House of Usher (film)

Infobox_Film
name = House of Usher


caption = Film poster by Reynold Brown
imdb_id = 0053925
director = Roger Corman
producer = Roger Corman; James H. Nicholson, Samuel Z. Arkoff (Exec Prods)
writer = Richard Matheson
starring = Vincent Price
Mark Damon
Myrna Fahey
Harry Ellerbe
music = Les Baxter
cinematography = Floyd Crosby
distributor = American International Pictures
released = 22 June 1960
runtime = 79 min
country = USA
language = English
amg_id = 1:16639
budget = |

"House of Usher" (1960) is an American International Pictures horror film starring Vincent Price, Myrna Fahey, and Mark Damon in a tale about a New England family cursed with madness, criminal conduct, and debauchery. The film was directed by Roger Corman and its screenplay written by Richard Matheson after the short story, "The Fall of the House of Usher" by American author Edgar Allan Poe. The film was the first of eight Corman/Poe feature films. In 2005, the film was listed with the United States National Film Registry as being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." The film is also known as "Fall of the House of Usher" and "The Mysterious House of Usher".

Plot and cast

Young and handsome Philip Winthrop (Mark Damon) travels to the House of Usher, a desolate mansion surrounded by a murky swamp, to bring away his fiancée Madeleine Usher (Myrna Fahey). The two were affianced after meeting in Boston before the film opens.

Madeleine's corpse-like brother Roderick (Vincent Price) opposes Philip's intentions, telling the young man that the Usher family is afflicted by a cursed bloodline which has driven all their ancestors to madness, criminality, and debauchery. Roderick forsees the family evils being propogated into future generations with a marriage to Madeleine and vehemently discourages the union. Philip becomes increasingly desperate to take Madeleine away and she agrees to leave with him.

During a heated argument with her brother, Madeleine suddenly dies and is laid to rest in the family crypt beneath the house. As Philip is preparing to leave following the entombment, the butler Bristol (Harry Ellerbe) lets slip that Madeline suffered from catalepsy, a condition which can make its sufferers appear dead.

Philip rips open Madleine's coffin and finds it empty. He desperately searches for her in the winding passages of the crypt but she eludes him and confronts her brother. Now completely insane, Madeleine avenges herself upon the brother who knowingly buried her alive. Both die as a fire breaks out. Philip escapes and watches the house sink into the swampy land surrounding it.

Reception

Eugene Archer in the "New York Times" of September 15, 1960 wrote, "American-International, with good intentions of presenting a faithful adaption of Edgar Allan Poe's classic tale of the macabre...blithely ignored the author's style. Poe's prose style, as notable for ellipsis as imagery, compressed or eliminated the expository passages habitual to nineteenth-century fiction and invited the readers' imaginations to participate. By studiously avoiding explanations not provided by the text, and stultifying the audiences' imaginations by turning Poe's murky mansion into a cardboard castle encircled by literal green mist, the film producers have made a horror film that provides a fair degree of literacy at the cost of a patron's patience." He further opined, "Under the low-budget circumstances, Vincent Price and Myrna Fahey should not be blamed for portraying the decadent Ushers with arch affectation, nor Mark Damon held to account for the traces of Brooklynese that creep into his stiffly costumed impersonation of the mystified interloper." [ [http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9402E6DC1631EF3ABC4D52DFBF66838B679EDE "House of Usher". "New York Times" Review.] Retrieved 23 September 2008.]

Comparisons with the original story

The film's Philip Winthrop and the butler Bristol do not exist in the tale nor does a fire engulf the house. The house shatters and sinks into the swamp surrounding it.

References

Further reading

*"Horror Films" by Alan Frank

External links

* [http://www.vincent-price.com Vincent Price Films]
* [http://www.eccentric-cinema.com/cult_movies/house_usher.htm Eccentric Cinema's page on the film]