1971 horror, dir. Robert Fuest, Vincent Price, Joseph Cotten:
IMDb /
allmovie. Who is committing
bizarre murders, and why?
This was originally intended as a straight tale of a monstrous
killer, but Robert Fuest rewrote the script to make Phibes more
sympathetic (and not abusive to his assistant). The result is really
rather splendid. One knows that Phibes will eventually be run to
earth, but one can at least sympathise with his desire for revenge;
and, as in the Joseph Losey film of Don Giovanni, the villain simply
has much more style than the forces of Good.
We also have Joseph Cotten as Dr Vesalius, the intended final victim;
he played in Citizen Kane and Gaslight and The Third Man, and
maybe he looks as if he knows how much he's slumming it, but that
suits his character. There's also Peter Jeffrey as a comedy policeman,
and the ever-splendid Terry-Thomas, here in a small role as a man with
his own private pornograph.
Though I find myself wondering: how does one recruit a Vulnavia?
"Unquestioning assistant needed for bizarre vengeance-murders, must be
willing to dance with deformed killer to music by clockwork band. No
weirdoes."
It's sometimes cheap-looking, but it's enjoyably baroque, and for all
Phibes is driven to revenge one feels that he is at least getting some
satisfaction out of it. And, in the end, he gets all but one of the
things he wants: Vesalius' boy lives, but Phibes has killed all the
other people who failed to save his wife (played in photographs by the
splendid Caroline Munro), and got away with it on his own terms.
"A brass unicorn has been catapulted across a London street and
impaled an eminent surgeon. Words fail me."
I talk about this film further on
Ribbon of Memes.