12 In the Best Possible Tastes: Rhetoric and Taste in AIP’s Promotion of ’s Poe Cycle

Joan Ormrod

One day over lunch in 1960, American International Pictures (AIP) executives Samuel Z. Arkoff and James Nicholson asked Roger Corman, their in-house director, to make two black-and-white horror films at $100,000 each. Corman pitched a better idea, a film based upon ’s short story “The Fall of the House of Usher.” Corman ratio- nalized that Poe “has a built in following with [kids].… He’s read in every high school. Plus one quality film in colour is better than two cheap films in black and white” (qtd. in McGee 249). In his pitch, Corman identified the dual appeal of Edgar Allan Poe as a part of the American literary canon but also a fan favorite. He proposed a strategy for AIP to reposition the studio upmarket. Previously, AIP was regarded as an exploitative production company, something that Arkoff and Nicolson seemed to revel in. Arkoff, for instance, stated that all the company was interested in were “[t]its and ass. Sex and Violence.… Anything else is arty farty” (qtd. in McGee 137). Corman was a director that Arkoff and Nicholson employed for his fast turnover, miniscule budgets, and reli- ability as much as his competence. Up to this point he produced black- and-white films in teen-targeted genres such as horror, science fiction, and juvenile delinquency (JD). The Fall of the House of Usher (1960) and the Poe cycle “is one of the high points in the commodification of Poe, imposing a theatrically gothic aspect to his writings … and making him a favorite to a wide range of audiences” (Neimeyer 218). It was shot in

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full color and Cinemascope for $270,000, most of which was paid to the star, . Price, Poe, Corman, and AIP were to be inextricably connected for four years and seven films in the Poe cycle. 1 Using The Masque of the Red Death (1964) as a focus, which is the sev- enth of the eight films in the Poe series and the most critically respected, this chapter examines the issues involved in promoting a film adaptation of Poe’s work, especially one perceived as exploitative rather than artis- tic. AIP’s promotional techniques, contrived by James Nicholson, were a forerunner of contemporary promotional practices and, in addition to advertisements, posters, and billboards, featured more creative strategies such as tie-ins, stunts, and newspaper article placement (advertorials). For many of their films, AIP began with a title for which a marketing cam- paign had already been prepared, and after audience studies, the script and film were produced. This strategy resulted in good profits for AIP in an era when television audiences were growing and film audiences were in decline. The promotion, however, often promised more than the film delivered. Rather than dwelling upon the more sensational promotion or the exploitation of Poe’s themes in the adaptation of The Masque of the Red Death (although, of necessity, this has to be addressed), this chapter explores the marketing of the Poe cycle, focusing on issues of both high and low culture in its promotion. Although these promotional materials have been discussed, it is usually either in validation of Poe’s exploita- tion within AIP’s distribution system (Watson 1997) or as an example of AIP’s promotional strategies (McGee 18). It is, perhaps, worth examin- ing the relationship between the promotion of adaptations because, as Wernick (112) notes, adaptations hail preexisting audiences and attract new audiences to the source texts (Wernick 92–121). They also encour- age audiences to complete narrative gaps (Hutcheon 76). The promotion, too, can be a source for the audience to understand the text as it sets up their expectations of the significant moments in the film, encouraging them to compare and fill in the gaps between the two narratives. Promotion is explored using a discursive analysis to frame The Masque of the Red Death within its cultural and promotional context using Cook and Wernick. As an adaptation, the timeliness of the Poe cycle cannot be overestimated because its changing cultural context includes the “amount” and kind of “hype’” used in promoting the adaptation (Hutcheon 143). In 1960, AIP aimed to develop an upmarket profile along- side its traditional teenage and fan bases. Corman’s proposal responded to an interest in the gothic canon inspired by the recirculation of 1930s Universal black-and-white films and Hammer’s full-blooded color adap- tations of The Curse of (1957) and The Horror of Dracula

