The Pit and the Pendulum (1961)

 

The Pit and the Pendulum (1961)

 

“Edgar Allan Poe is not the easiest writer in the world to adapt to the screen. The frenzied, hyperbolic narration of a homicidal madman, the constant air of sexual perversity and dread that throbs behind every word - these things come over strongly on the page in the hands of a gifted writer.”

n Critic Zack "Marlowe" Handlen

Watching Director Roger Corman's first decade of film making is like watching a precocious kid grow from Kindergarten to University. Even is his first five years (starting in 1955) when he Directed a shocking 24 features and Producer many more, his product was often (mostly?) stupid and bad, but in equal measures dynamic and groundbreaking. In 1960 he started on his Edgar Allan Poe Adaptations and achieved his first Critical praise, unexpected financial success, and proved capable of capturing the atmosphere and drive of an Author known by all but who had daunted so many other filmmakers. By 1964, these films were undeniably Masterful. 

The Poe Series is considered to be his finest work, only a handful of his other multiple dozens of other Directorial outings come even close. These eight films ("The Pit and the Pendulum" this is the second), all but one Starring Vincent Price, most Written by Richard Matheson, are laden with Atmospherics, Dynamic is Design, and a few were even striking faithful to Poe’s original, difficult to capture, narratives.

 

Regarding that last statement, this isn’t one of the faithful ones. Based on Poe’s short story of the same name (1842) it includes a Pit and a Pendulum as well as some references to the Spanish Inquisition, but that’s about it. It’s set in a different century and with different Characters. It chose not to follow what seems to be the obvious route to expansion, addressing the Protagonist’s plight of being a Political Prisoner in a Real-World conflict (the Peninsular War (1807–1814)), but then Poe didn’t really address his Hero’s cause for Imprisonment or Historical Context either, and such things were avoided in almost all Horror literature and cinema.

 

(Though there was this one film, it also Starring Price and adopted into the Poe series though not Directed by Corman, that broke that rule, “Witchfinder General” (1968, and released in the USA title was “The Conqueror Worm” after a Poe poem (1843)).

 

Though we are told this tale takes place in 1547, it lacks any specific Historical Context and is essentially a Family Gothic, and Oy Vey, what a Warped Family we’re introduced to. The decision to stray so much from Poe was made by both Director Corman and Writer Matheson before the first type-writer key struck paper. This seemed driven by a combination of Budget Constraints, a fear of losing Poe’s Stylistics if the tale was grounded more in Reality, and the Audience’s ignorance of that Reality (the Peninsular War doesn’t have the Name-Recognition of the USA Civil War). Matheson told an interviewer, “The method we adopted on ‘The Pit and the Pendulum’ was to use the Poe short story as the climax for a third act to the motion picture … because a two-page short story is not about to give you a ninety-minute motion picture. We then constructed the first two acts in what we hoped was a manner faithful to Poe, as his climax would run only a short time on the screen.”

 

The short story “The Pit and …” reads like a Fever-Dream even though the sequence of events following a Straight-Line Chronological progression. The film follows Dream-Logic with Flash-Backs that suggest Delusion but must be “Factual” for the story to progress, and conflicting accounts of Causality repeatedly fold back into each other. It draws in Themes from other Poe’s tales, especially his repeated themes of Insanity, Obsessive Love for the Dead, and Paranoia about Premature Burial that were lacking in that specific short story. These would link this film explicitly to the pervious Poe Adaptation, “House of Usher” (1960, based on “Fall of the House of Usher” (1839)) and the subsequent one, “The Premature Burial” (1962, based on a story of the same name published 1844)).

 

This story has been adapted to film more often than most realize, but many didn’t attempt story fidelity any more than this one did, like examples of 1967 (with the cheeky title “The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism”), 1991, and 2009 (under the original title). A 1913 version may have somewhat faithful (it’s now mostly lost and few have seen the surviving reel). Two short films from 1964 and 1984 are said to been very so. Finally, there’s two films featuring dramatic reading of the original text that were released as features: Price read in “Evening with Edgar Alan Poe” from 1970, and Writer/Director Guillermo Del Toro did the same for “Extraordinary Tales” in 2015,

 

Corman’s thinking behind jettisoning the original story’s plot is hinted at when he discussed cutting one scene set outside the castle:

 

“I had a lot of theories I was working with when I did the Poe films...One of my theories was that these stories were created out of the unconscious mind of Poe, and the unconscious mind never really sees reality, so until ‘The Tomb of Ligeia’ [1964], we never showed the real world. In ‘Pit,’ John Kerr [who played the nominal Hero Francis Barnard] arrived in a carriage against an ocean background, which I felt was more representative of the unconscious. That horseback interlude [also requiring Location Shooting] was thrown out because I didn't want to have a scene with people out in broad daylight.”

