and he was making love to a body under post-hypnotic suggestion. "Literally being controlled by someone who was dead," said Towne, "which is a gruesome notion but perfectly consistent with Poe." Towne says he "tried to have my cake and eat it too" by writing a script where the events could be explained naturally (via post-hypnotic suggestion) and supernatural (possession). Towne later said "Roger and I were really a classic mismatch. It was very painstaking, the script for Tomb of Ligeia. In fact I worked harder on... [that] than on anything I think I have ever done. And I still like that screenplay. I think it's good." Casting Roger Corman was initially reluctant to use Vincent Price in the lead role, being worried he was too old for a character who was 25 to 30 years old; his preference was for Richard Chamberlain. Towne later said the film "was a little dull. I think it would have been better if it had been with a man who didn't look like a necrophiliac to begin with... I love Vincent. He's very sweet. But, going in, you suspect that Vincent could bang cats, chickens, girls, dogs, everything. You just feel that necrophilia might be one of his Basic Things. I'd felt the role called for an almost unnaturally handsome guy who the second wife could easily fall in love with. There should also be a sense of taboo about the close tie he had with his first wife – as though it was something incestuous, two halves of the same person." However Price's casting was a condition of AIP investing in the film, and Corman relented. 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!" Corman ended up giving Price a wig and using more makeup on him than usual to make him look younger. Nevertheless, he later remarked that Price's casting still "did change the orientation of the film quite a bit." Release The Tomb of Ligeia was released in the United Kingdom in November 1964. It was later distributed in the United States in January 1965. Roger Corman later said that "all of the Poe films made money, but Tomb of Ligeia made the least amount. I think it was because the series was just running out of steam and also