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(1958). The interest in gothic horror hailed two types of audiences that were by no means dissimilar in their obsession: fandom and academia (Jenson 18–21). In the late and early , magazines for horror fans such as Famous Monsters of Filmland and Horror Monsters began publication. Their articles often promoted AIP and Hammer films, and Edgar Allan Poe featured regularly in these publications, as much for his life story as his literary output. For instance, Horror Monsters, issue 2 (1961), ran an article promoting (1961) along- side an article devoted to Poe. In the article, Poe is described as “the most original genius of American literature … master of the macabre, unhappy in life, wretched in death, but in his fame—immortal” (“Edgar Allen [ sic ] Poe” 24–25). I begin by discussing AIP’s promotion of the Poe cycle drawing on the notion of the “vortex of publicity” (Wernick 92–95). In the vortex of publicity, advertisements are self-referential, endlessly promoting other advertisements or products across a transmedia landscape. Analyzing the press packs for the films, it is clear that AIP foregrounded names, particularly Edgar Allan Poe and Vincent Price, in their promotion. This dual appeal is examined in the final section of this chapter using ideas of Pierre Bourdieu on aesthetic production and hierarchies in the fields of literature, art, and class. To contextualize this discussion, the next section examines the cultural and promotional production of AIP’s marketing.

Promoting the Poe Series: AIP and the Vortex of Publicity

Wernick proposes that promotion of media and popular cultural texts is similar to “a hall of mirrors. Each promotional message refers us to a commodity which is itself the site of another promotion” (121). There is no starting point in the chain of advertising, and it is continuously self-referential, relying on serial promotion to appeal to ever-expanding audiences. The Fall of the House of Usher represented a successful model; consequently it inspired further adaptations. The promotion and the films were self-referential as they referred to previous films within the horror genre and the cycle, not least of which was their refer- ence to Vincent Price as star. How this vortex of publicity relates to the Poe cycle is shown in the diagram in figure 12.1 , based upon Wernick’s model. Like all films in the Poe series, The Masque of the Red Death press book consists of a mixture of overt/covert promotion and serial promo- tion across commodities. Among the more outlandish stunts are sending

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Fans look for Increases celebrity of similar films – Price as horror star eg; Hammer, Sells more Poe other Price, books Corman, AIP Poe films

Increases awareness AIP linked with of Corman as Corman/horror director/auteur films

Figure 12.1 The vortex of publicity and the The Masque of the Red Death

a man out into the streets dressed as the Red Death and passing out cards advertising the film, giving audiences smelling salts to revive those who faint at the screening, and offering the opportunity for clientele to attend a midnight screening. The Poe cycle generated a stunt that was a departure from the usual AIP excess: promotion of the film in library and bookshop displays. Under “exploitation” in the press pack, there were tie-ins of an adaptation of the Corman film by Elsie Lee ( figure 12.2 ) under the logline, “The Master of Horror, Edgar Allan Poe’s story of Good vs Evil.” The cover featured Vincent Price as the Red Death placed in a prominent position on a purple background. A monotone still from the film of the masquerade party was displayed as a banner across the top third of the cover. Dell, known for adaptations of film and television tie-ins, produced a with a fine cover drawing of Price as Prince Prospero holding a bird of prey while the vari- ous Deaths lurk in the background ( figure 12.3 ). Promotion, though, was not one-way. The tie-ins and film promo- tion also inspired the publication by Panther of a book of short horror stories entitled The Masque of the Red Death (figure 12.4 ) but featuring tales from and others. The cover features a man’s face that looks suspiciously similar to Vincent Price. The written copy included advertorials and features for the local press. Much of this promotion was hyperbolic and featured elements not found in the plot. For instance, the poster promised “the hideous tortures of the catacombs of Kali! … the sacrifice of the innocent virgin to Baal!” Neither of these elements was in the film or Poe’s short story. Yet the scene that equated nearest to these descriptions featured (as the nonvirginal Juliana) submitting to ritual sacrifice in a drug-induced delirium. It is perhaps a tribute to the promotion that although Miss Court was fully dressed, the English censors cut the scene.

