#14: Roger Corman’s The Raven
Absolutely nothing like the Poe poem but fun enough to not matter
This review was originally posted on Twitter on November 24, 2018.
Initial release: 1963
Director: Roger Corman
The fifth in Roger Corman’s Poe cycle of films and obviously based on the poem, The Raven’s links to the source material are more tenuous than usual, and swaps out much of the original gothic vibe for straight comedy. Given how cheesy Corman’s films can be, it works.
First off, the cast. Vincent Price again, albeit in a rare heroic role, playing the mage Erasmus. Peter Lorre plays Dr. Bedlo, a lesser mage turned into a raven. A nearly larval Jack Nicholson is Bedlo’s son, and a very over-it Boris Karloff plays the evil Dr. Scarabus. Lotta big names. With a cast like this, even a weak script is salvageable. And while the plot is as paper-thin as it gets, the script manages to be a laugh a minute. Lorre ad-libbed most of his lines, making for some seriously funny moments. Quoth the raven: “how the hell should i know?”
With scant details to draw from in the original story, the film pretty much goes off the rails right away. As you might have guessed, this is more a fantasy than a straight adaptation of the original poem (if you want that, watch the first Simpsons “Treehouse of Horror” episode.)
Set sometime in the early 15th century (at least, that’s what we can surmise from a death date in a tomb and a little math,) the film opens much more like you’d expect: with Price in voice-over, reading a few lines from the poem over a psychedelic opening sequence, with much gloom and thunder. The first hint that this isn’t the usual fare is a physical gag where Erasmus bonks his head on his telescope. Eventually the titular raven appears, and before long it speaks, revealing itself to be Bedlo. Bedlo has been turned into a raven and sought out Erasmus, the only mage he knows not part of the so-called “Brotherhood of Magic.” Hijinks ensue.
While there is a healthy dose of gothic horror (everything from unsettling non-events to the classic “scaling the walls of the castle,”) the clear emphasis in this film is on comedy, and a lot of that comedy lies in dialogue and amazingly obvious special effects.
The film was savaged when it was new, but looking at it now, especially in the context of the rest of the Poe cycle, it’s easy to see it as a self-aware parody of early 60s low-budget gothic horror that Corman was undoubtedly the master of. This it is and nothing more.
