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The Masque of the Red Death (film)
Encyclopedia
The Masque of the Red Death is a 1964 British
horror film
starring Vincent Price
in a tale about a prince who terrorizes a plague-ridden peasantry while merrymaking in a lonely castle with his jaded courtiers. The film was directed by Roger Corman
; the screenplay by Charles Beaumont
and R. Wright Campbell was based upon the 1842 short story of the same name
by American author Edgar Allan Poe
. The film is one in a series of eight Corman film adaptations of Poe's works, and incorporates a sub-plot based on another Poe tale, "Hop-Frog
". The Masque of the Red Death has been televised in America and has been released on DVD
.
It was made by American International Pictures
.
Europe. Prince Prospero, a cruel, jaded Satanist
, invites several dozen of the local nobility
to his castle for protection against an oncoming plague, the Red Death. The local peasantry, or anyone that the Prince suspects of being infected by the plague, are killed by crossbow fire outside the castle walls, or their villages are burned to the ground.
Subplots include the abduction and attempted corruption of Francesca, an innocent Christian
peasant girl, the revenge of the dwarf
jester Hop-Frog
upon the brute who abuses his beloved mistress, and the Satanic self-initiation and downfall of Prince Prospero's consort Juliana. The film includes one of Corman's distinctive psychedelic
dream sequences.
Prospero orders his guests to attend a masked ball, with the stipulation that no one is to wear red. At the ball, amid a general atmosphere of debauchery and depravity, Prospero notices the entry of a mysterious hooded stranger dressed all in red. Believing the figure to be an ambassador from his master, Satan
, Prospero addresses him as "your Excellency". As the ball is transformed into a danse macabre
, the red-masked figure asks why Prospero keeps calling him "your Excellency", declaring "I have no title". Realizing his error, Prospero rips off the figure's red mask, revealing Prospero's own blood-spattered face.
The figure is not an emissary of Satan, but the Red Death himself, declaring that "There is no face of Death until the moment of your own death ... Each man creates his own God for himself — his own heaven, his own hell."
Prospero attempts to flee through the now-infected crowd, but his red-cloaked self is always in front of him. The Red Death finally corners him, asks him, "Why should you be afraid to die? Your soul has been dead for a long time", and strikes him down.
In an epilogue, the Red Death is playing with his Tarot cards with a young child, laughing as he shows her a card. He then picks up the cards and puts the deck in his robes as other similarly cloaked figures gather around him, each wearing a different colour: the "White Death
", the "Yellow Death", the Golden Death, the Blue Death, the Violet Death and the "Black Death
". They discuss among themselves the numbers of people each of them had 'claimed' that night, each accepting of their endless terrible task. When asked of his work, the Red Death says to them, "I culled many ... peasant and prince ... the worthy and the dishonored. Six only are left." Among the six are Francesca, her fiance Gino, Hop-Toad, the dancer he loves, the little girl the Red Death played cards with and an old man from a nearby village. The Red Death then says "Sic transit gloria mundi" (Latin for "Thus passes the glory of the world") and the cloaked figures then file offscreen in a grim procession. Over the procession are Poe's final words from the story itself: "And darkness and decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all".
Cinema of the United Kingdom
The United Kingdom has had a major influence on modern cinema. The first moving pictures developed on celluloid film were made in Hyde Park, London in 1889 by William Friese Greene, a British inventor, who patented the process in 1890. It is generally regarded that the British film industry...
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...
starring 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...
in a tale about a prince who terrorizes a plague-ridden peasantry while merrymaking in a lonely castle with his jaded courtiers. The film was directed by Roger Corman
Roger Corman
Roger William Corman is an American film producer, director and actor. He has mostly worked on low-budget B movies. Some of Corman's work has an established critical reputation, such as his cycle of films adapted from the tales of Edgar Allan Poe, and in 2009 he won an Honorary Academy Award for...