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9780230120860_13_ch12.indd 148 6/5/2012 2:54:32 PM Figure 12.2 Elsie Lee Paperback Adaptation, Lancer Books

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9780230120860_13_ch12.indd 149 6/5/2012 2:54:32 PM Figure 12.3 Cover of Dell’s Comic

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9780230120860_13_ch12.indd 150 6/5/2012 2:54:33 PM Figure 12.4 Panther book cover

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It is clear that Corman’s The Masque of the Red Death is not a faithful adaptation but is inspired by Poe’s short story of the same name and incor- porates “Hop Frog” to pad out the plot. The film was produced in England to save costs, and the look of the film was sumptuous thanks to the use of sets left over from the filming of Becket (1964). Although Corman sug- gested he had put off producing The Masque of the Red Death earlier in the cycle because of its similarity to ’s The Seventh Seal (1958); nevertheless, Corman could not resist quoting The Seventh Seal in the opening and closing scenes of The Masque of the Red Death featuring the various plagues haunting the land. This hailing of what was generally accepted as an leant an air of distinction to Corman’s film and was partially responsible for its better critical reception. The film, The Masque of the Red Death, differs from the short story, which concentrates only on a masquerade ball in which Prince Prospero faces the figure of death in the black and red room. Of necessity, the film had to expand the characterization and story lines. The opening sequence of the film shows a meeting between the Red Death and an old woman, toiling under the repression of the land’s ruler, the evil Prince Prospero. Death offers her a rose and promises her that the day of deliverance is at hand. This comes to pass, but in a cruel manner, with the death of people from plague; the rose symbolizes not love or passion but blood. Prince Prospero (Vincent Price) locks himself in his castle with his mistress, Juliana (Hazel Court), and cronies for an orgy of food, depravity, and satanic rites. For their pleasure, Prospero captures three peasants from the local village: Francesca (), to corrupt her innocence; Gino, her lover; and her father. The film culminates in a masked ball when a mysterious figure in red appears. When Prospero pulls off the mask of the mysterious figure, thinking the figure is a servant of Satan, Prince Prospero stares into his own blooded face, the face of the Red Death, which comments, “Why should you be afraid of death? Your soul has been dead for a long time.” Prospero staggers away and dies, surrounded by his guests’ disease-raddled bodies. The film expands the slender short-story plot with its development of subplots: Francesca and Prospero, Esmerelda and Hop Toad, and Prospero and Juliana’s Satanism. Poe’s description of the seven rooms based on dif- ferent colors is ideal for AIP’s use of Technicolor and is used in trailers and dream sequences. But the main selling point of any text, as Wernick notes, usually coalesces in names. In the Poe cycle, promotion emphasizes the cultural capital promised by Poe and the star, Vincent Price. Poe’s Prince Prospero is eccentric and hedonistic, with peculiar tastes for the bizarre and grotesque. Price’s Prince Prospero reflects these char- acteristics, but his character is fleshed out; he is a Satan worshipper, and

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Corman adds a frisson of exotic ancient Baal worship in dream/altered- state sequences and the promotion. The final sequence when Prince Prospero unmasks the mysterious intruder is the pivot of the marketing campaign. In the short story, the figure is clothed in a stained shroud to resemble the blood of the Red Death. It wears a mask that looks like “the countenance of a stiffened corpse” (327). When Prospero confronts the figure he falls dead. Corman changes this by having Prospero confront the figure thinking it is a servant of Satan. On unmasking the figure he discovers it is himself, his face bearing the stains of the Red Death. This image became the pivot of AIP’s promotion.

Timeliness, Names, and Dual Appeal

Wernick suggests that names are a central part of promotional culture whether it is the brand name, a star, or an originator (105–6). One might therefore regard Poe as a legitimate component of AIP promotion along with Vincent Price. The star image, as Dyer notes, is constructed from culture, marketing, and life, “everything that is publicly available about stars” (Dyer 3). A star’s image consists of output, commentary, criticism, gossip, news, lifestyle, and biographies. “Star images are always exten- sive, multi-media, intertextual” (Dyer 3). The ambiguity of Poe’s audi- ence appeal in the early 1960s was an opportunity for AIP to gain more cultural credibility, what Pullman describes as “the worthiness argu- ment” in adapting literature considered classic (qtd. in Hutcheon 29). In adapting Poe, AIP enhanced their reputation, but they also, in their promotional hyperbole, heightened Poe’s cultural capital. The main selling points of the campaign for The Masque of the Red Death were in the promotion of the film through names, principally Edgar Allan Poe and Vincent Price. Promotion of Poe and Price’s names reflects their dual appeal to audiences within academic circles and also fan culture. The Masque of the Red Death is a film in the Poe cycle that audiences would know by following Poe’s writings. This encour- ages audiences to fill in the gaps between the two texts, “with the dra- matic setup of the encounter in the previous scene” (Hutcheon 76). Fans’ expectations are also set up by previous adaptations in the cycle, and promotion is crucial in reminding audiences of previous films and Poe’s writings. Fan audiences also read magazines and comics devoted to the horror genre, to adaptations of previous films in the Poe cycle, or to Poe. Price’s name, too, evokes previous work and films in the Poe cycle. Beyond these promotional issues, however, Poe and Price’s star images were revised in the 1960s and early 1970s, and the Poe cycle arguably

