The Pit and the Pendulum (1961 film)
Encyclopedia
The Pit and the Pendulum is a 1961
horror film
directed by Roger Corman
, starring Vincent Price
, Barbara Steele
, John Kerr
, and Luana Anders
. The screenplay
by Richard Matheson
was based on Edgar Allan Poe
's short story
of the same name
. Set in 16th century Spain, the story is about a young Englishman
who visits a forbidding castle to investigate his sister's mysterious death. After a series of horrific revelations, apparently ghost
ly appearances and violent deaths, the young man becomes strapped to the titular torture device by his lunatic brother-in-law during the film's climactic
sequence
.
The film was the second title in the popular series
of Poe-based movies released by American International Pictures
, the first having been Corman's House of Usher
released the previous year. Like House, the film features widescreen
cinematography
by Floyd Crosby
, sets designed by art director
Daniel Haller
, and a film score
composed by Les Baxter
. A critical and box office hit, Pits commercial success convinced AIP and Corman to continue adapting
Poe stories for another six films, five of them starring Price. The series ended in 1965 with the release of The Tomb of Ligeia
.
Film critic Tim Lucas
and writer Ernesto Gastaldi
have both noted the film's strong influence on numerous subsequent Italian
thrillers, from Mario Bava
's The Whip and the Body
(1963) to Dario Argento
's Deep Red
(1975). Stephen King
has described one of Pits major shock sequences as being among the most important moments in the post-1960 horror film.
) visits the castle of his brother-in-law Nicholas Medina (Vincent Price
) to investigate the cause of the mysterious death of his sister, Elizabeth (Barbara Steele
), who had been Nicholas Medina's wife. Both Nicholas and his younger sister, Catherine (Luana Anders
), offer a vague explanation about Elizabeth having died from a rare blood disorder
. However, when Nicholas responds evasively after Francis asks for specific details regarding the disease, Francis advises that he will not leave until he discovers the true reason his sister died.
During dinner with family physician Dr. Leon (Antony Carbone
), Francis again asks about his sister's death. Dr. Leon tells him that his sister had died of massive heart failure, literally "dying of fright". Francis demands to be shown where Elizabeth died. Nicholas takes him to the castle's torture chamber
. Nicholas reveals that Elizabeth, under the influence of the castle's "heavy atmosphere", became obsessed with the chamber's torture devices. After becoming progressively unbalanced, one day she locked herself into an iron maiden
, and died after whispering the name "Sebastian". Francis refuses to believe Nicholas's story.
Francis tells Catherine that Nicholas appears to feel "definite guilt" regarding Elizabeth's death. In response, Catherine talks about Nicholas's traumatic childhood
, revealing that their father was Sebastian Medina, a notorious member of the Spanish Inquisition
. When Nicholas was a small child, he was playing in the castle's torture chamber when his father (also played by Price) entered the room with his mother, Isabella, and Sebastian's brother, Bartolome. Hiding in a corner, Nicholas watched in horror as his father repeatedly hit Bartolome with a red-hot poker, screaming "Adulterer!" at him. After murdering Bartolome, Sebastian began torturing his wife slowly to death in front of Nicholas' eyes.
After Catherine is finished telling Francis about Nicholas, Catherine and Francis are informed by Dr. Leon that Isabella was in fact not tortured to death, rather she was entombed behind a brick wall while still alive. Dr. Leon explains: "The very thought of premature interment
is enough to send your brother into convulsions of horror." Nicholas believes that Elizabeth may have been interred prematurely. The doctor tells Nicholas that "if Elizabeth Medina walks these corridors, it is her spirit
and not her living self."
Nicholas now believes his late wife's vengeful ghost
is haunting the castle. Elizabeth's room is noisily ransacked and her portrait is found slashed to ribbons. Her beloved harpsichord
plays in the middle of the night. One of Elizabeth's rings is found in the keyboard. Francis accuses Nicholas of planting the evidence of Elizabeth's "haunting" as some sort of elaborate hoax
. Nicholas insists that his wife's tomb be opened. Inside the coffin, they discover Elizabeth's putrefied
corpse frozen in a position of writhing horror, hands clawed and mouth wide open, as if in a final scream.
That night, Nicholas, now on the very edge of sanity, hears his wife calling him. He follows her ghostly voice down to the torture chamber. Suddenly, Elizabeth appears from out of the shadows, causing Nicholas to fall down a flight of stairs. She is alive, and she is met by her lover, Dr. Leon. Elizabeth, thinking Nicholas dead, taunts his apparent corpse about their scheme to drive him mad so the two lovers could inherit his fortune and estate. Nicholas opens his eyes and begins laughing while his wife and the doctor recoil in horror. Nicholas stands up and overpowers Dr. Leon, who attempts to escape but falls to his death. Nicholas then approaches Elizabeth, and promises he will torture her horribly.
Francis, having heard Elizabeth's screams, enters the dungeon to see what has happened. Nicholas is now gibbering with insanity and has become convinced he is his own father, the evil Sebastian Medina. He confuses Francis for Sebastian's brother, Bartolome, and knocks him unconscious. He straps him to a stone slab located directly beneath a huge razor-sharp pendulum and gags him with a red scarf. The cackling Nicholas slowly lowers the swinging blade closer and closer to Francis' torso. Catherine arrives just in time with Maximillian, one of the family servants
. After a brief fight with Maximillian, Nicholas falls to his death, and Francis is removed from the torture device. As they leave the basement, Catherine vows to seal up the chamber forever. They slam and lock the door shut, unaware that Elizabeth is still alive, gag
ged and trapped in the iron maiden.
that barely resembled Poe, with only the finale having any similarity at all to the original short story on which the film was based. Corman noted, "The method we adopted on The Pit and the Pendulum was to use the Poe short story as the climax for a third act
to the motion picture, because a two-page short story is not about to give you a ninety-minute motion picture. We then constructed the first two acts in what we hoped was a manner faithful to Poe, as his climax would run only a short time on the screen."
Matheson's screenplay included a flashback
to a time immediately preceding Elizabeth's illness, featuring Nicholas and Elizabeth horseback riding and eating a picnic lunch. Corman deleted the sequence prior to filming because he felt it violated one of his major theories regarding the Poe series: "I had a lot of theories I was working with when I did the Poe films...One of my theories was that these stories were created out of the unconscious mind
of Poe and the unconscious mind never really sees reality, so until The Tomb of Ligeia
we never showed the real world...In Pit, John Kerr arrived in a carriage against an ocean background, which I felt was more representative of the unconscious. That horseback interlude was thrown out because I didn't want to have a scene with people out in broad daylight."
The screenplay was modified from its original draft form during the film's shooting. Price himself suggested numerous dialogue changes for his character. In the script, when Francis Barnard is first introduced to Nicholas, the young man asks about loud, strange noises he had heard a few moments earlier. Don Medina responds: "Uh...an apparatus, Mr. Barnard. (turning) What brings you to us?" Price penciled in the suggestions "that must be kept in constant repair" and "that cannot be stopped". Later in the screenplay, when Nicholas recalls his father's chamber of torture, Price devised alternate explanations for Sebastian Medina's violence. During Nicholas's death scene, after falling to the bottom of the pit the character originally had dialogue at the point of dying, asking in a voice of horror, "Elizabeth. What have I done to you? (beat) What have I done to you?" The camera was to then cut
directly to Elizabeth's face trapped in the iron maiden. Corman decided to jettison the lines, believing that the film should remain purely visual at that point and dialogue would ruin the power of the scene.
in the climax of the film." Filming went smoothly, and Corman attributed the ease of the production's shoot to the short but comprehensive pre-production
planning he did with the major technicians. "We achieved what we did on a low budget because we carefully planned the whole production in advance of starting the cameras. Thus, when we moved into the studio for fifteen days of scheduled shooting, we didn't have to start making decisions. Because of our pre-production conferences with Director of Photography
Floyd Crosby and Art Director Daniel Haller, everyone knew exactly what to do, barring any last minute inspirations on the set."
