The Haunted Palace
| The Haunted Palace | |
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Original US film poster by Reynold Brown
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| Directed by | Roger Corman |
| Produced by |
Samuel Z. Arkoff James H. Nicholson Roger Corman |
| Written by |
Story: H. P. Lovecraft Screenplay: Charles Beaumont |
| Based on | The Case of Charles Dexter Ward by H. P. Lovecraft |
| Starring |
Vincent Price Debra Paget Lon Chaney Jr. |
| Music by | Ronald Stein |
| Cinematography | Floyd Crosby |
| Edited by | Ronald Sinclair |
| Distributed by | American International Pictures |
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Release date
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Running time
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87 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Box office | $1,200,000 (US/ Canada) 184,700 admissions (France) |
The Haunted Palace is a 1963 horror film released by American International Pictures, starring Vincent Price, Lon Chaney Jr., and Debra Paget (in her final film), in a story about a village held in the grip of a dead necromancer. The film was directed by Roger Corman and is often regarded as one in his series of eight films largely based on the works of American author Edgar Allan Poe. Although marketed as "Edgar Allan Poe's The Haunted Palace", the film actually derives its plot from The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, a novella by H. P. Lovecraft. The title The Haunted Palace is borrowed from a poem by Poe, published in 1839 (which was later incorporated into Poe's horror short story "The Fall of the House of Usher").
In 1765, the inhabitants of Arkham are suspicious of the strange phenomena surrounding the grand "palace" that overlooks the town. They suspect the palace's owner, Joseph Curwen, is a warlock.
A young girl wanders up to the palace in a trance-like state. She is led by Curwen and his mistress, Hester, down into the dungeons. The girl is subjected to a strange ritual, in which an unseen creature rises up from a covered pit. The townspeople observe the girl wandering off, and they storm the palace to confront its owner. Though the girl appears unharmed, the townspeople surmise that she has been bewitched to forget what happened to her. They drag Curwen out to a tree where they intend to burn him. The mob leader, Ezra Weeden, insists that they do not harm Hester (to whom he had been previously engaged to marry). Before dying, Curwen puts a curse on Arkham and its inhabitants and their descendants, promising to rise from the grave to take his revenge.
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Wikipedia