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contributed to this revision. The remainder of this chapter draws upon Bourdieu’s ideas of taste and class to discuss this dual appeal of Edgar Allan Poe and Vincent Price.

Edgar Allan Poe’s Changing Status

It is sometimes assumed that “good” art is eternal and taste is innate in some individuals. However, according to Bourdieu, the “pure” gaze of artistic production is not natural; rather it is the result of legitimization by institutions, individuals, and class, imposing “norms” upon the field of production:

The denial of lower, coarse, vulgar, venal, servile—in a word, natural— enjoyment, which constitutes the sacred sphere of culture, implies an affir- mation of the superiority of those who can be satisfied with the sublimated, refined, disinterested, gratuitous, distinguished pleasures forever closed to the profane. That is why art and cultural consumption are predisposed, consciously and deliberately or not, to fulfil a social function of legitimat- ing social differences. (Bourdieu, Distinction 7)

A “field” is defined as a social space in which individuals or institutions struggle for access or position over specific stakes affecting individual practice and production. Within a field, levels of legitimacy operate to define the hierarchies that construct the object’s cultural capital. An object’s cultural capital is dependent upon the critical or cultural acclaim it achieves, and this can rest upon its genre, producer, or the his- toric moment. An example of this can be seen in a discussion of film as an art form in which there is conflict between the need to make profits and the need to attain aesthetic quality. However, Watson argues that cinema is rooted in exploitation from precinematic technologies, which exploited body images for the audience’s pleasure.2 If the argument against the worth or validity of exploitation films rests with their profit-making motive, then mainstream cinema can also be accused of exploitation in its marketing and promotion. In thinking about timeliness, Arkadin, in the film journal Sight and Sound, noted,

If you’re really interested in the opinion of posterity and all that, you have to face the fact that most of what we now revere as art was conceived originally as everyday work designed to meet some specific need of the moment for a patron or the public. In the cinema you only have to look at the American silent film now to see that at this distance of time it is the entertainment film which still lives as art, while the big art films of the period have mostly fallen by the wayside. (30)

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AIP may have begun as an exploitation company, but in 1979 they received cultural capital from their output when it was screened in the New York . Bourdieu’s ideas about art production can also be used to rationalize the changing cultural status of Poe’s work in the years after his death and into the twentieth century. This is due to changing attitudes from nine- teenth-century Protestant to twentieth-century secular morality. Early appraisals of Poe’s work describe it as childish, debased, and sensational (Walker 19–42). Henry James, for instance, proposes that to enjoy Poe is to “lack seriousness … a decidedly primitive stage of reflection” (60), and T. S. Eliot describes Poe’s intellect as that “of a highly gifted young person before puberty” (qtd. in Elmer 9). Poe’s reputation as a writer on his death was subsumed into moral condemnation of his perceived decadence and his drug and alcohol addiction. These faults of character (largely denounced by people who knew him) were disseminated in a defamatory article by Rufus Griswold (1849) just after Poe’s death. Poe’s perceived alignment with German Romanticism and its gothic imag- ery predisposed critics to regard his work as overly sensational and his use of the supernatural not in keeping with the American “anti-roman- tic national character” (Ringe 6). Poe’s work was also excluded from Matthiessen’s book on the literary canon, American Renaissance, for its ambiguity toward good and evil. There were a few lone voices before the 1960s singing Poe’s praises, notably in France where the Symbolist poet, Baudelaire, produced excep- tional translations which generated respect from academics and critics alike. Baudelaire’s disciples Valéry and Mallarmé also championed Poe’s work. By the mid-twentieth century, when Corman produced his films, Poe’s work was receiving acclaim in the literary academy. Allen Tate and Richard Wilbur identified themes running through Poe’s work. Tate, in particular, connected Poe’s themes with the modern human condition and the “disintegration of the modern personality” (qtd. in Carlson 239). This notion was also echoed by Mooney who proposed Poe as the “prov- ing ground for the modern consciousness” and suggested that earlier cri- tiques of Poe were more a comment on the narrow-mindedness of his critics than on Poe’s true character (261–83). The use of “The Purloined Letter” in 1957 as a case study for a psychoanalytic analysis by French philosopher Jacques Lacan, with a response by Jacques Derrida, brought Poe to the forefront of literary theory in universities all over Europe. By the early 1970s, critical acclaim came from the American academy in a number of books, principally by G. R. Thompson, who also edited the Poe Newsletter, and there was a symposium to critically examine Poe’s works.

