Reviews of movies with Vincent Price.
Thursday, April 10th 2008
Grade: C+
Synopsis: A priest (Gregory Peck) spends his life growing a Catholic mission in China.
The Keys of the Kingdom is a very well made, albeit a bit talky, drama, featuring a great performance by Gregory Peck.
The script by Joseph L. Mankiewicz and Nunnally Johnson has a lot of exposition, which makes for a rough start. Instead of showing us, the film tells us how Gregory Peck’s character had to work twice as hard as everyone else did, and how he tried and failed at several perishes. To make matters worse, the things the film does show early on, such has Peck’s character’s somewhat traumatic childhood, are ruined by stiff performances. You’d have thought Roddy McDowell was in a library given how weakly he cried out for his parents when they were in jeopardy. Still, the story’s epic scope and the film’s good production compensate for the opening missteps, as do the performances by Peck and Thomas Mitchell. MORE »
Posted at 1:19 PM in Movie Reviews and Vincent Price.
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Tuesday, March 4th 2008
Grade: D+
Synopsis: In a creepy old mansion, a mystery writer and her guests find themselves stalked by a masked killer known as “The Bat.”
The Bat should have been a William Castle film. Castle would have injected just the right amount of black humor to go along with the mystery, effectively offsetting the film’s biggest weakness: its female supporting cast.
Alas, instead of Castle, we have Crane Wilbur who does a descent job creating atmosphere, and elicits good performances out of leads Vincent Price and Agnes Moorehead, and workable turns from supporting players John Sutton and Gavin Gordon, but fails horribly with the female supporting players, especially Lenita Lane. MORE »
Posted at 11:34 AM in Movie Reviews and Vincent Price.
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Tuesday, January 29th 2008
Grade: D+
Synopsis: After suffering a nervous breakdown, an actor (Vincent Price) reluctantly revives his Dr. Death character at the urging of his screenwriter friend (Peter Cushing) and producer (Robert Quarry).
Madhouse is a campy horror in the vein of Price’s earlier The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971) and Theater of Blood (1973). Unfortunately, Madhouse has neither the stylish design of the former, nor the over-the-top absurdity of the later, and, as a result, is disappointing, especially given the cast.
Vincent Price is fine as the lead, though the script by Ken Levison and Greg Morrison does little to tailor the role. A few more asides and in-jokes (aside from the clips of Price’s earlier American International pictures) would have gone a long way. MORE »
Posted at 3:28 PM in Movie Reviews, Peter Cushing and Vincent Price.
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Wednesday, December 26th 2007
Grade: B
Synopsis: An actor (Vincent Price) exacts revenge on his critics with murders inspired by the plays of William Shakespeare.
Theater of Blood improves upon the formula established by Vincent Price’s earlier The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971).
Once again we have Price as the calculating anti-hero, murdering his way through the film in a novel and themed manner, once again the police are befuddled and ineffective, but the big change is in the victims: instead of surgeons who may have been responsible for a death, they’re critics who certainly gave bad reviews. Further, these critics, with the exception of Ian Hendry’s Peregrine Devlin, are draw as such unlikable characters, that you can’t help but root for Price’s character as he dispatches them in colorful, and darkly hilarious, ways. MORE »
Posted at 5:43 PM in Movie Reviews and Vincent Price.
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Wednesday, December 26th 2007
Grade: B-
Synopsis: A doctor (Vincent Price) seeks revenge in the form of biblical plagues on the nine surgeons he holds responsible for his wife’s death.
The Abominable Dr. Phibes is a great black comedy.
Vincent Price is great as the titular Phibes, a living corpse who exists solely to exact revenge on those he holds responsible for his wife’s death. The script by James Whiton and William Goldstein wisely paints Phibes as a driven, misunderstood anti-hero, thus allowing the audience to perversely root for him as he murders his way through the story.
Providing a solid counter-point for the driven, calculating Phibes, is Peter Jeffrey’s Inspector Trout, who muddles through most of the film perpetually one-step behind Phibes and befuddled by his actions. Again, the script wisely paints Trout not as a stupid man, but rather one simply in over his head, without any real support. Thus, the audience is free to like Trout, without feeling too bad when Phibes constantly gets the best of him. MORE »
Posted at 4:27 PM in Movie Reviews and Vincent Price.
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