To create the flashbacks revealing Nicholas's traumatic experiences
, Corman and Crosby attempted to shoot them in a manner that would convey to the audience the character's horror in dredging up nightmares trapped in his subconscious
. Corman insisted on these images having a dream-like
quality, "twisted and distorted because they were being experienced by someone on the rim of madness". Corman decided to film the flashbacks in monochrome
, since he had read that some psychiatrists believe most people dream in "black-and white" imagery. Crosby used wide-angle lens
es, violent camera movement, and tilted camera angle
s to represent the character's feeling of hysteria. The sequences were then printed on blue-tinted
stock
which was subsequently toned red during development
, effectively producing a two-tone image. The highlights were blue, with the shadows rendered as red, producing a deep, bloody quality. The image was then run through an optical printer
where the edges were vignetted
and a twisted linear distortion was introduced.
showing Kerr's arrival to the castle was filmed on the Palos Verdes
coast. The rest of the production was shot in four interior sound stage
s at the California Studios in Hollywood. To provide great freedom for the planned camera movements, a castle set with many levels and ample space was designed by Daniel Haller. Because of the film's low budget, none of the sets could be constructed "from scratch". After Haller made sketches and floor plans for the sets, he searched the backlot
s and property lofts of the major studios in search of available set units that could be inexpensively rented and then put together to form the sets he had conceived. At Universal Studios
, he located numerous discarded pieces from old productions, including massive archways, fireplaces, windows and doorways, and several torture machine props. At other studios, he found gigantic stairways and stone wall units. Haller selected and rented numerous pieces from these various depositories and had them delivered to California Studios, where the sets for the film were constructed, following his floor plans as closely as possible. To further set the atmosphere, about 20 gallons of cobwebbing was sprayed throughout the castle's sets.
The film's pressbook
noted that the pendulum was eighteen feet long and weighed over a ton, and was constructed with a realistic rubber cutting blade. The pendulum was rigged from the top of the sound stage thirty-five feet in the air. In an interview, Haller provided details regarding the creation of the pendulum:
To visually enhance the size of this set, the camera was equipped with a 40 mm Panavision wide-angle lens and mounted at the opposite end of the stage, giving Crosby the ability to frame the scenes in his camera with extra space at the bottom and at either side. These areas were filled in later by printing-in process extensions
of the set, doubling its size onscreen.
Prior to the start of filming, Corman had set aside one day of rehearsal
s with his cast. "Previously, I had painstakingly rehearsed the actors so there was complete understanding as to what each was to accomplish in each scene. This is most important; there is nothing worse than to be on the set and ready to roll, only to find that director and actor have different views as to how the scene is to be done. Thanks to pre-production planning and rehearsals, there was no time wasted on the set in haggling and making decisions."
domestic (U.S. and Canada) rentals versus the first film's US$ 1,450,000. According to writer Ed Naha
, it also received a better critical response. The majority of the film's reviews were positive.
Howard Thompson of The New York Times
wrote, "Atmospherically at least—there is a striking fusion of rich colors, plush décor and eerie music—this is probably Hollywood's most effective Poe-style horror flavoring to date…Richard Matheson's ironic plot is compact and as logical as the choice of the small cast…Roger Corman has evoked a genuinely chilling mood of horror." Variety
noted, "The last portion of the film builds with genuine excitement to a reverse-twist ending that might have pleased Poe himself...a physically stylish, imaginatively photographed horror film…" The Los Angeles Examiner
said it was "…one of the best "scare" movies to come along in a long time…skillfully directed by Corman…with Vincent Price turning in the acting job of his career…." Brendan Gill
of The New Yorker
felt it was "a thoroughly creepy sequence of horrors..." Time
called the film "a literary hair-raiser that is cleverly, if self-consciously, Edgar Allan poetic." The Hollywood Reporter
described it as "...a class suspense-horror film of the calibre of the excellent ones done by Hammer
...It is carefully made and has full production values...Vincent Price gives a characteristically rococo
performance..."
But Charles Stinson of the Los Angeles Times
was notably unimpressed by the film: "The uncredited [sic] scenario violates Poe's gothic style with passages of flat, modernized dialogue…But the pecadilloes of the script pale beside the acting…Price mugs, rolls his eyes continuously and delivers his lines in such an unctuous tone that he comes near to burlesquing
the role. His mad scenes are just ludicrous. The audience almost died laughing." Price was so infuriated by Stinson's negative review that he wrote a letter to the critic, saying "I find I must break a 25 year determination never to answer a critic. Since your review of The Pit and the Pendulum was obviously not meant to be instructive, and therefore constructive, but only to hurt and humiliate, I'm sure you would enjoy the satisfaction of knowing that it did. My only consolation…is that it is the second greatest box office attraction in the country." Price apparently never sent the letter, placing it instead into his "Letting Off Steam File".
The film's critical reputation has continued to grow over the years and it is now generally held to be one of the best entries in Corman's Poe series. Time Out has opined, "Corman at his intoxicating best, drawing a seductive mesh of sexual motifs from Poe's story through a fine Richard Matheson script." In The Penguin Encyclopedia of Horror and the Supernatural
, Timothy Sullivan wrote, "The Pit and the Pendulum is even better than its predecessor…The plot is heady stuff, and Roger Corman drives it forward with wonderful matte shots
of the castle perched on the seaside cliff, odd camera angles, the thickest cobwebs in horror movie history, a spider in the face, and an iron maiden…all before our hero is strapped under the pendulum, in a sequence that still stands one's hair on end." Phil Hardy
's The Aurum Film Encyclopedia
: Horror observed, "If Price's performance is noticeably more extravagant than in the earlier film, this is offset (or matched) by the markedly greater fluidity of camera movement. House of Usher seemed unsure of how to cope with the rush of action as Madeline returned from the grave; The Pit and the Pendulum has no such hesitations. From the great sequence in which Steele lures Price down into the crypt to the finale…its action is terrific." Tim Lucas
, in reviewing the film's DVD
release in 2001, wrote, "Benefitting from the boxoffice success of House of Usher, Pit is a more elaborate production and features some of the definitive moments of the AIP Corman/Poe series." And Glenn Erickson
, reviewing the DVD on his "DVD Savant" website, noted, "Roger Corman's second Edgar Allan Poe adaptation is a big improvement on his first, House of Usher… Remembered as a first-rate chiller by every kid who saw it, Pit and the Pendulum upped the ante for frantic action and potential grue…"
Recent critical opinion of the film is not all positive. Of the 18 reviews included in a Rotten Tomatoes
survey of critics regarding the title, 20% reflect negative reactions. FilmCritic.com opines that the film "...is quite a disappointment...In the end, it feels like one of [Corman's] rush jobs, which of course, it was."
(1962), Tales of Terror (1962), The Raven
(1963), The Haunted Palace
(1963, actually based on a story by H. P. Lovecraft
), The Masque of the Red Death
(1964), and The Tomb of Ligeia
(1965).
Tim Lucas has argued that the film had a large impact on many Italian
horror films that followed. Lucas noted, "It takes Corman's Freudian theories even further with a nightmarish flashblack sequence that plants the seeds of Nicholas' breakdown, and would prove particularly influential on the future course of Italian horror — an influence that can be seen even in productions of the 1970s (Deep Red
) and 1980s (A Blade in the Dark
)." Writer K. Lindbergs has noted an "obvious influence" on Antonio Margheriti
's Castle of Blood (1964) and its remake
, Web of the Spider (1970).
Screenwriter Ernesto Gastaldi
acknowledged that Ugo Guerra and Elio Scardamaglia, the producers of Mario Bava
's The Whip and the Body
(1963), had "shown me an Italian print of The Pit and the Pendulum before I started writing it: 'Give us something like this', they said." When asked if another of his films, The Long Hair of Death (1964), was inspired by Corman's film, Gastaldi replied: "Yes, of course! The Pit and the Pendulum had a big influence on Italian horror films. Everybody borrowed from it."
