THE RAVEN

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THE RAVEN Released Jan. 25, 1963

THE RAVEN

VINCENT PRICE Movies We've Reviewed - THE RAVEN Movie Review

Stars: Vincent Price, Peter Lorre, Boris Karloff, and Jack Nicholson

The both famous and infamous Roger Corman would occasionally create quality movies despite his pursuit of schlock for profit. In his autobiography, How I Made A Hundred Movies In Hollywood And Never Lost A Dime, Roger explains that he knew when he was making cheap schlock and when he was trying for something greater. He didn't always achieve greatness when he tried. In fact he usually failed. But he always knew how to sell it.

Roger Corman biographyThe most difficult type of movie to make, however, is comedy.

You can line up your beats with Action, Drama, Horror, Suspense, Thriller, Mystery, but not comedy. Either the joke lands or it doesn't. And in a comedy movie - no matter how wild or byzantine the subject matter - each joke directly lines up, domino-style, to the next. You have a few too many jokes fall flat and the audience is bored. You have more than a few too many and the audience is angry.

Possibly no other form of entertainment outside of Show business can get an audience angrier than a comedy which isn't funny.

Why? Because it feels like the folks who made it are insulting your intelligence.

If you can somehow insult the intelligence of an audience who came for fart and dick jokes, you are clearly a force to be reckoned with. But a force that also better run before the mob catches you. At least as far back as William Shakespeare understood this, and his open air Globe Theater allowed for patrons to work off their displeasure by throwing rotten vegetables they brought to the show, at the actors.

Corman has made many a fun movie, but never a funny movie, and that includes his movie, THE RAVEN.

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Copyright 2012 E.C.McMullen Jr.

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