Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb.
And I am Joe McCormick. And October continues. So we are still bringing you Halloween themed episodes of Weird House Cinema and also core episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind throughout this month. Today we are covering the nineteen sixty Roger Corman adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's short story The Fall of the House of Usher, starring who else,
it's Vincent Price. This movie is sometimes billed with the full name of the story, as it's titled The Fall of the House of Usher, but sometimes you'll see it shortened to just House of Usher. In fact, I've seen it the latter format more times. I think it looks like that in all the classic posters.
Yeah, this is another one of those cases where there have been enough at ats of the original post story in question that you should just go ahead and throw nineteen sixty on there whenever you're looking it up anywhere, just to be sure. And especially this is complicated since you don't know how this film is actually going to be titled in a given release.
So this is one of a series of films from the nineteen sixties that had three production elements in common. The first element is a script adapted from the works of Edgar Allan Poe, conveniently in the public domain by this time. The second element is it was directed by Drive in double feature god Roger Corman. And the third feature is that the movie starred the peerless Vincent Price, who I love the way Price fits into these Edgar Allan Poe characters. He just gets in there so perfectly.
I was trying to think of an analogy, and what came to mind is it's like when you drop one of the game pieces into a Connect four set, you know, it just falls into place with this happy little clip.
Yeah. Yeah, well it certainly clicks, that's for sure.
So anyway, it was a three way collaboration, the Po Price Corman collaboration that was so nice. They did it like seven or eight times, depending on how much of a stickler you are for accurate story credits. And we'll come back to the Corman post cycle later in the
Connections part of this episode. But I wanted to start today by mentioning that we've covered one of these movies on the show before for a previous Halloween season Weird House, and that previous movie was The Mask of the Red Death from nineteen sixty four, a lavish satanic plague tale featuring Vincent Price as the wicked corruptor of innocence Prince Prospero. And I love Mask of the Red Death. If you
go back and listen to that episode. I'm sure I'm just running out of positive things to say about it, but I still think about it all the time. I love the atmosphere of good and evil as almost physically embodied power. I love the use of extravagant, brightly colored masquerade costumes set against this gray world. It creates this jewels on bone visual texture that I find so pleasing.
Of course, I love Vincent Price, and I also love how Mask contrasts with Roger Corman's previous B movie work, stuff like Attack of the Crab, Monsters, Not of This Earth and It Conquered the World. All movies that I love, and we have talked about lovingly on the show many times, But all of these previous movies, I think you could say are self consciously schlock. Like Corman sort of knew he was making trash, but he was trying to make
like fun, scrappy, sort of intelligent trash. Mask at the Red Death, on the other hand, I think is not schlock in the same way. You can argue that it has some subtle bits of self parody, but ultimately I think Mask is a very successful classic Gothic horror film when taken straightforwardly and it's made with real finesse, and then sort of on top of that, once you accept it at that level, you can unlock maybe second and third levels of pleasure by watching it with a more ironic lens.
It is a very pleasurable film, and it is it is a prestige Roger Corman picture. And I would say, ultimately, if you're too good for Mask of the Red Death, then we probably don't have much in common. We probably probably don't have even like a groundwork upon which to build out this friendship.
Yeah, but so anyway, I love to Mask of the Red Death so much. I wanted to come back to one of the Corman Poe Price movies this October, and I decided we should watch the one that started it all, the first of these collaborations. So here we are with House of Usher, from nineteen sixty. So as a point of comparison, I think it's interesting how scaled back this movie feels compared to Mask. Mask has a big cast, a lot of extra lots of location changes, you know,
interior exterior. It has a lot of location changes within the main castle as bright colors, interesting costumes, big sets, and light effects that in some cases even border on psychedelic. You could say. Usher, by contrast, I think, feels like a really good bottle episode of a TV show. The cast is small, there are only four characters, really three principal characters in sort of a gruel boiling Butler. The setting is mostly confined to the interior of one house.
There's nothing too crazy visually, at least not until around the climax. Then toward the end there are some sites and sounds that get kind of weird. But in general I would just say that Usher contains less flambuoyant original creativity than Mask, and it is a more disciplined attempt to capture the tone and plot of the original Pose story.
But this is by no means. A dig lot of people cite Usher as their favorite of the Corman Price collaborations, and I think I can see why, like the wildness of Mask is a bit more my speed, but Usher has a really good script and a chillingly effective and ambiguous performance by Price, who has bleach blonde hair. By the way, where else are you going to get that?
Yeah, that's right, We'll come back to the look of Vincent Price in this picture. That alone makes it stand out. But I agree this is a picture that in many ways makes it a smaller picture, but a smaller picture that's really allowed to breathe, you know, like the fewer elements involved all managed to sort of build up their own energy that by the end of the picture you
don't feel like you've been slided at all. That being said, I think it is fair to say this is maybe a movie in which not as much happens compared to other pictures, and you've got to be on board with that. Like I watched this film zonked Out on an airplane and was the perfect perfect picture for that sort of setting, you know. I like a nice slow film like this. You can breathe in all the sights and sounds, especially the sites more so than the sounds here, but then
also some strong performances in here as well. But like I say, if you want something that's really snappy, this is maybe not yet, so you've got to be on its wavelength. But if you're on its wavelength, a film like this is perfect.
Oh this is a gloomy, languid, classic gothic haunted mansion story. Yeah, well wait a minute now that I say haunted mansion,
actually I think a great thing. Maybe we can discuss the themes more when we get into the plot section, but I think this movie is interesting in that you could legitimately ask, at least for most of the runtime, whether there's actually anything supernatural happening or not, or whether it's all just kind of the consequences of Vincent Price's character Roderick and his delusional behave.
Yeah, if nothing out as Ilset is a film haunted by multi generational human evil. Yeah, and it definitely ruminates on that.
All right, we usually do an elevator pitch. I'll try to give a straightforward plot set up here. Philip Winthrop travels to the desolate and decomposing Usher Estate to visit his fiancee, Madeleine, whom he courted and became engaged to during their time together in Boston. So she's gone ahead of him back to the Usher estate, and he's coming
to beat her. But when he arrives, Philip discovers that Madeleine is in ill health and she is under the constant control of her strange and morose brother, Roderick played by Vincent Price. Over time, Philip begins to doubt what he's being told by Roderick and the household butler. Is Madeline really sick or is she having her will to live sapped by Roderick's psychic manipulations, or is there something more sinister and ghostly operating underneath it all?
We'll find out, all right. Let's go ahead and listen to a little trailer audio for House of Usher.
Don't take her man now, let me go in there.
Only the incomparable genius of Edgar Allen Poe could knit them so closely together, the burning passions of the purest of loves, the deadly passions of the madly buriant.
Hope when you're leaving this house with me tomorrow, Only I could.
For hundreds of years, evil thoughts and evil deeds have been committed within these walls.
The house itself is evil.
Now they all are ashes.
It's monstrous.
It waits for me, because very soon I shall be dead.
Oh medline, come away with me?
Now?
Where is she? You buried your own sister alive?
I did, but she's dead now. The master hand of the macap creates its masterpiece, all right.
If you want to watch House of USh or follow the House of USh, or whatever you want to call this nineteen sixty film, there are a couple of ways to do it. If you're in the UK, I believe you have access to the beautiful Arrow Blue. If you're in the US, I think you can find it in
the Vincent Price Collection box set from Shout Factory. Off the top of my head, I'm not sure about the current production status of either of those, but that's kind of the beauty of physical media is that even if it's out of print, there's a good chance you'll be able to find a copy out there. And if you have a rental store in your neighborhood in your city, like Atlanta's own Video Drone, for example, you can just go and rent it. And that's so beautifully simple.
I have that Vincent Price box set from Shout Factory, and that is how I watched this movie. It's also how I watched Pitt in the Pendulum. It's got Mask of the Red Death in there, and it's also got some other fun stuff like Witchfinder General and The Abominable Doctor Five. So highly recommend that collection. It's very solid.
Yeah, the Witchfinder General film is said to be another great price performance.
That one I've only watched on mute while doing other things, but it looked interesting, so maybe I'll have to go back and turn the sound on. Sometimes it's by a filmmaker who we watched another movie by him. He was the guy who made that movie The Sorcerers about the people like the old people who can get into the young guy's brain.
Yeah, short lived director died tragically young, but showed so much promise. Anyway, again, I watched this film. No doubt is Roger Corman intended on an iPhone in an airplane. But you know there are fewer distractions in some ways when watching a film in that format, so you know, sometimes it's the right time for that sort of treatment.
Roger wouldn't hate on you for that.
You don't know it all right, Well, since we're already talking about him, Yeah, let's get into the people behind this film, starting with Roger Corman, the director, the producer who lived nineteen twenty six through twenty twenty four. We've talked about him numerous times on the show, so we're going to try not to repeat too much of that instead sort of frame this within his output and within
the history of Weird House. I believe this is our fifth Corman directed motion picture, but he also served as producer on some of the films we've covered. This, of course, is one of the films loosely classified as being part of the Pose cycle. In fact, again it is the film that kicked off the entire cycle. Usher came on the heels of nineteen fifty nine's Eye, Moobster, The Wasp Woman,
and Bucket of Blood. Those all directed by Corman, and it was one of four Corman directed films that came out in nineteen sixty, along with Ski Troop Attack, The Little Shop of Horrors, and Last Woman on Earth.
