More Corman! More Price! More Poe!

THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH-1964-In the village of Kitanya, a red cloaked figure gives an old woman a red carnation and says she should tell her town “your day of deliverance is at hand”. Evil Prince Prospero (Vincent Price) treats the people who harvest his fields like animals. When he is insulted by two men he condemns them to death. A innocent girl Francesca (Jane Asher) begs the prince to spare their lives but he makes her choose which should live or die. One is her father Ludovico (Nigel Greene) and the other her fiance Gino (David Weston). That's forgotten when it's discovered the old woman is carrying the plague. The prince takes the trio to his castle and orders the village burnt. He takes a shine to Francesca despite the protests of Juliana (Hazel Court), one of his guests who brands herself for Satan and has weird (drug induced?) dream/visions. After she thinks he's betrothed to Satan she's clawed to death by a bird. “I beg you do not mourn for Juliana. We should celebrate. She has just married a friend of mine”. 

 Prospero invites princes from all over the region to join him at his castle for a decadent “protection from the plague” party. He's a nasty guy who insults his guests and makes them imitate animals and worship Satan. He especially gets the goat of Alfredo (Patrick Magee) a slimy aristocrat who slaps a little ballerina girl (but maybe she is suppose to be a dwarf as she has a dubbed in “adult” voice) during her dance. This leads to a sub-plot based on another Poe story “Hop-Frog” where her dwarf partner (Skip Martin) convinces Alredo to dress like an ape then burns him alive. After Ludovico is killed, Pospero allows Gino to leave but he goes back and tries to rescue his beloved. The same red cloaked figure who spoke to the old woman tells Gino he will bring Francesca to him later. While the guests entertain themselves Prospero, all dressed in black and looking rather Dr. Phibes-ish, finally thinks he meets his master the Devil but in fact it's Death who's come to claim him. 

Director Roger Corman has said although he holds MASQUE has one of his favorite films he wasn't that pleased with the final scene where Pospero's plague infected party goers crowd in on him and thought it could have been better since he felt it was rushed (he did it in one day). His use of colors is awesome and the photography by Nicolas Roeg (in his only work with Corman) is a highlight. The screenplay was written by Charles Beaumont and R. Wright Campbell. This AIP co-production with the English Anglo-Amalgamated was filmed in England in 5 weeks (long for a Corman production!).

Although she had an un-billed cameo in 1981's THE FINAL CONFLICT, MASQUE  was the last film role for Hazel Court (also featured in THE PREMATURE BURIAL and THE RAVEN by Corman) who settled permanently in the US and only made TV appearances. She died in 2008. 

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