By SCOTT  MURRAY

I probably appreciate this movie a lot more now than when I first saw it as a kid, largely because of it's psychological aspects.

Edgar Allan Poe's original short story "The Fall Of The House Of Usher" first appeared in Burton's Gentleman's Magazine in 1839 (a regular publisher of Poe's short fiction) and was revised for it's final version (including the "Haunted Palace" poem) for Poe's "Tales Of The Grotesque And Arabesque" collection in 1845.

In the original story, a friend of Roderick Usher narrates his bizarre experiences during a fateful visit to his old friend's family mansion.  This film adaptation, House Of Usher (1960), (later also titled Fall Of The House Of Usher) directed by Roger Corman wasn't the first but it is undoubtedly the most famous version. 

Roger Corman has said in interviews that Edgar Allan Poe was a favorite writer of his, when he was in school.  He had previously worked for American International Pictures making very low budget black and white quickies and was interested in breaking into making longer color features.

With the collaboration of writer Richard Matheson (I don't really need to rattle off his genre classics in a Webzine like this I'm sure), composer Les Baxter, production designer Daniel Haller, cinematographer Floyd Crosby and last but not least actor Vincent Price (in the role that would cement his career in horror pictures for many years to come), the result was a resounding success for both Roger Corman as a director and giving AIP more prestige in their work.  This film could be said to represent the Rise Of The House Of Corman!

After a brief but colorful title sequence over a misty backdrop, the film starts proper with Philip Winthrop (Mark Damon), a fine upstanding young man from Boston.  He's one of those rational, respectable types in a fine cut of cloth.  Philip's horse picks it's way through some desolate, dead foliage (an impressive landscape for setting the scene) and comes to the somewhat imposing structure of the House of Usher, surrounded by a fair amount of fog and looking rather run down.

Nobody home?  Right we can go home!  Not so fast, gentle reader, Philip knocks on the dusty door and meets with the servant Bristol (Harry Ellerbe). On requesting to see Miss Usher, Philip is taken aback to be told that Miss Usher is confined to bed and it will be impossible to see her.  Not even explaining that he and Miss Usher are to be married does any good.  The Master Roderick Usher has expressly forbid entry (why do we horror viewers always seem to go visiting places with people who are clearly not welcome?). 

Philip, unused to having his feathers ruffled and concerned for Madeline, insists on entry and is led into the hallway.  Bristol then makes the strange request that Philip must remove his boots. Philip without understanding why, complies with this request only to discover that the mysterious servant has disappeared!  Cue ominous music!  

At this point it's worth mentioning how rich and vivid the colors in this film are.   It really helps in keeping the mood of the movie and the great sets also add to overcoming any low budget limitations.  While Philip is looking around the hallway and up the staircase, Bristol just as mysteriously and suddenly reappears behind him and gives Philip a softer soled pair of slippers to put on, before leading him up the stairs, to the continuance of the ominous score, when all of a sudden Roderick Usher (Vincent Price) angrily appears, in a long red coat, to demand an explanation for his disturbance.

After this less than warm welcome, Philip and we viewers start to become aware of just how peculiar the master of the house is.  Despite his angry address to Bristol and Philip, he recoils in agitation at the slightest raising of Philip's retort.  This is because Roderick suffers from an affliction, a terrible acuteness of the senses.

Here, Roderick begins to relate, with wonderful morbid evocativeness, how even small sounds can prove taxing to him.  He could hear Philip's horse approaching from some distance away and can hear the rats scurrying about in the walls. This affliction also makes Roderick sensitive to all but dim lighting and makes him live on a diet of the blandest food.

Immediately, he tries to persuade Philip to leave and re-iterates the impossibility of seeing Madeline.  And it won't be the last time these gentlemen have this argument.   Vincent Price seems considerably grimmer in this role, than in some of the later Poe movies.  Always juicily morbid and reliably gloom and doom in his outlook, Price does get to camp it up though in places too (most notably in scoffing at Philip's attempts to rationalize events and in the film's exciting conclusion).

Philip is understandably stubborn and refuses to leave without seeing Madeline, whom he reveals his intention to marry, leading to some wonderful woe-ing from Roderick at the idea of Madeline leaving her family home ever again and--God forbid!--having children.

While the men continue to argue, Madeline Usher (Myrna Fahey) makes an unexpected entrance, standing raven haired in the doorway, looking faint and troubled in a white nightgown.  Right away, her brother Roderick is at her side insisting on her return to bed.  Madeline makes her brother agree to let Philip stay and returns dutifully to her room (don't think it's long before Roderick is beseeching Philip to leave for his own good again, though).

Madeline wavers at times over the course of the film, from echoing her brother's sentiments that it would be better for Philip to leave, to at times standing up to Roderick and trying to defy all the gloom and doom that's returned to her life and health since coming home from Boston.  Madeline, of course, also suffers from the family affliction that's apparently resulted in three quarters of the family going mad due to their tainted bloodline.

After a strained dinner conversation, with Madeline and Roderick, Philip later wanders into Madeline's room and starts to make up for lost time since he last saw her.   Roderick, of course, catches Philip in Madeline's room and is enraged.   Madeline complains of being kept a prisoner but her brother explains to her that it is for her own good.

Later that night, Philip hears stirrings within the house.  Even though he's only been there a short time he should be used to it by now. Still, off he goes to investigate and discovers, that Madeline is not in her room and her window has blown wide open with the wind.  Upon finding her sleeping in a room downstairs, Philip finds out from Bristol that Madeline has a habit of sleepwalking.

