Ugly Contest

The Raven. Once upon a midnight dreary, while he ponders, weak and weary, the hero (Vincent Price) of this picture hears a tapping as of someone gently rapping, rapping at his chamber door. "Surely," says he, "surely that is something at my window lattice." Open then he flings the shutter, and with many a flirt and flutter, in there steps a stately raven of the saintly days of yore. "Prophet!" says he, "thing of evil! Prophet still, if bird or devil! Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn, it shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore!" Quoth the raven:

"HOW THE HELL SHOULD I KNOW? WHADDYA THINK I AM, HUH, A FORTUNE TELLER?"

It may not be Poe-etry, but it's what the raven quoth. And why not? After all, this is just a sappy little parody of a horror picture cutely calculated to make the children scream with terror while their parents scream with glee. The raven, see, isn't really a raven at all. It's Peter Lorre. The poor chap has been enchanted by Boris Karloff, a wicked wizard who lives in a slimy green castle--that one over there on the left side of the screen. The one on the right side of the screen belongs to Hero Price, a good wizard who takes pity on Lorre, and with the help of jellied spiders, dried bats' blood, vultures' tongues and various other tidbits, restores him to his "rightful form."

It isn't much of an improvement, but Lorre is grateful, and he informs Wizard Price that his lost love, Lenore, is a prisoner in the castle of Wizard Karloff. Together they rush off to release her, but when they arrive, they discover that Lenore is no longer the "sainted maiden" of literary memory. She is a lusty redhead (Hazel Court) with a cleavage that could comfortably accommodate the collected works of Edgar Allan Poe and a bottle of his favorite booze besides. Price demands her release. Karloff refuses. With Lorre grinning fiendishly in the wings, the two wizards cross wands in a demonological duel to the death. Sneering hideously, Karloff points his forefinger at Price: from the end of it, as from the barrel of a metaphysical peashooter, blue pellets of supernatural energy blip! blip! blip! Frowning sternly, Price points his forefinger at Karloff: from the end of it, green pellets of supernatural energy blip! blip! blip!

It does seem a shame that three grown men--Price is 51, Lorre is 58, Karloff is 75--can find nothing better to do with their time and talents. But on the other hand, it's fun to see the old horrors all together--sort of like watching an Ugly Contest. Karloff plays an admirable King Leer; Price wears a hairline mustache that looks like a third lip; Lorre at his loveliest suggests a contented tarantula. The real star of the show is Scenarist Richard Matheson, who has written three or four of the hairiest lines of the year. One of them is delivered by Lorre in a spooky cellar hung with colossal cobwebs, choked with sickly dust, and populated with rustling vermin. "Gee," he mutters to Price as he glances uneasily about the scene. "Hard place to keep clean, huh?"

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