phantom of the rue morgue (cinema history class)

Session: Pass the Poe -- Hold the Price, week 3
Movie: Phantom of the Rue Morgue (1954)
Directed by Roy Del Ruth
As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL

Plot:
People are dying in Paris. The police know who the killer is. Or do they? Hilarity ensues.

Teeing Up:
This movie -- or atleast the Poe story on which it was based, served as inspiration for Keith's first feature, The Bloody Ape, and he talked at length about the connections. Fun fact: The Bloody Ape began its life as a very different project, called Bigfoot On Campus. Anyway, Keith gave special recognition to Charles Gemora, who played the gorilla. My feeble attempt at humor (something about Jimmy Sodom working with Charles Gemora) went over like a led balloon. Oh well.

Reaction:
I had a hard time getting into this film. I think my problem stems from the fact that it was in 3-D. And I don;t mean the modern impressive 3-D that works really well. I'm talking about the cheesy 1950s-era 3-D that was just distracting. So, wearing the paper 3-D glasses over my regular glasses was a distraction, and I just couldn't get them positioned properly for the effect to work. So instead I had an uncomfortable arrangement and saw a phantom shadow next to the image on the screen.

So, based on that, it's hard for me to really judge the movie on its merits. I will acknowledge that the opening scene with the circus knife-thrower was very well done. The suspense built, and I found myself in rapt attention, wondering if he'll "miss" and hit his assistant.

The ratings:

• Joe: 9.8
• Sean 2 (on a scale of 1 - 4)
• Scott: 6.5
• Ethan: 4
• Me: 4.5

Phantom of the Rue Morgue fails the Bechdel Test.

Extras:
Our warmup this week was a 1979 animated interpretation of The Cask of Amontillado. This was an interestingly low-tech version. The animation consisted of paintings, over which the camera moved. But the paintings were quite good in a disturbing sort of way, and gave life to the production. The audio was a simple reading of the story verbatim. This was my first exposure to this particular Poe story, and experiencing it for the first time in this venue was great. But, what's with him and the whole sealing people up in walls thing?