30 THEATRICAL TERRORS: The Devil Rides Out & Night of the Demon (Days 25 & 26)

Due to devilish deeds beyond the kin of mortal men,

we here at The Goods were unable to deliver

a frightful film for you last night,

so tonight we present a...

Demonic Double Feature!

The Devil Rides Out (known in America as The Devil’s Bride) is adapted from the 1934 Dennis Wheatley novel of the same name by Richard Matheson and directed by Terence Fisher in 1968 for Hammer.

The film stars Christopher Lee in his favorite role as Nicholas, Duc de Richleau, an aristocrat, adventurer and occultist who rescues the son of a friend and his girlfriend from a devil-worshipping cult taking refuge at the home of friends.

There, the cult leader pays a visit and forces them all to endure a night of black magic attacks designed to corrupt the souls and force the group to give up or give in to the power of the devil. All of which the Duke leads the group through with great effort and costing the life of one of the group.

What follows is much the same as before, a smart and well told morality play that has good triumph over evil. And it makes one sad that Lee was never able to take up the role of his lifetime again, considering there are eleven more novels featuring the Duke that were never adapted.

Regardless, here is a look at the picture itself:

The second part of our double feature is…

Adapted from the M. R. James story “Casting the Runes”, the 1957 British horror film Night of the Demon (known in America as Curse of the Demon) revolves around an American psychologist investigating a satanic cult’s involvement in murder.

In our first feature, we find skeptic Dr. John Holden (played by Dana Andrews) who intends to expose cult leader Julian Karswell (Niall MacGinnis) as a charlatan. Over the course of the film, however, Holden discovers the occult powers to be real and that a curse has been placed on himself.

Due to artistic differences, the production was fraught with conflict between the writer, Charles Bennett, and director, Jacques Tourneur, on one side and the producer, Hal E. Chester, on the other. The former had no plans to show the actual demon, leaving it up to the imagination of the viewer, but the producer inserted shots of it at the beginning and ending of the film anyway.

In any case, here is a look at the tale:

COUNTDOWN TO HALLOWEEN (Days 30-31): Sir Christopher Frank Carandini Lee

I love Bela Lugosi’s charming, aristocratic and seductive portrayal of Count Dracula in the Universal Studios picture.  Those films were fitting for their time and there was more a sense of old world lust lingering over that version of the lord of vampires.  The danger there is not terribly palpable, oh we know it’s there, we know death follows closely after, but it doesn’t seem like doom.

However, when Christopher Lee’s Count prowls the sets of the Hammer adaptations of Bram Stoker’s DRACULA it’s all about pain and terror and eternal damnation.  Lee’s looming figure towered over everyone else in the picture, a silent danger in every scene—a shark in bloody waters.  No one was safe and the seduction was only a means to an end.

And that is closer to Stoker’s vision of Dracula.  He’s as much an animal as a man and more a tool of the devil than anything else.  And Lee’s Dracula projected pain and longing and hatred—a man doomed to forever need and want and to never have, spreading death and destruction wherever he went.  There is a soul in his Dracula, but it’s as Stoker meant him to be—tortured.

And Lee, himself, may have been drawing on his own feelings about the role.  He didn’t care much for it.  He refused the lines given to him by Hammer’s writers in the first film—instead he projected the sentiment and it lead to an atmospheric and powerful performance.  One he did what he could with during his every film as the bloodsucker.

Here, Sir Christopher Lee reads DRACULA…

“We do, all of us, depend on the elements that have been there since the dawn of time, and without which we could not exist,” Christopher Lee mused while talking about the enduring power of The Wicker Man.  “There is a touch of paganism in us all…”

Christopher Lee’s last role was narrating animator Raul Garcia’s anthology  EXTRAORDINARY TALES’ adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher” which hit some art house theaters on October 23rd.  Here’s a sample of Lee’s voice over the animation:

“People sometimes come up to me,” he once said, “and they say, ‘I’ve seen all your films, Mr. Lee,’ and I say, ‘Oh no you haven’t.”

Here, Lee reads THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER (1960):

Some really nice words about the fallen good Sir...

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/jun/14/christopher-lee-an-appreciation-mark-kermode

http://www.vulture.com/2015/06/david-edelstein-christopher-lee-obituary.html#

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/06/christopher-lee-death/395627/

http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-12446345

In lieu of a witchy song tonight,

I invite you to enjoy Christopher Lee

Reading Tim Burton’s Original Poem for

The Nightmare Before Christmas,

with nice animation…

THE COUNTDOWN TO HALLOWEEN: DAY 26

(The Many Faces of Christopher Lee as Dracula)

Because Sir Christopher Lee nearly played Dracula silently,

his face usually told the tale for the viewer.

Here, Lee discusses trying to play Stoker's Dracula...

Here Christopher talks about life after Dracula and how he tried to escape type-casting:

And now hear Lee's lines as DRACULA....

To end our evening with Hammer's very own Dracula, a bit of music by

Toadies--my favorite song by these folks and one I'd never interpreted as a vampiric song until recently...

"Possum Kingdom"

THE COUNTDOWN TO HALLOWEEN: DAY 21

Born October 20, 1882...

Béla Ferenc Dezső Blaskó lies at rest in Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California.  And he has done so for over fifty years.  And yet it is as if the man is still alive.  His face, his voice, his manerisms are all remembered well to this day.  This was the man who made vampires charming and dark and powerful and commanding.

And even sexy.

This was Bela Lugosi.

Lugosi played Dracula unlike any before him and he was perfect for the role.  He was from the area, had the accent, but more than that--he emersed himself in the character.  His Dracula was like a bullfighter in that his movements were powerful, his command of the stage was complete.  He became the Prince of Darkness and he demanded not only the attention of his audience, but their respect and their awe.

And yet, because of his embodiment of the character, because of his absolute mastery of the imagination of the collective audience when it came to what and who Count Dracula was, his career was doomed to be limited or to quote the man himself, “I am definitely typed, doomed to be an exponent of evil.”  And, later, “Now I am the boogie man.”

And for his time he was one charming boogie man.

Will always be one sexy scary vampire.

And speaking of Draculas...

Sir Christopher Lee was given the British Institute Fellowship

from fellow actor and friend Johnny Depp at the ceremony.

At age 91 and with over 250 screen credits, what took them so long!

Here's a link to an article about the news:

Christopher Lee awarded Fellowship

And now here's a little appropriate music for the occasion...

STAY TUNED TO TCM at 6:15pm for...

EYE OF THE DEVIL

And finally, some more random Halloweenery...

(As always, Click to BEBIGIFY)