Incredibly, he was in eight plane crashes and walked away each time without serious injuries.

F.W. Murnau pilot WWI
Said to be a photo of Murnau (on the right) in front of his aircraft.

After landing in Switzerland he was arrested and spent the remainder of the war as a POW. He didn’t let his time in the internment camp go to waste, working on plays, a film script and helping compile propaganda films for the German embassy. By the end of the war, Murnau had decided that film – already an obsession of his – was his future.

Upon his return to Germany he started a small film studio (Germany was full of tiny studios at the time) with the great actor Conrad Veidt. His first feature film was the Gothic tale Der Knabe in Blau (1919) and his second was Satanas (1920), inspired by D.W. Griffith’s Intolerance (1916). He worked with a number of key figures in the German Expressionist movement: Robert Wiene, director of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920); Caligari’s screenwriter Carl Mayer; and scenarist Thea von Harbou, wife of director Fritz Lang, to name a few.

 Director F.W. Murnau
Director Murnau

But while Murnau had been soaked in the highly stylized atmosphere of German Expressionism, he had a gift for bringing that atmosphere to film while having a steady grip on realism. Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror (1922) is the most famous example, with its dramatic lighting, macabre story (gleefully ripped off from Bram Stoker’s Dracula novel) and real-world locations. Produced by Prana Film, a small studio that wanted to specialize in occult-themed features, it was a bridge between the extreme stylization of German Expressionism and the naturalness of films from European countries like Sweden and from Hollywood. Prana Film was sued into oblivion by Stoker’s widow, but that didn’t keep Nosferatu from surviving and becoming the classic it is today.

Max Schreck as Count Orlok in Nosferatu (1922)
Max Schreck as Count Orlok in Nosferatu (1922)

It was thought that Murnau’s The Last Laugh (1924), with its emotional story of a hotel doorman who loses his station and its incredibly fluid camerawork, is what caught the attention of Hollywood. In reality Murnau signed a contract with William Fox shortly after the film premiered in Berlin – and long before U.S. audiences got to see it. By this point he was gaining a reputation as a highly skilled director and may have been recommended by cameraman Karl Freund.

Emil Jannings as the hotel doorman in The Last Laugh (1924)
Emil Jannings as the hotel doorman in The Last Laugh (1924)

The contract was an undeniable deal: Murnau would have a big budget, all the Hollywood sets and equipment he needed, and free reign to make whatever pictures entered his head. But in spite of this he fastidiously stayed in Germany awhile longer to create Faust (1926), one of his masterpieces. Based on Goethe’s version of the well-known German legend, it contained some of the most remarkable scenes ever filmed – including the giant demon Mephistopheles standing over a medieval town, releasing the black plague (the set used fans and billowing soot).

Faust (1926) Mephistopheles
Faust (1926)

Upon the completion of Faust, Murnau finally headed to Hollywood. His first film would be the prestige picture Sunrise, A Song of Two Humans (1927), which required sets of a peasant village and a vast (or seemingly vast) city street. The latter was created with ingenious use of forced perspective, attracting legions of cameramen, set designers, and designers eager to crawl through it and see it was done. It would also use ingenious camerawork, fixing the camera to a track in the studio ceiling so it could appear to “float” through a foggy marsh. Actors Janet Gaynor and George O’Brien considered it an honor to be the film’s leads, and the production was a special experience for both.

George O'Brien and Janet Gaynor in Sunrise (1927)
George O’Brien and Janet Gaynor in Sunrise (1927)

Sunrise turned out to be a stunning achievement and very influential in Hollywood. It would win one of the first Academy Awards in the category “Unique and Artistic Picture.” Many directors (even John Ford) would try to imitate Murnau’s style, using dramatic lighting and careful tracking shots. Murnau followed up with Four Devils (1928), which is unfortunately lost today, and the wistful City Girl (1929), made just as most studios had switched to talkies.

Sadly, we’ll never know what the great F.W. Murnau would’ve done with the talkie era, with its initial limitations but also its possibilities. His last silent film was Tabu: A Story of the South Seas (1931), a dramatic love story filmed in Tahiti. Only a week before it premiered, Murnau was being driven up the Pacific Coast Highway from Los Angeles in a chauffeured car. The young driver crashed the car against a pole and Murnau suffered a severe head injury. He died the next day, at only 42 years old.

