Customer Reviews

The Haunted Palace / The Tower of London

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

You can tell from the opening titles that The Haunted Palace will be unusually lavish for a Corman movie, even a "Poe adaption" (this nominally combines Poe with a Lovecraft-based plot.) The music is good, some of the best of any horror film of the 60's. And the credits play over actual footage, not just swirling paint. The sets and design are good, far better than the norm for AIP. The script is a solid one, from Charles Beaumont, who was likely hamstrung by circumstance in a few places, but nonetheless spins an effective and detailed if somewhat familiar tale. And the cast delivers: Price is his usual fantastic, craven, hammy self. The Juniors (Lon Chaney and Elisha Cook) are mostly wasted, but then again with a few notable exceptions (Spider-Baby, House on Haunted Hill) they always were after the 40's; it's just good to see them working. And Debra Paget is simply stunning, with any acting ability being a definite but superfluous bonus to the proceedings.

The plot has to do with a warlock (Price) being burned but cursing the townfolk and swearing his return and revenge. Years later, the warlock's good-hearted descendant (also Price) returns to the village to claim the warlock's mansion. He finds a town in waste, frightened villagers who give birth to hideous mutations, and of course, some lingering resentment. How long will it be before Price is possessed by his ancestor through the evil painting over the mantel? As you know, not too long. Price then continues his ancestor's evil work of sacrifice and trying to conjure up an ancient monster from the pit in his basement. You've likely seen it before, though maybe not in a movie from the 60's, and it's punched over with relish and skill here, not to mention some genuine gruesomeness, and will be very enjoyable to genre fans. And did I mention the music is good?

Sure, the ending lacks clarity, if not conviction (What exactly happened to the monster?), but overall HP may just be the best adaptation of Lovecraft material out there, watered-down as it is. (I'm not a fan of Re-Animator and its ilk.)

Tower of London (1962) is a rather plain Shakespearian costume drama of intrigue and murder. Think of it as Corman Meets The Bard. Price is fine, but he could portray this kind of mad monarch in his sleep, and I think he did so a few times.

He stars as a 15th-Century English gentryman who will stop at nothing to ascend to the throne. He engages in all sorts of torture and murder, none of it as sadistic or as involving as it wants to be. He grows more loony each time he murders, until finally in his insanity a vision of all his former victims rise against him...

TofL is not really horror, but has some supernatural overtones in a sense: rats, ravens, magicians and the like. So therefore it ain't historical, neither, despite being based on real events and persons: Richard III, the Plantaganets and such. There is a set-bound quality to it, and the battle scenes (if you can call them that) consist mostly of a few soldiers marching and stock footage and some edits. It all looks cheap, but was probably even cheaper than it looks, even for Corman.

Having a lesser cast also detracts; the 1939 Universal version had Karloff, Rathbone, Nan Grey and Leo G. Carroll, plus Price himself as a victim drowned in a wine vat. This has only Price, and he is unable carry this whole cardboard enterprise by his lonesome. Mildly entertaining while it's running, but disappointing at the finish, and quite forgettable.

Still, The Haunted Palace alone is worth the price of a purchase, so getting Tower of London on the same disc is merely a bonus. Recommended.

The Midnite Movies DVDs are great. They provide us with some great classics in horror at a fair price (as long as they stay in print) and a lot of the times you get two great movies on one disc as seen here. The quality is usually great as well. However from my experience Midnite Movies are famous for mistakes and misprints on the back of their DVDs. I don't mind, it's kind of like when your a kid buying baseball cards and your looking for the error card.

Haunted Palace:
On the back of the Haunted Palace they mention it being based on a Edgar Allan Poe poem. However as Roger Corman points out on the "A change of Poe" Interview on the disc AIP gave him a bit of freedom and let him give his take on Lovecraft and points out the film being based off of H.P Lovecraft's The Case of Charles Dexter Ward. Corman mentions how he wasn't going to do a series of Lovecraft films but go back to doing Poe afterwards. As a fan of Corman I would've liked to see a series of Lovecraft as well.

The Haunted Palace is based on an 18th century warlock, Joseph Curwen (Price) who is burned at the stake by the towns people but not before he places a curse on the village. More then a century goes by and Charles Dexter ward, Curwen's grandson shows up to the village with his bride to claim the property. Charles Dexter Ward is also played by Price in this duel role Corman considered his best. Price does do an amazing job as always. Joseph begins to posses his grandson Ward to finish his work and we get to see Price change character on the spot. The film also cast Lon Chaney Jr (The Wolf Man.

The DVD also says it provides a mono audio track but it was in 2 channel digital.

TOWER OF LONDON:
Under the "fun facts" on the back of the dvd it is pointed out that the original tag line for the film was "Do you have the courage to spend 83 minutes in the Tower of London? But the Midnite Movies points out the film is only 80mins, which I found ironic with all their mistakes on the disc, but I probably have a lot of mistakes in this review.

