10 of Vincent’s most priceless
This October 25 will mark 15 years since the death of Vincent Price, the legendary horror icon with the deep, sinewy voice and the flamboyant 6-foot-4-inch frame who played the suavest of villains in countless horror classics throughout the ’40s, ’50s and ’60s. With Friday the thirteenth around the corner, we thought it’d be fun to share 10 of the Master of the Macabre’s best. Of course, with so many fantastic films, it’s hard to whittle the list down. After all, over his half-century career, Price played in over 100 features and made more than 2,000 TV appearances, not to mention his performances on the stage. Among the features were a series of starring roles in Roger Corman’s garish but charming film adaptations based on the works of Edgar Allan Poe, including “The Masque of the Red Death” and “House of Usher,” but for this list, we decided to include just one from that series. We also left off “The Fly” and “Return of the Fly,” which are both great, but, if you haven’t heard of them yet, well, you’ve got bigger problems. And of course, “Edward Scissorhands,” as one of the best movies ever, needs no extra recognition from us. Besides, we wanted to stick with Price’s older films. Some are film-noir, and some are horror. Many were made on a low budget, and all are absolute must-sees. So add them to your Netflix queue to watch at your leisure, or dig in and pull an all-day marathon this Friday. After all, as Price told a newsman in 1971, “Horror movies don’t date because they were dated to begin with, they were mannered and consciously so–Gothic tales with an unreality. They have the fun of a fairy tale.”
10. “The Last Man on Earth” (1964, 86 minutes) In the wake of blockbuster release “I Am Legend,” a re-imagining of this classic horror tale, and the recent death of Charlton Heston, who stared in the 1971 version, “Omega Man,” this film is worth watching now more than ever, because of all the hype. Based on the 1954 science fiction novel by Richard Matheson, the movie follows the deeds of a sole survivor in the aftermath of a world-wide plague to which he alone is immune. As the title suggests, the film exploits the psychological terrors of utter desertion, as Robert Morgan (Price) must fend for himself by day and bar himself in his home by twilight, protecting against the bloodthirsty plague victims, who’ve been turned into some strange zombie-vampire hybrid and circle his house every night like vultures in the dark. The existential horror is delightfully strange and culminates with an ending that’s both bleak and poignant.
His best line: “I can’t afford the luxury of anger. Anger can make me vulnerable. It can destroy my reason and reason’s the only advantage I have over them.”
9. “Leave Her to Heaven” (1945, 110 minutes) The strikingly beautiful Gene Tierney earned critical acclaim for her academy-award nominated performance as Ellen, a young wife whose possessiveness over her new husband, writer Richard Harland (Cornel Wilde), drives her to murder. When she becomes suspicious that her husband may be in love with her sister, Ruth (Jeanne Crain), she takes drastic measures to ensure they’ll never be together, staging her own murder and framing her sister for it. Price makes an appearance toward the beginning of the movie, but he really shines during the trial scenes as a relentless prosecutor trying to badger the suspects into confessing. His performance is brief but memorable, proving just how great a presence he really was–great enough even to embellish smaller roles.
His best line (badgering murder suspect Ruth on the witness stand): “There are a great many things you can’t explain! You can’t explain how the poison got in the bottle of bath salts. You can’t explain how it got in the sugar. You can’t explain why Ellen’s body was cremated so as to make an autopsy impossible. You can’t explain why you made plans to leave this country shortly before your sister was poisoned. Well, perhaps you can explain this: When did you first fall in love with Richard Harland?”
8. “The Bat” (1959, 80 minutes) A serial killer, known as “The Bat,” breaks into a huge mansion where a mystery novel writer and her servants happen to be staying. When the police search the house, they find nothing, but a series of strange events soon make it clear that The Bat, who wears a mask over his face and sharp claws on his hands, is still lurking somewhere inside the creaky, old mansion. To make matters even more interesting, a small fortune’s worth of embezzled bonds has been stowed somewhere on the property. Price plays a doctor, who also happens to be a savvy murderer angling for the stolen funds–but is he the murderer? He’s only one of several suspects, each of whom just might be The Bat.
His best line: “Oh he knew, but he didn’t have time to think about it.” (After someone remarks that a man who was struck on the head, suffering a fatal laceration and hemorrhage, didn’t know what hit him.)
7. “The Tingler” (1959, 82 minutes) In this audience-interactive thriller, Price plays a doctor and scientist who experiments with the effects of fear on humans. He discovers that the same fear-induced force that sends tingles up your spine can become strong enough to snap your vertebrae in two. The only way to save yourself from being scared, possibly to death, is to release your fear tensions by screaming. Obsessed with his new discovery, which he calls “the tingler,” the doc is willing to go to dangerous lengths to further his research.
His best line: “Unconventional, but not impossible.” (After his disapproving wife declares that the only way her younger sister’s marriage to a poor scientist will take place is over her dead body.)
