The Tomb of Ligeia (1965)

 

The Tomb of Ligeia (1965)

 

“‘The Tomb of Ligeia’ was vaguely based on an idea that Roger [Corman] and I had once. I had said I had always wanted to do a picture in a ruin, but actually using the ruin as an actual place, with real furniture in it and the ruin around it, which I thought would be very effective. This is sort of what he adapted to ‘The Tomb of Ligeia,’ which I think was the best one we ever did." 

--Actor Vincent Price

 

This was the last of the Roger Corman Directed Edgar Allen Poe adaptations, though not the last of the series from the Production Company AIP. Like most of Corman/Poe films, it was based on a story too short to flesh-out to feature-length with much fidelity to the source (originally published as “Ligeia” (1838)), but I gotta say, this one held onto more of the original story than some of the others and the most important difference outside the additional subplots and the Hero’s second marriage wasn’t loveless, just really weird. As always with a Corman, and here his Scriptwriter Robert Townes’ (a future multiple Oscar Winner/Nominee), main fidelity came from bringing in themes from other Poe’s work into the one tale, and here that was done exceptionally well.

 

It has an interesting reputation, alternately considered second only the “The Masque of Red Death,” released the same year. Corman was a notoriously fast Filmmaker and the eight Poe films were completed in only five years, and his total Directorial output during that time was a shocking nineteen films, but the rest were mostly extreme cheapies. That schism was largely product of how this film took on Poe’s Darkest and most Ambiguous theme, Obsessive Love, more bluntly than most of the proceeding ones ... Basically, the audience either believes they pulled of that aspect, or not. I’m one the positive end of the interpretation, largely because it also featured the strongest female lead of any of the Corman/Poe films.

 

In the first scene we are introduced to Verden Fell (Vincent Price) standing at the grave of his first wife, Ligeia’s (Elizabeth Shepherd). He’s arguing with a Minister (Ronald Adam) who insists Ligeia should not be buried on Consecrated Ground. The Minister’s prattling’s do set up the Supernatural Themes, but it is Verden who tells us of the real conflict to emerge, Ligeia was of powerful will, seemingly unwilling to admit she could ever die, and that Verden as her husband was bonded to her even beyond the grave.

 

Soon after (in story-time, a year later) we’re introduced to Rowena Trevanion (also Shepard), who meets Verden beside the same graveside. Rowena is a willful, subtly perverse, and woman who is indomitable when she chooses what she wants, and she wants Verden.

 

The reason behind Verden’s attraction to Rowena is obvious, both are played by the same actress, but she is also distinctive looking: Ligeia was raven-haired and deliberately echoes Scream Queen Barabara Steele (who was in and earlier Corman/Poe, “The Pit and the Pendulum” (1961)) while Rowena is a red-head and more traditionally British-looking (note: both Shepard and Steele were British, though Steele first became famous in Italy; also, in most film and TV, Shepard usually appeared blonde).

 

Rowena’s attraction to Verden is more problematic, but this was not clumsy as much as delving into the script’s deliberate weirdness. Though it would be wrong to call this a subtle film, but there is much ambiguity in the perceptual conflicts: Was Rowena completing with the dead Ligeia? Or is she possessed by Ligeia? Or both? There are a number of seemingly deliberately plot-holes included just to keep us confused about these even after the closing credits. Scriptwriter Towne proves committed to destroy all lines between the (fictional) Objective and wholly Subjective Realities of the narrative, and not to do so with the traditional, singular, Unreliable Narrator, but everyone. There’s almost no difference between any Character’s Dreams and Wakings.

 

There are first reel-problems, and had it not been for the accelerated narrative one might have some trouble accepting Rowena’s initial attraction to Verden: He’s obsessed with another, morose, and given to dissociative states that were potentially violent. Here most give credit to Cinematographer Arthur Grant's mobile camera and the tightness of Editor Alfred Cox's work. But there’s were also some built-in advantages.

