THE HAUNTED PALACE: Milton Parsons and Lon Chaney welcome their warlock master into the body of his living descendent.


score, in the manner of SUSPIRIA. It’s not a popu- lar stance to take, but THE HAUNTED PALACE may be the most frightening and confidently made


of all the Poe films, at least of the American productions.


The Panavision film is also the most impressive of Scream Factory’s remasters. This time, both re- leases benefit from a superior quality 2.35:1 digital master and convey an impressive sense of spatial depth, selling the grandeur of Haller’s sets, as well as comparable brightness and contrast, despite a notable difference in bit rate. Scream Factory’s ex- tras include an exclusive audio commentary by film historian Tom Weaver (UNIVERSAL HORRORS, THE CREATURE CHRONICLES)—for my money, the most reliable, well-informed, entertaining and downright listenable audio commentator specializing in horror and fantasy cinema. This is his first new commen- tary track in some time, but don’t get your hopes up too high: it runs for only 30m 6s and spends most of its time on the subject of Charles Beaumont’s earlier sale of a “Charles Dexter Ward” adaptation to John Newland’s ONE STEP BEYOND series as an epi- sode called “The Captain’s Guests.” (There is no men- tion of this, but this is a story that we brought to light


in the Watchdog News department of VW 166:4.) Weaver also devotes some time to examining Beaumont’s initial script draft, which was contempo- rary in its setting, and the ways in which it differs from the final product. In telling Beaumont’s life story, Weaver focuses on the writer’s obsession with fables of immortality, advanced age disguised by apparent youth, and reincarnation as a preamble to the sad facts of his death at age 38, when a rare illness made him to all other appearances a 95-year-old man. The


commentary also includes a roughly 6m telephone plug-in from actress Debra Paget, who recalls her experiences of working with Vincent Price, and there are additional vocal cameos from Roger Corman (a noisier phone connection) and impressionist Piot Michael as Vincent Price. There is no mention on the packaging of the track’s brevity.


Piot Michael’s Price impression opens a sepa- rate, also brief, commentary track with an effusive recital of Poe’s poem “The Haunted Palace.” The commentary itself is by returning Price biographer Lucy Chase Williams, who speaks for slightly more than 30m before turning things over to pulp aficio- nado Richard Heft, who continues through 39m 41s, with information focused on the literary works of both Lovecraft and Beaumont. Williams’ contribu- tion makes excellent use of rare production code correspondence, bizarre news items from Hollywood columnists (including Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons), and early announcements of the (later nixed) involvement of Ray Milland and Boris Karloff. It’s a fine track, but is again more in the spirit of a lecture or spoken essay; it never speaks directly to what is taking place onscreen and the loitering eye can’t help but crave more sustenance from that di- rection. In the case of all three commentaries, the visual half simply need not be there. Carried over from a previous MGM DVD release of this title is “A Change of Poe” (11m 18s), a not- particularly-candid interview with Roger Corman about how the film came to be, its particular strengths, and his only opportunity to work with Lon Chaney. One gets the sense that this film isn’t one of Corman’s favorite subjects, for whatever reason, and he recorded no audio commentary for


27


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