The Tomb of Ligeia

"Ligeia" is one of my very favorite E.A. Poe stories, a masterpiece of suspense that doesn't reveal its secret until the very last word. Like a lot of Poe's stories, however, the transformation to the screen isn't always an easy one. A great deal of the action in the short story takes place in the narrator's head, and to make a feature length movie out of it there must be some added action and characters.

The screenwriter here, Robert Towne, would go on to bigger and better things and garner fame and awards while doing it. But this early script of his is a rather modest one. The action drags more and more as the film goes on and the sense of horror and tension dissipates rather than builds as the film progresses. Plus there's that annoying black cat (left over from another Poe story, perhaps?)

What points this movie does get are for style. Roger Corman wasn't a schlock director by any means; he had a great eye and and gave his films a distinctive look and feel. The cast is a very good one as well. Vincent Price does the usual fine job we expect from him and I liked actress Elizabeth Shepard as the Lady Rowena, Price's wife who succeeds Ligeia. I wasn't familiar with her before seeing this movie and I found her very watchable. But 'The Tomb of Ligeia' is hardly classic Poe or a memorable horror film. But fans of Corman and the Hammer Films type of productions may want to see it.

The genius of Edgar Allan Poe lies in his ability to create atmosphere and to draw us in with the power of his magically evocative language. As not a great deal happens in his stories and his characters are thinly drawn, film adaptors feel obliged to invent, expand, elaborate and embellish and this, the last of Roger Corman's versions of Poe, is certainly no exception. The liberties taken and the additions made by Robert Towne are too numerous to mention and include mesmerism and a hint of necrophilia!

The major change is that the marriage between Verden Fell and his second wife, Lady Rowena, is based upon love and not mutual loathing. Their characters have been fleshed out in the forms of Vincent Price as Fell and the lovely Elizabeth Shepherd as Rowena. Unfortunately Mr. Price's persona and air of mystery are unable to compensate for the fact that he is simply too long in the tooth for the role whilst Rowena's freedom of spirit and sensuality make her overpowering attraction to him faintly ludicrous. It is of course highly unlikely that the film would have received financial backing had Mr. Price not been in it.

As one has come to expect from Mr. Corman this film has excellent production values and art direction and is aided by a strong supporting cast.

Poe died in comparative poverty but his works have supplied a framework by which film-makers have enriched themselves. Mr. Corman especially has helped keep Poe's name alive but one must never lose sight of the original stories which remain, of their type, unparalleled.

At one point in this film Vincent Price says 'Christopher, not ten minutes ago I tried to kill a stray cat with a cabbage'. Now, I think that is a pretty good reason alone to watch this movie but if that's not enough for you well, its another Roger Corman gothic horror starring Vincent the magnificent, based loosely on an Edgar Allen Poe story. There's nice sets and locations, lush cinematography, an above average script and Price doing what he does best, as well as vegetable-based violence directed at felines.

Of all the collaborations between director Roger Corman and sensuous, creepy actor Vincent Price, this is probably their best. There's the small cast of characters, mainly Ligeia, buried in a marble tomb in the grounds of a sinister old abbey, Rowena, a lady horserider looking for someone she can be 'drawn' to who is more interesting than her beau Christopher, and Verdon, Ligeia's bereaved husband, with his black shades and mood swings. There's also a cat. And this cat is really the true star of the film, watching, attacking, influencing.

The film benefits from its heavy use of locations, and makes it stand apart from the studio interiors of other adaptations. This is a decadent, decaying England with strange happenings and curses. It is a superb film, and lifts the Shepperton Poe adaptations to a new level.

I was asked recently if I could name any genuinely scary films made before The Exorcist in 1973. The only titles I could come up with were Rosemary's Baby and Night of the Living Dead from the late '60s. I could suggest many horror titles made before 1970, but none were genuinely flesh-crawling enough to make the list. At the time, I had not seen The Tomb of Ligeia. Now I have seen it and, wow! This is one seriously under-rated gem.

It is one of the many Roger Corman films from this era based on an Edgar Allan Poe story. Intelligently scripted by Robert Towne, and acted to perfection by Vincent Price and Elisabeth Shepherd, this film is a treat from start to finish. Shepherd plays a well-to-do lady in Victorian England who falls in love with a mysterious loner (Price) who resides in a crumbling abbey and seems haunted by memories of his previous (now-dead) wife Ligeia. She marries Price, but her chances of love are blighted by spooky happenings which may be the work of the ghost of his jealous ex-bride.

The dream sequence, featuring a dead fox hidden in a bouquet of flowers and a terrifying metamorphosis midway through a passionate kiss, is a marvellous and memorable scene. All scenes featuring the weird black cat are eerily effective. There's also a wonderfully creepy hypnotism episode. The photography is lovely, with colourful outdoor lensing of a real English abbey and superb blending of light and shadows during the ghostly indoor sequences.

So, if you're after a truly spine-tingling film from before 1970 - here you go!