66 185 is seen on the Bootle branch between the sites of Stanley and Edge Lane stations which are now all but untraceable on what is now the freight only line from Liverpool Docks to Edge Hill. The loco is working a more lightly loaded than normal 4S38 14.24 Seaforth Docks Container Terminal to Mossend Yard.

Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!

2 Corinthians 9:15

BROTHER DUAN'S MIRACLE

Brother Duan was an elderly house church leader in northern China. He was traveling with a group of believers today to hear a dynamic Bible teacher, Brother Wang.

Duan asked, "What age is this Brother Wang?" When they told him he was in his early forties, a great look of pain swept across Duan's face. He said, "I once had a son. I knew him for only two months. Now he's dead, but had he lived, he would be forty-two today. My wife called him "Christmas' child," since he was born at Christmas time. I called him "Isaac," because we had despaired of never having a child. But ten years after we were married, along he came."

All looked at Duan as he continued, "I only saw him for two months." He then told them how he and his wife were greatly persecuted evangelists in the 1950's—both in great danger of arrest. So they offered their child to their enemy, two-fingered Wu and his wife, who were childless.

Duan never knew what happened until he came out of jail in 1978. His dear wife had died in the terrible famine of 1958. Their son had indeed been adopted by Wu, but the entire family had disappeared under the rubble when a devastating earthquake hit in 1975. Duan said sadly as they approached the meeting house, "God judged me for being so irresponsible with my little son."

There was a crowd of two hundred packed into the house and many outside at the windows. When Brother Wang began preaching, Duan got a terrible shock. It was like hearing himself. There was a commotion as he clawed his way to the window and looked at the preacher.

Hearing the commotion, the preacher stopped. There was minute of shocked silence as both men looked at each other. The physical likeness was amazing! Duan began to apologize, "I'm sorry Brother Wang for interrupting your excellent message. You see, I had a son who would be your age now. And if he had lived, he would have looked and sounded just like you."

Brother Wang began to tremble violently. Suddenly his legs buckled beneath him, and someone caught him before he fell down. Tears came into his eyes, and he whispered hoarsely, clutching his pounding chest, "Are you Daddy Duan?"

Everyone wept. Father and son were reunited after forty-two years. Wang had indeed been brought up by two-fingered Wu, who had been so impressed by Duan's act of giving that he became a strong believer. Wu used to say to him, "I'm not your real father. He is a great man of God, full of grace and love. He gave you to me, and I give you all my love, and the encouragement to put God first, just like your real father." Wang's adopted parents had moved away from the earthquake zone before the tragedy, and both died of cancer in their sixties. He became an evangelist, and tried to find his real father, but Duan had changed his name so many times to avoid arrest that he had proved untraceable, even to his son.

As father and son continued to hug and weep, the elder of the church stood up and declared, "It's December. We have seen our sermon tonight. "Christ came into the world to save sinners" - that is Christmas. Just as Duan handed his only son to the care of his enemy, so God handed over his own son to us sinners. Let us rejoice in their reconciliation and ours, too."

.

Standing Strong Through The Storm:

A daily devotional message by SSTS author Paul Estabrooks

© 2011 Open Doors International.

The Advanced Sith Fighter is my Latest Lego Ideas Project. This set has 800 pieces and this set has 4 Minifigure Which includes 2 Sith troopers from the Kotor game along with a sentinel droid and a Sith Dark Lord. It has A storage space on top were you can place a light saber in.

Characteristics

Like the standard Sith Starfighters in Revan's Sith Navy they are also a Hybrid of hybrid of various technologies—untraceable to any products originating from known Worlds unique to the Star Forge. It is a single seated starfighter with a cargo capacity of 80 kilograms twice as the regular Sith Starfighter. The fighter was powered by 4 Rakatan Made Ion Engines, that allowed it to reach speeds of 2,500 KM/H. it is also equipped with 6 Laser cannons and Rakatan made Missiles. It has 8 S-foils, 2 on top that can go in attack position when they closed and the 6 on the bottom can go ether up or down for an attack position. Or ether way you want it. Also it has 2 storage spaces were you can put your light shaft and your Lightsaber shaft in.

History

These Advanced Sith Starfighter Were seen at the bombing of Telos IV With some Sith bombers bombarding the city's tower defenses and bottomless places leaving the devastation and loss of thousands of lives. They were also seen at the Battle of Rakata Prime to defend the Star Forge from republic ships, they were easily geeting shot down when the tide was turning.

Downfall

After the end of the Jedi Civil War, these starfighters were recovered and usd by the Sith Triumvirate along with other Sith ships under the command of Darth Sion and Darth Nihilus.

If you like my project please support it.

ideas.lego.com/projects/87063

One of the best horror cards of the 1950s, the classic Curse of the Demon lobby #5, featuring a stunning close-up of the monster; ironically, this scene with the actual demon was added by the producers, over the objections of the film's director, Jacques Tourneur, who wanted to keep the threat more mysterious and unseen.

youtu.be/KcPcJ9ycEu4?t=2m22s Full Feature

This atmospheric British film, about a psychologist investigating a devil worshipping cult, features one of the most memorable creatures to come from horror films of the 1950s. The incredible monster showcased on this frightening one sheet is actually based on a woodcut print from a 1650s book on demonology. And even though the demon appears on this one sheet and in the film, director Jacques Tourneur didn't want to depict it, feeling that the mystery of what it looked like outweighed showing it.

Curse of the Demon / Night of the Demon

Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment

1957/58 / B&W / 1:78 anamorphic 16:9 / 82, 95 min. / Street Date August 13, 2002 / $24.95

Starring Dana Andrews, Peggy Cummins, Niall MacGinnis, Maurice Denham, Athene Seyler

Cinematography Ted Scaife

Production Designer Ken Adam

Special Effects George Blackwell, S.D. Onions, Wally Veevers

Film Editor Michael Gordon

Original Music Clifton Parker

Written by Charles Bennett and Hal E. Chester from the story Casting the Runes by Montague R. James

Produced by Frank Bevis, Hal E. Chester

Directed by Jacques Tourneur

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Savant champions a lot of genre movies but only infrequently does one appear like Jacques Tourneur's superlative Curse of the Demon. It's simply better than the rest -- an intelligent horror film with some very good scares. It occupies a stylistic space that sums up what's best in ghost stories and can hold its own with most any supernatural film ever made. Oh, it's also a great entertainment that never fails to put audiences at the edge of their seats.

What's more, Columbia TriStar has shown uncommon respect for their genre output by including both versions of Curse of the Demon on one disc. Savant has full coverage on the versions and their restoration below, following his thorough and analytical (read: long-winded and anal) coverage of the film itself.

Synopsis:

Dr. John Holden (Dana Andrews), a scientist and professional debunker of superstitious charlatans, arrives in England to help Professor Henry Harrington (Maurice Denham) assault the phony cult surrounding Dr. Julian Karswell (Niall McGinnis). But Harrington has mysteriously died and Holden becomes involved with his niece Joanna (Peggy Cummins), who thinks Karswell had something to do with it. Karswell's 'tricks' confuse the skeptical Holden, but he stubbornly holds on to his conviction that he's " ... not a sucker, like 90% of the human race." That is, until the evidence mounts that Harrington was indeed killed by a demon summoned from Hell, and that Holden is the next intended victim!

The majority of horror films are fantasies in which we accept supernatural ghosts, demons and monsters as part of a deal we've made with the authors: they dress the fantasy in an attractive guise and arrange the variables into an interesting pattern, and we agree to play along for the sake of enjoyment. When it works the movies can resonate with personal meaning. Even though Dracula and Frankenstein are unreal, they are relevant because they're aligned with ideas and themes in our subconscious.

Horror films that seriously confront the no-man's land between rational reality and supernatural belief have a tough time of it. Everyone who believes in God knows that the tug o' war between rationality and faith in our culture has become so clogged with insane belief systems it's considered impolite to dismiss people who believe in flying saucers or the powers of crystals or little glass pyramids. One of Dana Andrews' key lines in Curse of the Demon, defending his dogged skepticism against those urging him to have an open mind, is his retort, "If the world is a dark place ruled by Devils and Demons, we all might as well give up right now." Curse of the Demon balances itself between skepticism and belief with polite English manners, letting us have our fun as it lays its trap. We watch Andrews roll his eyes and scoff at the feeble séance hucksters and the dire warnings of a foolish-looking necromancer. Meanwhile, a whole dark world of horror sneaks up on him. The film's intelligent is such that we're not offended by its advocacy of dark forces or even its literal, in-your-face demon.

The remarkable Curse of the Demon was made in England for Columbia but is gloriously unaffected by that company's zero-zero track record with horror films. Producer Hal E. Chester would seem an odd choice to make a horror classic after producing Joe Palooka films and acting as a criminal punk in dozens of teen crime movies. The obvious strong cards are writer Charles Bennett, the brains behind several classic English Hitchcock pictures (who 'retired' into meaningless bliss writing for schlockmeister Irwin Allen) and Jacques Tourneur, a master stylist who put Val Lewton on the map with Cat People and I Walked With a Zombie. Tourneur made interesting Westerns (Canyon Passage, Great Day in the Morning) and perhaps the most romantic film noir, Out of the Past. By the late '50s he was on what Andrew Sarris in his American Film called 'a commercial downgrade'. The critic lumped Curse of the Demon with low budget American turkeys like The Fearmakers. 1

Put Tourneur with an intelligent script, a decent cameraman and more than a minimal budget and great things could happen. We're used to watching Corman Poe films, English Hammer films and Italian Bavas and Fredas, all the while making excuses for the shortcomings that keep them in the genre ghetto (where they all do quite well, thank you). There's even a veiled resentment against upscale shockers like The Innocents that have resources (money, time, great actors) denied our favorite toilers in the genre realm. Curse of the Demon is above all those considerations. It has name actors past their prime and reasonable production values. Its own studio (at least in America) released it like a genre quickie, double-billed with dreck like The Night the World Exploded and The Giant Claw. They cut it by 13 minutes, changed its title (to ape The Curse of Frankenstein?) and released a poster featuring a huge, slavering demon monster that some believe was originally meant to be barely glimpsed in the film itself. 2

Horror movies can work on more than one level but Curse of the Demon handles several levels and then some. The narrative sets up John Holden as a professional skeptic who raises a smirking eyebrow to the open minds of his colleagues. Unlike most second-banana scientists in horror films, they express divergent points of view. Holden just sees himself as having common sense but his peers are impressed by the consistency of demonological beliefs through history. Maybe they all saw Christensen's Witchcraft through the Ages, which might have served as a primer for author Charles Bennett. Smart dialogue allows Holden to score points by scoffing at the then-current "regression to past lives" scam popularized by the Bridey Murphy craze. 3 While Holden stays firmly rooted to his position, coining smart phrases and sarcastic put-downs of believers, the other scientists are at least willing to consider alternate possibilities. Indian colleague K.T. Kumar (Peter Elliott) keeps his opinion to himself. But when asked, he politely states that he believes entirely in the world of demons! 4

Holden may think he has the truth by the tail but it takes Kindergarten teacher Joanna Harrington (Peggy Cummins of Gun Crazy fame) to show him that being a skeptic doesn't mean ignoring facts in front of one's face. Always ready for a drink (a detail added to tailor the part to Andrews?), Holden spends the first couple of reels as interested in pursuing Miss Harrington, as he is the devil-worshippers. The details and coincidences pile up with alarming speed -- the disappearing ink untraceable by the lab, the visual distortions that might be induced by hypnosis, the pages torn from his date book and the parchment of runic symbols. Holden believes them to be props in a conspiracy to draw him into a vortex of doubt and fear. Is he being set up the way a Voodoo master cons his victim, by being told he will die, with fabricated clues to make it all appear real? Holden even gets a bar of sinister music stuck in his head. It's the title theme -- is this a wicked joke on movie soundtracks?

Speak of the Devil...

This brings us to the wonderful character of Julian Karswell, the kiddie-clown turned multi-millionaire cult leader. The man who launched Alfred Hitchcock as a maker of sophisticated thrillers here creates one of the most interesting villains ever written, one surely as good as any of Hitchcock's. In the short American cut Karswell is a shrewd games-player who shows Holden too many of his cards and finally outsmarts himself. The longer UK cut retains the full depth of his character.