 

Matheson, among the finest SF,F&H Scriptwriters of the time, took a cynical view of the project. Matheson’s most distinctive work was always set in the contemporary, not costume drams, and most famous “The Incredible Shrinking Man” (1957) and scripts for TV’s “The Twilight Zone” (first aired 1959). "I was just trying to earn a living off of them. I was raising four children and the first film, ‘House of Usher,’ did well, and so we went on from there. But as you can see, by the time I got to the third one, ‘Tales of Terror’ [1962], I couldn't take it seriously anymore and I started adding comedy to it. ‘Pit and the Pendulum’ was ridiculous because we took a little short story about a guy lying on a table with that razor-sharp blade swinging over him, and had to make a story out of it ... I just imposed a plot from an old suspense mystery on that basic premise." He apparently borrowed from Scriptwriter Robb White‘s  “House on Haunted Hill” (1959) which also Starred Price. Important to Corman was Matheson’s speed, "They didn't take me that long. Maybe a month, month and a half. I mean, they shot 'em so fast they were practically standing outside my door waiting for new material so they could take it and run to the cameraman! They always shot them word for word. And I stand by those scripts; what makes me wince is some of the performances!"

 

The Matheson/Corman story concerns Francis, an Englishman, arriving in Spain to Investigate the mysterious Death of his sister Elizabeth. As a Stranger asking unwelcome questions, Character of Francis serves much the same role in this film as the Character of Philip Winthrop (Mark Damon)  did in “House of Usher. There are even striking similarities in how the Characters are introduced.

 

The obvious Suspect is his brother-in-law Don Nicholas Medina (Price) who is a Gracious Host but clearly Emotionally Unstable and keeping a lot of Secrets. One of those Secrets concerned Nicholas’ Obsessed with Guilt connected to his father Sebastian, a notorious Torturer in the service of the Spanish Inquisition (in the Real-War, already much disgraced by this time, but still operating though the script implies it had already been disbanded) who Murdered Nicholas’ mother and uncle (Mary Menzies and Charles Victor, respectively) right before Nicholas’ eyes. Nicholas, like Roderic Usher, the Character Price played in the first film, believes his family is Cursed because of the Progenitors’ wickedness.

 

Those Tortures are revealed in one of a series of Flashbacks shot differently than the rest of the film. Corman meant them to be "twisted and distorted because they were being experienced by someone on the rim of madness." They were a blue-tinted film stock later toned-red; the two-toned image was embraced because Corman had read most people dream in B&W but he didn’t want to abandon color completely; this also achieved the effect that the shadows seemed to be made of blood. His frequent Cinematographer Floyd Crosby used wide-angle lenses, tilted angles and violent movements, to enhance the Hysteria, and vigetted the periphery to reinforce that these scenes were Memories.

 

The was another scene that so impressed a certain innocent and impressionable future Novelist, Stephen King, that it may have single-handedly driven him to the Dark Side. King saw the film in Eighth Grade and wrote an eight-page novelization "blissfully unaware that I was in violation of every plagiarism and copyright statute in the history of the world." He managed to sell over thirty copies for 25¢ each at his School before one of his Teachers forced him to return the profits. "Following the Hammer films, this becomes, I think, the most important moment in the post-1960 horror film, signaling a return to an all-out effort to terrify the audience ... and a willingness to use any means at hand to do it."

 

It's hard to call Character Francis a skilled Investigator, despite being Suspicious he doesn’t press very hard on the fact that Nicholas isn’t the only Character giving Contradictory versions of Elizabeth’s Cause of Death. And every time Francis seems to be getting any closer to the Truth, some bizarre and seemingly Supernatural Event throws off all apparent Rationality. Before too long Dead Elizabeth (Barabra Steele) reappears to Haunt Nicholas. Francis accuses Nicolas of staging an elaborate Hoax to throw off Suspicion, an Allegation that doesn’t really make much sense, but when the Final Truth is revealed, setting up the magnificently OTT third act, it makes even less sense.

