Master of the World (1961)

From AIP schlockmeister Samuel Z. Arkoff comes a tale of Victorian madman, Vincent Price, with a huge airship taking captives, including a miscast Charles Bronson, on his mission of death and destruction. It's not exactly a high minded Jules Verne adaptation, but it is scripted by the great Richard Matheson. I'll blame the film's mediocrity on journeyman TV and film director William Witney.

Vincent Price is magnificent and convincing as Robur, the American engineer who takes it upon himself to end all wars by making war on them by bombing fleets and adding to battle massacres. This is not really Jules Verne, but nevertheless the script is interesting, pressing Jules Verne's two Robur novels into one and advancing the interesting Robur character, who here is brought to press his argument with pacifistic reason. What makes the film really worth watching, however, is the splendid music by Les Baxter, a full treat for film music nerds. As a whole it is indeed enjoyable from all aspects, the imagination (flattering Jules Verne by adding to it), the visualization, the satisfying tempo and the interesting ideological duel between Vincent Price as Robur and Charles Bronson as Strock, matched against each other as opposites and still having a lot in common, especially a reasoning mind. I find nothing to complain about in the film, although some find it rather queer.Of the two Jules Verne novels the first one is the more interesting, "Robur the Conqueror", which presents all the best qualities of Jules Verne, while the second is less human going morbid in turning Robur to total madness, which wasn't necessary. His beautiful airship "Albatross" is damaged but never ruined, while in the film the wonderful creation is blown to pieces. What a waste! Jules Verne's story is, after all, better.

I saw Master of the World mainly because of Vincent Price who is one of my favourite actors. It is far from perfect, but is fun and deserves better credit. The effects are not great where you can tell that they are low-budget, while the stock footage of other costume epics looks rather clumsy, the Globe theatre suddenly appearing in Victorian London also happens to be anachronistic. And Vito Scotti overacts to the verge of embarrassment. However, the costume and set designs are nice to look at and Master of the World is at least well photographed. The music score manages to be both rousing and bombastic, the script while talky is intelligent and humorous and the story is fun. Charles Bronson has been better but he is at least appealing, while Henry Hull is amusing. Stealing the film though is none other than Vincent Price, who commands every frame with his ever effortless suavity and panache, and he is also deliciously sinister when needed. All in all, an enjoyable film with a great Price but at the same time it could have been more. 7/10 Bethany Cox

This is an OK film. Vincent Price does his usual hammy bit, and if you like Price you will like the film, if you don't, you won't. This however, is far from his best film ("Theatre Of Death", "The Raven" and "The House On Haunted Hill" are a few that come to mind). What is interesting is Charles Bronson's presence in this film, he was badly miscast I can tell you, John Strock is probably one of the lightest roles that Bronson ever played in his career (Although most of his characters had some humor to them (Jack Murphy "Murphy's Law" comes to mind)). Perhaps only Josh Corey in You Can't Win 'Em All (Without question Bronson's WORST film), Graham in "From Noon Til Three" and Jay Killion in "Assassination" were lighter characters. There are other films that were lighter in scope ("Four For Texas" where he played Matson, comes to mind, but his character was nothing to laugh at or about). Basically watch it for Price, not Bronson.