Bristol carries the sleeping girl upstairs, explaining that he's done it before. Next morning, when Philip brings Madeline her morning gruel (which she doesn't even touch) and persists in taking her away from all this, Madeline tries to make him understand by showing off the family crypt beneath the rest of the house.

Philip is given a tour of Madeline's relatives but is shocked when he finds that she, herself, has a casket awaiting her.  While arguing about Roderick's influence on her, the casket of Madeline's grandmother Miriam Usher, falls from it's place and opens to reveal the cobwebby skeletal remains.  Madeline faints at the sight and Philip ends up in Roderick's bad books again.  Roderick decides it's time that he shows young Mr. Winthrop something of the history of the Ushers.  He tells of a time, before his birth, when the local countryside was a beautiful thing to behold. But then one day, it was as if a plague swept through everything. 

Before a roomful of bizarre, creepy portraits, Roderick relates some of his ancestor's misdeeds and character.  If these ancestors were half as bad as Roderick makes out I dread to think what they did when the artist unveiled these unflattering portraits.   Accompanying the camera's pan of the various portraits is a mournful musical score, which includes eerie wailing to represent the still-felt powerful presence of the Usher dead.

That's not all though, because then Roderick goes on to speak of the evil of the Usher line, living on in the house and attributing the aforementioned plague on the local vegetation to this.  Philip eventually gets pushed too far for his rational tastes and angrily accuses Roderick of madness and sickened fancies.

Storming off, Philip finds Madeline and persuades her, finally, to shrug off her brother's misgivings and leave with him that very day.  Things seem to be going on a happier note...for about a second. As Philip is busy packing, he hears Madeline bravely arguing her case with Roderick.  On his way to his betrothed's bedroom to help, Philip hears Madeline scream.  Rushing in he alas finds her motionless on her bed, without pulse or breath. Dead!  There is, as Roderick points out, no mark on her and Roderick accuses Philip of getting his dear sister too worked up with ideas of escape.

There is a (very) short mourning period with Madeline in her casket.  Once again, Roderick's morbid monologues grate on Philip's nerves.  Suddenly, unseen by Philip, Roderick seems alarmed and hurriedly closes the casket lid on poor Madeline.  When Philip protests for more time to look on her, Roderick explains that she must be taken down to the crypt.  And, to the accompaniment of some somber music, that is where the three men take the casket.  After they leave however, Madeline can be heard giving a shrill scream from her casket! 

As Philip is ready to leave, Bristol lets slip unintentionally that cataleptic trance is one of
the problems known to plague the Ushers. Philip seizes on this and spurred on by Bristol's nervous denial that this affected Madeline, he bolts for the crypt.  However after breaking open the casket, it is revealed to be empty.  This part of the movie gives Mark Damon his best chance to get to grips with the character of Philip Winthrop and he gives his all.  Philip brandishes an axe against Roderick but gets no help as to Madeline's new resting place.

Not being able to bring himself to kill Usher, Philip frantically begins to search for his beloved and tears up the crypt.  Passing out, he falls into a eerie dream sequence where he meets the beckoning, leering and clawing ghosts of the evil Usher ancestors.  This dream sequence is similar in color and tone to Hazel Court's trials in the later Masque Of The Red Death and the scene of the ghosts clawing at Philip as he tries to break free and pursue Roderick also recalls that film's Masque sequence.  

Awakening in the middle of a storm that threatens to tear down the house, Philip goes to Roderick and vows to bring him to justice for his misdeeds. However, Roderick's acute hearing and the torture it plays on him reveals that Madeline yet lives and is now breaking free of her chained up coffin. Madeline, you see, now has the super strength that plagues the Ushers in their madness.  The search by Philip is on once again, this time also taking in the house's newly revealed secret, hidden passageways!

In the exciting and melodramatic finale, Madeline now completely deranged attacks first Philip and then Roderick before the house starts to burn down in a blaze (parts of this sequence will be used again in other Corman features and includes footage taken of a real building burning down).  In the end only Philip survives, leaving behind the burning shell of the decrepit house, a sad and wiser man.

Richard Matheson's accomplished script makes some changes to the story while keeping its tone.  Anyone who's read the original story will know that much of the word count goes to Poe establishing mood and atmosphere rather than detailing event. Matheson also wisely does away with the idea of larger staff on the grounds to create a more fitting sense of isolation for the film version.

Roderick Usher's dialogue about his acute affliction, on the other hand, could almost perfectly come directly from Poe's original prose.  Another touch faithful to small details in the original story is to have Roderick play the lute in some scenes. Alas he doesn't treat us to a rendition of The Haunted Palace.  Although the Gothic horror would seem a more European tradition, Edgar Allan Poe succeeded in putting his own mark on it and created a branch of it, that seems uniquely American.  That feeling also comes through in this adaptation.

Roger Corman's first foray into Cinemascope. is a great success.  His capable direction and Richard Matheson's script manage a wonderful job, of creating a sense of foreboding and expectation.   There's also effective use of making the house itself a very real presence, in the scenes of Mark Damon exploring the crumbling mansion with it's creaking doors, crumbling walls, broken banisters, falling chandeliers and of course, that ever-growing fissure in the wall that Philip sees from his window.

There's an interesting sense of ambiguity to the whole thing.  Are Roderick and Madeline really cursed or are they just falling into self-fulfilling prophecy? Does Roderick drive Madeline unto the brink of madness or merely accelerate the process?   Does the evil of
past Ushers really live on in the house and surrounding countryside, as a physical presence and disease?