This review was requested by Brian Kapustik. Many thanks to Brian for supporting Post-Credit Coda through our Patreon. Be warned, spoilers abound.
Director: Douglas Hickox
Writers: Anthony Greville-Bell, Stanley Mann (idea), John Kohn (idea)
Cast: Vincent Price, Diana Rigg, Ian Hendry, Harry Andrews, Coral Browne, Robert Coote, Jack Hawkins, Michael Hordern, Arthur Lowe, Robert Morley, Dennis Price
Runtime: 104 mins.
1973
Theatre of Blood (also stylized as Theater of Blood depending on where you look) follows the exploits of the ghost (?) of Shakespearean actor Edward Lionheart. Lionheart has returned from death to mercilessly exterminate a cabal of theatre critics one by one, all because of their excoriating treatment of him in the papers. Each gloriously ironic killing follows the template of a Shakespeare play that Lionheart headlined in his final season. I present this review in ten segments, one for each of Shakespeare's works as represented in Theatre of Blood.
Julius Caesar
The experiencing of discovering Theatre of Blood is exactly why I love going into movies with no context. Is this drama? Comedy? Horror? Farce? Theatre is a savvy blend of all these, and it excels at keeping us guessing while unraveling its layers. The film begins when the authorities summon theatre critic George Maxwell (Michael Hordern) to a warehouse he owns because a squad of squatters has made it their home. He harasses the homeless folks, deriding them, poking at them as they writhe around in their own filth. In a moment of absolute nightmare logic, the squatters turn their gaze towards the critic and begin to close in as he appeals to the police officers for help. They stare nonplussed as the squatters chase and eventually hack the critic to death.
It's a queasy kickoff, heightening the stakes at an alarming rate. Lionheart is behind this, as it turns out, and these homeless folks are his agents of vengeance. Already the film sets up a snarl of fascinating class convergences; in other films this use of the homeless could feel exploitative, but here they act as the meta-chorus. Playful, committed, and always up for some bloodshed, the chorus succeeds as a group of outsiders playacting as insiders for nefarious purposes. In a savvy visual flourish, we can identify them even in disguise by the near-fluorescent pink-purple alcohol that they all drink for some reason. Theatre is filled with similar such coordinating details, filling out the world without drawing attention to themselves.
Troilus and Cressida
The second killing is a melodramatic encounter that ends with Hector Snipe (Dennis Price) impaled on a spear. This brings to mind the question: Why adapt Shakespeare to the big screen, in such a fractious way, under the guise of a proto-slasher movie? Well, because it's fun! But there's more to it than that.
Shakespeare's body of work is famously bloody, and special effects are no easy feat to pull off onstage. There is no cut, no edit, no correct angle, no doctoring of footage-- just your actors in a room with many observing eyeballs trying to look like they're stabbing somebody without actually stabbing somebody. Film offers an exciting explosion for the possibilities of simulated violence, an explosion so exciting that it was vehemently suppressed. The Hays Code famously dictated what was allowed in Hollywood motion pictures between the years of 1934 - 1968: no bloody violence, no interracial relationships, no 'lustful kissing,' etc. etc. The very year of its demise, a small film called Night of the Living Dead was denied a wide release, yet still managed to catch on like wildfire because of the way it shattered these taboos. Half a decade later, imagine how exciting it must have been for Theatre of Blood to give such a lively treatment to the Bard.
The violence represented here is a product of passion, and the result is something that could never before have been achieved: a representation of a theatrical performance that (safely) ends in visceral and utterly convincing bloodshed thanks to the innovative new tools of the medium. What a joy it must have been to make.
Cymbeline
There is a glorious sense of theatricality in these murder setpieces. The grandiose playfulness of Vincent Price, the cartoonish exaggeration of the supporting characters, the epic plight, the showmanship. If I were to tell you that this film portrays a man getting decapitated with a ragged handsaw while his wife lays drugged in bed next to him, would you believe that the scene plays as light comedy? It's the twinkle in Price's eye that makes the silliness work despite the ghastliness of what is literally being portrayed.
The Merchant of Venice
Lionheart's daughter Edwina lures the next critic, Trevor Dickman (Harry Andrews), to his doom in the grand theater where Lionheart is hiding out. This is as good a time as any to talk about the incredible work of the great Diana Rigg in this film (most famous these days for her role as Olenna Tyrell in Game of Thrones). She plays the loyal daughter to a literal madman and the love interest of one of her father's enemies and the siren who lures Trevor Dickman to his doom and the foppish fellow who acts as Lionheart's second-in-command.* That is an outrageous throughline for an actor to try to make sense of, not to mention that Rigg is an actor playing an actor embedded in a web of deception, not to mention that she pulls it off with a fuller than necessary emotional realism. Price does the flashy stuff, but Rigg is given the most difficult task. She is the backbone of the film.
