The Murders in the Rue Morgue (1990)

Of the many film versions of Edgar Allan Poe's classic mystery story, this 1986 made-for-TV adaptation sticks closest to the original. Big mistake. In The Murders in the Rue Morgue George C. Scott brings his usual wonky line readings to the part of C. Auguste Dupin (a major influence on Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes), but the tale as written is primarily an intellectual puzzle, and this Classics Illustrated telling is ho-hum in the extreme. Better to stick with Gordon Hessler's 1971 version (Lightning Video): It chucks Poe's plot out the window, but the results are at least entertaining. D