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In the 1960s, Poe’s status as a writer in the American literary canon was undergoing transformation, and there is little doubt that the Poe cycle raised awareness of his work beyond fandom. Peeples, for instance, suggests that the films “fuelled Poe’s continuing popularity and shaped an enduring, if somewhat misleading image of his works” (137). Nevertheless, AIP’s promotion shamelessly played upon Poe’s name and possibly flattened the richness and diversity of Poe’s work into his gothic and horror stories. The promotional copy in AIP’s press pack for The Masque of the Red Death conflated the stories and film under the ban- ner of Poe in advertorials with headlines such as “Newest Poe thriller,” “Most terrifying of all Edgar Allan Poe films,” and “Famous Poe terror tale … opening today.” However, Poe’s status as a writer was undoubt- edly inflated for its time. The press pack for the first film, The House of Usher, suggests that “Edgar Allen [ sic ] Poe undoubtedly ranks as one of the greatest mystery writers of all time.… Anglo Amalgamated … bring to the screen the story that the writer considered to be his finest.… In fact it’s likely that Edgar Allan Poe would be pleased at the masterly way in which Anglo Amalgamated have transferred his story to the screen.” This hyperbole was meant to enhance Poe’s cultural capital. It also hailed a number of audiences: Poe fans, horror fans, and literary students. Central to this discussion is the notion that Poe simultaneously addresses different types of audience (Benton 1). Elmer, for instance, notes Poe’s dual appeal to serious culture as a literary figure but also his playful use of childish fun appeals to mass culture—his work hails “mass culture’s commodification of high cultural signification” (2). Poe appeals to fandom and mass culture with his gothic and detective fic- tion. However, Poe was also a powerful self-publicist, so much so that Baudelaire accused him of being a “charlatan” and his self-promotion as being peculiarly American. In this, Poe could be said to be very modern in his acknowledgement of the need for self-promotion. “Poe … belongs as much to the history of publicity as to the American literature in which he played so distinctive and strange a founding part” (A. Robert Lee 7). Worland makes a similar point in his essay on the promotion of The Pit and the Pendulum for drive-in theaters, claiming that “Poe’s abiding fame is bolstered by popular culture as much as the labor of teachers and scholars” (285). However, Worland regards popular culture and academe as mutually exclusive. The publicity surrounding the Corman films did much to foster Poe’s high and low appeal in the vortex of publicity. For instance, the press pack for The Masque of the Red Death uses serial promotion to refer to previous films in the series: “If you thrilled to The House of Usher, got goose pimples from The Pit and the Pendulum …” (“Newest Poe Thriller,

