[3] Starring Vincent Price and Elizabeth Shepherd, it tells of a man haunted by the spirit of his dead wife and her effect on his second marriage.

By accident, back at the graveside, he meets a headstrong young woman, Rowena, who pursues him even though she is apparently betrothed to an old friend, Christopher Gough.

Fell is blinded by Ligeia, but gets the upper hand and strangles the cat, while the tomb around him burns down, due to an accident.

The film would be about a woman who had hypnotised the protagonist with the result he makes love to her dead body under post-hypnotic suggestion.

"[4] Towne says he "tried to have my cake and eat it too" by writing a script where the events could be explained both naturally (via post-hypnotic suggestion) and supernaturally (by possession).

"[5] Roger Corman was initially reluctant to use Vincent Price in the lead role, worrying he was too old for a character who was 25 to 30 years old; his preference was for Richard Chamberlain.

Robert Towne had specifically requested Price not be cast, and when Corman broke the news he told the screenwriter, "Don't worry, Bob, I've got Marlene Dietrich's make-up man!

Moreover the blinding of Fell, the destruction of the abbey by fire, the blood-stained embraces of the doomed man and his ghostly beloved, are all too reminiscent of earlier Corman films – too much, in fact, of a formulary, melodramatic hotchpotch.

The earlier intimations of horror are put over casually and briskly, notably where the black cat is concerned.

Much of the incident is genuinely strange – the cat climbing the bell-tower with Fell's dark glasses gripped between its teeth; the dream in which Rowena is smothered by Ligeia's black tresses.

Price is a solemn, rather pained Verden Fell; Elizabeth Shepherd, who bears an uncanny resemblance to Honor Blackman, is more mature, positive and husky than any previous Corman heroine.

At the end of the film one doesn't give a penny for Christopher's chances of a happy future with a girl who only looks like Rowena.

Mr Price still hams it up, front and center, but these low-budget shockers generally evoke a compelling sense of heady atmosphere and coiled doom in their excellent Gothic settings, arresting color schemes and camera mobility ... Mr Corman has made stunning, ambient use of his authentic setting, an ancient abbey in Norfolk, England, and the lovely countryside.