MovieChat Forums > The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971) Discussion > The Final Installment

The Final Installment

posted 20 years ago by escalera-2
5 replies | jump to latest

August 15, 2005 --The final script for the proposed "Dr. Phibes" trilogy was passed over due to the fact that Vincent Price was released from American-International. In a 1989 issue Cinefantastique, Price said he would have liked to have done the third and final installemnt known under various titles but most commonly as "Phibes Resurrectus!".

"They'd better hurry!"

Well, now Vincent is gone to those elysian fields of the great beyond.

HOWEVER -- Tim Burton brought back Bela Lugosi ("Ed Wood"), could not Mr. Burton also bring back his favorite actor in a one of his greatest roles?

Dr. Phibes wore a "Vincent Price" mask. His "real" face was disfigured.
His voice was "mechanically" reproduced. The script -- exists.

Who better to resurrect the series?

George Escalera
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania

[–] 20 years ago

[deleted]

[–] jo_bussell_30 19 years ago

V.P. and his magnificent arching eyebrows is totally untouchable in this genre. Of all the scripts I've heard about floating out there, this would be the one I'd pretty much die to see.

I reckon with decent make up artist, Jason Flemyng'd make a pretty decent Price/Phibes....

Someone pettition those guys

What say you?

[–] thelastfaceyouwillsee 15 years ago

Jason Flemyng....that's inspired! YES YES YES!

Love his work - he'd make a great DR WHO...or THE MASTER!

[–] sidterror 15 years ago

Not true about the reason that the Phibes sequel was passed over. Price was in MADHOUSE for the same studio in 1974. After that he was in early production on the third Phibes film when A.I.P. went bankrupt and pulled the plug.

There was no studio system anymore in the 1970's, Price was never under exclusive contract to A.I.P., he could go and make movies with whomever he wanted. The contract agreement was that he could only do HORROR films for A.I.P. The last movie covered in that exclusive HORROR agreement was MADHOUSE. Though his contract was up, he could still come back and do horror or anything else with A.I.P. he wanted, on a non-exclusive picture by picture basis.

I knew Price well and this is how he had explained it to me.

Robert Quarry also had a similar contract with A.I.P. which is why they wouldn't release him to play the vampire in THE NIGHT STALKER.

SID TERROR
Editor-In-Chief
TheHorrorDrunx.com online magazine

P.S. I'm actually working on a greatly expanded and detailed version of this story for our November or December 2009 issue.

[–] escalera-2 15 years ago

Thanks for the insight. I'll be interested in reading your expanded text.

I'll look into your online magazine. Sounds like, as Herman Munster would say, a real gasser!