Murders in the Rue Morgue (1971)

Really Surprised!

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

While the title suggests that the film is an adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's short story (something that had not been done since the 1930s), it is actually far more similar to "Phantom of the Opera", which has been done many, many times.The film is noteworthy for being one of the two American International Pictures Poe films without Vincent Price -- the other being "Premature Burial". But should this film really count as Poe anyway? Howard Thompson of the New York Times wrote that "the entire film is a gorgeous eyeful in excellent color, with lavish period decor and costumes and some perfectly beautiful dream montages." While I can hardly disagree, he goes above and beyond the praise I would have offered. I mean, I liked the story and the acting, but I never really noticed the color. And I am not sure what the "period decor" is, since there is no indication this is supposed to be anything but modern (after all, how can you present Poe's story unless it is well after he wrote it).Thompson does offer one negative piece of criticism, and that involves pointing out that "a tacked-on, drawn-out postscript almost flattens the fun." I completely agree with this. While I enjoyed the film, I felt like it had two or three endings, and just kept going anyway. There is no better way to make a film seem long (wearing out its welcome) than to make it start after the audience has stopped!

To be honest I have never been a great fan of director Gordon Hessler. I didn't like Scream, and Scream Again, hated Cry of the Banshee, and thought The Oblong Box was okay. I did like his Sinbad film and really liked his Kolchak episode(The Spanish Moss Murders)to be fair. I always thought he was one of those directors that tended to have a lot to work with but never fully utilized his wealth. Directors like Herscell Gordon Lewis, Larry Buchanan, and Ed Wood never had a third or fourth of what Hessler was working with but sometimes blindsided him with their efforts. So...to spin a long story short...I went into Murders in the Rue Morgue with some trepidation and had limited expectations. It surprised me. It didn't suck. Nor is it great, but Hessler did a lot of things right here though the film has some obvious flaws. Hessler does create a very European-feeling film despite having Jason Robards in the lead(it helps that most of the rest of the cast is European like Herbert Lom, Adolfo Celi(see him in a lot of films from this time period it seems), Christine Kaufmann, Lili Palmer, Peter Arne, and virtually everyone else except Michael Dunn). Hessler also creates some good visuals with some repeated dream sequences of a man falling from the theater rafters and an ax being wielded by a man in evening dress. Hessler also gets some scenes with acid and the plays being performed on stage very nicely done. His script is a huge problem as Poe is more of a backdrop for another retelling of The Phantom of the Opera. the story itself about a man seeking revenge is okay - I really like what happened to Robards at the end. Nonetheless, much of the story makes no sense, a staple in a Hessler film it seems to me. While there are some shortcomings, I am offering up a mild vote of confidence for Murders in the Rue Morgue as it is watchable, does have some merit, and is one of Hessler's better films - for what that is worth.

Gordon Hessler's MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE is not, as the title would suggest, really an adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's short story. In fact, it has next to nothing to do with Poe's tale, basically using it as little more than a starting off point. This is odd, as MURDERS is one of Poe's few stories that actually lends itself to being expanded into a feature film. It's a Sherlock Holmes-esque mystery, the bulk of which is about the method of solving the murders as opposed to the murders themselves.Hessler's MURDERS plays much more like a remake of PHANTOM OF THE OPERA than anything Poe ever wrote. And, although many of Poe's themes are present (e.g. murder, paranoia, vengeance), the movie lacks the sense of irony and macabre which drove Roger Corman's Poe adaptations, or even Hessler's own CRY OF THE BANSHEE.Jason Robards is oddly cast as the director and lead actor of a theatre troupe whose specialty is a production of Poe's story. His actors and people with whom he has relationships are being murdered by a mysterious masked man (Herbert Lom). The police are at a loss, and Robards does what he can to help them out...or so it would seem. Somehow mixed in with this is a vindictive dwarf (the wonderful Michael Dunn), who seems to have his own beef with Robards. As with Hessler's other movies, it's somewhat convoluted and hard to follow, but it does come to an interesting conclusion. His writers (on previous Poe films as well) seem to be attempting to emulate Richard Matheson's technique of taking Poe's work and expanding it, rearranging it, or even changing it, but keeping it's flavor rich and alive throughout. They don't quite manage that here, but the movie still works on it's own terms.MURDERS is a decent thriller, with good performances, moody photography and a lush music score. It has the same grindhouse quality as Hessler's previous Poe "adaptations", but the director boasts a much more noticeable sense of style this time around. While it's never as creepy as CRY OF THE BANSHEE or bizarre as SCREAM AND SCREAM AGAIN, it manages a fair degree of suspense and intensity, and is at the very least fun and fast paced.

AIP cut this and added color tints to the flash forwards and flashbacks and changed the ending. This has run on the Encore Mystery network since Feb. 2002 in a restored 98 min version...11 minutes longer than the AIP hack job. A dvd should follow sometime in 2003.