{"id":30697,"date":"2013-04-11T10:43:19","date_gmt":"2013-04-11T17:43:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=30697"},"modified":"2020-12-13T13:11:57","modified_gmt":"2020-12-13T20:11:57","slug":"comedy-of-terrors-the-1963","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=30697","title":{"rendered":"Comedy of Terrors, The (1963)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>&#8220;I don&#8217;t think he&#8217;s quite dead enough yet to bury.&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n<table>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/Comedy-of-Terrors-Poster.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/Comedy-of-Terrors-Poster-196x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"196\" height=\"300\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-30699\" srcset=\"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/Comedy-of-Terrors-Poster-196x300.jpg 196w, https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/Comedy-of-Terrors-Poster-83x128.jpg 83w, https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/Comedy-of-Terrors-Poster-671x1024.jpg 671w, https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/Comedy-of-Terrors-Poster.jpg 1935w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 196px) 100vw, 196px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Synopsis:<\/strong><br \/>\nA drunken undertaker (Vincent Price) in need of clients bullies his assistant (Peter Lorre) into helping him kill innocent people &#8212; but their attempt to murder their strangely resilient landlord (Basil Rathbone) results in unexpectedly challenging consequences. Meanwhile, Lorre harbors a crush on Price&#8217;s mistreated wife (Joyce Jameson), whose aged father (Boris Karloff) has no idea Price is trying to slowly poison him.\n<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>\n<strong>Genres, Themes, Actors, and Directors:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Basil Rathbone Films<\/li>\n<li>Black Comedy<\/li>\n<li>Boris Karloff Films<\/li>\n<li>Historical Drama<\/li>\n<li>Jacques Tourneur Films<\/li>\n<li>Marital Problems<\/li>\n<li>Peter Lorre Films<\/li>\n<li>Vincent Price Films<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Review: <\/strong><br \/>\nThis belabored black &#8220;comedy&#8221; by director Jacques Tourneur &#8212; with a screenplay by Richard Matheson &#8212; possesses many loyal fans (see IMDb), but I&#8217;m not one of them. There&#8217;s simply no fun to be had in watching Price &#8212; playing one of his most irredeemably loathsome protagonists &#8212; abusing Lorre, Jameson, and Karloff while keeping himself in a perennial state of drunkenness; meanwhile, the screenplay is riddled with clunkers &#8212; such as the following exchange (not funny the first time), which is for some reason repeated ad nauseum:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>Gillie:<\/strong> Mr. Tremble&#8230;<br \/>\n<strong>Trumbull<\/strong> <em>(correcting him)<\/em>: Trumbull.<br \/>\n<strong>Gillie:<\/strong> I SAID &#8220;Tremble&#8221;! <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>A similarly painful gag involving Jameson&#8217;s terrible singing voice is milked dry as well. The allure of getting to see so many prime horror icons together onscreen, and\/or a respect for Tourneur&#8217;s prior classics &#8212; such as <a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=17043\"><em>Cat People<\/em> (1942)<\/a> or <a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=5984\"><em>Night of the Demon<\/em> (1957)<\/a> &#8212; is clearly what will tempt most film fanatics to check this one out; however, as noted in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.timeout.com\/london\/film\/the-comedy-of-terrors\">Time Out&#8217;s review<\/a>, &#8220;With credentials of this calibre, the movie could hardly fail, but it comes perilously close&#8221;. Be forewarned. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Redeeming Qualities and Moments: <\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Fine production values<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/Comedy-of-Terrors-Sets.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/Comedy-of-Terrors-Sets.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-30698\" srcset=\"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/Comedy-of-Terrors-Sets.png 1024w, https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/Comedy-of-Terrors-Sets-128x72.png 128w, https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/Comedy-of-Terrors-Sets-300x168.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Must See? <\/strong><br \/>\nNo; definitely feel free to skip this one, unless your curiosity gets the better of you. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Links: <\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0056943\/\">IMDb entry<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/1964\/01\/23\/archives\/comedy-of-terrors.html\">NY Times Original Review<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/moria.co.nz\/horror\/comedy-of-terrors-1963.htm\">Moria Review<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thespinningimage.co.uk\/cultfilms\/displaycultfilm.asp?reviewid=6771&#038;aff=13\">Spinning Image Review<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.timeout.com\/london\/film\/the-comedy-of-terrors\">Time Out Capsule Review<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t think he&#8217;s quite dead enough yet to bury.&#8221; Synopsis: A drunken undertaker (Vincent Price) in need of clients bullies his assistant (Peter Lorre) into helping him kill innocent people &#8212; but their attempt to murder their strangely resilient landlord (Basil Rathbone) results in unexpectedly challenging consequences. Meanwhile, Lorre harbors a crush on Price&#8217;s mistreated wife (Joyce Jameson), whose aged father (Boris Karloff) has no idea Price is trying to slowly poison him. Genres, Themes, Actors, and Directors: Basil&#8230;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"><a class=\"btn btn-default\" href=\"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=30697\"> Read More<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">  Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30697"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30697\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57576,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30697\/revisions\/57576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}