*It took me until halfway through the film to guess that this mustachioed fellow was played by Rigg, and even then I wasn't so sure.
Richard III
Thusfar I have focused on the goofy, the delightful, and the ridiculous. Yet there is something far more resonant lurking beneath the surface of all this fun. Cruelty, deeply felt. It's silly to imagine a hammy actor revenge killing his worst critics, but like all jokes it contains a grain of hard truth. To create art is to access the vulnerable depths of the soul, then rip it open to put on display for all to see. Malicious, inhumane criticism demonizes that vulnerability, and most times the artist has no outlet to exorcise that demon. What elevates Theatre of Blood beyond mere tomfoolery is an understanding of that pain. An acknowledgement of the hateful parasitic relationship. In a perfect world, criticism and art would exist interdependently in harmony, checking and balancing each other for the better. This is not that world, and Edward Lionheart is a casualty of the critic's caprice. We begin to feel the full scope of that fury when Lionheart drowns the wino Oliver Larding (Robert Coote) in a vat of that which he loves the most.
Romeo and Juliet
Now we're back to the fun stuff! Nominal protagonist Peregrine Devlin (Ian Hendry) shows up to fencing practice in an empty basketball auditorium, to find that only one other fencer has shown up. A new member of the club, at that. It is of course Lionheart obscured by a fencing mask. What ensues is a rollicking battle to the death, rapiers out, tips unblunted. The dialogue is as fleet as these men's feet; the very Shakespearean conceit of witticisms and moralisms exchanged during battle doesn't even feel overwrought when couched in Lionheart's natural flair for the dramatic. The high school gym class setting is the detail that makes this scene feel totally unique.
It's worth emphasizing how well-choreographed this action is! By this point in the film Theatre of Blood had already done so much so well that I was flabbergasted to see it pull a full-blown combat sequence out of its sleeve. This is yet another example of the cornucopia of cinematic wonder that director Douglas Hickox pursues with all his might.
Othello
Shakespeare productions have a history of brutal racism that cannot be ignored. No play is more culpable than Othello, which still today suffers an alarming number of tone-deaf productions. This history of violence is alluded to briefly in the fascinating opening montage of Theatre of Blood, a black and white footage reel featuring theatrical renditions of the great Shakespeare roles in silent old-timey vibes.** One snippet of this montage shows a white actor in blackface as Othello. So when we as an audience approach Theatre of Blood's Othello killing, we understandably feel some trepidation as to how this nearly fifty year old film will handle the oh so sensitive issue.
**This sequence functions as an understated thesis statement for the ways that Theatre of Blood intends to advance Shakespeare to a new artistic era.
In a stroke of genius, this is one of the only moments that Edward Lionheart does not occupy the role of the title character. Theatre of Blood deftly sidesteps the many pitfalls by making Lionheart a sensual masseuse who visits the wife of critic Solomon Psaltery (Jack Hawkins).*** His massage grows more vigorous over time, until the wife ceases to enjoy herself and begins to struggle. The critic sees the silhouette of this and takes it to be an act of sexual intercourse. (This, too, is a brilliant way to avoid something more thematically unsavory; Lionheart could have been written to actually seduce the wife, but in that version of the script her objections would have landed this scene squarely in the territory of rape.) The husband is so incensed that he bursts into the room and smothers the wife to death, thus putting him in the position of Othello. This makes him the only critic so far to survive, but as Lionheart reminds us, a life sentence may as well be a death sentence. Thus the scene folds in a cutting commentary on the prison industrial complex. This is a superb example of an art piece writing an update in a way that acknowledges the history of violence without itself succumbing to that same dehumanization.
***There is a subtle shift to Lionheart's roles as the film progresses. At first his killings are more literal, often happening on a stage with him donning stagey make-up. With each killing, he moves his drama more into the 'real world' with characters like this masseuse or next scene's hair stylist. I take this to be a stealth commentary on the way Theatre of Blood shifts its lens from the theatrical stage to the cinematic set, wherein all the world's a stage.
