This week’s ”Books” page features an interview with Michael H. Price, Fort Worth’s veteran journalist-author-illustrator-historian-musician-playwright. The man does not know how to sit still. Through Amazon he is self-publishing his latest title – Forgotten Horrors, Vol 5: The Atom Age, a compendium of reviews and trivia about genre films created by skid row American production companies from the late ‘40s to the early ‘50s.
Interesting factoid: After Michael interviewed the late great Vincent Price back in the early ‘70s, the two became friends – the actor would make a point of meeting up with the journalist whenever Vincent happened to come through North Texas. (When Michael was chief film critic at the Star-Telegram, he recalls how one co-worker asked him with studied nonchalance: “Um, was that Vincent Price sitting at your desk?”). Michael thinks they may have descended from the same distant Welsh family line.
2011 marks the 100th birthday of Vincent Price; his hometown of St. Louis, MO will host a “Vincentennial” celebration to honor him starting in April. (Price died in 1993). With that in mind, here are three classic Price film clips. The trailer for Roger Corman’s splendid, LSD-influenced 1964 version of Poe’s Masque of the Red Death promises to show viewers “a world tyrannized by terror!” One of Price’s last film roles was a short but glowing cameo in 1990’s Edward Scissorhands. Last but not least, my favorite Price character and one that fascinated me endlessly as a kid – Dr. Anton Phibes in 1971’s The Abominable Dr. Phibes.