Karswell has tapped into the secrets of demonology to gain riches and power, yet he tragically recognizes that he is as vulnerable to the forces of Hell as are the cowering minions he controls through fear. Karswell's coven means business. It's an entirely different conception from the aesthetic salon coffee klatch of The Seventh Victim, where nothing really supernatural happens and the only menace comes from a secret society committing new crimes to hide old ones.

Karswell keeps his vast following living in fear, and supporting his extravagant lifestyle under the idea that Evil is Good, and Good Evil. At first the Hobart Farm seems to harbor religious Christian fundamentalists who have turned their backs on their son. Then we find out that they're Karswell followers, living blighted lives on cursed acreage and bled dry by their cultist "leader." Karswell's mum (Athene Seyler) is an inversion of the usual insane Hitchcock mother. She lovingly resists her son's philosophy and actively tries to help the heroes. That's in the Night version, of course. In the shorter American cut she only makes silly attempts to interest Joanna in her available son and arranges for a séance. Concerned by his "negativity", Mother confronts Julian on the stairs. He has no friends, no wife, no family. He may be a mass extortionist but he's still her baby. Karswell explains that by exploiting his occult knowledge, he's immersed himself forever in Evil. "You get nothing for nothing"

Karswell is like the Devil on Earth, a force with very limited powers that he can't always control. By definition he cannot trust any of his own minions. They're unreliable, weak and prone to double-cross each other, and they attract publicity that makes a secret society difficult to conceal. He can't just kill Holden, as he hasn't a single henchman on the payroll. He instead summons the demon, a magic trick he's only recently mastered. When Karswell turns Harrington away in the first scene we can sense his loneliness. The only person who can possibly understand is right before him, finally willing to admit his power and perhaps even tolerate him. Karswell has no choice but to surrender Harrington over to the un-recallable Demon. In his dealings with the cult-debunker Holden, Karswell defends his turf but is also attempting to justify himself to a peer, another man who might be a potential equal. It's more than a duel of egos between a James Bond and a Goldfinger, with arrogance and aggression masking a mutual respect; Karswell knows he's taken Lewton's "wrong turning in life," and will have to pay for it eventually.

Karswell eventually earns Holden's respect, especially after the fearful testimony of Rand Hobart. It's taken an extreme demonstration to do it, but Holden budges from his smug position. He may not buy all of the demonology hocus-pocus but it's plain enough that Karswell or his "demon" is going to somehow rub him out. Seeking to sneak the parchment back into Karswell's possession, Holden becomes a worthy hero because he's found the maturity to question his own preconceptions. Armed with his rational, cool head, he's a force that makes Karswell -- without his demon, of course -- a relative weakling. Curse of the Demon ends in a classic ghost story twist, with just desserts dished out and balance recovered. The good characters are less sure of their world than when they started, but they're still able to cope. Evil has been defeated not by love or faith, but by intellect.

Curse of the Demon has the Val Lewton sensibility as has often been cited in Tourneur's frequent (and very effective) use of the device called the Lewton "Bus" -- a wholly artificial jolt of fast motion and noise interrupting a tense scene. There's an ultimate "bus" at the end when a train blasts in and sets us up for the end title. It "erases" the embracing actors behind it and I've always thought it had to be an inspiration for the last shot of North by NorthWest. The ever-playful Hitchcock was reportedly a big viewer of fantastic films, from which he seems to have gotten many ideas. He's said to have dined with Lewton on more than one occasion (makes sense, they were at one time both Selznick contractees) and carried on a covert competition with William Castle, of all people.

Visually, Tourneur's film is marvelous, effortlessly conjuring menacing forests lit in the fantastic Mario Bava mode by Ted Scaife, who was not known as a genre stylist. There are more than a few perfunctory sets, with some unflattering mattes used for airport interiors, etc.. Elsewhere we see beautiful designs by Ken Adam in one of his earliest outings. Karswell's ornate floor and central staircase evoke an Escher print, especially when visible/invisible hands appear on the banister. A hypnotic, maze-like set for a hotel corridor is also tainted by Escher and evokes a sense of the uncanny even better than the horrid sounds Holden hears. The build-up of terror is so effective that one rather unconvincing episode (a fight with a Cat People - like transforming cat) does no harm. Other effects, such as the demon footprints appearing in the forest, work beautifully.

In his Encyclopedia of Horror Movies Phil Hardy very rightly relates Curse of the Demon's emphasis on the visual to the then just-beginning Euro-horror subgenre. The works of Bava, Margheriti and Freda would make the photographic texture of the screen the prime element of their films, sometimes above acting and story logic.

Columbia TriStar's DVD of Curse of the Demon / Night of the Demon presents both versions of this classic in one package. American viewers saw an effective but abbreviated cut-down. If you've seen Curse of the Demon on cable TV or rented a VHS or a laser anytime after 1987, you're not going to see anything different in the film. In 1987 Columbia happened to pull out the English cut when it went to re-master. When the title came up as Night of the Demon, they just slugged in the Curse main title card and let it go.

From such a happy accident (believe me, nobody in charge at Columbia at the time would have purposely given a film like this a second glance) came a restoration at least as wonderful as the earlier reversion of The Fearless Vampire Killers to its original form. Genre fans were taken by surprise and the Laserdisc became a hot item that often traded for hundreds of dollars. 6

Back in film school Savant had been convinced that ever seeing the long, original Night cut was a lost cause. An excellent article in the old Photon magazine in the early '70s 5, before such analytical work was common, accurately laid out the differences between the two versions, something Savant needs to do sometime with The Damned and These Are the Damned. The Photon article very accurately describes the cut scenes and what the film lost without them, and certainly inspired many of the ideas here.

Being able to see the two versions back-to-back shows exactly how they differ. Curse omits some scenes and rearranges others. Gone is some narration from the title sequence, most of the airplane ride, some dialogue on the ground with the newsmen and several scenes with Karswell talking to his mother. Most crucially missing are Karswell's mother showing Joanna the cabalistic book everyone talks so much about and Holden's entire visit to the Hobart farm to secure a release for his examination of Rand Hobart. Of course the cut film still works (we loved the cut Curse at UCLA screenings and there are people who actually think it's better) but it's nowhere near as involving as the complete UK version. Curse also reshuffles some events, moving Holden's phantom encounter in the hallway nearer the beginning, which may have been to get a spooky scene in the middle section or to better disguise the loss of whole scenes later. The chop-job should have been obvious. The newly imposed fades and dissolves look awkward. One cut very sloppily happens right in the middle of a previous dissolve.

Night places both Andrews and Cummins' credits above the title and gives McGinnis an "also starring" credit immediately afterwards. Oddly, Curse sticks Cummins afterwards and relegates McGinnis to the top of the "also with" cast list. Maybe with his role chopped down, some Columbia executive thought he didn't deserve the billing?

Technically, both versions look just fine, very sharp and free of digital funk that would spoil the film's spooky visual texture. Night of the Demon is the version to watch for both content and quality. It's not perfect but has better contrast and less dirt than the American version. Curse has more emulsion scratches and flecking white dandruff in its dark scenes, yet looks fine until one sees the improvement of Night. Both shows are widescreen enhanced (hosanna), framing the action at its original tighter aspect ratio.

It's terrific that Columbia TriStar has brought out this film so thoughtfully, even though some viewers are going to be confused when their "double feature" disc appears to be two copies of the same movie. Let 'em stew. This is Savant's favorite release so far this year.

On a scale of Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor, Curse of the Demon / Night of the Demon rates:

Movie: Excellent

Footnotes:

Made very close to Curse of the Demon and starring Dana Andrews, The Fearmakers (great title) was a Savant must-see until he caught up with it in the UA collection at MGM. It's a pitiful no-budgeter that claims Madison Avenue was providing public relations for foreign subversives, and is negligible even in the lists of '50s anti-Commie films.

Return

Curse of the Demon's Demon has been the subject of debate ever since the heyday of Famous Monsters of Filmland. From what's on record it's clear that producer Chester added or maximized the shots of the creature, a literal visualization of a fiery, brimstone-smoking classical woodcut demon that some viewers think looks ridiculous. Bennett and Tourneur's original idea was to never show a demon but the producer changed that. Tourneur probably directed most of the shots, only to have Chester over-use them. To Savant's thinking, the demon looks great. It is first perceived as an ominous sound, a less strident version of the disturbing noise made by Them! Then it manifests itself visually as a strange disturbance in the sky (bubbles? sparks? early slit-scan?) followed by a billowing cloud of sulphurous smoke (a dandy effect not exploited again until Close Encounters of the Third Kind). The long-shot demon is sometimes called the bicycle demon because he's a rod puppet with legs that move on a wheel-rig. Smoke belches from all over his scaly body. Close-ups are provided by a wonderfully sculpted head 'n' shoulders demon with articulated eyes and lips, a full decade or so before Carlo Rambaldi started engineering such devices.

Most of the debate centers on how much Demon should have been shown with the general consensus that less would have been better. People who dote on Lewton-esque ambivalence say that the film's slow buildup of rationality-versus demonology is destroyed by the very real Demon's appearance in the first scene, and that's where they'd like it removed or radically reduced. The Demon is so nicely integrated into the cutting (the giant foot in the first scene is a real jolt) that it's likely that Tourneur himself filmed it all, perhaps expecting the shots to be shorter or more obscured. It is also possible that the giant head was a post-Tourneur addition - it doesn't tie in with the other shots as well (especially when it rolls forward rather stiffly) and is rather blunt. Detractors lump it in with the gawd-awful head of The Black Scorpion, which is filmed the same way and almost certainly was an afterthought - and also became a key poster image. This demon head matches the surrounding action a lot better than did the drooling Scorpion.

Savant wouldn't change Curse of the Demon but if you put a gun to my head I'd shorten most of the shots in its first appearance, perhaps eliminating all close-ups except for the final, superb shot of the the giant claw reaching for Harrington / us.

Kumar, played (I assume) by an Anglo actor, immediately evokes all those Indian and other Third World characters in Hammer films whose indigenous cultures invariably hold all manner of black magic and insidious horror. When Hammer films are repetitious it's because they take eighty minutes or so to convince the imagination-challenged English heroes to even consider the premise of the film as being real. In Curse of the Demon, Holden's smart-tongued dismissal of outside viewpoints seems much more pigheaded now than it did in 1957, when heroes confidently defended conformist values without being challenged. Kumar is a scientist but also probably a Hindu or a Sikh. He has no difficulty reconciling his faith with his scientific detachment. Holden is far too tactful to call Kumar a crazy third-world guru but that's probably what he's thinking. He instead politely ignores him. Good old Kumar then saves Holden's hide with some timely information. I hope Holden remembered to thank him.

There's an unstated conclusion in Curse of the Demon: Holden's rigid disbelief of the supernatural means he also does not believe in a Christian God with its fundamentally spiritual faith system of Good and Evil, saints and devils, angels and demons. Horror movies that deal directly with religious symbolism and "real faith" can be hypocritical in their exploitation and brutal in their cheap toying with what are for many people sacred personal concepts. I'm thinking of course of The Exorcist here. That movie has all the grace of a reporter who shows a serial killer's atrocity photos to a mother whose child has just been kidnapped. Curse of the Demon hasn't The Exorcist's ruthless commercial instincts but instead has the modesty not to pretend to be profound, or even "real." Yet it expresses our basic human conflict between rationality and faith very nicely.

Savant called Jim Wyrnoski, who was associated with Photon, in an effort to find out more about the article, namely who wrote it. It was very well done and I've never forgotten it; I unfortunately loaned my copy out to good old Jim Ursini and it disappeared. Obviously, a lot of the ideas here, I first read there. Perhaps a reader who knows better how to take care of their belongings can help me with the info? Ursini and Alain Silvers' More Things than are Dreamt Of Limelight, 1994, analyzes Curse of the Demon (and many other horror movies) in the context of its source story.