 

The plot is wildly Contrived, embracing the Ridiculous, but fast-paced, and acted with Full-Blooded, Scene-Devouring, Vigor. However Cynical Matheson seemed, he still managed to write a lively story, hitting all the same thematic points of “House of Usher” without ever seeming like he was repeating himself, but instead pushing them farther, it had the feel of an excellent Sequel, which is wasn’t, while too many Sequels feel like half-hearted Remakes. The climatic sequence is wholly remarkable; the first 70-minutes are Entertaining but the last 10-minutes, when we finally get to the stuff mentioned in the title, Triumphant.

 

(Though Matheson was aiming for 90-minutes, Corman delivered an 80-minute film, this economy probably represented improvements but also proved a problem for TV sales; most movie time-slots demanded the full 90. Another 10 minutes were shot, featuring none of the Leads, made very little sense, and is rarely seen today.)

 

And oh, that last sequence. Nicolas, having already committed one Murder, has Francis at his mercy. Nicholas is now wholly Delusional, has forgotten who he is, has confused Francis with someone else, and raves and raves and raves, “You are about to enter Hell, Bartolome - Hell! ...The nether world, the infernal region, the abode of the damned ... The place of torment. Pandemonium, Abbadon, Tophet, Gehenna, Narraka ...the Pit! ... And the Pendulum. The razor-edge of destiny."

 

Critic Denis Meikle, "Sebastian Medina was the greatest monster that Vincent Price ever played...Whether snarling in rage at his intended victim or swaying in rhythm to the humdrum of his hellish device...he plies his torturous trade with a gleam in the eye and only the sound of a scream to soothe his savage beast. If proof were needed that Price was indeed the Master of Fright, then it was to be found at the climax of ‘Pit and the Pendulum.’"

 

Price said of the set, "The Pit was there and the Pendulum went right up to the roof. It was one of the most exciting sets I've ever seen. And there was this maze of passages I had to sneak through. I said to Roger, 'This is fine...the dark passages are very claustrophobic, but nothing happens. Now there's one thing that men are really afraid of, something they absolutely hate, and that's cobwebs. Let's rig some up.' The props man spun a really glorious creation. And then as I walked into the camera a whole cobweb plastered on my face ... you could literally hear the men go 'Ugh!'"

 

The film's Pendulum was rigged thirty-feet in the air, was eighteen-feet long, weighed over a ton, and was constructed with a realistic rubber cutting blade. In an interview, Art Director Daniel Haller provided details regarding the creation of the pendulum:

 

“I found that such a pendulum actually was used during the Spanish and German inquisitions. At first we tried to use a rubberized blade, and that's why it got stuck on Kerr's chest. We then switched to a sharp metalized blade covered with steel paint. The problem was to get it in exactly the right position so it would slash John's shirt without actually cutting him. To guard against this, we put a steel band around his waist where the pendulum crosses. He was a good sport about it ... but noticed him perspiring a good bit and no wonder. That pendulum was carving out a 50 foot arc just above his body.”

 

The music, Composed by Les Baxter, became increasingly Delirious and the cross-cutting gets faster, flashing on murals of Hooded figures staring down with Merciless and Ghostly Judgment as Price’s Deranged Diatribe escalates. For certain shots, Corman removed every other frame to make the blade appear to be moving faster.

 

The pendulum blade ratchets downward with each swing, getting closer to its victim's belly with every swishing arc. Over-all, Kerr’s Performance was pretty wooden except in this one scene when he was legitimately Terrorized.

 

To visually enhance the size of this set, the camera was equipped with a 40mm Panavision wide-angle lens and mounted at the opposite end of the stage, giving Cinematographer Crosby the ability to frame the scenes in his camera with extra space at the bottom and at either side. These areas were filled in later by printing-in process extensions of the set, doubling its size onscreen.

 

Though Low-Budgeted, it looks like a million bucks (or more than three-times its actual Budget) suggesting that Corman’s studio, American International Pictures (AIP), was consciously competing with success of the also Low-Budget Gothics then-being produced in the UK’s Hammer House of Horror. (This didn’t go unnoticed by the Hollywood Reporter, "... a class suspense/horror film of the calibre of the excellent ones done by Hammer”). AIP was known for their ultra-cheapies but after “House of Usher” proved a surprise hit and Corman got the best reviews of his career-so-far, the decision was made to be somewhat less stingy. Corman directed two other films that year (making it a slow year for him) one, “Atlas,” came in at only a third of “The Pit and …” and “Creature from the Haunted Sea” was cheaper still.

