Martin Scorsese and Ron Howard; Kim Newman’s thorough and fascinating overview of Edgar Allan Poe (29m 33s); Rob Green’s 1993 short adaptation of “The Black Cat” (18m 21s); and “Cats in Horror Film” (9m 12s), an unexpectedly hilarious video essay by British novelist and critic Anne Billson, who, sporting red gloves, charming props and a devastatingly deadpan yet weirdly knowing charisma, leaves the viewer in no way unsatisfied but still de- sirous of more. Why Ms. Billson isn’t on television all over the world, spoonfeeding us her spidery charms day after day, simply defies explanation. The film’s theatrical trailer is also included.


THE RAVEN


1963, Scream Factory, 86m 8s Arrow Video, 86m 6s


Encouraged by favorable reviews of “The Black Cat,” Corman and Matheson took Poe on a feature- length comic twist with this film, which stars Price as Erasmus Craven, a lonely magician who learns from the eponymous blackbird (Peter Lorre, a fellow bun- gling magician) that his wife Lenore, believed to be dead, in fact resides with his arch-rival Dr. Scarabus (the great Boris Karloff) in his castle. The overall quality of comedy showcased here is unfortunately one or


THE RAVEN: A marvelous studio portrait of Price as Erasmus Craven, the “conjurer worm” who finds his backbone in a duel with a master of the Black Arts.


25


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