Stephen King
felt that one of the film's most powerful shocks — the discovery of Elizabeth's hideously decayed corpse — had a major impact on the genre and served as one of the most significant horror sequences of the decade. King wrote, "Following the Hammer films, this becomes, I think, the most important moment in the post-1960 horror film, signaling a return to an all-out effort to terrify the audience...and a willingness to use any means at hand to do it."
for television airings, the network noted that the film was too short to fill the desired two-hour time slot. They requested that AIP pad
the film out. Approximately five minutes of additional footage were subsequently shot by Corman's production assistant
Tamara Asseyev
.
Of the original cast members, only Luana Anders was available at the time, and the new sequence featured her character, Catherine Medina, confined to a lunatic asylum
. After much screaming and hair pulling, Catherine reveals the details of her horrific story to her fellow inmates, at which point the film itself follows as a flashback. This shot-for-television footage has been made available as an extra on the MGM Midnite Movies DVD release of the film, but was erroneously advertised as being the "Original theatrical prologue".
1961 in film
The year 1961 in film involved some significant events, with West Side Story winning 10 Academy Awards.-Top grossing films : After theatrical re-issue- Awards :Academy Awards:* Atlantis, the Lost ContinentB...
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 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...
, 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...
, Barbara Steele
Barbara Steele
Barbara Steele is an English film actress. She is best known for starring in Italian gothic horror films of the 1960s. Her breakthrough role came in Italian director Mario Bava's Black Sunday , now hailed as a classic.Steele starred in a string of horror films, including The Horrible Dr...
, John Kerr
John Kerr (actor)
John Kerr is an American actor from a family rooted in British and Broadway stage, and a lawyer.- Early life :Kerr's parents, Geoffrey Kerr and June Walker, were both stage and film actors, and his grandfather was Frederick Kerr, a famed British trans-Atlantic character actor in the period...
, and Luana Anders
Luana Anders
Luana Anders was an American film and television actress.-Career:Anders, born Luana Margo Anderson, began her career appearing in several supporting roles in low budget B-movies for American International Pictures, quite a few of them directed by Roger Corman. She was part of a group of well known...
. The screenplay
Screenplay
A screenplay or script is a written work that is made especially for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated...
by Richard Matheson
Richard Matheson
Richard Burton Matheson is an American author and screenwriter, primarily in the fantasy, horror, and science fiction genres. He is perhaps best known as the author of What Dreams May Come, Bid Time Return, A Stir of Echoes, The Incredible Shrinking Man, and I Am Legend, all of which have been...
was based 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...
's short story
Short story
A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...
of the same name
The Pit and the Pendulum
"The Pit and the Pendulum" is a short story written by Edgar Allan Poe and first published in 1842 in the literary annual The Gift: A Christmas and New Year's Present for 1843. The story is about the torments endured by a prisoner of the Spanish Inquisition, though Poe skews historical facts. The...
. Set in 16th century Spain, the story is about a young Englishman
English people
The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...
who visits a forbidding castle to investigate his sister's mysterious death. After a series of horrific revelations, apparently ghost
Ghost
In traditional belief and fiction, a ghost is the soul or spirit of a deceased person or animal that can appear, in visible form or other manifestation, to the living. Descriptions of the apparition of ghosts vary widely from an invisible presence to translucent or barely visible wispy shapes, to...
ly appearances and violent deaths, the young man becomes strapped to the titular torture device by his lunatic brother-in-law during the film's climactic
Climax (narrative)
The Climax is the point in the story where the main character's point of view changes, or the most exciting/action filled part of the story. It also known has the main turning point in the story...
sequence
Sequence (film)
In film, a sequence is a series of scenes which form a distinct narrative unit, usually connected either by unity of location or unity of time. For example a heist film might include an extended recruitment sequence in which the leader of the gang collects together the conspirators, a robbery...
.
The film was the second title in the popular series
Film series
A film series is a collection of related films in succession. Their relationship is not fixed, but generally share a common diegetic world. Sometimes the work is conceived as a multiple-film work, for example the Three Colours series, but in most cases the success of the original film inspires...
of Poe-based movies released 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...
, the first having been Corman's 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...
released the previous year. Like House, the film features widescreen
Widescreen
Widescreen images are a variety of aspect ratios used in film, television and computer screens. In film, a widescreen film is any film image with a width-to-height aspect ratio greater than the standard 1.37:1 Academy aspect ratio provided by 35mm film....
cinematography
Cinematography
Cinematography is the making of lighting and camera choices when recording photographic images for cinema. It is closely related to the art of still photography...
by Floyd Crosby
Floyd Crosby
Floyd Delafield Crosby, A.S.C. was an American cinematographer.Crosby was born and raised in West Philadelphia, the son of Julia Floyd and Frederick Van Schoonhoven Crosby...
, sets designed by art director
Art director
The art director is a person who supervise the creative process of a design.The term 'art director' is a blanket title for a variety of similar job functions in advertising, publishing, film and television, the Internet, and video games....
Daniel Haller
Daniel Haller
Daniel Haller is an American film and television director, production designer, and art director. Haller studied at the renowned Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles....
, and a film score
Film score
A film score is original music written specifically to accompany a film, forming part of the film's soundtrack, which also usually includes dialogue and sound effects...
composed by Les Baxter
Les Baxter
Les Baxter was an American musician and composer.Baxter studied piano at the Detroit Conservatory before moving to Los Angeles for further studies at Pepperdine College. Abandoning a concert career as a pianist, he turned to popular music as a singer...
. A critical and box office hit, Pits commercial success convinced AIP and Corman to continue adapting
Film adaptation
Film adaptation is the transfer of a written work to a feature film. It is a type of derivative work.A common form of film adaptation is the use of a novel as the basis of a feature film, but film adaptation includes the use of non-fiction , autobiography, comic book, scripture, plays, and even...
Poe stories for another six films, five of them starring Price. The series ended in 1965 with the release of The Tomb of Ligeia
The Tomb of Ligeia
The Tomb of Ligeia is an American International Pictures horror film starring Vincent Price and Elizabeth Shepherd in a story about a man haunted by the spirit of his dead wife and her effect on his second marriage. The screenplay by Robert Towne was based upon the tale "Ligeia" by American...
.
Film critic Tim Lucas
Tim Lucas
Tim Lucas is a film critic, biographer, novelist, screenwriter, blogger, and publisher/editor of the video review magazine Video Watchdog.-Biography and early career:...
and writer Ernesto Gastaldi
Ernesto Gastaldi
Ernesto Gastaldi is an Italian screen writer.Born in Graglia, province of Biella, he has written under the pseudonyms Julian Berry, Julyan Perry and Ernst Gasthaus....
have both noted the film's strong influence on numerous subsequent Italian
Cinema of Italy
The history of Italian cinema began just a few months after the Lumière brothers had patented their Cinematographe, when Pope Leo XIII was filmed for a few seconds in the act of blessing the camera.-Early years:...
thrillers, from Mario Bava
Mario Bava
Mario Bava was an Italian director, screenwriter, and cinematographer remembered as one of the greatest names from the "golden age" of Italian horror films.-Biography:Mario Bava was born in San Remo, Liguria, Italy...
's The Whip and the Body
The Whip and the Body
The Whip and The Body is a 1963 Italian gothic horror film directed by Mario Bava.-Plot:The story concerns a cruel, domineering man who returns to his castle home and resumes his sado-masochistic relationship with his sister-in-law whom he vigorously flogs...
(1963) to Dario Argento
Dario Argento
Dario Argento is an Italian film director, producer and screenwriter. He is best known for his work in the horror film genre, particularly in the subgenre known as giallo, and for his influence on modern horror and slasher movies....
's Deep Red
Deep Red
Profondo Rosso is a 1975 giallo film directed and written by Dario Argento and co-written by Bernardino Zapponi. It was released on March 7, 1975 in Italy and June 11, 1976 in the United States. The film's score was composed and performed by Goblin...
