Sound So Nice They Had To Tell Them Twice

TWICE TOLD TALES-1963-This trio of tales are based on stories by Nathaniel Hawthorne and were probably made to cash in on AIP's successful Corman/Poe series (TALES OF TERROR was released the year before). While director Sidney Salkow is no Roger Corman, he does a capable job on such a noticeably low budget. And he got “Poe” star Vincent Price to be in all three segments! (He's also the narrator)

In “Dr. Heidegger's Experiment”, the old doctor of the title (Sebastian Cabot) celebrates his over 40 year friendship with Alex Melbourne (Price) but the doc still pines for his lost love Sylvia (Mari Blanchard) who died on their wedding night. When a storm damages her tomb, the duo investigates and finds her ancient body preserved with no signs of decay. After some experimentation, Dr. H. finds that the water seeping into her tomb is actually some kind of eternal youth serum. He and his friend drink it and become young again. The doctor decides to use the serum on his dead wife. He brings her back to life with tragic (but predictable) results.

Next is “Rappacino's Daughter”, where a once famous scientist (Price again) has made his daughter (Joyce Taylor) poisonous through the infusion of a deadly plant into her blood stream (or something like that). Anything she touches dies. He has presumably done this to “protect her from sin” after his own wife's infidelity. A young medical student (Price's RETURN OF THE FLY co-star Brett Halsey) falls in love with her. The scientist tricks the student into becoming poisonous too. The student's professor (Abraham Sofaer) creates a serum that might cure them. The deadly love birds drink it and die. The scientist commits suicide.

The final segment is a truncated version of the novel “The House of Seven Gables”, a version of which Price co-starred in in the 1940's. Jerold Pyncheon (Price of course) and his wife Alice (Beverley Garland) return to the haunted house he grew up in and where every male Pyncheon has died. Jerold wants a treasure hidden in a secret vault but a family foe Jonathan Maulle (Richard Denning) stands in his way. Alice becomes possessed by the spirit of a woman who once loved a Maulle ancestor, who was hung by a Pyncheon ancestor. When Jerold's sour puss sister (Jacqueline DeWit) says she deserves a share of the elusive booty he kills her and then buries Alice alive! After finding the treasure he's strangled by a skeleton hand. Somehow Maulle rescues Alice as the House of Seven Gables crumbles. Gene Roth has a small role as a cab driver.

Screenwriter/producer Robert E. Kent worked with Edward L. Cahn on some of the best horror/Sci-Fi movies of the '50's (IT! THE TERROR FROM BEYOND SPACE, INVISIBLE INVADERS). Despite it's budgetary drawbacks TTT is entertaining. Director Sidney Salkow worked with Price again when he co-directed LAST MAN ON EARTH.

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Cry Baby Jack

THE CRY BABY KILLER-1958-A confused juvenile delinquent named Jimmy (skinny Jack Nicolson in his film debut) gets beaten up by a sleazy dude named Manny (Bret Halsey, one year before RETURN OF THE FLY) and his two punk underlings. Manny's new girl Carole (Carolyn Mitchell) is Jimmy's old one and he wants to get her away from Manny. They go out into the parking lot and somehow Jimmy gets his hand on Manny's gun and shoots Manny and one of the punks. Thinking he's killed them, Jimmy takes a kitchen worker (Smoki Whitfield) and a lady (Barbara Knudson, who died in March of 2014) with a baby hostage. Police lieutenant Porter (familiar TV actor Harry Lauter) investigates. A TV reporter (Ed Nelson) does a live report as a large crowd gathers. There's a lot of expounding on kids, family and growing up while the police (and his mom) try to talk Jimmy (now called "the boy with the gun") out but everything seems to go wrong. Frank Richard is Gambelli, the uptight owner of the bar (character actor Herb Vigran plays his lawyer) and Lynn Cartwright is a proselytizing waitress.

NIcolson is pretty funny as Jimmy, desperate, then crazed then sorry. It's really not that much of a role as most of the rest of the cast has the best lines. It's interesting that there is a sympathetic black character who tries to talk Jimmy into surrendering but by the end of the story he's not even thanked. The lieutenant just gives him a blank stare.

Actor Leo V. Gordon (who was married to actress Cartwright) wrote the screenplay (he performed this chore for Corman several more times) and appears in some crowd scenes (with Bruno Ve Sota). Producer Roger Corman (who's seen briefly as a TV technician) claimed this was the only movie he ever released that didn't make money!

I think this is the only feature film directed by Justus Addiss who usually worked in TV. His last work was for Irwin Allen in the '60's.

The great theme song is sung by Dick Kallman.

To read more about featured actress Carolyn Mitchell go here: 

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0593198/bio?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm

The version I saw was just called THE CRY BABY.

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