Turning Poe's mystery tales into movies

Though notoriously difficult to translate into workable screenplays, the works of Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) have provided Hollywood and international filmmakers with a fertile source of story material. Be it his fiction or such poetic classics as "The Raven" (1845), Poe's works continue to inspire filmic imagery with a basis in the themes and ideas the author explored during his hectic career as one of America's first literary giants.

Best known as one of initial and uniquely American fantasists and creator of horrors, as in "The Tell Tale Heart" and "The Black Cat" (both published in 1843), Poe is also recognized as the creator of modern detective fiction, the well-spring of deductive reasoning as the solution to murder and crime puzzles later expanded upon by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and his creation, Sherlock Holmes. For much of C. Auguste Dupin, Poe's occasional Paris-based sleuth whose fame lies in three stories, was worked by Holmes' creator into the character of his Victorian iconoclast, the world's first consulting detective -- a brilliant mind, keen observation and attention to small, seemingly insignificant details that all contribute to the solution of the mystery of the moment.

But Holmes and those future crimefighters that sought to copy him have Poe and Dupin to thank for the methods employed in getting to the bottom of the case. Prior to Dupin's debut in "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," first published in 1841 -- and for some time after until Holmes appeared in 1887's A STUDY IN SCARLET -- the mystery fiction that existed saw the resolutions of its stories come about through pure luck, incident, suspicion  or leaps of faith, no rational exploration of clues and evidence at hand pointing to a logical if hidden conclusion. Dupin's study of the title slayings in the Rue Morgue and their genuinely surprising solution arises from the careful examination of the scene of the crimes he conducts with the permission of the police, yielding clues that point to the source and cause of the killings.

All of this is accomplished in a painstaking manner by Poe, who after introducing us to Dupin and learning of his background through the unnamed narrator, then demonstrates to us Dupin's gift for deduction during a stroll along Paris streets in which he observes minute details about fellow citizens coming and going. Dupin and his associate, are then allowed to probe the house in which the murders of Madame L'Espanaye and her daughter occurred. At length, the amateur sleuth dissects what he's found in his investigation of the premises, leading up to the finish with the revelation of the killer.

Thus Poe set the stage for his "tales of ratiocination" that scholar Wilbur S. Scott called an effort to "generate intellectual excitement."* Individual as he was, Poe was telling a story and at the same time engaging the reader's mind, allowing his audience to follow the clues to the same conclusion at which Dupin arrives. Or, if befuddled by all of the information unearthed by the detective, the reader is genuinely surprised with the outcome of his efforts. Through the heaviest examination and discussion of details, Poe appears to violate the tenets of good storytelling, but recognized that readers of his day sought such emphasis on the seemingly mundane as part of the diversion that literature afforded them.

However, "Murders in the Rue Morgue" provided enough incidents for a screen adaptation through its gruesome double murder, a non-human killer and a detective's persistence in resolving the case. It's no surprise then that versions of the story, including Robert Florey's 1932 production with Bela Lugosi, Roy Del Ruth's 1954 PHANTOM OF THE RUE MORGUE that starred Karl Malden and Patricia Medina, and Gordon Hessler's European-shot MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE (1971) with Jason Robards went for the horrific approach.

All of these films have something to recommend them, even if the scenarists of each, looking to add some excitement and glamor to the productions, merely borrowed incidents from the original story to remind the audience that what they saw was based on a Poe story. Lugosi's version for Universal under the direction of Robert Florey benefits from a stylized look and the strength of the performance by Lugosi as the mad scientist nowhere to be found in Poe's story. It also allows the story's detail of witnesses attributing the strange sounds emitted behind the locked door during the murders to foreign languages to become a comic moment in the midst of the movie's fairly grim dramaturgy. 

Leon Waycoff (later Leon Ames) is a more intense hero as Pierre Dupin, medical student extraordinaire who not only cracks the mystery behind the murders striking the Paris of 1845 in which the plot is set, but rescues his fair lady (Sidney Fox) from the clutches of Lugosi's gorilla Erik.

