davidmvining

I didn't hate the comedy in The Raven, but it's obvious that everyone involved was straining to find the funniness in every moment. There's nothing naturally funny about any of the actors or the script by Richard Matheson, so everyone kind of feels lost when they're not mugging for the camera. Since that's the main driver of the film, it seems apropos to open with the critique. Outside of that, though, The Raven is a perfectly serviceable bit of macabre derived from Edgar Allan Poe's poem. Corman assembled his capable crew, brought in capable actors, and simply didn't give them the kind of direction they needed to elevate this film into a comedy with real laughs.

Dr. Erasmus Craven (Vincent Price) sits alone thinking of his departed Lenore (Hazel Court) when a raven enters his chamber. This raven speaks to him. He is Dr. Adolphus Bedlo (Peter Lorre) who had been turned into the bird by Dr. Scarabus (Boris Karloff). All three men are sorcerers, Craven the son of a leader of the sorcerers who had a professional rivalry with Dr. Scarabus before his death. Using Bedlo's own recipe, Craven concocts a potion to return Bedlo to human form. And we get our first big bit of comedy.

You see, the first attempt only turns Bedlo human sized and his head human. The rest of him is still a raven. That's the joke. The source of comedy is supposed to be the sight of Peter Lorre in a bird costume, but there are no actual jokes or comedic pratfalls. It's just Lorre walking around in a bird costume. This feels like a production that was in need of comedians constantly ad-libbing and then editing the film down to the funniest bits. Instead, the actors follow the script to the letter: a script that's just...not very funny. I apologize, Mr. Matheson. You were a wonderful genre writer, but I don't think comedy was your thing.

Anyway, Bedlo convinces Craven to go with him to Scarabus' house. Bedlo wants to take revenge on Scarabus, and he tells Craven that he saw Lenore there. Unconvinced but eager to see, Craven goes, bringing along his daughter, Estelle (Olive Sturgess), and Dr. Badlo's son, Rexford (Jack Nicholson). What follows when they arrive at Scarabus' castle is the typical mystery series of events as double crosses and head fakes of plot mechanics. It's functional stuff but weighed down by the attempts at humor that prevent any kind of investment in the action as we watch actors running around without any real idea of how to be funny which keeps them from earnestly approaching their characters with an aim for pathos. Everything is silly without being funny.

Dead people are revealed to be alive. People change loyalties. Hidden motives get revealed. There's some light entertainment to be had here, the best part of the film, as things move quickly and there's an easier fit of people mugging for the camera for laughs. And then we get a duel between Craven and Scarabus that is probably the best example of comedy in the whole film. I mean, it's lightly amusing, at best. It's not hilarious. And Corman leans into the cheapness of things with the optical effects to make it all work. It's cheap special effects. Some light stunt-work. Two professional actors mugging back and forth. It's supposed to be hilarious, but it's not. It's lightly amusing.

And the end result doesn't surprise me. Comedy is hard, and neither Corman nor Matheson had deep histories with it. Corman would miss a lot harder than he would hit regarding comedy in the past, and here he seems like an absent father as his cast and crew have no idea what to do. I have read that Lorre and Nicholson did do a fair amount of improv on set (Lorre does feel like it), but Karloff hated the practice and resisted it while Price was slow to get up to speed on Lorre's improvisations. More prep-time would have helped, but Corman worked too quickly.

I know that there are warm feelings for this film amongst the Corman faithful. However, I just...didn't think it was funny. Too staged, too stilted, and too strained, the comedy never really connects. Which is disappointing because the film is a handsome production with actors who are generally just good at the craft. I don't hate the film, finding some small joys here and there. However, ultimately, it's just kind of a drag.

Well, that's a terrible title. I mean, these people don't seem that young, but Roger Corman was trying to make movies for teenagers. So, selling to them the idea that it was about young people fit the bill. I mean, one lead was about 30 and the other was in his 40s. These aren't teenagers. I did coincidentally watch Patrick H. Willems' video essay about racing in film a couple of months before I watched The Young Riders, and Corman's propensity for frugality seemed to have led to something of a small breakthrough in cinema: filming real actors in real cars on real roads racing for real. That's neat. The rest of the movie, though? It's alright. A character piece without the right kind of structure or stakes to give it the dramatic push it needs to be actually interesting. Still, I appreciated it for trying to a limited degree.

Stephen Children (Mark Damon) is a former racecar driver in Monte Carlo to see the Grand Prix but also to meet his fiancée, Monique (Beatrice Altariba). Along with his secretary, Henny (Launa Anders), he waits in a café only to discover Monique having a public scene with the winner of the race, Joe Machin (William Campbell), with whom she'd been having an affair. Stephen decides that he's going to destroy Joe by getting close to him and writing a book to expose all of Joe's flaws to the world.

Where the film falters is in how it structures everything. The script by R. Wright Campbell is a slow moving character piece, but it spends so much time on Stephen getting to know and like Joe that any sense of tension at Stephen's hidden motive gets lost by the halfway point. At best, the film becomes this portrait of Joe, a man consumed by fear every time he gets in the cab of his car. However, how this relates to his womanizing seems intentionally obfuscated, like it was an attempt to create a complex character, but I just don't think the writing is quite there. It's an interesting attempt, but I wouldn't call it successful.

