Screenplays By Richard Matheson

"I suggest you leave, Mr. Winthrop. No? Then perish with us."

"See to the crypt, will you?"

"Did you know that I could hear the scratching of her fingernails on the casket lid?"

"Vincent Price - Roderick Usher"

"Mark Damon - Philip Winthrop"

"Myrna Fahey - Madeline Usher"

"Harry Ellerbe - Bristol"

"The House of Usher is no more - and the place whereon it stood is as if - it had never been."

"Edgar Allan Poe's overwhelming tale of EVIL & TORMENT"

"I heard her first feeble movements in the coffin... we had put her living in the tomb!"

"He buried her alive... to save his soul!"

"Edgar Allan Poe's demonic tale of The Ungodly... The Evil House of Usher"

"Pray, speak quietly, every sound you make is such exquisite agony to me."

"This is the father of all ironies!"

"I admire you, Mr. Strock. You do what you feel you must do without caring whether you alienate anyone or whether they understand you or not. That is my way. That is the only way for a man of dedication. I know that you would like to stop me, sir. For that reason, my impulse is to have you destroyed. My desire on the other hand is to have you join me."

"Vincent Price - Robur"

"Charles Bronson - John Strock"

"Henry Hull - Prudent"

"Mary Webster - Dorothy Prudent"

"David Frankham - Philip Evans"

"Richard Harrison - Alistair The Helmsman"

"Vito Scotti - Topage"

"Wally Campo - First Mate Turner"

"Ken Terrell - Crewman Shanks"

"[quoting from Poe's poem] Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore. While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door. "'Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door. Only this and nothing more.""

"Vincent Price - Dr. Erasmus Craven"

"Peter Lorre - Dr. Adolphus Bedlo"

"Boris Karloff - Dr. Scarabus"

"Hazel Court - Lenore Craven"

"Jack Nicholson - Rexford Bedlo"

"Connie Wallace - Maid"

"William Baskin - Grimes"

"Aaron Saxon - Gort"

"There was no battle of egos, just a little discussion about technique. Peter loved to improvise, but Boris did not. Boris pointed out he was a classically trained actor who learned his lines from the script and came prepared to deliver them as written. "It puts me off," he told me of Peter's improvisations."

"I told Peter I loved what he did, but that we needed to stay a bit closer to the script. Vincent was cool with it either way."

"The supreme adventure in terror!"

"THE TERROR BEGINS AT MIDNIGHT!"

"The Macabre Masterpiece of Terror!"

"Wits and wizardry run a-fowl!"

"Alan DeWitt - Riggs"

"Douglas Williams - the Doctor"

"Linda Rogers - Phipps' Maid"

"Luree Holmes - Black's Servant"

"Rhubarb the cat - Cleopatra"

"[repeated line upon waking up from his "death"] What place is THIS?"

"[giving eulogy for John F. Black] And so, my friends, we find ourselves gathered around the bier of Mrs... er... Mr... You Know Whom... this litter of sorrow, this cairn, this cromlech, this dread dochma, this gart, this mastaba, this sorrowing tope, this unhappy tumulus, this, this... what is the word?... this... er, coffin! Never could think of that word. Requiescat in Pace, Mr... um... Mr... the memory of your good deeds will not perish with your untimely sepulcher."

"To... uh... paraphrase the venerable adage: we shall kill two birds, with one... pillow."

"Where the GHOULS are...is where the FUN is!"

"They put new life in the undertaking business!"

"A grave case of greed gone too far!"