 

“The Pit and …” was both in color and widescreen, two things AIP had only started to embrace in 1959 and, even after that, not all the time. They also embraced the best versions of both at the time, not only Panavision but also Pathécolor. The Shooting Schedule was lengthened from the usual ten-day to a semi-luxurious fifteen. Cinematographer Crosby, Art Director Haller, and Composer Baxter, were all frequent Corman Collaborators, and this series would represent for all three their near-Career Best.

 

Corman again:

 

"I enjoyed ‘The Pit and the Pendulum’ because I actually got the chance to experiment a bit with the movement of the camera. There was a lot of moving camera work and interesting cutting in the climax of the film … We achieved what we did on a low budget because we carefully planned the whole production in advance of starting the cameras. Thus, when we moved into the studio for fifteen days of scheduled shooting, we didn't have to start making decisions. Because of our pre-production conferences with director of photography Floyd Crosby and art director Daniel Haller, everyone knew exactly what to do, barring any last minute inspirations on the set.”

 

Almost all if it was shot on four large interior sound stages, big enough for the multi-level sets. As they couldn’t afford to build-from-scratch so Art Director Haller took his sketches and search Backlots and Property Lofts of other studios for set units to rent and carry away: archways, fireplaces, windows and doorways, gigantic stairways and stone walls and, of course, Torture Machines. AIP and Corman’s Budget stretching is the stuff of legend and this film’s lavishness was more convincing than “House of Usher,” but it had its limits. Critic Glenn Erickson noted, “the twisty red candles that pop up again and again (Corman apparently bought a gross and used them for five years).”

 

Actor Rehearsals were short, but all were Veterans playing within familiar types. None could be accused of nuance, but Price was boldly flamboyant by his very nature and found joy in going even farther than usual. The reviews of his Performance, both positive and negative, all basically said the same thing:

 

On the positive side was the Hollywood Reporter, "Vincent Price gives characteristically rococo performance..."

 

Critic Phil Hardy, "Price's performance is noticeably more extravagant than in the earlier film.”

 

But Charles Stinson acknowledged this in the most negative possible way, “Price mugs, rolls his eyes continuously, and delivers his lines in such an unctuous tone that he comes near to burlesquing the role. His mad scenes are just ludicrous. The audience almost died laughing."

 

Price was so insulted by Stinson that and wrote, "I find I must break a 25-year determination never to answer a critic. Since your review of ‘The Pit and the Pendulum’ was obviously not meant to be instructive, and therefore constructive, but only to hurt and humiliate, I'm sure you would enjoy the satisfaction of knowing that it did. My only consolation…is that it is the second-greatest box-office attraction in the country."

 

But then he didn’t send letter, he put it in his "Letting Off Steam File."

 

Steele was one of Horror film’s great beauties and though fairly experienced had only just achieved Stardom with Director Mario Bava’s was “Black Sabbath” (1960). Thing is, in that prior film, she wasn’t actually that good, only compelling-looking. This was her next film, and her leap-forward in craft was significant. Her hate-filled eyes were befitting of her name, plus fiery. Her eyes are also the film’s final image, and that burns into one’s brain.

 

Unfortunately, her voice-training was still not-up-to par (that would improve in time), she still had “thick working-class English” even though playing an Aristocrat and worse, she was the only Cast member with any foreign accent, so in both films her dialogue was dubbed. Steele had a much fonder memories of this production than “Black Sunday” and said, "Corman was a master mechanic. He was very shy, I think. I really enjoyed working with him ... Vincent Price was extremely supportive. He's extremely intelligent and a very cultured man. I think I was frozen in my own particular panic at the time; I was myopic."

 

(Amusingly, Steele is English-born and here she Plays an Englishwoman, but looked more Spanish than USA-born Price playing a Spainard, but then, so does Kerr, USA-born of English-descent, here also Playing an Englishman.)

 

 “The Fall of the …” and “The Masque of the Red Death” (1842) were Corman’s favorite Poe’s but “The Masque of ….” project was put on hold for a number of reasons, not the least being it would inevitably be more expensive. Founder and Vice President of AIP, Samuel Z. Arkoff, was also was not-quite convinced of an extended Poe series as-of-yet, and chose to make “The Pit and …” second "because it was a lot more graphic and in the second place, ‘The Masque of the Red Death’ would have needed a dancing troupe that would have been quite expensive. In all those early Poe pictures we had relatively few actors [here, there’s a total of ten people on-screen, only six of which are more than bit parts].” Later Arkoff would say, "It's also the one I liked the best because it was the scariest.”

