Price meets Poe in Los Angeles
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Actor Vincent Price was born 100 years ago. The Yale-educated, art-collecting heir to a candy fortune found himself becoming the king of midcentury American horror movies — creepy, campy, macabre. Of his many movies, Price appeared in 10 full-length films adapted from works by Edgar Allan Poe. Poe didn’t have the affluent background of Price, but the two shared a talent for the terrifying.
Three of those films in which Price meets Poe will be screened as part of LACMA’s Price-A-Thon. The daylong film fest, all free, is being presented in conjunction with the museum’s Tim Burton exhibit. It’s taking place on the eve of Halloween, Oct. 30.
‘The Pit and the Pendulum’ kicks the day off at 1 p.m. and is followed by ‘The Masque of the Red Death’ at 2:30 p.m. Both films are taken from stories by Poe and are in ‘The Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Vol. 2,’ available as a free ebook at Project Gutenberg. The third film has a more tenuous Poe connection. Titled ‘The Witchfinder General’ in England, it was given the name ‘Conqueror Worm’ for U.S. release, which comes from the Poe poem that’s briefly alluded to in the picture. ‘The Witchfinder General/Conqueror Worm’ screens at 9:15 p.m.
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-- Carolyn Kellogg