6. “House of Wax” (1953, 90 minutes) This thoroughly entertaining horror classic tells the story of a talented sculptor and professor (Price) who loses his life’s work–and the dexterity of his hands–when his greedy business partner sets fire to his wax museum hoping to collect the insurance money. After he is presumed dead in the fire, the sculptor turns up years later determined to rebuild his beloved wax exhibit–with the help of some dubious apprentices. Despite the eponymous similarity, the picture has little to do with the 2005 film of the same name, except that both exploit the exquisite creepiness inherent in wax figures. But for these figures to come to life, real people must first die–and that’s a concession the professor is willing to make.
His best line: “Everything I have ever loved has been taken from me, but not you my Marie Antoinette, for I will give you eternal life!” (As he prepares to ensconce one of his victims, a Marie Antoinette doppelganger, within a thin layer of wax for display in his wax museum.)
5. “Shock” (1946, 70 minutes) Originally produced as a B-film, “Shock” ended up being a much wider release than expected, proving that Price could indeed carry a picture. In this classic film noir, a young psychiatric patient is convinced she’s witnessed a murder, and that her treating psychiatrist is the one who committed it. As her doctor, Richard Cross (Price) is the only person who knows the truth, but has little intention of confessing it. Aided by his mistress (Lynn Bari), who helps him cover up his wife’s murder, the scheme threatens to keep the sane woman interred in a mental institution indefinitely. That is, until the police start snooping around and the two conspirators hatch a plan to keep her quiet–for good.
His best line: “If a man wanted to, if he had courage, he could get rid of her and no one would ever know; a doctor has an advantage.” (Theorizing about the possibility of killing his patient.)
4. “Laura” (1944, 87 minutes) A stark murder mystery starring the aforementioned Tierney, Laura is a well-known and beloved, successful saleswoman with a gentle heart, a bewitching personality and a weakness for good-looking men. A young Price plays her love interest–a pretty face with a dubious reputation–who ends up a prime suspect in her murder. Everyone seems helpless not to fall in love with Laura at first sight–even the detective (Dana Andrews) investigating her death develops feelings for her based solely on her portrait which hangs like a cinematic centerpiece inside her abandoned apartment. As the mystery thickens, the detective happens upon something very important–something that changes everything. And as it turns out, Laura may not be the picture of perfection, after all.
His best line: “I can afford a blemish on my character, but not on my clothes.”
3. “His Kind of Woman!” (1951, 120 minutes) An American loner (Milner played by Robert Mitchum) is forced by the Italian mob to relocate to Mexico for a year so that their deported mob boss can borrow his identity for a while in order to move back to the States. Along the way, Milner falls for a sassy yet secretive, good-looking dame (Jane Russell) and eventually wins her over with his own nonplussed mystique. But it’s Price’s over-the-top, comedic portrayal as a self-absorbed, gun-collecting Hollywood actor that truly makes this one stand out from other classic noir films. When things turn dangerous, the flamboyant movie star, relishing the opportunity to be involved in a genuine adventure, organizes a rescue team for Milner and hunts down the bad guys–all in a hilariously theatrical manner.
His best line: “Do you think I want to go on living in a make-believe world, fighting in Sherwood Forest on page six? You go on to Hollywood while I go on to real life triumphs, or a glorious death!”
2. “The Pit and the Pendulum” (1961, 80 minutes) Vincent Price stars in this film adaptation of the Edgar Allan Poe classic as a man who believes his wife was buried alive and has risen from the grave to haunt him. As his guilt drives him to the brink of insanity, he decides that he must exhume his wife’s remains if he’s ever to know the truth. Accompanied by his physician, sister and brother-in-law, a horrifying discovery is made inside his wife’s tomb. Like the others in Corman’s series, the film embodies all the color and Gothic imagination of Poe, while maintaining a fantastic eeriness, and crowned with a terrific twist ending. Eventually, Price’s character succumbs to total madness and winds up strapping his brother-in-law to an elaborate torture device. Thanks to the magic of editing (every other frame was cut out, creating an almost slow-motion effect), the swinging pendulum is thrillingly menacing.
His best line: (Running his finger along the pendulum’s sharp perimeter) “The razor edge of destiny. Thus the condition of man: bound on an island from which he can never hope to escape, surrounded by the waiting pit of hell, suffering the inexorable pendulum of fate, which must destroy him finally.”
1. “House on Haunted Hill” (1959, 75 minutes) Murder mystery at its finest, the story is built upon the premise of a millionaire (Frederick Loren played by Price) who invites five strangers to an overnight party at a haunted house and offers to pay each of them $10,000 if they stay–and manage to live through the night. When Loren’s wife turns up, mysteriously hanging from the ceiling by a rope, the six survivors decide that one among them must be a killer–but who? Brilliantly written with a surprising finale, the film delves into all the fabulous allure of a ghost legend without becoming one itself, thus managing to tap into our fear of the supernatural without abusing it.
His best line: “It’s a pity that when you started your game of murder, you didn’t know that I was playing, too.”