By
Hank Reineke
We’re told the expression “Revenge is a Dish Best Served Cold” had origin in
seventeenth-century France. I’ve no idea
if this is accurate, nor convinced it matters. What is unquestionable is that in life, literature and art, the subject
of revenge remains constant. Interestingly,
the avenging of injustices, real and perceived, is common to both heroes and their
adversaries. Sometimes motivations
combine so the separation between heroism and evil becomes muddied. As the iconic and deranged fiend Dr. Anton
Phibes, the great Vincent Price adroitly manages to move his audience to cheer as
his character carries out a series of brutal and theatrical murders.
Price appears as the titular Dr. Phibes in two of what
are, inarguably, the actor’s three best recalled films of the 1970s. The cycle was kicked off by Robert Fuest’s The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971) and Dr. Phibes Rises Again! (1972), with
Douglas Hickox’s Theater of Blood
(1973) – a similar film in style to the two-pic Phibes’ franchise – serving as
an unofficial third act. Truth be told,
only Vincent Price could manage to successfully pull off such sadistic and dark
malarkey as presented above. Price’s
reputation for playing gloomy, sinister characters with a sense of self-parodying
gallows-humor whimsy made him a perfect cast.
The early to mid-1970s may not have completely signaled
the end of old-school horror films, but it was the end of an era for those
players still carrying the torch. It was
primarily the British who kept the familiar tropes alive through the bloody, and
often Gothic, productions of Hammer, Amicus, Tigon and late-to-the game Tyburn. Though Hammer was reviled in the 1960s for
allowing Technicolor on-screen bloodletting, such crimson exploitation was
nothing to what was to follow. American
independents had already pushed the envelope to the extreme with such disturbing
drive-in fare as Wes Craven’s Last House
on the Left (1972) and Tobe Hooper’s The
Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974).
Overnight, the performances and films of such polished, academy
trained actors as Price, Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee were made antiquated
and unhip. Empty-headed teenagers were
the new principal players, and with the release of John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978), old-school horror was
relegated to the annals of film studies as a flood of imitations flooded movie
screens. While Vincent Price didn’t
disappear from movie-house screens, he was seen less often. You were more likely to catch Price on
television in a TV-movie, drama, situation comedy or as a guest on Hollywood Squares. Or, perhaps, you might have been fortunate
enough to catch the veteran actor trotting the boards in a traveling theatrical
production.
Price was, understandably, not a great fan of the
so-called “slasher” film genre. Such
disgruntlement was, no doubt, partly the result of a loss of big screen offers
and opportunities. Price considered the slasher
film “with all their blood and violence […] a different genre from the
wonderful Edgar Allan Poe films we used to make for Roger Corman.” In interviews from that period Price insisted
the recent trend on splashing explicit real-life violence onto the big screen
was a worrying trend. “When you have the
chain saw at the very beginning of the picture that knocks off about fifteen
people, where have you got to go?, he sighed to one journalist. “There’s no humor,” he continued. “They’ve just become too violent for me.”
There’s certainly no absence of humor – dark as it may be
- present in The Abominable Dr. Phibes
and Dr. Phibes Rises Again!. Price is directly responsible for innumerable
murders, most often in devilishly amusing methods. I feel that, in some manner of speaking, the
Phibes films had a measure of stylized influence on the slasher film
genre. The body counts left in the wake
of the subsequent slashers are, generally speaking, no greater nor less than
those in the Phibes or Theater of Blood
exercises.
In terms of thin plotting the Phibes and early slashers
are similar in construction. Both
substitute logic and a compelling storyline for a fast flowing series of voyeuristic
grim executions. The raison d’etre of both enterprises was to
deliver an entertaining, sadistic mix of idiosyncratic killings both inventive
and amusing. The big difference is that
a slate of seasoned actors are summarily dispatched in the Phibes films. In the slashers we tend to cheer on the fates
of the teenage-victims due to their visibly painful absence of acting skills.
In the Phibes films Vincent Price isn’t breaking new
ground. He’s merely diligently following
the established vengeful tradition of preceding movie ghouls. In the nineteen thirties and forties, Boris
Karloff and Bela Lugosi carried out all sorts of vendettas, nearly all the
result of some professional slight. Their targets, deserving or not, were always getting trapped behind
locked doors and no-escape rooms. This
was usually due to their tormentors having had their scientific research
purloined or reputations sullied.
There is one key difference between the old-school and
new-school horrors. Karloff and Lugosi
were crossed men with personalities - as anti-social and vengeful as those
personalities might be. Too many of the
slasher films, in my view anyway, featured successions of masked killers who killed
in cold, robotic-fashion. Often motivations
were not explained (or explained without satisfaction) until a movies’
end. The impersonality of such killings,
arguably, might have contributed to the mystery – as in a, “Why is this
happening?” But such detachment allowed for
too many of the best-remembered slashers to serve as little more than an assembly-line
cinematic abattoir. Which brings us back
to Dr. Phibes.
