This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

One of the best films i have seen

Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

A madman (voiced by James Mason) tells his tale of murder, and how a strange beating sound haunted him afterward.The animation of this short is pretty decent and fits the material well without being too grisly. But, of course, the real joy is in the narration. When it comes to telling a story so well-known and often repeated, it pays to get just the right voice. And James Mason is the one for that (though Vincent Price would also work).I remember this story being longer. Now, that might be my memory or it might be that they abridged it. But I have fond memories of the first time I ever heard the story in an elementary class. (I don't believe I actually read Poe's work until later.) The tape I heard was not Mason, but I wish it had been.

The pacing of this story, with its wonderful rises and falls, similar to a heartbeat, makes this a masterwork. Jame's Mason narrates and leads us on a terrifying tale of murder and obsession. A man, a boarder, becomes fixated on the eye of an old man with whose he lives. It becomes so dominant in his life, he resolves to kill the old man to rid himself of the eye. There are incredibly eerie clips leading from one event to the other. Music and Mason's voice carry us through this familiar tale. It is really a series of still shots that make this really work well. This is a masterpiece of concision. It is not like most of the short features of its day.

This 8-minute animated version "The Tell-Tale Heart" was nominated for an Oscar in the 1950s, but lost to Disney's music lesson. It comes from United Productions of America, which is not really a name to many anymore, but also created many Mr. Magoo short films for example, a quite established and prolific company back in the day. The famous story is written by Edgar Allen Poe and narrated by James Mason shortly before his first Oscar nomination for "A Star is Born". The animation is pretty odd, occasionally creepy, but as a whole I wasn't really as scared as I hoped I would when watching this short movie. I wonder if people back in the 50s felt otherwise.I thought the parts with the evil eye and the beating heart could have been construed in more frightening manner. Mason did a fine job though in conveying the character's state of mind and my favorite was the comment early on on how the insane never realize their defective state of mind. Without him, it would have been even worse. I just wish the animation could have been better. It's simple (not necessary a bad thing if executed convincingly) and repetitive and does not do the story justice. Only one to watch for the biggest Poe enthusiasts and animation lovers.

This UPA short is simply one of the best adaptations of a tale written by Edgar Allan Poe.Most of the adaptations based on any of his works tend to be merely disappointing, capturing only the most pragmatic elements from the source material, but this beautiful done animated short (Which was quite ahead of its time) is able to capture perfectly well the eerie beauty and the macabre tone of the original tale, without all the subtext contained in that story, doing an impressive use of limited animation in order to create the perfect atmosphere that this literary masterpiece deserved.The magnificent voice performance done by James Mason deserves a special mention: It not only fits incredible well with the atmosphere and the story, but also adds new levels of emotion of what is showed to screen, being one of the most memorable qualities from this short, along with the excellent Gothic atmosphere. This short is a must-see.