The Tell-Tale Heart (1962)

When beauty Betty Clare (Adrienne Corri) moves into the building opposite introvert Edgar Marsh (Laurence Payne), the shy young man seeks advice from his friend Carl Loomis (Dermot Walsh) on how best to romantically approach the young woman. Edgar's attempts at wooing Betty are clumsy, and his feelings unreciprocated, and when Edgar introduces Betty to Carl, he really sets himself up for a fall: one evening, he sees Carl and Betty together in her apartment, and they're not talking about the weather! Enraged, Edgar lures Carl to his home, bashes his head in with a fire poker, and stashes the body under his floorboards, but his guilt over the terrible crime manifests itself as a incessant, pounding heartbeat.A loose adaptation of Edgar Allen Poe's The Tell-tale Heart (a story familiar to me through an episode of The Simpsons), this film opens with a warning for the squeamish, although for the most part the action is far from horrific, revolving around Edgar's obsession with Betty (on whom he spies from his first floor window) and his unsuccessful attempts at getting to first base. Things get far more interesting when Edgar eventually loses the plot: we get a surprisingly vicious murder scene, Ed giving Carl numerous hefty whacks that leave him spattered with blood (gruesome stuff for a film from 1960); the young man's descent into complete and utter madness is handled well by director Ernest Morris, with dripping taps, pulsing floorboards and a ticking metronome pushing him even further over the edge; and in the film's juiciest scene, Edgar clutches the still beating heart that he has cut from Carl's chest and buries it in the garden.I rate The Tell-Tale Heart 6/10, which I might have raised to a 7 if it hadn't been for the trite, cop-out ending in which it all turns out to be a dream (that might just become reality).

When Edgar sees his girlfriend Betty getting up close and personal with his best friend Carl, he murders Carl in a jealous rage and hides the corpse under the floor of his piano room. Comes the night, and Edgar begins to hear strange sounds coming from under the floor...The problem with this film is that it apparently fell into the public domain, so the DVD copies floating around are pretty rough, and make the film look much cheaper than it really is. A better version (which may never happen), might reveal this to be a lost classic, actually predating Roger Corman's Poe films by a few years.The costumes and such are very nice, and the story is well-written to build up to the part that Poe covered. While this is obviously a Poe tale, the writer (Brian Clemens) deserves much credit, as the bulk is his creation.

This low budget Gothic movie is an adaption of an Edgar Allan Poe short story. I'm not sure if I ever read this one but other reviewers have stated that it isn't the most faithful adaption in any case. Going by what I know of Poe, this isn't exactly surprising as most of his stories were very sparse and to-the-point. The basic premise has a man murdering his best friend through a fit of jealousy due to the said friend copping off with his girlfriend. The murderer is then haunted by the sound of the dead man's beating heart, leading him to madness. While the story is very simple and the cast is very small, I thought the film as a whole was well handled. Laurence Payne is good as the central character Edgar. He seemed to be a somewhat troubled character even before the murder and Payne depicts the man well. I was also pleasantly surprised to see some scenes of gore and violence in such an old movie – the central murder is quite vicious, Edgar later cuts out the dead man's heart and we even have a character fall from a balcony onto a spike! This all adds a welcome schlock factor to proceedings.While The Tell-Tale Heart may not be anything overly special, it does entertain and it has a fairly effective atmosphere at times. For anyone who doesn't mind cheap Gothic productions or who is a Poe completist then this is a film you may enjoy.

I completely agree with the first reviewer.A little gem - co-written by Brian Clemens (who went on to create THE AVENGERS, THE PROFESSIONALS etc.)A surprising 'sexuality' about the proceedings. Utterly passe now, but it must have been a little intense and 'naughty' at the time. The slow-burn attraction between Walsh and Adrienne Corri is quite good. And given that the Danzigers' track record for British B movies is not brilliant - this one certainly tries to deliver the goods. The murder scene, and the gore content, is quite graphic for its time. 1961, remember? (I suspect there would have been British censor trouble then, had the movie been filmed in colour).Trivia: Co-star Dermot Walsh was married at the time to Hazel Court (of Hammer/Roger Corman movie fame.) Walsh then went on to star in the Danzigers' TV series: RICHARD THE LIONHEART. I can still sing the title song on request. Sad, eh? And how Dermot maintains that high quiff-hairstyle is an astonishment. Laurence Payne (who I've always liked and was co-star in THE TROLLENBERG TERROR/THE CRAWLING EYE),lost an eye in the early sixties during a fencing scene in his British TV series SEXTON BLAKE. Great casting for that part, I always thought. He was always good.)Bar tender Frank Thornton, who has two brief scenes, went on to great success as a comedy character actor in theatre, and British TV (eg ARE YOU BEING SERVED?)Geisterzug