This is a true story: Cut to 2000. Columbia goes to re-master Curse of the Demon and finds that the fine-grain original of the English version is missing. The original long version of the movie may be lost forever. A few months later a collector appears who says he bought it from another unnamed collector and offers to trade it for a print copy of the American version, which he prefers. Luckily, an intermediary helps the collector follow up on his offer and the authorities are not contacted about what some would certainly call stolen property. The long version is now once again safe. Studios clearly need to defend their property but many collectors have "items" they personally have acquired legally. More often than you might think, such finds come about because studios throw away important elements. If the studios threaten prosecution, they will find that collectors will never approach them. They'd probably prefer to destroy irreplaceable film to avoid being criminalized.

youtu.be/KcPcJ9ycEu4?t=2m22s Full Feature

Curse of the Demon / Night of the Demon

Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment

1957/58 / B&W / 1:78 anamorphic 16:9 / 82, 95 min. / Street Date August 13, 2002 / $24.95

Starring Dana Andrews, Peggy Cummins, Niall MacGinnis, Maurice Denham, Athene Seyler

Cinematography Ted Scaife

Production Designer Ken Adam

Special Effects George Blackwell, S.D. Onions, Wally Veevers

Film Editor Michael Gordon

Original Music Clifton Parker

Written by Charles Bennett and Hal E. Chester from the story Casting the Runes by Montague R. James

Produced by Frank Bevis, Hal E. Chester

Directed by Jacques Tourneur

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Savant champions a lot of genre movies but only infrequently does one appear like Jacques Tourneur's superlative Curse of the Demon. It's simply better than the rest -- an intelligent horror film with some very good scares. It occupies a stylistic space that sums up what's best in ghost stories and can hold its own with most any supernatural film ever made. Oh, it's also a great entertainment that never fails to put audiences at the edge of their seats.

What's more, Columbia TriStar has shown uncommon respect for their genre output by including both versions of Curse of the Demon on one disc. Savant has full coverage on the versions and their restoration below, following his thorough and analytical (read: long-winded and anal) coverage of the film itself.

Synopsis:

Dr. John Holden (Dana Andrews), a scientist and professional debunker of superstitious charlatans, arrives in England to help Professor Henry Harrington (Maurice Denham) assault the phony cult surrounding Dr. Julian Karswell (Niall McGinnis). But Harrington has mysteriously died and Holden becomes involved with his niece Joanna (Peggy Cummins), who thinks Karswell had something to do with it. Karswell's 'tricks' confuse the skeptical Holden, but he stubbornly holds on to his conviction that he's " ... not a sucker, like 90% of the human race." That is, until the evidence mounts that Harrington was indeed killed by a demon summoned from Hell, and that Holden is the next intended victim!

The majority of horror films are fantasies in which we accept supernatural ghosts, demons and monsters as part of a deal we've made with the authors: they dress the fantasy in an attractive guise and arrange the variables into an interesting pattern, and we agree to play along for the sake of enjoyment. When it works the movies can resonate with personal meaning. Even though Dracula and Frankenstein are unreal, they are relevant because they're aligned with ideas and themes in our subconscious.

Horror films that seriously confront the no-man's land between rational reality and supernatural belief have a tough time of it. Everyone who believes in God knows that the tug o' war between rationality and faith in our culture has become so clogged with insane belief systems it's considered impolite to dismiss people who believe in flying saucers or the powers of crystals or little glass pyramids. One of Dana Andrews' key lines in Curse of the Demon, defending his dogged skepticism against those urging him to have an open mind, is his retort, "If the world is a dark place ruled by Devils and Demons, we all might as well give up right now." Curse of the Demon balances itself between skepticism and belief with polite English manners, letting us have our fun as it lays its trap. We watch Andrews roll his eyes and scoff at the feeble séance hucksters and the dire warnings of a foolish-looking necromancer. Meanwhile, a whole dark world of horror sneaks up on him. The film's intelligent is such that we're not offended by its advocacy of dark forces or even its literal, in-your-face demon.

The remarkable Curse of the Demon was made in England for Columbia but is gloriously unaffected by that company's zero-zero track record with horror films. Producer Hal E. Chester would seem an odd choice to make a horror classic after producing Joe Palooka films and acting as a criminal punk in dozens of teen crime movies. The obvious strong cards are writer Charles Bennett, the brains behind several classic English Hitchcock pictures (who 'retired' into meaningless bliss writing for schlockmeister Irwin Allen) and Jacques Tourneur, a master stylist who put Val Lewton on the map with Cat People and I Walked With a Zombie. Tourneur made interesting Westerns (Canyon Passage, Great Day in the Morning) and perhaps the most romantic film noir, Out of the Past. By the late '50s he was on what Andrew Sarris in his American Film called 'a commercial downgrade'. The critic lumped Curse of the Demon with low budget American turkeys like The Fearmakers. 1

Put Tourneur with an intelligent script, a decent cameraman and more than a minimal budget and great things could happen. We're used to watching Corman Poe films, English Hammer films and Italian Bavas and Fredas, all the while making excuses for the shortcomings that keep them in the genre ghetto (where they all do quite well, thank you). There's even a veiled resentment against upscale shockers like The Innocents that have resources (money, time, great actors) denied our favorite toilers in the genre realm. Curse of the Demon is above all those considerations. It has name actors past their prime and reasonable production values. Its own studio (at least in America) released it like a genre quickie, double-billed with dreck like The Night the World Exploded and The Giant Claw. They cut it by 13 minutes, changed its title (to ape The Curse of Frankenstein?) and released a poster featuring a huge, slavering demon monster that some believe was originally meant to be barely glimpsed in the film itself. 2

Horror movies can work on more than one level but Curse of the Demon handles several levels and then some. The narrative sets up John Holden as a professional skeptic who raises a smirking eyebrow to the open minds of his colleagues. Unlike most second-banana scientists in horror films, they express divergent points of view. Holden just sees himself as having common sense but his peers are impressed by the consistency of demonological beliefs through history. Maybe they all saw Christensen's Witchcraft through the Ages, which might have served as a primer for author Charles Bennett. Smart dialogue allows Holden to score points by scoffing at the then-current "regression to past lives" scam popularized by the Bridey Murphy craze. 3 While Holden stays firmly rooted to his position, coining smart phrases and sarcastic put-downs of believers, the other scientists are at least willing to consider alternate possibilities. Indian colleague K.T. Kumar (Peter Elliott) keeps his opinion to himself. But when asked, he politely states that he believes entirely in the world of demons! 4

Holden may think he has the truth by the tail but it takes Kindergarten teacher Joanna Harrington (Peggy Cummins of Gun Crazy fame) to show him that being a skeptic doesn't mean ignoring facts in front of one's face. Always ready for a drink (a detail added to tailor the part to Andrews?), Holden spends the first couple of reels as interested in pursuing Miss Harrington, as he is the devil-worshippers. The details and coincidences pile up with alarming speed -- the disappearing ink untraceable by the lab, the visual distortions that might be induced by hypnosis, the pages torn from his date book and the parchment of runic symbols. Holden believes them to be props in a conspiracy to draw him into a vortex of doubt and fear. Is he being set up the way a Voodoo master cons his victim, by being told he will die, with fabricated clues to make it all appear real? Holden even gets a bar of sinister music stuck in his head. It's the title theme -- is this a wicked joke on movie soundtracks?

Speak of the Devil...

This brings us to the wonderful character of Julian Karswell, the kiddie-clown turned multi-millionaire cult leader. The man who launched Alfred Hitchcock as a maker of sophisticated thrillers here creates one of the most interesting villains ever written, one surely as good as any of Hitchcock's. In the short American cut Karswell is a shrewd games-player who shows Holden too many of his cards and finally outsmarts himself. The longer UK cut retains the full depth of his character.

Karswell has tapped into the secrets of demonology to gain riches and power, yet he tragically recognizes that he is as vulnerable to the forces of Hell as are the cowering minions he controls through fear. Karswell's coven means business. It's an entirely different conception from the aesthetic salon coffee klatch of The Seventh Victim, where nothing really supernatural happens and the only menace comes from a secret society committing new crimes to hide old ones.

Karswell keeps his vast following living in fear, and supporting his extravagant lifestyle under the idea that Evil is Good, and Good Evil. At first the Hobart Farm seems to harbor religious Christian fundamentalists who have turned their backs on their son. Then we find out that they're Karswell followers, living blighted lives on cursed acreage and bled dry by their cultist "leader." Karswell's mum (Athene Seyler) is an inversion of the usual insane Hitchcock mother. She lovingly resists her son's philosophy and actively tries to help the heroes. That's in the Night version, of course. In the shorter American cut she only makes silly attempts to interest Joanna in her available son and arranges for a séance. Concerned by his "negativity", Mother confronts Julian on the stairs. He has no friends, no wife, no family. He may be a mass extortionist but he's still her baby. Karswell explains that by exploiting his occult knowledge, he's immersed himself forever in Evil. "You get nothing for nothing"

Karswell is like the Devil on Earth, a force with very limited powers that he can't always control. By definition he cannot trust any of his own minions. They're unreliable, weak and prone to double-cross each other, and they attract publicity that makes a secret society difficult to conceal. He can't just kill Holden, as he hasn't a single henchman on the payroll. He instead summons the demon, a magic trick he's only recently mastered. When Karswell turns Harrington away in the first scene we can sense his loneliness. The only person who can possibly understand is right before him, finally willing to admit his power and perhaps even tolerate him. Karswell has no choice but to surrender Harrington over to the un-recallable Demon. In his dealings with the cult-debunker Holden, Karswell defends his turf but is also attempting to justify himself to a peer, another man who might be a potential equal. It's more than a duel of egos between a James Bond and a Goldfinger, with arrogance and aggression masking a mutual respect; Karswell knows he's taken Lewton's "wrong turning in life," and will have to pay for it eventually.

Karswell eventually earns Holden's respect, especially after the fearful testimony of Rand Hobart. It's taken an extreme demonstration to do it, but Holden budges from his smug position. He may not buy all of the demonology hocus-pocus but it's plain enough that Karswell or his "demon" is going to somehow rub him out. Seeking to sneak the parchment back into Karswell's possession, Holden becomes a worthy hero because he's found the maturity to question his own preconceptions. Armed with his rational, cool head, he's a force that makes Karswell -- without his demon, of course -- a relative weakling. Curse of the Demon ends in a classic ghost story twist, with just desserts dished out and balance recovered. The good characters are less sure of their world than when they started, but they're still able to cope. Evil has been defeated not by love or faith, but by intellect.

Curse of the Demon has the Val Lewton sensibility as has often been cited in Tourneur's frequent (and very effective) use of the device called the Lewton "Bus" -- a wholly artificial jolt of fast motion and noise interrupting a tense scene. There's an ultimate "bus" at the end when a train blasts in and sets us up for the end title. It "erases" the embracing actors behind it and I've always thought it had to be an inspiration for the last shot of North by NorthWest. The ever-playful Hitchcock was reportedly a big viewer of fantastic films, from which he seems to have gotten many ideas. He's said to have dined with Lewton on more than one occasion (makes sense, they were at one time both Selznick contractees) and carried on a covert competition with William Castle, of all people.

Visually, Tourneur's film is marvelous, effortlessly conjuring menacing forests lit in the fantastic Mario Bava mode by Ted Scaife, who was not known as a genre stylist. There are more than a few perfunctory sets, with some unflattering mattes used for airport interiors, etc.. Elsewhere we see beautiful designs by Ken Adam in one of his earliest outings. Karswell's ornate floor and central staircase evoke an Escher print, especially when visible/invisible hands appear on the banister. A hypnotic, maze-like set for a hotel corridor is also tainted by Escher and evokes a sense of the uncanny even better than the horrid sounds Holden hears. The build-up of terror is so effective that one rather unconvincing episode (a fight with a Cat People - like transforming cat) does no harm. Other effects, such as the demon footprints appearing in the forest, work beautifully.

In his Encyclopedia of Horror Movies Phil Hardy very rightly relates Curse of the Demon's emphasis on the visual to the then just-beginning Euro-horror subgenre. The works of Bava, Margheriti and Freda would make the photographic texture of the screen the prime element of their films, sometimes above acting and story logic.

Columbia TriStar's DVD of Curse of the Demon / Night of the Demon presents both versions of this classic in one package. American viewers saw an effective but abbreviated cut-down. If you've seen Curse of the Demon on cable TV or rented a VHS or a laser anytime after 1987, you're not going to see anything different in the film. In 1987 Columbia happened to pull out the English cut when it went to re-master. When the title came up as Night of the Demon, they just slugged in the Curse main title card and let it go.

From such a happy accident (believe me, nobody in charge at Columbia at the time would have purposely given a film like this a second glance) came a restoration at least as wonderful as the earlier reversion of The Fearless Vampire Killers to its original form. Genre fans were taken by surprise and the Laserdisc became a hot item that often traded for hundreds of dollars. 6

Back in film school Savant had been convinced that ever seeing the long, original Night cut was a lost cause. An excellent article in the old Photon magazine in the early '70s 5, before such analytical work was common, accurately laid out the differences between the two versions, something Savant needs to do sometime with The Damned and These Are the Damned. The Photon article very accurately describes the cut scenes and what the film lost without them, and certainly inspired many of the ideas here.

