Murders in the Rue Morgue (1971 film) 15, 2003. Murders in the Rue Morgue (1971 film) Murders in the Rue Morgue is a 1971 American horror film directed by Gordon Hessler, starring Jason Robards and Herbert Lom. It is ostensibly an adaptation of the Edgar Allan Poe story of the same name, although it departs from the story in several significant aspects, at times more resembling Gaston Leroux's "The Phantom of the Opera". In an interview on the film's DVD, Hessler said that he thought everyone already knew the ending of the story, so he felt it necessary to reinvent the plot. The story revolves around an
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