Well, I know Little Shop of Horrors. Now I'm curious about Ski Troop Attack. Yeah, it's like real stands the test of time. I bet, yeah.
I mean that's the thing about Corman's output is, you know, certain genre films have become a legendary of his and you know, you instantly think of them when you think of Roger Corman. But for every one or two of those, there are three or four more in other genres, often that have just kind of fallen through the cracks for many, except for the Roger Corman completest, I suppose. Anyway, the Corman post cycle is generally considered to run eight films.
You have Usher, then you have sixty ones, The Pitt in the Pendulum, sixty two's the Premature Burial and Tales of Terror, sixty threes the Raven and the Haunted Palace, and then sixty four is The Mask of the Red Death and The Tomb of Lagia. Of course, we should note that the Haunted Palace is actually based on a Lovecraft story and not a post story. It's just the title that ties into pose work. All of them star Vincent Price, except for the Premature Burial.
Yeah, so I've seen three of these movies at this point. I've seen Usher, the Pit and the Pendulum, and Mask of the Red Death. Mask is my favorite, easily, though all three of them I think are quite good, and maybe we'll have to come back to the Pit and the Pendulum sometime. Price's performance in that movie is a lot more unhinged and off the wall than in Usher. But let's see the premature Aerial and Tales of Terror. I think, is that one movie or two movies?
That's true?
Tales of Terror is supposed to be anthology.
Yeah, I mean, that's the thing. These are Corman films, so sometimes there's two coming out a year, and those are inevitably not the only pictures he directed, certainly didn't not the only pictures he produced heuring a given year.
Yeah, and then The Raven is interesting because that one is supposed to be a comedy. I have not seen it. I'm a little curious how that works. I feel like I would be less interested in an overt comedy with Price and po themes. But who knows. Maybe it's great.
Well, I mean you have to acknowledge that that Vincent Price is terrific in everything. Oh, so he's kind of comedic. Timing is solid, so he may be able to deliver there. And you know, you do have some really good Roger Corman directed dark comedies such as Bucket of Blood or Little Shop of Horrors and so forth.
Yeah, And frankly, I would say all of the movies of his I've seen that I've liked have some sense of humor about them. Probably House of Usher has the least humor of any of them, but he's always got a little bit of eye twinkling going on.
Yeah, we of course have to drive home that this is an adaptation of the work of Edgar Allan Poe, who have eighteen oh nine through eighteen forty nine American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic, best remembered for his spooky poems and stories, not only in the United States but internationally.
Oh yeah, well, so, I guess Rob is referring to there. There was an article that we were sharing off Mike that I read by a writer named Wynn Bin from I think it was just published a couple of days ago, at least published October of this year, twenty twenty four, about the popularity of Edgar Allan Poe among a lot of the writers and poets of Vietnam in the first
half of the twentieth century. I think that's interesting, like what authors really resonate in different language cultures around the world, but apparently, like, yeah, a lot of Vietnamese writers in I think it would be around the nineteen twenties and thirties or so, really really thought that Poe was just like the best of the American writers.
Yeah, And of course that reminds me a bit of a Japanese author that we've discussed in the show before, because we've discussed adaptations of his work in cinema, Edugawa Ranpo, whose name is an allusion to the name Edgar Allan.
Poe, and he was a writer of detective stories, wasn't.
Yeah, yeah, a lot of detective stories and the mysteries thriller is that sort of thing. Yeah, all right, So that's the source material. But then the screenplay, the adaptation comes to us via another name that we've talked about on the show before, the legendary Richard Matheson, who lived nineteen twenty six through twenty thirteen. American writer who's best remembered, I would say, as the author of the excellent nineteen fifty four novel I Am Legend, upon which three films
have been based. One even had Vincent Price in it.
I've been thinking we should do that on the show. By the way, I think it's called Last Man on Earth.
Yes, yeah, And of course the others being I Am Legend with Will Smith and then The Omega Man with Chuck Huston.
The Vincent Price one is it's got some really good things about it, and I really enjoyed. I sampled that one in some music that I was working on. It works out pretty good.
The episodes where we discussed Richard Matheson previously there was the film The Devil Rides Out. He did the adaptation on that as well, adapting a weekly novel. And then we talked about the film adaptation The Incredible Shrinking Man. That's an adaptation by Matheson of one of Matheson's own books. If I remember correctly.
This guy snuck up on me. I didn't realize it first, but I think Matheson has written the scripts for a lot of the best movies or the movies with the best scripts that we've done from the mid twentieth century.
Yeah, I mean he was excellent, excellent writer, worked on a lot of shows like Original Twilight Zone, Night Gallery, Alfred Hitchcock Hour, and had a big influence on an entire generation of horror and terror scribes, especially including Stephen King. Stephen King has frequently cited Richard Matheson as an influence.
The Incredible Shrinking man I remember in particular, had a really good script.
Yeah, that's a great picture. If you haven't seen that one, you haven't listened to our episode on that, go back to one or the other. Don't be afraid of that kind of goofy title and perhaps you know comedic idea of a tiny man inside a house being attacked by his cat, because it's much more than that. It's actually a pretty deep flip. Yeah, all right, onto the cast, and this is going to be a pretty short cast. There are really only four people in this for the
most part. A few extras here and there, but really only four people. The lead, of course, again being Vincent Prize playing Roderick Usher. Price lived nineteen eleven through nineteen ninety three. We've talked about him plenty of times on the show because we keep coming back to Vincent Price films and you never know exactly what you're going to get from him. He was active on screen from the
late thirties to the early nineties. And you know, there's a certain vision, a certain version of Vincent Price that I think is solidified in the horror canon that instantly comes to mind when you think about him, and a lot of it is defined by his look, Right, what do you think of? You think of like that dark or certainly in later live gray and even white, slicked
back hair. You think about that sharpened mustache, an optional goatee add on, and then of course he's going to be wearing some sort of a suit, maybe an optional Dracula cape, that sort of thing.
If this makes any sense, He's somebody who, really I think has the face of a character actor, a kind of interesting memorable face you would see pop up playing like second build characters with a little bit of personality to them, but instead he more often ended up playing
leading male characters or leading villains. And it works pretty well that way, because he can sort of manipulate his interesting look with just sort of an inversion of the slant of his eyebrows to look quite sympathetic or quite evil.
Absolutely, and as we were alluding to earlier, this film also gives us a rather different looking price because he's clean shaven and he has bleached blonde hair. You might want to call him peroxide Price or platinum blonde Price, you pick, but either way, a very distinctive look. It reminds me a bit of in the movie The Ten Commandments, he shows up in that, and he's clean shaven there as well, which can throw you off if you're used
to Vincent Price with facial hair. But add in the screaming blonde hair in this picture, and yeah, he looks sufficiently different. It ends up influencing your entire reception of the character.
I think I was thinking about Barbie's hair color, so I was thinking, like Malibu Price.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think that's fair. At this point in his career, Price had already taken on the mantle of horror star. I think by having already done House of Wax, which we've talked about in the show, that's one that really elevated him in the horror genre. But then also he'd already done fifty eight's The Fly, fifty nine's House on Haunted Hill, and Return of the Fly, as well as The Tingler and The bat oh Man.
There's so many good Price roles in horror movies that sometimes you can't hold them all in your head. I was getting ready for this episode and I didn't even think of The Tingler until you just said it.
Yeah, that's a fun film as well. Yeah, but this is a really fun performance beyond just the different appearance for Vincent Price because he's this character is firm but fragile. You know, it's an interesting performance of emotional extremes as we'll get into, like there's a really strong will, but not if you're raising your voice or touching his garments
or not taking your shoes. Shoes off in the house it is it is worth stressing that the house of Usher is a shoes off household and you need to be prepared for that.
Yeah, Roderick Usher is a character who I like how ambiguous this character is, Like you, for a long time in the movie, you're not clear if he's friend or foe, how dangerous he is, what's going on. And even when it does become clear in some ways that he is dangerous and to be feared, at the same time, he is so weak he could he's just easily physically bested, and yet that doesn't solve the problem.
Yeah, he's almost like a living ghost in that regard. Yeah, all right, so that's the that's the lead. But then second billing, we have the personal Mark Damon as Philip Winthrop. This is the the individual that is engaged to the sister of Roderick Usher.
By normal accounting, This is the protagonist, right, He is the good guy of the movie. Though I think you could still say that the main character is Vincent Price as Roderick Usher, but that's you know, villain first framing. This is the supposed good guy.
Yeah, yeah, personable Mark Damon. We previously talked about him because he was in Mario Bava's Black Sabbath from nineteen sixty three, so that would be in the future of the Mark Damon that we're seeing here. This was apparently a big, big film for him. He actually won a Golden Globe for Most Promising Newcomer for this film and when I was a familiar face in motion pictures during the fifties and sixties. But he's probably best remembered for Usher and Sabbath, at least as far as acting goes.