; the screenplay by Charles Beaumont
Charles Beaumont
Charles Beaumont was a prolific American author of speculative fiction, including short stories in the horror and science fiction subgenres. He is remembered as a writer of classic Twilight Zone episodes, such as "The Howling Man", "Miniature", and "Printer's Devil", but also penned the...
and R. Wright Campbell was based upon the 1842 short story of the same name
The Masque of the Red Death
"The Masque of the Red Death", originally published as "The Mask of the Red Death" , is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe. The story follows Prince Prospero's attempts to avoid a dangerous plague known as the Red Death by hiding in his abbey. He, along with many other wealthy nobles, has a...
by American author 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...
. The film is one in a series of eight Corman film adaptations of Poe's works, and incorporates a sub-plot based on another Poe tale, "Hop-Frog
Hop-Frog
"Hop-Frog" is a short story by American writer Edgar Allan Poe, first published in 1849. The title character, a dwarf taken from his homeland, becomes the jester of a king particularly fond of practical jokes...
". The Masque of the Red Death has been televised in America and has been released on DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
.
It was made by 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...
.
Plot
The story is set in medievalMiddle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
Europe. Prince Prospero, a cruel, jaded Satanist
Satanism
Satanism is a group of religions that is composed of a diverse number of ideological and philosophical beliefs and social phenomena. Their shared feature include symbolic association with, admiration for the character of, and even veneration of Satan or similar rebellious, promethean, and...
, invites several dozen of the local nobility
Nobility
Nobility is a social class which possesses more acknowledged privileges or eminence than members of most other classes in a society, membership therein typically being hereditary. The privileges associated with nobility may constitute substantial advantages over or relative to non-nobles, or may be...
to his castle for protection against an oncoming plague, the Red Death. The local peasantry, or anyone that the Prince suspects of being infected by the plague, are killed by crossbow fire outside the castle walls, or their villages are burned to the ground.
Subplots include the abduction and attempted corruption of Francesca, an innocent Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
peasant girl, the revenge of the dwarf
Dwarfism
Dwarfism is short stature resulting from a medical condition. It is sometimes defined as an adult height of less than 4 feet 10 inches , although this definition is problematic because short stature in itself is not a disorder....
jester Hop-Frog
Hop-Frog
"Hop-Frog" is a short story by American writer Edgar Allan Poe, first published in 1849. The title character, a dwarf taken from his homeland, becomes the jester of a king particularly fond of practical jokes...
upon the brute who abuses his beloved mistress, and the Satanic self-initiation and downfall of Prince Prospero's consort Juliana. The film includes one of Corman's distinctive psychedelic
Psychedelic
The term psychedelic is derived from the Greek words ψυχή and δηλοῦν , translating to "soul-manifesting". A psychedelic experience is characterized by the striking perception of aspects of one's mind previously unknown, or by the creative exuberance of the mind liberated from its ostensibly...
dream sequences.
Prospero orders his guests to attend a masked ball, with the stipulation that no one is to wear red. At the ball, amid a general atmosphere of debauchery and depravity, Prospero notices the entry of a mysterious hooded stranger dressed all in red. Believing the figure to be an ambassador from his master, Satan
Satan
Satan , "the opposer", is the title of various entities, both human and divine, who challenge the faith of humans in the Hebrew Bible...
, Prospero addresses him as "your Excellency". As the ball is transformed into a danse macabre
Danse Macabre
Dance of Death, also variously called Danse Macabre , Danza de la Muerte , Dansa de la Mort , Danza Macabra , Dança da Morte , Totentanz , Dodendans , is an artistic genre of late-medieval allegory on the universality of death: no matter one's...
, the red-masked figure asks why Prospero keeps calling him "your Excellency", declaring "I have no title". Realizing his error, Prospero rips off the figure's red mask, revealing Prospero's own blood-spattered face.
The figure is not an emissary of Satan, but the Red Death himself, declaring that "There is no face of Death until the moment of your own death ... Each man creates his own God for himself — his own heaven, his own hell."
