The Raven

Roger Corman brought several Edgar Allan Poe works to the silver screen in the 1960's.  Most of them starred Vincent Price.  Productions such as House of Usher (1960) and The Pit and the Pendulum (1961) are true to the source material and are dramas that are horrifying and bleak, like Poe himself.  The Raven (1963), on the other hand, was conceived as a comedy vehicle for 3 master horror actors (Price, Boris Karloff and Peter Lorre) and one up and coming actor that Corman had discovered, one Jack Nicholson.  Despite it being a comedy and a based on Poe's most famous poem, it works quite well.  It is a truly funny, well acted, well shot film with a very humorous and playful soundtrack to match.

Long before there was Harry Potter, the world had this movie of two rivals, and comically gifted, magicians, one good, one evil, pitted against each other.  Price is the good magician and Karloff is the bad one, Jack Nicholson and, especially, Peter Lorre get caught between the two.  Well actually Lorre's predicament of being turned into a raven by Scarabus' (Karloff) wave of the magical hand, is technically what gets Dr. Craven (Price) drug into the whole matter in the first place.  When Bedlo tells Craven that Dr. Scarabus has the much grieved for Lenore (possibly her spirit??),  his fear of the magician dries up and the laughs begin.

The film roughly takes place in the earliest parts of the 16th century.  (Geez I didn't realize those were such zany times!)  It is filmed in neon rich Pathecolor in the aspect ratio of 2:35:1.  It was released on 25 January 1963.  Apparently having Lorre and Nicholson as a father and son duo began to annoy a very fastidious Boris Karloff (who  was always careful to work strictly from scripts), because they were both fond of ad-libbing, and the ad-libbing only got worse as the shooting progressed.  That didn't stop Karloff from agreeing to star in The Terror (1963) with Nicholson after The Raven wrapped.  But then again, that film was shot in four days and didn't star Lorre....

As to any annoyances that Nicholson had, well he had only one.  He is fond of telling anyone who asks about this film that he has nothing but the highest praise for everyone in the film, except the bird!  "I would look down when the raven flew off my shoulder, and it would be covered in poop...I hated that bird!"