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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 Madeline Usher (Myrna Fahey). The two were affianced after meeting in Boston before the film opens.
Madeline'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 foresees the family evils being propagated into future generations with a marriage to Madeline and vehemently discourages the union. Philip becomes increasingly desperate to take Madeline away and she agrees to leave with him.
During a heated argument with her brother, Madeline 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 Madline'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, Madeline 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."[1]
Comparisons with the original story
- The film's Philip Winthrop represents the unnamed narrator of the story who plays a similar part in the book's story.
- In the original tale, the narrator visits the house with intention to see Roderick, not Madeline.
- The relationship of the narrator and Roderick in the movie are completely different from the story. In the novel, the two are very good friends, while in the movie, they have no friendly history. In the movie, Roderick begs Phillip not to stay in the house, while in the story, Roderick invited him for company and even asks the narrator to stay despite the happenings in the house.
- The narrator in the original story is not engaged to Madeline Usher, nor is any sign of romantic affection present.
- Bristol the butler is a character not present in the original story.
- In the movie, a fire is what destroys the house, but in the tale the house merely breaks in two and sinks into the swamp - with no mention of flames.
- In the movie, Roderick is much older than his sister Madeline. In the original story, they are twins.
References
Further reading
- Horror Films by Alan Frank
External links
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