This just in from Granny Creech’s nephew, Gary Fox…
It was Wednesday, September 20, 1961, when I first heard the radio spot for The Pit and the Pendulum. It was the day before its opening day and to my 11 year-old brain, it was amazing. I had seen the ads for the movie in the newspaper and was intrigued by what I saw: a guy bound on a large stone table with a long blade-like thing hanging over him while a good-looking woman looked on. I could only imagine what was going to happen until I heard it and saw it…on the radio. Whoa! Poor guy! I had to see the movie.
The next day after school I rode the bus into town and saw it, the first of four times over the course of the next few days. But, after the first viewing, I had a pressing task: I had to tape record the radio commercial before they took it off the air. And for that, I had to wait until Saturday when I went to my granny’s house where my beloved reel-to-reel resided. Would it still be on? You can imagine my joy when I heard them (!) on Saturday morning, and I was able to record several versions. They went on my growing radio spot reel.
I was finally able to purchase the radio spot disk much later in life. The radio spots were produced on a 12”, 33 1/3 rpm red vinyl disk, with spots on both sides. Usually spots were just on one side of a disk with the other side blank, unless it was a giant movie or if the studio gave it the first class marketing treatment, which American International did with Pit.
The vinyl is spectacular. It features renowned voice actor Ken Nordine (Nor- DEEN), who was also a recording artist who developed a style of storytelling he called Word Jazz. Not only do the spots differ in length, they also differ in content and emphasis. They are extremely atmospheric, and create a sense of doom, torment and despair. With added sound bites and eerie sound effects, including an ever-present slicing sound made by the pendulum, the listener gets a sense of dread from the poor guy chained to the table, and of the mental instability of his tormentor. In some clips, Nordine is the narrator; in some, he is the victim; in others he is the tormented inquisitor inflicting the pains of the torture chamber on his victims. In one cut, he is even Edgar Allan Poe himself.
A true-treasure trove of visual imagery, one can easily listen to the entire album and get a complete feel for the movie. As a kid, I was not disappointed. I loved the pendulum with its heavy gear works, the immense pit room with its hooded figures observing the foul deed, the buried-alive corpse in the crypt, and the overall look and sound of the movie. The spots had done their job. I eventually lost count how many times I saw the movie, but I even recorded the spots when the movie came back to the drive-in later in the year.
So now, sit back and enjoy the mental pictures conjured up by these effective and horrific spots to The Pit and the Pendulum. Pleasant dreams! or unpleasant screams!
To be continued…and special thanks to Milton Moritz for identifying the theater.