The Murders in the Rue Morgue Murders in the Rue Morgue" continues an urban theme that was used several times in Poe's fiction, in particular "The Man of the Crowd", likely inspired by Poe's time living in Philadelphia. The tale has an underlying metaphor for the battle of brains vs. brawn. Physical strength, depicted as the orangutan as well as its owner, stand for violence: the orangutan is a murderer, while its owner admits he has abused the animal with a whip. The analyst's brainpower overcomes their violence. The story also contains Poe's often-used theme of the death of a beautiful woman, which he called the
The Masque of the Red Death (1964 film) Red Death" back, because of the similarities, but it was really an artificial reason in my mind," he later said. Eventually he decided to go ahead and do it anyway. Another fact in the delay was that Corman had a great deal of trouble coming up with a screenplay he was happy with. Drafts were written by John Carter, Robert Towne and Barboura Morris, but Corman was not happy with any of them. There were also a number of rival adaptations of "Masque" being mooted around this time. The Woolner Brothers announced a film based on the story as did