(1975). Stephen King
Stephen King
Stephen Edwin King is an American author of contemporary horror, suspense, science fiction and fantasy fiction. His books have sold more than 350 million copies and have been adapted into a number of feature films, television movies and comic books...
has described one of Pits major shock sequences as being among the most important moments in the post-1960 horror film.
Synopsis
In Spain, during the 16th century, Francis Barnard (John KerrJohn Kerr (actor)
John Kerr is an American actor from a family rooted in British and Broadway stage, and a lawyer.- Early life :Kerr's parents, Geoffrey Kerr and June Walker, were both stage and film actors, and his grandfather was Frederick Kerr, a famed British trans-Atlantic character actor in the period...
) visits the castle of his brother-in-law Nicholas Medina (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...
) to investigate the cause of the mysterious death of his sister, Elizabeth (Barbara Steele
Barbara Steele
Barbara Steele is an English film actress. She is best known for starring in Italian gothic horror films of the 1960s. Her breakthrough role came in Italian director Mario Bava's Black Sunday , now hailed as a classic.Steele starred in a string of horror films, including The Horrible Dr...
), who had been Nicholas Medina's wife. Both Nicholas and his younger sister, Catherine (Luana Anders
Luana Anders
Luana Anders was an American film and television actress.-Career:Anders, born Luana Margo Anderson, began her career appearing in several supporting roles in low budget B-movies for American International Pictures, quite a few of them directed by Roger Corman. She was part of a group of well known...
), offer a vague explanation about Elizabeth having died from a rare blood disorder
Hematology
Hematology, also spelled haematology , is the branch of biology physiology, internal medicine, pathology, clinical laboratory work, and pediatrics that is concerned with the study of blood, the blood-forming organs, and blood diseases...
. However, when Nicholas responds evasively after Francis asks for specific details regarding the disease, Francis advises that he will not leave until he discovers the true reason his sister died.
During dinner with family physician Dr. Leon (Antony Carbone
Antony Carbone
Antony Carbone is an American film and television actor.His family moved to Syracuse, New York when he was a young boy, then relocated to Los Angeles, California. After graduating from Los Angeles State College, he moved to New York City to study drama with Harold Clurman and Eva Le Galliene...
), Francis again asks about his sister's death. Dr. Leon tells him that his sister had died of massive heart failure, literally "dying of fright". Francis demands to be shown where Elizabeth died. Nicholas takes him to the castle's torture chamber
Torture chamber
A torture chamber is a room where torture is inflicted.- Methods of coercion :According to Frederick Howard Wines in his book Punishment and Reformation: A Study Of The Penitentiary System there were three main types of coercion employed in the torture chamber: Coercion by the cord, by water and...
. Nicholas reveals that Elizabeth, under the influence of the castle's "heavy atmosphere", became obsessed with the chamber's torture devices. After becoming progressively unbalanced, one day she locked herself into an iron maiden
Iron maiden (torture device)
An iron maiden is a torture device, consisting of an iron cabinet, with a hinged front, sufficiently tall to enclose a human being. It usually has a small closeable opening so that the torturer can interrogate the victim and torture or kill a person by piercing the body with sharp objects , while...
, and died after whispering the name "Sebastian". Francis refuses to believe Nicholas's story.
Francis tells Catherine that Nicholas appears to feel "definite guilt" regarding Elizabeth's death. In response, Catherine talks about Nicholas's traumatic childhood
Psychological trauma
Psychological trauma is a type of damage to the psyche that occurs as a result of a traumatic event...
, revealing that their father was Sebastian Medina, a notorious member of the Spanish Inquisition
Spanish Inquisition
The Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition , commonly known as the Spanish Inquisition , was a tribunal established in 1480 by Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile. It was intended to maintain Catholic orthodoxy in their kingdoms, and to replace the Medieval...
. When Nicholas was a small child, he was playing in the castle's torture chamber when his father (also played by Price) entered the room with his mother, Isabella, and Sebastian's brother, Bartolome. Hiding in a corner, Nicholas watched in horror as his father repeatedly hit Bartolome with a red-hot poker, screaming "Adulterer!" at him. After murdering Bartolome, Sebastian began torturing his wife slowly to death in front of Nicholas' eyes.
After Catherine is finished telling Francis about Nicholas, Catherine and Francis are informed by Dr. Leon that Isabella was in fact not tortured to death, rather she was entombed behind a brick wall while still alive. Dr. Leon explains: "The very thought of premature interment
Premature burial
Premature burial, also known as live burial, burial alive, or vivisepulture, means to be buried while still alive. Animals or humans may be buried alive accidentally or intentionally...
is enough to send your brother into convulsions of horror." Nicholas believes that Elizabeth may have been interred prematurely. The doctor tells Nicholas that "if Elizabeth Medina walks these corridors, it is her spirit
Spirit
The English word spirit has many differing meanings and connotations, most of them relating to a non-corporeal substance contrasted with the material body.The spirit of a living thing usually refers to or explains its consciousness.The notions of a person's "spirit" and "soul" often also overlap,...
and not her living self."
Nicholas now believes his late wife's vengeful ghost
Ghost
In traditional belief and fiction, a ghost is the soul or spirit of a deceased person or animal that can appear, in visible form or other manifestation, to the living. Descriptions of the apparition of ghosts vary widely from an invisible presence to translucent or barely visible wispy shapes, to...
is haunting the castle. Elizabeth's room is noisily ransacked and her portrait is found slashed to ribbons. Her beloved harpsichord
Harpsichord
A harpsichord is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It produces sound by plucking a string when a key is pressed.In the narrow sense, "harpsichord" designates only the large wing-shaped instruments in which the strings are perpendicular to the keyboard...
plays in the middle of the night. One of Elizabeth's rings is found in the keyboard. Francis accuses Nicholas of planting the evidence of Elizabeth's "haunting" as some sort of elaborate hoax
Hoax
A hoax is a deliberately fabricated falsehood made to masquerade as truth. It is distinguishable from errors in observation or judgment, or rumors, urban legends, pseudosciences or April Fools' Day events that are passed along in good faith by believers or as jokes.-Definition:The British...
. Nicholas insists that his wife's tomb be opened. Inside the coffin, they discover Elizabeth's putrefied
Decomposition
Decomposition is the process by which organic material is broken down into simpler forms of matter. The process is essential for recycling the finite matter that occupies physical space in the biome. Bodies of living organisms begin to decompose shortly after death...
corpse frozen in a position of writhing horror, hands clawed and mouth wide open, as if in a final scream.
That night, Nicholas, now on the very edge of sanity, hears his wife calling him. He follows her ghostly voice down to the torture chamber. Suddenly, Elizabeth appears from out of the shadows, causing Nicholas to fall down a flight of stairs. She is alive, and she is met by her lover, Dr. Leon. Elizabeth, thinking Nicholas dead, taunts his apparent corpse about their scheme to drive him mad so the two lovers could inherit his fortune and estate. Nicholas opens his eyes and begins laughing while his wife and the doctor recoil in horror. Nicholas stands up and overpowers Dr. Leon, who attempts to escape but falls to his death. Nicholas then approaches Elizabeth, and promises he will torture her horribly.
Francis, having heard Elizabeth's screams, enters the dungeon to see what has happened. Nicholas is now gibbering with insanity and has become convinced he is his own father, the evil Sebastian Medina. He confuses Francis for Sebastian's brother, Bartolome, and knocks him unconscious. He straps him to a stone slab located directly beneath a huge razor-sharp pendulum and gags him with a red scarf. The cackling Nicholas slowly lowers the swinging blade closer and closer to Francis' torso. Catherine arrives just in time with Maximillian, one of the family servants
Domestic worker
A domestic worker is a man, woman or child who works within the employer's household. Domestic workers perform a variety of household services for an individual or a family, from providing care for children and elderly dependents to cleaning and household maintenance, known as housekeeping...
. After a brief fight with Maximillian, Nicholas falls to his death, and Francis is removed from the torture device. As they leave the basement, Catherine vows to seal up the chamber forever. They slam and lock the door shut, unaware that Elizabeth is still alive, gag
Gag
A gag is usually a device designed to prevent speech, often as a restraint device to stop the subject from calling for help. This is usually done by blocking the mouth, partially or completely, or attempting to prevent the tongue, lips, or jaw from moving in the normal patterns of speech. They are...
ged and trapped in the iron maiden.
