As much a favorite among Corman's horror fans as Masque Of the Red Death, The Tomb Of Ligeia "was the last of the Poe cycle, a demented mixture of necrophilia, sado-masochism, hypnotism - and an ultimate extension of the themes and techniques Corman had developed in the earlier Poe films. An expansion of the 'Morella' sequence from his own, earlier, Tales of Terror, Ligeia is ostensibly about drug addicted widower Vernon Fell (Vincent Price), now married to wife #2, but still hopelessly attached to dead wife #1, and a series of mysterious happenings involving a malevolent black cat. But no plot outline can possibly suggest the psychopathology of the film as it breaks out of its own structure to dissolve in a series of fire-and-madness sequences that draw us into a helpless descent toward some frightful, inner entropy. There were rumors at the time (fueled, no doubt, by the film's disturbing structure) that Corman had suffered a breakdown during the filming, and that Coppola directed some, or all, of it - but no real proof has ever turned up. Ligeia is a highly romantic picture. It's also one of the most purely cinematic of Corman's films. New York's MOMA held a special four-day screening, hailing the film as a contemporary masterpiece. The London Times wrote: 'At last, Mr. Corman has done what it always seemed he might be able some time to do: make a film which could, without absurdity, be spoken of in the same breath as Cocteau's Orphee.'"