At a downtown gentlemen’s club several men are sitting around having a drink. The discussion is a round of horror stories and Edgar Allan Poe in particular. The newest arrival to the gang, Greville (Robert Woollard), mentions that the Poe story that is the scariest is the story “The Fall of the House of Usher”. He walks over to a bookcase and extracts a book of Poe’s stories. He sits back down and begins reading the tale to his friends.
Jonathan (Irving Steen) travels to visit his old friend Lord Roderick Usher (Kaye Tendeter). Roderick and his twin sister, Lady Madeline (Gwen Watford) are the last of the family of Usher. When Jonathan gets to the estate he finds his friend frail and melancholy. Roderick tells Jonathan that both he and his sister are succumbing to the same strange symptoms and are dying. Jonathan decides to stay with his friend to try to give him comfort.
The family doctor, Dr. Cordwell (Vernon Charles) warns Jonathan that it is a house of sadness and that he should leave as soon as possible. Once Jonathan has retired to his room for the night, Dr. Cordwell visits Roderick in his rooms. He tells the master of the house that there is a curse on the family and that the curse manifests in the death of every Usher family member by the time they are thirty. Once Roderick and Madeline are gone, there will no longer be a House of Usher.
Later Cordwell takes Roderick to a temple housed on the grounds of the estate and relates the story to Roderick about the curse. He says that the curse came about because Roderick’s father killed a man that their mother was having an affair with by beheading him. He also says that Roderick and Madeline’s mother is still alive but her mind is gone and she spends her days in the temple with the head of her dead lover.
Madeline soon becomes almost catatonic and slips into a coma. Believing she is dead, Roderick has her placed in a coffin and taken to the family crypt. Soon Roderick begins to hear moaning and muffled screams. Roderick comes to the horrible realization that Madeline was not dead when she was placed in the coffin but in a catatonic state. The curse is working.
“The Fall of the House of Usher” was released in 1950 and was directed by Ivan Barnett. It is a low budget British gothic horror film. The film was adapted from the 1839 short story by Edgar Allan Poe. It is one of the more obscure of the many versions of Poe’s tale put to film.
It’s not colorful and vibrant like Roger Corman’s version but instead is dark and gothic, almost noir in its imagery. It’s more in keeping with Poe’s disturbed view of the world, but it’s not necessarily a better adaptation of the story.
It’s not horribly horrible, but it is dated and slightly padded. The acting is bad and both over dramatic and a bit blah at the same time. A lot of the sound was added in post production which gave the film a somewhat cheap feel. All in all, the movie had a good setting, but the performances were lacking.