GManfred Three stories make up "Twice Told Tales", and only the first is worth mentioning. That's "Dr. Heidegger's Experiment", and all three were written by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Vincent Price is in all three, but none of these stories have any visible scare quotient. In fact, the stories aren't horror stories but melodramas put on screen by MGM. No atmosphere, no moody photography and no scary moments."Rappaccini's Daughter" is the second and is about a radioactive plant and a girl infected by it and is not that interesting. The third is a truncated version of "The House Of The Seven Gables", which does not stick to the original story and is the least scary - and the least interesting of the three. You can read other reviewers for a summary of the three but the entire product is not worth the trouble to record it, much less watch it.

Rainey Dawn Here we have yet another film I have not seen in years, watching it again after all these years I found the film quite good - even better than I recalled it to be. Three stories based on Nathaniel Hawthorne's Twice-Told Tales - all three a excellent! Dr. Heidegger's Experiment - I quite enjoyed Sebastian Cabot heartbreaking performance as Dr. Carl Heidigger. It is a sad romantic tale of a man who was to be married but his wife died the night before the wedding. He remained in-love with her for 38 years. One night he and his long time friend Alex Medbourne (Price) discover a secret - a type of fountain of youth. That same night Dr. Heidegger also discovered another secret - a 38 year old dark secret.Rappaccini's Daughter - Dr. Giacomo Rappaccini (Price) wife was an adulteress - he only wanted to protect his daughter from the pains of adultery and to make sure she did not make the same mistake her mother did. Rappaccini's Daughter, Beatrice (Taylor), falls for a young man and he falls for her. But how can they marry when Beatrice can kill him with one touch of the poison her father inoculates her with? The House of the Seven Gables - Gerald Pyncheon (Price) and his sister Hannah Pyncheon (deWit) have inherited the haunted house and a family curse. There is more to their inheritance than this if they can find the vault. But will Mathew's ghost allow them to? All three of the tales are good but of the three it is Dr. Heidegger's Experiment that I found was the best, saddest and most horrifying of all.9/10

AaronCapenBanner Sidney Salkow directed these three adaptations of Nathanial Hawthorne stories starring Vincent Price & Sebastian Cabot: "Dr. Heidegger's Experiment" - A rejuvenation formula has unforeseen consequences in this nicely produced but routine story, with Price & Cabot in good form at least."Rappaccini's Daughter" - A man with an elaborate garden poisons his daughter so that she will never leave it, though it doesn't go according to plan... Ineffectual and forgettable."The House Of The Seven Gables" - A cursed family home brings about its inhabitants destruction in this ho-hum version; not bad, but not particularly memorable either.

moonspinner55 Vincent Price heads up a B-cast in this middle-drawer trilogy of not-so-terrifying tales from writer Nathaniel Hawthorne's dark side. Price stars in all three stories and manages to retain his dignified air, even if there isn't a whole lot for him to do other than look wide-eyed. The opener, "Dr. Heidigger's Experiment", is probably the best of the lot, with Price and Sebastian Cabot acting wonderfully persnickety as a couple of old codgers living together like sisters; they discover a "virgin spring" in the mausoleum of Cabot's deceased sweetheart and use it to bring back their youth...and re-animate the corpse! There isn't much to the story, which is heavy on unfair irony instead of shocks, but the actors make it enjoyable. The second episode, "Rappaccini's Daughter", has Price playing a great scientist/hermit who has replaced his beautiful's daughter's blood with the acidic juice from a Chinese plant, causing her to be untouchable without the proper gloves; the story doesn't bear close scrutiny, but the set design here is interesting. Director Sidney Salkow, apparently saving the 'best' for last, lets loose with "The House of the Seven Gables" (previously filmed as a feature in 1940, co-starring Vincent Price!), a haunted house meller with bleeding walls and a skeleton's arm in the secret vault; it is unintentionally hilarious, leaden-paced, woodenly acted, and enjoyably ridiculous all at the same time. ** from ****