The Premature Burial (1962)

To an extent the reputation of The Premature Burial, which is virtually inarguably the least regarded of the otherwise well-praised Roger Corman adaptations of Edgar Allen Poe from the '60s, has been the victim of circumstances. The lead role of Guy was written for Vincent Price, Corman's otherwise constant collaborator in his Poe cycle, but contractual obligations kept Price away. Price's replacement was Ray Milland, who was put in the unenviable position of replacing an actor who was already considered a unique icon. To be fair to Milland, I think his performance tends to be underestimated, largely because he had the misfortune of taking Price's place. To be even more fair, the problems with The Premature Burial lie outside issues of casting.

For one thing, even though The Premature Burial is firmly part of Corman's Poe cycle (Price's one-time absence notwithstanding), it feels like an imitation of the same. Much of the signatures of the other films - a "Wuthering Heights"-like atmosphere; thick melodrama worthy of something out of nineteenth century English literature; the guilty suffering dire retribution as a consequence of their sins (but not before at least some of the innocent suffer just as terribly) - are present here, with little else to make it stand out. Also the film is riddled with Gothic cliches older than cinema itself. The plot involves an English aristocrat, Guy Carrell, who is afraid to go through with the marriage to his fiancee, Emily (Hazel Court). The reason isn't the fierce opposition from his snobbish sister, Kate (Heather Angel), but because he is afraid to inflict his terror of being buried alive - and what he's convinced is the family knack for having violent, sudden deaths - on a wife. Emily wins him over and they're married, but as soon as the reception's over Guy is showing signs of being haunted by his obsession. Kate enlists Guy's friend Miles (Richard Ney) to help, but Guy's state of mind only worsens as he clings to his belief that his own father was buried alive and that, like his father, he suffers from an ailment that can place him in a catatonic state so deep that it can be mistaken for death. Is Guy's worsening fears actually justified, or is someone deliberately trying to push him over the brink? Of course, it's a stock Gothic plot, and it becomes obvious very early on that the question isn't what but who. In fact, the film itself doesn't seem that interested in sustaining a mystery, and the final reveal wins out over just one plausible alternate suspect.

Admittedly Poe's original story doesn't give the filmmakers much to work with; today Poe's "The Premature Burial" probably wouldn't even qualify as fiction, but as "imaginative non-fiction" or some such. There are passages from the story that are quoted wholesale by Guy, but the plot is almost entirely the invention of the screenwriters. Unsurprisingly it's still the parts that are most influenced by Poe that are the genuinely effective pieces. Milland's elaborate precautions to avoid being entombed in his family crypt - and the morbid pride he takes in them - is a gem that almost justifies watching the entire film, as is when Milland tries desperately to make his wife understand the precise horror he feels at just the idea of being buried alive. Even with the medical advances made since Poe's time, the prospect of being buried alive is still firmly in the "fates worse than death" category and can still have a resonance for a twenty-first century audience. For the audience's benefit, the script compensates for its weaknesses by tapping into the psychological claustrophobia so characteristic of Poe's best and most memorable work.

Otherwise the script's cookie-cutter nature isn't disguised at all by workmanlike acting and Corman's attempts at catching the atmosphere of English moors. Ray Milland does clock in a perfectly good performance, but if he doesn't deserve to be criticized just for not being Price then it's still all too transparent that the role was written to fit Price to a T. Price could bring pathos to even the most unsympathetic character (The Masque of the Red Death being a prime example from the Poe cycle) while Milland makes Guy too stiff and stuffy a protagonist - too true to the spirit of literature in Poe's time, I think - to generate much depth. As unfair as it might be, it is hard to imagine that when Guy makes the inevitable transition from victim under siege to madman on a rampage that Price not only would have handled it better but would have knocked it out of the park. Rather than squeezing the most out of a competent but still weak script, as Price would have done, Milland does little more than go through the motions with a stiff upper lip, perhaps proving why late in his career he was condemned to play little else than mean rich bigots.

I really don't want to be too hard on the film, but its flaws are hard not to focus on. Where it succeeds it really succeeds, making it a worthy part of the Poe cycle, but its moments of near-brilliance are buried (pun not intended, really) under genre predictability and its uncanny and unambitious stylistic resemblance to Corman's other Poe adaptations. For all that it's still worth watching, but perhaps not if you have the other installments in the Poe cycle at hand.

Now go read:

Edgar Allen Poe (1901),The Avenging Conscience (1914), and The Raven (1915) at And You Call Yourself A Scientist! and The Black Cat at The Duck Speaks

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