The 1960s

THE AIP YEARS

This was the decade in which Vincent Price cemented his screen persona as the new king of horror through his association with American International Pictures and their Edgar Allan Poe cycle of films that gave Hammer’s full-blooded Gothic horror pictures a run for their money. Roger Corman’s dread-filled House of Usher scored big at the box office and gave Price one of his finest roles (as tortured aesthete Roderick Usher). And he followed that with a barnstorming performance (as the demented Nicholas Medina) in Pit and the Pendulum.

Batman

But Price also enjoyed sending up his new screen image in AIP’s comic spoofs The Raven and Dr Goldfoot & the Bikini Machine, while it was on prime-time television where Price garnered a new generation of ‘young’ fans by appearing in the big hits of the day, including Get Smart, F Troop, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and Batman (as Egghead, the world’s smartest criminal), as well as hit panel shows like Hollywood Squares.

Vincent’s new-found status also brought him opportunities to do what he loved most – to buy and talk about art. A deal with Sears led to the launch of The Vincent Price Collection of Fine Art in 1962, which gave everyone the chance to own original works from the great masters – from Rembrandt to Picasso and Dali – as well as some of the best contemporary artists of the day, from as little as $10 to $3000.

Price collected thousands of pieces over the ensuing years, often during his travels abroad while he was working on projects like The Last Man on Earth, which may have been set in modern-day LA, but was shot entirely in Rome, Italy. It was during this time that Vincent’s wife Mary gave him a wonderful surprise: a daughter, Mary Victoria (born 27 April 1962).

In 1964, returned to London, where his stage career began, to work on Corman’s penultimate Poe project, Masque of the Red Death. It proved to be the beginning of a 20-year love affair with his second-favourite city (his first being Rome). But the same could not be said of some of the projects that AIP handed to him after he took on a new contract with the company. One, however, would prove to be his most difficult and a cause célèbre – 1968’s Witchfinder General.

Darling of the Day (1968) — Vincent Price and Patricia Routledge in rehearsal.

But changes were waiting in the wings as Price finished the decade with a return to Broadway in the 1968 production of the musical Darling of the Day, opposite British actress Patricia Routledge (who later found fame on UK TV as Hyacinth Bucket in Keeping Up Appearances). At a time when the counter-cultural movement was taking its last dying breath and the Vietnam War was provoking protest on a global scale, the production was out of step with the defining mood of the day, unlike the ground-breaking production taking place down the street from the George Abbott Theatre – the tribal rock musical Hair. Read more about Darling of the Day HERE

Click on the (red) links up for a review of the film, plus sound and vision clips. The links in (orange) designate a clip, trailer or the full film. The links in (pale orange) are extra features for your reading pleasure.

THE AIP YEARS

House of Usher, 1960 + (TRAILER)

Master of the World, 1961 + (TRAILER)

The Pit and the Pendulum, 1961 + (TRAILER)

Rage of the Buccaneers (AKA Gordon, The Black Pirate), 1961 + (FULL FILM)

Taboos of the World, 1963 + (TRAILER)

Tales of Terror, 1962 + (TRAILER)

Confessions of an Opium Eater (AKA Souls for Sale/Evils of Chinatown), 1962 + (TRAILER)

Tower of London, 1962 + (FULL FILM)

Convicts 4, 1963 + (Vincent’s Cameo Only)

The Raven, 1963 + (TRAILER)

Diary of a Madman, 1963 + (TRAILER)