ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

In Vincent Price's 100th movie he plays a deranged doctor whose beloved wife (Caroline Monroe) dies on the operating table. While rushing to the hospital to be with her, Price's car crashes and leaves him so horribly disfigured he has to cover his face with a life-like mask (the "mask" is just Vincent Price's unmade-up face).

His "disfigured" face (the makeup) is only shown briefly near the end.

Price constructs an underground hideout, a glittering Art Deco showplace for a host of clever mechanical gizmos, including a device which serves as an artificial voice so that the lipless lunatic can enunciate words.

(I always wonder how these solitary master villains managed to have such huge hi-tech complexes. Is there a construction firm that builds these things and then keeps the secret of they're whereabouts? Makes you wonder, doesn't it?)

Price's attractive assistant, Vulnavia (Virginia North) never speaks -- which means neither the lipless Price and the voiceless North had to learn a single line of dialog. Sweet deal.

The world thinks the famous Dr. Phibes is dead, but he's actually plotting the gruesome murders of the medical team who performed the unsuccessful operation on his deceased wife. In Phibe's opinion, a simple malpractice suit just didn't cut it. He wanted to send a clear message to the medical world: either be omnipotent or stop charging so much for medical care!

The last name on his list of victims is Joseph Cotton, the head surgeon of the medical team. Cotton's son is chained to an operating table, and the key to the lock is sewn into the young man's chest! Cotton is forced to operate on his son and retrieve the key before an acid shower dissolves them both.

(The producers of Grey's Anatomy should borrow this idea. They've done practically ever other variation on the theme!)

All in all, a fun movie -- though a bit too bizarre for some people's tastes. Directed with tongue-in-cheek by Robert Fuest.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Krel]