Tuesday, April 19, 2011

P is for Poe and Price

When my husband read my N is for Nevermore post, he agreed that there's something amazing about Poe combined with Vincent Price.  "We should buy all the Poe movies!" he suggested.  I totally agree.  Today is my homage to Vincent Price in Edgar Allen Poe movies.

I remember watching hours of Vincent Price and Poe with my dad.  My favorite was The Pit and the Pendulum.  I also loved The Fall of the House of Usher and The Masque of the Red Death.  Classics really.  I assume they are super-cheesey now compared to modern horror films.  But I still love them.

My daughter had to do a 9th grade essay and chose The Cask of Amontillado.  She did a little research and read that Poe only worried about characterization to the extent that it furthered the plot.  The murderer in this story, whose name I don't remember but hopefully will look up before I publish this, had characteristics of a psychopath.  There was nothing extraneous about his characterization - Poe only revealed a character traits that explained why he was capable of burying someone alive - and not a stranger, but someone he knew.

The film clips are too long to post here, but this is the reason why Vincent Price was perfect for any Poe story - the sinister laugh....


4 comments:

  1. OMG. I loved Vincent Price, too. Loved his evil laugh.

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  2. I remember being a little kid and having an absolute sense of dread when he appeared on the Hawaii episode of the Brady Bunch. I thought he was going to bury the Brady's alive...and then laugh.

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  3. I also posted about Poe today, but I talked about the Poe Museum. Price was the PERFECT person to portray so many of Poe's works. I'm stopping by from the A to Z challenge and I look forward to visiting again.

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  4. @Sylvia - I read your post and genuinely liked your blog. I would love to see the museum. That would be amazing! Thanks for visiting. :)

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