Theatre of Blood **** (1973, Vincent Price, Diana Rigg, Ian Hendry, Diana Dors) – Classic Movie Review 1936

Director Douglas Hickox’s engagingly outrageous 1973 British horror farce movie Theatre of Blood provides an ideal showcase for Vincent Price, whose talent for succulent over-acting is lavishly displayed when he plays crazed thespian Edward Lionheart, who concocts  a series of gruesome, grisly and appropriately Shakespearean deaths for his carping critics. Yes, it’s curtains for his critics.

Assuming various different actory disguises, Lionheart bumps off the critics one by one, each one taking fresh inspiration from whichever play he appeared in and they had slated him for in their evil reviews. So Trevor Dickman (Harry Andrews) loses a pound of flesh, Oliver Larding (Robert Coote) is drowned in a vat of wine, jealous Solomon Psaltery (Jack Hawkins) kills his wife Maisie Psaltery (Diana Dors) and commits suicide… and so on.

It does exactly what it says on the tin. Theatre of Blood is indeed bloody, as the title suggests, and this inspired premise for a black comedy chiller movie is sustained by Anthony Greville-Bell’s gleefully imaginative and nasty-toned screenplay, the vigorous, lip-smacking theatrical performances and Hickox’s eagerly energetic handling.

Diana Rigg co-stars as Edward Lionheart’s dutiful daughter Edwina Lionheart.

Ian Hendry, Coral Browne, Michael Hordern, Arthur Lowe, Robert Morley and Dennis Price also star. Milo O’Shea and Eric Sykes are funny in support as Inspector Boot and Sergeant Dogge. Joan Hickson, Renée Asherson, Madeline Smith, Tutte Lemkow, Bunny Reed, Peter Thornton, Charles Sinnickson and Brigid Erin Bates also appear.

The all-important clever idea for the film is by Stanley Mann and John Kohn.

Britain’s National Theatre staged a play version in 2005.

In real life, Diana Rigg’s book of memoirs is called No Turn Unstoned, a collection of devastating theatrical reviews throughout history published in 1982 after the actress received a savage review from John Simon for her performance in Abelard and Heloise.

RIP Diana Rigg (1938-2020), who died of cancer on 10 September 2020, aged 82. She is fondly remembered as Emma Peel in The Avengers (1965 to 1968), as a Bond girl called Tracy in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969), as Barbara in The Hospital and as Arlene Marshall in Evil Under the Sun (1982).

© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 1936

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