Production
When Roger Corman's House of Usher was released in June 1960, its box office success took AIP's James H. Nicholson and Samuel Z. Arkoff by surprise. Corman admitted, "We anticipated that the movie would do well, but not half as well as it did." According to Richard Matheson, "When the first film was a hit, they still didn't consider doing a Poe series. They just wanted another movie with a Poe title fixed to it." The Pit and the Pendulum was announced in August 1960, and filming began the first week of January 1961. According to Lucy Chase Williams's book, The Complete Films of Vincent Price, the shooting schedule was fifteen days, and the film's budget was almost $1 million. Corman himself has said that the film's actual production cost was approximately $300,000.Screenplay
Matheson's script freely devised an elaborate narrativeNarrative
A narrative is a constructive format that describes a sequence of non-fictional or fictional events. The word derives from the Latin verb narrare, "to recount", and is related to the adjective gnarus, "knowing" or "skilled"...
that barely resembled Poe, with only the finale having any similarity at all to the original short story on which the film was based. Corman noted, "The method we adopted on The Pit and the Pendulum was to use the Poe short story as the climax for a third act
Act (theater)
An act is a division or unit of a drama. The number of acts in a production can range from one to five or more, depending on how a writer structures the outline of the story...
to the motion picture, because a two-page short story is not about to give you a ninety-minute motion picture. We then constructed the first two acts in what we hoped was a manner faithful to Poe, as his climax would run only a short time on the screen."
Matheson's screenplay included a flashback
Flashback (narrative)
Flashback is an interjected scene that takes the narrative back in time from the current point the story has reached. Flashbacks are often used to recount events that happened before the story’s primary sequence of events or to fill in crucial backstory...
to a time immediately preceding Elizabeth's illness, featuring Nicholas and Elizabeth horseback riding and eating a picnic lunch. Corman deleted the sequence prior to filming because he felt it violated one of his major theories regarding the Poe series: "I had a lot of theories I was working with when I did the Poe films...One of my theories was that these stories were created out of the unconscious mind
Unconscious mind
The unconscious mind is a term coined by the 18th century German romantic philosopher Friedrich Schelling and later introduced into English by the poet and essayist Samuel Taylor Coleridge...
of Poe and the unconscious mind never really sees reality, so until The Tomb of Ligeia
The Tomb of Ligeia
The Tomb of Ligeia is an American International Pictures horror film starring Vincent Price and Elizabeth Shepherd in a story about a man haunted by the spirit of his dead wife and her effect on his second marriage. The screenplay by Robert Towne was based upon the tale "Ligeia" by American...
we never showed the real world...In Pit, John Kerr arrived in a carriage against an ocean background, which I felt was more representative of the unconscious. That horseback interlude was thrown out because I didn't want to have a scene with people out in broad daylight."
The screenplay was modified from its original draft form during the film's shooting. Price himself suggested numerous dialogue changes for his character. In the script, when Francis Barnard is first introduced to Nicholas, the young man asks about loud, strange noises he had heard a few moments earlier. Don Medina responds: "Uh...an apparatus, Mr. Barnard. (turning) What brings you to us?" Price penciled in the suggestions "that must be kept in constant repair" and "that cannot be stopped". Later in the screenplay, when Nicholas recalls his father's chamber of torture, Price devised alternate explanations for Sebastian Medina's violence. During Nicholas's death scene, after falling to the bottom of the pit the character originally had dialogue at the point of dying, asking in a voice of horror, "Elizabeth. What have I done to you? (beat) What have I done to you?" The camera was to then cut
Cut (filmmaking)
In the post-production process of film editing and video editing, a cut is an abrupt, but usually trivial film transition from one sequence to another. It is synonymous with the term edit, though "edit" can imply any number of transitions or effects. The cut, dissolve and wipe serve as the three...
directly to Elizabeth's face trapped in the iron maiden. Corman decided to jettison the lines, believing that the film should remain purely visual at that point and dialogue would ruin the power of the scene.
Filming
Corman has noted that making the film was a pleasurable experience: "I enjoyed The Pit and the Pendulum because I actually got the chance to experiment a bit with the movement of the camera. There was a lot of moving camera work and interesting cuttingFilm editing
Film editing is part of the creative post-production process of filmmaking. It involves the selection and combining of shots into sequences, and ultimately creating a finished motion picture. It is an art of storytelling...
in the climax of the film." Filming went smoothly, and Corman attributed the ease of the production's shoot to the short but comprehensive pre-production
Pre-production
Pre-production or In Production is the process of preparing all the elements involved in a film, play, or other performance.- In film :...
planning he did with the major technicians. "We achieved what we did on a low budget because we carefully planned the whole production in advance of starting the cameras. Thus, when we moved into the studio for fifteen days of scheduled shooting, we didn't have to start making decisions. Because of our pre-production conferences with Director of Photography
Cinematographer
A cinematographer is one photographing with a motion picture camera . The title is generally equivalent to director of photography , used to designate a chief over the camera and lighting crews working on a film, responsible for achieving artistic and technical decisions related to the image...
Floyd Crosby and Art Director Daniel Haller, everyone knew exactly what to do, barring any last minute inspirations on the set."
To create the flashbacks revealing Nicholas's traumatic experiences
Psychological trauma
Psychological trauma is a type of damage to the psyche that occurs as a result of a traumatic event...
, Corman and Crosby attempted to shoot them in a manner that would convey to the audience the character's horror in dredging up nightmares trapped in his subconscious
Unconscious mind
The unconscious mind is a term coined by the 18th century German romantic philosopher Friedrich Schelling and later introduced into English by the poet and essayist Samuel Taylor Coleridge...
. Corman insisted on these images having a dream-like
Dream
Dreams are successions of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations that occur involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep. The content and purpose of dreams are not definitively understood, though they have been a topic of scientific speculation, philosophical intrigue and religious...
quality, "twisted and distorted because they were being experienced by someone on the rim of madness". Corman decided to film the flashbacks in monochrome
Monochrome
Monochrome describes paintings, drawings, design, or photographs in one color or shades of one color. A monochromatic object or image has colors in shades of limited colors or hues. Images using only shades of grey are called grayscale or black-and-white...
, since he had read that some psychiatrists believe most people dream in "black-and white" imagery. Crosby used wide-angle lens
Wide-angle lens
From a design perspective, a wide angle lens is one that projects a substantially larger image circle than would be typical for a standard design lens of the same focal length; this enables either large tilt & shift movements with a view camera, or lenses with wide fields of view.More informally,...
es, violent camera movement, and tilted camera angle
Camera angle
The camera angle marks the specific location at which a camera is placed to take a shot. A scene may be shot from several camera angles. This will give different experience and sometimes emotion. the different camera angles will have different effects on the viewer and how they perceive the scene...
s to represent the character's feeling of hysteria. The sequences were then printed on blue-tinted
Film tinting
Film tinting is the process of adding color to black-and-white film, usually by means of soaking the film in dye and staining the film emulsion...
stock
Film stock
Film stock is photographic film on which filmmaking of motion pictures are shot and reproduced. The equivalent in television production is video tape.-1889–1899:...
which was subsequently toned red during development
Photographic processing
Photographic processing is the chemical means by which photographic film and paper is treated after photographic exposure to produce a negative or positive image...
, effectively producing a two-tone image. The highlights were blue, with the shadows rendered as red, producing a deep, bloody quality. The image was then run through an optical printer
Optical printer
An optical printer is a device consisting of one or more film projectors mechanically linked to a movie camera. It allows filmmakers to re-photograph one or more strips of film...
where the edges were vignetted
Vignetting
In photography and optics, vignetting is a reduction of an image's brightness or saturation at the periphery compared to the image center. The word vignette, from the same root as vine, originally referred to a decorative border in a book. Later, the word came to be used for a photographic...
and a twisted linear distortion was introduced.
