The Comedy of Terrors

I have just seen the film - It's good to see again Price, Karloff, Big Mouth Joe E. Brown, Rathbone,Lorre. etc.. The plot may not be exceedingly good but a guy like me who saw them in my early youth cannot help but feel refreshed seeing them again. Just to see them is ample reward. Peter Lorre of all people made me remember the striking beauty of Joan Fontaine in the Constant Nymph which I saw back in 1951! And Casablanca -- ah! I am perhaps too romantic to spend time detecting evident errors in stunts as has my British predecessor in commenting. I just love cinema for the emotions a movie elicits, or the memories it brings back, no matter the technical aspects in it. Certainly, a cast as this had to be in a film that revolved around cemeteries, buried alive people (remember Price in the Fall of the House of Usher..?) I could just continue writing a lot...

What a great movie! Much despised for years, this film has only recently been acknowledged for the hilarious classic that it is. The film is very handsome, with great color work by Floyd Crosby, and the script is very, very amusing -- perfectly executed by the perfect cast. Les Baxter's maniacal score is a real delight, accentuating every mad moment.

Highly recommended to those with a devilish sense of humour. Vincent Price is wonderfully evil as the desperate undertaker. Peter Lorre is disgusting but lovable as the assistant caught between Price's evil ways and his lovely (opera-punishing) wife (played with gusto and terrible audibility by Joyce Jameson). Boris Karloff (who never seems to get his medicine) is excellent as JJ's elderly father.

Honours go to their demanding landlord, Basil Rathbone, who.... well, watch the film and find out.

This delightful horror comedy romp stars horror legends Vincent Price and Peter Lorre as an undertaker and his assistant, who have problems paying the rent due to a lack of customers. However, the only reason work is slow is because people aren't dying. And that's a fact that our hero has no qualms about changing. The undertaker profession is ripe for making a black comedy out of, and this film makes the best use of that. It is true that the film isn't consistently funny, but most of the jokes in the film work; and some of them are downright hilarious. Aside from the two legends already mentioned, this film also features a performance from another of horrors greatest stars; Boris Karloff. This isn't the first time these three great stars have worked together, but seeing them on screen will always be a treat for the horror fan and it certainly proves to be in this movie, especially since it's done with a big smile on it's face and its obvious that all concerned had a good time making it.

Vincent Price isn't an actor that I would expect to blend well with straight comedy, as I'm used to seeing him in more macabre outings, but he is really good at it. His delivery of one-liners is faultless, and this performance shows his range as an actor. Peter Lorre has a fantastic screen presence and he's not an actor that you can see and then forget. There's nobody quite like Peter Lorre, and that's what makes him so great. His pathetic persona blends well on screen with Price's amoral and sarcastic one, and the two make an awesome comedy duo. As if this wasn't enough for you, Boris Karloff joins them as Price's father in-law. Karloff doesn't get to do a lot in the film, but he too bodes well with comedy and it's a treat to see him along with another two legends. Also of note is the fact that the film is directed by one of horror's true greats - Jacques Tourneur. This film isn't up there with his atmospheric masterpieces such as 'Cat People' or 'I Walked With a Zombie', but it's a solid film in his oeuvre and is highly recommended.

I just couldn't resist a film that boasts Vincent Price, Peter Lorre, Boris Karloff and Peter Lorre all together, all in one film! Their chemistry is amazing, and they all come off as seasoned actors who are just having a really good time. Price and Lorre are the perfect duo of undertakers in search of their next job. Price consistently insults, threatens and demeans Lorre (and everyone else-he is so delightfully despicable!)

Peter Lorre, who I consider to be a neglected comic genius in his own right, plays the perfect bumbling and lovable assistant. The scenes between him and Joyce Jameson (an argument for hearing protectors if ever there was one) are beautiful and absurd in their ingenuousness, as if the 60 year old Peter Lorre was but a smitten schoolboy mooning over a damsel.

The scenes at the dinner table are perfect in their comic timing, the decrepit Boris Karloff sitting peacefully unaware of Vincent Price's palpable loathing of him and his daughter, occasionally coming out with gems like "The Egyptians used to pull the brains out through the nose with a hook!" before returning to drinking his milk in a charming and doddering manner.

Basil Rathbone, however, is the hammy fist of the production, so to speak. He plays the inflexible and imperious landlord who owns the establishment out of which the funeral home of Hinchley and Trumbull operates, and he plays it up to the hilt, using every ounce of overacting he saved up from his Shakespearian stage days to render Macbeth like it has never been heard before! This is perhaps Basil Rathbone's finest hour, and you must watch the film to see why. Trust me on this one!