Dr Bedlo, Dr Scarabus. Dr Scarabus, Dr Craven, how do you do?
THE RAVEN (1963)
Quite the gem. If by chance, you haven't seen this, you're in for a treat. Screenplay by Richard Matheson, produced and directed by Roger Corman. It's a tale of the rivalry between three medieval wizards, played by three great horror actors. We start with just a hint of the Edgar Allan Poe poem. Vincent Price is Dr Erasmus Craven, moping around in his castle and mourning his lost Lenore. Tapping at the window is indeed a raven, but one that talks, and insolently at that (its first words are "How the hell should I know?"). The raven turns out to be Peter Lorre as Dr Bedlo, transformed into a bird after challenging the grandmaster Dr Scarabus and losing. Craven manages to restore Bedlo to human form, only to be informed that his wife Lenore is not dead after all but is living with Dr Scarabus. The two wizards go to visit the grandmaster, accompanied by Bedlo's useless son Rexford (who is an incredibly young Jack Nicholson...!) and Craven's nubile daughter. Once they get to the castle, they find that Dr Scarabus is none other than Boris Karloff himself. Yikes. After Craven has a glimpse of his lost Lenore (Hazel Court, the cast just gets better and better), everything is built up for a big sorcerous duel.
The three main stars are in top form. Price and Karloff are great as we expect, but Peter Lorre steals the movie. His Dr Bedlo is so unreasonable, so full of bad manners and poor judgement that he takes over every scene. Even though Scarabus has already defeated him and turned him into a raven, Bedlo has a few glasses of wine and promptly challenges him again. Lorre's attitude is amazing ("So you're defending yourself, you coward!") as he shouts insults at everyone. I've read that Lorre improvised much of his dialogue, which explains why Price and Karloff seem often taken offguard by it. When Lorre points his magic wand, Karloff blows on it and it droops like melted wax; Lorre says, "Why, you dirty old man..!" and Karloff looks hurt. Jack Nicholson is very unsure of himself and you wouldn't predict greatness from him based on this early performance. He looks embarrassed and confused.
I've always wondered if this movie had some influence on Dr Strange. The earliest strips were published before this movie came out but then the early strips had a Dr Strange with exotic quasi-Asian features. Soon, Ditko was drawing the hero as looking more conventionally handsome, perhaps with a Vincent Price influence? The duel between Craven and Scarabus resolves itself as the two magicians fight with beams of colored light from their hands, again something we soon saw in the DR STRANGE feature. Just wondering. As still another aside, you can tell with Spider-Man when Ditko first was ruined by Ayn Rand. Peter Parker ridiculed college protestors as shallow posers without a real cause(never mentioning the Viet Nam war) and became increasingly unsympathetic and judgmental. I didn't see the Objectivist influence in Dr Strange. Imagine Strange going on for pages lecturing Wong about how "people are either all good or all bad, there is no grey, just black and white. You can't have it both ways. Which is why I turned Iron Man into a refrigerator magnet."
Quite the gem. If by chance, you haven't seen this, you're in for a treat. Screenplay by Richard Matheson, produced and directed by Roger Corman. It's a tale of the rivalry between three medieval wizards, played by three great horror actors. We start with just a hint of the Edgar Allan Poe poem. Vincent Price is Dr Erasmus Craven, moping around in his castle and mourning his lost Lenore. Tapping at the window is indeed a raven, but one that talks, and insolently at that (its first words are "How the hell should I know?"). The raven turns out to be Peter Lorre as Dr Bedlo, transformed into a bird after challenging the grandmaster Dr Scarabus and losing. Craven manages to restore Bedlo to human form, only to be informed that his wife Lenore is not dead after all but is living with Dr Scarabus. The two wizards go to visit the grandmaster, accompanied by Bedlo's useless son Rexford (who is an incredibly young Jack Nicholson...!) and Craven's nubile daughter. Once they get to the castle, they find that Dr Scarabus is none other than Boris Karloff himself. Yikes. After Craven has a glimpse of his lost Lenore (Hazel Court, the cast just gets better and better), everything is built up for a big sorcerous duel.
The three main stars are in top form. Price and Karloff are great as we expect, but Peter Lorre steals the movie. His Dr Bedlo is so unreasonable, so full of bad manners and poor judgement that he takes over every scene. Even though Scarabus has already defeated him and turned him into a raven, Bedlo has a few glasses of wine and promptly challenges him again. Lorre's attitude is amazing ("So you're defending yourself, you coward!") as he shouts insults at everyone. I've read that Lorre improvised much of his dialogue, which explains why Price and Karloff seem often taken offguard by it. When Lorre points his magic wand, Karloff blows on it and it droops like melted wax; Lorre says, "Why, you dirty old man..!" and Karloff looks hurt. Jack Nicholson is very unsure of himself and you wouldn't predict greatness from him based on this early performance. He looks embarrassed and confused.
I've always wondered if this movie had some influence on Dr Strange. The earliest strips were published before this movie came out but then the early strips had a Dr Strange with exotic quasi-Asian features. Soon, Ditko was drawing the hero as looking more conventionally handsome, perhaps with a Vincent Price influence? The duel between Craven and Scarabus resolves itself as the two magicians fight with beams of colored light from their hands, again something we soon saw in the DR STRANGE feature. Just wondering. As still another aside, you can tell with Spider-Man when Ditko first was ruined by Ayn Rand. Peter Parker ridiculed college protestors as shallow posers without a real cause(never mentioning the Viet Nam war) and became increasingly unsympathetic and judgmental. I didn't see the Objectivist influence in Dr Strange. Imagine Strange going on for pages lecturing Wong about how "people are either all good or all bad, there is no grey, just black and white. You can't have it both ways. Which is why I turned Iron Man into a refrigerator magnet."