“Get out My Pendulum Kiddies, I Feel Like Swinging” – Vincent Price in Beach Party (1963)
The night Vincent Price died, television stations across the country ran the Pendulum scene from Pit and the Pendulum as a collective memory his audience would instantly recognize as the screen persona of Vincent Price. This is as it should have been because if any film could act as an homage to Price’s popularity, not only as a “Horror Icon” but a pop culture icon as well. It was more than likely that his producers at AIP felt the same way since he lampooned the role not only the aforementioned Beach Party film where he does a sly cameo as…
Diabolique Magazine No. 6 (Sep/Oct 2011)
Diabolique Magazine celebrates 100 Years of Vincent Price! Inside this issue: FILM REVIEW: WITCHFINDER GENERAL Adrian Smith reviews one of Britain’s most violent and notorious horror films MATTHIJS VAN HEIJNINGEN ON FORMING THE THING Stephen Head interviews director Matthijs van Heijningen, director of Universal’s highly anticipated prequel The Thing 100 YEARS OF VINCENT PRICE Matt Jamieson’s exclusive coverage of this year’s Vincentennial celebration in St. Louis, the birthplace of Vincent Price. Includes a new interview with Price’s daughter, Victoria Price A CONVERSATION WITH ROGER CORMAN Robert J.E. Simpson interviews the legendary director about his work with Vincent Price and the horror films of…
A Heartbeat away from Hell: Vincent Price’s Italian Adventures
By Rob Talbot A noted art dealer and gastronome, the great Vincent Price was never averse to a little expenses-paid trip to Italy, where he could pick up one or two new choice acquisitions and sample some of the local culinary delights. Possibly on the strength of his role as ‘Baka’ in Cecil B. Demille’s The Ten Commandments (1956), the actor was in 1961 jetted over to the land of pasta to participate in a pair of historical productions, namely Nefertiti, Queen of the Nile (Nefertiti, regina del Nilo) and Rage of the Buccaneers (Gordon, il pirata nera), and in…
Vincent Price: Pop Culture Icon
“The last thing my father was was a snob. He understood that popular culture was an incredibly powerful force. He had fun.” – Victoria Price (Riverfront Times, May 19, 2011) Vincent Price was a pop culture icon. He made a mark quite unlike even that of Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff, the two horror stars to whom he is most often compared. Karloff was a household name, and the image of a stitched, bolted and square-headed Frankenstein’s Monster is impressed indelibly in the public consciousness, but how many people now would recognize his picture out of the monster makeup? Everyone…
