The Tell-Tale Heart is one of the best known of Edgar Allen Poe's works; and I was surprised that I had not seen a film based on it. The original story is just a short story, and while there have been many versions of this tale committed to screen; most of them are only shorts themselves; thus making this film one of the few feature length editions of the story. Well...after having seen it, I have to admit that I'm not surprised there aren't more feature length versions because really there isn't enough plot to stretch to such a long running time. Thus, most of the story of this film has no relation to Poe's original story. We focus on a man named Edgar (a bit of a ham-fisted reference if you ask me); a quiet man that lacks experience with women. When he notices a young lady named Betty in a house across the street; he resolves to romance her and asks his close friend Carl for advice on how to speak to women. He and Betty are getting on well; until he discovers that Carl and Betty are also getting on well, and so Carl is murdered.
The film is shot in black and white and looks really cheap throughout. Director Ernest Morris appears not to have the resolve to elevate the film above the mundane and also fails to get a good performance out of his any of his (relatively) unknown cast; which renders the whole production rather bland. Of course, the whole film is just build up to the inevitable situation whereby the murderous central character is haunted by the echoes of the beating heart from the man he has killed, and this leaves most of it feeling rather pointless. To the film's credit, however, it does handle Poe's actual story well and things do become much more interesting once we reach the main part of the film. This version of The Tell-Tale Heart never really gets into the psychological side of Poe's original story; and the reason for that really just goes back to the characters, which aren't interesting enough. Overall, this is really a lacklustre effort and I wouldn't recommend tracking it down; this story is more suited to a short film anyway, and I'm sure that at least one of the many short film versions is superior to this effort.
The film is shot in black and white and looks really cheap throughout. Director Ernest Morris appears not to have the resolve to elevate the film above the mundane and also fails to get a good performance out of his any of his (relatively) unknown cast; which renders the whole production rather bland. Of course, the whole film is just build up to the inevitable situation whereby the murderous central character is haunted by the echoes of the beating heart from the man he has killed, and this leaves most of it feeling rather pointless. To the film's credit, however, it does handle Poe's actual story well and things do become much more interesting once we reach the main part of the film. This version of The Tell-Tale Heart never really gets into the psychological side of Poe's original story; and the reason for that really just goes back to the characters, which aren't interesting enough. Overall, this is really a lacklustre effort and I wouldn't recommend tracking it down; this story is more suited to a short film anyway, and I'm sure that at least one of the many short film versions is superior to this effort.