A great movie! And don't forget the sequel, 'Return if Dr Phibes' which followed this one just about a year later if memory serves me correctly! Many people actually dislike this movie, and over the past 50 YEARS!! having seen many friends dislike it, I've got to say I don't understand why!! What I have seen with many people, (I'm talking older folks now, who've seen this way back in the early 70's till now, still disliking it, and I have pieced together the reason for this being that Vincent Price was always such a serious actor, and unlike 99% of all other, good, serious actors out there, Price MADE horror movies his primary focus! While all other popular, successful actors RUN AWAY from the job of acting in horror films, Price, unlike the rest, devoted himself to the genre!!! And because of him doing this, we're left with an absolute multitude of horror classics, REAL GEMS, starring V. Price in all the lead roles... !!! And it's my thought that many older folks my age, having known Vincent Price as such a successful movie star, AND prominent star of THEATER, ALWAYS in absolute serious roles, it was hard for them to appreciate the obvious DARK HUMOR that runs so deep, right through Dr Phibes AND The Return of Sr Phibes!!! Many of them even failed to see the humor at first, since Vincent plays the Dr Phibes character as an absolute 'straight man' of a comedy duo. And he nails it perfectly of course... And then for overall popularity of these two movies, remaining very low, unpopular, the reason for that is very obvious. Millennial aged adultsand Gen Z aged young "adults", both of these groups, have absolutely NO capacity for humor AT ALL... These younger generations don't understand humor, or comedy at all, unless the comedy is so over the top, its completely stupid nonsense. Very very simple to understand, ridiculous child humor is all these groups understand. Think "Scary Movie", or something like "Airplane"... Anything less obvious, or more intelligent than that, goes right over their heads, and they'll watch an entire comedy and finish it, believing the film was a serious film!! It's unreal. The reason I even mention this, is because I just read this write up by Yale psychology department evaluating this age groups lack of ability to discern comedies from reality. Again, unless its written so over the top ridiculous, that 5 year olds laugh. And its a quite concerning dilemma for psychologists who are trying to figure out exactly why... Anyhow, all of this is a complex subject when you bring the younger generations into it. All that being said, MANY of us DO love these movies, and DO get every line of subtle comedy in these films!! Knowing what we know now, and knowing that 2 younger generations no linger have the mental capacity to recognize subtle or intelligent humor, we can all be assured we will NEVER see films like these two made ever again. That's a fact. Oh and BTW, if you're angry about what you've read here about Milleneals and Gen Z'ers limited intellectual capacities? Don't kill the messenger!! I'm only relating a story I read posted by the medical community, more precisely, mental health experts, both psychologists and psychiatrists and their in depth studies on this subject. Type into google, millennials can't comphrhend humor, and Gen Z todays generations unable to recognize humor etc., and the articles and studies will pop up for you to research them yourselves
The first chance I got to see the Phibes movies was in college when a late-night horror show showed them back-to-back. I stayed up all night twice watching them. The second time, I originally intended to only sit through the mechanical snake murder, but I ended up sitting through the whole thing. Melvyn Douglas did horror early in his career (The Old Dark House, The Devil Bat), and one of his last movies, Ghost Story, was a horror movie.
"The Abominable Dr Phibes!" is film with several connections to the tv spy series "The Avengers". Director Robert Fuest was a production designer for the British series The Avengers during the Honor Blackman years, and returned as a director of 6 episodes the final series with Linda Thorson in 1968. One of the episodes during that year was "Game" a story about a man who went by the name of "Monty Bristo" (also played by Peter Jeffrey) who sought revenge on a military tribunal that convicted him, and is clearly the inspiration for "Phibes". Brian Clemens, producer and sometimes writer for The Avengers was an uncredited script contributer for "Phibes", and one of Phibes' victims was played by Maurice Kaufmann who had been married to Honor Blackman when she co-starred as Cathy Gale on The Avengers. The man in the music shop was played by John Laurie, who had also appeared in an episode of The Avengers ("A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Station.") New Avenger-to-be, Joanna Lumley had actually filmed scenes for "Dr Phibes" but they didn't make the final edit.
Always my favorite movie.
Classic film.
A great movie! And don't forget the sequel, 'Return if Dr Phibes' which followed this one just about a year later if memory serves me correctly!
