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The most famous Poe movies are
undoubtedly the series created for
American
Pictures International (API), primarily by Roger Corman. Corman, famous
for his low-budget horror flicks, splurged on the 1960 version of The
Fall of the House of Usher and found himself with a box office hit.
This was the first of what would eventually be thirteen films loosely,
usually very loosely, based on one or more of Poe's works. (Sometimes
the
Poe association was little more than a title and the recitation of the
relevant poem at the beginning and end of the movie.) The center of
this
cycle was actor Vincent Price, although other horror greats in the
twilight
of their acting careers would also appear, including Boris Karloff,
Basil
Rathbone, Peter Lorre and even Lon Channey, Jr. (best known as the
wolfman).
Shown here is a poster from the
movie version of The
Masque of
the
Red Death from 1964, with Price as Prince Prospero. Only in The
Premature Burial of 1962 did Corman change his star, using Ray
Milland.
The other films, all with Price, are: The Pit and the Pendulum
(1961), Tales of Terror (1962), The Raven (1963), The
Haunted
Palace (1964), The Tomb of Ligeia (1965), The City
Under
the Sea (1965, also known as War Gods of the Deep), The
Conqueror
Worm (1968), The Oblong Box (1969) and Cry of the
Banshee
(1970). API also release, without Roger Corman or Vincent Price, The
Murders of the Rue Morgue (1971), with Jason Robards and Spirits
of the Dead (1969), another anthology of Poe tales, including a
very
young Jane Fonda among its stars.
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