Madhouse is a 1973

1973 in film

The year 1973 in film involved some significant events.-Events:*The Marx Brothers' Zeppo Marx divorces his second wife, Barbara Blakely. Blakely would later marry actor/singer Frank Sinatra....

 British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 horror film

Horror film

Horror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...

 directed by Jim Clark

Jim Clark (film editor)

Jim Clark is a British film editor and director.Clark was born in 1931, and grew up in Boston, Lincolnshire. Clark moved to London, and in 1951 he began work as an assistant editor at the legendary Ealing Studios. Subsequently, Clark worked as a freelance assistant editor on two films directed by...

 for Amicus Productions

Amicus Productions

Amicus Productions is a British film production company, based at Shepperton Studios, England. It was founded by American producer and screenwriter Milton Subotsky and Max Rosenberg.-Horror:...

. It stars Vincent Price

Vincent Price

Vincent Leonard Price, Jr. was an American actor, well known for his distinctive voice and serio-comic attitude in a series of horror films made in the latter part of his career.-Early life and career:Price was born in St...

, Natasha Pyne

Natasha Pyne

Natasha Pyne , is an English actress.Pyne started her career at the Royal Court in a production of John Osbourne's Inadmissible Evidence and followed it in productions at the Lyric and Royal Shakespeare Company. She is best known for her role in the British television sitcom series Father, Dear...

, Peter Cushing

Peter Cushing

Peter Wilton Cushing, OBE was an English actor, known for his many appearances in Hammer Films, in which he played the handsome but sinister scientist Baron Frankenstein and the vampire hunter Dr. Van Helsing, amongst many other roles, often appearing opposite Christopher Lee, and occasionally...

, Robert Quarry

Robert Quarry

Robert Walter Quarry was an American actor, known for several prominent horror film roles.Quarry was born in Santa Rosa, California, the son of Mable and Paul Quarry, a doctor. His films include Count Yorga, Vampire , its sequel The Return of Count Yorga , and Dr...

, Adrienne Corri

Adrienne Corri

Adrienne Corri is an actress of Italian parentage.She is probably best known for her role as the rape victim Mrs. Alexander in the 1971 Stanley Kubrick film A Clockwork Orange, and for her appearances as Valerie in Jean Renoir's The River and as Lara's mother in David Lean's Dr. Zhivago...

 and Linda Hayden

Linda Hayden

Linda Hayden is an English film and television actress, best known for her roles in 1970s British horror films and sex comedies.-Career:...

.

Plot

Price plays Paul Toombes, a horror actor whose trademark role is 'Dr. Death'. Years after a scandal ends his film career (his fiancee is murdered and Toombes ends up in an asylum, suspected but never convicted of the crime), the embittered Toombes revives his character for a television series. Cast and crew begin to die in ways that suggest scenes from Toombes's films (which are represented here by clips of Price's AIP

AIP

-Computing:* Adaptive Internet Protocol, a protocol used by Sun Secure Global Desktop* Application Infrastructure Provider, an IT role for software support-Financial:...

 efforts, including The Haunted Palace

The Haunted Palace

The Haunted Palace is a 1963 horror film released by American International Pictures, starring Vincent Price, Lon Chaney Jr., and Debra Paget in a story about a village held in the grip of a cult. The film was directed by Roger Corman, and is usually listed as one in his series of eight films...

, Tales of Terror

Tales of Terror

Tales of Terror is an American International Pictures horror film starring Vincent Price, Peter Lorre, and Basil Rathbone; it is the fourth in a series of adaptations of Edgar Allan Poe stories directed by Roger Corman and released by AIP.-Plot:...

, The Raven

The Raven (1963 film)

The Raven is a B movie horror-comedy produced and directed by Roger Corman. The film stars Vincent Price, Peter Lorre, and Boris Karloff as a trio of rival sorcerers. Part of a series of Edgar Allan Poe adaptations produced by Corman through American International Pictures, the film was written by...

, and House of Usher

House of Usher (film)

House of Usher is an American International Pictures horror film starring Vincent Price, Myrna Fahey, and Mark Damon: the story is about a New England family cursed with madness, criminal conduct, and debauchery...

