Happy Birthday Roger Corman!

Roger William Corman (born April 5, 1926) is an American film producer and director. Sometimes nicknamed "King of the B-movies" for his output of B-movies (though he himself rejects this as inaccurate), Corman has mostly worked on low-budget films. Some of his work has an established critical reputation, such as his cycle of films derived from the tales of Edgar Allan Poe, and he has also won an Academy Award for his work. Corman is also an occasional actor, taking minor roles in such films as The Silence of the Lambs, The Godfather Part II, Apollo 13 and Philadelphia.

Corman has served as a mentor to many famous directors early in their careers, stressing the importance of budgeting and resourcefulness; Corman once joked he could make a film about the fall of the Roman Empire with two extras and a sagebrush.

Early life

Corman was born in Detroit, Michigan, the son of Anne and William Corman, an engineer. His brother Gene Corman has also produced numerous films, sometimes in collaboration with Roger. Roger Corman received an industrial engineering degree from Stanford University, beginning his film career in 1953 as a producer and screenwriter. Corman started directing films in 1955.

Career

In Corman's most active period, he would produce up to seven movies a year. His fastest film was perhaps The Little Shop of Horrors (1960), which was reputedly shot in two days and one night. Supposedly, he had made a bet that he could shoot an entire feature film in less than three days. Another version of the story claims that he had a set rented for a month, and finished using it with three days to spare, thus pushing him to use the set to make a new film (These claims are disputed by others who worked on the film, who have called it part of Corman's own myth-building). Although highly cost-effective, Corman's parsimonious approach to filmmaking was not without its critics; Charles B. Griffith, who wrote the original screenplay for Little Shop, later remarked that "[Corman] uses half his genius to degrade his own work, and the rest to degrade the artists who work for him."

Corman is probably best known for his filmings of various Edgar Allan Poe stories at American International Pictures, mostly in collaboration with writer/scenarist Richard Matheson, including House of Usher (1960), The Pit and the Pendulum (1961), The Premature Burial (1962), Tales of Terror (1962), The Raven (1963), The Haunted Palace (1963), The Masque of the Red Death (1964), and The Tomb of Ligeia (1964). All but The Premature Burial starred Vincent Price. After the film version of The Raven was completed, he reportedly realized he still had some shooting days left before the sets were torn down and so made another film; The Terror (1963) on the spot with the remaining cast, crew and sets.

"The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar" Published 1845

"The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar" is a short story by American author Edgar Allan Poe about a mesmerist who puts a man in a suspended hypnotic state at the moment of death. An example of a tale of suspense and horror, it is also, to a certain degree, a hoax as it was published without claiming to be fictional, and many at the time of publication (1845) took it to be a factual account. Poe toyed with this for a while before admitting it was a work of pure fiction in his "Marginalia."

Plot summary

The narrator presents the facts of the extraordinary case of Valdemar which have incited public discussion. He is interested in Mesmerism, a pseudoscience involving bringing a patient into a hypnogogic state by the influence of magnetism, a process which later developed into hypnotism. He points out that, as far as he knows, no one has ever been mesmerized at the point of death, and he is curious to see what effects mesmerism would have on a dying person. He considers experimenting on his friend Ernest Valdemar, an author whom he had previously mesmerized, and who has recently been diagnosed with phthisis (tuberculosis).

Valdemar consents to the experiment and informs the narrator by letter that he will probably die in twenty-four hours. Valdemar's two physicians inform the narrator of their patient's poor condition. After confirming again that Valdemar is willing to be part of the experiment, the narrator comes back the next night with two nurses and a medical student as witnesses. Again, Valdemar insists he is willing to take part and asks the narrator to hurry, for fear he has "deferred it for too long." Valdemar is quickly mesmerized, just as the two physicians return and serve as additional witnesses. In a trance, he reports first that he is dying - then that he is dead. The narrator leaves him in a mesmeric state for seven months, checking on him daily. During this time Valdemar is without pulse, heartbeat or perceptible breathing, his skin cold and pale.

Finally, the narrator makes attempts to awaken Valdemar, asking questions which are answered with difficulty, his voice seemingly coming from his swollen, blackened tongue. In between trance and wakefulness, Valdemar's tongue begs to quickly either put him back to sleep or to wake him. As Valdemar's voice shouts "dead! dead!" repeatedly, the narrator takes Valdemar out of his trance; in the process, Valdemar's entire body immediately decays into a "nearly liquid mass of loathsome—of detestable putrescence."

