THE TELL-TALE HEART (1934)

The first sound film version of the famous Edgar Allan Poe short story does a little bit of expanding from its source to reach a length of about an hour, but it does it in ways that feel organic to the story. We begin with a man (Norman Dryden, pictured) in an asylum cell, drawing large eyes on the walls, giving the room an almost expressionistic look. His parents died when he was young and he became a sensitive artist, subject to attacks of catalepsy, becoming unresponsive and staring into space. He lives in a house with an older decrepit man (John Kelt) whom he simply refers to as a friend. The man has a bulging eye which Dryden fixates on, claiming it casts a blight on his life. But Dryden manages to have a girlfriend (Yolanda Terrell). We see the two spending a day in a park; as they stroll among the trees, Dryden sees imaginary eyes up in the branches, but is eventually distracted by kissing Terrell on a log and canoeing down a river. Kelt watches them from a bridge, not creepily but in a sweet paternal way. The rest of the film plays out like the Poe story: the boy can't escape the old man's peering eye and loudly beating heart, and one night he is driven mad and kills the man in his bed and buries him under the living room floorboards. Two policemen get reports of screams, and when they investigate, Dryden invites them in and assures them that the screams were his own from having a nightmare. But as the three enjoy a drink, Dryden cannot escape the loud beating of the old man's heart, which of course is all in his head, and he tears up the floor to expose his crime.

This low-budget film hasn't gotten a lot of critical attention, and most online viewers criticize it for being cheap and boring and slowly paced. But to me, the film feels like an artsy avant-garde experiment. The sets are definitely cheap but their stark look creates a nicely creepy atmosphere. The riverside scene is beautifully shot and contrasts well with the look of the rest of the film. Even the amateurish acting, disliked by most critics, adds a surreal tone to the movie; Kelt made a handful of appearances in silent movies, but Dryden and Terrell did not go on to carve out acting careers. Dryden in particular is disliked by current viewers, but I think he gives an effective performance in keeping with the austere look and feel of the film. I've reviewed two other versions of the film, one from 1941 which is twenty minutes and mostly narrated, and one from 1960 which is a full-length expansion of the story. All three versions held my interest and are worth seeing, especially for Poe fans. Directed by Brian Desmond Hurst who later directed the Alastair Sim Christmas Carol movie. This was retitled Bucket of Blood in the States. [YouTube]