Price Stepping Off AIP Reservation

Diary Of A Madman (1963): Is You Is Or Is You Ain't a Horror Movie?

Los Angeles and Surrounding Area Gets Saturation Booking

Imagined mid-1962 conversation between Vincent Price and American-International co-chief Samuel K. Arkoff: VP: Hey Sam, even though my contract with AIP is non-exclusive, I did want to stop by and let you know that I'm starting a new picture for Eddie Small. SKA: That's swell, Vince. You'll recall, however, that our contract prohibits your doing outside films along horror lines. VP: Oh no, Sam. This is based on a story by Guy de Maupassant. A fine literary adaptation. SKA: Our Poe movies are fine literary adaptations too, but they're still horror movies. What's this one about? VP: Well, it's about a man who is driven to murder by a malignant ghost. SKA: Gee, Vince. That sure sounds like a horror picture to me. By the way, what's the title? VP: de Maupassant's story is "The Horla," but they're calling it Diary Of A Madman. SKA: (shakes his head) Vince, Vince, Vince ... VP: After all, Sam, what else are people going to hire me for ... you want me to be happy, don't you? SKA: Alright, Vince, go ahead. But you know the damned thing will play across every street from our next Poe picture. VP: Thanks, Sam. But I'll be sure to emphasize to everyone that this is a gothic melodrama, not a horror movie. SKA: Sure thing, Vince. Here's luck.

Diary Of A Madman came on TCM recently. I had never seen more of it than a trailer at our Starlight Drive-In in July 1965. My mother, bless her, had driven me, a sister, several cousins, there to see Brides Of Dracula and The Haunted Palace. It was my summer dream come true, despite our having to leave before the third feature, Curse Of The Werewolf, unspooled. Enough was enough, after all. Here's how pervasive monsters were at the time: the moment we got home, around 11:30, I begged to stay up further for The Black Room, about to start on Channel 3's Horror Theatre, hosted by Dr. Evil. Could you blame parent concern for such overdose? It's as well I didn't return to the Starlight the following week, for what a stiff Diary Of A Madman was/is, Price an only reason to watch, even him not equal to task of keeping me awake through TCM's broadcast. I'd guess VP went into this with high hope, at a time when anything other than further AIP chilling would be an oasis. There had been effort at bending the mold, though we at the time scratched heads over Confessions Of An Opium Eater, the title suggesting opium was lethal, or at the least indigestible, but what was opium? To Price's immature following, a more apt label might have been Confessions Of A Toadstool Eater, or Confessions Of A Rat Poison Eater. Either way, this was an easy one to pass. I've still never looked at it.

Edward Small was reliable supplier to United Artists of copycat cheapies that fed off popular trends. His Jack The Giant Killer aped Columbia's hit The Seventh Voyage Of Sinbad, and got Ed sued for the lift. Diary Of A Madman was nothing if not effort to re-strike lightning from the Poes and past occasion where Price did mad sculpting (House Of Wax). If the film wasn't precisely cut to horror's measure, at least selling could remove doubt ("The Most Terrifying Motion Picture Ever Created," so there!). From promise like that, Diary Of A Madman must have let down a lot of people. Under Reginald Le Borg direction (he of The Black Sleep and Inner Sanctums), Price and players move from one room to another at endless swap of talk, the "Horla" merely a human voice that can also tip over chairs and spill ink. To further upset of that, as in red ink, Diary Of A Madman went wanting through 1963 dates as tandem with Amazons Of Rome. Domestic rentals of $365,118, plus foreign at $363K, might have broken it even, assuming Small held fast to budget, though there wouldn't have been much, if any, profit, to spread around. Did Price have a percentage? --- if not, he probably took around the same Jim and Sam had been paying, $50K or upward. Diary Of A Madman is available as an On-Demand DVD from MGM.