The Comedy of Terrors
Promotional poster
Directed by	Jacques Tourneur
Written by	Richard Matheson
Produced by	Anthony Carras
Starring	Vincent Price Peter Lorre Boris Karloff Basil Rathbone
Cinematography	Floyd Crosby
Edited by	Anthony Carras
Music by	Les Baxter
Distributed by	American International Pictures
Release dates	December 25, 1963 (Detroit premiere) January 22, 1964 (1964-01-22)
Running time	84 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English

The Comedy of Terrors is an American International Pictures horror comedy film directed by Jacques Tourneur and starring Vincent Price, Peter Lorre, Basil Rathbone, Boris Karloff, and (in a cameo) Joe E. Brown in his final film appearance. The film also features Orangey the cat, billed as "Rhubarb the Cat". It is a blend of comedy and horror which features several cast members from Tales of Terror, made by AIP the year before.^[1]

Set in the late 19th century in the New England town of New Gilead, the film tells of unscrupulous undertaker Waldo Trumbull (Price) and his reluctant assistant, Felix Gillie (Lorre), who make a habit of reusing the firm's one and only coffin by unceremoniously dumping the bodies of the people they are supposed to bury. Also a part of the household are Trumbull's old (and senile) business partner Mr. Hinchley (Karloff), who originally started the business (and whom Trumbull keeps trying to poison under the guise of giving him medicine, a plot continually foiled), and the beautiful Amaryllis (Joyce Jameson), Trumbull's neglected wife and Hinchley's daughter, who has dreams (or rather delusions) of becoming a great opera singer and with whom Gillie is passionately in love.

However, Trumbull is not the businessman his father-in-law used to be (due to his personality and his constant tippling), and when customers (and therefore money) begin to become scarce and money-grubbing landlord Mr. Black (Rathbone) begins demanding his unpaid rent, Trumbull and the unwilling Gillie make a nighttime visit to the home of Mr. Phipps, an elderly gentleman with a very young and attractive wife. Trumbull smothers Phipps and in the morning makes a fortuitous return so that the Hinchley and Trumbull funeral parlor will get the job of burying Mr. Phipps. However, on the day of the funeral, Trumbull discovers to his horror that Mrs. Phipps has decamped with all of the money and household furnishings ... and, incidentally, without paying Trumbull's fee.

That evening, after receiving another demand for immediate payment of rent, Trumbull decides to murder Mr. Black, who has bouts of deathlike sleep, a condition that Trumbull and Gillie are unaware of.

After discovering Gillie (who has climbed into the house through an upstairs window and escapes the same way), Black seemingly has a fatal heart attack and is pronounced dead by his physician, but revives in the funeral parlor's cellar. After a prolonged chase and continual struggles to keep Black inside a coffin, Trumbull knocks Black out with a mallet to the head and later inters the supposedly deceased Black in his family crypt, returning home to celebrate his new-found wealth. However, Black awakes again, escapes from the coffin and crypt and returns to the funeral parlor, quoting random lines from Shakespeare's Macbeth (from which he was reciting from a script at the time of his first cataleptic attack). Humorous events follow as Black chases Trumbull and Gillie around the house with an ax before (finally) being shot and (presumably) killed by Trumbull after a lengthy monologue.

More complications arise when Amaryllis believes Gillie to be dead (he's only unconscious, having fallen down a flight of stairs in an effort to escape Mr. Black) and, believing Trumbull to have killed both him and Black, threatens to go to the police, whereupon Trumbull strangles her. Gillie comes to and seeing Amaryllis' body goes after Trumbull in revenge. The two men engage in a comical fight (Gillie with a sword and Trumbull with a poker) until Trumbull hits Gillie on the head with the poker, knocking him out. Mr. Black's servant arrives with the news that Black was seen walking through the streets and, seeing the carnage, runs away screaming for the police. Trumbull, having had enough, collapses in a depressed heap on the floor by the stairs.

Gillie and Amaryllis come to at the same time and elope together. Hinchley, who had slept through everything, appears and gives Trumbull some "medicine" (actually the same poison that Trumbull had been attempting to administer to Hinchley earlier). The "medicine" works as intended, and Trumbull, after realizing what he has drunk, dramatically drops dead as Hinchley makes his way up the stairs and back to bed, oblivious to the fact he has just committed murder.

At the end of the film, Black exhibits an allergic reaction to Cleopatra the cat, indicating that he is still alive.

• Vincent Price as Waldo Trumbull
• Peter Lorre as Felix Gillie
• Boris Karloff as Amos Hinchley
• Basil Rathbone as John F. Black, Esq.
• Joyce Jameson as Amaryllis Trumbull
• Joe E. Brown as the Cemetery Keeper
• Beverly Hills as Mrs. Phipps
• Alan DeWitt as Riggs
• Buddy Mason as Mr. Phipps
• Douglas Williams as the Doctor
• Linda Rogers as Phipps' Maid
• Luree Holmes as Black's Servant
• Rhubarb the cat as Cleopatra

The film was a follow-up to The Raven, meant to reunite Vincent Price, Peter Lorre and Boris Karloff.^[2] The original intention was for Karloff to play the part of the ceaselessly spry old landlord, Mr. Black, but, by the time production was set to begin, it was realized that it would have been difficult (if not impossible) for Karloff to perform the physical requirements of the role, due to persistent back and leg problems which had worsened with age. So, Karloff traded roles with Basil Rathbone, and instead played Amaryllis' elderly father, Mr. Hinchley.^{[citation needed]}

Richard Matheson later said he was "proud of that picture and of the fact that I got AIP [American International Pictures] to hire Tourner. Earlier on, I had asked for Tourner on one of my Twilight Zones... They said, "Well, he's a movie director. I don't think he can handle this time schedule . . . " As I recall, he did the shortest shooting schedule of anyone—twenty-eight hours. He had this book with every shot in it and detailed notes. He knew exactly what he was doing every inch of the way. He was so organized."^[3]

The movie was not a big success at the box office. Matheson:

It didn't lose any money. They [AIP] told me that the title itself cost them a lot. It's such a contradiction in terms, though. Terror sells and comedy makes them go away, so it's like they're walking in two directions at once. But I thought it was very clever to do a take off of Shakespeare's, Comedy of Errors.... I think they were probably sorry they didn't use a Poe title, because Poe had a certain marketability. I guess they couldn't figure out how to market it. But it was the last one because I was getting tired of writing about people being buried alive, so I decided to make a joke about it.^[4]

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 88% based on 8 reviews, with a weighted average rating of 7.3/10.^[5]

Richard Matheson wanted to write a sequel film for AIP called Sweethearts and Horrors, which was intended to star Price as a ventriloquist, Karloff as a children's TV host, Rathbone as a musical comedy star, Lorre as a magician and Tallulah Bankhead. However Comedy of Terrors was not a big hit so plans to make the followup were shelved.^[6]

A novelization of The Comedy of Terrors was written in 1964 by Elsie Lee, adapted from Richard Matheson's screenplay. It was published by Lancer Books in paperback (making certain changes in the story's ending).

• List of American films of 1964

Wikiquote has quotations related to The Comedy of Terrors.

• The Comedy of Terrors at IMDb
• The Comedy of Terrors at AllMovie
• The Comedy of Terrors at Rotten Tomatoes