Recent Viewings, Part 2

[M.10rda]

THE HAUNTED PALACE (1963):
Well, at least the palace is really haunted in this one. I never really get on with the Corman/Poe/Price canon - they tend to be slow and by the numbers. Corman put his money in Price and whatever was left he invested in art direction and lighting; he just wasn't too concerned about the material. THE HAUNTED PALACE borrows its title from a short Poe-m  but borrows some of its plot from Lovecraft's "Case of Charles Dexter Ward", so in that respect it's a bit less predictable than Corman's USHER or PENDULUM. It also has a screenplay co-written by Francis Ford Coppola (?!) and a few good lines for Price therein. But even so, it's a leisurely stroll.......

Price and his wife Debra Paget move into his spooky ancestral mansion. There's a painting on the wall of his great-grandfather, a lynched warlock who's eager to take over Price's body and get to the bloody work of vengeance. Lon Chaney Jr. is the estate's manservant and it's diverting to watch him and Price play opposite each other. Elisha Cook Jr. and Leo Gordon are the descendants upon which Granddaddy Price wants revenge; AIP fixture Bruno VeSota also pops up. Paget doesn't work too hard, and Price mostly looks confused or intense. He does have a really nice acting moment at the end, as Bad Price, where even Bad Price admits he is a pawn of cosmic forces beyond his ken. (Hey, weak plotting can be scarier than an Elder God!)

Some sort of physical manifestation of evil does appear, briefly and in blurry focus, in a magical portal. Then during a climactic inferno it disappears (off-camera), along w/ Chaney and some other evil henchmen. I wish Francis and Charles Beaumont had explained more what happened at the end, or maybe they did and Roger ran out of money to shoot that part. 

I almost put this in "Bad Movies". It's mostly competent and sometimes enjoyable. For a while I was thinking that the print was discolored because Bad Price and Chaney and company looked so pale and yellow in close-ups. Then floral-pink Paget and another innocent character appears with them and I realized the bad guys were all wearing Evil Undead Makeup and it pleased me somehow.    3/5