,), and they all point to Toombes. Now, Toombes must find and confront the real killer, before he becomes the killer's next victim.

Premise

Madhouse is very loosely based on a novel called Devilday (1969) by Angus Hall, which bears very little similarity to the finished film. In the novel, the character Paul Toombes is an overweight and dissipated sexual predator, who may very well have murdered his wife. His famous cinematic alter ego is named Dr. Dis, not Dr. Death. A reprint of the novel was issued under the title Madhouse to coincide with the release of the film.

Other titles considered for the film were The Return of Dr. Death and The Revenge of Dr. Death. Possibly, neither title was used because the producers did not want the film to appear to be a sequel to some other film. Also, another unrelated film called Dr. Death, Seeker of Souls had appeared not long before.

In the film, there are five movies in the "Dr. Death" canon. Three are mentioneed by name: Dr. Death, The Legend of Dr. Death, and Dr. Death and the Hangman.

The film is the last horror movie that Price made for American International Pictures

American International Pictures

American International Pictures was a film production company formed in April 1956 from American Releasing Corporation by James H. Nicholson, former Sales Manager of Realart Pictures, and Samuel Z. Arkoff, an entertainment lawyer...

, where he had worked consistently (mostly on Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective...

 adaptations) since 1960. Co-star Robert Quarry

Robert Quarry

Robert Walter Quarry was an American actor, known for several prominent horror film roles.Quarry was born in Santa Rosa, California, the son of Mable and Paul Quarry, a doctor. His films include Count Yorga, Vampire , its sequel The Return of Count Yorga , and Dr...

 was being groomed to replace Price, but low-budget horror films fell out of fashion after the release of The Exorcist

The Exorcist (film)

The Exorcist is a 1973 American horror film directed by William Friedkin, adapted from the 1971 novel of the same name by William Peter Blatty and based on the exorcism case of Robbie Mannheim, dealing with the demonic possession of a young girl and her mother’s desperate attempts to win back her...

.

Robert Quarry appears in a costume party sequence in the film dressed as his famous screen chrarcter Count Yorga

Count Yorga

Count Yorga, Vampire is a 1970 vampire/horror movie starring Robert Quarry. It was followed by a sequel, The Return of Count Yorga....

.

One of the victims of the killer, a director who is crushed in a prop bed, is played by Barry Dennen

Barry Dennen

Barry Dennen is an American actor, singer, and writer.Dennen was born in Chicago, Illinois. In New York City from 1960 to 1963, he had a relationship with Barbra Streisand, including living together for a year, during which time he helped her develop the nightclub act that began her successful...

, famous for his portrayal of Pontius Pilate

Pontius Pilate

Pontius Pilatus , known in the English-speaking world as Pontius Pilate , was the fifth Prefect of the Roman province of Judaea, from AD 26–36. He is best known as the judge at Jesus' trial and the man who authorized the crucifixion of Jesus...

 in Norman Jewison

Norman Jewison

Norman Frederick Jewison, CC, O.Ont is a Canadian film director, producer, actor and founder of the Canadian Film Centre. Highlights of his directing career include In the Heat of the Night , The Thomas Crown Affair , Fiddler on the Roof , Jesus Christ Superstar , Moonstruck , The Hurricane and The...

's film version of Jesus Christ, Superstar

Jesus Christ Superstar (film)

Jesus Christ Superstar is a 1973 American film adaptation of the Andrew Lloyd Webber/Tim Rice rock opera of the same name. Directed by Norman Jewison, the film centers on the conflict between Judas and Jesus during the last weeks before the crucifixion of Jesus...

.

An episode of the TV series Ghost Story called "Graveyard Shift", broadcast in February 1973, featured John Astin

John Astin

John Allen Astin is an American actor who has appeared in numerous films and television shows, and is best known for the role of Gomez Addams on The Addams Family, and other similarly eccentric comedic characters.-Early years:...

as a washed up horror actor haunted by some of his former screen characters, one of whom is coincidentally named Dr. Death.