But then, as we discussed previously, went on to be a really major producer in Hollywood and had his hands in some major pictures of note, including dust Boat or dust Boot if you will, The Never Ending Story Clan of the Cave Bear nine and a half week short circuit Fly to the Navigator, The Lost Boys, beast Master two, and as well as a pair of Universal Soldier sequels, among other pictures. When we last talked about him, he was still alive, but he actually passed away over the
summer at the age of ninety one. He also, I have to mention again he has one writing credit, and it's The Devil's Wedding Night from nineteen seventy three. This is essentially a Dracula movie, despite the title. Oh and Joe Tomato apparently did some uncredited directing on it. But it's said to be pretty good. Actually I haven't.
Seen it, Okay, Yeah, Well, in case you don't know what we're talking about when we keep calling him the personable, that's from the trailer for Mario Bava's Black Sabbath. So the announcers like, ooh, the chilling Boris Karloff, the personable Mark Damon.
You know, maybe Mark Damon is fine in this. I'm not criticizing his work at all. It's more the sort of role this is. I guess I don't find it as personable as I would find like a Vincent Price character or you know, a Peter Lourie character and so forth. But and then also I'm wondering, if you have to say the personable Mark Damon, how personable. Is this performer right?
It makes it, It makes him seem less personable. It's like introducing somebody by calling them trustworthy. Immediately you start wondering should I trust them?
Yeah, but he is good in this I mean he's he is the straight man in this story where he's encountering like nothing but strange happenings and strange surroundings. So he's our grounding, he's our he's the point at the center of the dial. And so he's essential and it is essential that you have, you know, a square jowed, handsome young actor playing that role really, especially during this time period.
I agree, I think he does fine. I'm not trying to slam him at all. I think he's good in this role. He is somewhat upstaged by the more interesting performances, especially of course by Vincent Price. But then I would say also later in the film, upstage somewhat by the performance of Murna Fay, he as Madeline Usher, who gets weirder as the movie goes on.
Yeah.
Yeah. mRNA Fay, who lived nineteen thirty three through nineteen seventy three, is the third build out of like four actors in this picture, and she is quite good. She's I think best remembered probably for this film role, as well as various television works she did. She did a lot of TV work in addition to a handful of films like Disney Zoro. She was on that series. She was on Father of the Bride in the early sixties.
But yeah, yeah, it's a good role that it first maybe seems like a little subdued, and you might think that she's not going to have much agency, but stick with it because she does get she does get to get some work in towards the end of the picture, it.
Gets kind of I was reading a biography of her somewhere online that mentioned she did an interview I think it was in the year nineteen sixty, so the same year as House of Usher, where she was sort of complaining that she had been typecast in like moral upstanding roles. You know, she was always, oh, you know, tisk tisk, I am very good, I am very law abiding, and she wanted to explore, you know, more complicated, maybe darker roles, and well, I think she got her wish.
Yes.
She also apparently went on to be in an episode of the TV anthology series Thriller hosted by Boris Karloff. The episode is called Girl with the Secret, which is about Her, which is about a character who has to like keep a secret about her husband and is being blackmailed by someone. I haven't seen this episode of the show, but I pulled up like the IMDb listing for the episode, and the screenshot from it is somebody driving a car
making this incredibly creepy grinning face. So now I'm tempted to it up.
Yeah, yeah, I haven't watched a lot of Thriller, but it's said to be a very good horror anthology series.
I've seen at least one episode of Thriller. It was an adaptation of the Roberty Howard story Pigeons from Hell, which is like a ghost horror story.
Oh yeah, probably one of the rare non conan kin adaptations of his work. All right, pretty much. The fourth and final human in this picture is the Butler Bristol, played by American actor and Atlanta native Harry Ellerby, who
lived nineteen oh one through nineteen ninety two. He worked extensively in stage, screen and TV, with his screen and TV credits going from the early nineteen thirties through the early nineteen seventies, though I understand he remained active in theater longer than that, especially in like local Atlanta theater. His film credits include nineteen sixty threes, The Haunted Palace and nineteen sixty six's Chamber of Horrors. He appeared in
an episode of the original Outer Limits as well. Okay, and you know he's good in this He basically he's the middleman. Though he's the butler in a haunted mansion, so you kind of know what you're going to get.
Yeah, it is his job to help carry the coffins and boil the gruel.
Yes.
Oh, but we have a very interesting credit to share regarding this picture. Now. I mentioned Night Gallery earlier in passing, and it's appropriate because this movie features a number of very creepy paintings that would look perfectly at home on
the walls of the Night Gallery. These paintings are credited to Bert Schoenberg, who live nineteen thirty three through nineteen seventy seven, American painter whose work could be described as surrealist or psychedelic, and he was certainly celebrated during the nineteen sixties, though he was also exploring the style in
the fifties and seventies as well. In fact, I've seen some people argue that he was one of those artists working in California at the time that was kind of a precursor to the psychedelic art scene in nineteen sixties California. You know. So ultimately, when you get into like surrealism and strange art, there's plenty of stuff that seems ahead of its time and kind of informs that era. I suppose. So his work is, and you can look it up online. It's Schoenberg s H O. N. B.
E Erg.
His work is dreamy and weird at times, invoking occult imagery. Again, look it up because it's worth checking out. And certainly you get to see it a lot in this movie. It's not just an incidental detail. The paintings are important plot points, and you really get to drink them in. I think they really contribute to the great vibe of this picture.
Yeah, there's this is never made explicit, but there is almost an Clyde a Picture of Dory and Gray kind of concept at work, where there are these paintings of the the you know, the patriarchs and matriarchs of the of the Usher household, and when we start to learn about their evils and their crimes, we see the paintings, and the paintings appear almost kind of warped or melted, as sort of altered in a way that reveals the evil of the character lying underneath.
You know, it's interesting to think about the use of painted portraits in movies because it's often the case that you'll find either either a portrait actually does its job and you just buy it as being a portrait of a character. Generally it looks like one of the actors in the film, right, or it looks like the old count or the old baron that will inevitably come back to life and is you know, played by Christopher Lee or something, so you know what they're supposed to look like.
But then in other pictures you can tell like the portrait just does not pass the sniff test. You know, you're like this, I'm not buying it. I'm not buying this as an historic work of art. This picture dodges those pitfalls and instead just goes for the utterly weird. These pictures feel like, you know, drawing on the door, the portrait drawing gray here. It's like they are like snapshots of the corrupted soul. They seem like they are dark, wrong, perhaps insane works.
Yeah, absolutely, and they're not subtle. You know, It's not like they look a little bit creepy. It's they are oozing evil, demonic energy and just advertising the wickedness of the people portrayed.
Yeah.
I was reading a bit more about these on the excellent website Vincent Price Legacy dot UK, and the author there points out that Schoenberg provided five portraits and two additional paintings to this production, and again they certainly pull their weight in delivering the film's vibe. Afterwards, two of these paintings apparently went to Roger Corman and then were
subsequently stolen from his office. Another portrait was reportedly given to Vincent Price himself, who was an avid art collector, but according to the website Vincent Price Legacy, they whereabouts of this painting are unknown and it was never listed in the official estate documents concerning Price's extensive art collection, so it's unknown what happened to it, Like, did it you know, did he sell it? Is it lost? Is it?
I'm assuming at this point that all of these paintings are like on the dark side of the moon somewhere, you know, transported there through dark arcade magic.
Wow, that's a wild story. I'm almost tempted to doubt it, but no, it's got to be true, right, These paintings were made to disappear mysteriously.
Yeah.
Now, to be clear, I'm not sure if all of the Schoenberg paintings for this picture are missing, but at least some of them are, which adds to the mystique. But that website, Vincent Price Legacy also has some other dish details about Schoenberg that were obtained from out there. The Transcendent Life and Art of Bert Schoenberg by Spencer
Kanza and this is a book from twenty seventeen. The author points out that Schoenberg was very much a part of the occult and counterculture scene in LA at the time. In the LA area, he partially owned the controversial weirdo hippie coffee shop in Orange County that was known as Cafe Frankenstein. Definitely look up a picture of Cafe Frankenstein has this signature glass window piece like a stained glass picture of Frankenstein's monster in the front, and this was
created by Schoenberg. He also had murals inside of the establishment, and it was apparently kind of like a notorious hangout for dangerous hippies, you know, like there's some art going on there, there's some coffee drinking, maybe there's some other substances, who knows, and the local squares were not amused. I read one anecdote that they did not like that he had the Frankstein's Monster art in the front of the establishment, and when they pressured him, he was like, well, maybe
I should do one of Frankenstein's Monster crucified. Maybe that would make everyone happy. So he was kind of a provocateur as well.
I'm so sad this place no longer exists. I would want to go to California just to go here.
I believe the stained glass piece still exists, though I think that isn't someone's collection, But at any rate, Yeah, he was apparently quite a character. At one point he was in a relationship with artist, poet and occultist Marjorie Cameron, who had previously been married to Jack Parsons. Oh yeah, and Schoenberg also provided paintings for the nineteen sixty two film The Premature Burial, and he served as art director on fifty Eights The Brain Eaters in nineteen sixties Code of Silence.
Oh, we covered the brain Eaters is Let's see what were all the weird things about that one? I think it had Leonard Nimoy in a minor role and he never got paid for it or something. And was it maybe or maybe not based on a Robert Heinlend story.
Yeah, it might have been. I remember, this is one that has a great poster that perhaps over sells the rest of the picture. But it was a still fun, fun one, still a fun episode to check out.
Oh.
I was trying to think what was the hilarious character from it, and it was Senator Walter k. Powers. You remember Walter k Powers.