Being able to see the two versions back-to-back shows exactly how they differ. Curse omits some scenes and rearranges others. Gone is some narration from the title sequence, most of the airplane ride, some dialogue on the ground with the newsmen and several scenes with Karswell talking to his mother. Most crucially missing are Karswell's mother showing Joanna the cabalistic book everyone talks so much about and Holden's entire visit to the Hobart farm to secure a release for his examination of Rand Hobart. Of course the cut film still works (we loved the cut Curse at UCLA screenings and there are people who actually think it's better) but it's nowhere near as involving as the complete UK version. Curse also reshuffles some events, moving Holden's phantom encounter in the hallway nearer the beginning, which may have been to get a spooky scene in the middle section or to better disguise the loss of whole scenes later. The chop-job should have been obvious. The newly imposed fades and dissolves look awkward. One cut very sloppily happens right in the middle of a previous dissolve.

Night places both Andrews and Cummins' credits above the title and gives McGinnis an "also starring" credit immediately afterwards. Oddly, Curse sticks Cummins afterwards and relegates McGinnis to the top of the "also with" cast list. Maybe with his role chopped down, some Columbia executive thought he didn't deserve the billing?

Technically, both versions look just fine, very sharp and free of digital funk that would spoil the film's spooky visual texture. Night of the Demon is the version to watch for both content and quality. It's not perfect but has better contrast and less dirt than the American version. Curse has more emulsion scratches and flecking white dandruff in its dark scenes, yet looks fine until one sees the improvement of Night. Both shows are widescreen enhanced (hosanna), framing the action at its original tighter aspect ratio.

It's terrific that Columbia TriStar has brought out this film so thoughtfully, even though some viewers are going to be confused when their "double feature" disc appears to be two copies of the same movie. Let 'em stew. This is Savant's favorite release so far this year.

On a scale of Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor, Curse of the Demon / Night of the Demon rates:

Movie: Excellent

Footnotes:

Made very close to Curse of the Demon and starring Dana Andrews, The Fearmakers (great title) was a Savant must-see until he caught up with it in the UA collection at MGM. It's a pitiful no-budgeter that claims Madison Avenue was providing public relations for foreign subversives, and is negligible even in the lists of '50s anti-Commie films.

Return

Curse of the Demon's Demon has been the subject of debate ever since the heyday of Famous Monsters of Filmland. From what's on record it's clear that producer Chester added or maximized the shots of the creature, a literal visualization of a fiery, brimstone-smoking classical woodcut demon that some viewers think looks ridiculous. Bennett and Tourneur's original idea was to never show a demon but the producer changed that. Tourneur probably directed most of the shots, only to have Chester over-use them. To Savant's thinking, the demon looks great. It is first perceived as an ominous sound, a less strident version of the disturbing noise made by Them! Then it manifests itself visually as a strange disturbance in the sky (bubbles? sparks? early slit-scan?) followed by a billowing cloud of sulphurous smoke (a dandy effect not exploited again until Close Encounters of the Third Kind). The long-shot demon is sometimes called the bicycle demon because he's a rod puppet with legs that move on a wheel-rig. Smoke belches from all over his scaly body. Close-ups are provided by a wonderfully sculpted head 'n' shoulders demon with articulated eyes and lips, a full decade or so before Carlo Rambaldi started engineering such devices.

Most of the debate centers on how much Demon should have been shown with the general consensus that less would have been better. People who dote on Lewton-esque ambivalence say that the film's slow buildup of rationality-versus demonology is destroyed by the very real Demon's appearance in the first scene, and that's where they'd like it removed or radically reduced. The Demon is so nicely integrated into the cutting (the giant foot in the first scene is a real jolt) that it's likely that Tourneur himself filmed it all, perhaps expecting the shots to be shorter or more obscured. It is also possible that the giant head was a post-Tourneur addition - it doesn't tie in with the other shots as well (especially when it rolls forward rather stiffly) and is rather blunt. Detractors lump it in with the gawd-awful head of The Black Scorpion, which is filmed the same way and almost certainly was an afterthought - and also became a key poster image. This demon head matches the surrounding action a lot better than did the drooling Scorpion.

Savant wouldn't change Curse of the Demon but if you put a gun to my head I'd shorten most of the shots in its first appearance, perhaps eliminating all close-ups except for the final, superb shot of the the giant claw reaching for Harrington / us.

Kumar, played (I assume) by an Anglo actor, immediately evokes all those Indian and other Third World characters in Hammer films whose indigenous cultures invariably hold all manner of black magic and insidious horror. When Hammer films are repetitious it's because they take eighty minutes or so to convince the imagination-challenged English heroes to even consider the premise of the film as being real. In Curse of the Demon, Holden's smart-tongued dismissal of outside viewpoints seems much more pigheaded now than it did in 1957, when heroes confidently defended conformist values without being challenged. Kumar is a scientist but also probably a Hindu or a Sikh. He has no difficulty reconciling his faith with his scientific detachment. Holden is far too tactful to call Kumar a crazy third-world guru but that's probably what he's thinking. He instead politely ignores him. Good old Kumar then saves Holden's hide with some timely information. I hope Holden remembered to thank him.

There's an unstated conclusion in Curse of the Demon: Holden's rigid disbelief of the supernatural means he also does not believe in a Christian God with its fundamentally spiritual faith system of Good and Evil, saints and devils, angels and demons. Horror movies that deal directly with religious symbolism and "real faith" can be hypocritical in their exploitation and brutal in their cheap toying with what are for many people sacred personal concepts. I'm thinking of course of The Exorcist here. That movie has all the grace of a reporter who shows a serial killer's atrocity photos to a mother whose child has just been kidnapped. Curse of the Demon hasn't The Exorcist's ruthless commercial instincts but instead has the modesty not to pretend to be profound, or even "real." Yet it expresses our basic human conflict between rationality and faith very nicely.

Savant called Jim Wyrnoski, who was associated with Photon, in an effort to find out more about the article, namely who wrote it. It was very well done and I've never forgotten it; I unfortunately loaned my copy out to good old Jim Ursini and it disappeared. Obviously, a lot of the ideas here, I first read there. Perhaps a reader who knows better how to take care of their belongings can help me with the info? Ursini and Alain Silvers' More Things than are Dreamt Of Limelight, 1994, analyzes Curse of the Demon (and many other horror movies) in the context of its source story.

This is a true story: Cut to 2000. Columbia goes to re-master Curse of the Demon and finds that the fine-grain original of the English version is missing. The original long version of the movie may be lost forever. A few months later a collector appears who says he bought it from another unnamed collector and offers to trade it for a print copy of the American version, which he prefers. Luckily, an intermediary helps the collector follow up on his offer and the authorities are not contacted about what some would certainly call stolen property. The long version is now once again safe. Studios clearly need to defend their property but many collectors have "items" they personally have acquired legally. More often than you might think, such finds come about because studios throw away important elements. If the studios threaten prosecution, they will find that collectors will never approach them. They'd probably prefer to destroy irreplaceable film to avoid being criminalized.

This old Fiesta has clearly been abandoned for a while now and a little vandalised. It wears a private plate which must be worth a bit, however isn't currently on a car. The hedge has grown quite nicely around it. Strange as this was parked around the corner from a large residential area, so I wonder why it's here and hasn't been moved yet. I can't trace this car at all- I don't know if it was stolen in the past or something.

A SOOC image from the beautiful sunset and twilight over Toronto. I went back to the place where I shot the image titled "Search", hoping to shoot some beautiful sunset.. I was rather disappointed by the lack of clouds, but it made for a spectacular and clean twilight over the Toronto skyline.

Shot with NDx8 (3 stop) filter and 30 second exposure to blur the water surface :)

--

So it's been a long time since I replied to a tag... Let's see..

Would You Rather:

1. Pierce your nose or tongue: tongue

2. Be serious or be funny: funny

3. Drink whole or skim milk: whole.. how about 4% m.f.? Delicious!

4. Die in a fire or get strangled? Who comes up with questions like this?

5. Spend time with your parents or enemies: parents

Truth:

1. Do you like anyone: I "like" many people. But I guess I'm still recovering from 6 year long relationship that ended last year.

2. Sun or moon: Sun!

3. Winter or Summer: Summer. I absolutely dread winter.

4. Left or right: centre-left

5. 10 acquaintances or two best friends: two best friends

6. Sunny or rainy: Sunny as hell!

Me:

1. What time is it: 1:37 am

2. First Name: Jin

3. Where do you wanna live: Toronto, NYC, Somewhere in Korea..

4. How many kids do you want: 2

5. Do you want to get married: yes

6. Do you twirl your spaghetti or cut it: Do people eat spaghetti with fork and knife?? How do you cut it?

7. Have you ever eaten spam: Yap. Mmmm untraceable and indistinguishable mass of random bits of meat...

8. Favorite ice cream: Rainbow Sherbet!!! Absolute favourite!

9. How many kinds of cereal are in your cabinet: Don't cereal that much. Koreans don't do cereal, folks :P

10. Do you cook: Eggs count? My signature sandwich: Banana and peanut butter!

11. Current mood: Super tired.. just finished pushups, about to do some curls ... sigh

Last 48 Hours:

1. Kissed some one: Yap.. kiss my mum

2. Sang: Hallelujah!

3. Been hugged: Positive

4. Felt stupid: Weirdly, not today.. I do often..

5. Missed someone: My sister.. She's such a sweetheart.

6. Danced Crazy: ....... Nope

7. Gotten your hair cut: I would like to ask: of all people who answers this question, how many people would have said yes? Not many would be my guess.

8. Cried: Nope

Stuff:

1. Have you ever been searched by the cops: Weirdly, I have been questioned by them once.

2. Do you have a Dog: Used to.. Would love one.

3. When's the last time you've been sledding: Never

4. Would you rather sleep with someone else or alone? Alone. Light sleeper.

5. Do you believe in ghosts: This is a subject that I can write an essay about. In short, it depends what one means by ghosts.

6. Do you consider yourself creative: MmmHmm

7. Do you think you're pretty: I'd probably require a therapy session if I do

8. Have you ever drank milk straight from the carton: Nope

9. Do you like to dance: ... Ball room dancing? No..

10. Are you sitting next to someone right now: Nope

That was really really long!

www.jinchoiphotography.com

title: Mooji

Canon EOS 5

Canon EF 50/1.4 USM

Fuji Superia 200 expired in 2010.

Hi there - I know there's been a couple of posts on Reddit, but I'm getting loads of untraceable views on this image as well. I'd love to know where from! If you got here from another source, could you drop a comment and let me know where from? Cheers!

36/365

Macro Mondays: 10-04-26

Theme: Nursery Rhymes

An Apple a Day Nursery Rhyme / Poem

The simple meaning behind the sentiment expressed in 'An apple a day' poem is one to encourage the child to eat healthily and wisely that is An apple a day! Although perhaps 'Doctor' could be replaced with 'Dentist' in a modern day version of this poem of "An apple a day" - delicious! The author of the poem "An apple a day" is unknown and the first publication date has been untraceable.

Also shot for

The Daily Shoot #161 Challenge: Side lighting can emphasize texture and add depth to a photo. Make a dramatic photo with side lighting today.

dailyshoot.com

Shot with a Canon 50D camera and a 17-85mm Canon lens with a macro filter

youtu.be/KcPcJ9ycEu4?t=2m22s Full Feature

Paving for the way for later occult classics like Rosemary’s Baby and The Wicker Man, Night of the Demon is a spooky tale of witchcraft in modern Britain. With Jacques Tourneur’s film opening the BFI’s Monster Weekend, curator Vic Pratt explains why it’s a masterpiece of fright.

Vic Pratt

Wednesday, 21 August 2013

Night of the Demon (1957)

Night of the Demon screens on 29 August as part of the BFI’s Monster Weekend at the British Museum.

Gothic: The Dark Heart of Film is a major four-month film season at BFI Southbank and across the UK from October 2013 to January 2014.

I’ve loved Night of the Demon (1957) since I first watched it on telly many moons ago with my Dad. I was just a kid at the time, and yes, it may have been past my bedtime, so the thrill of staying up late to see it might have meant I enjoyed it all the more. But ever since then, it’s been a firm favourite of mine.

Looking back at it with an adult eye, you can see that it’s a film that belongs on any decent foundation course in cinematic horror. Beautifully constructed and ingeniously fashioned by master film-craftsmen, it remains a haunting, chillingly plausible tale of witchcraft and the occult, and the conflict between rationality and superstition.

