Director: Roger Corman (USA). Year of Release: 1961
Spain, 1547. A horse-drawn carriage takes a well-dressed passenger with a basin haircut along the coastline. Waves are crashing into the shore, and we see a Gothic castle on the horizon. Suddenly, the driver of the carriage decides that he can go no further. As his passenger gesticulates in the direction of the castle, we do not hear their conversation, but it is clear that the driver is telling his passenger that from now on, he’s on his own. The passenger picks his path towards the castle.
At the castle door, the passenger introduces himself as Francis Barnard and demands to see Signor Nicholas Medina. The servant who opened the door tries to slam it in his face, but Francis persists until a woman arrives. She introduces herself as Catherine, Nicholas’s sister. Francis in turn explains that he is Elizabeth’s brother, at which point she lets him in and invites him to stay. She says that her brother is currently resting, but maybe he’ll be there for dinner.
In a short period of time, we are treated to some fairly elegant exposition. Elizabeth was married to Nicholas and recently died. Francis has has rushed over from Britain (although you’d never tell this from his accent). For some reason, he’s only just heard of his sister’s death, although it happened 3 months ago. When Nicholas eventually emerges, he explains that she died because of something in her blood, but when pushed for more information he remains deliberately vague.
The first hour of the film essentially consists of Nicholas, Francis and Catherine going around the gothic castle as Francis tries to find out more about his sister’s death. He is largely unsuccessful, even after Doctor Leon appears and says that she may have actually died of fright, or was possibly buried alive (this is based on an Edgar Allan Poe book, after all). As the actual story gets increasingly unclear, the straight laced Francis gets more and more frustrated.
We also learn a little about Nicholas’s backstory. Apparently his father was the most feared torturer of the Spanish Inquisition, and had a torture chamber in his basement. When Nicholas was ten, he was playing in the basement when he saw his father accuse his wife and brother of having an affair (think Hamlet in an even more drafty castle). This was a prelude to watching dad kill his uncle with a poker before slowly torturing his mother to death.
Then, after an hour or so, the film does something which only occasionally happens in novels, and very rarely in films. Until now, we have been watching everything through the eyes of Francis. We are as in the dark as he is about what really happened to his sister. It is clear that the people he is talking to are not revealing the whole story, but it is much less clear what it is that they are not telling us or why. And then suddenly our perspective changes.
Francis recedes from the story for a while and we follow Nicholas as he stumbles around the stone cellar. We already know that Nicholas is an unreliable narrator – he was clearly traumatised by watching his childhood experience watching dad killed mum, and is in grief following the similar death of his wife (or is he? Was he consciously or unconsciously repeating his father’s action?) There is plenty that we still don’t know yet, but we do know that Francis is severely fucked up.
This is before the air fills with Elizabeth’s calls and we hear someone playing her harpsichord. Her room is trashed and one of her rings appears on the harpsichord’s keyboard. As said, we are now seeing things through Nicholas’s eyes, which are not entirely to be trusted, so all this adds to the general confusion. Then the bloody arm of the apparently dead Elizabeth extends itself from within the crypt.
I won’t say any more because of plot spoilers and all that, but we are making our way into one of at least three surprize endings. One one level, The Pit and the Pendulum works like one of those old Tales of the Unexpected tv shows. This is not at all meant as a criticism. Tales of the Unexpected regularly produced compelling drama on a tiny budget, largely justifying itself on a plot twist which kept our attention to the very end.
This is the sort of film that is unlikely to be made nowadays, partly because for a modern film to get green lit, it would require the promise of much more money and shooting time that is on evidence here. Much of the acting is mediocre at best, although Peter Cushing as Nicholas more than makes up for it with the sort of hammy acting that is actually enjoyable to watch, Maybe I was seduced by the nostalgia value, but this is exactly what you’d expect it to be.
Similarly, the lighting and scenery has Hammer Horror stamped through it. Of course there are countless scenes of the sinister castle being struck by lighting. Of course the lighting is subdued and eerie. Of course Peter Cushing has an elaborate instrument which he uses to snuff out candles. There is a great scene where we see him making his way down the stone staircase, and unobtrusively in the background we see a mouse which he just avoids stepping on.
The Pit in the Pendulum did not mark a major breakthrough in film design or sophisticated plotting, but nor should it have to. It is a simple tale, told well, with just the right number of instruments of torture and a memorable twist at the end. And – something which many modern films should heed a little better – it tells its story and is all over with just 1 hour 20 on the clock. Which, if you’ve said everything you need to say, is exactly as it should be.
CinePhil 