PHANTOM OF THE RUE MORGUE is noteworthy for its color scheme and sheer melodrama, following the storyline of Lugosi's MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE but adding more incident and mystery to the proceedings against an alternately cheerful and sinister City of Light toward the end of the 19th Century. Helmed by the veteran director Roy Del Ruth, PHANTOM offers a new Dupin (Steve Forrest) as the heroic academic who links the murders in the Rue Morgue to the experiments of naturalist Malden, who offers an unexpectedly hammy (yet enjoyable) performance. Both Dupins are as far away from Poe's conception of the character as one can get, but were made younger, more attractive and less intellectually remote due to the need for both films to have a romantic lead.

There is no Dupin in Hessler's MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE but more of a blending of Poe themes that offer something of a homage to the author that make the film an engaging experience. Rogue science is replaced by intrigues and past wrongs surrounding a Grand Guignol theatrical company in which owner-star Robards' young wife (Christine Kaufmann) becomes the target of a revenge plot. The last of American International Pictures' cycle of Poe adaptations, this production is often dismissed but worthy of a look for its impressive cast and attempt at a bizarre atmosphere.

Actually, the mystery theme is more than abundant in Jeannot Szwarc's 1986 made-for-television feature of MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE, headlined by George C. Scott, Val Kilmer and Rebecca DeMornay. There is no attempt to de-emphasize the horror of the title crimes, but it takes a back seat to the talents of its Dupin (Scott), who in this case is a retired police detective drawn into solving the mystery at hand. And as such, this adaptation deserves its share of kudos for reaching back to the story's roots.

Poe's follow-up to MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE, based on a true event that captivated 1841 New York and even made national headlines, has yielded only one film adaptation. The novelette-like "The Mystery of Marie Roget" (1842) was turned into a movie of the same title by Universal exactly a century later. A casual reading of the original will help in understanding why the film, reflecting the producer's desire for good box office, diverged so greatly yet creatively from the original tale.

Poe's work was inspired by the disappearance of Mary Cecelia Rogers, a 20-year-old tobacco shop clerk of great beauty whose body was recovered from the waters near Hoboken, N.J., a short time after she vanished. The incident elicited great interest from the public and the New York press because she and the shop where she was employed as a "cigarette girl" had become so popular, and for the sensation that occurred when she allegedly went missing in 1838 and later turned up unharmed.

The case was widely scrutinized and theorized about in the newspapers. Poe gathered all of the salient points about the unfortunate woman, switched the location to Paris, changed the victim's name to Marie Roget, and set Dupin and his associate, again telling the story, to work on a possible solution. However, the bulk of the tale is devoted to Dupin dissecting, disagreeing and discarding many of the press suggestions about her disappearance and apparently violent end. Dupin then leads up to his own conclusion about Marie's fate, only to be interrupted by an editorial note advising readers that "we have taken the liberty of here omitting ... such portion as details the following up of the apparent slight clew obtained by Dupin."** The story resumes to let us know the police picked up the thread provided by Dupin and presumably closed the case.

It has been thought that Poe withheld his own proposed solution so as not to influence the actual investigation of the Rogers affair. Some scholars believed the author had drafted a conclusion that the publishers intentionally cut before it saw print and which would eventually resurface among Poe's surviving papers. However, in 1912, with no such portion of the manuscript being located and subsequent reprintings of the story still containing the "editor's note," Poe authority George E. Woodberry assured readers of the periodical The Bookman that the ending of the tale "was only one of Poe's hoaxes ... it is probably only another of the innumerable Poe legends." Woodberry's contention still drew disagreement from enthusiasts who believed the author was closer to the truth than anyone knew. Yet to this day, the death of Mary Cecelia Rogers remains unsolved.***

THE MYSTERY OF MARIE ROGET, directed by B movie veteran Phil Rosen from a screenplay by Michel Jacoby, was released April 3, 1942, using what it could from the Poe story to weave a new tale about the murder of a stage sensation of 1890s Paris named Marie Roget (Maria Montez). Her slaying is preceded by a disappearance, which brings police scientist Pierre Dupin (Patric Knowles), known for his work on the murders in the Rue Morgue a decade earlier, into the case. Knowles, one of the studio's more likable leading man types of the period, offers an assured performance as Dupin, while Montez makes this film's Marie a bright if combustible presence. Lending effective support were Lloyd Corrigan, John Litel, Edward Norris and Maria Ouspenkaya, the latter cast along with Knowles in Universal's successful THE WOLF MAN (1941) of only a few months earlier.

