THE STORY
In this striking 1960 elaboration on
Edgar Allan Poe’s 1839
short story, Philip Winthrop (
Mark Damon) arrives at the crumbling New England mansion of the Usher family to seek out his fiancée Madeleine (
Myrna Fahey) and is promptly warned by her brother Roderick (
Vincent Price)
against marriage because the family is cursed with 'a history of savage degradations' which sends them mad.
When Madeleine suddenly dies, Philip goes into mourning and his intended
bride is quickly interred in the family crypt. But he is unaware that
Roderick has buried his catatonic sister alive…
THE LOWDOWN
At the end of the 1950s, rubber suit monsters were the mainstay of
American horror films, while over the pond Hammer was packing cinemas
with their full-blooded restaging of the Frankenstein and Dracula
characters. Indie maverick
Roger Corman
quickly followed suit, combining America’s answer to the gothic, Edgar
Allen Poe, CinemaScope and his trump card, Vincent Price.
The
result was this minor masterpiece, which stays faithful to Poe as it
tells the story of Roderick Usher (played by Price as a white haired,
ashen faced aesthete, decked in a blood red robe) who longs for an end to
his family’s curse which has impregnated the very walls of his
crumbling mansion and has distorted his psyche and that of his sister -
which is chillingly echoed in the line: 'The slightest touch and we may shatter'.
Price
gives an intentionally concentrated, eerie and sad turn here and lends
the film a mellifluous quality that brings to life Corman's Freudian take on Poes
themes of inner corruption. It was a performance that
would solidify Price’s new status as the crown prince of horror - that
had kicked in while he was working on William Castle’s
House on Haunted Hill and
The Tingler - and which makes this film so chillingly memorable over half a century on.
Richard Matheson's intelligent script is enhanced by
Floyd Crosby's atmospheric widescreen cinematography, whose psychedelic scenes tapped into the counter-culture movement of the day, while
Daniel Haller
makes the hired-in Universal sets look even more sumptuous. Coupled
with Corman’s whip-smart direction and quick turnaround (the film was
shot in 15 days), a rousing
Les Baxter score and Price’s star quality, the style established here would be carried over in seven more Poe films, ending with
The Tomb of Ligeia
in 1964. But they would never have been made had
Usher not set the
box-office alight, which it did - earning in excess of $1 million back from its
$250,000 budget ($50,000 of which was Price’s fee) when it premiered in
the US on 18 June 1960.
THE ARROW VIDEO RELEASE
In a world first,
Arrow
presents a Region B HD Blu-ray (1080p) presentation of the feature,
transferred and restored using the original film elements by MGM and
original uncompressed 2.0 Mono PCM Audio. Optional SDH subtitles.
THE EXTRAS
• The Roger Corman audio commentary is the same as on the previous MGM
DVD release, but the maestro is still a joy to listen to. (79:19)
•
Legend to Legend Director Joe Dante gives his thoughts on the film and on working with Corman. (26:47)
• Gothic horror expert Jonathan Rigby provides an informative insight
into the history of the film, and on Corman and Price. (32:58)
•
Fragments of the House of Usher
This video essay by critic and filmmaker David Cairns is a super little
film studies analysis. I never knew the original story had gay
overtones or that the film was ‘the perfect marriage of the oneric to
the economic?’ (10:47)
• This French interview with Vincent Price
has popped up on other DVD releases, but the transfer here is the best
yet. It was shot at Price’s Malibu cottage in July 1986, the same year
that he was doing
The Great Mouse Detective for Disney, which
was one of his last best performances. Ever the consummate raconteur, he
provides the interviewer with some wonderful quotes, like the
following, about why his horror films have stood the test of time.
(11:26)
‘The
secret of those films and why they have lasted so well is that you
scream at the terror of them, but then you find yourself ridiculous for
having screamed and you laugh at yourself, maybe that’s the clue to
life.’
• Unrestored US trailer with the most hilarious copy writing ever: '
The screen's foremost delineator of the Draculean!' (2:30)
• Reversible sleeve on the standard release, featuring artwork by
Graham
Humphreys.
• Booklet featuring
Tim Lucas essay, Vincent Price autobiography extract, archive stills and posters.
BLU-RAY GRABS
DID YOU KNOW?
The opening shot of Mark Damon riding towards the Usher mansion through
a bleak, blackened wilderness of charred trees, ash and fog was
achieved by Corman filming the sequence in the aftermath of a forest
fire that had torched part of the Hollywood Hills just prior to filming.
