I mentioned this is another topic but it fits here.
The Tower of the Elephant defies the old-fashioned story plot where the hero encounters a monster or evil wizard or an innocent captive who he then rescues.
There's no damsel to be rescued, and the being that needs rescuing is a monster. And to free the monster, Conan has to kill him, and this leads to the destruction of the wizard.
The alien creature came to Earth and befriends this wizard and made him his apprentice--but it didn't work out. Different strokes for different folks. The wizard used it for evil and takes the alien prisoner.
And it is ironic that the alien has to turn to this superstitious uneducated savage youth in order to set things back to right. Presumably so the alien can go back to his realm and fix things by removing the wizard who he created by his cross-cultural outreach. The alien made the mistake of venturing out to another world and interfering with it. Turned out to be a bad idea. It wasn't meant to be.
I suspect Lovecraft approved of this plot.
But another thing I like about it is that you have this temporary union between this wise ancient alien creature and the barbarian youth--two completely opposite ships passing in the night. I find that there's something profound to this idea-it's a cousin to Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Moby Dick. There's a philosophical link between them through the idea of a relationship between the human and the non-human--both occupying the same universe and connected in some mortal way. I don't think one normally thinks of Conan like that, so the story for me is the one that stands out the most.
To bring up Matheson yet again--the one script that he did which feels the most traditional to me is The Devil Rides Out. In that--it is a similar outcome to the Tower of the Elephant--the evil wizard is ruined by his own magic at the end--he made a pact with a supernatural force--he fails to get the sacrifice he needed and so he himself is taken. Duc de Richleau has a line that God is responsible for the victory-I am assuming that was Dennis Wheatley's view. Matheson said he did not like adding anything to a screenplay adaptation that was his own idea--he preferred sticking to the author's own ideas (he also hated actors changing a single line of his dialogue).
It is extremely rare for a movie about Satanism to end with God intervening to save the day. Nine times out of ten, Rosemary's Baby, the Exorcist, Race with the Devil,---the Devil usually wins in the end, or at least takes some prize among the goodie characters so it isn't a total victory for good.
Nigel Kneale also did some interesting variations on the traditional too. Kneale and Matheson both did 1950s stories where it has a message "who is the real monster?"
I Am Legend has that idea, and the Abominable Snowman script by Kneale.
They also did ghost stories that came out almost at the same time--Hell House by Matheson and the Stone Tape by Kneale. Both stories involve a scientific explanation for ghosts and a male scientist who fights with a woman who is more emotionally in tune to the supernatural.
The X-Files turned that on its head--because the man is the one who is into the supernatural and the woman is the skeptic.
The Tower of the Elephant defies the old-fashioned story plot where the hero encounters a monster or evil wizard or an innocent captive who he then rescues.
There's no damsel to be rescued, and the being that needs rescuing is a monster. And to free the monster, Conan has to kill him, and this leads to the destruction of the wizard.
The alien creature came to Earth and befriends this wizard and made him his apprentice--but it didn't work out. Different strokes for different folks. The wizard used it for evil and takes the alien prisoner.
And it is ironic that the alien has to turn to this superstitious uneducated savage youth in order to set things back to right. Presumably so the alien can go back to his realm and fix things by removing the wizard who he created by his cross-cultural outreach. The alien made the mistake of venturing out to another world and interfering with it. Turned out to be a bad idea. It wasn't meant to be.
I suspect Lovecraft approved of this plot.
But another thing I like about it is that you have this temporary union between this wise ancient alien creature and the barbarian youth--two completely opposite ships passing in the night. I find that there's something profound to this idea-it's a cousin to Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Moby Dick. There's a philosophical link between them through the idea of a relationship between the human and the non-human--both occupying the same universe and connected in some mortal way. I don't think one normally thinks of Conan like that, so the story for me is the one that stands out the most.
To bring up Matheson yet again--the one script that he did which feels the most traditional to me is The Devil Rides Out. In that--it is a similar outcome to the Tower of the Elephant--the evil wizard is ruined by his own magic at the end--he made a pact with a supernatural force--he fails to get the sacrifice he needed and so he himself is taken. Duc de Richleau has a line that God is responsible for the victory-I am assuming that was Dennis Wheatley's view. Matheson said he did not like adding anything to a screenplay adaptation that was his own idea--he preferred sticking to the author's own ideas (he also hated actors changing a single line of his dialogue).
It is extremely rare for a movie about Satanism to end with God intervening to save the day. Nine times out of ten, Rosemary's Baby, the Exorcist, Race with the Devil,---the Devil usually wins in the end, or at least takes some prize among the goodie characters so it isn't a total victory for good.
Nigel Kneale also did some interesting variations on the traditional too. Kneale and Matheson both did 1950s stories where it has a message "who is the real monster?"
I Am Legend has that idea, and the Abominable Snowman script by Kneale.
They also did ghost stories that came out almost at the same time--Hell House by Matheson and the Stone Tape by Kneale. Both stories involve a scientific explanation for ghosts and a male scientist who fights with a woman who is more emotionally in tune to the supernatural.
The X-Files turned that on its head--because the man is the one who is into the supernatural and the woman is the skeptic.
