_**Poe mixed with Phantom of the Opera**_
At a Grand Guignol-like theater in turn-of-the-century Paris a troupe is beset by a shadowy acid killer. Jason Robards plays the director/actor, Christine Kaufmann his young wife, Lilli Palmer her mother, Herbert Lom a mysterious stalker, Michael Dunn a dubious dwarf and Adolfo Celi the inspector.
“Murders in the Rue Morgue” (1971) is not a film version of Edgar Allan Poe’s story, which the viewer is keyed-off to right away with the revelation that the play featured at the theater _IS_ Poe’s “Murders in the Rue Morgan.” The director & writer decided to do something different because Poe’s story was so well known. This movie has more to do with “Phantom of the Opera.”
Once you accept that, you can enjoy this AIP flick as a colorful Hammer-like Victorian horror similar to their Dracula or Frankenstein movies, albeit with a different “monster.” The ending features a twist that I found unconvincing, but at least it’s unexpected and shakes things up. Robards is relatively dull as the protagonist, which explains why he wanted Lom’s role. The part called for someone of Vincent Price’s magnetism.
The original version of the film runs 1 hour, 38 minutes, which is the version I viewed. Eleven minutes were unfortunately cut for the US debut, which included the removal of sequences from the end of the film, e.g. a lot of Lilli Palmer’s scenes. Director Gordon Hessler objected to these edits, as well as the tinting of the flashback scenes on the grounds that the idea was NOT to tint them so that viewers wouldn't know when they’re seeing a dream sequence or perhaps a flashback or a flash-forward, which hadn't been done before.
The movie was shot in Toledo and Madrid, Spain.
GRADE: C/C+