Analysis

Poe uses particularly detailed descriptions and relatively high levels of gore in "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar," suggesting Poe deeply studied medical texts.[1] Valdemar's eyes at one point leak a "profuse outflowing of a yellowish ichor", for example, though Poe's imagery in the story is best summed up in its final lines: "...his whole frame at once — within the space of a single minute, or even less, shrunk—crumbled—absolutely rotted away beneath my hands. Upon the bed, before that whole company, there lay a nearly liquid mass of loathsome—of detestable putrescence." The disgusting imagery almost certainly inspired later fiction including that of H. P. Lovecraft.[2] Those final lines make up one of the most powerfully effective moments in Poe's work, incorporating shock, disgust, and uneasiness into one moment.[3] This ending shows that attempts to appropriate power over death will have hideous results[4] and, therefore, ultimately be unsuccessful.[5]

In Spanish, "Valdemar" roughly translates to "valley of the sea." The name suggests both solid and liquid states; this meaning is emphasized in the imagery in the story as Valdemar's body goes from its normal solid state to liquid in the final climactic lines.[6] Poe also uses teeth as a symbol; he typically uses teeth in his works to symbolize mortality. Other uses include the "sepulchral and disgusting" horse's teeth in "Metzengerstein," obsessing over teeth in "Berenice," and the sound of grating teeth in "Hop-Frog."[7]

Valdemar's death by tuberculosis, and attempts to postpone his death, may have been influenced by Poe's wife, Virginia.[2] At the time of this story's publication, she had been suffering from tuberculosis for four years.[1] Poe's extreme detail in "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar" may have been based on Virginia's actual suffering.[6] Additionally, Poe may have been inspired by Andrew Jackson Davis, whose lectures on mesmerism he had attended.[8] Valdemar's death, however, is not portrayed sentimentally as Poe's typical theme of "the death of a beautiful woman" portrayed in other works such as "Ligeia" and "Morella." The death of this male character contrasts as brutal and sensational.[9]

Reception and critical response

Many readers thought the story to be a scientific report. Robert Collyer, an English magnetic healer visiting Boston, wrote to Poe saying that he himself had performed a similar act to revive a man who had been pronounced dead (in truth, the man was actually a drunk sailor who was revived by a hot bath). Another Englishman, Thomas South, used the story as a case study in his book Early Magnetism in its Higher Relations to Humanity in 1846.[10] Medical student George C. Eveleth wrote to Poe: "I have strenuously held that it was true. But I tell you that I strongly suspect it for a hoax."[11] A Scottish reader named Archibald Ramsay wrote to Poe "as a believer in Mesmerism" asking about the story. "It details... most extraordinary circumstances", he wrote, concerned that it had been labeled a hoax. "For the sake of... Science and of truth", he requested an answer from Poe himself. Poe's response: "Hoax is precisely the word suited... Some few persons believe it—but I do not—and don't you."[12] He received many similar letters, replying to one such letter from a friend, he added the succinct postscript: "P.S. The 'Valdemar Case' was a hoax, of course."[13] In the Daily Tribune, editor Horace Greeley noted "that several good matter-of-fact citizens" were tricked by it but "whoever thought it a veracious recital must have the bump of Faith large, very large indeed."[14]

Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote to Poe about the story to commend him on his ability of "making horrible improbabilities seem near and familiar."[15] Virginia poet Philip Pendleton Cooke also wrote to Poe, calling the story "the most damnable, vraisemblable, horrible, hair-lifting, shocking, ingenious chapter of fiction that any brain ever conceived or hand traced. That gelatinous, viscous sound of man's voice! there never was such an idea before."[16] Literary critic and professor George Edward Woodberry said that the story "for mere physical disgust and foul horror, has no rival in literature."[17] Scholar James M. Hutchisson refers to the story as "probably Poe's most gruesome tale."[18]

Rudyard Kipling, an admirer of Poe, references "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar" in his story "In the House of Suddhoo". The story suggests the disastrous results of sorcery in trying to save his sick son's life. One spell requires the head of a dead baby, which seems to speak. The narrator says, "Read Poe's account of the voice that came from the mesmerised dying man, and you will realise less than one half of the horror of that head's voice."[19]