F.W. Murnau
F.W. Murnau

–Lea Stans for Classic Movie Hub

You can read all of Lea’s Silents are Golden articles here.

Lea Stans is a born-and-raised Minnesotan with a degree in English and an obsessive interest in the silent film era (which she largely blames on Buster Keaton). In addition to blogging about her passion at her site Silent-ology, she is a columnist for the Silent Film Quarterly and has also written for The Keaton Chronicle.

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Noir Nook: YouTube Bs – Highway Dragnet (1954)

Noir Nook: YouTube Bs – Highway Dragnet (1954)

YouTube is a treasure trove of film noir classics – on it, for free, you can find gems like Scarlet Street (1945), The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946), House of Strangers (1949), Kansas City Confidential (1952), and many other major studio releases from the era.

Highway Dragnet (1954) Movie Poster
Highway Dragnet (1954)

I’ve discovered, though, when scrolling through the seemingly endless noir offerings on YouTube, that there are far more obscure ‘B’ pictures than there are features that are familiar to most noir fans. I usually give these movies the “go by” (as Joe Gillis from Sunset Boulevard would say), but recently, my curiosity got the better of me. They can’t all be clinkers, I figured. So I decided to find out.

This month’s Noir Nook is the first in a series of “YouTube Bs” – low-budget, little-known features from the film noir era that are worth your time. My inaugural feature is Highway Dragnet (1954), starring Richard Conte, Joan Bennett, and Wanda Hendrix.

Highway Dragnet (1954) Old Las Vegas, Nevada
Old Las Vegas, Nevada

Released by Allied Artists, the film opens at night in Las Vegas – it’s fascinating to see all of the old casinos (to me, at least – I LOVE Vegas), most of which are no longer standing. The camera takes us inside one of these, where we see Jim Henry (Conte), a recently discharged Marine, lose a couple of coins in a slot machine and then sit beside a rather inebriated blonde at the bar. Her name is Terry Smith and she’s an ex-fashion model – her picture is hanging on the wall of the bar, and Jim makes the mistake of telling her how beautiful she was “back then.” Terry takes offense and a rather public brouhaha ensues, which ends when Terry plants a big, wet one on Jim and we fade. To. Black.

Richard Conte and Wanda Hendrix in Highway Dragnet (1954)
Richard Conte and Wanda Hendrix in Highway Dragnet (1954)

We next see Jim the following morning, hitchhiking along the highway, when he’s nabbed at gunpoint by the local police. Turns out that Terry has been murdered – strangled with some kind of strap – and Jim’s on the hook for the killing. He loudly protests his innocence, but Lt. Joe White Eagle (Reed Hadley) of the Las Vegas police department doesn’t believe him. Especially when he finds a gun and a torn and bloody shirt in Jim’s suitcase, Jim’s bracelet under the dead woman’s body, and an alibi that doesn’t check out. The lieutenant and his men prepare to place Jim under arrest, but Jim isn’t having it, and in one of the coolest moves I’ve seen in a while, he kicks the lieutenant in the face, takes the guns from the men, and escapes in a police car.

Joan Bennett in Highway Dragnet (1954)
Joan Bennett in Highway Dragnet (1954)

When Jim spies two women on the highway with a stalled car, he finds a place where he can change out of his Marine uniform and get rid of his identification, then joins the women to offer his help. Once the car is fixed, Jim winds up behind the wheel of the car, helping the women — professional photographer Mrs. Cummings (Bennett) and her model, Susan Wilton (Hendrix) – drive to their next job. This sets up the rest of the film, as Jim tries to elude the police manhunt and we (and the women) try to figure out if he’s guilty or innocent.

Richard Conte in Highway Dragnet (1954)

I must admit that I had rather high hopes when I saw the cast of this film – Richard Conte is one of my favorite noir performers, and Joan Bennett is always a welcome sight. And I wasn’t disappointed. It was no Double Indemnity, but it held my interest from the very first scene, and director Nathan Juran kept the proceedings moving at a steady clip. There’s nary a dull moment in this 71-minute feature, although there were a number of unintentionally humorous moments, intended to ramp up the tension, but always involving some kind of misdirection or nick-of-time circumstance. But even this, for me, adds to the film’s quirky charm.

