No name in show business conjures up cobwebs and the decaying halls of an ancient manor like Vincent Price. From his distinctively nasal and hauntingly resonant inflections to his debonair yet devious visage, the actor’s decades of work in the horror genre churned out more essential spooky classics than almost any other in the industry.
It seems only fitting then that this maestro of the macabre would have had an affinity for the work of a different horror hero, the prolific poetry of the great Edgar Allan Poe. Price was an actor known for his singular dedication to his performances, but nowhere was his abounding prowess more palpable than when he was bringing to life one of Poe’s ghastly visions.
While this was perhaps most famously represented by Roger Corman’s run of Poe adaptations in the early 1960s, it was not until the following decade that the actor was able to fully realize his adulation for the writer’s legacy. As the 70s approached, Price had already been established as a household name and his more than thirty year long career afforded him a popularity that welcomed an open invitation into people’s homes by way of broadcast television. This avenue of entertainment offered a path to more personal, interpretative and direct artistry that the movies could rarely afford.
Kenneth Johnson, a young Executive Producer, recognized this when Vincent Price made several guest appearances on the popular daytime talk show The Mike Douglas Show in the late 1960s. Instead of simply conversing with the host, Johnson suggested that Price leverage his talents and persona to make a more memorable mark. A podium was erected on the stage, the studio lights were extinguished and Price was given a copy of The Tell Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe. Without rehearsing, Price read the poem and the audience was utterly enthralled, making for what many felt was one of the more memorable moments of the long running program.
Kenneth Johnson transformed that one reading into a pitch for a TV special several years later. Sitting in Price’s Spanish mansion drinking tea, Johnson, along with Price and his family, hammered out the details: four Poe stories, all written in the first person and all of them performed by Price. It was to be a One Man Show, in many ways the culmination of the work he had begun with Roger Corman and American International Pictures (AIP) ten years before.
As he was under contract with AIP, the studio was brought in to produce, making plans to include the special in a syndication package alongside the accompanying Poe films. Four stories were chosen. First, The Tell Tale Heart, a story that had once been passed on by Roger Corman because he felt it was too bloody and unpleasant, as well as the impetus for the special. Second would be The Sphinx, one of Price’s personal favorites. Following that was The Cask of Amontillado and finally The Pit and the Pendulum, two stories that had been loosely adapted in previous Corman films by Price himself. With rented sets from Universal and a storied Hollywood soundstage prepared, the experiment was ready to go.
Vincent Price and Kenneth Johnson met with one another every day for two weeks at Price’s home, rehearsing and refining the readings. It was paramount to both parties that each performance was altogether distinct, that each voice and character was entirely their own, with richly realized nuances, histories and motivations. During this time, Price memorized every single line, disregarding the prepared cue cards when it came time to film.
The end result was An Evening of Edgar Allan Poe (1970), an ode to the sort of spirited, spooky and eerie irreverence that was omnipresent in the Halloween TV specials of a bygone age. Peppered with ornate, yellow lettering, separating the stories into “ACTS” and wipes that transition frames using a cheesy blood dripping effect, the whole affair embodies a wholesome, homegrown presentation made all the more impressive when considering the profundity of the performance at its center.
Price seamlessly creates an entire world in each 15-20 minute segment, commanding the screen and crafting subtle gradations of character evolution through every turn of phrase and each layered glance. In The Tell Tale Heart, a story based on actual superstition and infused with an unreliable narrator, Price exhibits the guilty soul of a man whose mania has grown to outweigh his own sense of self-preservation with urgency and an overt sense of crazed emotionality. His brimming excitement, coupled with the dark acknowledgement of the truth progressively shining more and more clearly behind his strained eyes, drives the story to its inevitable conclusion, absorbing the viewer as his frenzy rages.
The Sphinx offers a very different character and setting. Instead of an unhinged and unkempt lunatic, the viewer is presented with a thoughtful man in a suit, telling his story from the warm den of a wealthy soul who is well traveled and soundly educated. It’s this legitimization that makes the story he tells of an astounding, terrifying creature all the more fantastic and still, somehow, real. Price manifests fear here with careful, quiet recognition while he espouses his story, almost seeming to forget himself as his external composure falters throughout.
In The Cask of Amontillado Price is confident, boisterous and a bit of a lush. He tells his tale of dark revenge with pleasure, relishing each detail with pride, a stark divergence from the character exhibited in The Tell Tale Heart. The scene cuts from two separate angles, accompanied by contrasting lighting set ups to distinguish between the doomed Fortunado and the self-assured Montresor, cementing Price’s unique portrayals as distinctly different entities.
The Pit and the Pendulum finds Price as a prisoner in a dungeon, recounting his painful and terrifying experiences during the Spanish Inquisition. His face is lined with agony, torture and years of terror that will never leave him. Appropriately manic, there’s an immediacy with which he expresses his experiences that places the viewer in the position of one whose destiny seems fated to doom. This segment employs a significant amount of in-video effects, placing Price in fire, tied to tables covered in rats and spiraling into a dark abyss in a manner reminiscent of an old PBS documentary that comes off more charming than distracting.
Together, the stories offer singular windows into the soul, exploring terror and its effect on that intangible part of the human spirit. Vincent Price delivers four thoroughly different experiences, simultaneously offering a diverse sampler of Edgar Allan Poe’s impressive works and showcasing his immense capabilities as an actor. Under Kenneth Johnson’s complimentary direction, An Evening of Edgar Allan Poe stands as a 53 minute tribute to and representation of Vincent Price’s all encompassing dedication to the horror genre and its merits, Price himself saying that it was not only the best thing he had ever done in his thirty year career, but his favorite.
Vincent Price is a name that evokes the creepy, gothic cornerstone of horror’s foundation. An inimitable presence that will cast a shadow along the long, dusty, cobweb-encrusted halls of the genre for the rest of time. His sprawling career led to a staggering number of classic films, but few represent the zeal with which he committed himself to his work than An Evening of Edgar Allan Poe. It may not have had the production value of many of Vincent Price’s most famous works, but the personality afforded by the 4×3, standard definition, DIY TV special suits the feeling that what’s on screen contains the heart and soul of one of the horror genre’s most beloved personalities.