Many people actually dislike this movie, and over the past 50 YEARS!! having seen many friends dislike it, I've got to say I don't understand why!! What I have seen with many people, (I'm talking older folks now, who've seen this way back in the early 70's till now, still disliking it, and I have pieced together the reason for this being that Vincent Price was always such a serious actor, and unlike 99% of all other, good, serious actors out there, Price MADE horror movies his primary focus! While all other popular, successful actors RUN AWAY from the job of acting in horror films, Price, unlike the rest, devoted himself to the genre!!! And because of him doing this, we're left with an absolute multitude of horror classics, REAL GEMS, starring V. Price in all the lead roles... !!! And it's my thought that many older folks my age, having known Vincent Price as such a successful movie star, AND prominent star of THEATER, ALWAYS in absolute serious roles, it was hard for them to appreciate the obvious DARK HUMOR that runs so deep, right through Dr Phibes AND The Return of Sr Phibes!!! Many of them even failed to see the humor at first, since Vincent plays the Dr Phibes character as an absolute 'straight man' of a comedy duo. And he nails it perfectly of course...
And then for overall popularity of these two movies, remaining very low, unpopular, the reason for that is very obvious. Millennial aged adultsand Gen Z aged young "adults", both of these groups, have absolutely NO capacity for humor AT ALL... These younger generations don't understand humor, or comedy at all, unless the comedy is so over the top, its completely stupid nonsense. Very very simple to understand, ridiculous child humor is all these groups understand. Think "Scary Movie", or something like "Airplane"... Anything less obvious, or more intelligent than that, goes right over their heads, and they'll watch an entire comedy and finish it, believing the film was a serious film!! It's unreal. The reason I even mention this, is because I just read this write up by Yale psychology department evaluating this age groups lack of ability to discern comedies from reality. Again, unless its written so over the top ridiculous, that 5 year olds laugh. And its a quite concerning dilemma for psychologists who are trying to figure out exactly why...
Anyhow, all of this is a complex subject when you bring the younger generations into it.
All that being said, MANY of us DO love these movies, and DO get every line of subtle comedy in these films!!
Knowing what we know now, and knowing that 2 younger generations no linger have the mental capacity to recognize subtle or intelligent humor, we can all be assured we will NEVER see films like these two made ever again. That's a fact. Oh and BTW, if you're angry about what you've read here about Milleneals and Gen Z'ers limited intellectual capacities? Don't kill the messenger!! I'm only relating a story I read posted by the medical community, more precisely, mental health experts, both psychologists and psychiatrists and their in depth studies on this subject.
Type into google, millennials can't comphrhend humor, and Gen Z todays generations unable to recognize humor etc., and the articles and studies will pop up for you to research them yourselves
The first chance I got to see the Phibes movies was in college when a late-night horror show showed them back-to-back. I stayed up all night twice watching them. The second time, I originally intended to only sit through the mechanical snake murder, but I ended up sitting through the whole thing. Melvyn Douglas did horror early in his career (The Old Dark House, The Devil Bat), and one of his last movies, Ghost Story, was a horror movie.
Dr Phibes was our family doctor for years.
"The Abominable Dr Phibes!" is film with several connections to the tv spy series "The Avengers". Director Robert Fuest was a production designer for the British series The Avengers during the Honor Blackman years, and returned as a director of 6 episodes the final series with Linda Thorson in 1968. One of the episodes during that year was "Game" a story about a man who went by the name of "Monty Bristo" (also played by Peter Jeffrey) who sought revenge on a military tribunal that convicted him, and is clearly the inspiration for "Phibes". Brian Clemens, producer and sometimes writer for The Avengers was an uncredited script contributer for "Phibes", and one of Phibes' victims was played by Maurice Kaufmann who had been married to Honor Blackman when she co-starred as Cathy Gale on The Avengers. The man in the music shop was played by John Laurie, who had also appeared in an episode of The Avengers ("A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Station.") New Avenger-to-be, Joanna Lumley had actually filmed scenes for "Dr Phibes" but they didn't make the final edit.
Great Movie !!!
"Take the knife that's in my back."
Ooh, I gotta remember that one...
Lol imagine having to speak at length about this one-The film that made me realize ‘those damn kids’ aren’t to blame for society.