Publication history

While editor of The Broadway Journal, Poe printed a letter from a New York physician named Dr. A. Sidney Doane which recounted a surgical operation performed while a patient was "in a magnetic sleep"; the letter served as inspiration for Poe's tale.[20] "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar" was published simultaneously in the December 20, 1845, issue of the Broadway Journal and the December 1845 issue of American Review: A Whig Journal[8]—the latter journal used the title "The Facts in M. Valdemar's Case."[21] It was also republished in England, first as a pamphlet edition as "Mesmerism in Articulo Mortis" and later as "The Last Days of M. Valdemar."[22]

Adaptations

"The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar" was adapted into film in Argentina in 1960 as a segment of Masterpieces of Horror, first shown in the United States in 1965. It was also one of three Poe-inspired segments in the 1962 film Roger Corman-directed Tales of Terror.[8] It was later adapted by George A. Romero in Two Evil Eyes (1990). The radio drama series Radio Tales produced an adaptation of the story entitled "Edgar Allan Poe's Valdemar" (2000) for National Public Radio. The story was also loosely adapted into the black comedy The Mesmerist (2002).

References

1.^ Stashower, Daniel. The Beautiful Cigar Girl: Mary Rogers, Edgar Allan Poe, and the Invention of Murder. New York: Dutton, 2006: 275. ISBN 052594981X
2.^ Silverman, Kenneth. Edgar A. Poe: Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance. New York City: Harper Perennial, 1991: 294. ISBN 0060923318
3.^ Elmer, Jonathan. "Terminate or Liquidate? Poe Sensationalism, and the Sentimental Tradition" collected in The American Face of Edgar Allan Poe, edited by Shawn Rosenheim and Stephen Rachman. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995: 116. ISBN 0801850258
4.^ Selley, April. "Poe and the Will" as collected in Poe and His Times: The Artist and His Milieu, edited by Benjamin Franklin Fisher IV. Baltimore: The Edgar Allan Poe Society, Inc., 1990: 97. ISBN 0961644923
5.^ Hutchisson, James M. Poe. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2005: 158. ISBN 1-57806-721-9
6.^ Meyers, Jeffrey. Edgar Allan Poe: His Life and Legacy. New York City: Cooper Square Press, 1992: 179. ISBN 0815410387
7.^ Kennedy, J. Gerald. Poe, Death, and the Life of Writing. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1987: 79. ISBN 0300037732
8.^ Sova, Dawn B. Edgar Allan Poe: A to Z. New York City: Checkmark Books, 2001: 85. ISBN 081604161X
9.^ Elmer, Jonathan. "Terminate or Liquidate? Poe Sensationalism, and the Sentimental Tradition" collected in The American Face of Edgar Allan Poe, edited by Shawn Rosenheim and Stephen Rachman. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995: 108. ISBN 0801850258
10.^ Silverman, Kenneth. Edgar A. Poe: Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance. New York City: Harper Perennial, 1991. ISBN 0060923318 p. 294–295
11.^ Phillips, Mary E. Edgar Allan Poe: The Man. Chicago: The John C. Winston Company, 1926: 1189.
12.^ Phillips, Mary E. Edgar Allan Poe: The Man. Chicago: The John C. Winston Company, 1926: 1188–1189.
13.^ Quinn, Arthur Hobson. Edgar Allan Poe: A Critical Biography. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998: 529. ISBN 0801857309
14.^ Thomas, Dwight & David K. Jackson. The Poe Log: A Documentary Life of Edgar Allan Poe, 1809–1849. Boston: G. K. Hall & Co., 1987: 603. ISBN 0816187347
15.^ Quinn, Arthur Hobson. Edgar Allan Poe: A Critical Biography. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998. p. 484. ISBN 0801857309
16.^ Meyers, Jeffrey. Edgar Allan Poe: His Life and Legacy. New York City: Cooper Square Press, 1992: 179-180. ISBN 0815410387
17.^ Phillips, Mary E. Edgar Allan Poe: The Man. Chicago: The John C. Winston Company, 1926: 1075.
18.^ Hutchisson, James M. Poe. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2005: 157. ISBN 1-57806-721-9
19.^ Meyers, Jeffrey. Edgar Allan Poe: His Life and Legacy. Cooper Square Press, 1992: 291. ISBN 0815410387
20.^ Thomas, Dwight & David K. Jackson. The Poe Log: A Documentary Life of Edgar Allan Poe, 1809–1849. Boston: G. K. Hall & Co., 1987: 498. ISBN 0816187347
21.^ Quinn, Arthur Hobson. Edgar Allan Poe: A Critical Biography. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998: 470. ISBN 0801857309
22.^ Quinn, Arthur Hobson. Edgar Allan Poe: A Critical Biography. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998: 516. ISBN 0801857309