This small budget black and white gem, also by Corman is epic in idea and Price's acting giving it a larger feel.

Based on Shakespeare's Richard III the film follows Richard of Gloucester, (Price was also in the 1939 version The Boris Karloff Collection (Tower of London / The Black Castle / The Climax / The Strange Door / Night Key)starring Basil Rathbone and Boris Karloff, in one of Prices earlier films) this time played by Price as he murders anyone standing in his way of England's throne. Things do not go as planned as the ghosts of those he killed come back to assist him in going madd.

The DVD also contains an Interview Producer Gene Corman.

I bought the dvd off here but through a company called Interzone. The shipping was literally next day even though it was supposed to be standard and the dvd arrived in great condition, factory sealed as advertised. I recommend them.

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!

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.

The two films on this DVD are an interesting package, as they represent one of Roger Corman and Vincent Price's best teamings, "The Haunted Palace," and one of their least successful, "Tower of London." Even though it was nominally part of the Poe cycle, "Haunted Palace" is based on H.P. Lovecraft's only novel, "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward." As they would increasingly do in the coming years, AIP drafted Price to recite a few lines of Poe in the credits and presto! it's a Poe film (under this criterion, Howard Hawks 1967 western "El Dorado" is also a Poe film). But Poe or not, "Haunted Palace" is a stylish, well made horror film that belies its small budget. Price is excellent in a difficult three part role: (innocent Ward, reincarnated warlock Curwen, and Curwen in Ward's body pretending to be Ward), and Corman's direction gets the most out of every shot. Most notable for AIP at this time, though, is the supporting cast, one of the biggest and best Corman ever assembled: Lon Chaney, Debra Paget, Leo Gordon, Elisha Cook, John Dierkes, Frank Maxwell and Milton Parsons. Chaney gives one of his best late-career performances and the lovely Paget is a strong heroine, but it's Gordon who nearly steals the movie with his ferociously bitter turn as a victim of the Curwen curse. Even tiny roles are inhabited by such top flight character men as Stan Jolley and Bruno VeSota. In terms of scripting, sets, photography and acting, this is the closest an American picture ever came to the low-budget class of a Hammer film. "Tower of London," on the other hand, stands as an interesting failure. It shows every bit of its lack of budget (battle scenes are cribbed from Universal's 1939 original with Price superimposed overtop) and at times the actors look like they're having a hard time staying awake. In fact, it looks more like a 1962 television production than a feature film. Here Price plays Richard III and, alas, loses (he'd do much better by the role in "Theatre of Blood"). He has the physical afflictions and quasi-Shakespearean delivery down pat, but in an apparent attempt to immitate the pained look that appears on the one and only painting of the real Richard, he adopts a perpetual curled-lip sneer that borders on parody and comes off looking like he's suffering from a terrible gastro-intestinal problem. Corman's commentary on both films, though, is incisive and informative, and the background materials are interesting. Altogether, a disc worth having.

Another dreamy sort of late night period piece thriller is The Haunted Palace. This HP Lovecraft adaption ( The Case of Charles Dexter Ward and possibly the only good adaption of a Lovecraft book) stars the master of thrilling creepers Vincent Price and fits in with his other Roger Corman directed Poe series films. Talk about looking better than even, this is one of the best looking old films I've ever seen! The color and detail of this 1963 film just leap off the screen at you. It's also a fast becoming my demo disk for Component vs S-Video display, partly because it looks particularly bad in S-Video due to it's use of dark on dark scenes. Also included on this DVD is another Price thriller The Tower of London and a quite excellent Making Of interview with Roger Corman. The Haunted Palace stands right up there with two of my favorite thrilling spooky films, The House on Haunted Hill and The Tingler, both also starring the prince of fear, Vincent Price and available on DVD.

THE HAUNTED PALACE is probably the best of Corman's Edgar Allan Poe pictures. This is due to the fact that it really isn't a Poe film. It is essentially H.P. Lovecraft's THE CASE OF CHARLES DEXTER WARD and was started by Corman as such before American International changed the title for marketing purposes. The film has a strong cast (Vincent Price, Debra Paget, Lon Chaney Jr) and a slightly different look than the previous films. The lighting is darker, the camerawork by F.W. Murnau veteran Floyd Crosby (father of David) is more sophisticated, and the orchestral score by Ronald Stein is outstanding. Price, in what is essentially two different roles, gives an outstanding portrayal that showcases his acting capabilities. Paget is lovely in her final film and rarely has Chaney Jr been this menacing. Because of the source material and the above average execution (the film was incredibly shot in only 15 days), THE HAUNTED PALACE plays even better today than it did back in 1963.

