The Tell-Tale Heart Review

The Tell-Tale Heart is a 1953 animated short produced by UPA. It’s a very strong, effective adaptation of the famous Edgar Allan Poe short story.

The standout of this film is naturally James Mason’s powerful narration. He was literally the best person for this job in entire Hollywood and thankfully they managed to cast him perfectly. His voice suits his character like a glove and the narration is faithful to the original story and so terrific. I also found its animation highly artistic and dark in its black-and-white, intriguing and very stark, creepy imagery. The movie surely is highly artistic of a product.

I did find the film’s narration overwhelming. Yes, it was based on a written, narrated work, but this is a cinematic piece and it needed more characters in it as the policemen did not have that big of a role and the action is way too suggestive instead of shown. But still, this is a very strong adaptation that was so well adapted from the short story and the fact that it was nominated for an Oscar and lost to freaking ‘Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom’ is absolutely ludicrous.

The Tell-Tale Heart is an unfortunate Oscar loser with a phenomenal, artistic animation and perfectly fitting narration from always great James Mason.