A lively 60 minutes, a fine example of Universal's expertise with its second features, THE MYSTERY OF MARIE ROGET hits upon the important incidents surrounding Marie in the story while posing an entirely new mystery. The script additionally borrows an idea only hinted at by Poe -- the use of cannon fire to help in raising a body from the Seine -- as the linchpin to a scene emphasizing the urgency of the search for the missing Marie. Although taken to task by historians Michael Brunas, John Brunas and Tom Weaver for being "dressed up in ersatz 'chiller' trappings to attract the horror trade,"@ THE MYSTERY OF MARIE ROGET offers entertainment aplenty but is certainly not what Poe would have envisioned his more serious and challenging original tale to be if he had dreamt of a cinematic adaptation.

Dupin's next and final appearance in print, "The Purloined Letter," was delayed until 1844. While it's the most compact and attention-holding of Dupin's forays into detection, it was never adapted into a film, although later radio and television versions spoke to the briefer Poe tales being ideal for a 30-minute or shorter format. It also demonstrated that despite elements worthy of gracing the stage or cinema, adapters had to build a more elaborate plot around some of Poe's stories to lengthen the version they produced.

That's not to say that Poe's simple yet effective contention that the stolen missive at the center of "The Purloined Letter" was merely hidden in plain sight was not an inspiration for similar stories. It provided such latter efforts with a twist ending as memorable as the original. While Dupin does his usual verbal explanation of the meanings produced by the evidence at hand, "The Purloined Letter" remains a classic of the form and one of the author's more recognizable tales due to its frequently being anthologized with other examples of short story masterpieces.@@

"The Purloined Letter" was preceded by the 1843 appearance of "The Gold Bug," a brain tickler Poe set in the American South of his day whose mystery is in finding the key to translating an apparently meaningless missive holding the location of a pirate fortune along the South Carolina coast. The "detective" of the piece is faded aristocrat and scholar William Legrand, living in genteel poverty in the rumored vicinity of the hidden booty, yet determined to bring the treasure to light and restore his own financial security.

With as much detail and analysis as he devoted to Dupin's explanations, Poe created a code for Legrand and the unnamed narrator to unscramble in order to locate the treasure. Accompanied by Legrand's servant Jupiter, they locate the site of the tree mentioned in the code and after a false start, find their objective, which leaves the trio in the chips for life. Poe again engaged his readers' minds as well as their appetite for diversion in "The Gold Bug," allowing them to follow Legrand as he explains features of the code. A lengthy tale, vividly told with flashes of humor and the mysterious, it appears the author may have derived some personal enjoyment in crafting another tale of ratiocination while feverishly employing his creative skills to make a living as a writer.

The most direct film version of this story was merged with elements of "The Tell Tale Heart" by scenarist Myles Wilder as the basis for MANFISH (1956), in which Joel Murcott's screenplay details a contemporized treasure hunt yarn now set in the British West Indies. A raffish boat captain, Brannigan (John Bromfield) discovers a skull and map hinting at a buried fortune, but must engage disgraced academic Fenton (Victor Jory) to dope out the code. Problem is, Brannigan had earned the former professor's enmity earlier by trying to seduce his girlfriend (Tessa Prendergast). 

Vowing to kill Brannigan the first chance he gets, Fenton figures out the code, destroys the map (but not before committing it to memory) and pulls other stunts to ensure he's not edged out of the deal. With Brannigan's dull-witted but genial mate Swede (Lon Chaney Jr.) providing the muscle, the trio succeeds in unearthing one chest of booty and returns to port to transform some of it into quick cash to finance further exploration of the island where they found the chest. But the professor, unable to suppress his hatred for Brannigan, kills him with a spear gun, causing the whole scheme to unravel.

W. Lee Wilder, who produced and directed for his Planet Filmplays company, makes MANFISH a watchable if unexceptional United Artists release, brightened by the location shooting and the professionalism of Bromfield, Chaney and Jory in enacting their roles. Tension underlies the dramatics and reaches a boiling point when Fenton, trapped aboard the boat with Brannigan's corpse, begins a slow mental disintegration that leads to his exposure in the end. The beating of the "hideous heart" heard only by the guilt-ridden narrator of "The Tell Tale Heart" is replaced here by air bubbles escaping from the oxygen tank keeping Brannigan's body under water.