Grab yourself some popcorn, tune into YouTube, and see what you think. And meanwhile, enjoy some trivia tidbits about the film’s cast and crew:

  • The director was Nathan Juran. You may not have heard of him, but you’ve certainly heard of two films he directed in 1958: Attack of the 50 Foot Woman and The 7th Voyage of Sinbad. He also won an Academy Award for Art Direction for How Green Was My Valley (1941).
  • House Peters, Jr. (who I first noticed because of his unusual name) played a small part as a state patrol officer. Peters’ main claim to fame is that he served as the face and body of Mr. Clean in the commercials for the Procter and Gamble cleaning product.
  • Lt. White Eagle (I assume he was supposed to be a Native American?) was played by Reed Hadley. If you don’t recognize his face isn’t familiar, his voice may be familiar – he served as narrator for numerous noirs and other films, including The House on 92nd Street (1945), T-Men (1947), He Walked By Night (1948), and Canon City (1948).
  • Terry Smith was played by Mary Beth Hughes, the star of one of my favorite Mystery Science Theater 3000 episodes, I Accuse My Parents (1944), as well as one of my favorite obscure noirs, The Great Flamarion (1945). Hughes quit acting in the early 1960s and worked as a receptionist in a plastic surgeon’s office. In later years, she also worked as a telemarketer and opened her own beauty parlor.
  • A small role as a sassy waitress was played by Iris Adrian, who specialized in these kinds of parts. You can also see her in such films as the Barbara Stanwyck starrer Lady of Burlesque (1943) and Go West (1940) with the Marx Brothers, as well as numerous Disney features later in her career, including That Darn Cat! (1965), The Love Bug (1968), The Shaggy D.A. (1976) and Freaky Friday (1976). She died in 1994 at the age of 82, due to complications from injuries she suffered in a Northridge, California, earthquake.
  • The film was co-produced and based on a story co-written by Roger Corman, who would make a name for himself as the producer of more than 500 films. He’s still working as of this writing, with a new film set to come out later this year.
  • You may know Wanda Hendrix from her prominent role in the 1947 noir Ride the Pink Horse. She was married to war hero-turned-Western screen star Audie Murphy, but the union was short-lived, reportedly plagued by Murphy’s combat-related paranoia and violence. Hendrix left Murphy after less than a year, and later married the brother of actor Robert Stack. She died of double pneumonia at the age of 52.
  • Two actors who enjoyed their respective heydays a decade earlier were seen in small parts – Frank Jenks and Murray Alper. Jenks is best remembered for his role as a fast-talking reporter in His Girl Friday (1940), and Alper can be seen in such classics as The Maltese Falcon (1941), Saboteur (1942), and They Were Expendable (1945).

If you get a chance to watch Highway Dragnet, I hope you’ll come back and share your thoughts. And stay tuned for more YouTube Bs!

– Karen Burroughs Hannsberry for Classic Movie Hub

You can read all of Karen’s Noir Nook articles here.

Karen Burroughs Hannsberry is the author of the Shadows and Satin blog, which focuses on movies and performers from the film noir and pre-Code eras, and the editor-in-chief of The Dark Pages, a bimonthly newsletter devoted to all things film noir. Karen is also the author of two books on film noir – Femme Noir: The Bad Girls of Film and Bad Boys: The Actors of Film Noir. You can follow Karen on Twitter at @TheDarkPages.
If you’re interested in learning more about Karen’s books, you can read more about them on amazon here:

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Silver Screen Standards: The Haunting (1963)

Silver Screen Standards: The Haunting (1963)

If anyone tries to tell you that old horror movies aren’t scary, The Haunting (1963) is there to prove them wrong. This terrifying adaptation of the novel by Shirley Jackson still has plenty of chills and thrills to offer modern audiences, even though it never shows a single monster or so much as a drop of blood. Directed by Robert Wise, who got his start working on horror with Val Lewton at RKO, The Haunting was remade in 1999 and reimagined as a hit television series in 2018, but the original holds up as one of the best, creepiest, most atmospheric horror movies ever made.

The Haunting (1963) Julie Harris and Claire Bloom
Theo and Nell watch in terror as a ghostly force bangs on the walls and door outside their room.