Yeah?
Yeah.
So anyway, we'll come back to these paintings because again they are vital parts of the picture and they're great. Okay, two more credits, just to run through really quickly before we get to the main plot. But the cinematography is by Floyd Crosby, who I can't remember if we talked about him before, but he lived eighteen ninety nine through nineteen eighty five. Academy Award winning cinematographer and father of
musician David Crosby. He worked on a number of Corman pictures, including Attack of the Crab Monsters in nineteen fifty seven.
You know, it never really analyzed the cinematography of Attack of the Crab Monster, but you know, I love the movie. That's got to be a part of it.
And then finally, the music is by Les Baxter, who lived nineteen twenty two through nineteen ninety six. So he's popped up on the show before because we have considered other scores by the master of exotica music, and none of these scores have been examples of exotica. Like if you look, I do recommend if you're having like a tropical drink and you want to have a nice, like loungy vibe, you know, pull up some Less Baxter play
some of his exotica work. It's a great sound, but we don't really get that sound as far as I know, out of any of the scores he did. If you know of a Less Baxter score that is actually an exotica score, let me know about it, because I want to dig into that picture.
Can you imagine if House of Usher had exotica going to Roderick Usher has got like a drink with a toothpick. That's got three different kinds of fruit on it.
I mean, on one hand, I want to say it would be completely inappropriate, But on the other hand, like a lot of Baxter's exotica work, it has this kind of like a dark undertone. There's a sense of like rumbling volcanoes, you know, and slow moving lava. So in a way it might it might have lined up with some of those sort of geologic sensibilities of House of Usher. So I'm not sure. But again, this is not an exotica score. This is more of just like a nineteen
fifty style orchestral score. But there are other example like, for instance, Frogs from nineteen seventy two, which we talked about in the show before, that one has a minimalist electronic score from Les Baxter, and I think maybe arguably it could have benefited from an exotica score as well. I don't know. All right, well, why don't we go ahead and just jump right into the plot of House of Usher?
As is often the case with Roger Korman movies. I like the effect the credits, and there are not a whole lot of credits to get to in this movie, as we've already alluded to. I guess a shorter credit sequence than usual. But the effect behind them is this swirling mixing of clouds of colored mists. So you've got pink, green, violet, red, and blue, seemingly timed with the appearance of different actors' names.
Like I'm not sure if there is any intended significance that there's suddenly a blast of sprite canned green across the picture when the name of the personable Mark Damon splashes up, But that is what we get.
Yeah, it's very colorful. It's a color picture. We might as well enjoy the color.
That's right, and it is something that we should appreciate that at this time making this kind of movie, it was still a question like would you pony up for the to make this movie in color or would you just shoot it in black and white? You know, today that's not really much of a I mean, some films are still made in black and white, but for the most part, it's just assumed, Yeah, you're making a movie,
you will make it in color. In nineteen sixty making a movie of this sword, it was like a toss up, you know, you could go either way. It was a different type of investment.
Yeah, yeah, and you could have made a strong case, you know, gothic car gloomy setting. Maybe that does need to be in black and white. So I don't know. Maybe they did feel like they needed to prove themselves a little bit with the title sequence.
So after the credits, the action opens on a barren landscape of brown and gray swampland you've got mud, fog, matted tufts of dead grass, withered tree limbs without a single leaf. All of the dead plants are also wrapped in these brittle, dead vines. So the land is it appears totally strangled, just death upon death. And then a character enters the picture. It is Mark Damon, playing the character of Philip Winthrop, and he is on horseback in a heavy purple riding cloak and a tall top hat.
He makes his way through the swamp on horseback along a sodden dirt path to reach his ultimate destiny nation, the titular House of Usher, which is shown to us as a dark, decrepit mansion with curtains drawn across the windows, no light emanating from it, and mist surrounding the foundation like a white blanket.
Oh and this just looks tremendous. I can't drive home enough, just how incredible this house looks. It is like a it is, yes, it is a great, big, old Gothic hulk of a mansion, but it also looks kind of like just a decaying whale carcass, you know, just you know, a heap of excess in ruin that is literally poisoning the surrounding landscape is on the verge of falling into
hell itself. Like this is like wealth and over indulgence dragged across the centuries, you know, pulling souls down into darkness with it.
Yeah.
So Winthrop approaches this, this whale carcass, the mansion, passing through a broken stone gate, and he goes in between these black, twisted, almost melted looking trees. And I actually read a production note that somewhere in here the designers used some trees that had partially burned in a recent California wildfire when the film was made. I don't know if it's in this shot, but if it were, that would make sense.
Yeah. Yeah, I recently was in California. We did a lot of driving through the countryside. We saw a number of these sorts of trees, and this, well, not a landscape like the fall of the House of Usher, but trees landscapes that had these sorts of trees in them, and yeah, you can certainly lean into a haunted interpretation and so forth.
So Philip comes to the front door, which is wreathed in cobwebs, and he wraps with the giant bronze knocker. The door is answered by a gray haired servant in a black coat, and he's got a sad, apprehensive face framed by these silver sideburns. Philip introduces himself to the servant as Madeline Usher's fiance and asks to see her, but the butler, whose name is Bristol, tells him that she is confined to her bed because she is taken ill.
So Bristol tries to deny Philip entry, saying that Madeleine's brother Roderick, has forbidden any visitors, but Philip is very pushy. He won't take no for an answer, so Bristol leads him inside.
And already we are seeing some red candles. This film is all about the red candles. Only red candles in the House of Usher, that's right.
So yeah, the interior of the house is a little more inviting than the outside, but there's still some threatening energy. One thing that this is not really a complaint about the movie. It's rather just sort of a fact about how movies are made, especially at this time, based on things the characters say. I think we're supposed to understand that it is always kept very dark inside the Usher mansion.
Even candlelight is weak and scarce, but it doesn't really look that way like for the audience looking at the sets, everything is usually quite brightly lit. There may just be no way around that. It's kind of like suspending your disbelief for a play. You know that this is really taking place in a room, even though you're looking up
at a stage. But this does raise an interesting ongoing problem even in movies today, with the art of visual storytelling, how do you convincingly show that a scene is dark but also allow the audience to see what's happening. It's kind of an oxymoron, but it's a thing different filmmakers have tried to tackle in different ways. Sometimes they just brightly, you know, they just brightly light it anyway and then
ask you to suspend your disbelief. Other Times the scene is actually dark and that contributes to a kind of emotional or atmospheric effect, but it can create frustrations when trying to follow the drama.
Yeah, there was a time or two watching this film where they were talking about how dark the room was, and I was like, well, even I can really make out everything. Maybe the lighting is off on my phone or something.
Yeah.
I think this is still just a tension that visual storytellers struggle with even until today. You know, I remember people talking about stuff in the the last season of Game of Thrones, you know, apart from any like writing issues about that, but questions about certain scenes and episodes that were like very very dimly lit and dark scenes, and even that does highlight, Like, yeah, you can do that, and that can be good in some ways. It can
create an intended atmospheric effect. It can make you feel a certain way, but then you're going to have a lot of viewers complaining that they can't tell what's going on, or they can't follow what's what's supposed to be happening in a scene.
I've also read I'm I can't one percent match my experience up with this, but I've I've observed some conversations about how really dark scenes in movies, especially modern movies, perhaps don't play as well on streaming platforms versus physical media, you know, And I'm not enough of a tech head on all of that to really weigh in, but if listeners out there have any feedback on that, I'd love to I love to hear from you. I mean, I'm kind of like all in on any argument for physical
media over depending entirely on streamers. So when it comes to films.
Or I would wonder also just about watching things on home video versus in the movie theater, the movie theater might be a case where more dimly lit scenes come across better.
I don't know, Yeah, that's the in theater propaganda is really big on telling me that the darks are darker, and you know, having watched Son of Frankenstein on the big screen, I mean those those really those dark shadows are really luscious up there, so I kind of buy into it.
Anyway, That's not what's going on in House of Usher. Everything is very well lit here. But so we come inside and yes, we do have these these red candles everywhere, cherry red candles. And I like this little moment where Bristol the butler asks Philip to take off his boots and he's like, what for and he just says, you know, mister Roderick will explain, and Bristol disappears mysteriously for a moment here, but then reappears with slippers for him.
Yeah, some real culture show being asked to take your shoes off in this shoes off household here, which I really I really appreciated this because I prior to watching the film, I've been meeting up with some family and it was clearly like a mix of shoes on households and shoes off households. Meeting in a rental home, you know, where you're like, what, why are people in the kitchen with their shoes on? What's happening? And you know it just they're different approaches.
Wait, if you're comfortable sharing, which way are you? I don't even know? Do you all take shoes off in the house?
Were shoes off households?
Okay?
Cool?
But you know I mean if someone comes and I forget to say, hey, you can take your shoes off and they're wearing their shoes, I'm not going to freak out. It's like, that's on me because I didn't give you a heads up. Also, as comedian Shang Wang points out, there are certain circumstances where you may have to like run through the house with the shoes on to do something, you know, like turn the alarm system off or something I don't know. There are circumstances that the demands you keep them on.
