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Vincent Price & Robert Fuest on the set of The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971)
TCM’s month-long celebration of American International Pictures comes to an end tonight with some of the company’s best productions from the seventies including Martin Scorsese’s Boxcar Bertha (1972), Brian De Palma‘s Sisters (1973), Roger Corman’s Bloody Mama (1970) featuring one of Robert De Niro’s early screen appearances, William Crain’s Blacula (1972) and the little-seen A Matter of Time (1976), which was the last film directed by Vincente Minnelli. I haven’t seen the Minnelli film myself so I’m looking forward to finally catching up with it but today I thought I’d focus my attention on filmmaker Robert Fuest. Fuest directed the first AIP film airing in tonight’s impressive line-up, The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971) featuring Vincent Price in one of his most memorable roles.
The late Robert Fuest, who died in 2012 at age 84, has become one of my favorite filmmakers over the years thanks to his artistic direction and ability to mix fear and humor into a creative combustible cocktail that yielded such gems as The Abominable Dr. Phibes and its sequel Dr. Phibes Rises Again (1972) as well as the brilliant, stylish and utterly bonkers Michael Moorcock adaptation, The Final Programme (1973). Other films in his impressive oeuvre include Just Like a Woman (1967), And Soon the Darkness (1970), Wuthering Heights (1970) and The Devil’s Rain (1975).
Fuest was born in the London Borough of Croydon and served in the British Royal Air Force before attending the Wimbledon and Hornsey Schools of Art. After graduating, he taught for a brief period and following a few odd jobs that included working at bookshops, record shops and playing drums in a jazz band, Fuest joined the graphic design department of ABC (Associated British Corporation) Television. Soon afterward, he became part of the production team of a new cutting-edge spy series called The Avengers.
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Episodes of The Avengers directed by Robert Fuest
The Avengers debuted in 1961, heralding a new age in televised entertainment. Fuest, working closely with director Peter Hammond, helped craft a contemporary look for the show that would eventually beam mod design into homes around the world. Fuest was employed by ABC throughout season one of the popular series and during that period he became interested in directing. Inspired by Hammond as well as Fellini and Fritz Lang, Fuest made his directorial debut in 1967 with a highly stylized swinging adult comedy called Just Like a Woman (1967). The picture, which he wrote and designed storyboards for, was framed by some sharp social commentary and visual panache that have become strongly associated with The Avengers and would become a staple of Fuest’s work.
Fuest’s wry sense of humor, visible in his art direction as well as his script for Just Like a Woman, didn’t initially garner much critical attention and after making a few commercials for television he returned to The Avengers as a director during season six. Despite mixed success, his work displays a keen appreciation of streamlined Art Deco design with Gothic touches. At his best, Fuest was able to repurpose these classic motifs with a pop art sensibility punctuated by bold splashes of color (purples, reds and yellows in particular) and bright metallics. In British Film Design: A History, Fuest once described his film design process and use of location as allowing characters to “bleed off, and blend into” the landscapes they inhabited, which is true of all his films. Actors are often displayed as props presented in elaborate costumes but there is an organic element in Fuest’s creations that keep them from feeling cold or detached from the ensuing drama. This cohesive quality makes his work stand out and apart.
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Just Like a Woman (1967)
In 1970, Fuest began making films again beginning with the disturbing thriller And Soon the Darkness (1970), about two young women on a European holiday that goes very wrong. This was followed by a pictorial adaptation of Wuthering Heights (1970) and finally he turned his attention to writing and directing The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971).
The movie is an updated twist on The Phantom of the Opera set in the 1920s with Vincent Price playing Dr. Anton Phibes, a music and theology specialist who was horribly disfigured in a car accident that killed his beloved wife (an uncredited Caroline Munro). Phibes blames a team of doctors, that includes Joseph Cotten and Terry-Thomas, for his wife’s unfortunate death and sets out to revenge her with help from his attractive assistant, Vulnavia (Virginia North). Phibe uses the ‘Plagues of Egypt’ as the basis of his retaliation, killing the doctors with an imaginative array of dangerous devices and mad concoctions including hordes of locusts and rats.
As the screen grabs I’ve compiled illustrate, the Phibes‘ film borrows substantially from The Avengers and Fuest’s first movie, Just Like a Woman. They all share a similar modernized Art Deco aesthetic and wit. Just Like a Woman and Phibes also prominently feature pianos as dramatic devices that even guide some of the action and there are comparable costumes worn by female cast members.
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The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971)
The Abominable Dr. Phibes received enthusiastic reviews and Fuest was asked to helm a sequel in 1972. Other films would follow including the unfairly maligned science fiction opus The Final Programme (1973) as well as The Devil’s Rain (1975) and Revenge of the Stepford Wives (1980) but much to his frustration, Fuest was given less and less creative control over each production.
“Movies are not art anymore. They are product. You have to smuggle art into them.”
- Robert Fuest
After completing just nine films and working on a number of television programs, Fuest left the movie business and began teaching again. He ultimately attained the artistic freedom he wanted by focusing his attention on painting and becoming an acclaimed artist whose work was displayed at the Royal Academy of Arts.
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Original art by Robert Fuest
Tune into TCM tonight to see Roger Corman introduce Robert Fuest’s baroque and black as night horror comedy, The Abominable Dr. Phibes beginning at 5 PM PST and 8 PM EST.