But back when I was a fresh-faced child, I didn’t care about that. I was far more interested in the creepy demon of the title. That writhing, nasty-faced, woodcut-like creature – his arrival heralded by strange squealing strains, unsettling jangling noises, smoky footprints, and bizarre star-spangled puffs of smoke – captured my youthful imagination.

I didn’t know it at the time, but the film was directed by a master of spooky, suspenseful, atmospheric cinema, the great Jacques Tourneur. I found out about him later on, as a teenager. Tourneur’s shadowy, moody films – which seemed to mix Gothic themes with film noir-ish imagery – had an immediate appeal.

French born, but later active in the USA, he shot a string of low-budget classics in the 1940s for Val Lewton’s B-picture unit at RKO. If that had been that, and he’d packed it in then, his reputation would already have been assured. The man who’d made Cat People (1942) and I Walked with a Zombie (1943) certainly had nothing to prove. But Tourneur was not a man to rest on his laurels. He carried on, moved into bigger budget productions, and, some years later, shot a Gothic chiller about modern-day witchcraft in England. It was called Night of the Demon. And it might even be the best of the bunch.

The film was adapted from M.R. James’s short story ‘Casting the Runes’ by Hitchcock collaborator Charles Bennett, and it grips from the very beginning. Dana Andrews, playing sceptical American psychologist Holden, scoffs when he’s passed a cursed piece of parchment in the British Museum reading room by genial occultist Dr Karswell (masterfully played by Niall MacGinnis). It means that he’s scheduled to die at the demon’s hand within four days. Holden doesn’t believe it. But – having spotted that monster in the first reel – we viewers know better than the sometimes irritatingly sure-of-himself scientist. And so Holden is dragged ever further into a web of devilry, while perceptive Joanna (the wonderful Peggy Cummins) races against time to convince him that it’s not all just flim-flam.

But you can see why Holden takes some convincing. While Karswell really is the possessor of strange powers, he acts like a show-off schoolboy conjuror spoiling the summer fete. A petulant, overgrown rich-kid know-all who lives with his mother, occasionally dabbling as a children’s entertainer, he’s a modern-day sorcerer who really doesn’t understand the seriousness of the dark forces at his command – and doesn’t much care either.

In one splendid scene, set at his grand country house, merely to demonstrate his powers to the resolutely sceptical Holden, Karswell conjures up a whirlwind out of nowhere, and smiles smugly as terrified children – whom he entertained, dressed as a clown, moments earlier – run screaming across the grounds of his stately pile. “A medieval witch’s speciality: a wind storm,” he gloats. He’s ruined their party.

Shot in broad daylight, this eerie, darkly humorous scene demonstrates that good Gothic doesn’t need to take place at night, or even in a creepy castle; and that Tourneur is a master of mood, whatever the setting. And something tells me our old friend Alfred Hitchcock watched it closely: it foreshadows a somewhat similar silly-sinister sequence in The Birds (1963) where a flap of feathered beasts suddenly dive bomb the children to spoil yet another tea-party on the lawn.

A disrupted children’s party was a million miles away from the censor-shocking, blood-spattered Hammer horrors that were poised to take the world by storm at the end of the 1950s; but this film, though perhaps harking back to an earlier era, was no less brilliant than those.

Despite the monster, Night of the Demon is a cerebral piece: it chills viewers intelligently, slowly, and fills them with an ominous sense of impending dread and looming, inevitable disaster, leavened with dark, dry dashes of humour and irony – tactics that, once again, bring to mind a certain Mr Hitchcock. And what’s more, it makes witchcraft creepily contemporary. Modern-day malevolence of this kind would be the centrepiece of numerous films still to come, such as Night of the Eagle (1962), Rosemary’s Baby (1968) and The Wicker Man (1973), to name but a few.

Night of the Demon has now been remastered by the BFI National Archive, and the full-length British version now stands ready to be unleashed on cinema screens once more. If you haven’t seen it before, you should. And while that old demon lurking in the shadows at the centre of it all has had some bad press over the years – many critics think we meet him too early, or even that we shouldn’t meet him at all – my childhood self would beg to differ. He had quite an effect on me in my formative years, and my adult self will hear nothing bad said about him. He belongs exactly where he is, forever swirling malevolently in the smoke, at the heart of Night of the Demon.

Curse of the Demon / Night of the Demon

Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment

1957/58 / B&W / 1:78 anamorphic 16:9 / 82, 95 min. / Street Date August 13, 2002 / $24.95

Starring Dana Andrews, Peggy Cummins, Niall MacGinnis, Maurice Denham, Athene Seyler

Cinematography Ted Scaife

Production Designer Ken Adam

Special Effects George Blackwell, S.D. Onions, Wally Veevers

Film Editor Michael Gordon

Original Music Clifton Parker

Written by Charles Bennett and Hal E. Chester from the story Casting the Runes by Montague R. James

Produced by Frank Bevis, Hal E. Chester

Directed by Jacques Tourneur

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Savant champions a lot of genre movies but only infrequently does one appear like Jacques Tourneur's superlative Curse of the Demon. It's simply better than the rest -- an intelligent horror film with some very good scares. It occupies a stylistic space that sums up what's best in ghost stories and can hold its own with most any supernatural film ever made. Oh, it's also a great entertainment that never fails to put audiences at the edge of their seats.

What's more, Columbia TriStar has shown uncommon respect for their genre output by including both versions of Curse of the Demon on one disc. Savant has full coverage on the versions and their restoration below, following his thorough and analytical (read: long-winded and anal) coverage of the film itself.

Synopsis:

Dr. John Holden (Dana Andrews), a scientist and professional debunker of superstitious charlatans, arrives in England to help Professor Henry Harrington (Maurice Denham) assault the phony cult surrounding Dr. Julian Karswell (Niall McGinnis). But Harrington has mysteriously died and Holden becomes involved with his niece Joanna (Peggy Cummins), who thinks Karswell had something to do with it. Karswell's 'tricks' confuse the skeptical Holden, but he stubbornly holds on to his conviction that he's " ... not a sucker, like 90% of the human race." That is, until the evidence mounts that Harrington was indeed killed by a demon summoned from Hell, and that Holden is the next intended victim!

The majority of horror films are fantasies in which we accept supernatural ghosts, demons and monsters as part of a deal we've made with the authors: they dress the fantasy in an attractive guise and arrange the variables into an interesting pattern, and we agree to play along for the sake of enjoyment. When it works the movies can resonate with personal meaning. Even though Dracula and Frankenstein are unreal, they are relevant because they're aligned with ideas and themes in our subconscious.

Horror films that seriously confront the no-man's land between rational reality and supernatural belief have a tough time of it. Everyone who believes in God knows that the tug o' war between rationality and faith in our culture has become so clogged with insane belief systems it's considered impolite to dismiss people who believe in flying saucers or the powers of crystals or little glass pyramids. One of Dana Andrews' key lines in Curse of the Demon, defending his dogged skepticism against those urging him to have an open mind, is his retort, "If the world is a dark place ruled by Devils and Demons, we all might as well give up right now." Curse of the Demon balances itself between skepticism and belief with polite English manners, letting us have our fun as it lays its trap. We watch Andrews roll his eyes and scoff at the feeble séance hucksters and the dire warnings of a foolish-looking necromancer. Meanwhile, a whole dark world of horror sneaks up on him. The film's intelligent is such that we're not offended by its advocacy of dark forces or even its literal, in-your-face demon.

The remarkable Curse of the Demon was made in England for Columbia but is gloriously unaffected by that company's zero-zero track record with horror films. Producer Hal E. Chester would seem an odd choice to make a horror classic after producing Joe Palooka films and acting as a criminal punk in dozens of teen crime movies. The obvious strong cards are writer Charles Bennett, the brains behind several classic English Hitchcock pictures (who 'retired' into meaningless bliss writing for schlockmeister Irwin Allen) and Jacques Tourneur, a master stylist who put Val Lewton on the map with Cat People and I Walked With a Zombie. Tourneur made interesting Westerns (Canyon Passage, Great Day in the Morning) and perhaps the most romantic film noir, Out of the Past. By the late '50s he was on what Andrew Sarris in his American Film called 'a commercial downgrade'. The critic lumped Curse of the Demon with low budget American turkeys like The Fearmakers. 1

Put Tourneur with an intelligent script, a decent cameraman and more than a minimal budget and great things could happen. We're used to watching Corman Poe films, English Hammer films and Italian Bavas and Fredas, all the while making excuses for the shortcomings that keep them in the genre ghetto (where they all do quite well, thank you). There's even a veiled resentment against upscale shockers like The Innocents that have resources (money, time, great actors) denied our favorite toilers in the genre realm. Curse of the Demon is above all those considerations. It has name actors past their prime and reasonable production values. Its own studio (at least in America) released it like a genre quickie, double-billed with dreck like The Night the World Exploded and The Giant Claw. They cut it by 13 minutes, changed its title (to ape The Curse of Frankenstein?) and released a poster featuring a huge, slavering demon monster that some believe was originally meant to be barely glimpsed in the film itself. 2

Horror movies can work on more than one level but Curse of the Demon handles several levels and then some. The narrative sets up John Holden as a professional skeptic who raises a smirking eyebrow to the open minds of his colleagues. Unlike most second-banana scientists in horror films, they express divergent points of view. Holden just sees himself as having common sense but his peers are impressed by the consistency of demonological beliefs through history. Maybe they all saw Christensen's Witchcraft through the Ages, which might have served as a primer for author Charles Bennett. Smart dialogue allows Holden to score points by scoffing at the then-current "regression to past lives" scam popularized by the Bridey Murphy craze. 3 While Holden stays firmly rooted to his position, coining smart phrases and sarcastic put-downs of believers, the other scientists are at least willing to consider alternate possibilities. Indian colleague K.T. Kumar (Peter Elliott) keeps his opinion to himself. But when asked, he politely states that he believes entirely in the world of demons! 4

Holden may think he has the truth by the tail but it takes Kindergarten teacher Joanna Harrington (Peggy Cummins of Gun Crazy fame) to show him that being a skeptic doesn't mean ignoring facts in front of one's face. Always ready for a drink (a detail added to tailor the part to Andrews?), Holden spends the first couple of reels as interested in pursuing Miss Harrington, as he is the devil-worshippers. The details and coincidences pile up with alarming speed -- the disappearing ink untraceable by the lab, the visual distortions that might be induced by hypnosis, the pages torn from his date book and the parchment of runic symbols. Holden believes them to be props in a conspiracy to draw him into a vortex of doubt and fear. Is he being set up the way a Voodoo master cons his victim, by being told he will die, with fabricated clues to make it all appear real? Holden even gets a bar of sinister music stuck in his head. It's the title theme -- is this a wicked joke on movie soundtracks?

Speak of the Devil...

This brings us to the wonderful character of Julian Karswell, the kiddie-clown turned multi-millionaire cult leader. The man who launched Alfred Hitchcock as a maker of sophisticated thrillers here creates one of the most interesting villains ever written, one surely as good as any of Hitchcock's. In the short American cut Karswell is a shrewd games-player who shows Holden too many of his cards and finally outsmarts himself. The longer UK cut retains the full depth of his character.

Karswell has tapped into the secrets of demonology to gain riches and power, yet he tragically recognizes that he is as vulnerable to the forces of Hell as are the cowering minions he controls through fear. Karswell's coven means business. It's an entirely different conception from the aesthetic salon coffee klatch of The Seventh Victim, where nothing really supernatural happens and the only menace comes from a secret society committing new crimes to hide old ones.