Even more interesting is Bela Lugosi expert Gary Don Rhodes' revelation@@@ that producer Sam Katzman planned a movie version of "The Gold Bug" as a Lugosi vehicle in 1944, which if shot and released, would have been Lugosi's tenth production from Katzman going out under the Monogram banner since 1941. The announcement may have been the usual Hollywood hoopla surrounding projects and casting that never occurred, but the real reason for a Lugosi flick not being built from "The Gold Bug" remains unknown.

Yet it affords some fun to speculate what the production might have been with the onetime stage and screen Dracula in the lead as Legrand. Given Katzman's pinch-penny budgets, the story would be set in contemporary times, and probably approximate the central conflict of the later MANFISH surrounding greed and jealousy over the desperately-sought treasure. "The Gold Bug" may have appealed to Katzman since it was in the public domain, meaning the producer and his scenarist could do what they wanted with it at no cost, and was limited to only a few settings and characters. One can imagine that Lugosi's supporting players might have been George Zucco (who had been cast in Lugosi's previous Katzman flick, 1944's RETURN OF THE APE MAN, but who reportedly opted out due to illness) and even Mantan Moreland, who was under contract to Monogram, cast in the Jupiter role.

Zucco, whose insinuating voice and bulging eyes led to his frequent casting as a villain, would have been an ideal choice for the role of Legrand's friend/rival (depending on the script). He did enter the realm of "The Gold Bug" (not to mention Agatha Christie's 1939 novel AND THEN THERE WERE NONE) for Terry Morse's FOG ISLAND (1945) at Producers Releasing Corp. As a disgraced Wall Street wizard, Zucco's character leaves cryptic clues for his treacherous former associates to lead them to a horde of cash and securities he's supposedly hidden on the title island. And while Moreland would have brought his own unique sense of humor to the role of Legrand's servant, he might have been out of Katzman's price range, either forcing the producer to find a more affordable actor or rewrite the character into the role of a sinister butler-type like the one enacted by Ian Keith in FOG ISLAND. Yet such a version of a classic story may have only been a publicist's notion when Monogram announced its lineup of movies for 1944, and nothing more.

For the most part, Poe's tales of mystery have been served as well as the cinema can allow in realizing the deductive brilliance of his amateur sleuth C. Auguste Dupin and codebreaker William Legrand. Reading the stories lends credence to the assertion that versions loyal to Poe's stories are best limited to radio, television and the stage, but require fleshing out and further plotting to meet the demands of the individual form. Producer-director Roger Corman and his screenwriter, Richard Matheson, understood this fact when they made a series of successful features based on Poe's works for AIP in the 1960s. Yet one of the more enjoyable of their endeavors is 1962's TALES OF TERROR, in which audiences got three Poe stories for the price of one movie.

The author's detective tales may have been subjected to severe adaptation in film over the decades. Yet in each is an acknowledgment of the skill and creativity that Poe put into them when they first appeared in print, continuing to resonate with readers today.

* Scott, "Introduction" to EDGAR ALLAN POE: COMPLETE TALES AND POEMS, New York: Castle Books, 2002, p. x.
** From "The Mystery of Marie Roget" in EDGAR ALLAN POE: COMPLETE TALES AND POEMS, p. 169.
*** "Another Poe Mystery I" in Peter Haining, ed., THE EDGAR ALLAN POE SCRAPBOOK, New York: Schocken Books, 1978, p. 122.
@ In UNIVERSAL HORRORS: THE STUDIO'S CLASSIC FILMS 1931-46, Jefferson, N.C., and London: McFarland & Co., 1990, p. 291.
@@ Among these collections is the influential AN ANTHOLOGY OF FAMOUS AMERICAN STORIES, edited by Angus Burrell and Bennett Cerf and first published by The Modern Library in 1936. The volume includes "The Purloined Letter" and "The Pit and the Pendulum" (1842) as examples of Poe's best work in the short story field.
@@@ In LUGOSI: HIS LIFE IN FILM, ON STAGE, AND IN THE HEARTS OF HORROR LOVERS, Jefferson, N.C., and London: McFarland & Co., 1997, p. 223.