He’s dangerous, you just don’t know how dangerous (or to what extent he’ll go to ensure his will is met). He also glides about his gothic home like an apparition, a sense of emotional weakness in the face of his family’s supposed curse tempered by his unsettling motivation. His gleaming white hair has a ghostly, aged look about it, almost as if he has already departed this lifetime. Yet, it’s Vincent Price as the self-appointed patriarch of the Usher family who steals the show. The crypt is even better foreboding and cobweb ridden with creaking hinges adding a sonic ambience to the ghoulish atmosphere. This is aided by cinemascope giving that wide aspect ratio that encourages the eyes to look around, almost as if the answers to the enigma might be in the corners of the frame. Everything from the doors and the bed frames to the long, flickering candles that light the scene, add texture to the experience. Corman clearly wanted to give the audience every chance to be immersed in this grand, gothic mansion so he pays the closest attention to every element of the set. Taking every opportunity to celebrate colour film, The Fall of the House of Usher benefits from clinical detail paid to its production. The Fall of the House of Usher, the first of Corman’s attempts and still considered one of his best, is beautifully realised on screen thanks to its lavish production design and a captivating performance from Vincent Price. Due to falling audiences for this form of cinema, AIP decided to put more money into a lavish cinemascope colour film, with Poe’s fiction being the inspiration behind a slew of adaptations. The film was a daring departure for American International Pictures (AIP) as the studio was, until that point, primarily concerned with black and white movies to be screened as double bills. His romantic intentions are, however, stopped by Madeline’s brother Roderick Usher ( Vincent Price) who fears their union will continue the family’s cursed bloodline. Telling the twisted tale of the Usher family, we are introduced to their history of mysterious madness through Philip Winthrop ( Mark Damon), who goes to the Usher mansion in order to bring his fiancée Madeline ( Myrna Fahey) back to his home in Boston. Roger Corman’s first foray into the world of Edgar Allan Poe is an elegant screen adaptation of the great mystery writer’s short story The Fall of the House of Usher. This seems like a change for its own sake.Roger Corman’s first foray into the world of Edgar Allan Poe is an elegant, beautifully realised tale of death and madness with a scene-stealing performance from the incomparable Vincent Price… To the original but these changes need to improve the material, question it,ĭeepen it. I have no issues with adaptations making changes Title only a single meaning and removes the dramatic flourish that makes the Instead, both of themĮscape the crumbling family manor accompanied by the narrator, which gives the I wonder if fear of censorship was behind thisĪnd the ending (spoiler, I guess) does not feature Madelineįalling onto Roderick and literally scaring him to death. I mean, some poor woman agreed to marry an Usher. Incestuous family dynamic hinted at by Poe and the family seat does not feel so I believe it was a big mistake to change MadelineĪnd Roderick’s relationship from siblings to spouses. That’s why I find some of the changes to the tale for thisĪdaptation to be baffling. James Sibley Watson and Melville Webber made a short version the same year that Jean Epstein (assisted for a time by Luis Buñuel) tried his hand at a feature film.ĭragging around the corpse of your sister/wife or, as the Ushers call it, Thursday. And with the creepy atmosphere and ripe subtext, it’s no wonder that it was an attractive subject for silent era filmmakers. Obviously, there is double meaning in the title with the literal and figurative houses of Usher collapsing by the end of the story. The guest flees as the mansion is rent asunder. Madeline appears and throws herself onto her brother and he dies from the shock. His guest tries to distract him but during a dark and stormy night, Roderick confesses that he has heard Madeline trying to claw her way out of her coffin-he buried her alive. Roderick and his sister Madeline are the last of their line and when she suddenly dies, he is inconsolable. You can read a public domain version of the original tale here but if you want a brief rundown, here it is: An unnamed narrator pays a visit to the decaying mansion of his childhood friend, Roderick Usher.
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