The Tell-Tale Heart (1953/I)

User Rating:

7.8/10   

Director:

Ted Parmelee

Writers:

Edgar Allan Poe (story)
Bill Scott (story) ...

Release Date:

17 December 1953 (USA)

Genre:

Animation | Short | Crime | Horror

Plot:

One of the most discussed and imaginative cartoons of any era. It tells the famous Edgar Allan Poe story...

Plot Keywords:

Landlord | Eye | Killer | Police | Cartoon

Awards:

Nominated for Oscar. Another 1 win

Cast

James Mason

...

Narrator (voice)

Runtime:

USA:8 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

USA:Approved | USA:Passed (National Board of Review)

Company:

United Productions of America (UPA)

Trivia:

Rumors for years surrounding this film would have it being in 3-D. However, absolutely no trade magazines list the production as being in 3-D (even pre-filming announcements and in-production articles), and according to Grover Crisp, head of the restoration unit at Sony/Columbia, the original negative bears absolutely no markings that would indicate that the film had any 3-D origins. It is speculated, based on several collectors' memories, that the myth started when super8mm editions of the film were labeled with 3-D stickers by accident, around the same time that stickers were being put on the 3-D shorts that Columbia was releasing in that format.

Quotes:

[first title card]
Title Card: The film you are about to see is based on a story told a hundred years ago by America's greatest master of drama and suspense.......

Movie Connections:

Spoofed in Tiny Toon Adventures: Night Ghoulery (1995) (TV)

Picture Perfect Poe

An English teacher whose taste I generally respected despised this film. As a word person, she was no doubt bothered by the compression and elimination of so much of Poe's carefully wrought language.

But she overlooked one thing, in my estimation. Poe said everything in a short story should be toward one effect, and certainly, there has been no better attempt on film to achieve the kind of formal and emotional control Poe suggested was the story teller's goal than this animated short. She should have appreciated that.

The control of tone, light and color palette here is complete; the actors are hand-crafted; the voices and music are expertly orchestrated as in great radio drama; best of all, nothing extraneous or distracting seeps through at any point. (We clearly see only one face during this short. We never see the narrator, but see all that happens through a subjective camera.) While there is a ton of ham bone melodrama and story padding in Corman's Poe films, this film achieves just the right pitch, delicate and disturbing, maintains it, and then finishes simply. In today's context, UPA's Tell-Tale seems slightly dry, if not downright academic; Corman's films evoke not only Hollywood, with all that means, but low budget film making and drive-in culture as well.

I believe Poe would have appreciated UPA's effort and encouraged them to try others, like Cask of Amontillado and Masque. Given the chance, I think he'd have liked to tell Corman to just quit it.

10 stars. One of the great cartoons, ever.