Year:  1960
Rating: 6.0

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If only Edgar Allan Poe had lived another 100 years he would have been a wealthy man. The film and TV versions of his work is in the hundreds and then of course the book sales. Many of the film adaptations are in reality imaginative re-creations from short stories, a title or a few lines of poetry in a book. Simply being marketed as based on Edgar Allan Poe was enough at one time to sell tickets. But instead of becoming wealthy, he died at 40 rather impoverished and possibly mad - an alcoholic for sure who had trouble keeping a job because of it. He also married his 13-year old cousin which seems wrong on so many levels. He and Jerry Lee Lewis. Little known during his lifetime except for The Raven and his work as a literary critic. But in those few years the man helped develop the detective novel, the horror short story and sci-fi literature. Kind of amazing really. Today it is mainly for his short horror stories and a few poems that he is remembered. And the movies of course.


This is one of my favorite short stories - The Tell-Tale Heart. It is narrated by a man going insane with first an escalating need to kill his uncle, bury him beneath the floor boards and then be overwhelmed with guilt and madness. It is incredibly intense and pulls you into his quickly deteriorating mind. It has been told in film form a bunch of times. In fact, a version of it was the directorial debut of Jules Dassin. Perhaps even more peculiar is that it was not among the many Poe influenced films from Roger Corman in the 1960's. Perhaps it was too close to this film in timing.


This is a British production - black and white and immersed in claustrophobic sets, shadows and emotions. I know none of the actors but they are very good (as we have come to expect in British films) especially from the protagonist. Still taking a short story and expanding it to a full-length film (78 minutes) means changes have to be made. And they are but the madness is kept firmly in tact.


Edgar (Laurence Payne) is a bit off - a social misfit unable to relate to women but with high standing in the community as the head librarian. His only has the one friend Carl (Dermot Walsh) who is a ladies man but has a fondness for Edgar. Across the street a young woman (Adrienne Corri) moves in and there seems to be a problem in closing the curtains when she undresses at night to get ready for bed. Edgar watches. He makes a play for her and his courtship seems to be going ok until Carl shows up and she all but jumps on his lap to give him a dance. Edgar misses these visual and verbal cues but not all and murder is in the cards. But the water won't stop dripping, the clock won't stop ticking and the heart won't stop beating, beating, beating. Louder and louder.