Happy Birthday Vincent Price - May 27 13 Greatest Vincent Price Movies
13 Greatest Vincent Price Movies
After an early Broadway debut, the late great Vincent Price (1911-1993) toiled in Hollywood films for over 50 years and appeared on countless TV shows (including everything from The Carol Burnett Show to The Brady Bunch). But, of course, the actor will always be remembered for his horror and villainous roles by generations of monster kids (whose ranks include director Tim Burton, who cast Price in one of his last—and best—screen assignments, 1990’s Edward Scissorhands). Chiller’s latest edition of The Friday 13 salutes the career of this scream legend on the occasion of his upcoming birthday (May 27). Helping us celebrate: Price’s own daughter and official biographer, Victoria. (Titles arranged according to year of release.)
1. The Invisible Man Returns (1940)
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The Invisible Man Returns Trailer
At age 28, stage-trained thespian Vincent Price joined Universal Studios’ classic monsters bullpen in this sequel to the James Whale/Claude Raines hit. Price stars as a man scheduled to hang for a murder he didn’t commit who takes an invisibility serum to apprehend the real killer. “The first ‘glimpse’ (!) of what Vincent Price could do with just his voice,” recalls daughter Victoria Price. The mellifluous actor disappeared into the role again with an amusing voiceover cameo for 1948’s hilarious Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein.
2. Dragonwyck (1946)
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Dragonwyck scene
In one of the parts dearest to his heart, Price portrays Nicholas Van Ryn, drug-addicted/wife murdering aristocrat, who lords over a gloomy mansion. “This movie meant a great deal to my father,” Victoria recalls. “He was playing a portly priest in Keys to the Kingdom, and he approached [director] Joe Mankiewicz with his desire to play the lead in Dragonwyck. The director basically said that he was totally the wrong type for the role. So my dad lost a lot of weight and really prepared for the audition—and got the role. It was his first leading film role in a genre that would become so important to him.”
3. House of Wax (1953)
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House of Wax (1953) -- Unmasked
As the hideously scarred sculptor Henry Jarrod, who uses real human bodies as his museum wax figures, the art-loving actor cemented his reputation as a monstrous screen villain in this 3-D smash. “House of Wax came at a very important juncture in my father’s life,” reveals Victoria. “He had just been cleared from one of [Red Scare instigator] Joe McCarthy’s lists and allowed to work again in Hollywood. He was offered two roles—one on Broadway and one for a film about an artist incorporating an interesting new technology [3-D]. The rest, as they say, is history!”
4. House on Haunted Hill (1958)
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Vincent Price - House On Haunted Hill - Trailer
In this wickedly scary gimmick film from producer/director William Castle, Price stars as a sarcastic millionaire who offers five strangers $10,000 a piece if they survive the night in the titular ghost hangout. This hit film garnered Price even more fans in the genre he would call home. Says Victoria, “Who doesn’t love Vincent Price as the elegantly evil Frederick Loren in House on Haunted Hill?”
5. House of Usher (1960)
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The House of Usher (1960). The family, explained
Price’s career continued to ascend in horror circles when he top-lined this classy Edgar Allan Poe adaptation, scripted by Richard (Twilight Zone) Matheson and directed with stylish efficiency by B-movie king Roger Corman. “Roderick Usher was one of my dad’s great roles, in my opinion,” says Victoria of the tragic, hypersensitive Usher, a man with, let’s say, family issues. “As the tortured aesthete, he was so handsome in that film!”
6. The Pit and the Pendulum (1961)
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The Pit and the Pendulum (1961) - The Pendulum Swings
The popularity of House of Usher for independent studio American International Pictures spawned a whole series of Poe flicks, most starring Price as equally troubled characters and bad guys. In Corman’s Pit and the Pendulum, Price limns Nicholas Medina, beleaguered son of a notorious Spanish Inquisition torturer who dusts off Pop’s ancient playthings thanks to his scheming wife (Barbara Steele). Shudders Victoria, “Pit and the Pendulum scared me to death when we had to watch it in school!”
7. The Comedy of Terrors (1963)
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The Comedy of Terrors - Vincent Price (1/1) Not Quite Dead Enough (1963) HD
The horror celebrity always enjoyed sending up his image in both film and television, and in this hoot, directed by Cat People’s Jacques Tourneau, he’s a boozy undertaker who’ll literally murder for customers. “My dad loved getting to work with his dear friend Boris Karloff and the legendary Peter Lorre, whose eulogy he gave just a few years later,” remembers Victoria. “And boy did they have fun!” And we can tell!