In The Abominable
Dr. Phibes, the titular character is not a medical doctor at all. A once-celebrated organist, Dr. Anton Phibes
(Vincent Price) holds a curious combination of PhDs in Musicology and
Theology. He uses his knowledge of the
latter to unleash a series of murders fashioned from ancient biblical curses. He unleashes his wrath on the medical team he
holds responsible for the April 1921 death of his wife Victoria Regina Phibes
(Caroline Munro, more or less). Drawing
the final curtains on those of he holds responsible, Phibes – with the
assistance of the mysterious and beautiful Vulnavia (Virginia North) -
methodically executes a series of Old Testament plagues as outlined in the Book
of Exodus. He grimly works his way to
his most loathed and final target, Chief of Surgeons Dr. Vesalius (Joseph
Cotton). Having planned the biblical killing of Vesalius’s son, the firstborn, Phibes
and Vesalius clash over the boy’s gurney in a tense, feverish confrontation at an
extravagant manor house on London’s Maldine Square.
While the casting of The
Abominable Dr. Phibes is perfect, it was an odd gamble that Price, the
film’s star player, was essentially given no interactive dialogue: the actor’s voice is only heard as a
filtered, somewhat robotic, voiceover throughout and even then only sparingly. Actress North, Phibes accessory-in-crime,
admitted to frustration when she read the script and learned her role too was
an unspeaking one. In July of 1971, North,
a former model, sighed to an Associated Press journalist, “I don’t know why
they don’t let me speak.” But she conceded “Not speaking is more sinister I
suppose.” It certainly was in Phibes
case, allowing Price’s disdain for his victims to be projected through his
sneering countenance.
One would have thought it we saw the last of The Abominable Dr. Phibes at that film’s
conclusion. But since American International
had raked in a not inconsiderable profit on investment, a Phibes resurrection
was quickly arranged. The first Phibes
film was often paired in cinema’s with A.I.P.’s Count Yorga, Vampire (1970), a modern-day spin on the old legend. Count
Yorga was very successful in in own right, spawning a sequel of its
own. That series success led to rumors
that A.I.P. might be grooming Yorga
star Robert Quarry as a potential horror film successor to the aging
Price.
What is obvious is that A.I.P. was interested in bringing
to the screen a collaboration of Price and Quarry. This was made plain in December of 1971 when
Louis M. “Deke” Heyward, A.I.P.’s Head of European Production, told reporters, “Bringing
the ‘abominable’ Phibes and the ‘insidious’ Yorga together was something that
just had to happen. The chemistry was too good to miss.” Heyward’s remarks were recorded as shooting
was getting underway at Elstree, the producer crowing, “It’s no secret that
when we were making the first ‘Phibes’ we were so sure we had a hit on our
hands that we took the trouble to shoot the opening scenes of the sequel that
was bound to come.”
Dr.
Phibes Rises Again! reunites several members of the original,
though North was out: Valli Kemp now filled the role of Price’s murderous
assistant. Peter Jeffrey is back as the
frustrated Scotland Yard detective who invariably arrives on the scene too late
to save anyone from their gruesome, if amusing, fates. Another horror icon, Peter Cushing, also appears in the film. As the U.S. and Western Europe was in the
throes of King Tut fever due to public interest in the touring display of
ancient Egyptian artifacts, co-screenwriters Fuest and Robert Blees moved the action
and ensuing mayhem from London to Egypt.
If not as satisfying as its predecessor, Dr. Phibes Rises Again!, is still great
fun. Yes, the sequel simply delivers
more of the same, but this is not necessarily a bad strategy as formula films
go. If anything, the film might be even
lighter in tone than the original, Price camping up the villainy to
preposterous proportions. Though teased
that a third film would follow – a script was commissioned – alas, the
cinematic run of Dr. Phibes was (excuse me) “Phinished.”
This two disc Kino Lorber Studio Classics Blu ray issue
of The Abominable Dr. Phibes and Dr. Phibes Rises Again! offers both films
in 1.85:1 widescreen and with 1920 x 1080p resolution and DTS-audio. The set offers no fewer than four isolated
audio commentary tracks. The primary
commentary comes directly from director Robert Fuest who shares his production
memories of The Abominable Dr. Phibes. Secondary commentaries on both The Abominable Dr. Phibes and Dr. Phibes Rises Again! come courtesy of
film historian Justin Humphreys, the author of The Dr. Phibes Companion (Bear Manor Media, 2018), the definitive
work on all things Phibesian. Video Watchdog’s Tim Lucas also shares thoughts
on Dr. Phibes Rises Again!. The set
rounds out with a collection of radio and television spots and theatrical
trailers. There’s also a colorful
slipcover for collectors and Phibes wonks, like myself, to fawn over.
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