The Pit and the Pendulum is a 1961 horror film directed by Roger
Corman, starring Vincent Price, Barbara Steele, John Kerr, and Luana
Anders. The screenplay by Richard Matheson was based on Edgar Allan
Poe's short story of the same name. Set in 16th century Spain, the
story is about a young Englishman who visits a forbidding castle to
investigate his sister's mysterious death. After a series of horrific
revelations, apparently ghostly appearances and violent deaths, the
young man becomes strapped to the titular torture device by his lunatic
brother-in-law during the film's climactic sequence. The film was the
second title in the popular series of Poe-based movies released by
American International Pictures, the first having been Corman's House
of Usher released the previous year. A critical and box office hit,
Pit's commercial success convinced AIP and Corman to continue adapting
Poe stories for another six films, five of them starring Price. Film
critic Tim Lucas and writer Ernesto Gastaldi have both noted the film's
strong influence on numerous subsequent Italian thrillers. Stephen King
has described one of Pit's major shock sequences as being among the
most important moments in the post-1960 horror film.
Read the rest of this article:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pit_and_the_Pendulum_%281961_film%29>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
217:
Roman Emperor Caracalla was assassinated at a roadside near Harran and
succeeded by his Praetorian Guard prefect Macrinus.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caracalla>
1904:
British occultist and writer Aleister Crowley began transcribing The
Book of the Law, a Holy Book in Thelema.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_the_Law>
1968:
BOAC Flight 712 suffered an engine fire shortly after take off from
London Heathrow Airport, leading to deaths of five people on board,
including flight attendant Barbara Jane Harrison, who was later awarded
a posthumous George Cross for her heroism during the accident.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BOAC_Flight_712>
1992:
American tennis player Arthur Ashe announced that he had contracted HIV
from blood transfusions; he would spend the remainder of his life as an
AIDS activist.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Ashe>
2008:
On board Soyuz TMA-12, Yi So-Yeon became the first Korean, and second
Asian woman to go into space.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yi_So-Yeon>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
vindictive (adj):
Having or showing a strong or unreasoning desire for revenge
<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/vindictive>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
You can do a lot with diplomacy, but with diplomacy backed up by force
you can get a lot more done.
--Kofi Annan
<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Kofi_Annan>
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