Julie Harris leads a small ensemble cast as lonely, hypersensitive Eleanor Lance, who jumps at the chance to stay at Hill House in order to escape her buried life as the barely tolerated tenant of her sister. Dr. John Markway (Richard Johnson), an English anthropologist, has organized the visit in order to prove the existence of the supernatural; his other recruit is the sexy and supposedly psychic Theodora (Claire Bloom), with the Hill House heir, Luke Sanderson (Russ Tamblyn) along to become better acquainted with his future property. All of them get more than they bargained for when the strange forces that lurk inside the house begin to stir and then run wild through the shadowy corridors.

The Haunting (1963) Julie Harris, Nell
Hill House focuses its malevolent attention on the vulnerable Nell, who is particularly sensitive to the restless spirits of the home’s former inhabitants.

The intense terror of the film is achieved through camera angles, subtle hints, and the idea that things we can’t see are always more frightening than things we can. We never see the ghosts of Hill House, but we hear them, see evidence of their presence, and feel their eyes on us in every room. Throughout the house, statues with pale, staring faces watch the visitors, and doors mysteriously lock and unlock or open and close. The jarring camera angles at times look like modern “found footage” horror, especially when Nell makes the dizzying climb up the spiral staircase near the climax of the film. Wise and his cinematographer, Davis Boulton, use lighting, split diopters, a wide-angle anamorphic lens, and the black and white format to fantastic effect, with a few standout moments like the famous buckling door scene punctuating the pervasive feeling of dread like a sudden scream.

The Haunting (1963) Julie Harris
Nell’s companions become increasingly worried about her mental stability as the house beckons her to join its permanent residents.

The characters enduring this supernatural experience are more or less ordinary people, none of them especially heroic or terrible, but Nell occupies a special place among them as a fragile, perpetual outsider, a lonely soul desperate enough to be lured by the mansion’s sinister siren song. Nell’s girlish crush on Dr. Markway, the first man who has ever made her feel seen, is tragically inevitable, while her confusion over Theodora’s subtler advances creates plenty of tension between the two women. Luke plays the role of the skeptic until Hill House makes him rethink his cavalier attitude, at which point Mrs. Markway (Lois Maxwell) arrives to have her own skepticism quickly and horribly refuted.

The Haunting (1963) Lois Maxwell as Mrs. Markway
The skeptical Mrs. Markway (Lois Maxwell) is convinced of the house’s evil power when she becomes trapped inside it.

This is not the kind of horror movie that picks off its characters one by one; it’s more interested in turning the screws on living victims, with the deaths of the previous inhabitants presented right at the beginning mostly to set the stage for what comes later. We know how dangerous the house is, but Nell and Theodora don’t, while Dr. Markway naively insists that ghosts are benign, harmless entities incapable of doing real harm to the living. The creepy housekeeper, played with relish by Rosalie Crutchley, warns them early on, but even Nell laughs at her. Eventually, they’ll understand why Mrs. Dudley never stays in the house after dark. “In the night,” she says in parting, “In the dark.” Her final eerie grin suggests that even her daytime hours in the house have wrought a strange effect on the housekeeper’s mind. Those staying overnight will feel the full weight of Hill House’s malevolent power. 

For fans of the haunted or old dark house genre, The Haunting is definitely a high point, combining atmosphere with a seriously scary story that never topples over into camp. Earlier examples like The Old Dark House (1932) and House on Haunted Hill (1959) are great fun, but they’re not really meant to linger in the viewer’s nervous imagination after the final scene ends. For more of my favorite atmospheric horror classics, try Island of Lost Souls (1932), Cat People (1942), I Walked with a Zombie (1943), or The Uninvited (1944). If you dream of spending the night in Hill House yourself, you’re in luck; the location for the exterior used in the movie is Ettington Park Hotel in Stratford-Upon-Avon, where you can book a room for about 200 pounds a night. Just watch out for things that go bump in the night… in the dark.

— Jennifer Garlen for Classic Movie Hub

Jennifer Garlen pens our monthly Silver Screen Standards column. You can read all of Jennifer’s Silver Screen Standards articles here.