 

If you were in the Audience, you know this is a Horror film, and if your still engaged after the fifteen-minute-mark, you’re likely hooked to the end. Also helping things along was that you’d have familiarity with the general plot-line, if not the weirdness-of-telling. You might not have seen the earlier Price film, “Dragonwyck” (1946) which this film borrows as much from as the Poe story, but perhaps you knew Anya Seton’s novel the film was based on (1944), and if not that, then Charlotte Brontë’s novel, “Jane Eyre” (1847) that Seton borrowed from.

 

Many of the Croman/Poe films were penned by the legendary Screenwriter Richard Matheson, who was certainly willing to go as over-the-top as Writer Towne did here, but I’d argue, Matheson didn’t pursue the poetry of Poe as hard. This is a visually rich film and Towne uses off-camera dialogue to empower Cinematographer Arthur Grant, one of the Greats of the Hammer House of Horror, to really let loose. Examples of this were Verden speaking to his Barrister, Christopher Gough (John Westbrook), who is carefully disguising his own interest in Rowena, about his fear of losing his mind, while we watch Rowena climbing a bell-tower in pursuit of a black cat (Ligeia’s familiar). Soon after, the then-happy couple enjoy their Honeymoon sightseeing, Verden speaks of Immortality in a Sinister manner. This makes the film all the more Dreamlike as there’s only tenuous chronological connection between what we hear and what we see.

 

The film chock-full of Poe’s most repeated Themes: Paranoia of Premature Burial, Necrophilia, and Mesmerism, and during the dizzying climax, it is unclear who is Mesmerizing who anymore. Towne did eventually offer an opinion of what he thought he meant the film was about, “Literally being controlled by someone who was dead, which is gruesome notion but perfectly consistent with Poe.”

 

Wrote Critic Howard Thompson, “Say this for Roger Corman … [he] at least cares about putting Mr. Poe—or at least some of the master's original ideas—on the screen. If they are frankly made to be screamed at, they are not to be sneezed at ... these low-budget shockers generally evoke a compelling sense of heady atmosphere and coiled doom in their excellent Gothic settings, arresting color schemes and camera mobility.”

 

One challenge was in the casting. Here, the always appealing Price was, in fact, better than his usual high-standard, but he really didn’t belong in this film. In someways, it was a prefect Price part, but a Price from twenty-years prior. Price began his film career as a Romantic Lead in the now forgotten “Service de Luxe” (1938). He became a prominent Character Actor who was sought after for parts that were half-Romantic and half-Sinister, and of these, “Dragonwyck” is of special note. He didn’t really earn his title of Master of Horror, and therefore his Type-Casting, until “House of Wax” (1953). It was the “Dragonwyke” Price was the one this film needed, and to get that, Corman wanted Actor Richard Chamberlan, but AIP insisted on Price, who was so much a central player in the Poe series.

 

Trying to erase the decades, Price appears clean-shaven, wears a wig, and a lot of make-up. Behind-the-scenes there were jokes about hiring Marlana Detrick’s Make-up Artist but they actually used George Blacker, and he did make Price look really good. Also, Price is always Price, or as he was described by Critic Erich Kuersten, “Eyes and voice a purr of delight at his own ghoulishness … His luxuriant voice finds worthy dialogue in the classy but sensationalist.” And Nate Yapp, “Severe yet tender, haunted yet secure, Price captures Fell's mercurial moods in a breathless whisper that hints at a rasp.”

 

Film Writer Lawrence French interviewed Corman, “So you almost didn’t use Vincent Price in what he felt was his best Poe film!”

 

Corman, “And as a matter of fact, I agreed with Vincent—'Ligeia’ is one of the best Poe pictures and Vincent’s performance in the film was very good. It was simply a matter of age.”

 

With the Poe films, Corman received Critical praise he was denied earlier in his career, and with that, progressively (modestly) better budgets (this one was made for a mere $150,000 and looks like a million bucks). Croman’s last two Poe’s, this and “The Masque of …” were made in England and displayed a wonderful lavishness Corman never got to play with before.

