#i love me some waldo trumbull

[ilovemesomevincentprice]

Vincent Price and Peter Lorre - The Comedy of Terrors (1964)

[elvira-movie-macabre]

Movie Macabre 107 - The Comedy of Terrors (1963)

Movie Macabre Season 01 - Episode 07 (007) Original Air Date: 07 November 1981

The Comedy of Terrors (1963) Directed by Jacques Tourneur Written by Richard Matheson

Starring: Vincent Price Peter Lorre Boris Karloff Joyce Jameson Rhubarb the Cat Joe E. Brown Basil Rathbone

"Dishonest undertaker Waldo Trumbull and his sidekick Felix Gillie are creating their own customers when they cannot find willing ones." (IMDB)

The seventh episode of Movie Macabre was the first episode to feature a film that was more comedy than horror. Distributed by American International Pictures and featuring several AIP regulars, The Comedy of Terrors pokes fun at some of the standard elements of AIP's horror catalog.

The movie starts with a bit of slapstick: two undertakers dump a body out of a coffin which they then clean and reuse. Thus the tone of the film is set. Unfortunately for me, that tone was neither comedy nor terror.

The cast is superb. Vincent Price is debonair and detestable. You can't help but feel sorry for Peter Lorre's loveable oaf. Joyce Jameson manages to upstage Vincent Price in nearly every scene. And Basil Rathbone as the cataleptic John F. Black got a few chuckles out of me. The real star of the movie was Rhubarb the cat. This cat was credited in the opening title crawl and on the poster. Rhubarb was also all over the movie, including riding on the top of the hearse.

Visually, the film doesn't really manage to be particularly unique. That's probably due to the fact that AIP churned out a ton of movies using the same sets, the same actors, and the same filmmakers. After a while, the style can blend into other movies.

This film has one of the worst uses of day-for-night filming that I've seen. The characters are supposed to be out at midnight, and yet we see them riding through what is obviously a sunny day ever so slightly color corrected. It's possible the version I watched had a different color grading than the original released film.

Despite the great cast and the otherwise competent filmmaking, I found it difficult to connect with this movie. I'm not a huge fan of the slapstick humor that comprises a large part of the comedy in this film. If it's not people falling down, it's Trumbull being verbally abusive to his wife. I understand what the film was trying to accomplish. It just all fell flat for me. Still, I would recommend it to those who enjoy Vincent Price.

I wish the full episode of Movie Macabre still existed. I'd love to hear with Elvira had to say about The Comedy of Terrors.

[ilovemesomevincentprice]

Boris Karloff and Vincent Price - The Comedy of Terrors (1964)

[ilovemesomevincentprice]

Something about Vincent Price passed out with a bottle of whiskey. 😂

Vincent Price as Waldo Trumbull - The Comedy of Terrors

[ilovemesomevincentprice]

Vincent Price, Boris Karloff, and Joyce Jameson - The Comedy of Terrors

[ilovemesomevincentprice]

"Should I give him some medicine?"

Vincent Price as Waldo Trumbull - The Comedy of Terrors

[ilovemesomevincentprice]

Vincent Price and Basil Rathbone - The Comedy of Terrors

[ilovemesomevincentprice]

Vincent Price as Waldo Trumbull - The Comedy of Terrors (1964)