The same cannot be said for TOWER OF LONDON. This remake of the 1939 film (that featured a young Vincent Price) is an odd combination of RICHARD III and MACBETH. It was made for United Artists instead of American International and was a joint effort between Roger Corman and his producer brother Gene. The black and white photography (demanded by the executive producer to save money) lacks depth although the camerawork is creative and the film is well edited. The sets look even cheaper than they actually were, and the performances range from the lively to the wooden. Price is appropriately over the top aided by Michael Pate but it's not enough. This is a classic example of a film that just didn't quite work for a number of reasons. It's not without interest (favorite scene: the ghosts of the murdered princes visiting Richard III) but the original 1939 Basil Rathbone - Boris Karloff TOWER OF LONDON (glimpsed in the battle sequence) is a better movie. It is currently available as part of Universal's BORIS KARLOFF COLLECTION.

In "The Haunted Palace," horror icon Vincent Price is superb in the dual role of warlock Joseph Curwen who possesses his descendant, Charles Dexter Ward. This is another lavish production from famed director Roger Corman; he helmed many other Vincent Price vehicles based on Edgar Allan Poe's literary works. Lon Chaney gives a great performance as Curwen's faithful, but creepy, servant, Simon Orne. Debra Paget is gorgeous as Ward's devoted wife who refuses to leave his side despite the horrible transformation he undergoes. "The Haunted Palace" is a great revenge story for fans of gothic horror, and this is gothic horror at its best, resplendent with a fog enshrouded village, a huge, crumbling castle, and superstitious, irate villagers who love to grab their torches and burn, burn, burn.

"The Tower of London" is a tour de force for Vincent Price who plays Richard III, one of the more diabolical characters of his career. No man, woman or child is safe when they stand between Richard III and the throne of England. "The Tower of London" boasts some creepy set pieces; gruesome, tortuous deaths; and a nice body count. The most notable torture scene is the one in which a hungry rat is thrown into a small cage that has been placed over a shackled man's head. This feature is by far the better of the two. It is extremely violent considering the decade in which it was made. And though "The Tower of London" was directed by Roger Corman, it is an United Artist production rather than an American International Picture; a pity that it was filmed in black and white rather than gorgeous color.

This excellently restored double feature from MGM is a must have for fans of gothic horror and Vincent Price. Both are grandiose tales of torture and revenge.

This move was marketed as a Poe adaption, because of the immense popularity of the Poe films, starring Vincent Price. It was, however based off of "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward" by HPL, but is so much like the Poe films, that it can easily be loved by fans of both.

Excellent acting by Price (as always), and great filming by Corman makes this a must have for Poe and Lovecraft fans alike.

But it, watch it, love it.

9 out of 10 elder gods recommend it

What a COOL film! Very different feel to the other 7 Corman-Poe films, perhaps because it's really an adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft's "The Case Of Charles Dexter Ward". Corman hated repeating himself, but AIP kept saying "Do another Poe film!" TALES OF TERROR was an anthology-- 4 stories adapted into 3 segments (tricky how they combined 2 similar stories into one, although, I noted how the film version LOST some of the "logic" of both originals), and THE RAVEN was done with a lot of humor. This time out, Corman wanted to do another writer... but the studio STILL wanted Poe, so they changed the title to market it AS a "Poe", and had Vincent Price reciting lines from the poem of the title to reinforce it.

Price-- Lon Chaney Jr.-- Elisha Cook-- and a number of other less-known characters actors I recognized (but don't recall by name). What a cool cast. I know Lovecraft had some running themes in a number of his stories, about "the elder gods" who ruled Earth in the dim past who wanted to return and used men to try and "open the gates". This film really encapsulates all of that so perfectly, I don't think I've ever seen a better use of the themes, except perhaps in Archie Goodwin's VAMPIRELLA comics (which in turn were, I feel, SWIPED by the 1st BLADE movie!!).

Compared to all the "characters" he created in the other films, Price almost seems to be playing HIMSELF this time-- at least, when he's Ward. When he's Ward's ancestor-- returned as a ghost and POSSESSING Ward, then he's like Price, "plus". There's a scene where the guy, who can't seem to get rid of "Ward's wife", decides to "exercise his husbandly perogative"-- and as the scene progresses, I was reminded of the behind-the-scenes stuff on FRANKENSTEIN MUST BE DESTROYED, where, legend has it, someone said, "This part's kinda dull. How about a RAPE scene?" In Price's case, it never goes too far, but it definitely works. The doctor character who befriends the Wards keeps coming up with logical, "rational" psychological reasons for what's going on-- but I feel sure the wife believed her husband REALLY WAS possessed by someone else. Which he was!

By the way, if you've ever seen it, NIGHT OF DARK SHADOWS-- the 2nd DS film, the one with David Selby & Kate Jackson-- is really an updated swipe of THE HAUNTED PALACE. The DS film ends badly and pointlessly... It was only later when I saw PALACE the 1st time, that I realized the stories were almost identical. Except-- where NoDS ends, that's the point where PALACE really gets good! PALACE also has a "bad" ending-- but it's a much more SATISFYING one.