The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971) on Netflix
Dr. Anton Phibes, an organist believed dead, resurfaces in London to punish the surgeons he blames for his wife Victoria's death, using the Ten Plagues of Egypt. Inspector Trout investigates.
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- Netflix4.0/5
- IMDb7.0/1018,266 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes88%
Trailer
Plot summary
Dr. Anton Phibes is a concert organist with doctorates in music and theology, believed dead in a 1921 car crash in Switzerland while racing home on news that his wife Victoria had died during surgery. He survived, scarred and speechless, rebuilt his face with prosthetics and recovered his voice through his knowledge of acoustics. In 1925 he returns secretly to London, convinced Victoria's doctors were responsible, and with Vulnavia, his silent assistant, begins killing members of the surgical team, each death patterned on the Ten Plagues of Egypt and marked with a Hebrew amulet. Inspector Trout of Scotland Yard traces the dead doctors to Dr. Vesalius, the surgeon who led the team.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Director Robert Fuest rewrote most of the script, making Dr Phibes more sympathetic than the original version, who abused his assistant Vulnavia, and added deliberate humor; he also moved Dr Kitaj's death by rats from a boat to a plane.
- Peter Cushing was originally cast as Dr Vesalius but bowed out because his wife was ill, and Joseph Cotten replaced him; Cushing and Vincent Price would go on to co-star in Madhouse.
- Caroline Munro took the silent part of Phibes's wife, lying still on screen, because she wanted to work with Vincent Price, over the objections of Hammer Films, who held her contract; that contract kept her uncredited.
- The film is set in 1920s England, yet the pianist of Dr Phibes' Clockwork Wizards sings "One for My Baby (and One More for the Road)", a song Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer did not write until 1943, for The Sky's the Limit.
- Phibes's wife is named Victoria Regina as a nod to the stage play Victoria Regina, in which Vincent Price had made his Broadway debut back in 1937.
- The television broadcast version of the film cuts some of its grislier moments, among them a close-up of the nurse's corpse after locusts have eaten it.
- Vincent Price was reportedly in a good mood while the film was shot, cooking pâté and other specialty dishes for the cast and crew and telling them stories.