Prospero attempts to flee through the now-infected crowd, but his red-cloaked self is always in front of him. The Red Death finally corners him, asks him, "Why should you be afraid to die? Your soul has been dead for a long time", and strikes him down.
In an epilogue, the Red Death is playing with his Tarot cards with a young child, laughing as he shows her a card. He then picks up the cards and puts the deck in his robes as other similarly cloaked figures gather around him, each wearing a different colour: the "White Death
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
", the "Yellow Death", the Golden Death, the Blue Death, the Violet Death and the "Black Death
Black Death
The Black Death was one of the most devastating pandemics in human history, peaking in Europe between 1348 and 1350. Of several competing theories, the dominant explanation for the Black Death is the plague theory, which attributes the outbreak to the bacterium Yersinia pestis. Thought to have...
". They discuss among themselves the numbers of people each of them had 'claimed' that night, each accepting of their endless terrible task. When asked of his work, the Red Death says to them, "I culled many ... peasant and prince ... the worthy and the dishonored. Six only are left." Among the six are Francesca, her fiance Gino, Hop-Toad, the dancer he loves, the little girl the Red Death played cards with and an old man from a nearby village. The Red Death then says "Sic transit gloria mundi" (Latin for "Thus passes the glory of the world") and the cloaked figures then file offscreen in a grim procession. Over the procession are Poe's final words from the story itself: "And darkness and decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all".
Cast
- Vincent PriceVincent PriceVincent 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...
as Prince Prospero - Hazel CourtHazel CourtHazel Court was an English actress best known for her roles in horror films during the 1950s and early 1960s.-Early life:...
as Juliana, his mistress - Jane AsherJane AsherJane Asher is an English actress. She has also developed a second career as a cake decorator and cake shop proprietor.-Early life:...
as Francesca, a peasant girl - David WestonDavid Weston (actor)David Weston is an English actor, director and author. Since graduating from RADA in 1961 he has acted in numerous film, television and stage productions, including twenty-seven plays in Shakespeare's canon. With Michael Croft he was a founder member of the National Youth Theatre...
as Gino, Francesca's lover - Nigel GreenNigel GreenNigel Green was a South African-born English character actor. Because of his strapping build and commanding demeanour he would often be found playing military types and men of action in such classic sixties films as Jason and the Argonauts, Zulu, Tobruk and The Ipcress File.-Early life and...
as Ludovico, Francesca's father - John WestbrookJohn Westbrook (actor)John Westbrook was an English actor.Born in Teignmouth, Devon, John Westbrook worked mainly in theatre and in radio. He also made occasional film and television appearances. His most famous role was as Christopher Gough in Roger Corman's The Tomb of Ligeia...
as The Red Death - Patrick MageePatrick Magee (actor)Patrick Magee was a Northern Irish actor best known for his collaborations with Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter, as well as his appearances in horror films and in Stanley Kubrick's films A Clockwork Orange and Barry Lyndon.-Early life:He was born Patrick McGee in Armagh, County Armagh, Northern...
as Alfredo - Skip Martin as Hop Toad, a dwarf jester
- Verina Greenlaw as Esmeralda, Hop Toad's dwarf lover
Merchandise
- Dell ComicsDell ComicsDell Comics was the comic book publishing arm of Dell Publishing, which got its start in pulp magazines. It published comics from 1929 to 1973. At its peak, it was the most prominent and successful American company in the medium...
published a comic book adaptation of the film.
- A novelization of the film was written in 1964 by Elsie Lee adapted from the screenplay by Charles BeaumontCharles BeaumontCharles Beaumont was a prolific American author of speculative fiction, including short stories in the horror and science fiction subgenres. He is remembered as a writer of classic Twilight Zone episodes, such as "The Howling Man", "Miniature", and "Printer's Devil", but also penned the...
and R. Wright Campbell and published by Lancer Books in paperback.