The Haunted Palace / The Tower of London
by Roger Corman
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Debra Paget, Joan Freeman, Michael Pate, Robert Brown, Vincent PriceDirector: Roger Corman
Producer: Edward Small
Writer: Charles Beaumont
Writer: F. Amos Powell
Writer: Francis Ford Coppola
Writer: H.P. Lovecraft
Writer: Leo Gordon
Writer: Robert E. Kent
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
Format: Anamorphic, Black & White, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, Letterboxed, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.66:1
Running Time: 157 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2003-08-26
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
Movie Reviews of The Haunted Palace / The Tower of London
Movie Review: Arguably Corman's best movie.
Summary: 4 Stars
The Haunted Palace (Roger Corman, 1963)
Corman recruits a mountain of Hollywood's most talented for a flick originally titled Edgar Allan Poe's The Haunted Palace, which was all well and good until some wag pointed out that "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward" was, in fact, written by H. P. Lovecraft. Poe's appellation got yanked (though there's still a Poe epigraph), and The Haunted Palace was reborn. Which is a very good thing, because it's rare to find this many huge names in one film. In one low-budget piece of crap cranked out by Roger Corman's film factory? Impossible, you might say. But no!
Vincent Price plays Charles Dexter Ward, the last of a long line of very rich guys, who inherits the family pile after the death of the second-to-last of the very rich guys. He and his wife Ann (Debra Paget) drop by to see the mansion, and stop to ask directions in the nearest town. Once the residents discover who he is, the reception turns very, very chilly, with the expected old guy telling them to hightail it out of town before they're devoured by the ghosties, ghoulies, and long-leggetie beasties, or what have you. Ward understandably scoffs, earning the respect of the one guy in town who's willing to help them (yeah, there's always one), and off they go. Once they get there, however, it seems maybe the townsfolk were right; Ward gradually changes, becoming more and more like his insane great-times-however grandfather, Joseph Curwen (also played by Price), who was obsessed with reviving his dead wife. Who, of course, bears a striking resemblance to Ann.
Okay, so you've got Price, an instant draw, and Paget. But then you dig into the minor characters... Lon Chaney, Jr. Elisha Cook Jr. I. Stanford Jolley. Milton Parsons. Frank Maxwell. It's a jaw-dropping cast, and the level of acting in here is as high as you'd expect. Lovecraft adaptations tend to either the silly (viz. Stuart Gordon's) or the horrendous (viz. Brian Yuzna's) or some combination of the two, but somehow Corman actually managed to pull it off. (Of course, as with all of Corman's adaptations, it is, shall we say, a tad on the loose side.) But then, with the cast he was able to assemble for this, do you even need a script? They could sit around a card table and improvise and you'd have a great movie. (Come to think of it, Wilder did this with a scene or two in Sunset Blvd....)
Even if you've never been a fan of Corman's corny low-budget flicks, give this one a look. You may very well be surprised. *** ?
Summary of The Haunted Palace / The Tower of London
THE HAUNTED PALACE TOWER OF LONDONHorror DVD Video
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