The Loves of Edgar Allan Poe

Director: Harry Lachman Harry Lachman

Overview

John Shepperd, later known as Shepperd Strudwick, stars as the tragic Edgar Allan Poe in this low-budget biopic. Adopted as a child, Poe grows into a directionless adult, disgracing himself and his foster family through his inability (or unwillingness) to conform to the status quo of 19th century Baltimore. Devastated by the loss of his childhood sweetheart, Elmira Royster (Virginia Gilmore), he finds solace in his marriage to his cousin Virginia Clemm (Linda Darnell). Poe's blossoming literary reputation, and the stability of his private life, are ultimately done in by his addiction to alcohol and drugs. Sixty-seven minutes simply isn't enough time to do justice to this fascinating, complex individual, but everyone involved tries hard.

Product Details

Release Date:	04/16/2013
UPC:	0024543863311
Original Release:	1942
Source:	ALLIED VAUGHN
Presentation:	[B&W, Full Frame]
Sound:	[Dolby Digital Mono]
Language:	English
Time:	1:07:00
Sales rank:	44,872

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Shepperd Strudwick	Edgar Allan Poe
Linda Darnell	Virginia Clemm
Jane Darwell	Mrs. Clemm
Virginia Gilmore	Elmira Royster
Mary Howard	France Allan
Frank Conroy	John Allan
Walter Kingsford	T.W. White
Morris Ankrum	Mr. Graham
Roy "Skippy" Wanders	Poe, Age 3
Freddie Mercer	Poe, age 12
Erville Alderson	Schoolmaster
Peggy McIntyre	Elmira, age 10
Frank Melton	Turner Dixon
Morton Lowry	Charles Dickens
Gilbert Emery	Thomas Jefferson
Francis Ford	Tavern Keeper
Harry Denny	Kennedy
Hardie Albright	Shelton
William Blakewell, Jr.	Pleasants
Jan Clayton	Poe's Young Mother
Alec Craig	Printer
Mae Marsh	Mrs. Phillips
Arthur Shields	Somes, the Proctor
Edwin Stanley	Dr. Moran
Leon Tyler	Boy

Technical Credits

Art Caesar

Samuel Hoffenstein

Tom Reed

Harry Lachman	Director
Bryan Foy	Producer,Executive Producer
Art Caesar	Screenwriter
Samuel Hoffenstein	Screenwriter
Tom Reed	Screenwriter

Editorial Reviews

If nothing else, this blink-and-it's-over B-budget Fox programmer offers an adequate surface-level digest of Edgar Allan Poe's (John Shepperd) grim life and a Psych 101 analysis of why his work instantly became so morbid and macabre. It may not run deep (an understatement), but it goes down easily, like baby food; it feels like a visualization of a two-paragraph-long bio of Poe from the Encyclopaedia Britannica, replete with an "explanatory" voice-over to fill in narrative gaps (that it took the work of two writers is astonishing). Director Harry Lachman nonetheless retains an instinct for using shallow melodrama to keep viewers hooked; approach it without expectations, and it never sinks below the level of eminently watchable. The pic's oddest aspect: its tendency to touch on more controversial developments in Poe's life sans cocking an eyebrow -- it showcases Poe's guileless marriage to his cousin Virginia Clemm (Linda Darnell) and all but openly declares Poe's incestuous love for his foster mother, France Allan (Mary Howard), without objection. The ill-fated Darnell was never as celebrated for her thesp abilities as for her fashion-model looks; she and the ravishing starlet Virginia Gilmore (as Poe's childhood sweetheart, Elmira Royster) provide Lachman and his cinematographer, Lucien Andriot, with glossy window dressing, but little more.

All Movie Guide - Nathan Southern