Cheap The Haunted Palace / The Tower of London (DVD) (Roger Corman) Price

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Customer Reviews of The Haunted Palace / The Tower of London

Price and Corman tackle Lovecraft and Shakespeare (sort of)
Here are a pair of films with actor Vincent Prince and director Roger Corman from their glory days. "The Haunted Palace" is arguably one of the best adaptations of an H. P. Lovecraft story, but since this is an American International production directed by Roger Corman, the name above the title is Edgar Allan Poe. The Lovecraft story being roughly adapted is "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward," which deals with the resurrection of the dead through sorcery. In the town of Arkham the wizard Joseph Curwen was burnt at the stake, but not before he curses the villagers (and their descendants) and promises to rise from the dead. Ward is Curwen's descendant and Vincent Price plays both roles. Ward arrives with his beautiful wife Ann (Debra Paget) to take over the family castle, which comes complete with a caretaker (Lon Chaney, Jr.). Ward notices his resemblance to Curwen's portrait, and soon the dead wizard takes over his descendant's body with the goal of breeding human women with the Elder Gods.

To be fair, Corman resisted the "Poe" credit. The final irony is that "The Haunted Palace" lacks the pace and flamboyancy of AI's Poe films, even with Corman and Price on hand for the fun. The above average script here is by Charles Beaumont and Ronald Stein's musical score is one of the better ones to grace a B-grade horror movie, but as you might expect Price's performance is the lynchpin to the entire film. Still, Corman puts his mark upon the film with the rather downbeat ending. All in all, "The Haunted Palace" stands up in comparison to the more recognizable Poe films and with this DVD we get to see it in its original widescreen format, which makes a big difference.

"Tower of London" is ostensibly a remake of a 1939 film with Boris Karloff and Basil Rathbone which turned Shakespeare's "Richard III" into a stripped down horror show (Rathbone was Richard and Karloff his executioner). Price is Richard, Duke of Gloucester at the outset, who murders his way to the English throne occupied first by his brother Edward IV (Justice Watson) and then his nephew Edward V (Eugene Martin). Ironically, Price had been in the original as the poor murdered Clarence, who this time is played by Charles Macaulay. The problem is that the script makes Richard out to be some sort of deranged psychopath, and Price's performance goes over the line into the realm of camp as far as I am concerned.

If you knew nothing about the Richard of history or drama you would think this was another one of Corman's Poe films because it has all of his standard tricks of the trade in that regard (would the director have put Poe's name above the title instead of Shakespeare's if that had been a point of contention?). In the Poe films the Vincent Price character falls apart early on and has to suffer throughout the film and that is what happens with his Richard in "The Tower of London." But why would you want a Richard who guilty murders his way to the throne? The attraction in Shakespeare is that Richard is a grand villain, who can, to quote the bard, smile and murder whilst he smiles. This guy is just a loon. The rest of the cast is more than competent, especially for a Corman film, but Price's performance keeps dragging this one down past the point of no return. Fortunately, "The Haunted Palace" redeems this DVD enough to justify checking it out.

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This one almost slipped under the radar.
I stumbled onto the Haunted Palace by accident, on tv, just one of the movies I had never gotten around to watching. So I'm sitting there, only half paying attention when I hear enough key words to tell me that The Haunted Palace is, at least in large part, The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, a Lovecraft flick that had completely escaped my attention. (There's another movie base on Charles Dexter Ward called The Resurrected, which is okay, but I liked The Haunted Palace better.) I went out and got this DVD asap. I was a little bit disconcerted about the way they tried to downplay the Lovecraft elements in favor of the Poe influences, but I guess it had to do with the time in which the movie was made. Still, it must be noted that this is one of the few movies that ever, oddball pronuciations aside, specfically named Cthulhu and Yog-Sothoth.

