The Tell-Tale Heart

This low budget Gothic movie is an adaption of an Edgar Allan Poe short story. I'm not sure if I ever read this one but other reviewers have stated that it isn't the most faithful adaption in any case. Going by what I know of Poe, this isn't exactly surprising as most of his stories were very sparse and to-the-point. The basic premise has a man murdering his best friend through a fit of jealousy due to the said friend copping off with his girlfriend. The murderer is then haunted by the sound of the dead man's beating heart, leading him to madness. While the story is very simple and the cast is very small, I thought the film as a whole was well handled. Laurence Payne is good as the central character Edgar. He seemed to be a somewhat troubled character even before the murder and Payne depicts the man well. I was also pleasantly surprised to see some scenes of gore and violence in such an old movie – the central murder is quite vicious, Edgar later cuts out the dead man's heart and we even have a character fall from a balcony onto a spike! This all adds a welcome schlock factor to proceedings.

While The Tell-Tale Heart may not be anything overly special, it does entertain and it has a fairly effective atmosphere at times. For anyone who doesn't mind cheap Gothic productions or who is a Poe completist then this is a film you may enjoy.

The fifth version of the venerable Poe horror tale I have watched: two shorts, one cartoon and two full-length adaptations; the latter both emanated from Britain: for the record, I had watched the 1934 version at London's National Film Theatre in January 2007 during their "Quota-quickie" season. This one, then, is not very well-thought of – but the result (though departing from the original text in most respects) is interesting and decidedly underrated. It starts out with a prologue involving a cocaine-sniffing Poe (also played by suitably austere lead Lawrence Payne) having the story come to him in a nightmare. The anti-hero of the main narrative itself, then, is also called Edgar and he lives in the Rue Morgue(!!): an introvert, he falls for sensuous neighbor Adrienne Corri; however, when he introduces her to his best friend, they start an affair behind his back and, when he finds out, his jealousy turns homicidal.The plot (as reworked by Brian Clemens of "The Avengers" fame) has therefore been fleshed out but also rendered somewhat ordinary; that said, the stylized approach successfully evokes the author's psychological 'landscape' – most memorably, the 'pulsating' carpet above the floorboards where the body is hidden.

I completely agree with the first reviewer.

A little gem - co-written by Brian Clemens (who went on to create THE AVENGERS, THE PROFESSIONALS etc.)

A surprising 'sexuality' about the proceedings. Utterly passe now, but it must have been a little intense and 'naughty' at the time. The slow-burn attraction between Walsh and Adrienne Corri is quite good. And given that the Danzigers' track record for British B movies is not brilliant - this one certainly tries to deliver the goods. The murder scene, and the gore content, is quite graphic for its time. 1961, remember? (I suspect there would have been British censor trouble then, had the movie been filmed in colour).

Trivia: Co-star Dermot Walsh was married at the time to Hazel Court (of Hammer/Roger Corman movie fame.) Walsh then went on to star in the Danzigers' TV series: RICHARD THE LIONHEART. I can still sing the title song on request. Sad, eh? And how Dermot maintains that high quiff-hairstyle is an astonishment. Laurence Payne (who I've always liked and was co-star in THE TROLLENBERG TERROR/THE CRAWLING EYE),lost an eye in the early sixties during a fencing scene in his British TV series SEXTON BLAKE. Great casting for that part, I always thought. He was always good.)Bar tender Frank Thornton, who has two brief scenes, went on to great success as a comedy character actor in theatre, and British TV (eg ARE YOU BEING SERVED?)

Geisterzug

When Edgar sees his girlfriend Betty getting up close and personal with his best friend Carl, he murders Carl in a jealous rage and hides the corpse under the floor of his piano room. Comes the night, and Edgar begins to hear strange sounds coming from under the floor...

The problem with this film is that it apparently fell into the public domain, so the DVD copies floating around are pretty rough, and make the film look much cheaper than it really is. A better version (which may never happen), might reveal this to be a lost classic, actually predating Roger Corman's Poe films by a few years.

The costumes and such are very nice, and the story is well-written to build up to the part that Poe covered. While this is obviously a Poe tale, the writer (Brian Clemens) deserves much credit, as the bulk is his creation.

This story is one of the all time favorites of mine, whether on film, or in the book, you can't help but be drawn to it. Always have been a big fan of Edgar Allen Poe , going all the way back to childhood. This particular movie i think does the book a lot of justice, although the female lead character is kinda a little over the top obvious , but other than that, hey the movie really works for me, it doesn't really drag, you feel so sorry for Edgar plodding along in the movie after that girl, i kept telling him Edgar don't tell her about you're best friend, why would you do that, guess he doesn't have to much brains with woman at the time. the plot in the movie was great. although a bit worn, but the music, omg was excellent, very creepy, well done, really there ain't nothing hardly wrong with the movie, if you can overlook the female lead's obvious obnoxiousness then you got it made.