The Tell-Tale Heart

I saw this short back in 1953 when I was just a kid. Had nightmares about it for a long time after. I haven't seen it since and have always wondered why. Was there some reason it was taken out of circulation? The mood and atmosphere with the juxtaposition of UPA animation (cartoons in those days-mostly associated with Mr.Magoo and Gerald McBoing Boing.) and thriller-style mood piece was groundbreaking. Since then I've been a fan of Poe's and especially that story. If anyone knows where it is or how I might see it again I'd love to know where I could get a copy. Anyone? Pleeeez? Is there other thriller-type animation out there? (No I'm not talking about Scooby Doo!)

Whew. It's as spooky as ever, and James Mason's reading brings to it an hysterical drama that is absent from his movies.

Sometimes the stark images illustrate the events and sometimes they're surrealistic images of moons, branches, upright things draped in cloth.

I don't know how Poe could bring these stories off. Here, for instance, he begins with the otherwise nice old man whose filmy white eyeball the narrator simply can't stand and which eventually drives him to murder.

If I had written it, I'd have to have had to explain what the living arrangement was. Did they come to share a flat? How did they handle the rent? Who did the cooking and who washed the dishes? And how the hell did the unnamed narrator ever wind up in a situation like this? Poe dispenses with all this irrelevant details, a device in accord with his theory that everything could, and should, be thrown out the window in favor of effect.

Some effect!

"The Tell-Tale Heart" is probably the most popular and famous of all of Edgar Allan Poe's tales. It's a very simple, quick, and easy to read tale that has a great plot, wonderful style, and a memorable ending. It is the perfect Poe tale!

This film is a brief adaptation of this beloved classic, and it captures its mood and suspense gloriously. The narration by the great James Mason is pitch perfect, and the animation style is creepy and superb! The film is genuinely intense, too. The atmosphere is heavy, and it makes for a great experience. My heart was practically pounding as I watched it-which is interesting to note due to the title and subject of the story.

Just tonight I saw this short in a presentation of animated films as part of the Milwaukee International Film Festival. I found myself literally watching this with my mouth hanging open in awe. The animation is not groundbreaking in the various techniques used, but the ways they are used, and the ways they are merged to create brilliant, original techniques in their own light, are astounding. The use of numerous versions of a full paintings to animate things like the changing of a light source is shocking in it's simple, yet immense effectiveness. The music is very minimalistic, but very appropriate for the film. James Mason is haunting in his narration. This film is one of the most beautiful, unconventional, and effective uses of the animation art form in American film history. It is a shame that it is not available on video, though it may be that the only way to really experience it fully is in a theater. In that case it is a shame that it isn't played very often.

UPDATE...

The film is now available as an extra on the DVD for the original theatrical version of the film Hellboy. The only reason I can see for this is that Hell Boy director Guillermo del Toro must be a fan of it. The film Hellboy isn't bad, but the DVD is worth it for this short alone. And it can be had quite readily in used shops for a very good price (I've seen them as low as $9.99).

An English teacher whose taste I generally respected despised this film. As a word person, she was no doubt bothered by the compression and elimination of so much of Poe's carefully wrought language.

But she overlooked one thing, in my estimation. Poe said everything in a short story should be toward one effect, and certainly, there has been no better attempt on film to achieve the kind of formal and emotional control Poe suggested was the story teller's goal than this animated short. She should have appreciated that.

The control of tone, light and color palette here is complete; the actors are hand-crafted; the voices and music are expertly orchestrated as in great radio drama; best of all, nothing extraneous or distracting seeps through at any point. (We clearly see only one face during this short. We never see the narrator, but see all that happens through a subjective camera.) While there is a ton of ham bone melodrama and story padding in Corman's Poe films, this film achieves just the right pitch, delicate and disturbing, maintains it, and then finishes simply. In today's context, UPA's Tell-Tale seems slightly dry, if not downright academic; Corman's films evoke not only Hollywood, with all that means, but low budget film making and drive-in culture as well.

I believe Poe would have appreciated UPA's effort and encouraged them to try others, like Cask of Amontillado and Masque. Given the chance, I think he'd have liked to tell Corman to just quit it.

10 stars. One of the great cartoons, ever.