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Vincent Price's sonorous reading of the poem is just the appetizer, the main course is a rambunctious burlesque of Poe themes. The sorcerer amuses himself by using his powers to draw a raven out of thin air, the real thing taps on the window and flaps inside, grousing with Peter Lorre's unmistakable voice. "Shall I ever hold again that radiant maiden whom the angels call Lenore?" "How the hell should I know?" The ingredients needed to break the spell are not easily found in a vegetarian household, the potion is brewed in the underground laboratory using hair from the patriarch in the crypt. (The wizened corpse reaches over with a raspy warning, "most unexpected.") Cf. Pasolini's Uccellacci e uccellini, the black bird back in human form means feathered arms, handy for dusting ancient coffins. The Brotherhood of Magicians for those "of the occult dedication," the Grand Master (Boris Karloff) is in cahoots with the treacherous beloved (Hazel Court). Roger Corman droll like James Whale, with his Gothic obsessions gone slapstick—the crimson splatter is raspberry jam, the climactic conflagration has a vaudeville follow-up. Jack Nicholson in proper-juvenile mode comes alive when suddenly seized by a malefic urge atop a carriage, and also when insistently picking lint off the irritable Lorre's cloak. "Is that how you reward my services, you ungrateful hellhound?" The wizard duel has Price and Karloff playing ping-pong with fireballs and levitating on their thrones, a goofy surrealism turns serpent into scarf into bat into fan, wielded coquettishly by the great sagging ghoul. "Nevermore" is the punchline, of course, in a manner subsequently polished by Polanski (The Fearless Vampire Hunters). With Olive Sturgess, Connie Wallace, William Baskin, and Aaron Saxon.
--- Fernando F. Croce |