Best movie of this year hands down!

Highly Overrated But Still Good

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

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 is an animated short. There's not a lot of movement in the short--it's mostly these dark sinister paintings and it's all narrated by James Mason. It's all seen through the eyes of a madman. He lives with an older man who he can't stand. So he decides to kill him. He succeeds but he goes even crazier.Very eerie and spooky. It was rightfully nominated for an Oscar for Best Short and is in the National Film Registry. Supposedly this was shot in 3-D (which would account for some of the strange camera angles) but there's no proof that it was released in that format. It doesn't matter though--it works great in 2-D. The short has a constant air of madness and depression about it and Mason's narration perfectly fits what we're watching. It's not the entire short story but it works. Well worth seeing. Not really for kids--especially small ones.

UPA's adaption of Edgar Allan Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart is perhaps the studio's most unique representation of their attitude of animation: presenting an artist's point of view as well as staying true to the source material of a previous author's intent. James Mason is perfect as the first person narrator of his descent into madness concerning the murder of an elderly man whose white eye proves to be a very unsatisfying distraction to him. Lots of atmospheric music combined with some of the most intense abstract images and a dark screen for nearly 30 seconds contributes the most effective thriller moments in animation history. This is highly essential viewing for lovers of UPA and Poe.

I saw this short back in 1953 when I was just a kid. Had nightmares about it for a long time after. I haven't seen it since and have always wondered why. Was there some reason it was taken out of circulation? The mood and atmosphere with the juxtaposition of UPA animation (cartoons in those days-mostly associated with Mr.Magoo and Gerald McBoing Boing.) and thriller-style mood piece was groundbreaking. Since then I've been a fan of Poe's and especially that story. If anyone knows where it is or how I might see it again I'd love to know where I could get a copy. Anyone? Pleeeez? Is there other thriller-type animation out there? (No I'm not talking about Scooby Doo!)