Well, what is totally commonplace in some cultures and some families is treated as quite strange here. This is not something that Philip Winthrop is used to. But yeah, we're told that Roderick will explain. So Philip is led up the grand staircase. So he goes along this carved banister and hand rail past these tapestries again the cherry red candles, to an upper hallway and eventually to Roderick's room and ooh, there's a very good boo scare right at the first
time we meet Vincent Price. So Bristol goes to knock on the bedroom door, but before his knuckles can touch the wood, the door swings inward and into the doorway bursts Roderick. It is a fierce looking, clean shaven Vincent Price with platinum blonde hair, wearing a red velvet jacket and a black tie.
Yeah, seeming to tower over him as well. Here.
Yes, Price does come off as very physically large in this movie, and I think that'll be interesting to talk about maybe later when we I don't talk about the weird contrasting aspects of his physical presence and whether or not he should be taken as threatening.
Yeah, because he seems physically imposing that we've learned that he's actually quite fragile.
Yeah, we'll get to that soon. So Roderick is initially furious that Bristol has admitted a visitor. He's furious but soft spoken, so he's like, how dare you? But in a library voice, and Philip explains that he insisted he
believed he had the right. So Roderick brings Philip into his room to discuss, and in here Philip starts talking, but before he can even finish a sentence, Roderick winces, covering his ears and saying, mister Winthrop, if you please, an affliction of the hearing sounds of any exaggerated degree cut into my brain like knives. So you have to be you have to use your inside voice when speaking to Roderick. He cannot stand a raised voice. It causes
him such pain. So Roderick goes to rest in a high back chair and Philip begins to explain what's going on. He says that he must be allowed to see Madeline since they are engaged to be married. Roderick seems disturbed by this news and tells him that it's impossible. Madeleine is confined to her bed and their engagement has to be called off. It was he should think of it just as an unfortunate mistake, and Philip must leave the estate at once. He says, it is not a healthy
place for you to be. Philip, of course, does not accept this, and it would be a strange thing if he just conformed. He's like, no, I don't understand why you're saying this, and he says he's not going to leave without seeing Madeline. Multiple times in this argument, again Philip raises his voice and whenever he gets louder, Price closes his eyes and grits his teeth in pain. So
he reacts every time. But while they're going back and forth, their dispute is cut short when Madeleine herself appears in the doorway of Roderick's and again this is mRNA Fahe now, she's obviously very happy to see Philip and flattered that he made the journey here. To the mansion, but there is some kind of cloud hanging over their reunion, somewhat literally, in the form of Roderick himself, who cuts it short to escort Madeleine back to her room, explaining that she must go back to bed.
Yes, this is another film where people are sent to bed a very strict bedtime schedule here in House of USh.
Yeah, so they go and Philip is left alone in Roderick's room, and here is where we see one of the first of the Bert Schoenberg paintings, not of a person in this case, but of the house itself in a wild impressionistic style. I was trying to think of a way to describe this. This is a great painting. It looks so it's so colorful and almost happy in the way the colors are jumbled, but also does look
quite evil. It's like a cross between a haunted mansion, a monet painting of a big pile of Halloween candies, and also sort of a boss from Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time.
Yeah, it's pretty fabulous again, very strong night Gallery vibes. You know, I can basically hear the theme music in my head. You know, it looks like a like a decaying mansion made out of meat, with like an eye opening in the center of it.
It's tremendous, the eye in the center. That's what I'm reacting to with the Zelda comparison. It looks like the first boss you fight in Okarina of Time. That thing in the tree. Anyway, While Philip is looking at the painting waiting for Roderick to return, the fireplace suddenly spits a bunch of cinders onto his legs, and this will be the first of many attempts by the house to murder the characters, but he just kind of brushes it off. Roderick comes back and asks with concern what happened, but
Philip is not worried about it. He's just like, I think your fireplace needs a screen, and Price says, does it. After this, they pick up the conversation sort of where they left off. We learn that Roderick is a man of the arts. He paints. The painted work we were just talking about is his own, and Roderick also plays the lute. But here the conversation gets weirder. Roderick wants to know if Philip really intends to marry Madeleine, if Philip says, of course he does, and Roderick says, do
you intend to have children? And Philip says, god willing? Then Roderick gasps with despair, and he says god willing. He explains that this would be a nightmare and it cannot happen. Why, well, here we get one of Vincent Price's many lovely tortured monologues. So I just want to read from part of what he says here with some abridgements. Price says, because the usher line is tainted, you saw Madeleine,
and you see me, we are dying, mister Winthrop. As you saw her today, she is and will remain, which, by the way, again, in suspension of disbelief, I will say, nothing looked all that unhealthy about Madeline. Like she looked fine. But we are by the way the characters talk, we're supposed to understand that when we saw her in the previous scene, she looks sickly and like like she is about to die.
But really she just looks like she still has her night down on, yeah, and has had time to put on all her makeup.
Yeah.
So Madeleine is supposed to look sick in the same way that these brightly. Rooms are supposed to look dark. Yeah, but anyway, price continues. Believe me, sir, I bear you no malice were things otherwise I should welcome you into our family joyously. But under the circumstances it is quite impossible. And then a little later he says, Madeleine and I are like figures of fine glass. The slightest touch and we may shatter. Both of us suffer from a morbid
acuteness of the senses. Mine is the worse for having existed the longer, but both of us are afflicted with it. Any sort of food more exotic than the most pallid mash is unendurable to my taste buds. Any sort of garment other than the softest is agony to my flesh. My eyes are tormented by all but the faintest illumination. Odors assail me constantly, and as I've said, sounds of
any degree whatsoever inspire me with terror. And then Philip reasons, ah, that's why your servant asked me to remove my boots, and Roderick says yes. And even so I could hear your coming, every footstep, every rustle of your clothes. I could hear your horse approaching. Hear the clatter of its hoofs across the courtyard. Your knock, the grating of the door bolt was like a sword stroke to my ears. I can hear the scratch of rat claws within the
stone wall. Mister Winthrop, three quarters of my family have fallen into madness, and in their madness have acquired a super human strength, so that it took the power of many to subdue them. Oh excellent, and I love this for many reasons. First of all, the eventsid Price's delivery in the scene is great, but I also thought it was really interesting the relationship between the supposedly afflicted characters
and the senses. I think a lot of times characters in horror stories like this who seem to be suffering from some kind of vague affliction are presented in the opposite way. They're presented as insensate or unconscious, kind of detached from reality. The ushers instead are hyper sensitive to all stimuliz sound, light, and taste, and they are thus more present and more vulnerable to every little bit of life. And there's also an interesting relationship of this to their
cursed super strength. And warning there will be spoilers ahead, so if you want to see this movie without things spoiled, you know, go ahead and watch it for yourself. But uh, a spoiler's incoming. Later in the film, when Madeline does finally succumb to the Usher madness, we see that she's able to break metal chains and she kind of becomes a goth hulk.
Yeah. It's it is like they're the multi generational evil of the Usher family has reached terminal velocity, and you can tap into that velocity if you want to, if you have the willpower, I guess.
Yeah. So it's like, at the same time that they are dying and incredibly fragile, they're also becoming Superman. They're gain they're gaining all of Superman's sensory powers, like his superheroing and everything, and they're gaining Superman's strength.
Yeah.
So Winthrop of course reacts to this with extreme skepticism.
Uh.
And then he's like, it is so dark in here, Roderic, can you light a candle? And so Roderick goes and lights two red candles on the mantle above the fireplace, and then he says, two pale drops of fire guttering in the vast, consuming darkness. My sister and myself. Shortly they will burn no more.
I think this may have been the scene where I thought to myself, I can see every corner of this room. I think you're over reacting, Roderick, but you know, he kind of is a lot of the time.
But so here the sort of the central dispute between the characters is established. Roderick says, hey, our family line is cursed. Madeleine and I are suffering from a physical and mental decomposition as a result of this curse. And Madeleine cannot be allowed to leave this house, cannot have children, or she will pass the curse along to them and the evil will continue. Philip, on the other hand, does
not believe in the idea of this curse. He's dismissive of the whole thing and says, if Madeleine still wishes to marry him and wishes to have children, they will do so and they will leave the house together.
This is something that Philip does bring up. It is the fact that he does already know her. Yes, it's you know, like they have a relationship already they you know. It's like it's just that now he is on Roderick's turf, and here he has come to meet her family and is therefore encountering different dynamics.
I do think that's actually very interesting because this is an exaggerated horror version of a real dynamic, which is that, you know, people often act different when they're around their family. You can meet a person in one setting, and then when you go to meet their family, they just change a little bit. They act a little bit different. I think a lot of people have probably experienced this with like the family of a significant other, you know, with
their in laws or whatever. Of course, this takes that to monstrous dimensions.
Yes, but but yeah, it does plan on some real dynamics. I think, you know, like even in my own life, you know, I recognize that, Yeah, you know, I love my family, But if I'm visiting with them more than a couple of days, I feel myself falling back into
a former self. You know. I feel like I can only main pin who I am outside of that dynamic for like a day or so, and then I begin to slip into this former self, and you know, I just observing the way that I change or regress when I am in this environment.
Yeah, I think it's a really common experience. But so Philip here he says, I'm going to stay at the house until Madeline is well enough to leave. And Roderick is like, you know, okay, but now now that you know, whatever consequences fall upon you here, that's not my responsibility. That's on you, you know.
