Murders in the Rue Morgue

Paris…at the turn of the century. Inspector Vidocq investigates a series of unexplained murders at a Grand Guignol-type theatre…where the players have suddenly become real-life victims. Based on the story by Edgar Allan Poe., The 1971 Murders in the Rue Morgue has even less to do with the Edgar Allan Poe original than its 1932 and 1954 predecessors. The film is largely set in a Grand Guignol theatre, where entrepreneur Jason Robards Jr. stages a nightly horror play inspired by the Poe story. Robards’ daughter Christine Kaufmann, the theater’s star actress, is haunted by dreams of a gorilla swooping down to attack her. It is revealed that, as a child, Kaufmann was witness to the murder of her mother (Lilli Palmer) by Robards’ ex-partner Herbert Lom. But was Lom the guilty party? You’ll find out in Murders in the Rue Morgue’s stylishly gory climax., Adaptation of Poe’s horror classic, set in and around a Parisian theater.