House of Usher [The Fall of the House of Usher] **** (1960, Vincent Price, Myrna Fahey, Mark Damon, Harry Ellerbe) – Classic Movie Review 2,844

The 1960 horror film House of Usher is the first and perhaps best of Roger Corman’s eight Edgar Allan Poe adaptations. Vincent Price is on rousing form as the albino Roderick Usher, desperately trying to end the curse of the madness in his family. 

The 1960 American horror film House of Usher is the first and arguably perhaps the best of director Roger Corman’s eight Edgar Allan Poe adaptations, and finds Vincent Price on rousing form as the albino Roderick Usher, who is desperately trying to end the curse of the long line of madness in his family. You’d be mad even to try.

Corman’s greatest acclaim came with his eight movies based on the works of Poe, made through American International Pictures and mostly in collaboration with writer Richard Matheson, who here adapts Poe’s 1839 short story The Fall of the House of Usher. Corman also worked with set designer Daniel Haller and cinematographer Floyd Crosby on the series. 

Mark Damon co-stars as Philip Winthrop who arrives at his fiancée Madeline Usher (Myrna Fahey)’s family mansion and discovers an appalling family curse. While Roderick’s senses have become painfully acute, Madeline has become catatonic. Roderick tells Philip about the Usher curse: if there is more than one Usher child, all of them go insane and die horrible deaths.

[Spoiler alert] Later Philip correctly fears that his future brother-in-law Roderick has buried his future bride alive, which is not the best way to the altar. Content that his mad sister is safely entombed, Roderick is well upset when she returns to haunt him.

Corman’s movie is a cheaply and quickly made but imaginative and stylish horror movie with a spectacular, fiery ending that Corman later reused in several other of his Poe films. But it is Price’s bravura turn gives it real class.

Writer Matheson provides a surprisingly sleek, subtle and effective script, while there’s intense, powerful and imaginative direction by Corman in one of his finest hours. Cinematographer Floyd Crosby makes fine, energetic use of the CinemaScope and Eastmancolor, filming relentlessly and restlessly.

House of Usher was shot in just 15 days. It cost $300,000 and took $1,450,000 in the US and Canada.

It stars Vincent Price as Roderick Usher, Mark Damon as Philip Winthrop, Myrna Fahey as Madeline Usher and Harry Ellerbe as Bristol. Also in the cast are Bill Borzage, Mike Jordon, Ruth Oklander and George Paul.

The studio Corman rented left the small basement staircase set standing after production wrapped, so he reused it in subsequent films.

It was remade as The Fall of the House of Usher in 1980 and as The Fall of the House of Usher 1983 and as The House of Usher in 1988.

It was previously made as The Fall of the House of Usher in 1950.

The film marks a turning point for American International Pictures. Till then AIP specialised in low-budget black and white films for double bills, but with this market in decline, they decided to gamble on making a larger budgeted film in colour.

On 6 August 2010, BRIC Arts presented the film in Prospect Park with a new score and psychedelic overlays and flashforwards by Marco Benevento in celebration of the film’s 50th anniversary. DVD versions have running times between 76 and 80 minutes.

The seven other Corman Poe adaptations are: The Pit and the Pendulum (1961), The Premature Burial (1962), Tales of Terror (1962), The Raven (1963), The Haunted Palace (1963), The Masque of the Red Death (1964) and The Tomb of Ligeia (1964). All but The Premature Burial star Vincent Price. Ray Milland got to do that one.

After The Raven was completed, Corman had some shooting days left before the sets were torn down and so made another film, The Terror (1963), on the spot with the remaining cast, crew and sets, but it is not actually based on any text by Poe.

Mark Damon became one of Hollywood’s most prolific producers and pioneer of the foreign sales business in the 1970s.

The film was listed with the US National Film Registry in 2005 as culturally, historically or aesthetically significant.

Les Baxter’s score was finally released in February 2011.

Roger William Corman (April 5, 1926 – May 9, 2024).

Roger Corman died at his home in Santa Monica, California, on 9 May 2024 at the age of 98. He was married to the film producer Julie Halloran [Julie Corman] from 1970 until his death. They had four children.

He has an incredible 515 credits as a producer. However the IMDb credits him with 55 directed films and some 385 produced films from 1954 to 2008, many as uncredited producer or executive producer (as head of his own New World Pictures from 1970 to 1983). His 1960 film The Little Shop of Horrors set a world record for the shortest shooting schedule of a feature film of two days.

Roger Corman’s highspots are Attack of the Crab Monsters, Not of This Earth, It Conquered the World, A Bucket of Blood, The Little Shop of Horrors, House of Usher, The Pit and the Pendulum (1961), The Premature Burial (1962), Tales of Terror (1962), The Raven (1963), The Haunted Palace (1963), The Masque of the Red Death (1964), The Tomb of Ligeia (1964) X: The Man with the X-ray Eyes, The Wild Angels, The St Valentine’s Day Massacre, The Trip, The Red Baron, Gas! (1970) and Frankenstein Unbound (1990).

Mark Damon (born Alan Harris; April 22, 1933 – May 12, 2024).

The legendary Mark Damon

Handsome leading actor Mark Damon (born Alan Harris; April 22, 1933 – May 12, 2024) was signed in 1958 to 20th Century Fox, who cast him in inconsequential films. But he found more notable work outside the studio, winning the the Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year – Actor as Philip Winthrop in House of Usher. He moved to Italy and became a notable Spaghetti Western star, especially in Johnny Oro [Ringo and His Golden Gun] (1966) directed by Sergio Corbucci and Requiescant (1967). He gave up acting in the mid-1970s to become a film producer, returning to the US in 1977, where he founded Producers Sales Organization (PSO). He developed a reputation as one of the leading producers and distributors of independent films, and as the ‘legendary Mark Damon’.

He outlived Roger Corman by just three days.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2,844

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