The Price May Be Right - Number 31
Welcome to “The Price May Be Right!” Starting today, I’m counting down My Top 31 Favorite Vincent Price Performances & Appearances! The countdown will cover movies, TV productions, and many more forms of media. Our countdown begins with Number 31: Sir Despard Murgatroyd, from Ruddigore.
I have to admit, the main reason this performance makes it onto the countdown has more to do with the production itself than Vincent or his work in it. I just really, REALLY want to talk about “Ruddigore.” Is that so wrong? I hope not. For those who don’t know already, “Ruddigore” is an operetta – a light opera – made by the famous duo of Gilbert & Sullivan. These two creative geniuses created arguably the best, and certainly the most popular, comic operettas in history; their works are typically regarded as the forerunners to modern musical theatre. While my favorite of their works is the ever-renowned “The Pirates of Penzance,” this somewhat lesser-known work of theirs is a close second. “Ruddigore” is, in a bizarre way, a sort of forefather to stories like “Wicked,” as it actually asks the same basic question as that show and explores the concept in its own unique fashion. That question, of course, is “Are people born wicked, or do they have wickedness thrust upon them?” Are people we regard as evil just naturally inclined to do bad things, or are they simply products of circumstances? Ruddigore plays with these themes in a way that is both poignant and totally absurd; it is, like most of Gilbert & Sullivan’s creations, a farcical comedy, but it has a darker tone and a slightly more complex message than most. The plot of the story focuses on the Murgatroyd Family: a long lineage of nobles in England who have long guarded the estate of Castle Ruddigore. Long ago, one of the Murgatroyds quite literally made a hobby out of burning witches (as you do). While most of his victims were innocent people, this hobby did come to bite him in the arse when one witch he chose to persecute turned out to be a REAL enchantress. Before her death, she cast a hex upon the Murgatroyd Family, declaring that all future Baronets of Ruddigore would be forced to commit a crime every single day of their lives upon inheriting the estate. If they do not, they will suffer fits of tortuous agony and die. This leads to a long line of Bad Baronets of Ruddigore, as this lifestyle quite literally transforms each inheritor into a stereotypical Moustache-Twirling Villain. It happens. The main character – Sir Ruthven Murgatroyd, a.k.a. Robin (please hide all your Dick Graysons) – is the rightful heir to the castle. He is also a naïve and sweethearted young lad who has absolutely no desire to do evil and become the next Bad Baronet. This is where Sir Despard enters the picture: he is Ruthven’s younger brother, but when the fellow fakes his death and goes into hiding, becoming the humble gentleman Robin, Despard is forced to take the role of the next Bad Baronet. Despard is thus forced to abandon his fiancé – who goes mad from the loss – and commit numerous crimes, leading to him become a despised and physically ghoulish figure. It is only when Robin’s true identity is revealed that Despard is able to find a way to abandon this lifestyle and return to his beloved. The story is a mockery of typical Victorian melodramas: in here, the main character is both a handsome young man AND a moustache-twirling nasty. Despard, meanwhile, at first plays the role of the moustache-twirling bad guy, but eventually is redeemed. The damsel who gets embroiled in all this is never in any REAL distress, and – very ironically – the real bad guy of the story turns out to be the character who, in other tales, would typically be the hero. That role goes to Richard Dauntless: a sailor who at first starts off as Robin’s best friend, practically a brother to him…but when he falls in love with the same woman Ruthven does, he conspires with Despard to take the lady for himself. I absolutely love Ruddigore’s story and its sense of style. It’s a delightfully dark and Gothic comedy with some deep themes that lie beneath its completely silly surface. Really, my only problem with the play is it’s completely redonculuous ending, but…eh. It’s a comedic farce filled to the brim with patter songs, I wasn’t expecting a Shakespearean conclusion. :P Now that I’ve jabbered about that for so long…let’s get to Vincent himself. Vincent played the role of Despard in a TV production made for the 1980s. It was part of a series of televised productions of Gilbert & Sullivan’s plays, all of which featured a mixture of opera-trained theatre performers, mixed in with bigger-named screen actors to sort of draw in crowds. Vincent was a perfect choice to play some role in this story, as the show does have a wonderfully spooky and decadent atmosphere. Price had also done some musicals before this, both onstage and onscreen, so one would expect him to have the chops needed. To Vincent’s credit, he gives it his all, as he always did; there’s a wonderful, ironic charm to the way he plays Despard, especially in his more villainous mode, which contrasts delightfully with his more mild-mannered and somewhat persnickety persona when he is allowed to reform. However, as much as I love Ruddigore – and I love seeing Vincent in it – it’s a little hard for me to buy Despard as Robin’s YOUNGER brother in this film, considering the actor playing Robin – Keith Mitchell - was twenty whole years Vincent’s junior at the time, and he looked it. Also, Vincent’s voice is actually not as strong here as you might expect: while Price did have some musical training, the mixture of age and a constant smoking habit weakened his vocals over time, and you can definitely hear it in Ruddigore. It’s not necessarily bad, and he acts his heart out to make up for it, but when you compare it to virtually everybody else in the cast, it’s an obvious weak spot. Tomorrow, the countdown continues with my pick for Number 30!
