"House On Haunted Hill" -1959.

Tagline: "First film with the amazing new wonder EMERGO! The thrills fly right into the audience!" Well, a light-up plastic skeleton does, anyway.

Easily one of my favourite William Castle movies. Probably number one. My new remastered DVD is "temporarily delayed", according to UPS so I watched my crappy old copy. Still good enough to pull me out of a bad mood.

A heads-up for all of my faithful reader (no "s"): this is a long one because I want to edu-mah-cate youse guys on a movie that helped launch "Psycho" and "Halloween". Ah! Now I have you interested! Yes, John Carpenter said he was fascinated by this movie as a younger man and Alfred Hitchcock noticed the tremendous profit this movie took in and saw dollar signs. He thought "I should make a low-budget horror film, too." And he did. It wasn't half-bad either, as it turns out. But I digress....

PLOT!: Crazy-ass rich dude Frederick Loren (Vincent Price at his leering best) and his lovely but faithless fourth wife Annabelle (Carol Ohmart....and her legs)

invite five people who have never met to the house in question for a party. The theme? Stay the entire night and receive $10,000...assuming you live until morning. Converting that 1959 cash into 2013 moohla works out to...let's see....carry the three....about sixty-two trillion dollars. Or so. But as the night wears on, the party-goers discover it's not as easy as it seems and Mr. Loren may have an ulterior motive. (Moooh-hahahaha!)

A quick look at the five people invited and the actors who played them:

Lance Scroeder, test pilot, played by Richard Long. Lance has nerves of steel and a hankering for Nora (we'll get to her). Richard Long is best known as Jarrod Barkley on "The Big Valley" (a drama/western on TV). Plus, to his friends he was "Dick Long"....*snicker*. Mr. Long died young (47) from a heart attack.



Ruth Bridges, journalist, played by Julie Mitchum. Ruth likes her "scotch and" with very little "and", as well as that $10,000 she was promised. Julie Mitchum was the older brother to a little-known actor by the name of Robert Mitchum. This was the last film she made, in spite of living a long life.




Watson Pritchard, the owner of the house and the only one of the five to know it's terrible secrets, played by Elisha Cook Jr. Pritchard is too busy drinking himself into oblivion to consider what is really going on. Elisha Cook is one of those easily recognisable actors that amass impressive resumes simply by being subtle in his acting. Never one to chew the scenery, but always memorable in his parts, in films like The Maltese Falcon and The Big Sleep. He enjoyed notoriety in the 1980's as "Ice Pick" on Magnum P.I.. Cook lived to be in his 80's.

Nora Manning, a typist at one of Mr. Loren's many companies, played by Carolyn Craig. Nora just needs the money but she is not the type that does well in a haunted house...and the ghosts seem to enjoy that. Carolyn Craig has a sad history. She died at the age of 36 from a gunshot wound. Nowhere that I could find said if it was murder or suicide. Apparently, time and Hollywood have forgotten her.

Dr. David Trent, psychiatrist....and possibly something more, played by Alan Marshal. Marshal worked steadily in Hollywood in largely forgettable roles until his death at age 52 from a heart attack.






Which brings us to our happy couple. Frederick Loren, crazy-ass rich dude with a penchant for disposable wives, played by B-movie and horror legend Vincent Price. What? You don't know who Vincent Price is?....step a little closer to the floor vat filled with acid. And his wife with the legs up to her neck, Annabelle, who seems to be afraid of Frederick. Annabelle is played by Carol Ohmar. Ohmar and her lovley legs enjoyed a decent career in Hollywood, as lovely blondes have in the past. A former Miss Utah (1946) she was most famous for her role in "House On Hanuted Hill".

Okay, let's get crackin': Things I learned from this movie: 1- Theatres were forced to stop using "Emergo" (where the skeleton shot over the crowd) because teenage boys would bring slingshots and take shots at the plastic skeleton as it went over, proving once again that teenagers can ruin anything if they want to,

 2- filmed in two weeks....all of it, 3- Elisha Cook's disembodied head floats into focus first thing, which is the most frightening thing to happen until this:

4- Mr. Loren and his 4th wife aren't the loving couple you might expect,  

5- blood dripping from the ceiling onto your hand is no reason to yank your hand away in horror and disgust,

6- always keep your vat of acid fresh, in case company comes over, 7- old women mistaken for ghosts can somehow float instead of walking and then disappear into thin air, 8- firing a Colt .45 inches away from your (4th) wife's face will not cause any harm or hearing loss, 9- when a door opens by itself in a haunted house you should always go in to investigate, 10- when hanging yourself in a haunted house, be sure to choose rope so thick you could moor a large yacht with it,

 11- if a wall in a haunted house slides open to reveal a hidden room always go in to investigate (see 9), 12- they can hear the organ music but not the young woman screaming in terror moments before?, 13- getting people to fall into a floor vat filled with acid is easy-peasy, 14- if a rope crawls through an open window in a haunted house (during a thunderstorm) please remain perfectly still while the rope wraps itself around your feet, 15- it is not only possible to be in two places (inside and outside a house) within seconds, but you can also train rope to behave like a snake.

 

Overall rating: 5 disembodied floating heads out of 5!

 

Bonus material: I have a few minor issues with the "logic" used in this film. For example: how can....oh, wait....SPOILER ALERT!....there, now, how can the "ghost" of the 4th Mrs. Loren be seen floating outside of Nora's bedroom window and then be inside, hanging from her neck in the hallway five seconds later when she is not actually dead? And the 4th Mrs. Loren complains to Mr. Loren that he has taken away her fun by inviting all the guests himself, instead of her, and yet he still knows to....hang on...SPOILER ALERT!....to invite her secret lover, the psychiatrist. And, as mentioned, why can the guests, in their rooms behind closed doors, hear an organ playing downstairs but not hear a young woman screaming her guts out in the hallway? Why does the journalist allow blood to drip all over her hands....TWICE!...without yanking away? Why does the pilot walk into a room (and a secret room behind a sliding wall) when he knows there are no lights? Why is it so easy to steer a woman into a floor vat filled with acid? If it was me, I'd take my chances with the skeleton, and screw the acid! What kind of house has a blind caretaker? How the Hell would she know when something is dirty?

 

And I guess this wouldn't be complete without mentioning the 1999 remake of "House On Haunted Hill" which was actually pretty good.

Not done in the same style, of course, but a decent horror movie by itself with a couple of good special effects moments.

 

This last photo is one I came across that I assume to be someone just snapping a photo of Vincent Price fooling around with one of the props. I think it's perfect and if anyone comes across it in a t-shirt, let me know.