Jennifer is a former college professor with a PhD in English Literature and a lifelong obsession with film. She writes about classic movies at her blog, Virtual Virago, and presents classic film programs for lifetime learning groups and retirement communities. She’s the author of Beyond Casablanca: 100 Classic Movies Worth Watching and its sequel, Beyond Casablanca II: 101 Classic Movies Worth Watching, and she is also the co-editor of two books about the works of Jim Henson.

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Monsters and Matinees: From Villain to Wronged Man, the Diverse Horror Roles of Vincent Price

From Villain to Wronged Man,
the Diverse Horror Roles of Vincent Price

It’s October, the time of year when the world realizes it’s OK to watch scary movies every day – and horror film fans are right there with suggestions whether you’ve asked for them or not.

This year I thought it would be fun to share ideas based on horror film subgenres like vampires, witches, haunted houses and the like.

In horror films, actors – even some of the best – tend to repeat the same role or same type of film. (And there’s nothing wrong with that!) But as I compiled a list of assorted types of horror films, it was surprising to see the same actor playing such varied roles: Vincent Price. That would seem obvious given that he’s a horror icon, but it served as a reminder of how talented he was as an actor.

  • Played a gifted, but wronged, sculptor pitifully seeking to replicate his Marie Antoinette in House of Wax.
  • Was a caring, concerned family member in The Fly.
  • Chewed the scenery as the multifaceted and macabre Abominable Dr. Phibes.

Price has even played the holy grail of horror: a Universal monster. And I don’t mean that briefest of cameos in the comic gem Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, but his starring bit in a role that’s easy to overlook – because you don’t see him.

That’s Vincent Price under the bandages as the title character in The Invisible Man Returns.

Price as a Universal monster

Though we associate Universal’s The Invisible Man with the sympathetic portrayal by Claude Rains in the 1933 James Whale film, Price was the title character in the decent 1940 sequel The Invisible Man Returns (1940).

He plays Geoffrey Radcliffe, a man who is hours away from death after being wrongly convicted of murdering his brother. After all else fails, his fiancée Helen (Nan Grey) and their friend Dr. Frank Griffin (John Sutton) set a desperate escape plan into motion. Griffin is the brother of John Griffin, the scientist played by Rains in the original film who discovered a serum for invisibility that came with a side effect of madness.

In the time since, Frank has been researching an antidote to the deadly side effect. Though he hasn’t found it, he still injects Geoffrey to help him escape and safe his life. Unfortunately, the madness part of the serum kicks in much sooner than expected, complicating efforts to continue work on the antidote while searching for the real murderer.

A lobby card for The Invisible Man Returns.

The story is everything we expect, with the bonus of the mystery surrounding the killer. At a quick 81 minutes, it’s also a good use of classic movie time.

With Price playing the title character, we know he will rarely – if ever – be seen. That initially didn’t matter since there was the expectation that his iconic voice would be the star. But this was an early role – Price was not yet 30 – and his voice wasn’t as strong and eloquent as it would later become.

There are two other good reasons to watch this film. The Oscar-nominated special effects are by John P. Fulton, who also did the groundbreaking work in the original film. Then there’s the supporting cast: Cecil Kellaway as a Scotland Yard inspector, Cedric Hardwicke as family friend Richard Cobb and Alan Napier in a small but important role as Willie Spears.

Here are more suggestions of Vincent Price films by genre.

Great classic film actors Joseph Cotten, left, and Vincent Price in The Abominable Dr. Phibes.

Mad genius: The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971) is a crazy, colorful dark comedy mashup of “The Phantom of the Opera”/mad genius/vengeful husband/sadistic killer tropes. Price plays the multitalented good doctor, concert pianist, theologist and scholar thought to have died in a car accident. Instead, he has been biding his time to get vengeance on the doctors he holds responsible for his wife’s death. “Nine killed you, 9 will die,” he says to a photo of his beautiful, but dead, wife. (The accident left him without a voice, forcing him to speak with a chord he attaches to his neck that replicates his voice.)

Dr. Phibes (Vincent Price) has invented a strange contraption that allows his voice to be heard in The Abominable Dr. Phibes.

It’s one of the many quirky things in the film, but nothing is as odd as his “home” where an organ rises through the floor into a room with a stage flanked by musical robots (The Dr. Phibes Clockwork Wizards) and a dance floor where he twirls around his lovely, but silent, assistant Vulnavia (Virginia North). In her stage-worthy outfits, she willingly helps him carry out his deadly deeds as he enacts the 10 curses of the Pharaohs on the guilty including boils, bats, frogs, locusts, death of the first born and darkness. (Wait, if there are nine doctors, who is the 10th victim?).