And he's gonna have some time to kill in the House of Usher here. He's gonna start pointing out some problems with the foundation and so forth. And I couldn't help, but think, wouldn't it be an interesting read on this if Philip was a real fixer upper, you know, like a handyman type, and he was like, let me get it, Roderck, let me go over to the home depot. I'm going to pick up a few things. I can spackle this
crack up. We'll get shoup and running a noe time now pards the lab and Roderick would be like, you can try, but this home is beyond repair because of the curves.
Oh you know what Roderick is. He's like Homer Simpson in that episode where it's like, you know, the problem was water damage. A simple five cent washer will get out.
So anyway, one of the weird things. The first time I was watching this, I was confused about I thought Philip arrived late at night, but I think he's supposed to have arrived earlier in the day, because we see like time pass and then it's like later in the evening and Philip is alone in his guest room getting ready to go down for supper, and here we see the first of the Poltergeistye stuff, Like he's got a chamber stick that's like a little candle holder with a
dish on the bottom, you know, He's got that sitting on a table, and it starts to scoot across the surface of the table by itself. Now, when I first saw this, I was like, ah, okay, so there are definitely ghosts here. But then Philip hears a rumbling sound and he goes to look out his window and sees there is a giant crack running up from the foundation up the side of the house. Part of the frame of the house seems to be shifting, so maybe that's
what made the candle inside move. Maybe it wasn't a ghost, And we get some nice creepy close ups of the crack running along the length of the exterior wall. It's just drooling cobwebs and dust.
Yeah, this house is not up to cut. We are learning.
Yeah. Oh, as Philip is coming down for supper, he nearly gets squashed by a falling chandelier, you know, just misses him. He dodges out of the way, and Madeline comes out and sees this, and she begs him to leave the house for his own safety. But he's like, no, it's fine. It's just an old, creaky chandelier. Everything's okay. So they have dinner and they're sitting at the strange dinner table. Apparently again the ushers can only eat unseasoned
mash and white bread. But Roderick does appear to have a taste for wine served in nearly opaque blood red goblets. I guess maybe wine is not too exotic a flavor.
No, no, you know, especially if you're just having potatoes and molasses for dinner and you can handle slightly spicy wine.
Yeah. Philip notices that Madeline is not eating at all. He's also like, hey, Roderick, are you going to get that crack in the wall fixed? What you're talking about? And I do not think Roderick is planning on it. Other topics of conversation at dinner are that the soil around the mansion is turned sour. No plants will grow
in the usherlands. And then also that friends in Boston keep asking about Madeline, and she seems encouraged by this, but Roderick looks irritated at the delivery of this news. So after supper, Philip and Madeline they go up to the sitting room I guess with Roderick, and they listen to him giving a little concert. He places loot. Remember
the lute from earlier. Roderick says, yes, I play the lute, but I don't know listening in this scene, does he play it Either sounds like he is just now learning and kind of improvising, or he is so advanced as a lute player that now he is only interested in like non rhythmic twelve tone compositions.
At the very least, it's it's you know, he can only handle these very soft sounds. He gentle music. So yeah, maybe it's he's into some sort of like weird or deep ambient kind of a thing. Or or yeah, it's like I don't need to learn to play this lute all that much because this is about all I can handle anyway.
Yeah, I am I am cursed. It is forbidden for me to play in a key, so I shall only pluck the notes at random, and then Philip says, remarkable, you composed it yourself. But Philip kind of like he can't get enough of the twelve tone lute. He's like, give me another, let's hear song. But Roderick insists with a severe expression, that now Madeleine must go to sleep. In fact, all three of them must go to sleep.
It is nice seven point thirty p m. All to bed.
So there's another scene later that night where Philip sneaks into Madeleine's room to talk with her in secret. He tells her that in the morning he wants to take her away from the house if she'll let him. What is Madeleine's state of mind again, She seems conflicted, Like she she does buy into the idea that she is sick from a curse and terrible things could befall them if she were to leave, But also you can tell
that she wants to leave. She's excited by the idea, and something kind of comes alive within her at the idea of escaping with the man she loves. So she's sort of in the middle position between the two other characters. Roderick is fully convinced of the Usher curse, Philip doesn't believe it at all, and Madeleine is torn in between the two ideas. But this scene takes an interesting turn
because Roderick suddenly appears at the door. Remember he's got super sensitive hearing, so he hears anytime someone is talking in the house. He's stern and angry at first, and tries to send Philip to bed, but after Madeleine shows a bit of defiance, shows that maybe the spell is breaking and she might want to leave the house with Philip, Roderick then changes tack, and he sort of turns and becomes pathetic and pitiable, which I think you could interpret
multiple ways. As I've said, this movie and Price's performance and contain a lot of ambiguities that you could read in different directions. But I think you could certainly interpret this as a kind of emotional manipulation. If he can't convince her that she has to stay for her own wellbeing, you know something bad will happen to her if she leaves. I guess something bad is going to happen to her anyway, Maybe he can at least recruit her to stay on behalf of his feelings and his well being.
Yeah, yeah, I think it's important to note that this is a film where you just had it on the background. You could think of it as just like, okay, here's Vincent Price and Vincent Price role. But there are a lot of little nuances to the way he plays all of these decisions and all of these actions from his character. I feel like any prime Vincent Price performance is going to be, you know, a masterclass in its own way.
You know, sometimes he's more hamming it up. Sometimes there are more subtleties, but he's never just going through the motions. So certainly at this period in his career. Yeah, by the time we get to them up at show, you know, maybe but not here.
So later that night and yes, still the same twenty four hour period, the scenes just keep piling up. Before daybreak, Philip is lying in bed and then he hears a bunch of weird sounds echoing through the house. So he runs around, investigating the sounds and looking for Madeline. He sees some creepy sits along the way, like wind blowing
in through the windows. There's a staircase railing that gives way under his hand, there's a heavy door creaking open and shut over and over, and Philip eventually follows the sounds into the mansion's chapel. There's a chapel inside the house where he finds Madeline sprawled out I believe, on the altar, asleep, and Bristol, the butler, comes in to tell him that Madeleine often sleep walks and ends up
here in the chapel. Bristol says that she is obsessed by thoughts of death and has been ever since her return from Boston. So Bristol takes Madeline back to her bed, and then the next morning there's a scene where Philip comes into the kitchen. Bristol is here again, and now he's boiling a huge cauldron of gruel over and open fire. And I'm looking at that. I'm thinking, I don't know how many gallons of ruel that is, but who is going to eat all that gruel? There are four people in this house.
Well, freeesome for later, you know, you give me want leftovers.
So Philip says he's gonna take breakfast up to up to Madeline in bed. He's like, hey, how about some eggs for my Madeline? And Bristol is like, oh no, no, no, sir, not eggs much too threatening to the taste buds. She will only want gruel. Eggs are one of the exotic flavors.
Eggs are too spicy for the ushers.
Yes, so gruel it is. We also get more, like more of the crumbling house attacks, like at one point, Philip is standing by the gruel cauldron talking to Bristol and the cauldron like the wall is sort of shaking and the cauldron swings toward him, but Bristol is like, oh careful, sir.
Well, I mean, if your gruel is pretty thick, you're gonna get some bubbles and you could get splattered. I mean, that's just that's just gruel one on one.
Yeah. So after this, there's a very funny scene where Winthrop awkwardly tries to feed Madeline gruel in bed. He's like, come on, eat up, honey. She's not angry, not even for gruel, and he tries to cheer her up by opening the windows and letting sunshine in. Tries to convince her once again to come back to Boston with him, but in this scene she seems to have regressed to her original state of hopelessness. She tells him soon I shall be dead, and he obviously does not like hearing this.
He tries to remind her of how happy and full of life she was in Boston, but she says, maybe you'll understand once you see see what. Well, it's time to go investigate the family crypt here. We're going to get another kind of partial explanation of what is going on. So underneath the mansion there is a subterranean crypt full of bones of all of Madeline and Roderick Usher's ancestors.
She shows Philip the coffins one by one, going down the line and listing their names and saying their relationship to her, until finally she gets to the spot of her own coffin, which is empty and waiting for her. And Philip hates this. He's like, there's a coffin here with your name on it. This is monstrous. She says, it waits for me. And as a side note, I think the crypt set here is nice. By the way the characters talk about how there's something wrong with the
air in the crypt. They never fully explain that, but I like that just as a little like detail that kind of excites the mind, like, oh, could there be something in the air that's causing a problem. Or are they just saying like it is evil in here Mmm?
Yeah, yeah, who knows what's like leaking up through the earth into this mansion, though it also also seems like there's a lot of evil leaking out of this mansion into the earth.
Yeah, exactly. So, once again, Madeleine says to Philip that he just doesn't understand. And there is something I think very effectively unsettling about this repeated theme that multiple times characters tell Philip that there's something wrong but he doesn't understand, and then they don't explain it immediately, like you know, I'm soon to die. This coffin waits for me, and he's like, why would you say that you can live? And she can't explain. All she can do is tell
him that he doesn't understand. I think the idea that there is some understanding that would make sense of this all but it can't be explained to him or can't be explained yet, is very creepy.
Yeah.
Yeah, And I feel like Matheson in the script here is really, you know, touching on the actual gap that often exists between my experience and your experience, between my mental state and your mental state, and it can feel like there's something that can't be bridged there, you know, at least not with the tools that one has immediately at their disposal.
