House of Usher (1960)

House of Usher (aka The Fall of the House of Usher) (Roger Corman, 1960) Roger Corman was getting tired of the usual grind at American International Pictures—get enough budget-money to make two black-and-white movies that they could get into drive-in's or the bottom of double-bills and use that money to make one good color film (in Cinemascope...or something like it) that might attract some talent...and box office.

To his horror, he got what he wanted. And something else besides—he got an expanded shooting schedule of 15 days, "a luxury" for AIP. As other studios were making films based on the works of Edgar Allen Poe (which was in the public domain), they chose a good "bottle-story" "The Fall of the House of Usher" and secured the talents of fantasy/horror novelist Richard Matheson to come up with a screen-story based on elements of Poe. Script in hand, Corman then spent 1/3 of the film's $300,000 budget on its star Vincent Price, who lost weight for the role, dyed his hair an almost white-blonde and even shaved off his signature mustache for the part. Then to create the proper atmosphere, Corman sent a crew into the Hollywood Hills to photograph what was left of a recent wild-fire and, hearing of a local fire department burning a derelict barn, sent out a couple cameramen to get dramatic shots. That location footage would all save time and money in the special effects department. And, thriftily, be reused in later Corman films.

Phillip Winthrop (Mark Damon) rides on horseback trough the misty New England deadlands where sits the House of Usher to see his fiancee Madeline (Myrna Fahey), who parted from him at the request of her brother and only relative, Roderick (Price). Like many of the Corman Poe heroes, his audience is instantly refused, but he persists, and gaining interest, an odd request is made by the butler Bristol (Harry Ellerbe)...to remove his boots.

There's a reason, beyond preserving the carpeting. When meeting the reluctant Roderick, Winthrop's raised voice sends him into a paroxysm of agony. Roderick, you see, (and he implies Madeline) is suffering from "a morbid acuteness of the senses," due to their family history. "Mine," he explains "is the worst for having existed the longer, but both of us are afflicted with it. Any sort of food more exotic then the most pallid mash is unendurable to my taste buds. Any sort of garment other then the softest, is agony to my flesh. My eyes are tormented by all but the faintest illumination. Odors assail me constantly, and as I've said, sounds of any degree whatsoever inspire me with terror." Brother and sister, he says are like "two pale drops of fire guttering in a vast consuming darkness."

But, it goes beyond that. Roderick believes the Usher line is thoroughly cursed, so much so that the very house is crumbling as if by the weight of a generational evil—the front tower itself has a large crack in it, the land around it dead. "This house. The pall of evil which fills it is no illusion. For hundreds of years, foul thoughts and foul deeds have been committed within its walls. The house itself is evil now." To Winthrop, these are the ravings (although quiet) of a madman, and he informs Roderick that he intends to take Madeline away and marry her—which, if the house is cursed and is going to crumble, would it be a good thing, no?

But, Roderick will have none of it. "You cannot take my sister out of this house. If she were to bear children, the Usher evil would spread - malignant, cancerous." He warns Winthrop to leave the house forever, forget Madeline, and spare himself a terrible fate. Which, of course, Winthrop has no intention of doing. He entreats Madeline to leave with him, but, in the night, she dies and Roderick has her buried in the family crypt, her coffin chained.

Roderick can't be reasoned with, but Winthrop learns from the butler Bristol, that Madeline has, in the past, suffered from cataleptic fits, leading Winthrop to fear the worst—to persuade him to leave, Roderick has taken advantage of her seizure to pretend that she is dead and has prematurely entombed her. And, at that point, there's a lot of running around and a lot of activity that, if we were staying true to Roderick's infirmities, would have paralyzed him.

Considering AIP's previous output, House of Usher looks positively sumptuous. And if most of the players are a little stiff—stiffer than Madeline becomes—Price more than compensates for it with a theatrical performance that stops short of chewing the "pallid mash" of the scenery, but luxuriates in Matheson's funereally purple prose. He's the center of the story, anyway, so his hefty chunk of the film's budget is money well-spent—if you're putting it all up there on the screen. And Corman's compositions take full advantage of the widescreen format, filling the screen with detail, despite the limitations of the budget. Those extra five days of filming he got were well worth it.

And the Poe preoccupation with premature burial (which would obsess the Corman-Poe adaptations, as well) lends just enough horror to the story that it doesn't resort to "monster-fare" as one of the producers who grudgingly approved the budget complained. The movie made over a million dollars in its initial run, more than justifying the risks taken and launching a string of nicely written, morbid dramas for many years to come.