Murders in the Rue Morgue

source: Murders in the Rue Morgue

Murders in the Rue Morgue

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.

It's turn of the century Paris. Cesar Charron (Jason Robards) is directing the stage play of Edgar Allan Poe's "Murders in the Rue Morgue". Rene Marot (Herbert Lom) killed an actor and steals his part as the murderous ape. Cesar's wife Madeline Charron (Christine Kaufmann) is the star of the show. She is haunted by nightmares since her mother (Lilli Palmer) was killed by an ax. Marot is the killer and is supposed to be dead. He is seeking revenge upon some of the participants. This is sort of a Poe play. This is sort of a horror. It's sort of thrilling. At the end of the day, it's not really any of these things. There are some good actors. The movie probably should be following Madeline more closely. She should be the sole protagonist. Her dreams need to be better. They're somewhat cheesy and what an old movie thinks a dream should be. In the end, there is not enough tension and only intermittently interesting.

This owes more far more to Gaston Leroux than Edgar Allan Poe (although to further confuse matters Lili Palmer's stage costume resembles that of the Red Queen in 'Alice in Wonderland'). Executive producers Nicholson & Arkoff of American-International had a dead horse to flog, however. So although we have an acid-burned Herbert Lom skulking about in a mask and cloak as he had nine years earlier in Hammer's version of 'The Phantom of the Opera' (for good measure called 'Erik', as he originally was in the novel and the classic silent version), it's poor Poe who carries the can for this fussily-directed shambles shot in Spain. It actually plunders 'The Premature Burial' at one point; while constant recourse to dream sequences throughout takes the place of coherent story-telling. Even some of the English-speaking actors (including the late Rosalind Elliot) are obviously post-synced.

Not terrible, but pretty close. It's difficult to not be disappointed in a movie that features Jason Robards, Herbert Lom AND Michael Dunn and still manages to be dull. Robards leads an theatre troupe whose members are being killed after being splashed with acid. Detective Adolfo Celi suspects Lom (who "died" years earlier). Aside from the presence of various men in gorilla costumes, the movie bears little resembles to Poe's story. Nevertheless it's well directed by Gordon Hessler with a lot of period detail (and Spain makes a nice substitute for France). Robards is just OK, Lom is fairly creepy and Dunn is exploited as a sinister dwarf. Christine Kaufmann (a actress of little talent and even less presence) plays Robards nubile young wife, plagued by nightmares and premonitions of things to come. Lili Palmer appears briefly as Kaufmann's mother.

Players at a Paris theatre (run by Jason Robards) become victims of a masked murderer (Herbert Lom). I saw a brand new print of this so the colors were rich and strong...that's about it for compliments. The movie was very obviously filmed in Spain and has erratic performances (even by pros Robards and Lom). Leading lady Christine Kaufmann is a really terrible actress and keeps having the same stupid dream again and again and again and again etc etc. The film is slow-moving, repititious, has lousy make-up (Lom seems to be wearing the exact same face he had in "Phantom of the Opera" in 1964) and the most boring murders ever put on screen...no gore and very little blood. Stick with the 1932 Lugosi version.

In Paris, in the beginning of the Twentieth Century, Cesar Charron (Jason Robards) owns a theater at the Rue Morgue where he performs the play "Murders in the Rue Morgue" with his wife Madeleine Charron (Christine Kaufmann), who has dreadful nightmares. When there are several murders by acid of people connected to Cesar, the prime suspect of Inspector Vidocq (Adolfo Celi) would be Cesar's former partner Rene Marot (Herbert Lom). But Marot murdered Madeleine's mother (Lilli Palmer) many years ago and committed suicide immediately after. "Murders in the Rue Morgue" is a boring and dull movie with terrible screenplay and wooden performances. There are many clichés; rip-off of scenes and concepts from "The Phantom of the Opera" and "Sherlock Holmes" and Christine Kaufmann is awful in the lead role. There is one terrible dreamlike scene where Madeleine looks to her dress before jumping into the carriage. My vote is four. Title (Brazil): Not Available