After the death of her brother, Major Alexander Huntington (Barney O’Sullivan), Mrs. Buckingham (Doris Buckinham) and her daughter Lisa (Wanda Hendrix) arrive at his southern mansion to await the reading of his will. When they first arrive, the cab driver mentions that the house is reportedly haunted. Lisa then sees a ghostly woman near the woods. Her mother dismisses Lisa’s concerns. Inside the house Lisa sees the portrait over the fireplace of a young woman. The woman is Rebecca (Maray Ayres), the major’s daughter. Lisa becomes fascinated with the portrait. They are greeted by the housekeeper, Mrs. Warren (Gisele MacKenzie), and shown to their rooms.
During the night Lisa hears piano music and goes downstairs to investigate. A young man, Joseph Hudson (Barry Coe) appears to be having a conversation with an invisible presence he refers to as Rebecca. When Lisa walks into the room, the apparition disappears. Joseph is upset that Lisa disturbed him and he confronts her. Lisa races back to her bedroom. Sometime later, Lisa asks Mrs. Warren about the woman in the portrait. Mrs. Warren relates the tragedy of Rebecca’s death.
Sometime during the Civil War Joseph was wounded and chased by Union soldiers. He seeks shelter in the mansion. He is discovered by Rebecca and Mrs. Warren who decide to nurse him back to health despite his being a Confederate soldier. While Joseph recuperates, the Major returns to his troops to continue the war. Joseph and Rebecca fall in love and decide to secretly marry. The wedding is interrupted by the same Union soldiers who take Joseph away. By now Rebecca is pregnant and eventually goes into labor. This is when the Major returns home and learns of the situation. Furious, the Major throws Rebecca out of the house. She ends up losing the baby and her own life. The Major has a stroke and becomes a vegetable. Joseph returns to the estate to find that his love is gone. The loss of Rebecca breaks Joseph’s mind.
Strange things begin to happen to Lisa. She begins to feel that Rebecca’s spirit clings to the house. The nearness of Rebecca’s spirit starts to affect Lisa’s health and mental state. Lisa herself is becoming obsessed with the oval portrait.
“The Oval Portrait” was released in 1973 and was directed by Rogelio A. Gonzalez. It is a gothic Mexican horror film, heavy on the romance. The movie was based on the 1842 story by Edgar Allan Poe. Although it is a Mexican movie, the film was filmed in English and shot in Canada. There were a few Mexican films that were shot in English instead of Spanish, but I’m only aware of one other film that had the same pedigree as this one and that was “One Minute Before Death” 1972. Both of these films used the same cast and crew. They are often mistaken for the same film, but they are indeed totally different movies.
I never read Poe’s story, but from what I’ve heard, this interpretation is very different from what the author intended. Poe’s horror story was transformed from a horror tale to a tragic romance. It’s more reminiscent of “Romeo and Juliet” or, more likely, your basic Harlequin pulp novel than it is horror. There are a few gruesome parts, but the movie is mostly melodrama. The editing is weird and there are a lot of jump cuts that make me think there may have been some parts that were edited out. Except for a few creepy parts, it wasn’t all that engaging. In fact the flashback tale took up so much of the story that it made it easy to lose the trail of the horror portion of the film thereby making the movie a lot less interesting.