Henry VI, Part 1
When Chloe Moon (Coral Browne) visits her hairdresser, she finds that her typical stylist has been replaced by a charismatically flamboyant man. Would it shock you to learn that this is Lionheart in disguise? Although some might find his caricature of a gay stylist distasteful, Vincent Price treats it with the same vehement commitment and cockeyed humanity as the rest of his Lionheart roles. I think it works, although I'm pretty sure the only reason he playacts as a flamboyant gay hairdresser in this scene is because the Henry VI, Part 1 monologue he recites has the word f----t in it. You know, the bundle of sticks.
Anyway, what I want to single out from this sequence is the makeup and special effects. We've already discussed the special effects conceptually and historically, but we should note how goddamn impressive they are. Chloe ends up electrocuted to the point of being burned alive by an extremely heavy duty hair drier. This electric chair sequence is long, contains multiple stages of physical deformation, and is absolutely captivating.
Titus Andronicus
This most of all is the 'holy shit they actually went there' pinnacle of the film's twisted sensibilities. Titus Andronicus famously features a mother eating her own sons, baked into a pie. Enter Meredith Merridew (Robert Morley), perhaps the most gaudily grotesque of all the critics. He has a pair of little yappy dogs that accompany him everywhere, his 'babies.' I'm guessing you can see where this is going?
Lionheart surprises him with an impromptu cooking show in his own home. Merridew is a bit confused, but by god the man likes to eat, so he settles in for whatever treat the chef has in store for him. And so he consumes his own dogs, at first willingly, then force-fed with a funnel once he catches on. People are so sensitive to violence against animals onscreen that I am amazed Theatre of Blood has both the courage to brutalize us in this way, and the craftsmanship to pull it off for maximum effect. This is a film with peak audacity, and I respect that so much.
King Lear
After a seemingly endless series of delights, we reach the climax. It does not disappoint. Surrounded by a raging inferno, all the threads of the film combine for an almost mythic conclusion. Death, tragedy, and overwrought torture devices-- just how I like my Shakespeare! As over-the-top as it all is, Price manages to bring home the emotional journey of Lionheart in a big way. Yet not so big that it can't be totally undercut by one dismissive comment from our pompous critic Peregrine. This movie is so good at enacting cliche effectively while also making sure the cliche is couched in irony, and we are never allowed to know which side is the better.
**Hamlet**
We have one more scene left to discuss, the lynchpin of the entire film that comes as a flashback halfway through. We see what was previously only alluded to, the drunken fury of Lionheart after the critics association robs him of an award that he feels he unquestionably deserved. The scene begins with Lionheart bursting into a post-ceremony party in a posh high rise, his daughter voicing her objections. He's drunk as a skunk, and furious. The critics are sauced as well, and condescending as ever. Seeing him so debased in his ridiculous caped awards outfit opens up a deep reservoir of mirth.
Then something shifts within Lionheart. He moves to the balcony, now bathed in melancholy. The critics continue to chatter, but the sound mix quiets them to a burble, isolating Lionheart's voice as he begins to recite that most famous of soliloquies: To be or not to be? As he speaks he moves slowly across the wraparound balcony, seen through a series of floor to ceiling windows that frame him as a proscenium would. His delivery has none of the verve or gusto that we are used to from him. He is pensive, exhausted, empty. The camera follows as he navigates the monologue, and the critics begin to lose their ironic distance. They become captivated by the somber performance just as we are, just as his daughter is. They begin to follow him around the room, watching through the glass that separates them, a glass also very much like a television screen. There is distance and intimacy to the performance, the blocking, the camerawork. His soul expressed, his work complete, Lionheart flings himself from the balcony accompanied by a shocking zoom-in to Edwina's screaming mouth.
This is Price's best work of the film, perhaps a contender for a career-best moment. It throws into stark relief another meta-commentary that I have yet to mention. Vincent Price is an actor often mocked and often revered for his immense body of work, just like Lionheart. Price exists at the nexus of both horror cinema and Shakespeare theatre: campy, schlocky, melodramatic, grand. Theatre of Blood also exists at this nexus, and thus offers Price the gift of a lifetime for any performer: a platform built specifically to celebrate his legacy, and designed specifically to show off his particular talents. This passion project is also a love letter to an all-time great, and Price relishes the opportunity to make it count. This scene, so acutely crafted, so thematically rich, so visually stunning, so beautifully performed, is what cements Theatre of Blood as the best adaptation of Shakespeare I have ever seen.
4.5 / 5 BLOBS
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