Crazy old ladies, peculiar diabolism, Czarist spookery, and the science of German smut:
All that Money Can Buy (1941), in which a farmer sells his soul to the Devil, then hires Senator Daniel Webster to get him out of the contract…
The Devil Within Her (1975), in which failing to requite a midget’s love gets Joan Collins cursed with a killer baby…
The Horror of Frankenstein (1970), in which Hammer scores its first Epic Fail in appealing to the youth market of the 70’s…
The Leech Woman (1959), in which the lady never asked for a Fountain of Youth, but now that she’s got one, she intends to keep it…
Night of the Ghouls (1958), in which Ed Wood brings the art of the “Dracula” anagram to its all-time low…
The Portrait (1915), in which there are even worse hazards to buying tacky wall art than having to spend the rest of your days looking at the ugly-ass thing…
The Queen of Spades (1916), in which Satan recommends that you cheat at cards…
Satan Exultant (1917), in which he also recommends that you get drunk, paint sexy pictures, and screw your in-laws…
The School Girls (1970), in which the in-laws are apparently the only people whom Germany’s teenagers aren’t screwing…
Twister’s Revenge! (1987), in which nothing evens the score with a bunch of dumb rednecks like an intelligent, self-aware monster truck…
and…
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962), in which one of Old Timey Hollywood’s most famous feuds becomes the raw material for the second-most influential psycho-horror film of the 60’s.
#1 by Alaric on May 9, 2013 - 2:52 pm
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I’ve always enjoyed All that Money Can Buy– or, as I know it, The Devil and Daniel Webster– even if it is quite different in tone from the story (which I had read before I first saw the movie). By my reading, the fun of Benet’s story is that it’s really about the process of mythologization- he transforms Webster into a folk hero, complete with superhuman abilities and magical accoutrements. By contrast, what works best in the movie is the portrayal of the diabolic forces- at once disturbing and engaging. The weakest part of the movie, to me, is the part where it has to move more into the original story’s realm- Webster’s speech before the jury. There’s no way a real speech could possibly be as good as that speech is supposed to be, and attempting it in the context of the world portrayed in the movie didn’t really work.
By the way, if memory serves, the Devil’s line about his claim to American citizenship was taken directly from Benet’s story.
#2 by Read MacGuirtose on July 5, 2013 - 4:26 am
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The original story is available online here, and it appears your memory does serve you correctly… that line does indeed appear (verbatim) in the story.
#3 by DamonD on May 14, 2013 - 8:45 am
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Always found the Black Ghost in Night of the Ghouls quite genuinely creepy, although it has been a few years now seen I saw that flick last.
#4 by maggiesmith on April 5, 2022 - 10:59 pm
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You should check out the 1948 British version of The Queen of Spades, which has Edith Evans as the Countess. It’s available online. I think Pushkin was a compulsive gambler, as well as a compulsive duelist (if that’s the correct word), His last duel was a fatal one,
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