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‘Masque of the Red Death,’ Opens Here Tomorrow”), “The new Poe thriller … guarantees nightmare horror entertainment in the tradition of American International’s six previous Poe masterpieces” (“Famed Poe Terror Tale … Opening Today”), “Starring in the seventh and newest Poe thriller, filmed in color … Reunited again with Price is Roger Corman who directed all previous Poe films” (“Most Terrifying of All Edgar Allan Poe Films, Due to Open Here Soon).” This emphasis on Poe’s stat- ure in the films’ promotion may partially explain why his reputation was enhanced by the late 1960s. Poe’s rising status in the American liter- ary canon can be compared with Mary Shelley, whose reputation was not so fortunate. The philosophical ideas underpinning Mary Shelley’s best-known work, Frankenstein (1818), were not discussed to any great extent outside fandom in the 1960s despite popular film adaptations by James Whale (1931) for Universal Studios and (1957) for Hammer. Shelley’s reputation was not liminal like Poe’s in the early 1960s. Her status as a female writer and marriage to her more famous husband may have contributed to a general disinterest in the quality of her achievement within academe. Mary Shelley’s name appears on no posters in the Universal series. Nor did Universal or Hammer use her name as extensively in their promotion of the Frankenstein franchise as AIP did Poe’s. It was only after a boom in academic interest in the gothic and science fiction genres from the 1970s onward, which analyzed the more philosophical and psychoanalytical themes present in Frankenstein, and the growth of film studies as a discipline that recognition was finally given to Shelley as writer. Vincent Price: Taste, Class, and Dual Appeal

Like Poe, Vincent Price also had dual appeal, but this was expressed in a different way between his acting, public image, and artistic passions. Price’s soubriquets, the “Grand Guignol” and the “Master/Monarch of Menace,” demonstrate his horror credentials, but his nickname, the “Renaissance Man,” is also testimony to his interest in art. Price’s acting career spanned quality theatrical and film productions at one extreme and exploitation horror at the other. He debuted as an actor on the London stage and achieved Broadway success. Price had a steady film career as a character actor in films such as The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939) and Laura (1944). He also worked in the Mercury Theater with . From the early 1950s he became known for his roles in exploitation horror films beginning with the first 3-D film, House of Wax (1953) and (1959). These films consolidated his capital in fandom as a horror and character actor and

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are constantly referenced in the press pack. For instance, an advertorial included in the press pack plays with the notions of the “real” Price versus the character he played in the film. “‘Thank you for coming to my orgy,’ said Vincent Price as he passed amongst his guests at the end of the party … still in costume for his role of the depraved Prince Prospero” (“Host at an Orgy”). Price overturns his “depraved Prince Prospero” persona when he admits he is too old and nervous to attend an orgy and could never find one despite searching Hollywood when younger. The star image of Price is that of an urbane, charming, often effete or sophisticated upper-class character, a “sissified Karloff” (Peter J. Dyer 180). The film journal Films and Filming describes how “[i]n his own way he’s quite a stylist. No matter what piece of junk he appears in, he never seems embarrassed or uncomfortable” (qtd. in Brosnan 147). Throughout the Poe cycle, Price played aristocratic individuals who did evil, often through extreme circumstances, or responded inappropriately to the evil of others. For instance, in The Fall of the House of Usher (1960) he plays Roderick Usher, the head of an ancient family; in The Pit and the Pendulum (1962) he plays Nicolas Medina, a wealthy Spanish aristocrat driven mad by his wife; and in The Masque of the Red Death (1964) he plays Prince Prospero, a rich and cultured Italian nobleman. Indeed, the cover of the Dell comic emphasizes this urbane, aristocratic image in his anachronistic Renaissance-type dress ( figure 12.3). These roles reflect his star image as a cultured man from an upper-middle-class background and merge in his star image with his private cultural activi- ties. Price’s aesthetic sensibilities were also the key to what he regarded as central to evil: “The heavy who loves beauty makes the most terrifying villain” (McAsh 8). Prince Prospero in the film is more complex than in the short story where he is described as possessing bizarre, eccentric, and grotesque tastes. In the film, Prospero is not entirely devoid of positive qualities, for when his attempts to corrupt Francesca fail, he begs the Red Death to spare her as her zeal for Christianity mirrors his own for evil. Vincent Price’s face as the Red Death/Prince Prospero was also the key image in the Masque of the Red Death campaign. Produced by in- house illustrator, Al Kallis, the evil face (figure 12.5 ) is reminiscent of the style of Giuseppe Arcimboldo’s Renaissance portraiture in which faces are constructed from fruit and vegetables. However, Kallis’s evil face was constructed from images of tortured, terrified, half-naked women’s faces and bodies and strange religious rites. The latter reflect the copy that mentions Kali and pagan rituals. The evil face was described in the press pack as “the most powerful advertising piece in your campaign,” which was to be used as “blow ups for out front display use. Install color lights in the eyes and set flashing for full effect. Or use it on the marquee to