Karswell keeps his vast following living in fear, and supporting his extravagant lifestyle under the idea that Evil is Good, and Good Evil. At first the Hobart Farm seems to harbor religious Christian fundamentalists who have turned their backs on their son. Then we find out that they're Karswell followers, living blighted lives on cursed acreage and bled dry by their cultist "leader." Karswell's mum (Athene Seyler) is an inversion of the usual insane Hitchcock mother. She lovingly resists her son's philosophy and actively tries to help the heroes. That's in the Night version, of course. In the shorter American cut she only makes silly attempts to interest Joanna in her available son and arranges for a séance. Concerned by his "negativity", Mother confronts Julian on the stairs. He has no friends, no wife, no family. He may be a mass extortionist but he's still her baby. Karswell explains that by exploiting his occult knowledge, he's immersed himself forever in Evil. "You get nothing for nothing"

Karswell is like the Devil on Earth, a force with very limited powers that he can't always control. By definition he cannot trust any of his own minions. They're unreliable, weak and prone to double-cross each other, and they attract publicity that makes a secret society difficult to conceal. He can't just kill Holden, as he hasn't a single henchman on the payroll. He instead summons the demon, a magic trick he's only recently mastered. When Karswell turns Harrington away in the first scene we can sense his loneliness. The only person who can possibly understand is right before him, finally willing to admit his power and perhaps even tolerate him. Karswell has no choice but to surrender Harrington over to the un-recallable Demon. In his dealings with the cult-debunker Holden, Karswell defends his turf but is also attempting to justify himself to a peer, another man who might be a potential equal. It's more than a duel of egos between a James Bond and a Goldfinger, with arrogance and aggression masking a mutual respect; Karswell knows he's taken Lewton's "wrong turning in life," and will have to pay for it eventually.

Karswell eventually earns Holden's respect, especially after the fearful testimony of Rand Hobart. It's taken an extreme demonstration to do it, but Holden budges from his smug position. He may not buy all of the demonology hocus-pocus but it's plain enough that Karswell or his "demon" is going to somehow rub him out. Seeking to sneak the parchment back into Karswell's possession, Holden becomes a worthy hero because he's found the maturity to question his own preconceptions. Armed with his rational, cool head, he's a force that makes Karswell -- without his demon, of course -- a relative weakling. Curse of the Demon ends in a classic ghost story twist, with just desserts dished out and balance recovered. The good characters are less sure of their world than when they started, but they're still able to cope. Evil has been defeated not by love or faith, but by intellect.

Curse of the Demon has the Val Lewton sensibility as has often been cited in Tourneur's frequent (and very effective) use of the device called the Lewton "Bus" -- a wholly artificial jolt of fast motion and noise interrupting a tense scene. There's an ultimate "bus" at the end when a train blasts in and sets us up for the end title. It "erases" the embracing actors behind it and I've always thought it had to be an inspiration for the last shot of North by NorthWest. The ever-playful Hitchcock was reportedly a big viewer of fantastic films, from which he seems to have gotten many ideas. He's said to have dined with Lewton on more than one occasion (makes sense, they were at one time both Selznick contractees) and carried on a covert competition with William Castle, of all people.

Visually, Tourneur's film is marvelous, effortlessly conjuring menacing forests lit in the fantastic Mario Bava mode by Ted Scaife, who was not known as a genre stylist. There are more than a few perfunctory sets, with some unflattering mattes used for airport interiors, etc.. Elsewhere we see beautiful designs by Ken Adam in one of his earliest outings. Karswell's ornate floor and central staircase evoke an Escher print, especially when visible/invisible hands appear on the banister. A hypnotic, maze-like set for a hotel corridor is also tainted by Escher and evokes a sense of the uncanny even better than the horrid sounds Holden hears. The build-up of terror is so effective that one rather unconvincing episode (a fight with a Cat People - like transforming cat) does no harm. Other effects, such as the demon footprints appearing in the forest, work beautifully.

In his Encyclopedia of Horror Movies Phil Hardy very rightly relates Curse of the Demon's emphasis on the visual to the then just-beginning Euro-horror subgenre. The works of Bava, Margheriti and Freda would make the photographic texture of the screen the prime element of their films, sometimes above acting and story logic.

Columbia TriStar's DVD of Curse of the Demon / Night of the Demon presents both versions of this classic in one package. American viewers saw an effective but abbreviated cut-down. If you've seen Curse of the Demon on cable TV or rented a VHS or a laser anytime after 1987, you're not going to see anything different in the film. In 1987 Columbia happened to pull out the English cut when it went to re-master. When the title came up as Night of the Demon, they just slugged in the Curse main title card and let it go.

From such a happy accident (believe me, nobody in charge at Columbia at the time would have purposely given a film like this a second glance) came a restoration at least as wonderful as the earlier reversion of The Fearless Vampire Killers to its original form. Genre fans were taken by surprise and the Laserdisc became a hot item that often traded for hundreds of dollars. 6

Back in film school Savant had been convinced that ever seeing the long, original Night cut was a lost cause. An excellent article in the old Photon magazine in the early '70s 5, before such analytical work was common, accurately laid out the differences between the two versions, something Savant needs to do sometime with The Damned and These Are the Damned. The Photon article very accurately describes the cut scenes and what the film lost without them, and certainly inspired many of the ideas here.

Being able to see the two versions back-to-back shows exactly how they differ. Curse omits some scenes and rearranges others. Gone is some narration from the title sequence, most of the airplane ride, some dialogue on the ground with the newsmen and several scenes with Karswell talking to his mother. Most crucially missing are Karswell's mother showing Joanna the cabalistic book everyone talks so much about and Holden's entire visit to the Hobart farm to secure a release for his examination of Rand Hobart. Of course the cut film still works (we loved the cut Curse at UCLA screenings and there are people who actually think it's better) but it's nowhere near as involving as the complete UK version. Curse also reshuffles some events, moving Holden's phantom encounter in the hallway nearer the beginning, which may have been to get a spooky scene in the middle section or to better disguise the loss of whole scenes later. The chop-job should have been obvious. The newly imposed fades and dissolves look awkward. One cut very sloppily happens right in the middle of a previous dissolve.

Night places both Andrews and Cummins' credits above the title and gives McGinnis an "also starring" credit immediately afterwards. Oddly, Curse sticks Cummins afterwards and relegates McGinnis to the top of the "also with" cast list. Maybe with his role chopped down, some Columbia executive thought he didn't deserve the billing?

Technically, both versions look just fine, very sharp and free of digital funk that would spoil the film's spooky visual texture. Night of the Demon is the version to watch for both content and quality. It's not perfect but has better contrast and less dirt than the American version. Curse has more emulsion scratches and flecking white dandruff in its dark scenes, yet looks fine until one sees the improvement of Night. Both shows are widescreen enhanced (hosanna), framing the action at its original tighter aspect ratio.

It's terrific that Columbia TriStar has brought out this film so thoughtfully, even though some viewers are going to be confused when their "double feature" disc appears to be two copies of the same movie. Let 'em stew. This is Savant's favorite release so far this year.

On a scale of Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor, Curse of the Demon / Night of the Demon rates:

Movie: Excellent

Footnotes:

Made very close to Curse of the Demon and starring Dana Andrews, The Fearmakers (great title) was a Savant must-see until he caught up with it in the UA collection at MGM. It's a pitiful no-budgeter that claims Madison Avenue was providing public relations for foreign subversives, and is negligible even in the lists of '50s anti-Commie films.

Return

Curse of the Demon's Demon has been the subject of debate ever since the heyday of Famous Monsters of Filmland. From what's on record it's clear that producer Chester added or maximized the shots of the creature, a literal visualization of a fiery, brimstone-smoking classical woodcut demon that some viewers think looks ridiculous. Bennett and Tourneur's original idea was to never show a demon but the producer changed that. Tourneur probably directed most of the shots, only to have Chester over-use them. To Savant's thinking, the demon looks great. It is first perceived as an ominous sound, a less strident version of the disturbing noise made by Them! Then it manifests itself visually as a strange disturbance in the sky (bubbles? sparks? early slit-scan?) followed by a billowing cloud of sulphurous smoke (a dandy effect not exploited again until Close Encounters of the Third Kind). The long-shot demon is sometimes called the bicycle demon because he's a rod puppet with legs that move on a wheel-rig. Smoke belches from all over his scaly body. Close-ups are provided by a wonderfully sculpted head 'n' shoulders demon with articulated eyes and lips, a full decade or so before Carlo Rambaldi started engineering such devices.

Most of the debate centers on how much Demon should have been shown with the general consensus that less would have been better. People who dote on Lewton-esque ambivalence say that the film's slow buildup of rationality-versus demonology is destroyed by the very real Demon's appearance in the first scene, and that's where they'd like it removed or radically reduced. The Demon is so nicely integrated into the cutting (the giant foot in the first scene is a real jolt) that it's likely that Tourneur himself filmed it all, perhaps expecting the shots to be shorter or more obscured. It is also possible that the giant head was a post-Tourneur addition - it doesn't tie in with the other shots as well (especially when it rolls forward rather stiffly) and is rather blunt. Detractors lump it in with the gawd-awful head of The Black Scorpion, which is filmed the same way and almost certainly was an afterthought - and also became a key poster image. This demon head matches the surrounding action a lot better than did the drooling Scorpion.

Savant wouldn't change Curse of the Demon but if you put a gun to my head I'd shorten most of the shots in its first appearance, perhaps eliminating all close-ups except for the final, superb shot of the the giant claw reaching for Harrington / us.

Kumar, played (I assume) by an Anglo actor, immediately evokes all those Indian and other Third World characters in Hammer films whose indigenous cultures invariably hold all manner of black magic and insidious horror. When Hammer films are repetitious it's because they take eighty minutes or so to convince the imagination-challenged English heroes to even consider the premise of the film as being real. In Curse of the Demon, Holden's smart-tongued dismissal of outside viewpoints seems much more pigheaded now than it did in 1957, when heroes confidently defended conformist values without being challenged. Kumar is a scientist but also probably a Hindu or a Sikh. He has no difficulty reconciling his faith with his scientific detachment. Holden is far too tactful to call Kumar a crazy third-world guru but that's probably what he's thinking. He instead politely ignores him. Good old Kumar then saves Holden's hide with some timely information. I hope Holden remembered to thank him.

There's an unstated conclusion in Curse of the Demon: Holden's rigid disbelief of the supernatural means he also does not believe in a Christian God with its fundamentally spiritual faith system of Good and Evil, saints and devils, angels and demons. Horror movies that deal directly with religious symbolism and "real faith" can be hypocritical in their exploitation and brutal in their cheap toying with what are for many people sacred personal concepts. I'm thinking of course of The Exorcist here. That movie has all the grace of a reporter who shows a serial killer's atrocity photos to a mother whose child has just been kidnapped. Curse of the Demon hasn't The Exorcist's ruthless commercial instincts but instead has the modesty not to pretend to be profound, or even "real." Yet it expresses our basic human conflict between rationality and faith very nicely.

Savant called Jim Wyrnoski, who was associated with Photon, in an effort to find out more about the article, namely who wrote it. It was very well done and I've never forgotten it; I unfortunately loaned my copy out to good old Jim Ursini and it disappeared. Obviously, a lot of the ideas here, I first read there. Perhaps a reader who knows better how to take care of their belongings can help me with the info? Ursini and Alain Silvers' More Things than are Dreamt Of Limelight, 1994, analyzes Curse of the Demon (and many other horror movies) in the context of its source story.

This is a true story: Cut to 2000. Columbia goes to re-master Curse of the Demon and finds that the fine-grain original of the English version is missing. The original long version of the movie may be lost forever. A few months later a collector appears who says he bought it from another unnamed collector and offers to trade it for a print copy of the American version, which he prefers. Luckily, an intermediary helps the collector follow up on his offer and the authorities are not contacted about what some would certainly call stolen property. The long version is now once again safe. Studios clearly need to defend their property but many collectors have "items" they personally have acquired legally. More often than you might think, such finds come about because studios throw away important elements. If the studios threaten prosecution, they will find that collectors will never approach them. They'd probably prefer to destroy irreplaceable film to avoid being criminalized.

Today's story and sketch "by me" started very much like any other in the Man Cave, it was nine am, I was at the "MCPPOTG" Man Cave Posse Protectors Of The Galaxy intergalactic console enjoying a hot cup of Ovaltine with little marshmallows on top and a Double Decker Chocolate Moon Pie, when I received a call from the "FAA" Flying Aliens Association, that a "GUBER" transporter had just exited worm hole seven somewhere in the Anaheim Hills. A "GUBER" transporter is an untraceable special one way escape vehicle for groom's who fear becoming domesticated, the exact translation is "Ganophobia", (fear of marriage) Ultra, Budget, Extraterrestrial, Relocater, GUBER. As you can see JB and Cosmo have arrived at the crash site. The FAA message mentioned that a groom and brides maid had disappeared from a ceremony at the "LWC" little white chapel next to the "FTSATEOTG" Fish Taco Shop At The End Of The Galaxy, Both are very successful and secretly owned by Rescue Randy and JB, as is the GUBER relocation company. At the crash site a goat herder witnessed the crash and watched two well dressed persons wandering off towards the coast. If there is no damage to the GUBER, JB will have Cosmo fly it back to the GUBER Fleet at the end of the Galaxy. Until next time taa ta the Rod Blog

youtu.be/KcPcJ9ycEu4?t=2m22s Full Feature

Paving for the way for later occult classics like Rosemary’s Baby and The Wicker Man, Night of the Demon is a spooky tale of witchcraft in modern Britain. With Jacques Tourneur’s film opening the BFI’s Monster Weekend, curator Vic Pratt explains why it’s a masterpiece of fright.

