The Tell-Tale Heart (1953) *****

Certainly the greatest non-comic animated film, and arguably the most stylish and inventive of all UPA cartoons. It's a chilling and very disturbing adaptation of the E.A.Poe short story about an insane butler who kills his elderly master. The macabre premise and creepy settings reinforce the blood-chilling effect of the first-person narration by James Mason, which forces the viewer to identify with the point-of-view of a deranged assassin. The bizarrely designed settings (superior to anything since "The Cabinet of Dr Caligari") perfectly reflect the main character's distorted frame of mind.