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Figure 12.5 The evil face press pack, by Al Kallis

command attention” (“Use Evil Face for Triple Impact”). The image was also used in trailers, posters, advertisements, displays, and, ingeniously, as a mask in a fan magazine. Underpinning discourses surrounding the evil face were mesmerism, as implied by the use of flashing lights and the logline on the poster, “Stare into this face … count if you can the orgies of evil!” The face was also used in the trailer where it was superimposed and then dissolved onto that of Price. The voice-over states that “ The Masque of the Red Death leaves its imprint on your face, on a world tyrannized by terror” ( The Masque of the Red Death film trailer). In the

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underlying themes of masking and imprinting, the fan could cut out the image and use it as a mask to become Price/Prospero/The Red Death. Price’s habitus is that of the upper middle classes (Bourdieu 101–2). Price was born into a wealthy family and at sixteen did a grand tour of Europe. His education culminated in a BA degree in art history at Yale and a lecturing career. Exploitation horror films ironically made Price more economic capital, and with it he bought into the cultural capital of the art collector, connoisseur, and gourmet cook. Price’s art collec- tion was funded by his acting; “presumably the more highbrow side of his artistic aspirations is taken care of by his work as an art expert, from which horror films make an agreeable and not unprofitable break” (Gillat 55). Gillat noted that Price was “making London a convenient centre for his forays on behalf of his own famous art collection and his current art-buying spree for Roebuck, whose peripatetic art-for- sale shows have, under his enterprising guidance, been turning thousands of unlikely people into collectors all over the States for the last year” (56). This dual career as art connoisseur and actor formed a symbiotic relationship in which the promotion of one fed the other. A significant aspect of Price’s later career was in the respect he garnered as a horror actor in later life, in his sound recordings of horror short stories, and, most famously, in his rap on ’s Thriller . The raising of his profile in the Poe cycle and his unique speaking voice contributed to these acknowledgements of his capital as horror actor. Conclusion

This chapter has not been about the faithfulness of the adaption that AIP made of Poe’s Masque of the Red Death. Rather it addresses the timeli- ness of the adaptation and how the promotion used names and their dual appeal to widen A I P ’s audience base away from traditional teen audience. What is of note here are the ways in which culture, as Bourdieu suggests, constructs our ideas about aesthetic values. Changing cultural values also affect how we view an artist or works of art over time. Within this analysis I have suggested that dual audiences’ reception of AIP adap- tations were incorporated into the promotional campaign principally through the appeal of Poe and Price. Hutcheon suggests that adaptation provides cultural capital for the film, but this works both ways (91–92). By raising awareness of Poe as writer, as Worland argues, Corman’s series may have raised awareness for his work. However, beyond this, in their promotion of his name, AIP’s hyperbole raised Poe’s and Price’s status in the minds of fans and film audiences. At a time when Poe’s work was undergoing reassessment, this may have contributed to his

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increased literary stature, and, as noted above, the difference between the academic and fan is not that great, except that one works under the aegis of academia. Issues of timeliness are significant in this discussion as Poe’s and Prices’ dual appeal within popular and high culture enabled their star images to migrate between various cultural registers. Adopting a discursive analysis of the promotion of the Poe cycle to highlight the dual appeal and timeliness of the adaptation shows that adaptation studies can gain much by locating analysis beyond intertextuality and into the cultural.

Notes

1 . There were eight films produced under the Poe banner. (1963) was given the title and promoted as a Poe story but was adapted from a novella, “The Case of Charles Dexter Ward,” by H. P. Lovecraft. Price starred in seven of the eight films. starred in The Premature Burial (1962). 2 . Watson cites images of naked human beings moving through gridded back- grounds as evidence. The purpose of these images, though ostensibly scien- tific, is to evoke pleasure and wonder in the audience.

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