Solid Representation: The Gorgon (1964)
My dear readers, as some of you may recall, I have in past entries reflected on the warm relationship I had with my parents and while I hesitate to ruminate on a familiar theme, I must admit that as of late I have found myself consistently turning my mind to what a dear and attentive pair of progenitors they truly were. That said, they did occasionally depart for months at a time with little clue as to their whereabouts, often leaving behind nothing more than a cryptic note and enough pocket change to restock the pantry. During these periods I found myself the “man of the house,” so to speak, and was expected to tend matters much the same way my mother and father would -- reviewing the day’s communiques, identifying any malingerers among the servants and placing appropriate tributes on the family gravestones. Also, mother was quite insistent that Jehovah's Witnesses and other traveling merchants of religion be shown the Eye of Li-Shan, The Unworthy, a nifty little trinket she had picked up in the Middle East. It was something of an educational mission on her part, as any extended time staring into its crystalline surface tended to resolve any misconceptions about the cosmic order and often left the viewer with a handsome little strip of white hair. Granted, some of those who underwent this illuminating experience went mad from the strain but the truth can, as the old idiom goes, be difficult to swallow and my mother did receive such a philanthropic thrill from hearing of these newly edified individuals.
Gorgons save yet another soul from the indignities of decomposition
Paul Heitz (Richard Pasco) knows what it is like to find himself suddenly in charge of family affairs, as his father and brother have passed away in a fairly short time frame. Officially, his brother’s death is ruled a suicide and his father’s is deemed a failure of the heart. But Paul finds these conclusions a trifle suspect, particularly when the supervising physician (Peter Cushing) refuses to let Paul see his father’s body. And so Paul starts poking about in the hopes of uncovering a clue or two. But instead of answers, Paul receives a frightful encounter with a strange creature, the shock of which lands him in the hospital.
It is here that Paul meets Carla Hoffman (Barbara Shelley), a fetching young woman whose charms soon win over the young convalescent. Carla, as luck would have it, is a bit keen on Paul herself and the two begin to imagine a life together, preferably at some distance from monsters and recurrent fatalities and all that sort of thing. But before he can depart on this happy new journey, Paul must find satisfactory answers regarding his recently departed relations and for this purpose, he enlists his tutor, Professor Karl Meister (Christopher Lee). Once on the scene, the professor is able to come to a most natural conclusion -- that Carla is possessed by the spirit of the gorgon Megaera, and on nights when the moon is full she drifts about and turns people to stone with her hideous gaze.
Gorgons avoid this sort of ambush rather easily when their snakes are not all facing forward
As anyone personally acquainted with me may know, I have been bemoaning the lack of cinematic gorgon representation for some years now. The halls of Hauntedhouse have rung with great anger over the many filmmakers who have missed opportunities to include this creature of mythically unpleasant features in their projects. It puts me in something of a cheery mood, then, to encounter director Terrence Fisher’s The Gorgon, a title that promises to rectify this pattern of neglect. Granted, the possession angle is a little out of step with their classical representation, as is the notion of adhering to lunar cycles. And I imagine some Greek mythology purists may be a put off by the fact that Megaera was actually one of the Erinyes or “Furies,” as some might say, and not a Gorgon at all. But the film does manage to get the turning to stone and the snake bits right and that is certainly a step in the right direction. The woeful lack of movie gorgons cannot be corrected with a single production, after all, and it may take many more for them to receive the treatment they deserve.
The Gorgon runs 83 minutes and does not possess a certified rating in the United States.