Art direction
The film's brief exterior prologuePrologue
A prologue is an opening to a story that establishes the setting and gives background details, often some earlier story that ties into the main one, and other miscellaneous information. The Greek prologos included the modern meaning of prologue, but was of wider significance...
showing Kerr's arrival to the castle was filmed on the Palos Verdes
Palos Verdes
Palos Verdes is a name often used to refer to a group of coastal cities in the Palos Verdes Hills on the Palos Verdes Peninsula, within southwestern Los Angeles County in the U.S...
coast. The rest of the production was shot in four interior sound stage
Sound stage
In common usage, a sound stage is a soundproof, hangar-like structure, building, or room, used for the production of theatrical filmmaking and television production, usually located on a secure movie studio property.-Overview:...
s at the California Studios in Hollywood. To provide great freedom for the planned camera movements, a castle set with many levels and ample space was designed by Daniel Haller. Because of the film's low budget, none of the sets could be constructed "from scratch". After Haller made sketches and floor plans for the sets, he searched the backlot
Backlot
A backlot is an area behind or adjoining a movie studio, containing permanent exterior buildings for outdoor scenes in filmmaking or television productions, or space for temporary set construction....
s and property lofts of the major studios in search of available set units that could be inexpensively rented and then put together to form the sets he had conceived. At Universal Studios
Universal Studios
Universal Pictures , a subsidiary of NBCUniversal, is one of the six major movie studios....
, he located numerous discarded pieces from old productions, including massive archways, fireplaces, windows and doorways, and several torture machine props. At other studios, he found gigantic stairways and stone wall units. Haller selected and rented numerous pieces from these various depositories and had them delivered to California Studios, where the sets for the film were constructed, following his floor plans as closely as possible. To further set the atmosphere, about 20 gallons of cobwebbing was sprayed throughout the castle's sets.
The film's pressbook
Pressbook
In cinema a pressbook may be a piece of promotional material created and distributed by film producers in order to market their films. Prior to 1980, most film companies did their own promotion, and the pressbooks would be given to exhibitors....
noted that the pendulum was eighteen feet long and weighed over a ton, and was constructed with a realistic rubber cutting blade. The pendulum was rigged from the top of the sound stage thirty-five feet in the air. In an interview, Haller provided details regarding the creation of the pendulum:
- "I found that such a pendulum actually was used during the Spanish and German inquisitions. At first we tried to use a rubberized blade and that's why it got stuck on Kerr's chest. We then switched to a sharp metalized blade covered with steel paint. The problem was to get it in exactly the right position so it would slash John's shirt without actually cutting him. To guard against this we put a steel band around his waist where the pendulum crosses. He was a good sport about it but noticed him perspiring a good bit and no wonder. That pendulum was carving out a 50 foot arc just above his body."
To visually enhance the size of this set, the camera was equipped with a 40 mm Panavision wide-angle lens and mounted at the opposite end of the stage, giving Crosby the ability to frame the scenes in his camera with extra space at the bottom and at either side. These areas were filled in later by printing-in process extensions
Matte painting
A matte painting is a painted representation of a landscape, set, or distant location that allows filmmakers to create the illusion of an environment that would otherwise be too expensive or impossible to build or visit. Historically, matte painters and film technicians have used various techniques...
of the set, doubling its size onscreen.
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 Nicholas/Sebastian Medina. This was Price's third film for American International Pictures and his second for director Corman. In response to the profitability of House of Usher, Price "upped his asking price for Pit to $125,000, plus a percentage of the profits." Most critics seemed to enjoy Price's somewhat hammyOveractingOveracting is the exaggeration of gestures and speech when acting. It may be unintentional, particularly in the case of a bad actor, or be required for the role. For the latter, it is commonly used in comical situations or to stress the evil characteristics of a villain...
performance as the tormented, guilt-ridden victim of his "late" wife's evil machinations. Darrell Moore wrote, "Vincent Price returns to his usual overacting, ego-tripping self in The Pit and the Pendulum. His wonderfully maniacal performance is the high point of the film." And Nathaniel Thompson noted that "Vincent Price has a field day alternating from gibbering terror to teeth-gnashing insanity (sometimes in the same scene)..." Some, however, thought his acting overly theatrical and damaging to the film's mood. Writer Ken Hanke felt the film had "...a few unintended laughs thanks to Vinnie's campinessCamp (style)Camp is an aesthetic sensibility that regards something as appealing because of its taste and ironic value. The concept is closely related to kitsch, and things with camp appeal may also be described as being "cheesy"...
."
- John KerrJohn Kerr (actor)John Kerr is an American actor from a family rooted in British and Broadway stage, and a lawyer.- Early life :Kerr's parents, Geoffrey Kerr and June Walker, were both stage and film actors, and his grandfather was Frederick Kerr, a famed British trans-Atlantic character actor in the period...
as Francis Barnard. The Tony AwardTony AwardThe Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...
-winning actor (for Tea and SympathyTea and SympathyTea and Sympathy is a 1953 stage play in three acts by Robert Anderson.-Broadway premiere:It received its premiere on Broadway at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre on September 30, 1953 in a production by The Playwrights' Company, directed by Elia Kazan and designed by Jo Mielziner. The play starred...
(1955)) had been a once-promising leading man in the 1950s, featured in major roles in the theatrical film versions of Tea and Sympathy (1956) and Rodgers and HammersteinRodgers and HammersteinRichard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II were a well-known American songwriting duo, usually referred to as Rodgers and Hammerstein. They created a string of popular Broadway musicals in the 1940s and 1950s during what is considered the golden age of the medium...
's South Pacific (1958). His role as the nominal hero in Pit would prove to be the last notable film appearance of his career. Years later, Kerr expressed surprise that Pit seemed to be his best remembered role, "If you had told me years ago that Pit and the Pendulum would be The One out of all the stuff I've done, if you had told me that this would be the cult-type movie that people would be collecting memorabilia on, I would have said, 'You're out of your gourd.' Just ... no way. Noooo way!"
- Barbara SteeleBarbara SteeleBarbara Steele is an English film actress. She is best known for starring in Italian gothic horror films of the 1960s. Her breakthrough role came in Italian director Mario Bava's Black Sunday , now hailed as a classic.Steele starred in a string of horror films, including The Horrible Dr...
as Elizabeth. This was Steele's first film since her break-through horror performance in Mario BavaMario BavaMario Bava was an Italian director, screenwriter, and cinematographer remembered as one of the greatest names from the "golden age" of Italian horror films.-Biography:Mario Bava was born in San Remo, Liguria, Italy...
's Black Sunday (1960). The actress recalled that she was "in awe" of Price during the production and described the filming of their final scene together as surprisingly physical: "Our major confrontation where he strangles me was done in one take…He really went at me and I had the bruises on my throat to prove it. Afterward, he was so concerned he had hurt me—a perfect gentleman—a truly kind figure in spite of his image." While watching the daily rushesDailiesDailies, in filmmaking, are the raw, unedited footage shot during the making of a motion picture. They are so called because usually at the end of each day, that day's footage is developed, synched to sound, and printed on film in a batch for viewing the next day by the director and some members...
of the movie, Corman became convinced that Steele's "thick working classWorking classWorking class is a term used in the social sciences and in ordinary conversation to describe those employed in lower tier jobs , often extending to those in unemployment or otherwise possessing below-average incomes...
English accentRegional accents of English speakersThe regional accents of English speakers show great variation across the areas where English is spoken as a first language. This article provides an overview of the many identifiable variations in pronunciation, usually deriving from the phoneme inventory of the local dialect, of the local variety...
" was not blending well with the other cast members, so after the filming was completed he had all of her dialogue dubbedDubbing (filmmaking)Dubbing is the post-production process of recording and replacing voices on a motion picture or television soundtrack subsequent to the original shooting. The term most commonly refers to the substitution of the voices of the actors shown on the screen by those of different performers, who may be...
by a different actress.
