 |
| Credit: Wikimedia Commons |
Well, finally, I'm back from that hiatus that I had said I was going to take. With the nice help of family, I got my bedroom cleaned of the paper clutter that dominated it. But that wasn't the only thing I was busy with that kept me from my regular writing schedule. I was in the hospital for three weeks, a follow-up from the last time I was there. The doctors had to remove the benign tumor they had found in me the time before. They had to take me apart, limbs, head and torso, and stitch me back together again like Frankenstein's monster. Okay, I'm exaggerating. Like really exaggerating. They only had to make one incision that they had to stitch up (with staples). The surgery lasted one day but the recovery lasted three weeks. I still have to limit my activity here at home, but I've been feeling well and enthused enough to at least give you this Book-To-Movie review for the month!
I decided to take a deviation from our usual Book-To-Movie. In our usual Book-To-Movie we normally review a book or short story and a movie it's been adapted into. But this time, I want to do something different not just because I don't have a book and its movie adaptation ready for review, but also because Thursday was the 110th birthday of the late actor, Vincent Price. He's been one of my all-time favourite actors in horror up there with Boris Karloff and Christopher Lee and as many as 25 of the movies he was in were horror, science fiction or fantasy of some sort based on books or short stories. So I decided to provide a list of those films, five of which I've reviewed in past Book-To-Movie reviews and so I've linked back to those in the list below in case you missed them or just simply want to go back and read them again. The rest on the list I hope to review along with their books in the future.
Vincent Price: A Short Bio
Vincent Price was born May 27, 1911 and died October 25, 1993. He was both a stage and movie actor and even though several of his film performances were not in the horror genre, he became an icon for the genre. The first several movies he was in were outside the speculative film category. He was acting in movies beginning in the late 1930s but it wasn't until 1958 when he started to regularly act in horror films beginning with "The Fly". However, Bloody Disgusting says that what made him a horror icon was his performance in American International Pictures' adaptations of Edgar Allen Poe stories and that he "starred in all but one of the eight films officially in this cycle."
But there were several other horror and sci fi films based on books and short stories that Price played in. These included "The Fly", which was based on a short story by George Langelaan, and its sequel "Return of the Fly". Below are all of his movies based on speculative fiction books and short stories, a few of which are straight science fiction or fantasy but most of which are particularly horror. Some of the Poe movie adaptations are actually based on poems in which much of Poe's verse was narrative in form so that's why I included them. I've listed the literary works each of these movies are based on and their authors just in case you want to beat me to the reading of them and be more ready for future Book-To-Movie reviews.
25 Book-to-Movie Horror & Sci Fi Films Starring Vincent Price
1) "The Invisible Man Returns": 1940 Sequel to "The Invisible Man"; based on H.G. Wells book of the same name (there was no sequel to the book itself).
2) "House of the Seven Gables": 1940; based on Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel of the same name.
3) "Son of Sinbad": 1955; based on characters from the "1001 Nights"; author is anonymous.
4) "The Story of Mankind": 1957; based on the book by Henrik Van Loon.
5) "The Fly": 1958; based on the short story by George Langelaan.
6) "Return of the Fly": 1959; sequel to "The Fly" (no sequel to the book itself).
7) "House of Usher": 1960; based on the short story, "The Fall of the House of Usher", by Edgar Allen Poe.
8) "Master of the World": 1961; based on the novel by Jules Verne.
9) "The Pit and the Pendulum": 1961; adapted from the short story by Edgar Allen Poe.
10) "Tales of Terror": 1962; based on three stories by Poe: "Morella", "The Black Cat", and "The Case of M. Valdemar"). (The Book-To-Movie review for this movie and the three stories are actually a section in the 2019 Halloween post.)
11) "The Raven": 1962; based on the poem by Poe.
12) "Diary of a Madman": 1963; based on two Guy De Maupassant short stories: "The Horla" and "The Diary of a Madman".
13) "The Haunted Palace": 1963; based on the poem of the same name by Poe and the short story, "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward", by H.P. Lovecraft.
14) "Twice-Told Tales": 1963; based on the book of short stories by Nathaniel Hawthorne.
15) "The Last Man On Earth": 1964; based on the novel, "I Am Legend", by Richard Matheson.
16) "The Masque of the Red Death": 1964; based on Poe's short story of the same name.
17) "The Tomb of Ligeia": 1964; based on Poe's short story, "Ligeia".
18) "City in the Sea": 1965; based on the poem by Poe.
19) "The Conqueror Worm" (A.K.A. "Witchfinder General"): 1968; based on the poem by Poe and a novel by Ronald Bassett.
20) "Spirits of the Dead": 1968; based on three stories by Poe: "Metzengerstein", "William Wilson", and "Never Bet the Devil Your Head".
21) "The Oblong Box": 1969; based on the short story by Poe.
22) "Scream and Scream Again": 1970; based on the novel by Peter Saxon.
23) "Madhouse": 1974; based on the novel, "Devil Day", by Angus Hall.
24) "The Monster Club": 1981; based on the novel by R. Chetwynd-Hayes.
25) "House of the Long Shadows": 1983; based on the novel, "Seven Keys to Baldpate", by Earl Derr Biggers.
The above films are just a handful of the the horror and science fiction Price was in. There are many more in the two genres, including his "House on Haunted Hill" that inspired several knock-offs through the years. Unfortunately, I don't have time to list these others in this post. The ones listed above are movies that were based on books and stories, many of which I hope to go over in future Book-To-Movie reviews! So look out for those. Also, be here at the Fantastic Site this Wednesday for another Insecure Writers' Support Group post!
Have you seen any of the Vincent Price films listed above or the books they were adapted from?
Until next time . . .
Comments
Post a Comment