8. The Masque of the Red Death (1964)
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Theatrical Trailer - The Masque of the Red Death (Vincent Price)
In this masterpiece of Corman/AIP’s Poe cycle, Price essays the diabolical Prince Prospero, who throws a decadent bash while plague decimates those outside his castle walls. “A few years ago,Masque of the Red Death was shown at three straight events I attended,” Victoria notes of Masque’s enduring appeal amongst cinema scholars. “The movie is so surreal and ’60s. And Nic Roeg’s saturated cinematography is iconic.”
9. The Last Man on Earth (1964)
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The Last Man on Earth - Vincent Price (1/1) The Living Dead Attack (1964) HD
Tinseltown raided Richard Matheson’s excellent novel I Am Legend (about a vampire-plagued world) three times, beginning with this low-budget effort. Price’s version stands as the most faithful to Matheson, and the Rome-lensed movie also proved even more significant to Victoria. Sshe explains, “I owe my existence to Last Man on Earth! My parents moved to Italy for an extended period of time. Let’s just say that ‘La Dolce Vita’ worked its magic on 44-year-old Mary Grant Price and 50-year-old Vincent Price. When my mother started craving Chinese food in Europe, they had no idea I was the cause. But I ended up being a very happy surprise for them both…all because ofLast Man on Earth!”
10. The Tomb of Ligeia (1964)
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The Tomb of Ligeia - Vincent Price (1/1) A Prophecy of Ligeia’s Return (1964) HD
With a literate script by future Chinatown scribe Robert Towne, Corman and Price ended their Poe run with a fiery finish. As the downcast Verden Fell, Price suffers at the hands—and possessed feline claws—of his jealous deceased wife, who stalks her man when he remarries. As the haunted husband, Price contributes a subdued and nuanced performance, never upstaged by the movie’s killer cat or impressive English locations. “Tomb of Ligeia was Vincent’s personal favorite Poe film,” his offspring reveals.
11. Witchfinder General (1968)
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The Mark of Satan Is Upon Them - Witchfinder General (Vincent Price)
In this intense film (released in the U.S. as Conqueror Worm), St. Louis-born Price tackles real-life 17th century British witch hunter Matthew Hopkins, who traveled the English countryside persecuting innocent people for practicing witchcraft. As the despicable Hopkins, Price abandoned the flamboyance of some of his previous dastardly turns. “Working with [director] Michael Reeves was very, very difficult for my father,” admits Victoria. “He understood what Reeves wanted, but his methods and his youthful arrogance were difficult for my dad—who was about the nicest man on the planet. Ultimately, however, the malevolence which my father achieved made the part one of his most memorable.”
12. The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971)
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The flying unicorn Abominable Dr Phibes
In this art-deco tour de force, Price has a campy field day as the revenge-minded disfigured doctor who unleashes his own translation of the biblical plagues on the men who failed to save his wife’s life. Price returned as the noble madman in the equally entertaining Dr. Phibes Rises Again a year later. “Classic, stylistic and quirky, Dr. Phibes reteamed Vincent with his dear old friend of 40 years, Joseph Cotton,” says Victoria of the two actors who met while performing with Orson Welles’ Mercury Theatre. “And I am still struck by how expressive he was in that film of few words.”
13. Theater of Blood (1973)
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Theatre of Blood (1973): A pound of flesh
An even blacker comedic twist on the Phibes pictures, Theater of Blood rates as Price’s cinematic triumph, and one that encapsulates his entire oeuvre. This occasion he’s failed Shakespearean actor Edward Lionheart who, believed dead, elaborately murders the stuffy British reviewers responsible for his worst notices. Victoria catalogues how much Theater of Blood meant to dear Dad: “When you get to: a) fall in love with your future wife [Coral Browne] in a graveyard; b) electrocute her while playing a gay hairdresser; c) kill off all the critics; d) work with Diana Rigg and so many other great British actors; and e) recite Shakespearean verse while doing all of the above—how could it not be one of my father’s favorite films?”
We could easily list another 13 petrifying Price pictures on this list, so if you have the desire to learn more about the man and his movies, go to www.vincentprice.com, check out Shout Factory’s definitive two volume Vincent Price Collection on disc and pick up Victoria’s wonderful book Vincent Price: A Daughter’s Biography, as well as Lucy Chase Williams’ The Complete Films of Vincent Price.