 

The Poe series was ultimately longer than the usually credited because a few were Directed by people other than Corman, and ultimately included films (like “Witchfinder General”) that were based on work by Authors other than Poe (in “Witchfinder General’s” case it was Ronald Bassett’s novel of the same name (1966)). “The Pit and …” proved a bigger Critical and Financial success that “House of Usher” and ultimately proved the most profitable, if not the absolute best, of the series.

 

Critic Howard Thompson, "Atmospherically at least—there is a striking fusion of rich colors, plush décor and eerie music. Roger Corman has evoked a genuinely chilling mood of horror.”

 

Variety, "The last portion of the film builds with genuine excitement to a reverse-twist-ending that might have pleased Poe himself...a physically stylish, imaginatively photographed horror film."

 

Time, "a literary hair-raiser that is cleverly, if self-consciously, Edgar Allan poetic."

 

The significant Italian film industry was financially crippled by WWII and had yet to recover. Outside a few World-Renowned Directors, virtually all their product were geared for the English-language, especially USA, Genre market. Their first real Master of Horror was Director Mario Bava, and his first International Hit was the fore-mentioned “Black Sunday” which showed the influence of both Corman and Hammer’s Gothics. When he finally got a Budget wherein he could film Horror in color, Corman’s influence became more and more apparent, notably with “The Whip and the Body” (1963).

 

Screenwriter for both Bava films, Ernesto Gastaldi, said that the latter film’s Producers, Ugo Guerra and Elio Scardamaglia had "shown me an Italian print of ‘The Pit and the Pendulum’ before I started writing it: 'Give us something like this' they said." When Gastaldi  was asked if “The Long Hair of Death” (1964, Directed by Antonio Margheriti and also Starring Steele) were inspired by Corman's film, Gastaldi replied, "Yes, of course! ‘The Pit and the Pendulum’ had a big influence on Italian horror films. Everybody borrowed from it."

 

Critic K. Lindbergs noted an "obvious influence" in two more Margheriti’s like “Castle of Blood” (1964) and his quickly following remake, “Web of the Spider” (1970).

 

Tim Lucas added to the list, "a nightmarish flashback sequence that plants the seeds of Nicholas's breakdown, and would prove particularly influential on the future course of Italian horror — an influence that can be seen even in productions of the 1970s (Deep Red) and 1980s (A Blade in the Dark)."

 

Later reviews offered even higher praise:

 

Time Out, "Corman at his intoxicating best, drawing a seductive mesh of sexual motifs from Poe's story through a fine Richard Matheson script."

 

Timothy Sullivan, "even better than its predecessor…The plot is heady stuff, and Roger Corman drives it forward—with wonderful matte shots of the castle perched on the seaside cliff, odd camera angles, the thickest cobwebs in horror-movie history, a spider in the face, and an iron maiden—all before our hero is strapped under the pendulum...in a sequence that still stands one's hair on end."

 

Hardy again, “markedly greater fluidity of camera movement. ‘House of Usher’ seemed unsure of how to cope with the rush of action as Madeline returned from the grave; ‘The Pit and the Pendulum’ has no such hesitations. From the great sequence in which Steele lures Price down into the crypt to the finale … its action is terrific.”

 

Lucas again, "Benefitting from the box-office success of ‘House of Usher,’ ‘Pit’ is a more elaborate production and features some of the definitive moments of the AIP Corman/Poe series."

 

Erickson again, "when Corman's camera rises to Price's level of delirium, these films take wing … big improvement on his first, ‘House of Usher’… Remembered as a first-rate chiller by every kid who saw it, ‘Pit and the Pendulum’ upped the ante for frantic action and potential grue…"

 

And finally, Geoffrey O’Brien “What Corman found in Poe above all was an emotional climate and a few persistent psychological archetypes that made possible a different kind of horror movie, less about storyline and more about the creation of an all-encompassing environment.

 

“All the Poe films function as immersive experiences—you step inside, just like the unwary visitor advancing through swirls of mist toward a somber ancient dwelling on whose door he raps with its heavy knocker, to be drawn into a situation not merely menacing but beyond saving.

 

“Every object, every gesture, every phrase spoken, every creaking step and gust of wind, every mirror and artwork has a message, and the message is always the same: the disaster has already happened, the crimes are already committed, the land drained of life by “a plague of evil,” the inhabitants irretrievably traumatized. The horrors of the past cannot be undone; they can only happen again. “

 

In 2016 it was even honored as a Selection for the Cannes Classics at the famous film festival. 

 

Trailer:

The Pit and the Pendulum - Film Trailer - 1961 - YouTube