Get Poe

Screenings of The Pit and the Pendulum and Tales of Terror

by Shaun Brady

Edward Pettit has gotten "a lot of mileage" out of "We're Taking Poe Back" — the cover story he wrote for City Paper last year in which he asserted Philly's claim to the late author's legacy. He'll be taking the argument to the Free Library in January for the Great Poe Debate; he moderated a Poe panel at the Bouchercon mystery writers' convention; and now he's expounding on the cinematic adaptations of Poe's work at County and Ambler theaters.

Pettit asserts that Poe's oeuvre trails only those of Shakespeare and Dickens in the sheer volume of celluloid committed to retelling their tales. The theaters, along with the Bryn Mawr Film Institute, will be screening two entries in the famed series of Poe adaptations and bowdlerizations perpetrated by low-budget maestro Roger Corman: The Pit and the Pendulum and Tales of Terror.

"It took a long time for a filmmaker to get it right and I think Corman really did," Pettit admits." Other people tend to be so extreme that it just seems ridiculous."

Corman took his Poe adaptations seriously, lavishing an abundance (for him, anyway) of time and finances on them, investing in performances and crafting a sumptuous visual palette free of cardboard backdrops and visible strings. Granted, the same stock footage of a warehouse fire reappears as Poe's tortured heroes are engulfed in flames regardless of the demise originally penned for them. But hey, old habits die hard.

In upping his game, Corman wasn't shy about lifting from other filmmakers who didn't have to strive quite so hard for quality. The Pit and the Pendulum adorns the torture scenario of the original with Euro-horror trappings, from a murderous scheme reminiscent of Les Diaboliques to the importation of Barbara Steele.

Corman's success is due in large part to the efforts of the producer/director's regular collaborators, such as legendary horror actor Vincent Price, who obviously relished the opportunity to shelve his camp mannerisms and play these haunted souls straight. For the most part, anyway — his comic drinking contest with Peter Lorre in Tales of Terror is a masterpiece of dueling horror ham.

(s_brady@citypaper.net)

Film forum, Thu., Oct. 24, 7 p.m., Ambler Theater, amblertheater.org; The Pit and the Pendulum, Mon. Oct. 27, 7 p.m., County Theater, countytheater.org, and Wed., Oct. 29, 7:30, p.m., Bryn Mawr Film Institute, brynmawrfilm.org; Tales of Terror, Thu., Oct. 30, 7 p.m., Ambler Theater.