I'd never given Vincent Price much thought, to be honest. His viola-da-gamba profile, the natty moustache, the sinuous, sing-song voice with campy inflections, his venerable stoop, like a magistrate or a magician gone to the bad - Price was self-consciously an old-style actor, foppish, faded, full of gracious gestures (Vincent Price was Vincent Crummles); and I never found him very frightening. In all those horror movies - and have you seen Dr Goldfoot and the Sex Machine, Scream and Scream Again, or Bloodbath at the House of Death? - he enjoys himself too much. He doesn't have any of the affecting presence of Boris Karloff, Lionel Atwill or Bela Lugosi, the heroes of the classic monochrome-cum-sepia shockers. Price is light and airy; there's no darkness and desolation. So how much of a paradox was it that in his best film, Theatre of Blood, he plays a third-rate old thesp, Edward Lionheart, who romps around London declaiming Shakespearean soliloquies and killing off the critics who'd been beastly about his talent?

Blackwell Bookshop

Purchase your copy here, 10% off RRP