The Pit and the Pendulum Charles III and Charles IV only four persons were condemned. The Inquisition was, however, abolished during the period of French intervention (1808–13). The original source of the pendulum torture method is one paragraph in the preface of the 1826 book "The history of the Inquisition of Spain " by the Spanish priest, historian, and activist, Juan Antonio Llorente. relating a second-hand account by a single prisoner released from the Inquisition's Madrid dungeon in 1820, who purportedly described the pendulum torture method. Most modern sources dismiss this as fantasy. One theory is that Llorente misunderstood the account he heard; the prisoner
The Pit and the Pendulum (1961 film) it did. My only consolation…is that it is the second-greatest box-office attraction in the country." Price apparently never sent the letter, placing it instead into his "Letting Off Steam File". The film's critical reputation has continued to grow over the years, and it is now generally held to be one of the best entries in Corman's Poe series. "Time Out" has opined, "Corman at his intoxicating best, drawing a seductive mesh of sexual motifs from Poe's story through a fine Richard Matheson script." In "The Penguin Encyclopedia of Horror and the Supernatural", Timothy Sullivan wrote: ""The Pit and the Pendulum"