Author Archives: chipkaufmann

My first acquaintance with the HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES was in 1963 when I was 11 years old. I read the CLASSICS ILLUSTRATED comic book and liked it because of the idea of a family curse that transcends generations. About the same time as I was enjoying my CI  version, a heavily revised and altered versionContinue reading “THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES (1940): Undervalued Adaptation Deserves Wider Recognition”

For many years I’ve been a fan of all things Hammer, and though I was aware of HAMMER HOUSE OF MYSTERY & SUSPENSE, I’d only seen a few episodes on YouTube a few years ago. I completely missed its 1984 American TV run as FOX MYSTERY THEATRE. The U. K. edition has been discontinued, andContinue reading “HAMMER HOUSE OF MYSTERY & SUSPENSE (1984): The Original Company’s Final Offering”

I first saw HAMMER HOUSE OF HORROR back in 2010 on the old A&E DVDs with the green covers. At that time I was disappointed in the series, the primary reason being that I had been really looking forward to HHOH and it was not what I expected. I thought the look of it wouldContinue reading “HAMMER HOUSE OF HORROR (1980): Better The Second Time Around”

Although a fan of Vincent Price, especially his Edgar Allan Poe movies of the early 1960s, I did not see TWICE TOLD TALES (1963) when it first played in movie theaters but I did have the DELL comic book adaptation which I paid 12 cents for and liked very much. It would be over 20 yearsContinue reading “TWICE TOLD TALES (1963): Nathaniel Hawthorne Gets The Edgar Allan Poe Treatment”

The 1946 film noir THE BIG SLEEP with Humphrey Bogart & Lauren Bacall is an iconic work of classic Hollywood that cemented Bogart’s reputation and confirmed Bacall’s. However the movie that everyone knows is not the original cut of the film. That version went unseen for 52 years until its rediscovery in 1997 when it was released toContinue reading “THE BIG SLEEP (1946): I Prefer The Original 1945 Version”

Beginning in the mid-1960s, there was a wave of mainstream interest in the writings of H.P. Lovecraft (1890-1937). Howard Phillips Lovecraft had been popular in the 1930s and 40s but only amongst a fringe element of readers and/or writers of what was then called “weird fiction”. Once his pulp fiction magazine copyrights expired, his storiesContinue reading “THE DUNWICH HORROR (1970): After 50+ Years It Remains As Bad As I Remembered”

Director Daniel Haller began his career as an art director for Roger Corman. He worked on all the early Edgar Allan Poe pictures and after the success of THE HAUNTED PALACE (1963), was later given his chance to direct on another adaptation of an H. P. Lovecraft story. H. P. Lovecraft (1890-1937) was a writerContinue reading “DIE, MONSTER, DIE! (1965): H.P. Lovecraft’s COLOR OUT OF SPACE In A Muddled Adaptation”

If anyone other than Alfred Hitchcock had directed JAMAICA INN, it would be considered a minor masterpiece especially considering when and where it was made. This tale of 19th century smugglers and wreckers off the coast of Cornwall is on par with anything Hollywood did in the pirate genre. The movie’s merits are clearly evidentContinue reading “JAMAICA INN (1939): Hitchcock’s Last British Film In A Stunning Transfer”

TOMB OF LIGEIA is the eighth and final entry in Roger Corman’s cycle of movies based on the works of Edgar Allan Poe that were made between 1960 and 1964. It is unlike any of the others in that TOMB uses a number of actual locations as opposed to being shot entirely on a soundstage. This enhances Corman’sContinue reading “TOMB OF LIGEIA (1964): Roger Corman’s Swan Song Envisions Poe As Emily Bronte”

BRIDES OF DRACULA (1960) was Hammer Films follow-up to their worldwide hit DRACULA (1958). The title, however, is a misnomer as the character of Dracula is nowhere to be found in the movie. He had been spectacularly destroyed at the end of the 1958 film but that never stopped a studio from trying to cash inContinue reading “BRIDES OF DRACULA (1960): A Gothic Fairy Tale Instead Of A Horror Film”