The deaths are grisly – or at least “yucky” by today’s standards – and Price wonderfully hams it up throughout. Giving a strong dramatic performance is the great Joseph Cotten as one of the endangered doctors. (Finally, an aging classic movie actor is not played for laughs in a horror film.)

Shakespearean horror: Theatre of Blood (1973).  Price did quite well by the works of Edgar Allen Poe, so why not try some Shakespeare? This is similar to Phibes as far as the revenge factor. Here, Price plays Shakespearean actor Edward Kendal Sheridan Lionheart who seeks revenge on members of the Theatre Critics Guild who belittled him. His method of murder: killing each one by enacting a murder scene from Shakespeare. Bonus: Diana Rigg plays his daughter.

Vincent Price is quite charming in The House on Haunted Hill.

Haunted house: The House on Haunted Hill (1959). From the mind of movie showman William Castle who was known for his gimmicks, this haunted house film has a bit of camp, some jump scares and big entertainment value. Price is millionaire Frederick Loren who offers five strangers $10,000 each if they last the night in a haunted house as part of a celebration for his fourth wife, Annabelle (Carole Ohmart). The scenes of the sniping husband-and-wife are the best part of the film, as they wield their sharp words like weapons against each other. This is more of a fun ride than horror house, and that is the film’s charm. The Castle gimmick used here was “Emergo,” in which a skeleton “emerged” above moviegoers in theaters at early screenings.

[Read more from Monsters and Matinees on The House on Haunted Hill and William Castle.]

A publicity shot for The Tingler shows the shadow of the title creature above the head of Vincent Price.

Creature Feature: The Tingler (1959). The same year as The House on Haunted Hill, Price starred in a second William Castle film. It’s remembered for Castle’s “Percepto” gimmick that had seat buzzers placed throughout theaters, but I wish it was more appreciated for the awesome title creature – one that was created from fear. “Many people die in fear, I wonder how many die of fear,” wonders Dr. Warren Chapin (Price) before discovering that the tingle up our spine is a creature that lives within us all. The film plays with the audience and our perception of what’s happening, something Price helps as a kindly doctor who is also a jealous husband and a crazed scientist who seemingly will stop at nothing to finish his experiments. Enjoy the brilliant pops of red Castle splashes through the film.

Vincent Price spends his nights fending off vampire-like humans, victims of a plague that left him The Last Man on Earth.

Vampires/zombies: The Last Man on Earth (1964). Whether you consider this a vampire film, a zombie flick or a mix, you’ll still find Price a sympathetic survivor of a mysterious plague who unfortunately is not as alone as the title would lead us to believe. In this Italian-made adaptation of master writer Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend, Price is a doctor immune to a plague that has killed off the world, turning the few survivors into creatures who feed off humans. Like vampires, they sleep during the day, hate garlic and die by a stake through the heart. An overwhelming feeling of doom hangs over this film.

Witches: Witchfinder General (1968, AKA Conqueror Worm). Set in 1645 where folklore and superstition reign, lawyer Matthew Hopkins (Price) travels the lands torturing innocent villagers into confessing to be witches and hanging them. The tables are turned when a soldier (Ian Ogilvy) tracks him after Hopkins assaults his fiancée and murders her uncle, a priest. Price, who is deadly serious as the sadistic Hopkins, considered it one of his best performances.

 Toni Ruberto for Classic Movie Hub

You can read all of Toni’s Monsters and Matinees articles here.

Toni Ruberto, born and raised in Buffalo, N.Y., is an editor and writer at The Buffalo News. She shares her love for classic movies in her blog, Watching Forever and is a member of the Classic Movie Blog Association. Toni was the president of the former Buffalo chapter of TCM Backlot and now leads the offshoot group, Buffalo Classic Movie Buffs. She is proud to have put Buffalo and its glorious old movie palaces in the spotlight as the inaugural winner of the TCM in Your Hometown contest. You can find Toni on Twitter at @toniruberto.

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Classic Movie Travels: Evelyn Keyes

Classic Movie Travels: Evelyn Keyes

Evelyn Keyes Headshot
Evelyn Keyes

Best known for portraying Scarlett O’Hara’s little sister, Evelyn Keyes had a lengthy career that extended far beyond her time in Gone with the Wind (1939). Born Evelyn Louise Keyes on November 20, 1916, in Port Arthur, Texas, she was the daughter of Methodist minister Omar Dow Keyes and Maude Keyes. Keyes was the youngest of five children, with older siblings named Norma, Julia, Mary, and Garrett. Sadly, her father passed when she was a toddler, leading the family to relocate to Atlanta, Georgia, and live with her grandparents.

During her teenage years, Keyes studied voice, dance, and piano, and performed in various clubs in the Atlanta area. She hoped to one day become a ballerina but her entry in a beauty pageant opened the door to working as a chorus girl. Keyes moved to Hollywood soon after and crossed paths with Cecil B. DeMille, who signed her to a contract.

After executing several smaller roles for Paramount Pictures, Keyes secured her role as Suellen O’Hara in Gone with the Wind. Next, she signed with Columbia, appearing in various B-movie dramas. Some of her movies following Gone with the Wind included Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941), The Jolson Story (1946), Johnny O’Clock (1947), The Mating of Millie (1948), and her final major role in The Seven Year Itch (1955).

Ann Rutherford, Vivien Leigh, and Evelyn Keyes in Gone with the Wind (1939)
Ann Rutherford, Vivien Leigh, and Evelyn Keyes in Gone with the Wind (1939)

Throughout her life, she had four marriages. She was first married to Barton Bainbridge, who committed suicide in 1940. Her following marriages were to Charles Vidor, John Huston (with whom she adopted a child named Pablo), and Artie Shaw.

Beyond her time in movies, Keyes occasionally performed on stage, including a touring production of No, No, Nanette. She also carried out guest appearances on The Love Boat and Murder, She Wrote.

Evelyn Keyes in The Seven Year Itch (1955)
Keyes in The Seven Year Itch (1955)

Aside from her work on the stage and screen, Keyes enjoyed traveling and had residences in England, France, and Mexico, even speaking Spanish and French fluently.

Keyes passed away on July 4, 2008, at the age of 91 in Montecito, California.

At this point, much of Keyes’s early residences have been razed. In 1920, her mother and siblings lived at 840 Spring St. in Atlanta, Georgia. In 1930, they lived at 1081 Sells Ave. SW in Atlanta. By 1935, Keyes lived at 11147 Aqua Vista in Los Angeles, California, with Bainbridge, later moving to 2461 N. Gower St. in Los Angeles in 1940. None of these residences remain.

Thankfully, Keyes donated memorabilia to the Museum of the Gulf Coast, located in her hometown at 700 Procter St., in Port Arthur, Texas. Various tributes to her can be viewed there.

Museum of the Gulf Coast in Port Arthur, Texas

In addition to viewing her hometown display, fans of Keyes can also learn more about her through her own recollections. Keyes wrote three books: I Am a Billboard, Scarlett O’Hara’s Younger Sister, and I’ll Think about That Tomorrow.

"Scarlett O'Hara's Younger Sister: My Lively Life In and Out of Hollywood" by Evelyn Keyes Book Author
“Scarlett O’Hara’s Younger Sister: My Lively Life In and Out of Hollywood” by Evelyn Keyes

Though few tributes to Keyes remain, it is heartening to see her remembered in her hometown and to know that her life and experiences were documented in her books.

–Annette Bochenek for Classic Movie Hub

Annette Bochenek pens our monthly Classic Movie Travels column. You can read all of Annette’s Classic Movie Travel articles here.

Annette Bochenek of Chicago, Illinois, is a PhD student at Dominican University and an independent scholar of Hollywood’s Golden Age. She manages the Hometowns to Hollywood blog, in which she writes about her trips exploring the legacies and hometowns of Golden Age stars. Annette also hosts the “Hometowns to Hollywood” film series throughout the Chicago area. She has been featured on Turner Classic Movies and is the president of TCM Backlot’s Chicago chapter. In addition to writing for Classic Movie Hub, she also writes for Silent Film Quarterly, Nostalgia Digest, and Chicago Art Deco SocietyMagazine.

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