Yeah.
Yeah, Oh. In the scene we get another house attack. There's a coffin scare, like a coffin falls out of the wall, nearly crushes the two of them, but they dodge out of the way, and then Madeline faints once again, and Roderick arrives and carries her away. So in the next scene we finally are going to get some explanation. Roderick says it is time for Philip to understand. So they go out on the balcony overlooking the twisted marsh below, and Roderick says, the tarn is very deep. One of
the Usher women drowned herself in it. She was never found. I dare say, it's deep enough to swallow this house entire. And then there's another little exchange, but Usher goes on to I again want to quote his monologue here because I think it's great. Roderick says, once this land was fertile, farms abounded, earth yielded her riches. At harvest time, there were trees and plant life, flowers, fields of grain. There was great beauty here at that time. This water was
clear and fresh. Swans glided upon its crystal surface. Animals came to its bank trustingly to drink. But this was long before my time. And then something crept across the land and blighted it. The trees lost their foliage, the flowers languished, and shrubs grew brown and shriveled. The grain fields perished, the lakes and ponds became black and stagnant, and the land withered as before a plague, a plague
of evil. And here Roderick takes Philip inside to show him the paintings, the paintings that we alluded to earlier, of the portraits of his ancestors. So we go through them one by one and we see each painting, and then Roderick names his relative and then begins to list sort of the high points of each relative's biography, which are mostly negative epithets and lists of crimes. So it
turns out all of the Usher ancestors were horrible. They were thieves, swindlers, betrayers, blackmailers, liars, exploiters, slave traders, murderers, and assassins.
Yeah, this Rundown reminds me a lot of the card game Gloom. I don't know if you're familiar with with this one. It has kind of like an Edward Gory kind of vibe to it, where you're trying to like play the most cursed upper crust family.
I'm alware of it, but I've never played it.
It's pretty fun, as Zarich, it's been a number of years, but it has this kind of vibe like who can out usher the other player.
Who has the most evil ancestor?
But oh yeah, this tour of the worst of the worst in the Usher family is tremendous, and we have illustrations. Of course, we have those wonderful, dark, grotesque portraits of each individual, each one not as much a photorealistic image of the individual, but like a psychic portrait of their soul.
Yeah. So I included some screenshots of these paintings here in the outline for you to look at. Robie, do you want to comment on any individually. I think this first one mentioned Anthony Usher, is interesting because it is h This is supposed to be like an evil old man, but this face looks almost childlike in a way, except the face rendered with these sort of jigsaw puzzle lines running through it. But it's you know, pictured with these like large eyes with large dilated pupils, cannoting a kind
of I don't even know how to explain it. It's it looks like a kind of evil innocence.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think so. It's it's hard to really put it in words. Yeah, but those those eyes are wide and curious and kind of innocent. But the rest is almost decade and patchwork.
There's another one that shows a man who whose eyes are hidden in shadow, but it's like his outline is sort of sort of shifting through the air so that he actually does not have a fixed outline at the back of his neck and his head. Instead, there are like these multiple lines that just blur out into this cloud of red, as if he is taking form out of a mist of blood.
Yeah, this one has a has strong vampiric elements to it, like get a sense of like biological disorder, like inner disease or disease of the soul. And you know, virtually no eyes, just dark pits as well, so less innocence with this particular character.
Yeah. And then we also see probably the most infernal looking boat Captain picture I've ever seen.
Oh yes, oh my goodness, the boat Captain was like just the burning ember eyes. Yeah, like he this is the guy who volunteers to bring Dragula to England. Like this is He's like, yeah, bloawed him up.
But so the point is that going back through time before Roderick and Madeleine, everyone in the Usher line seems to have been, in one way or another, the worst kind of person imaginable, someone who becomes rich by destroying the lives of others and then, at least in terms of the external world, gets away with it. But do they really get away with it because a lot of these people were told end ups. It's something bad does happen to them. But it's not like they face justice
from outside. It's like they go mad or they're taken ill or something.
Yeah. Yeah, like they don't. They don't get their come uppance in a real firm manner like they in the sense that they they stay rich, they stay highly successful in their own deplorable fields, and then the rest of our world, the world just kind of looks on is like, well, yeah, of course the Ushers got away with it. Again, that's what they do. And here we are.
So Philip protests. He is like, but sir, you cannot believe that the sins of the father should be visited upon the children. And Roderick says you do not, sir. Then the House of Usher seems to you normal. And then Philip says it is neither normal nor abnormal. It is only a house. And I think this plays on another interesting theme in the movie, that the duality the
different meanings of the word house in English. So it is the house of Usher that we're told is evil and cur and house can mean the literal building, an ancestral family dwelling which seems infused with wickedness and crumbles kind of pointedly with the intent to cause harm. But also the word house is used to refer to a lineage a family, usually an aristocratic or royal one, as in the House of Windsor. It's kind of interesting that you only use the word house to refer to a
family if it's like a prominent, rich family. And adding to that, there's this kind of overlap with the idea of the curse here in the two meanings of house, because if the idea is that the ancestors of the Usher line became rich by way of their sins. It is their wickedness that generated the money to buy the land and build the physical house, which are the physical things that are now cursed. So the reason they have a mansion and a vast estate is because of the evil crimes of the past.
Yeah, all of these things that were purchased and acquired via that wealth is tainted by the acts that generated it.
So Roderick explains his theory that evil is not just a word, it is a substance, a living reality, and like any living thing, it can be created and was created by his ancestors. And now the evil they created lives on within the house. Again, the ambiguity, he says house so is that the building or the living descendants or both, and it will live on as long as the house still exists, which is why Roderick insists that
neither he nor Madeleine should ever have children. It would be to allow the evil to live on for another generation. So Roderick says explicitly that all of the near fatal accidents that have occurred since Philip arrived were not accidents. It is the evil of the house lashing out trying to kill Philip and Philip violently rejects this. He says, no, Roderick, the evil in this house is you. I will not let your sick can fantasies destroy Madeleine's life. She leaves
with me today. And when he yells price again, he shows the fragility. He clutches his ears and he shrinks in pain.
You know, this is a common response in films when there's a new theory regarding the nature of evil. It reminds me a little bit of the nineteen seventy three British horror film The Creeping Flesh, which is not one of my favorites. It's a little I don't know. I don't like the mouth feel of this particular one, but it has Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing in it, and one of the characters. At one point it's like I
have made a breakthrough in the nature of evil. Evil is real and we can put it under a microscope and study it. Look look at the evil, and you know it's always a controversial hypothesis.
Now regarding the evil is you interpretation of the story referring to Roderick here, one thing I think worth mentioning is that it is never are made explicit in the movie, but there is sort of an unspoken theme that a lot of viewers have picked up on in like film critics literary critics talking about the story over the years.
It could be implied that Roderick is acting in a way out of jealousy, that in fact, he has desire for his own sister and he wants to control her and keep her at the house because he can't stand
the thought of her going away and marrying Philip. I think that's a plausible reading of the evil as you interpretation of the story, though the evil is you could also be true about Roderick and simply be that he's so wrapped up in his delusions about the physical manifestation of evil caused by the horrible ancestors that he unknowingly projects this delusion onto Madeline and unnecessarily warps her mind
and ruins her life as well. But then another interpretation is that the external evil is real and Roderick is correct. And I think the interesting thing is that it's possible to take the movie on any of these interpretations.
Yeah, though I think the middle is the more. It's the one I lean more towards. I think it's the more interesting of the concepts, you know, because if it's just him, you know, creeping on her and having designs for her, I don't know that's you know, that's gross and all, but it's not matter. It only gets me so far. And then like the actual physical reality of evil too. I mean that, you know, definitely gets into
a nice supernatural zone. But it's that that middle area, that idea that it's just like sheer projection of paranoia and and and shame and uh and so forth from Roderic, Like just this is the sheer power of his dark thoughts, you know, uh, in a non supernatural way. Like I feel like that's very compelling.
I agree, that is also my preferred interpretation. But I thought it was worth mentioning the three different ways because I've seen sort of u people writing about this movie that take it all three.
Yeah, And I do like that ambiguity in a film, you know, where you're open to your own interpretation.
Anyway, After this confrontation between Philip and Roderick, Philip goes to Madeleine's room and makes one last bid to convince her remember she's been vacillating. She'll say like, yeah, okay, let's go and then like, no, no, I'm cursed. I have to stay. So he's like, you've got to leave with me. There is nothing wrong with you that leaving this house won't cure. And Hope kind of gathers in her mind again and she says, yes, I will go,
and they kiss. She seems afraid but also excited. So they got to pack their things and get ready to go. But while they are packing their things and they're in their separate rooms, Roderick goes into Madeleine's room and begins to argue with her, reminding her of all the evils and calamities that he says will occur if she leaves
the house. And tensions rise, and you can hear Philip hears through the wall that they begin to yell, which is, you know, that's not normal normally everybody keeps the Library voice in this house. And phil Pilip finally hears Madeleine's scream and when he comes into the room, Roderick is standing at the window and Madeleine is lying on her sheets, apparently dead. Now Philip yells at Roderick, you killed her, but Roderick says, no, there is no mark on her.