Where the film gets really weird structurally is in the introduction of Sir William Dragonet (Patrick Magee). He's brought in when the racing circuit reaches England, and the racers have lunch with him. He seems like just a rich fan of the game, but he ends up like Stephen. He has a personal grudge against Joe and wants to destroy him. When Stephen won't play Sir William's game, Sir William decides to reveal to Joe Stephen's original intention, opening up the rivalry between the two men.

And suddenly I saw what this movie should have been.

The two men were becoming friends as they progressed in races. Stephen ends up on a rival racing team early in the film, and they're out on the track multiple times. But the races are essentially just racing footage because Stephen is getting friendly with Joe before every race. There's little drama in the racing, until the finale. What if Stephen never hid his motive? What if his getting onto a rival racing team wasn't just something that happened to him because he decided to show off on a test lap but he forced his way on because he wanted to face down Joe on the track? It'd be closer to a generic racing movie, probably, but it'd have actual drama infusing its runtime instead of this leaden attempt at a character study.

The racing footage, though, is where the film is at its best. It's not always actually dramatic because of the story around it, but the fast moving cars, filmed from inside the cars themselves, is gripping if thin entertainment. When things do actually get dramatic for that final race in England, though, it's an extra layer on top that makes the event pop that much more.

So, the script, like many Corman films, needed another rewrite (Campbell wasn't a bad writer, and maybe he could have managed it himself). There's the production idea (race cars) and a script idea (the fearful athlete) that don't quite mesh as well as they should, but the actors are all game and do their best. It's always fun to see Trelane in something other than that one Star Trek episode.

It has some charms. It doesn't gel. It's far from the worst film Corman ever made, but it's also far from his best.

"Whoa...tone it down there, buddy," William Shakespeare said to Roger Corman. Corman, along with independent producer Edward Small at United Artists, decided to give his exploitative spin on Richard III, dolloping heavy helpings of Macbeth on top to give it that spooky veneer that was part and parcel of Corman's Poe cycle. What comes out is this macabre, sensationalist take on what was already a sensationalist bit of anti-Plantagenet propaganda from Shakespeare, and Corman's propensity for fast moving stories combines well to create this fun bit of Shakespeare-lite horror. I liked it.

King Edward IV (Justice Watson) lays dying, and his two sons are too young to take the throne. Yearning for peace in England after his death, he gives the regency of the realm to his younger brother George, the Duke of Clarence, (Charles Macaulay). However, Edward's other brother, Richard, the Duke of Gloucester (Vincent Price), is a deformed, malicious, powermad monster who will kill anyone to get the throne. So, he stabs Clarence in the back and throws his body into a wine vat moments after Edward declares him the regent. This is not a subtle film in the least.

However, things get fun when Clarence comes back as a ghost and starts haunting Richard. It becomes a motif where everyone Richard kills comes back to haunt him as a ghost. And he kills quite a few people.

This embrace of the macabre, mixed with the quick pace, is the source of fun for me. This is kind of Shakespeare for Dummies, but I see it as more of a riff on the story, heavily influenced by Shakespeare. Price hamming it up as the hunchbacked prince as he kills his way to the throne is a joy to watch, the veteran actor swinging for the fences in a role he never seems to have played on stage but could have done well in. A lot of the joy of Corman's Poe cycle is Price himself, the consummate professional who understands exactly what kind of movie he's in. He gives dedicated, committed performances that go all the way to the edge of arch and remain there on a balance for extended periods of time. Perhaps a couple of moments don't quite work (Richard seeing a ghost at a public dinner has Price reacting too big, I think), but for the most part, Price is the anchor for this macabre story of death and murder.

The murders continue with Richard trying to torture the queen's lady-in-waiting, Mistress Shore (Sandra Knight) into a confession that Edward's sons, Richard and Edward, were not the king's sons, something Mistress Shore refuses to admit even to the point of death. Her ghost tricks Richard into choking his own wife, Anne (Joan Camden), to death. And, of course, the two young princes die under his orders.

Throughout all of this is Corman following the path laid out by his screenwriters (Leo Gordon, F. Amos Powell, and James B. Gordon) to amplify the action with eeriness. Already, we have ghostly figures warning and even trying to attack Richard, but we also get Richard going to the physician Tyrus (Richard Hale), who uses large displays of fire to offer him advice on his future to help set the mood. Things are eerie and hiding dangerous forces all over the place!

And, I just got a real kick out of it. This is far from high art. It's dragging Shakespeare a couple of levels lower than normal, but Corman attacks the material with verve and a sense of darkly humorous fun. Really, I had more fun with this than most of Corman's work. It's genuinely a good time at the movies. I see a lot of praise to spread around about that, but this kind of feels like part of Corman's output like A Bucket of Blood, a quick and effective attempt at experimentation and fun from an experienced crew with an effective manager at the helm.