- Luana AndersLuana AndersLuana Anders was an American film and television actress.-Career:Anders, born Luana Margo Anderson, began her career appearing in several supporting roles in low budget B-movies for American International Pictures, quite a few of them directed by Roger Corman. She was part of a group of well known...
as Catherine Medina. Anders's role as Price's (much younger) sister was one of several appearances she made in AIP productions. Most of these films were directed by Corman. The actress had first met Corman several years previously while both were attending acting classes taught by Jeff CoreyJeff CoreyJeff Corey was an American stage and screen actor and director who became a well-respected acting teacher after being blacklisted in the 1950s.-Biography:...
in Los Angeles. After Pit, Anders would make two further films with Corman as a director, The Young Racers (1963) and The TripThe Trip (1967 film)The Trip is a cult film released by American International Pictures, directed by Roger Corman, written by Jack Nicholson, and shot on location in and around Los Angeles, including on top of Kirkwood in Laurel Canyon, Hollywood Hills, and near Big Sur, California in 1966...
(1967).
- Antony CarboneAntony CarboneAntony Carbone is an American film and television actor.His family moved to Syracuse, New York when he was a young boy, then relocated to Los Angeles, California. After graduating from Los Angeles State College, he moved to New York City to study drama with Harold Clurman and Eva Le Galliene...
as Doctor Leon. Like Anders, Carbone was a brief member of Corman's early-1960s "stock company" of actors, appearing in four of the director's films during that time. Carbone's only starring role in his career had been in Corman's Creature from the Haunted SeaCreature from the Haunted SeaCreature from the Haunted Sea is a 1961 Horror comedy film directed by Roger Corman. Written by Charles B. Griffith, the film is a parody of spy, gangster, and monster movies , concerning a secret agent, XK150 , who goes under the code name "Sparks Moran" in order to infiltrate a...
(1960), which co-starred writer Robert TowneRobert TowneRobert Towne is an American screenwriter and director. His most notable work may be his Academy Award-winning original screenplay for Roman Polanski's Chinatown .-Film:...
. Pit was Carbone's final appearance in a Corman-directed movie.
- Other cast: Patrick Westwood as Maximillian (the servant), Lynette Bernay as Maria (the maid), Larry Turner as Nicholas as child, Mary Menzies as Isabella, Charles Victor as Bartolome.
Prior to the start of filming, Corman had set aside one day of rehearsal
Rehearsal
For other uses, see Rehearsal or Dress rehearsal A rehearsal is a preparatory event in music and theatre that is performed before the official public performance, as a form of practice, and to ensure that all details of the performance are adequately prepared and coordinated for professional...
s with his cast. "Previously, I had painstakingly rehearsed the actors so there was complete understanding as to what each was to accomplish in each scene. This is most important; there is nothing worse than to be on the set and ready to roll, only to find that director and actor have different views as to how the scene is to be done. Thanks to pre-production planning and rehearsals, there was no time wasted on the set in haggling and making decisions."
Response
The Pit and the Pendulum was a bigger financial hit than House of Usher, accruing over US$ 2,000,000 in distributors'Film distributor
A film distributor is a company or individual responsible for releasing films to the public either theatrically or for home viewing...
domestic (U.S. and Canada) rentals versus the first film's US$ 1,450,000. According to writer Ed Naha
Ed Naha
Ed Naha is an American science fiction and mystery writer and producer. He was born June 10, 1950 in the town of Linden, New Jersey. His first known publication was artwork that appeared in the first issue of Modern Monsters magazine, dated June 1966....
, it also received a better critical response. The majority of the film's reviews were positive.
Howard Thompson of The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
wrote, "Atmospherically at least—there is a striking fusion of rich colors, plush décor and eerie music—this is probably Hollywood's most effective Poe-style horror flavoring to date…Richard Matheson's ironic plot is compact and as logical as the choice of the small cast…Roger Corman has evoked a genuinely chilling mood of horror." Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
noted, "The last portion of the film builds with genuine excitement to a reverse-twist ending that might have pleased Poe himself...a physically stylish, imaginatively photographed horror film…" The Los Angeles Examiner
Los Angeles Herald-Examiner
The Los Angeles Herald Examiner was a major Los Angeles daily newspaper, published Monday through Friday in the afternoon, and in the morning on Saturdays and Sundays. It was part of the Hearst syndicate. The afternoon Herald-Express and the morning Examiner, both of which had been publishing in...
said it was "…one of the best "scare" movies to come along in a long time…skillfully directed by Corman…with Vincent Price turning in the acting job of his career…." Brendan Gill
Brendan Gill
Brendan Gill wrote for The New Yorker for more than 60 years. He also contributed film criticism for Film Comment and wrote a popular book about his time at the New Yorker magazine.-Biography:...
of The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
felt it was "a thoroughly creepy sequence of horrors..." Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
called the film "a literary hair-raiser that is cleverly, if self-consciously, Edgar Allan poetic." The Hollywood Reporter
The Hollywood Reporter
Formerly a daily trade magazine, The Hollywood Reporter re-launched in late 2010 as a unique hybrid publication serving the entertainment industry and a consumer audience...
described it as "...a class suspense-horror film of the calibre of the excellent ones done by Hammer
Hammer Film Productions
Hammer Film Productions is a film production company based in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1934, the company is best known for a series of Gothic "Hammer Horror" films made from the mid-1950s until the 1970s. Hammer also produced science fiction, thrillers, film noir and comedies and in later...
...It is carefully made and has full production values...Vincent Price gives a characteristically rococo
Rococo
Rococo , also referred to as "Late Baroque", is an 18th-century style which developed as Baroque artists gave up their symmetry and became increasingly ornate, florid, and playful...
performance..."
But Charles Stinson of the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
was notably unimpressed by the film: "The uncredited [sic] scenario violates Poe's gothic style with passages of flat, modernized dialogue…But the pecadilloes of the script pale beside the acting…Price mugs, rolls his eyes continuously and delivers his lines in such an unctuous tone that he comes near to burlesquing
Burlesque
Burlesque is a literary, dramatic or musical work intended to cause laughter by caricaturing the manner or spirit of serious works, or by ludicrous treatment of their subjects...
the role. His mad scenes are just ludicrous. The audience almost died laughing." Price was so infuriated by Stinson's negative review that he wrote a letter to the critic, saying "I find I must break a 25 year determination never to answer a critic. Since your review of The Pit and the Pendulum was obviously not meant to be instructive, and therefore constructive, but only to hurt and humiliate, I'm sure you would enjoy the satisfaction of knowing that it did. My only consolation…is that it is the second greatest box office attraction in the country." Price apparently never sent the letter, placing it instead into his "Letting Off Steam File".
The film's critical reputation has continued to grow over the years and it is now generally held to be one of the best entries in Corman's Poe series. Time Out has opined, "Corman at his intoxicating best, drawing a seductive mesh of sexual motifs from Poe's story through a fine Richard Matheson script." In The Penguin Encyclopedia of Horror and the Supernatural
The Penguin Encyclopedia of Horror and the Supernatural
The Penguin Encyclopedia of Horror and the Supernatural is a reference work on horror fiction in the arts, edited by Jack Sullivan. The book was published in 1986 by Viking Press....
, Timothy Sullivan wrote, "The Pit and the Pendulum is even better than its predecessor…The plot is heady stuff, and Roger Corman drives it forward with wonderful matte shots
Matte painting
A matte painting is a painted representation of a landscape, set, or distant location that allows filmmakers to create the illusion of an environment that would otherwise be too expensive or impossible to build or visit. Historically, matte painters and film technicians have used various techniques...
of the castle perched on the seaside cliff, odd camera angles, the thickest cobwebs in horror movie history, a spider in the face, and an iron maiden…all before our hero is strapped under the pendulum, in a sequence that still stands one's hair on end." Phil Hardy
Phil Hardy (journalist)
Phil Hardy is an English film and music industry journalist. He was born in Scarborough, Yorkshire in 1945 and studied at the University of Sussex, 1964-1969, during which time he was a visiting student at the Berkeley campus of the University of California . At Sussex he started The Brighton Film...
