Double assassinat dans la rue Morgue

AIP cut this and added color tints to the flash forwards and flashbacks and changed the ending. This has run on the Encore Mystery network since Feb. 2002 in a restored 98 min version...11 minutes longer than the AIP hack job. A dvd should follow sometime in 2003.

Murders in the Rue Morgue (1971)

** (out of 4)

British version puts a twist on the story (and previous versions) of Edgar Allan Poe. In this version, a stage troupe is putting on a version of Murders in the Rue Morgue when real murders start to happen. The lead actor (Jason Robards) and Inspector Vidocq (Herbert Lom) try and track down who is responsible. This version of the Poe story has been ripped to pieces over the years but having skipped it for thirty-plus years I was well aware that several liberties were taken. I can't say I blame director Gordon Hessler for wanting to change things around considering there had been several versions of the story already done. The biggest problem is that with the changes nothing too exciting is done and nothing here is as entertaining as what Poe wrote. I think the biggest thing going against the picture is the fact that it's rather dull and only comes to life during the opening sequence and the final one. Everything in between is rather lifeless and really drags to the point where you just simply don't care who's doing the killing. The version I viewed was the 97-minute director's cut, which restores some eleven-minutes that AIP had originally cut out. I don't know the whole history of the film so I can't say which version is better but I have to think that a lot of the material here was just filler. You'd think that having actors like Robards and Lom would have been a positive but it's really not. Yes, it's fun seeing them in a film like this but at the same time both are clearly just here to cash a paycheck. Robards seems extremely uninterested in anything going on and the same can be said about Lom who seems to be rushing through every scene just to get it over with. There are a few good things about the film including its colorful look as well as the atmosphere but this here just isn't enough to recommend it to others.

Gordon Hessler's MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE is not, as the title would suggest, really an adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's short story. In fact, it has next to nothing to do with Poe's tale, basically using it as little more than a starting off point. This is odd, as MURDERS is one of Poe's few stories that actually lends itself to being expanded into a feature film. It's a Sherlock Holmes-esque mystery, the bulk of which is about the method of solving the murders as opposed to the murders themselves.

Hessler's MURDERS plays much more like a remake of PHANTOM OF THE OPERA than anything Poe ever wrote. And, although many of Poe's themes are present (e.g. murder, paranoia, vengeance), the movie lacks the sense of irony and macabre which drove Roger Corman's Poe adaptations, or even Hessler's own CRY OF THE BANSHEE.

Jason Robards is oddly cast as the director and lead actor of a theatre troupe whose specialty is a production of Poe's story. His actors and people with whom he has relationships are being murdered by a mysterious masked man (Herbert Lom). The police are at a loss, and Robards does what he can to help them out...or so it would seem. Somehow mixed in with this is a vindictive dwarf (the wonderful Michael Dunn), who seems to have his own beef with Robards.

As with Hessler's other movies, it's somewhat convoluted and hard to follow, but it does come to an interesting conclusion. His writers (on previous Poe films as well) seem to be attempting to emulate Richard Matheson's technique of taking Poe's work and expanding it, rearranging it, or even changing it, but keeping it's flavor rich and alive throughout. They don't quite manage that here, but the movie still works on it's own terms.

MURDERS is a decent thriller, with good performances, moody photography and a lush music score. It has the same grindhouse quality as Hessler's previous Poe "adaptations", but the director boasts a much more noticeable sense of style this time around. While it's never as creepy as CRY OF THE BANSHEE or bizarre as SCREAM AND SCREAM AGAIN, it manages a fair degree of suspense and intensity, and is at the very least fun and fast paced.

This is a peculiar version taking the basic premise of a Grand Guignol theatre in París at the turn of the Century , which is running an adaptation of Poe's story and whose leading actress : Christine Kauffmann is afficted by bizarre nightmares involving some characters of the play . After many people associated with the theater scenario become murder victms , things go awry . As newspapers publicize : Acid murders in Rue Morgue Theater . Little by little our heroine becomes completely isolated from reality .

A pedestrian, very free and complex adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe that has been remade vary times , though it really nothing to do with the classic novel, Murders in the Rue Morgue . In fact , this film seems to be more Phantom of Opera by Gaston Leroux than Murders in the Rue Morgue by Poe . The action slips forth and back bewilderingly from the play that the protagonists perform to the real events , including some gory scenes. There are style and fascination enough in the weird dream sequences alone to hold the attention for the surprising spectator. Interpretations are uniformly midddling . Jason Robards plays the main actor associated with the production and married to the upsettling Christina Kauffman who becomes involved with a man who killed her mother . While Herbert Lom gives the best acting but repeating his role of Phantom of Opera . With good supporting help including Adolfo Celi as the famous Inspector Vidoq , Lili Palmer , Maria Perschy , Michael Dunn, Peter Arne . Being an US/Spanish coproduction here appears ordinary Spanish secondaries as Victor Israel, Imma de Santis , Maria Martin , Rafael Hernández, and Jose Calvo. There are other better versions about Edgar Allan Poe novel : 1932 by Robert Florey with Bela Lugosi , Sidney Fox and 1986 by Jeannot Szwarc rendition with George C Scott , Rebecca de Mornay .

It packs a colorful and evocative cinematography by Manuel Berenguer , an expert cameraman who had an important career photographing international coproductions . As well as suspenseful and frightening musical score by Waldo de Los Ríos. The motion picture was regularly directed by Gordon Hessler (Scream and scream again, The Oblong box , Cry of Banshee , Golden Voyage of Sinbad).

Murders in the Rue Morgue (1971)

There are so many complex scenes, so many amazing sets and costumes, and lots of moving camera that implies intelligent filmmaking it's a miracle this film came out so wooden. And frankly boring.

Part of the problem is Jason Robards in the lead--another actor might have pulled off the drama and intrigue anyway. And the leading victim-female is almost terrible--Christine Kaufmann. But the director, Gordon Hessler, I think gets the worst of everyone, and all this apparent money and talent is squashed under bright even light and uninspired performances.

There are lots of horror film clichés that might be satisfying to some, including just the use of the theater as a set (somewhat like Phantom of the Opera). But some of the clichés are cheezy 1971 versions, like dreamy sequences with double exposures or slow motion, and strange sound effects of choral voices.

There were enough people who really liked this movie for the director to mades an official director's cut with eleven extra minutes. Well, why not? It's all voluntary, and I'd vote against it unless you are really into the themes here, the actors, or just have a lot of time free and here it is. It's no awful, it's just slow and clunky. And why did they film it with such shadlowless flat bright light? It's a horror film, for goodness sake.