INTRODUCCIÓN

Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe is considered as one of the greatest American authors since his works have been taken as models of terror stories for the following writers. However, he is not only a model for other authors, Poe is also a figure whose influence spread so deep in all cultures that in the 20^th century French cinema took his works for creating a new genre: horror films.

Since the recording of the film Le chute de la Maison Usher in 1928 by French producers, Edgar Allan Poe has been the reference for all film makers from all countries. Spain, Germany, Japan and France have shown interest for Poe’s writings as a source for good plots and terror movies. Furthermore, Poe’s stories have been turned into animation films in a search for a wider type of audiences. These facts lead us to be witnesses of how films also keep the creepy environment and most characteristic endings of Poe’s original writings.

Check out this questionaire in order to improve your knowledge about Poe's life.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1KVxlTATshbeihxNdY4q_Q6UqD3abgHkUI6X-gZAqT3I/viewform

The Black Cat: film vs short story

The Black Cat, film vs short story

This was published by Poe in Saturday Evening Post in 1843 and is considered one of the most terryfing short stories.

This tale starts in the prision, the anonymous narrator relates how his life was destroyed. He was always a good and peaceful person who loved animals so he married a woman who also loved animals. The couple had all types of creatures in their house including Pluto, a black cat.

The man of the story starts to drink and his nature completely changes, he  becomes an aggressive person with his wife and his animals.

One night, this man coming back to home intoxicated decides to cut Pluto's eye with a penknife and days hang up him causing his death.

After a short while, the narrator picks another cat up which looks like Pluto. The man begins to hate this new cat and one day he makes the decision of killing him with an axe but his wife attemps to stop him getting in the middle. However the axe finishes embedded in woman's head causing her death.

Her disappearance makes police thinking about him as the principal suspected. In the police inspection, they go to the basement where they hear noises from the wall within the man had put his wife's cadaver. The police demolishes the wall where they find the corspe and the cat miaowing.

The most famous adaptation of this story was the horror film released in 1934 under the title of The Black Cat performing by Boris Karloff, Béla Lugosi and David Manners. However the film differs in many ways from Edgar's story.

Peter (David Manners) and Joan Allison are honeymooning in a train travel in Budapest where they meet Dr.Vitus Verdegast (Béla Lugosi). These three characters have an accidents and the couple accompany  Verdegast to Hjalmar (BorisKarloff) Poelzig's castle, who is a mysterious person leader of a Satanic cult.

Verdegast wants revenge since Poelzig bertrayed him in WWI what caused Verdegast's detention. While this happened Poelzing married Verdegast's wife and then his daughter whose bodies are kept by Poelzig. Peter and Joan are involved in this revenge.

Thus, as it is shown the film and the story are completely different. There is an allusion of Poe's black cat when Verdegast kills Poelzig's cat, and he has a new cat which is carried while he is observing the women's cadavers in the glass cases. (mysteriousuniverse.org. , “Karloff and Lugosi: ‘The Black Cat’ (1934)- Movie Review”, 2013)

TRAILER : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFi9lxFwrsM

For further information: http://www.shmoop.com/black-cat-poe/literary-devices.html

http://www.combustiblecelluloid.com/blackcat.shtml

Reference list:

Rose, Michael. "Karloff and Lugosi: ‘The Black Cat’ (1934)- Movie Review." mysteriousuniverse.org. 29 Nov 2013.  Web. 18 May 2014. <http://mysteriousuniverse.org/2013/11/karloff-and-lugosi-the-black-cat-1934-movie-review/>.

The Tell-Tale heart (2006)

The Tell-Tale heart

By Gregor Dashuber and Annete Jung.

This adaptation was produced in the 2006 by German producers and amateur film makers which is clearly an evidence of the Poe’s influence beyond the American libraries. The point is that after previous adaptations (1953, 2003, 2005) this story become into a production which plot keeps the same than Poe’s but with animated characters.

The plot is focused in a brief adaptation of Poe’s work the tell tale heart in which the murder of a man whose sight was creepy triggers the madness of the main character. At the beginning, all facts running good for the protagonist but after the crime, he began hearing beats of the dead man. His consciousness blames him and eventually he finds himself in a crossroad which leads him to confess the murder of the old man.(litmed.med.nyu.edu, "The tell tale heart", 1991)

The advantage of this film is the lack of a necessity for creating a character because they are already represented and give us an idea about the aspect of the creepy eye.

On the other hand this is a brief adaptation and probably does not reach the expectations of Poe's fans.Moreover, the adaptation presents interesting characters with weird facial features and strange colors. 

Regarding to the original Poe's story there is a lack of details such as the inner thoughts of the main character and the physical description of the eye (blue and not green). Furthermore, the events are very well detailed such as how he hid the body and how well he did it. Also the scene of the panic of the murder is ommitted when he hears the beating of the old man's heart.  (ZippyFrames.com, "the tell-tale heart", 2013)

For further information and videos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=envukur1q3I

https://www.google.es/search?q=the+tell+tale+heart&rlz=1C1CHNU_enES428ES428&oq=the+tell+tale+heart&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i59l3j0l2.4610j0j9&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=93&ie=UTF-8#q=the+tell+tale+heart+espa%C3%B1ol+pdf

http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/poestories/section6.rhtml

References:

Accomando, Beth. "Edgar Allan Poe on Film". About.com. 2014. Web 16 May 2014. <http://movies.about.com/od/toppicks/tp/Edgar-Allan-Poe-Films.htm>

The Fall of the House of Usher vs film

The Fall of the House of Usher: story vs film

The Fall of the House of Usher  is one of the most important Poe's terror stories published in  Burton's Gentelman's Magazine  in  1839.