's The Aurum Film Encyclopedia
The Aurum Film Encyclopedia
The Aurum Film Encyclopedia is a multi-volume reference work on cinema, published in the UK by Aurum Press and edited by Phil Hardy. The first volume, devoted to western films, appeared in 1983, with eight subsequent volumes announced at that time as "forthcoming". However, as of 2007, only...
: Horror observed, "If Price's performance is noticeably more extravagant than in the earlier film, this is offset (or matched) by the markedly greater fluidity of camera movement. House of Usher seemed unsure of how to cope with the rush of action as Madeline returned from the grave; The Pit and the Pendulum has no such hesitations. From the great sequence in which Steele lures Price down into the crypt to the finale…its action is terrific." Tim Lucas
Tim Lucas
Tim Lucas is a film critic, biographer, novelist, screenwriter, blogger, and publisher/editor of the video review magazine Video Watchdog.-Biography and early career:...
, in reviewing the film's 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....
release in 2001, wrote, "Benefitting from the boxoffice success of House of Usher, Pit is a more elaborate production and features some of the definitive moments of the AIP Corman/Poe series." And Glenn Erickson
Glenn Erickson
Glenn Erickson is an American film editor and film critic. He started in the film industry in 1975 as an editor of low budget films and later worked in minor technical crew capacities in such major films as Close Encounters of the Third Kind and 1941...
, reviewing the DVD on his "DVD Savant" website, noted, "Roger Corman's second Edgar Allan Poe adaptation is a big improvement on his first, House of Usher… Remembered as a first-rate chiller by every kid who saw it, Pit and the Pendulum upped the ante for frantic action and potential grue…"
Recent critical opinion of the film is not all positive. Of the 18 reviews included in a Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
survey of critics regarding the title, 20% reflect negative reactions. FilmCritic.com opines that the film "...is quite a disappointment...In the end, it feels like one of [Corman's] rush jobs, which of course, it was."
Influence
The critical and popular success of The Pit and the Pendulum persuaded AIP's Arkoff and Nicholson to produce more Edgar Allan Poe-based horror films on a regular basis. The films that followed, all directed by Corman, were The Premature BurialThe Premature Burial (film)
The Premature Burial is an American International Pictures horror film, directed by Roger Corman and starring Ray Milland, screenplay by Charles Beaumont and Ray Russell based upon the story of the same name by Edgar Allan Poe.-Cast:...
(1962), Tales of Terror (1962), 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...
(1963), 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...
(1963, actually based on a story by H. P. Lovecraft
H. P. Lovecraft
Howard Phillips Lovecraft --often credited as H.P. Lovecraft — was an American author of horror, fantasy and science fiction, especially the subgenre known as weird fiction....
), The Masque of the Red Death
The Masque of the Red Death (film)
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...
(1964), and The Tomb of Ligeia
The Tomb of Ligeia
The Tomb of Ligeia is an American International Pictures horror film starring Vincent Price and Elizabeth Shepherd in a story about a man haunted by the spirit of his dead wife and her effect on his second marriage. The screenplay by Robert Towne was based upon the tale "Ligeia" by American...
(1965).
Tim Lucas has argued that the film had a large impact on many Italian
Cinema of Italy
The history of Italian cinema began just a few months after the Lumière brothers had patented their Cinematographe, when Pope Leo XIII was filmed for a few seconds in the act of blessing the camera.-Early years:...
horror films that followed. Lucas noted, "It takes Corman's Freudian theories even further with a nightmarish flashblack sequence that plants the seeds of Nicholas' breakdown, and would prove particularly influential on the future course of Italian horror — an influence that can be seen even in productions of the 1970s (Deep Red
Deep Red
Profondo Rosso is a 1975 giallo film directed and written by Dario Argento and co-written by Bernardino Zapponi. It was released on March 7, 1975 in Italy and June 11, 1976 in the United States. The film's score was composed and performed by Goblin...
) and 1980s (A Blade in the Dark
A Blade in the Dark
A Blade in the Dark but also known by the title House of the Dark Stairway, is a 1983 horror film.-Plot:Bruno, a composer, becomes involved in a series of murders who lives in a villa. In a horror film Bruno is scoring: a young child, taunted by cruel bullies, descends into a dark cellar after a...
)." Writer K. Lindbergs has noted an "obvious influence" on Antonio Margheriti
Antonio Margheriti
Antonio Margheriti , also known under the pseudonym Anthony M. Dawson, was a prolific Italian filmmaker. He was born in Rome and died in 2002 from a heart attack in Monterosi, Viterbo, near Rome at the age of 72....
's Castle of Blood (1964) and its remake
Remake
A remake is a piece of media based primarily on an earlier work of the same medium.-Film:The term "remake" is generally used in reference to a movie which uses an earlier movie as the main source material, rather than in reference to a second, later movie based on the same source...
, Web of the Spider (1970).
Screenwriter Ernesto Gastaldi
Ernesto Gastaldi
Ernesto Gastaldi is an Italian screen writer.Born in Graglia, province of Biella, he has written under the pseudonyms Julian Berry, Julyan Perry and Ernst Gasthaus....
acknowledged that Ugo Guerra and Elio Scardamaglia, the producers of Mario Bava
Mario Bava
Mario Bava was an Italian director, screenwriter, and cinematographer remembered as one of the greatest names from the "golden age" of Italian horror films.-Biography:Mario Bava was born in San Remo, Liguria, Italy...
's The Whip and the Body
The Whip and the Body
The Whip and The Body is a 1963 Italian gothic horror film directed by Mario Bava.-Plot:The story concerns a cruel, domineering man who returns to his castle home and resumes his sado-masochistic relationship with his sister-in-law whom he vigorously flogs...
(1963), had "shown me an Italian print of The Pit and the Pendulum before I started writing it: 'Give us something like this', they said." When asked if another of his films, The Long Hair of Death (1964), was inspired by Corman's film, Gastaldi replied: "Yes, of course! The Pit and the Pendulum had a big influence on Italian horror films. Everybody borrowed from it."
Stephen King
Stephen King
Stephen Edwin King is an American author of contemporary horror, suspense, science fiction and fantasy fiction. His books have sold more than 350 million copies and have been adapted into a number of feature films, television movies and comic books...
felt that one of the film's most powerful shocks — the discovery of Elizabeth's hideously decayed corpse — had a major impact on the genre and served as one of the most significant horror sequences of the decade. King wrote, "Following the Hammer films, this becomes, I think, the most important moment in the post-1960 horror film, signaling a return to an all-out effort to terrify the audience...and a willingness to use any means at hand to do it."
Padded television version
In 1968, when the film was sold to ABC-TVAmerican Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
for television airings, the network noted that the film was too short to fill the desired two-hour time slot. They requested that AIP pad
Filler (media)
In media, filler is material that is combined with material of greater relevance or quality to "fill out" a certain volume.-Early television:...
the film out. Approximately five minutes of additional footage were subsequently shot by Corman's production assistant
Production assistant
A production assistant, also known as a PA, is a job title used in filmmaking and television for a person responsible for various aspects of a production...
Tamara Asseyev
Tamara Asseyev
Tamara Asseyev is an American film producer and writer.She began her career in the film industry as a production assistant for Roger Corman, working on such films as The St. Valentine's Day Massacre and The Trip...
.
Of the original cast members, only Luana Anders was available at the time, and the new sequence featured her character, Catherine Medina, confined to a lunatic asylum
Psychiatric hospital
Psychiatric hospitals, also known as mental hospitals, are hospitals specializing in the treatment of serious mental disorders. Psychiatric hospitals vary widely in their size and grading. Some hospitals may specialise only in short-term or outpatient therapy for low-risk patients...
. After much screaming and hair pulling, Catherine reveals the details of her horrific story to her fellow inmates, at which point the film itself follows as a flashback. This shot-for-television footage has been made available as an extra on the MGM Midnite Movies DVD release of the film, but was erroneously advertised as being the "Original theatrical prologue".