Vic Pratt

Wednesday, 21 August 2013

Night of the Demon (1957)

Night of the Demon screens on 29 August as part of the BFI’s Monster Weekend at the British Museum.

Gothic: The Dark Heart of Film is a major four-month film season at BFI Southbank and across the UK from October 2013 to January 2014.

I’ve loved Night of the Demon (1957) since I first watched it on telly many moons ago with my Dad. I was just a kid at the time, and yes, it may have been past my bedtime, so the thrill of staying up late to see it might have meant I enjoyed it all the more. But ever since then, it’s been a firm favourite of mine.

Looking back at it with an adult eye, you can see that it’s a film that belongs on any decent foundation course in cinematic horror. Beautifully constructed and ingeniously fashioned by master film-craftsmen, it remains a haunting, chillingly plausible tale of witchcraft and the occult, and the conflict between rationality and superstition.

But back when I was a fresh-faced child, I didn’t care about that. I was far more interested in the creepy demon of the title. That writhing, nasty-faced, woodcut-like creature – his arrival heralded by strange squealing strains, unsettling jangling noises, smoky footprints, and bizarre star-spangled puffs of smoke – captured my youthful imagination.

I didn’t know it at the time, but the film was directed by a master of spooky, suspenseful, atmospheric cinema, the great Jacques Tourneur. I found out about him later on, as a teenager. Tourneur’s shadowy, moody films – which seemed to mix Gothic themes with film noir-ish imagery – had an immediate appeal.

French born, but later active in the USA, he shot a string of low-budget classics in the 1940s for Val Lewton’s B-picture unit at RKO. If that had been that, and he’d packed it in then, his reputation would already have been assured. The man who’d made Cat People (1942) and I Walked with a Zombie (1943) certainly had nothing to prove. But Tourneur was not a man to rest on his laurels. He carried on, moved into bigger budget productions, and, some years later, shot a Gothic chiller about modern-day witchcraft in England. It was called Night of the Demon. And it might even be the best of the bunch.

The film was adapted from M.R. James’s short story ‘Casting the Runes’ by Hitchcock collaborator Charles Bennett, and it grips from the very beginning. Dana Andrews, playing sceptical American psychologist Holden, scoffs when he’s passed a cursed piece of parchment in the British Museum reading room by genial occultist Dr Karswell (masterfully played by Niall MacGinnis). It means that he’s scheduled to die at the demon’s hand within four days. Holden doesn’t believe it. But – having spotted that monster in the first reel – we viewers know better than the sometimes irritatingly sure-of-himself scientist. And so Holden is dragged ever further into a web of devilry, while perceptive Joanna (the wonderful Peggy Cummins) races against time to convince him that it’s not all just flim-flam.

But you can see why Holden takes some convincing. While Karswell really is the possessor of strange powers, he acts like a show-off schoolboy conjuror spoiling the summer fete. A petulant, overgrown rich-kid know-all who lives with his mother, occasionally dabbling as a children’s entertainer, he’s a modern-day sorcerer who really doesn’t understand the seriousness of the dark forces at his command – and doesn’t much care either.

In one splendid scene, set at his grand country house, merely to demonstrate his powers to the resolutely sceptical Holden, Karswell conjures up a whirlwind out of nowhere, and smiles smugly as terrified children – whom he entertained, dressed as a clown, moments earlier – run screaming across the grounds of his stately pile. “A medieval witch’s speciality: a wind storm,” he gloats. He’s ruined their party.

Shot in broad daylight, this eerie, darkly humorous scene demonstrates that good Gothic doesn’t need to take place at night, or even in a creepy castle; and that Tourneur is a master of mood, whatever the setting. And something tells me our old friend Alfred Hitchcock watched it closely: it foreshadows a somewhat similar silly-sinister sequence in The Birds (1963) where a flap of feathered beasts suddenly dive bomb the children to spoil yet another tea-party on the lawn.

A disrupted children’s party was a million miles away from the censor-shocking, blood-spattered Hammer horrors that were poised to take the world by storm at the end of the 1950s; but this film, though perhaps harking back to an earlier era, was no less brilliant than those.

Despite the monster, Night of the Demon is a cerebral piece: it chills viewers intelligently, slowly, and fills them with an ominous sense of impending dread and looming, inevitable disaster, leavened with dark, dry dashes of humour and irony – tactics that, once again, bring to mind a certain Mr Hitchcock. And what’s more, it makes witchcraft creepily contemporary. Modern-day malevolence of this kind would be the centrepiece of numerous films still to come, such as Night of the Eagle (1962), Rosemary’s Baby (1968) and The Wicker Man (1973), to name but a few.

Night of the Demon has now been remastered by the BFI National Archive, and the full-length British version now stands ready to be unleashed on cinema screens once more. If you haven’t seen it before, you should. And while that old demon lurking in the shadows at the centre of it all has had some bad press over the years – many critics think we meet him too early, or even that we shouldn’t meet him at all – my childhood self would beg to differ. He had quite an effect on me in my formative years, and my adult self will hear nothing bad said about him. He belongs exactly where he is, forever swirling malevolently in the smoke, at the heart of Night of the Demon.

Curse of the Demon / Night of the Demon

Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment

1957/58 / B&W / 1:78 anamorphic 16:9 / 82, 95 min. / Street Date August 13, 2002 / $24.95

Starring Dana Andrews, Peggy Cummins, Niall MacGinnis, Maurice Denham, Athene Seyler

Cinematography Ted Scaife

Production Designer Ken Adam

Special Effects George Blackwell, S.D. Onions, Wally Veevers

Film Editor Michael Gordon

Original Music Clifton Parker

Written by Charles Bennett and Hal E. Chester from the story Casting the Runes by Montague R. James

Produced by Frank Bevis, Hal E. Chester

Directed by Jacques Tourneur

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Savant champions a lot of genre movies but only infrequently does one appear like Jacques Tourneur's superlative Curse of the Demon. It's simply better than the rest -- an intelligent horror film with some very good scares. It occupies a stylistic space that sums up what's best in ghost stories and can hold its own with most any supernatural film ever made. Oh, it's also a great entertainment that never fails to put audiences at the edge of their seats.

What's more, Columbia TriStar has shown uncommon respect for their genre output by including both versions of Curse of the Demon on one disc. Savant has full coverage on the versions and their restoration below, following his thorough and analytical (read: long-winded and anal) coverage of the film itself.

Synopsis:

Dr. John Holden (Dana Andrews), a scientist and professional debunker of superstitious charlatans, arrives in England to help Professor Henry Harrington (Maurice Denham) assault the phony cult surrounding Dr. Julian Karswell (Niall McGinnis). But Harrington has mysteriously died and Holden becomes involved with his niece Joanna (Peggy Cummins), who thinks Karswell had something to do with it. Karswell's 'tricks' confuse the skeptical Holden, but he stubbornly holds on to his conviction that he's " ... not a sucker, like 90% of the human race." That is, until the evidence mounts that Harrington was indeed killed by a demon summoned from Hell, and that Holden is the next intended victim!

The majority of horror films are fantasies in which we accept supernatural ghosts, demons and monsters as part of a deal we've made with the authors: they dress the fantasy in an attractive guise and arrange the variables into an interesting pattern, and we agree to play along for the sake of enjoyment. When it works the movies can resonate with personal meaning. Even though Dracula and Frankenstein are unreal, they are relevant because they're aligned with ideas and themes in our subconscious.

Horror films that seriously confront the no-man's land between rational reality and supernatural belief have a tough time of it. Everyone who believes in God knows that the tug o' war between rationality and faith in our culture has become so clogged with insane belief systems it's considered impolite to dismiss people who believe in flying saucers or the powers of crystals or little glass pyramids. One of Dana Andrews' key lines in Curse of the Demon, defending his dogged skepticism against those urging him to have an open mind, is his retort, "If the world is a dark place ruled by Devils and Demons, we all might as well give up right now." Curse of the Demon balances itself between skepticism and belief with polite English manners, letting us have our fun as it lays its trap. We watch Andrews roll his eyes and scoff at the feeble séance hucksters and the dire warnings of a foolish-looking necromancer. Meanwhile, a whole dark world of horror sneaks up on him. The film's intelligent is such that we're not offended by its advocacy of dark forces or even its literal, in-your-face demon.

The remarkable Curse of the Demon was made in England for Columbia but is gloriously unaffected by that company's zero-zero track record with horror films. Producer Hal E. Chester would seem an odd choice to make a horror classic after producing Joe Palooka films and acting as a criminal punk in dozens of teen crime movies. The obvious strong cards are writer Charles Bennett, the brains behind several classic English Hitchcock pictures (who 'retired' into meaningless bliss writing for schlockmeister Irwin Allen) and Jacques Tourneur, a master stylist who put Val Lewton on the map with Cat People and I Walked With a Zombie. Tourneur made interesting Westerns (Canyon Passage, Great Day in the Morning) and perhaps the most romantic film noir, Out of the Past. By the late '50s he was on what Andrew Sarris in his American Film called 'a commercial downgrade'. The critic lumped Curse of the Demon with low budget American turkeys like The Fearmakers. 1

Put Tourneur with an intelligent script, a decent cameraman and more than a minimal budget and great things could happen. We're used to watching Corman Poe films, English Hammer films and Italian Bavas and Fredas, all the while making excuses for the shortcomings that keep them in the genre ghetto (where they all do quite well, thank you). There's even a veiled resentment against upscale shockers like The Innocents that have resources (money, time, great actors) denied our favorite toilers in the genre realm. Curse of the Demon is above all those considerations. It has name actors past their prime and reasonable production values. Its own studio (at least in America) released it like a genre quickie, double-billed with dreck like The Night the World Exploded and The Giant Claw. They cut it by 13 minutes, changed its title (to ape The Curse of Frankenstein?) and released a poster featuring a huge, slavering demon monster that some believe was originally meant to be barely glimpsed in the film itself. 2

Horror movies can work on more than one level but Curse of the Demon handles several levels and then some. The narrative sets up John Holden as a professional skeptic who raises a smirking eyebrow to the open minds of his colleagues. Unlike most second-banana scientists in horror films, they express divergent points of view. Holden just sees himself as having common sense but his peers are impressed by the consistency of demonological beliefs through history. Maybe they all saw Christensen's Witchcraft through the Ages, which might have served as a primer for author Charles Bennett. Smart dialogue allows Holden to score points by scoffing at the then-current "regression to past lives" scam popularized by the Bridey Murphy craze. 3 While Holden stays firmly rooted to his position, coining smart phrases and sarcastic put-downs of believers, the other scientists are at least willing to consider alternate possibilities. Indian colleague K.T. Kumar (Peter Elliott) keeps his opinion to himself. But when asked, he politely states that he believes entirely in the world of demons! 4

Holden may think he has the truth by the tail but it takes Kindergarten teacher Joanna Harrington (Peggy Cummins of Gun Crazy fame) to show him that being a skeptic doesn't mean ignoring facts in front of one's face. Always ready for a drink (a detail added to tailor the part to Andrews?), Holden spends the first couple of reels as interested in pursuing Miss Harrington, as he is the devil-worshippers. The details and coincidences pile up with alarming speed -- the disappearing ink untraceable by the lab, the visual distortions that might be induced by hypnosis, the pages torn from his date book and the parchment of runic symbols. Holden believes them to be props in a conspiracy to draw him into a vortex of doubt and fear. Is he being set up the way a Voodoo master cons his victim, by being told he will die, with fabricated clues to make it all appear real? Holden even gets a bar of sinister music stuck in his head. It's the title theme -- is this a wicked joke on movie soundtracks?

Speak of the Devil...

This brings us to the wonderful character of Julian Karswell, the kiddie-clown turned multi-millionaire cult leader. The man who launched Alfred Hitchcock as a maker of sophisticated thrillers here creates one of the most interesting villains ever written, one surely as good as any of Hitchcock's. In the short American cut Karswell is a shrewd games-player who shows Holden too many of his cards and finally outsmarts himself. The longer UK cut retains the full depth of his character.

