Review: Twice Told Tales

Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment: Doctor Sebastian Cabot and his friend Vincent Price recall the death of the former’s fiancé 38 years ago on the night before they were to be wed. A bizarre set of circumstances sees the creation of a rejuvenating elixir that Cabot then decides to use to bring his beloved back from the dead.

 

Rappaccini’s Daughter: A young student (Brett Halsey) falls for a strange but beautiful young woman (Joyce Taylor) whose overprotective scientist father (Price again) has gone to drastic and bizarre lengths to ensure no man will touch her.

 

The House of the Seven Gables: Vincent Price returns to his family estate with new bride Beverly Garland, and a quest to find the buried treasure somewhere in the house. Meanwhile, Garland starts to be haunted by creepy visions of events long ago that may have resulted in a curse being placed on Price’s family.

 

Vincent Price temporarily leaves Edgar Allen Poe behind to tackle several Nathaniel Hawthorne stories in this flawed 1963 collection by director Sidney Salkow (“The Last Man on Earth”). Produced and scripted by Robert E. Kent (“Tower of London”, “Diary of a Madman”), it’s a worthwhile but lumpy experience. It’s not as well-mounted as the Corman-Price-Poe films AIP made, and it’s also a considerably longer film at around 2 hours. The length of the three stories being told here is a bit out of whack, if you ask me. The first story is too short for instance, and the pacing is off. It probably would’ve been a stronger film if the first story – fine as it is – were excised entirely.

 

The music score by Richard LaSalle (“Diary of a Madman”) is top-notch, and in the first story we have the wonderful Sebastian Cabot, whose somewhat melancholic character gives the story a little something extra. It’s otherwise your fairly standard ‘rejuvenation elixir’ story, which is also a bit silly. Price really only gets a chance to shine in the latter stages of the story, otherwise playing rather timid and against type. It’s a little weird that none of the stories really showcase the film’s leading man I must say. However, what I really don’t understand is the length of this story. The overall film runs two hours, but this story is clearly given short shrift and does a real disservice to the concept.

 

The second story has some really interesting story elements, but is let down a bit by the weak performances aside from Price. Price is again in a support role here, whilst our leads are the woefully wooden Brett Halsey and Joyce Taylor. It’s a shame because the story is so incredibly bizarre, creepy, and fascinating. I think someone needs to give the story another crack, because it’s really worthy. The third and final story is a famous one, The House of the Seven Gables and as is the case with the first story, Price’s thunder is stolen here. The scene-stealer in this one is an unpleasant Jacqueline DeWit having an absolute ball playing thoroughly rotten. The best story of the three, it’s also the least fantastical and by far the most straightforward. Thankfully the performances in this one are solid right across the board.

 

Lumpy, overlong anthology has just enough going for it to get one of the faintest recommendations I’ve ever given. Price completists will want to see it, just be aware that he’s strangely not really showcased here.

 

Rating: B-