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As the house begins to disintegrate, Bristol drags Philip from the room, but is killed by a falling beam when he returns for Madeline, who is choking her brother. The house is now engulfed in flames and falls in on Roderick and Madeline as Philip runs out and watches the house sink into an abyss. Producer Samuel Z. Arkoff, who died September 16 at the age of 83, made a dent in film history by co-founding and running the legendary American International Pictures (AIP), a key player in the drive-in and exploitation markets during the 50s, 60s and 70s. Arkoff was born in Iowa on June 12, 1918, served as a military crypographer during World War Two and ended up as an entertainment lawyer.
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There are the sandy beaches, streets lined with palm trees, and more celebrities than IMDb can count. But we’re narrowing in on the last 100 years or so, when we started seeing studios pop up all over town and Old Hollywood took over. Simpson chase to the recent California wildfires, we’re looking at (almost) everything that’s transpired in L.A.
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Of all of the film versions of the story so far, we finally get a version of the Usher house that approximates what Poe described. Equally good are Bert Schoenberg’s briefly glimpsed, amazingly tortured paintings that stand in for portraits of the Usher family – in fact, they, like the entire film, give the impression of being the dramatic equivalent of an Edvard Munch painting. For his venture into the Gothic revival, Corman turned to American writer Edgar Allan Poe for his subject matter. Of course, Corman had a problem in persuading AIP producers Samuel Z. Arkoff and James H. Nicholson to allow him to make a film in colour and with a substantially greater budget than the rest of his films up to that point.
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Later, after hearing more creaking and clanking sounds, Philip checks Madeline's room and, finding it empty, goes downstairs where he discovers her, lying in a trance-like state. In the morning, Bristol agrees to let Philip take Madeline her breakfast, giving him the opportunity again to implore her to leave. Madeline refuses to go with Philip, however, and tells him that she will soon be dead.
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He hoped to transpose his adolescent love for Poe’s work into a film aimed directly at a popular audience. The production design and costumes complete the viewing experience of the chilling but hypnotic story of the Usher family. There is a feeling of isolation throughout, emphasized by the characters’ physical limits and the large house meant for many more occupants. More than anything, the depth of the characters and the influence of the house and its former occupants make House of Usher a gripping story that lures audiences in as much as it repels them. (Here Corman was opportunistically able to grab a camera and go out to the scene of a brush fire in the Hollywood Hills and use it as the blasted heath).
The narrator finally gets a name Philip Winthrop – although he is not Roderick’s childhood friend but Madeleine’s fiancee. One of the problems with any version of The Fall of the House of Usher is that it is lacking in internal drama. Thus Richard Matheson needs to invent conflict – the narrator is now obsessed with taking Madeleine away from the house (Mark Damon gives a particularly cross and annoyed performance in the part), while Roderick is equally determined that she cannot leave and is doomed. This is also the first of the film adaptations to invent a backstory for the Usher line (something retained by most subsequent film adaptations).
The era of CinemaScope widescreen films began with the premiere of 1953's The Robe. Held at the Grauman's Chinese Theatre (now known as the TCL Chinese Theatre), it was a momentous occasion for the industry. Back in the 1940s, young people donned their retro swimsuits and cooked beachside in Los Angeles. An Old Hollywood icon, entertainer Rita Hayworth cruised down the street near Warner Bros. At the time, she was married to Edward C. Judson, but that was her first of five marriages. Griffith Jenkins Griffin's dream was realized 16 years after his death in 1919.
Today, the Griffith Observatory is one of the most visited (and yes, Instagrammed) sites in Los Angeles. The song Roderick sings, “The Haunted Palace,” is an extended metaphor that compares the mind of a mad person to a haunted house or a palace under siege. In the first stanza of the song, Roderick names the monarch Thought (“In the monarch Thought’s dominion”), suggesting that reason rules over this mind. The physical elements of the palace additionally map onto the features of a human face. The “banners yellow, glorious, golden” that “float and flow” on the roof are locks of blond hair. It has two “luminous” windows representing eyes, and the door made of pearls and rubies is a mouth with red lips and pearly white teeth.
DVD Savant Blu-ray Region B Review: The Fall of the House of Usher (1960) - DVD Talk
DVD Savant Blu-ray Region B Review: The Fall of the House of Usher ( .
Posted: Sun, 29 Sep 2013 07:00:00 GMT [source]
After the success of The House of Usher, Corman went on to a series of other Poe based films – Pit and the Pendulum (1961), Premature Burial (1962), Tales of Terror (1962), the Poe-titled but H.P. Lovecraft adapted The Haunted Palace (1963), The Raven (1963), The Masque of the Red Death (1964) and The Tomb of Ligeia (1964). Corman began producing with the detective film Highway Dragnet (1954) and then started directing with the Western Five Guns West (1955) but it was at AIP (American International Pictures) that he made a name for himself churning out cheap but entertaining B-monster movies and exploitation films. (See the bottom of the page for a list of Roger Corman’s other genre films). Philip Winthrop travels from Boston to the forbidding Usher family mansion in New England to see his fianc’e Madeleine.
Because the last of the Usher line are twins, that the crack divides the house in two signals their eternal separation in death. Richard Matheson, a Californian writer highly regarded at the time for his novels I am Legend and The Shrinking Man and prolific author of many horror, fantasy and western short stories, adapted the 1839 tale, expanding it and making a number of changes. Poe’s stories are notoriously difficult to realise on screen, depending as they do on unreliable narrators, ambiguity and atmosphere in favour of solid characterisation, and their brevity necessitate a creative approach to fill 90 minutes of screen time. Winthrop became a hero in search of his fiancée, engaged to Madeline but fighting Roderick for possession of her, and personified an aspect of the film’s doomed romantic themes.
He tracks her through the house, to the circle of paintings and to a brilliantly executed encounter as her bloodied hand claws around the door he is opening and, like a defiled bride, she lunges at him. Corman intercuts her piercing eyes with those of the Usher portraits, acknowledging that an untimely burial by her perverse brother has sent her as completely mad as her relatives. Madeline’s introduction to her deceased relatives is mirrored later with Roderick’s own tour of the strange paintings that decorate the hallway and their depiction, the “savage degradations”, of the family as harlots, thieves, drug addicts, murderers and assassins. Certainly, Winthrop spends an inordinate amount of time moving deeper and deeper into the house, where the bubbling pot of gruel acts as a symbolic bridge to his morning encounter with Madeline. Here again, Winthrop rationalises the Usher curse and attempts to literally throw light onto the subject by opening the curtains in her bedroom.
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