Prince Prospero (Vincent Price) arrives in a village to give thanks for their harvest and announce his annual ball, which they can attend. When a couple of the villagers point out he only wants them there to humiliate them, Prospero orders them executed. Francesca (Jane Archer) pleads on their behalf, because one's her dad and the other the man she loves. Amused, Prospero brings all 3 to his mansion, at the same time ordering the village burned because an old woman just died of the "red death."
From there, it's Prospero trying to turn Francesca from her faith in God, while all his noble friends and his wife humiliate and destroy themselves in an attempt to curry or keep his favor. I went in expecting Price to really be hamming it up, just chewing the scenery, but that's not the case until maybe the very end, when all Propsero's illusions that he understands how the universe runs collapse.
Until then, Price keeps Prospero under control, carrying himself with the haughty swagger of a guy sure he's got all the angles covered. He's sure God is long dead and Satan rules, and he's buddy-buddy with Satan, so he's got nothing to fear, even from the red death. And so he amuses himself making others debase themselves at his command, or watching a man offer up his wife in exchange for sanctuary. He doesn't make a big show of it; a tiny smirk as he replies he's already had that dubious pleasure, insulting husband and wife both in a moment.
And sucking up to Prospero doesn't save anyone. When Hop Toad set the man who insulted his love on fire, the other nobility may stop laughing, but no one makes a move to douse the flames. Certainly not Prospero, who orders the charred corpse moved because his guests can't dance around it. His wife Juliana agrees to offer herself fully to Satan and Prospero lets her, but he doesn't care. He sees it as a transparent attempt to retain her position against Francesca, and lets it play out.
Only Francesca brings out something almost soft, although in a patronizing way. Francesca intrigues him because of her faith, which seems as absolute in God as his is in Satan. Though it sure seemed like she'd abandoned hope of salvation by the end, but I guess her surrender was in its own way a transparent attempt, just that she was trying to save someone else, rather than herself.
I really liked the set design. The intricate patterns on the walls and floor of the ballroom, and the weird green candles they used, but also those 4 rooms that were each one solid color. Yellow-purple-white-black. It made for a striking image as Prospero leads Francesca through them, except for the last room. That actually surprised me, and added a bit of intrigue, as he actually looks scared of letting her see in there. I don't, in retrospect, understand why he's so wary. Unless it was just to pique her curiosity, get her to open the door to darkness on her own, rather than being pushed through it.
2 comments:
This film goes with the 1982 Conan on the adaptations-that-aren't-very-faithful-but-are-still-very-good shelf.
I've never read Poe's story, but I somehow got it in my head the Red Death was an actual red cloud that would drift into the main hall like fog and kill everyone. I was initially disappointed about that, but not terribly so.
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