 

“The Tomb of …” was especially distinguished by its beautiful location footage, something evident in almost no other Corman outing up-to-that-point, not even his early Westerns filmed mostly outdoors. The main location, the ruins of the Castle Acre Priory in Norfolk, England, are breathe-taking but there’s also a beautifully stage-fox hunt that seemed to involve multiple properties in succession.

 

Early in the series, Corman avoided location footage, not only for budgetary reasons, but to reinforce the un-Reality of Poe’s prose style. Here, where he was pushing Characterization, and Character credibility, to the series’ limits, he decided to ground it largely in real landscapes with a surprising embrace of visual Naturalism. Corman, “Towne wrote the film as a love story and that’s how we wanted it. This was the first Poe movie to be filmed on natural locations. For the first time we brought the world of Poe into the world of reality.”

 

 

One of the things that Critics responded to in the Corman/Poe films was the enhancement of the Art Direction and Production Design over virtually everything else Corman had done before. “The House of Usher” (1960) had a wonderful lavishness that was done on the extreme cheap by Art Director Daniel Haller. When Corman moved the last two of the series to England, he complained endlessly about the burdens of the stronger Union Rules (he never came to terms with Mandated Tea-Times) but the resources available to him exploded, and Haller worked with him on “The Masque of …”

 

Here, the Art Director was Colin Southcott who’d worked with Haller on “The Masque of …” and borrowed from the interiors Haller created for the earlier films, but expanded on the color pallet because of the new use of location footage. The dark and creepy bell tower sequence is intercut brightly light exteriors, and even in the dreary interiors there are stronger color accents. In the USA-based Corman/Poe films there’s a joke about the candles, all from the same box bought when the first film was made and then then raided with each subsequent feature. Here the candles sticks are a striking blue, and the sets larger and more decorative. Southcott had a few advantages over Haller, he co-opted sets from the far-bigger-budgeted “Beckett” (1964).

 

Observed Director Joe Dante, “’Tomb of Ligeia’ is one of my favorite Poe films because it’s so darn arty.”

 

Writer French again, “That’s why [AIP head] Sam Arkoff didn’t like it. He said it was too arty and not as scary as the earlier Poe films, but most importantly it didn’t make any money for AIP!”

But Corman insisted that it was profitable, as all of the Poe films were, “but ‘Tomb of Ligeia” made the least amount. I think it was because the series was just running out of steam and also because it was overly complicated.”

 

Arkoff was wrong about “not as scary,” it is full of strikingly creepy scenes, like the above-mentioned bell-tower and a dream sequence where Rowena kisses Verden, but then realizes Verden has become Ligeia, but also pushing-its-luck in referencing the earlier entries in the series. The fiery climax uses stock footage from “House of Usher” (1960) as well as Verden’s strange sensitively to light, something in the original “Usher” Poe story but not the original “Ligeia,” and Character Gough plays largely the same role in this plot as Character Philip Winthrop (Mark Damon) in the earlier film; I already mentioned Actress Steele and “The Pit and ..;” and there were tricks with mirrors similar to “The Masque of …” Moreover, we see references to Price films Corman was not associated with, like “House of Wax” and “Diary of a Madman” (1963).

 

Corman, then a fifteen-year AIP veteran and without doubt their best-earning talent, was becoming increasingly frustrated with the studio. During pre-production, he threatened to take the project away and go to another studio. After the release, he slowly distanced himself from SF,F&H and explored other Genres; with that, his allotted budgets dropped again. Finally, after he was denied the final Edit of the SF/Comedy “Gas-s-s-s, or It Became Necessary to Destroy the World in Order to Save It” (1970), he quit AIP and his own studio, New World.

Trailer:

The Tomb of Ligeia - Vincent Price (1964) - Official Trailer HD (youtube.com)