Hopefully you recognize the wonderful Victoria Price, daughter of classic actor Vincent Price, in that shot with me, taken at this summer’s CreepyCon here in Knoxville.
CreepyCon was a lot of fun, but meeting Ms. Price and getting a chance to tell her about the time I met her father was a highlight of the day. That story in a moment.
I’m making special note of the one-and-only Vincent Price in part because a new documentary about him, “Vincent Price: What Keeps Us Alive,” debuts on TCM (Turner Classic Movies) on October 30. In addition to Ms. Price, the doc features interviews with people who knew, worked with and admired Vincent Price like Tim Burton, John Waters, Bill Hader, Alice Cooper, Patton Oswalt and Cassandra Peterson, also known as Elvira, Mistress of the Dark.
The documentary puts a button on TCM’s buildup to what’s one of my top two holidays.
I grew up watching Price’s films and other classic horror and terror movies when I could catch them at drive-in theaters or on late-night TV, years before the era of home video and cable TV. We cherished, as film fans and monster fanatics, the opportunity to see them. It’s a lot easier now thanks to the plethora of horror films online and on streaming.
For a couple of decades, TCM and other movie channels like AMC bridged the gap for us, never more so than in October, when TV and cable programmed a delightful number of horror films, including the work of Price.
When I got to speak with Ms. Price at CreepyCon I got to tell her my favorite of her father’s films which in some ways bracketed the most active years of his career, “House on Haunted Hill” from 1958 – before I was born – and “The Abominable Dr. Phibes” in 1971, when I was still a kid. (Vincent Price died in 1993.)
This year, TCM is doing a lot of Halloween programming and much of it is the kind of material that helps TCM distinguish itself from other channels and streaming services. (Link at the end of this post to a TCM page that went up just today with program highlights.)
A centerpiece of TCM’s October programming is always “Creepy Cinema,” in which TCM host Ben Mankiewicz and guest host Mario Cantone spotlight some fun and often campy films, which this year put the emphasis on campy with films featuring Bette Davis, Joan Crawford and Angela Lansbury. But there’s also some films genuinely perfect for the mini-film festival including “The Sentinel” (1977), which my friends and I had a ball with, vintage Hammer horrors and “The Thing From Another World” from 1951, one of my very favorite films and the forerunner of John Carpenter’s classic “The Thing” from 1982.
The last two days of the month, TCM has scheduled, besides the Price documentary, 27 films including the 1979 Frank Langella “Dracula,” 1974’s offbeat “Phantom of the Paradise” and others.
TCM’s programmers seem intent on giving us an experience we can’t get anywhere else. Most of these films we might be able to find elsewhere, but probably not all and we wouldn’t have the great intros and outros of the TCM hosts.
Before the link to the TCM roundup, my Vincent Price story:
In 1982, I was about four years into my gig reviewing movies for the evening paper where I worked. I’d begun in 1978, while I was starting college, and I reviewed films until 1990. By 1990, I had begun covering government, politics and crime and where the three intersected.
But while I was still reviewing movies, I did interviews with directors like John Carpenter and George Romero and went to press junkets, including the 1982 junket for “Conan the Barbarian,” the first film featuring Arnold Schwarzenegger as the Robert E. Howard adventurer.
After a couple of days of interviews in Chicago, I was at O’Hare Airport waiting to fly back home when I spotted, near my gate, Vincent Price sitting by himself across the way.
No one else was around – we were both early for our respective flights – and I walked over to him. He invited me to sit down and I explained, probably in starstruck manner, how much I loved his films and performances.
Although he undoubtedly got recognized all the time – and would soon reach another, modern level of fame with the “rap” on Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” hit – he was kind and gracious. He invited me to sit down and we talked for a half-hour about movies, TV, Chicago and travel. He was so nice and kind.
At CreepyCon a few weeks ago, I told Victoria Price how much I appreciated her father’s reaction and encouragement of this barely-past-college-age fan.
She thanked me and said she would mention my anecdote when she spoke to a crowd later.
I won’t be missing the TCM documentary about Vincent Price, a kind and gracious man. Here’s that TCM link:
https://www.tcm.com/articles/now-playing-newsletter/60298/tcm-does-halloween
