The Loves of Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) was acclaimed by many to be America's greatest writer in the 19th century. As you see he lived but 40 years. But this had to be a most complex mind to have written the poems and stories he did in that time.

Which you will not get from this biographical film that came from 20th Century Fox's B picture unit. All we get from him here is he was an alcoholic and he crusaded against the copyright laws which made him sell his work for pittance. Under today's laws Poe would have been rich. I also think he would have been as dissipated a person he was in his century as such like F. Scott Fitzgerald and Eugene O'Neill would have been in this century.

It's obvious this film had a bigger destiny for it, but Darryl F. Zanuck downgraded it to the B picture unit. It might have been something for Tyrone Power or Don Ameche. Sheppard Strudwick took the lead and he does turn in a fine performance with very little to work with.

The loves of his life are Virginia Gilmore whom he loses to another and Linda Darnell his beautiful, but sickly second wife to whom a lot of his work was dedicated.

A nice film, but way too brief and superficial.

Loves of Edgar Allan Poe, The (1942)

*** (out of 4)

Well handled, if a bit too short on detail, film about Poe (John Shepperd) and his struggles with life. The most interesting aspects are Poe's battle with editors over copyright laws, which was the real reason he has blacklisted. The film plays out like three short subjects put together for a feature film and I'm really not sure why Fox didn't put more detail into the film but then again, they did the same thing with The Story of Alexander Graham Bell. Shepperd does a very good job in the role and the supporting players are fine as well.

This has yet to be issued on DVD but if you can catch it on FMC then it's worth watching.

Average bio of the famed author, featuring Shepperd Strudwick (billed as John Shepperd) and Linda Darnell as one of his "loves." The other "love" is played by Virginia Gilmore, who ends up marrying somebody else. It's a little distracting to hear everyone calling Poe "Eddie," but you get used to it eventually.

A quick running time of 67 minutes keeps this film from getting too dull. Much of the second half deals with Poe's inability to get publishers to a) publish his work, and b) provide copyrights. Thus, he is unable to keep a job and provide for Darnell, who eventually becomes ill.

Strudwick is actually pretty good as Poe, even though I would never consider him a romantic lead. Ironically, a few years before filming, Strudwick recited "The Raven" at a dramatic tryout at the University of North Carolina, but lost the competition.

Darnell is lovely as the doomed wife. Production was held up because she had lost 14 pounds prior to filming and needed to gain some weight back so she could fit into her costumes.

Jane Darwell is fine as Darnell's mother. Thomas Jefferson and Charles Dickens make cameo appearances. However, no one refers to them as "Tommy" and "Chuckie."

One of the trade papers reported that Director Harry Lachman, who had a pet talking Minah bird, toyed with the idea of having it appear in various scenes in the film, croaking "Nevermore." This sounds a bit far-fetched. However, a raven does appear early in the film. It was played by a "professional" named Jim, who already had over 200 films to his credit. Jim earned a whopping $50 a day for his trainer.

"The Loves of Edgar Allan Poe" is a seldom-seen biopic about the famous author. While in some ways it's pretty good, overall it seems pretty stilted and dull.

The film is a reasonably accurate account of the author's life...probably more accurate than most biopics of the day. It also seems to focus mostly on his relationships with women as well as his snippy/snarky attitude which often hurt him in his literary career. My complaints about it are mostly due to the style as opposed to the content. In other words, it's so melodramatic (with droning melancholy music) and the language so stilted it seems rather stilly and trite....like a third-rate production, which is odd since it came from prestigious Twentieth Century-Fox. Okay...but better you just read the Wikipedia article on the man.

This is not a movie about black cats in long corridors, ravens, casks of Amontillado, burials, tell-tale hearts, falling houses, rue Morgue or pendulums, but a melodramatic (and "sanitized") approach to Poe's struggle as an author during all his life, and about the women he loved. As such it is an efficient double-bill feature that there is not much to complain about, except perhaps dull Sheppherd Strudwick in the leading role - but he was always dull. Curiously there are not more films about Poe's life to compare.