The plot deals with the arriving of an unknown character to the Usher's house in order to see a former friend who asked for his company since he suffers from a rare disease that affected his five sense. Usher's mansion was located in  a sinister and sad place next to a dark lake and its interior was also obscure and barroque. Roderick Usher  who has a passion for music could not go out because of his light sensivity, waiting for his death, and his sister, Lady Madeline, was also sick. Just after, she dies and Roderick wants to preserve her corspe in the house before entombing her. Days after, in a stormy night, these two friends hear strange noises and suddently the door is open and Lady Madeline appears. Roderick realizes that she was alive when they entombed her. Madeline gets close to her brother and he dies of fright and his friend runs away. When the unknown character looks back the house is demolishing and sinking in the dark waters.

The adaptation of this horror story is very similar to Poe's story, it is also entitled The Fall of the House of Usher. This film was writing by  Richar Matheson  in 1960 and performing by Vincent Price, Mark Damon, Myrna Fahey and Harry Ellerbe.

This movie  deals with the travel of a young man named Philip Winthrop ( Mark Damon) to the Usher's house located in a puddly and dark place. Philip's objective is to meet his fiancé, Madeline Usher (Myrna Fahey) whose brother, Roderick Usher (Vinctent Price) is against this marriage. Roderick throws out Philip of his house using his sister's disease as an excuse but Philip refuses to this and stays in Usher's house. He convinces Madeline to go to Boston, but when Roderick is informed about this he and his sister have a discussion which causes her death. Her corspe is preserved in Usher's crypt. The butler (Harry Ellerbe) tells Philip that Madeline suffers from catalepsy, and fight against Roderick because he has buried her sister alive. Then he looks for Madeline, but she is not in the crypt, she was looking her brother in order to kill him. This fight causes a fire, and the Ushers die while Philip escapes. (Classic-horror.com, "Fall of the House of Usher", 2005 )

In  conclusion the film and the story are very close, but "love" is a fundamental topic in film industry and that is why it is included in the movie.

TRAILER : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QslKMIOeME8

For further details: http://www.gradesaver.com/the-fall-of-the-house-of-usher/study-guide/section1/

Reference list:

Yapp, Nate. "Fall of the House of Usher." Classic-horror.com. 5 Aug 2005. Web. 18 May 2014. <http://classic-horror.com/reviews/fall_of_the_house_of_usher_1960>.

Murders in the Rue Morgue, film vs short story

This short story is considered as the first detective story which "changed the history of world literature" (Meyers 1992).The story starts with the voice of the narrator who explain the analysis of a game of chess, promising that this explanation is related with the story. After that, he introduces C. Auguste Dupin, who comes from Paris and comes to live together with the narrator in a nice house, where they only live during the morning since in the night they go outside searching for adventures.Dupin, after reading the newspaper, becomes interested on a murder of a mother and a daughter which have taken place in Rue Morgue, and Dupin, with the help of the narrator, collect information about the murder with the neighbors' declarations. He becomes more and more interested in the crime, and he decides visit the crime scene with his roommate after the imprision of a man who was suspicious of commiting the crime with no evidence against him.

Dupin concudes that the murder has been commited not only by a human, but by an animal such an Ourang-Outang with the assistance of a human. For that reason he puts an ad asking if anybody has lost this animal. A sailor responds to the ad and meets with Dupin. He says that he is the owner of the Ourang-Outang, and explains how the animal escaped from the house with a razor and went to the house where the crimes were commited. Dupin believes him and inform to the police about the declarations, closing the case.This story is a really rare story which makes the readers being in doubt during until the end of the story, guessing about who could commit the crime. At the end these questions are solved, however the end is difficult to believe making it a bit ambiguous. (themotionpictures.net "Poe vs. film: The Murders in the Rue Morgue", 2012)

This story was adapted on a film in 1932, Murders in the Rue Morgue. The setting is very similar to the one which appears in the story, however in the plot there are big changes although it was obvious inspired by Poe's story. For example, at the beggining of the film the chess explanation is substituted by a scene of two couples visiting a carnival. In the case of the figure of the narrator, in the film becomes a one more character, and he is not interested on helping Duping to solve the crime. And the crime is not commited by an animal, but the murder which Duping investigates consists on the death of women who are injected ape's blood by a doctor. The end of the film is also different, since Dupin instead of informing about the case to the police, he kills the gorilla. The final is not so clear as the one in Poe's story, but it is also a good and suspenful ending.It is very difficult to compare both works, since they are really different, but both are fantastic compositions.(imdb.com  "El doble asesinato en la calle Morgue")

Here you have the trailer of the film and the link to the full film.

Murders in the Rue Morgue, Trailer

Murders in the Rue Morgue full film

For further information:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0023249/

http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/poestories/section5.rhtml

Reference list:

Tmp, Lindsey. "Poe vs. film: The Murders in the Rue Morgue". The Motion Pictures. Lindsey Tmp. June 11, 2012. Web 18 May 2014.  <http://themotionpictures.net/2012/06/11/poe-vs-film-the-murders-in-the-rue-morgue/> 

 

Additional information

If you want know more about Edgar Allan Poe's life and works, check out this Prezi presentation!

EDGAR ALLAN POE PREZI

WEB PAGES AND DIGITAL RESOURCES

Two links with information about the influence of Edgar Allan Poe in cinema and the relation of work-film.

EDGAR ALLAN POE AND CINEMA, THE GUARDIAN

EDGAR ALLAN POE AND CINEMA, NEW YORK TIMES

The movie The tell-tale heart in the channel youtube where you can watch without any restriction the  plot, main characters and surprising ending: 

THE TELL-TALE HEART

 Web pages about the movies The murders in the rue morgue and The fall of the house of Usher. In these links we can obtain a summary of the main plot, year of the publication, country where it was filmed and a list of characters which is very useful.

THE MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE

THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER