Jump to content

The Comedy of Terrors

Listen to this article
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Quick and Dirty User Account (talk | contribs) at 02:28, 17 March 2024 (→Novelization: changed “in” to “to”.). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

"Comedy of Terrors" redirects here. For the historical novel, see A Comedy of Terrors.

The Comedy of Terrors
US film poster by Reynold Brown
Directed byJacques Tourneur
Screenplay byRichard Matheson
Produced by
Starring
CinematographyFloyd Crosby
Edited byAnthony Carras
Music byLes Baxter
Production
company
Alta Vista Productions
Distributed byAmerican International Pictures
Release dates
  • December 25, 1963 (1963-12-25) (Detroit)[1]
  • January 22, 1964 (1964-01-22)
Running time
84 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

The Comedy of Terrors is a 1963[2] American International Pictures horror comedy film directed by Jacques Tourneur and starring Vincent Price, Peter Lorre, Basil Rathbone, Boris Karloff and Joe E. Brown (in a cameo performance) in his final film appearance. It is a blend of comedy and horror that features several cast members from Tales of Terror, a 1962 film also released by AIP.[3]

The film is set in a New England town named after the region of Gilead. The corrupt owner of a funeral parlor murders clients to increase his business and tries to bury his landlord alive.

Plot

In the New England town of New Gilead during the late 19th century, unscrupulous drunkard Waldo Trumbull runs a funeral parlor that he acquired from his former business partner Amos Hinchley. Trumbull is unhappily married to Hinchley's daughter Amaryllis.

Trumbull enlists fugitive picklock Felix Gillie as his assistant. They repeatedly reuse the firm's only coffin to save money and occasionally murder wealthy clients to increase business. Trumbull is abusive to Amaryllis while secretly and unsuccessfully poisoning her senile father to hasten an inheritance. Gillie is in love with Amaryllis and ineptly tries to seduce her, but she remains faithful to Trumbull, who wastes money on alcohol while his business is dwindling.

When threatened with eviction by his landlord John F. Black for overdue rent, Trumbull plans to murder a wealthy shipping magnate and charge the heirs for elaborate funeral services. However, Trumbull discovers that the magnate's wife has absconded with her husband's fortune without paying his fees.

After a final demand for the rent, Trumbull sends Gillie to murder Black. Gillie flees when he finds Black awake and reciting texts by William Shakespeare, but Black is startled and suffers a heart attack. A physician pronounces him dead, but no one is aware that Black suffers from catalepsy.

Trumbull and Gillie transport Black to the mortuary, where Amaryllis' cat awakens him. They prevent him from escaping, but Black suffers another heart attack. While returning him to the coffin, Black revives and Trumbull knocks him unconscious. The funeral proceeds without anyone else aware that Black is alive, and he is placed in his family crypt.

Trumbull gets drunk and counts his ill-gotten gains. Following another of Gillie's crude seductions, Amaryllis tries desperately to attract Trumbull's attention but is rebuffed. She relents and decides to run off with Gillie. Black, who awoke and escaped his tomb, enters the parlor and grabs an axe. Amaryllis faints. Black chases Trumbull and Gillie around the house. Gillie falls down a flight of stairs and is unconscious. Trumbull shoots Black, who delivers a final Shakespearean monologue before finally dying.

Amaryllis awakens and thinks that Gillie is dead by Trumbull's hand. She threatens to call the police and Trumbull strangles her. Gillie awakens and attacks Trumbull with a sword, and Trumbull strikes him with a poker. Black's servant arrives, sees the chaos and informs the police.

Trumbull collapses to the floor. Amaryllis and Gillie revive and run off together. Hinchley, who slept through the commotion, tries to revive Trumbull with a vial of "medicine". Trumbull realizes that he has drunk his own poison and drops dead. Cleopatra walks over to Black, whose allergy awakens him again.

Cast

  • Vincent Price as Waldo Trumbull
  • Peter Lorre as Felix Gillie
  • Boris Karloff as Amos Hinchley
  • Basil Rathbone as John F. Black, Esq.
  • Joyce Jameson as Amaryllis Trumbull
  • Joe E. Brown as the Cemetery Keeper
  • Beverly Powers (credited as Beverly Hills) as Mrs. Phipps
  • Alan DeWitt as Riggs
  • Buddy Mason as Mr. Phipps
  • Douglas Williams as the Doctor
  • Linda Rogers as Phipps' Maid
  • Luree Holmes as Black's Servant
  • Rhubarb the cat as Cleopatra

Production

The film was a follow-up to The Raven, meant to reunite Vincent Price, Peter Lorre and Boris Karloff.[4] The producers' original intention was for Karloff to play the part of Mr. Black, but by the time production was set to begin, they realized that Karloff could not meet the physical requirements of the role, as he suffered from persistent back and leg problems. Karloff traded roles with Basil Rathbone and played Mr. Hinchley.[citation needed]

Screenplay writer Richard Matheson later said that he was "proud of that picture and of the fact that I got AIP [American International Pictures] to hire Tourneur. Earlier on, I had asked for Tourneur on one of my Twilight Zones ... They said, 'Well, he's a movie director. I don't think he can handle this time schedule ...'. As I recall, he did the shortest shooting schedule of anyone—twenty-eight hours. He had this book with every shot in it and detailed notes. He knew exactly what he was doing every inch of the way. He was so organized."[5]

Matheson wanted to write a sequel film for AIP called Sweethearts and Horrors, with the same four stars in various roles—Price as a ventriloquist, Karloff as a children's TV host, Rathbone as a musical comedy star and Lorre as a magician—and starring Tallulah Bankhead as well. However, this plan was abandoned after Comedy of Terrors failed to perform well at the box office.[6]

Release

The film was not a great success at the box office. Matheson said:

It didn't lose any money. They [AIP] told me that the title itself cost them a lot. It's such a contradiction in terms, though. Terror sells and comedy makes them go away, so it's like they're walking in two directions at once. But I thought it was very clever to do a take off of Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors. ... I think they were probably sorry they didn't use a Poe title, because Poe had a certain marketability. I guess they couldn't figure out how to market it. But it was the last one because I was getting tired of writing about people being buried alive, so I decided to make a joke about it.[7]

Reception

The Comedy of Terrors received mixed to negative reviews upon its initial release. Howard Thompson of The New York Times wrote a scathing review, calling it a "musty, rusty bag of tricks rigged as a horror farce."[8] Variety wrote that the film "leaves much to be desired. The raw material for a jovial spoof of chillers was there, but the comic restraint and perception necessary to capitalize on those natural resources is conspicuously missing."[9] Philip K. Scheuer of the Los Angeles Times panned the film as "a series of predictable gags repeated ad infinitum, ad nauseum [sic] ... I felt ashamed to watch once reputable actors hamming it up all over the place, making a mockery of whatever is left of their poor images."[10] The Monthly Film Bulletin was somewhat positive, calling Price and Lorre "both splendid" and writing that Matheson's script "avoids the laxness which slowed down passages of The Raven, and constructs a soundly worked-out mechanism based on a minimum of running gags."[11]

Novelization

A novelization of The Comedy of Terrors was written in 1964 by Elsie Lee, adapted from Richard Matheson's screenplay. It was published by Lancer Books in paperback (with changes to the story's ending).[12]

See also

References

  1. ^ "The Comedy of Terrors – Details". AFI Catalog of Feature Films. Archived from the original on October 11, 2018. Retrieved October 10, 2018.
  2. ^ "The Comedy of Terrors – Details". AFI Catalog of Feature Films. Archived from the original on October 11, 2018. Retrieved October 10, 2018.
  3. ^ Jacobs, Stephen (2011). Boris Karloff: More Than a Monster. Tomahawk Press. pp. 460–461. ISBN 978-0955767043.
  4. ^ Smith, Gary A. (2009). The American International Pictures Video Guide. McFarland. p. 40. ISBN 978-0786433094.
  5. ^ McGilligan, Pat (1997). Backstory 3: Interviews with Screenwriters of the 1960s. Berkeley: University of California Press. p. 245. ISBN 978-0520204270. Archived from the original on July 7, 2018. Retrieved July 7, 2018.
  6. ^ McGee, Mark (1996). Faster and Furiouser: The Revised and Fattened Fable of American International Pictures. McFarland. pp. 205–206. ISBN 978-0786401376.
  7. ^ Sudak, Eunice (March 15, 2012). Riley, Philip J. (ed.). The Making of The Raven; Philip J Riley's Nightmare Series. Bear Manor Media. ISBN 978-1593934859.
  8. ^ Thompson, Howard (January 23, 1964). "Comedy of Terrors". The New York Times. p. 26. Archived from the original on July 23, 2018. Retrieved August 24, 2018.
  9. ^ "The Comedy of Terrors". Variety: 6. January 29, 1964.
  10. ^ Scheuer, Philip K. (January 23, 1964). "'Comedy of Terrors' Film Monstrosity". Los Angeles Times. Part IV, p. 9.
  11. ^ "The Comedy of Terrors". The Monthly Film Bulletin. 32 (375): 55. April 1965.
  12. ^ Lee, Elsie; Matheson, Richard (1964). Comedy of Terrors. Lancer.
Wikiquote has quotations related to The Comedy of Terrors.

Template:Corman Poe

Listen to this article (8 minutes)
Spoken Wikipedia icon
This audio file was created from a revision of this article dated 28 June 2019 (2019-06-28), and does not reflect subsequent edits.
(Audio help · More spoken articles)
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Comedy_of_Terrors&oldid=1214123607"