You are the one who killed her. He's like, I warned you, and I warned you. Her heart could not withstand the strain of leaving, the strain you put upon her. At least she's now been spared the agony of trying to escape. One candle left to burn. Now before the darkness.
Comes way to go, Philip, you killed her.
And the interesting thing is that Philip and Roderick have been at opposite ends of this, and Madeleine's been in the middle. Roderick's like, there's a curse. Madeleine is sick. Philip is like, there's not a curse. She's not sick, she's fine, And they're both sort of trying to convince Madeline. But now that Madeleine is apparently dead, you start to
see Philip succumbing to Roderick's interpretation. So they're like in the family chapel praying over Madeleine's body, and you can see Philip is is filled with guilt, and he even asks in a subsequent scene he's he's talking to Bristol later and he's like, could it be that I that I did this, that I, you know, excited her her illness and I killed her? Like he is starting to buy into the curse theory.
Now he's been there too long. He's becoming a part of the House of Usher.
Yeah. Oh, and then there's a part that did make me laugh out loud. When they're there. The two of them are in the chapel praying over Madeleine's dead body with the open casket, and Roderick is like, oh, by the way, she's not at peace, now she's in hell. All ushers go to hell.
That is deliciously awful, isn't it.
Yeah, And Philip's just like shut up. But so they start this vigorous bickering. But one thing we the audience see, and Roderick sees, but Philip does not see, is that Madeline's fingers begin to flex and stretch. Uh oh. So Roderick catches a glimpse of the and he quickly snaps the coffin lid shut, and it's like, okay, quickly, let's
carry her coffin down to the crypt. Hurry up now, And so the mourners leave the chapel, they shut the crypt, and we zoom slowly on the coffin until finally we hear Madeleine scream, and we have arrived at the most classic of Edgar Allan Poe theme's premature burial. That's right, So now everything is building up to the climax. The next morning, Philip is getting ready to leave. He again
is buying into the Roderick theory. He's distraught the ideas have gotten to him, and he's worried that he really did kill Madeline by putting these ideas in her head about leaving the house. But Bristol, the butler, is trying to console Philip, and he lets slip that, you know, Madeleine, she suffered from many health conditions, and there were many
health conditions that run in the family. He starts to list them, you know, nervous conditions, something you know, a failure of the heart, and then he starts to say, but catches himself catalepsy, which is a condition where people fall into a kind of unconscious trance or spontaneous coma where they are immobile and can appear to be dead, but they're not. Philip hears this and he realizes what it means. What if Madeleine was still alive and only
appeared to have died. What if she has been buried alive in the crypt so Philip. He freaks out. He runs down under the house into the chamber. He finds Madeleine's coffin strangely wrapped shut with a padlocked chain, and then he goes and finds an axe, breaks the chain open, only to discover that the coffin is empty. That's not good, So Philip goes and confronts Roderick, wanting to know where Madeleine is, and Roderick, he doesn't try to deny it.
He says she's in a secret place and he won't tell. And Philip threatens Roderick with the axe, but Roderick is not moved. He does not back down. He says, go on, you would be doing me a great favor. And so again it's interesting here, how so physically unthreatening Roderick is in this scene. He has all the power, but he's so physically weak, so fragile. He cringes and cowers in pain when Philip yells at him, and when Philip threatens him with an axe with violence, he's just like, go
ahead and do it. So it's a very unusual and fascinating power dynamic in the drama.
Yeah, it's like you can kill me, and you know, and I'll go to Hell where I belong, but just don't raise your voice or touch my garments. And because it just can't take that.
Right, So Philip is he's searching all over the house looking for Madeline. He eventually he just becomes totally exhausted and passes out. And here we get a great dream sequence where Philip wanders through an altered version of the House of Usher, filled with blue fog, and eventually makes his way into the chapel, which has all of the horrible Usher ancestors moaning at him and reaching out to
grab his flesh. And when Philip goes to the head of the chapel, he finds Madeline's coffin, occupied only by a skeleton. And then he searches further and further deeper into the dream, and somewhere in the dream he can't find her, but he imagines Madeline alive, still covered in flesh, trapped in her coffin and screaming wide eyed in terror. I love the dream.
Sequence, absolutely wonderful.
Yeah.
Yeah, So anyway, when Philip wakes up, he goes to Roderick's room, where Roderick is just sitting there plucking his lute and Phillip's like, you murdered your sister, mister usher, and I intend to see that you hang for it, and Roderick says, arrange it quickly. Then the old house crumbles the time window is closing, but Roderick goes on. He starts another monologue where he's like, if you only knew the agonies I have spared you in this world
that I have endured on your behalf. Did you know I could hear the scratching of her fingernails on the casket lid? Did you know I could hear her screaming my name for help? And then Roderick seems he suddenly like it's like something seizes him and he calls out, be done, be done. And Philip realizes what this means. Madeleine is still alive and Roderick can hear her screaming for help now, so Roderick rants and raves in agony.
He can hear her scratching and all that, but Philip doesn't know where to find her, and we cut away. We see a chained coffin, a different chained coffin with Madeline's bloody fingers reaching out through the crack. Ooh, it's a chilling image and then finally Philip, Roderick and Bristol.
They run around. Philip is trying to find her. He makes his way into another part of the crypt where the coffins of the Ushers have all been pulled out of their places, and the skeletons the bones are scattered across the floor, and they find Madeleine's secret coffin thrown open. The chain's broken. So here's the payoff of the monologue we got in Act one where Roderick says, oh, she
has the madness. Remember the madness he mentioned earlier where his relatives all go mad and gain the strength of many men. So Philip at this point is running through the house, finding and unlocking secret passageways to locate Madeleine. Roderick arms himself with a pistol, but is that going to do any good? Could you possibly imagine it? Would?
We finally get the ultimate climax of the film, where I don't want to spoil too much, but for a movie that is mostly kind of visually subdued apart from like the paintings and the dream sequence, when we finally see Madeleine in her madness, in her glorious madness, with her hands covered in rivulets of blood from where she has scratched her fingernails away on the inside of the coffin. Her eyes are just wide with absolute terror and insanity. Her hair is thrown back. They cast these like these
amazing blue lights over her face. She is awesome to behold.
Yeah, She's like a bansheet or a wraith, you know. She has that kind of energy to her avengeful spirit.
And of course we get avengeful final confrontation, whereas the house is fully crumbling. Everything's on fire now, the House of Usher is meeting its ultimate physical demise. Also Madeleine confronts her brother and she takes him by the neck and strangles Roderic amidst all the fire and the smoke and the falling rubble, and it's a tremendous and terrifying climax.
Absolutely yeah, Oh my goodness. Like the mansion looked amazing earlier in the picture, and as a fiery husk consumed in this cataclysm, it also looks amazing. The curse comes to full fruition here, just absolutely apocalyptic.
Yeah, And so Philip is the only one who survives. The house burns and collapses, and then as he walks away, comes out of the gate, wanders into the swamp, with everything he loved destroyed. We see the final quote from the original post story. The words appear on the screen, and the deep and dank tarn at my feet closed, sullenly and silently over the fragments of the house busher.
Fabulous, fabulous, And of course the moral of the story is never meet your significant other's family. Just don't do it.
So again, a different, different kind of film, a different kind of proposition than Mask of the Red Death, which is wilder and more visually extravagant, and you know, has more kind of variety in it and all that. But I think for what it is as a tighter, cozier tale of the macabre, House of Usher is really strong.
Yeah, this is a film that vibes hard. Again, It's maybe not the ideal viewing experience for you if you want something a little more action based or something that's going to hit you a lot of jump scares. But in terms of like just pure gothic horror po vibes, it's hard to beat House of Usher.
So happy Halloween, everybody.
Yeah, yeah, this is a fun one. I enjoyed watching that. I'd never seen it before, and I originally enjoyed the experience. It's a good film to really focus on, but I mean, you could have it on in the background and it would still be very visually pleasing, but it's also a good one to really dive into. All Right, well, we're going to go ahead and close it out here, but just a reminder that while Stuffed About Your Mind is primarily a science podcast with core episodes on Tuesdays and
Thursday science and culture podcast on Fridays. You know, we have to we have to release a little steam. We've we've got to dive into some weird films and talk about those. So hey, you know, you get stressful weeks ahead, don't worry. Weird House Cinema will be here for you. In fact, next week's is going to be a nice
Halloween selection as well. I can't promise anything, but I'm hoping we can maybe even get it out like just a little after midnight on Halloween Eve, you know, so it's technically on Friday, but it's but it's actually Thursday, you know, that sort of thing. We'll see what we can do.
We'll do our best.
Yeah, and If you want a full list of all the movies we've covered on Weird House over the years, you can go to letterbox dot com. That's L E T T E R B O x D dot com. Our username is weird House. We have a nice list there. You can explore that. If you're on Instagram, st b ym podcast and that's where we also update you on what's happening on Weird House. And if you go to stuff to Blow your Mind dot com or the link tree on Instagram, you can eventually get to our tea
public store. We have some new Halloween designs in there that we've been asked to promote, and I think they're pretty cool. If you need a shirt, you need a sticker, it's fun. It's there for fun. We don't need you to buy a shirt or a sticker, but if you would like to, it's there for you.
Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Jjposway. If you would like to get in touch with us with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest a topic for the future, or just to say hello, you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.