Deathday: Horror & Adventure Author Robert Louis Stevenson 1894

Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson (13 November 1850 – 3 December 1894) was a Scottish novelist, poet, essayist and travel writer. His best-known books include Treasure Island, Kidnapped, and the Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.

A literary celebrity during his lifetime, Stevenson now ranks among the 30 most translated authors in the world, just below Charles Dickens. He has been greatly admired by many authors, including Jorge Luis Borges, Ernest Hemingway, Rudyard Kipling, Marcel Schwob, Vladimir Nabokov, J. M. Barrie, and G. K. Chesterton, who said of him that he "seemed to pick the right word up on the point of his pen, like a man playing spillikins."

Last years

In 1890, Stevenson purchased four hundred acres (about 1.6 square kilometres) of land in Upolu, one of the Samoan islands. Here, after two aborted attempts to visit Scotland, he established himself, after much work, upon his estate in the village of Vailima. Stevenson himself adopted the native name Tusitala (Samoan for "Teller of Tales", i.e. a storyteller). His influence spread to the Samoans, who consulted him for advice, and he soon became involved in local politics. He was convinced the European officials appointed to rule the Samoans were incompetent, and after many futile attempts to resolve the matter, he published A Footnote to History. This was such a stinging protest against existing conditions that it resulted in the recall of two officials, and Stevenson feared for a time it would result in his own deportation. When things had finally blown over he wrote to Colvin, who came from a family of distinguished colonial administrators, "I used to think meanly of the plumber; but how he shines beside the politician!"

He was friends with some of the politicians and their families. At one point he formally donated, by deed of gift, his birthday to the daughter of the American Land Commissioner Henry Clay Ide, since she was born on Christmas Day and had no birthday celebration separate from the family's Christmas celebrations. This led to a strong bond between the Stevenson and Ide families.

In addition to building his house and clearing his land and helping the Samoans in many ways, he found time to work at his writing. He felt that "there was never any man had so many irons in the fire." He wrote The Beach of Falesa, Catriona (titled David Balfour in the USA), The Ebb-Tide, and the Vailima Letters, during this period.

For a time during 1894 Stevenson felt depressed; he wondered if he had exhausted his creative vein and completely worked himself out. He wrote that he had "overworked bitterly." He felt more clearly that, with each fresh attempt, the best he could write was "ditch-water." He even feared that he might again become a helpless invalid. He rebelled against this idea: "I wish to die in my boots; no more Land of Counterpane for me. To be drowned, to be shot, to be thrown from a horse — ay, to be hanged, rather than pass again through that slow dissolution." He then suddenly had a return of his old energy and he began work on Weir of Hermiston. "It's so good that it frightens me," he is reported to have exclaimed. He felt that this was the best work he had done. He was convinced, "sick and well, I have had splendid life of it, grudge nothing, regret very little ... take it all over, damnation and all, would hardly change with any man of my time."

Without knowing it, he was to have his wish fulfilled. During the morning of 3 December 1894, he had worked hard as usual on Weir of Hermiston. During the evening, while conversing with his wife and straining to open a bottle of wine, he suddenly exclaimed, "What's that!" He then asked his wife, "Does my face look strange?" and collapsed beside her. He died within a few hours, probably of a cerebral haemorrhage, at the age of 44. The Samoans insisted on surrounding his body with a watch-guard during the night and on bearing their Tusitala upon their shoulders to nearby Mount Vaea, where they buried him on a spot overlooking the sea. Stevenson had always wanted his 'Requiem' inscribed on his tomb.

Under the wide and starry sky,
Dig the grave and let me lie.
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.
This be the verse you grave for me:
Here he lies where he longed to be;
Home is the sailor, home from sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.

However, the piece is widely misquoted, including the inscription on his tomb, which closes:

Home is the sailor, home from the sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.

Stevenson was loved by the Samoans and the engraving on his tombstone was translated to a Samoan song of grief which is well known and still sung in Samoa.