JohnHowardReid Review of The Oblong Box

The Oblong Box (1969)

No Poe, But Robert Louis Stevenson Gets a Good Innings Instead!

[3/10 · 3 September 2009]

Despite triumphant placarding in the movie's posters, Edgar Allan Poe never wrote a story called "The Oblong Box". Poe did write a quasi-essay titled "The Premature Burial", which no doubt heavily influenced "Murder by the Clock" (1931), but has precious little to do with "The Oblong Box". Its real inspiration comes from Charles Dickens' "A Tale of Two Cities" via Robert Louis Stevenson's "The Body Snatcher". I'm gladly that neither of these fine writers were associated with this "ridiculous" (to quote Christopher Lee) movie. Just about all the characters are presented as a bunch of morons who not only act stupidly but totally inconsistently. Oddly, the actors all play their roles straight, even when entertaining the craziest of notions. As if this were not bad enough, the plot wanders all over the place. Potentially interesting threads are introduced, only to be quickly dropped in favor of some new, irrelevant sidelight. Director Gordon Hessler spends so much time setting up these extra scenes (like the tavern episode) that we grow weary of the whole charade long before the merciful end titles. [