The Oval Portrait is the rhythmical creation of beauty, and that the most poetical topic in the world is the death of a beautiful woman (see "The Philosophy of Composition"). "The Oval Portrait" suggests that the woman's beauty condemns her to death. Poe suggests in the tale that art can reveal the artist's guilt or evil and that the artist feeds on and may even destroy the life he has modeled into art. "The Oval Portrait" was first published as a longer version titled "Life in Death" in "Graham's Magazine" in 1842. "Life in Death" included a few introductory paragraphs explaining how the
Murders in the Rue Morgue (1971 film) hired to direct the film. Hessler says he felt the story was so familiar it needed to be changed, so he and writer Christopher Wicking decided to do it as a play-within-a-play, with a mystery happening around a theatre that was putting on a production of "Murder in the Rue Morgue". The new storyline owned a lot to "Phantom of the Opera". Hessler said Vincent Price "was very upset that he wasn't in" the film "but I had nothing to with that." He thought Price was having contractual fights with AIP at the time. Hessler says AIP hired Jason Robard