In the movie, Ward inherits the palace where his nefarious warlock ancestor, Curwen, practiced bizarre rites and experimentations designed to help the Old Ones regain their earthly dominion. Unlike the Curwen from the story, who mainly specialized in summonings and necromantic resurrections, the movie Curwen was a warlock trying to create a hybrid race between mankind and the Old Ones that would give Cthulhu and the troops their doorway back to earth. His plans were cut short, however, when the townspeople set upon him and burned him alive. Curwen placed his curse on the whole town, which came both in the form of the longterm effects of his experiments and in the form of Curwen himself, when he returned from the grave. In the movie, Curwen is a spirit that possesses Ward, gaining physical control and falling in with his two warlock cohorts to begin his experiments again. Initially, Curwen is sidetracked by the business of revenging himself on the townspeople and resurrecting his former mistress. However, unlike the Ward in the story, this Ward is resistant to Curwen, strong-willed and fueled by love for his super-hot babe of a wife.

Overall, I thought the movie looked pretty sleek, somber but hard-hitting when it needs to be, with elaborate sets, ghoulishly-perfect lighting, and that cool music, much more dignified and deserving than most of the Lovecraft stuff that's floating around out there. It tends to be a little bit light on the supernatural side, though; the ghost aspect doesn't get quite enough play, and the freakish results of the experimentations could have been better. Still, Curwen did have some kind of aquatic monstrosity in the lower depths of the palace, and even though that particular phase of the movie just sort of fizzled out, I liked to think that the creature was something cool like a servitor to the Old Ones, maybe a Deep One or something like that. Either way, even if you're not a Lovecraft fan, this movie would appeal to any true horror fan, I think, although in my case it did take the Lovecraft aspect to really draw me in. Two BIG thumbs up!

Tower of London was, for me, just an extra movie thrown into the deal. It was okay I guess, and it did have a few hot chicks, but it's nothing I would have endeavored to track down for its own merit. It's one of those ponderous sort of movies that comes off more like a play, a little bit convoluted, inclined more towards wardrobe than anything else. But, I like just about anything with Vincent Price, so it wasn't a difficult movie to watch. The real prize is The Haunted Palace, which tought me to stay on my toes when it comes to old movies. I think Lovecraft would have been pleased.

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Overlooked classic Poe film.
This is a super buy since you get two films from the Horror team of Vincent Price and Roger Corman.

King of the Quickies, Roger Corman and Price made a good stab working their way through the stories and poems of Edgar Allan Poe, making one film right after another based on horror tales. Near the end, they tossed in one loosely based on H.P. Lovecraft's short story "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward".

Price plays the lead in duo as Charles Dexter Ward his is distant relative, Joseph Curwen, a warlock.

The movie opens, in a small misty shrouded town with a girl going to the castle of Curwen. She is followed there by the villagers, but Curwen claims she came to visit of her own free will. However, the girl can only answer in barest of replies, so they know she is under Curwen's bewitchment. The village drag Curwen out into the night and kill him.

It moves to over 100 years later, when Charles Dexter Ward and his beautiful bridge come to claim the estate as his inheritance. They find the village strange, almost to the point of being hostile, and are oddly chilled when they see so many of the children are deformed. They learn from a kindly doctor there, the villager are cursed because of Curwen - who just happened to be the spitting image of Ward. Not there long at the Castle, when Ward suddenly begins to act funny. Could it be?

A wonderful performance by one of the most beautiful women to ever grace the screen, Debra Pagent, with the great character actors, Leo Gordon, Elisha Cook and Lon Chaney, Jr., this is very low toned horror film that really needs a second - and third - look.

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The second film in the nice double feature is The Tower of London, another flick that teamed Price with director Roger Corman. The story for this film came from the pen of Leo Gordan (actor in the other film The Haunted Palace) and has his younger brother Bruce Gordon (The Television's Untouchables) as the Earl of Buckingham. Price plays Richard of Gloucester, later to be Richard III haunted by the people he murdered to get to the throne of England (including the Little Princes). Odd note, this is the second time Vincent Price made The Tower of London. In 1939 he appeared in a film with the same title, also based on Richard III, with Basil Rathbone playing Richard and Price playing Duke of Clarence.

Great fun for Price fans at a great price!