GREGORY’S DOUBLE FEATURES Presents HALLOWEEN HORRORS, Vol. 1, Entry 2: POE US ANOTHER ONE
GREGORY’S DOUBLE FEATURES
Presents
HALLOWEEN HORRORS, Vol. 1, Entry 2:
POE US ANOTHER ONE: THE RAVEN (1963), and THE RAVEN (2012)
The most faithful adaptation in the history of the arts, The Raven (1963) explores all the icy fear, desperate longing, and looming menace of Edgar Allan Poe’s most famous work, each frame imbued with poetry far beyond the range of Mr. Poe himself. For those poor souls starved for the mystical and the macabre, it’s all here: from the midnight dreary to that shadow that lies floating on the floor — with all the pallid bust of Pallas, Plutonian shore, and tinkling Seraphim you can eat. Plus, of course, the lost Lenore! And more! Pardon the slight tardiness of this entry, but following my recent viewing of The Raven (1963), I fell into a swoon, as if having quaffed that kind nepenthe and landed smack-dab in some distant Aidenn.* This is a work of cinéma almost too exquisite for mortal eyes. And now that I have your attention, I’d like to dedicate this review to Roger Corman: an artist’s artist, a gentleman indeed (we’ve met), and a revolutionary in the field of film! Thank you! Happy Halloween!
*Not really. (The nepenthe/Aidenn bit, I mean.)
Ha, sorry, didn’t mean to flip you the bird. Or did I? In either case, The Raven (1963) is a treat, the sort of elegant, sly, occasionally winking movie nobody’s brave enough to make anymore: released both tonally and temporally between Abbott and Costello’s “Meet” features (with Vincent Price and Peter Lorre, consciously or unconsciously, generously delivering very similar repartee and bits of business), and the second season of The Monkees (which hadn’t quite happened yet, but find herein those seeds). On his fifth Poe venture and feature (following big hits on basic budgets House of Usher, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Premature Burial, and Tales of Terror), producer and director Mr. Corman revisits the Gothic sets and intermittent Gothic exteriors (and “exteriors”) concurrent with those of Hammer Films (possible hint for later this week), but with The Raven (1963), he and legendary writer Richard Matheson turn from the dire to the droll, from the jugular to the jocular (with Les Baxter’s pleasingly corny score a perfect fit). To hell with today’s shitty shaky-cam butchery and braying, anxiety-laden no-wits; this is the sort of “horror” movie I want to see on a rainy Saturday afternoon! (And I’m not alone, as those “wizard battles” of Rowling’s cash-cow, itself a pastiche of purloined letters, clearly found their origin right here in The Raven’s [1963] third act. Perhaps we’re overdue to redistribute those royalties.)
For those so thick it’s a wonder they live and breathe, my opening paragraph was intentionally saucy, for The Raven (1963), while incorporating a few elements (bird, chick) from Poe’s immortal poem, takes large liberties with the text to deliver unto us the following plot: Wizard Erasmus Craven (Price), whilst accepting from his comely daughter Estelle (Olive Sturgess) his nightly libation of bovine lactation, mourns his own lost Lenore, but his chamber, and indeed his bust of Pallas (though it’s not so pallid), are invaded by an excessively chatty raven (thus), who turns out, following some amusing potion-brewing experiments (“We don’t eat those things in this house; we’re vegetarian”), to be amateur wizard Dr. Bedlo (Lorre). Possibly with an agenda of his own, the rehumanized Dr. Bedlo leads Craven, Estelle, and Bedlo’s self-serious son, Rexford (shockingly dewy Jack Nicholson) to the daunting castle of the current Grandmaster of Wizards, Dr. Scarabus (Boris Karloff, apparently relishing the fun, emphasis on apparently). Providing both mystery and va-va-voom playing an archetype that rhymes with “Lenore” is Horror Queen Hazel Court, and to find out what happens, you can look up the synopsis online as I often do with today’s disposable programmers, but really it’s better to relax for once, cool your jets, and enjoy an hour and a half with this openly silly delight — rated ‘G,’ for Grinning!
Far sillier is The Raven (2012), an ungainly fowl if ever there was one, but possessed of its own charms if you can handle a Van-Dyked John Cusack blurting extremely incongruous 19th-century dialogue (“mouth-breather”?!) with the exact same cadence he minted decades prior in Better Off Dead (um, foreshadowing). The third and final dollar-store find amongst this week’s Halloween Double Features (again, a buck, not a bad deal), this dark but energetic offering from director James McTegue (the relatively solid V for Vendetta), from a florid script by Hannah Shakespeare & Ben Livingston (I presume), has already been noted to rush in where From Hell didn’t fear to tread, but for a movie about savage murders, it’s a bit lighter-hearted than that (and we do actually see the heart: being eaten by Edgar Allan Poe’s pet raccoon, because obviously that). As Poe, and with 1849 “Baltimore” relocated to Belgrade and Budapest because modern America looks like a Wal-Mart parking lot, Mr. Cusack chews his way through all the scenery in Eastern Europe, and I was fully prepared to pick on him for this, but honestly I’m not sure who could have done a better job with this ridiculous premise. Maybe Steve Buscemi.
Ah yes, the premise: Drunken wastrel-orphan-emo Poe (Cusack) is summoned by Detective Fields (Luke Evans, of those Hobbit movies I for one didn’t hate; plus Dracula Untold, which I suppose at this point has lapsed into Dracula: Told), because some psycho is murdering people based on Poe’s lurid fictions. (A competing critic, for instance, meets his doom beneath the ol’ pendulum. Hey, Roeper…) Worse, Poe’s girlfriend (Alice Eve of the intolerable Star Trek reboot-sequel, thawing slightly with an almost-not-bogus Yank accent) is in peril, and the hilariously telegraphed culprit could be associated with people who work in — dun-dun-dunnnnn!!! — journalism. Along the way we get CG splatter (curiously present in all three of this week’s dollar-store remainders; is there a “CG splatter” button?), plus somebody told composer Lucas Vidal to copy wholesale Hans Zimmer’s Dark Knight back-and-forth cello sawing, reminiscent of Philip Glass running out of idea (sic). It’s precisely that kind of movie, so if you’re in the mood, have at it.
Meanwhile I note with some dismay that there’s yet a third wellish-known movie called The Raven, again with Karloff (and Lugosi), from 1935, and again with only tenuous links to the poem, but I too have limitations, and it’s nobody’s fave, plus there’s a silent, and a few more features in recent years. The late — !!! — Sam Simon’s Simpsons version, from the chef’s-kiss first “Treehouse of Horror” episode (find it and view it uncensored), counts as a classic (“TAKE THY BEAK FROM OUT MY HEART!” etc.), and really what sensible person doesn’t like anything based on “The Raven”? But The Raven (1963), oh, it’s a beaut (if Bosley Crowther panned it, you know it’s good), and worth your attention if only for the moment of Karloff eyeing Nicholson as Lorre’s “son,” and intoning, “Yes, the resemblance is quite . . . uncanny.” But it’s all great. As Mr. Corman’s stock in trade, terrific fun at the movies is on proud display in The Raven (1963), and with this I say: Bless you, Sir Roger.
