Cinema
Theatre of Blood
Douglas Hickox · 1973
Synopsis
An award ceremony. Edward Lionheart, a great Shakespearean actor, is refused the critics' association's annual award, throws himself into the Thames and is presumed dead. Tramps have taken him in. Two years later, on the ides of March, the critic George Maxwell is lured into an abandoned building, where a band of tramps stabs him from all sides, as Caesar was stabbed.
Context
The part of the humiliated actor went to Vincent Price, an actor famous for his horror films, who considered this film one of his favourites. On it he met Coral Browne, who plays one of the critics, introduced by his co-star Diana Rigg, and married her in 1974; in their big scene together, he electrocutes her under a hairdresser's dryer. The ruined theatre where the character takes refuge was a real music hall of 1906, closed since 1961 and demolished in 1975 to make way for housing. The film was shot entirely on real locations, and its cinematographer, Wolfgang Suschitzky, had shot another British film in this catalogue two years earlier.
Who it is for
One hundred and four minutes, in English with subtitles or in a French version. Each murder reproduces a death taken from a Shakespeare play.
Prizes and reception
Released in the United States in April 1973, it has now been reissued in France in a series devoted to British horror.
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