Edgar Allan Poe in television and film

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Main article: Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe

American poet and short story writer Edgar Allan Poe has had significant influence in television and film. Many are adaptations of Poe's work, others merely reference it.

Contents

[edit] Film

[edit] Adaptations

Roger Corman.
Roger Corman.
  • In 2005, Lurker Films released an Edgar Allan Poe film collection on DVD, including short film adaptations of "Annabel Lee" by director George Higham, "The Raven" by director Peter Bradley and "The Tell-Tale Heart" by director Alfonso S. Suarez.
  • Linda Fairstein's 2005 novel Entombed features a modern day serial killer obsessed with Poe. The story takes place amongst Poe's old haunts in New York.
  • "The Black Cat" was translated to giallo film as Eye of the Black Cat (also known as Your Vice Is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key).
  • The 2004 release of Hellboy on DVD contained a special 10-minute adaptation of "The Tell-Tale Heart" in the special features.

[edit] Inspiration and allusions

  • The 1993 film The Mummy Lives, starring Tony Curtis with a screenplay by Nelson Gidding, was suggested by Poe's "Some Words with a Mummy" (1845).
  • In the 2004 remake of The Ladykillers, the chief protagonist is a great admirer of Poe and frequently quotes from his poetry. A raven also features.

[edit] Selected Poe-related films

"Murders in the Rue Morgue" (1932)
"Murders in the Rue Morgue" (1932)
"The Raven" (1935)
"The Raven" (1935)
"The Pit and the Pendulum" (1961)
"The Pit and the Pendulum" (1961)

[edit] Other

  • Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado" has been animated as a brickfilm by Canadian animator Logan Wright. It can be found online here
  • Toby Keith's music video to "A Little Too Late" [1] produced by Show Dog National is a modern adaptation of Poe's "Cask of Amontillado" with a twist ending.

[edit] Television

"The Raven" as depicted by The Simpsons.
"The Raven" as depicted by The Simpsons.
  • The television show Homicide: Life on the Street, set in Baltimore, made reference to Poe and his works in several episodes. Poe figured most prominently in an episode in which a Poe-obsessed killer walls up his victim in the basement of a house to imitate the grisly murder of Fortunato by Montresor in "The Cask of Amontillado". In a disturbing scene near the end of the episode, the killer reads from the works of Poe as a dramatic effect to increase the tension.
  • Edgar Allan Poe was featured on the show Time Squad in the episode "Every Poe Has a Silver Lining," first aired on September 21, 2001.
  • In "Poe Pourri", an episode of the cartoon Beetlejuice, the ghost of Edgar Allan Poe mourns for his lost Lenore (who turns out to have been staying with her mother). In Poe's mourning the netherworld begins to resemble several of his stories, with Beetlejuice being bitten by the gold bug and finding a beating heart under his floor.
  • The Histeria! episode "Super Writers" featured a caricature of Poe modelled and voiced like Peter Lorre in two different sketches. The first one has Poe pitching "The Raven" to Sammy Melman, becoming frustrated with Melman's suggestions that the narrator be in a happy mood and that the raven be replaced with a bunny; this eventually causes Poe to storm out and publish his poem independently. The other sketch depicts Poe as a villain who, along with the aforementioned raven as his sidekick and Sappho and Basho as his minions, vandalizes all the literature in the Library of Congress; their plans are foiled, however, when Loud Kiddington alerts the Super Writers, who then arrive to stop them.
"Masters of Horror" episode "The Black Cat."
"Masters of Horror" episode "The Black Cat."
  • In Boy Meets World, in the season one episode "The Fugitive" Cory hides Shawn in his bedroom because he threw a cherry bomb in a mailbox. In class, Mr. Feeney reads The Tell-Tale Heart, causing Cory to shout, "I did it!"
  • In the Masters of Horror season two episode, "The Black Cat", directed by Stuart Gordon and written by Dennis Paoli & Stuart Gordon, has Poe as played by Jeffery Combs, out of ideas and short on cash, tormented by a black cat that will either destroy his life or inspire him to write one of his most famous stories.
  • In the "Beetleborgs Metallix" episode "Poe and the Pendulum", the ghost of Edgar Allen Poe arrives at Hillhust Mansion seeking inspiration for a new book. Throughout the episode he tortures the tenants by subjecting them to the same gruesome fates as the characters in his past stories such as The Black Cat, The Pit and the Pendulum, and The Premature Burial.
  • In the short lived TV series Stark Raving Mad Tony Shalhoub plays Ian Stark, a struggling horror writer who has a dog named Edgar. Also, some references to Poe are made. Such as the episode named "The Pigeon".

[edit] See also

For his influence on other media:

For his appearances as a fictional character:

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