Karswell has tapped into the secrets of demonology to gain riches and power, yet he tragically recognizes that he is as vulnerable to the forces of Hell as are the cowering minions he controls through fear. Karswell's coven means business. It's an entirely different conception from the aesthetic salon coffee klatch of The Seventh Victim, where nothing really supernatural happens and the only menace comes from a secret society committing new crimes to hide old ones.

Karswell keeps his vast following living in fear, and supporting his extravagant lifestyle under the idea that Evil is Good, and Good Evil. At first the Hobart Farm seems to harbor religious Christian fundamentalists who have turned their backs on their son. Then we find out that they're Karswell followers, living blighted lives on cursed acreage and bled dry by their cultist "leader." Karswell's mum (Athene Seyler) is an inversion of the usual insane Hitchcock mother. She lovingly resists her son's philosophy and actively tries to help the heroes. That's in the Night version, of course. In the shorter American cut she only makes silly attempts to interest Joanna in her available son and arranges for a séance. Concerned by his "negativity", Mother confronts Julian on the stairs. He has no friends, no wife, no family. He may be a mass extortionist but he's still her baby. Karswell explains that by exploiting his occult knowledge, he's immersed himself forever in Evil. "You get nothing for nothing"

Karswell is like the Devil on Earth, a force with very limited powers that he can't always control. By definition he cannot trust any of his own minions. They're unreliable, weak and prone to double-cross each other, and they attract publicity that makes a secret society difficult to conceal. He can't just kill Holden, as he hasn't a single henchman on the payroll. He instead summons the demon, a magic trick he's only recently mastered. When Karswell turns Harrington away in the first scene we can sense his loneliness. The only person who can possibly understand is right before him, finally willing to admit his power and perhaps even tolerate him. Karswell has no choice but to surrender Harrington over to the un-recallable Demon. In his dealings with the cult-debunker Holden, Karswell defends his turf but is also attempting to justify himself to a peer, another man who might be a potential equal. It's more than a duel of egos between a James Bond and a Goldfinger, with arrogance and aggression masking a mutual respect; Karswell knows he's taken Lewton's "wrong turning in life," and will have to pay for it eventually.

Karswell eventually earns Holden's respect, especially after the fearful testimony of Rand Hobart. It's taken an extreme demonstration to do it, but Holden budges from his smug position. He may not buy all of the demonology hocus-pocus but it's plain enough that Karswell or his "demon" is going to somehow rub him out. Seeking to sneak the parchment back into Karswell's possession, Holden becomes a worthy hero because he's found the maturity to question his own preconceptions. Armed with his rational, cool head, he's a force that makes Karswell -- without his demon, of course -- a relative weakling. Curse of the Demon ends in a classic ghost story twist, with just desserts dished out and balance recovered. The good characters are less sure of their world than when they started, but they're still able to cope. Evil has been defeated not by love or faith, but by intellect.

Curse of the Demon has the Val Lewton sensibility as has often been cited in Tourneur's frequent (and very effective) use of the device called the Lewton "Bus" -- a wholly artificial jolt of fast motion and noise interrupting a tense scene. There's an ultimate "bus" at the end when a train blasts in and sets us up for the end title. It "erases" the embracing actors behind it and I've always thought it had to be an inspiration for the last shot of North by NorthWest. The ever-playful Hitchcock was reportedly a big viewer of fantastic films, from which he seems to have gotten many ideas. He's said to have dined with Lewton on more than one occasion (makes sense, they were at one time both Selznick contractees) and carried on a covert competition with William Castle, of all people.

Visually, Tourneur's film is marvelous, effortlessly conjuring menacing forests lit in the fantastic Mario Bava mode by Ted Scaife, who was not known as a genre stylist. There are more than a few perfunctory sets, with some unflattering mattes used for airport interiors, etc.. Elsewhere we see beautiful designs by Ken Adam in one of his earliest outings. Karswell's ornate floor and central staircase evoke an Escher print, especially when visible/invisible hands appear on the banister. A hypnotic, maze-like set for a hotel corridor is also tainted by Escher and evokes a sense of the uncanny even better than the horrid sounds Holden hears. The build-up of terror is so effective that one rather unconvincing episode (a fight with a Cat People - like transforming cat) does no harm. Other effects, such as the demon footprints appearing in the forest, work beautifully.

In his Encyclopedia of Horror Movies Phil Hardy very rightly relates Curse of the Demon's emphasis on the visual to the then just-beginning Euro-horror subgenre. The works of Bava, Margheriti and Freda would make the photographic texture of the screen the prime element of their films, sometimes above acting and story logic.

Columbia TriStar's DVD of Curse of the Demon / Night of the Demon presents both versions of this classic in one package. American viewers saw an effective but abbreviated cut-down. If you've seen Curse of the Demon on cable TV or rented a VHS or a laser anytime after 1987, you're not going to see anything different in the film. In 1987 Columbia happened to pull out the English cut when it went to re-master. When the title came up as Night of the Demon, they just slugged in the Curse main title card and let it go.

From such a happy accident (believe me, nobody in charge at Columbia at the time would have purposely given a film like this a second glance) came a restoration at least as wonderful as the earlier reversion of The Fearless Vampire Killers to its original form. Genre fans were taken by surprise and the Laserdisc became a hot item that often traded for hundreds of dollars. 6

Back in film school Savant had been convinced that ever seeing the long, original Night cut was a lost cause. An excellent article in the old Photon magazine in the early '70s 5, before such analytical work was common, accurately laid out the differences between the two versions, something Savant needs to do sometime with The Damned and These Are the Damned. The Photon article very accurately describes the cut scenes and what the film lost without them, and certainly inspired many of the ideas here.

Being able to see the two versions back-to-back shows exactly how they differ. Curse omits some scenes and rearranges others. Gone is some narration from the title sequence, most of the airplane ride, some dialogue on the ground with the newsmen and several scenes with Karswell talking to his mother. Most crucially missing are Karswell's mother showing Joanna the cabalistic book everyone talks so much about and Holden's entire visit to the Hobart farm to secure a release for his examination of Rand Hobart. Of course the cut film still works (we loved the cut Curse at UCLA screenings and there are people who actually think it's better) but it's nowhere near as involving as the complete UK version. Curse also reshuffles some events, moving Holden's phantom encounter in the hallway nearer the beginning, which may have been to get a spooky scene in the middle section or to better disguise the loss of whole scenes later. The chop-job should have been obvious. The newly imposed fades and dissolves look awkward. One cut very sloppily happens right in the middle of a previous dissolve.

Night places both Andrews and Cummins' credits above the title and gives McGinnis an "also starring" credit immediately afterwards. Oddly, Curse sticks Cummins afterwards and relegates McGinnis to the top of the "also with" cast list. Maybe with his role chopped down, some Columbia executive thought he didn't deserve the billing?

Technically, both versions look just fine, very sharp and free of digital funk that would spoil the film's spooky visual texture. Night of the Demon is the version to watch for both content and quality. It's not perfect but has better contrast and less dirt than the American version. Curse has more emulsion scratches and flecking white dandruff in its dark scenes, yet looks fine until one sees the improvement of Night. Both shows are widescreen enhanced (hosanna), framing the action at its original tighter aspect ratio.

It's terrific that Columbia TriStar has brought out this film so thoughtfully, even though some viewers are going to be confused when their "double feature" disc appears to be two copies of the same movie. Let 'em stew. This is Savant's favorite release so far this year.

On a scale of Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor, Curse of the Demon / Night of the Demon rates:

Movie: Excellent

Footnotes:

Made very close to Curse of the Demon and starring Dana Andrews, The Fearmakers (great title) was a Savant must-see until he caught up with it in the UA collection at MGM. It's a pitiful no-budgeter that claims Madison Avenue was providing public relations for foreign subversives, and is negligible even in the lists of '50s anti-Commie films.

Return

Curse of the Demon's Demon has been the subject of debate ever since the heyday of Famous Monsters of Filmland. From what's on record it's clear that producer Chester added or maximized the shots of the creature, a literal visualization of a fiery, brimstone-smoking classical woodcut demon that some viewers think looks ridiculous. Bennett and Tourneur's original idea was to never show a demon but the producer changed that. Tourneur probably directed most of the shots, only to have Chester over-use them. To Savant's thinking, the demon looks great. It is first perceived as an ominous sound, a less strident version of the disturbing noise made by Them! Then it manifests itself visually as a strange disturbance in the sky (bubbles? sparks? early slit-scan?) followed by a billowing cloud of sulphurous smoke (a dandy effect not exploited again until Close Encounters of the Third Kind). The long-shot demon is sometimes called the bicycle demon because he's a rod puppet with legs that move on a wheel-rig. Smoke belches from all over his scaly body. Close-ups are provided by a wonderfully sculpted head 'n' shoulders demon with articulated eyes and lips, a full decade or so before Carlo Rambaldi started engineering such devices.

Most of the debate centers on how much Demon should have been shown with the general consensus that less would have been better. People who dote on Lewton-esque ambivalence say that the film's slow buildup of rationality-versus demonology is destroyed by the very real Demon's appearance in the first scene, and that's where they'd like it removed or radically reduced. The Demon is so nicely integrated into the cutting (the giant foot in the first scene is a real jolt) that it's likely that Tourneur himself filmed it all, perhaps expecting the shots to be shorter or more obscured. It is also possible that the giant head was a post-Tourneur addition - it doesn't tie in with the other shots as well (especially when it rolls forward rather stiffly) and is rather blunt. Detractors lump it in with the gawd-awful head of The Black Scorpion, which is filmed the same way and almost certainly was an afterthought - and also became a key poster image. This demon head matches the surrounding action a lot better than did the drooling Scorpion.

Savant wouldn't change Curse of the Demon but if you put a gun to my head I'd shorten most of the shots in its first appearance, perhaps eliminating all close-ups except for the final, superb shot of the the giant claw reaching for Harrington / us.

Kumar, played (I assume) by an Anglo actor, immediately evokes all those Indian and other Third World characters in Hammer films whose indigenous cultures invariably hold all manner of black magic and insidious horror. When Hammer films are repetitious it's because they take eighty minutes or so to convince the imagination-challenged English heroes to even consider the premise of the film as being real. In Curse of the Demon, Holden's smart-tongued dismissal of outside viewpoints seems much more pigheaded now than it did in 1957, when heroes confidently defended conformist values without being challenged. Kumar is a scientist but also probably a Hindu or a Sikh. He has no difficulty reconciling his faith with his scientific detachment. Holden is far too tactful to call Kumar a crazy third-world guru but that's probably what he's thinking. He instead politely ignores him. Good old Kumar then saves Holden's hide with some timely information. I hope Holden remembered to thank him.

There's an unstated conclusion in Curse of the Demon: Holden's rigid disbelief of the supernatural means he also does not believe in a Christian God with its fundamentally spiritual faith system of Good and Evil, saints and devils, angels and demons. Horror movies that deal directly with religious symbolism and "real faith" can be hypocritical in their exploitation and brutal in their cheap toying with what are for many people sacred personal concepts. I'm thinking of course of The Exorcist here. That movie has all the grace of a reporter who shows a serial killer's atrocity photos to a mother whose child has just been kidnapped. Curse of the Demon hasn't The Exorcist's ruthless commercial instincts but instead has the modesty not to pretend to be profound, or even "real." Yet it expresses our basic human conflict between rationality and faith very nicely.

Savant called Jim Wyrnoski, who was associated with Photon, in an effort to find out more about the article, namely who wrote it. It was very well done and I've never forgotten it; I unfortunately loaned my copy out to good old Jim Ursini and it disappeared. Obviously, a lot of the ideas here, I first read there. Perhaps a reader who knows better how to take care of their belongings can help me with the info? Ursini and Alain Silvers' More Things than are Dreamt Of Limelight, 1994, analyzes Curse of the Demon (and many other horror movies) in the context of its source story.

This is a true story: Cut to 2000. Columbia goes to re-master Curse of the Demon and finds that the fine-grain original of the English version is missing. The original long version of the movie may be lost forever. A few months later a collector appears who says he bought it from another unnamed collector and offers to trade it for a print copy of the American version, which he prefers. Luckily, an intermediary helps the collector follow up on his offer and the authorities are not contacted about what some would certainly call stolen property. The long version is now once again safe. Studios clearly need to defend their property but many collectors have "items" they personally have acquired legally. More often than you might think, such finds come about because studios throw away important elements. If the studios threaten prosecution, they will find that collectors will never approach them. They'd probably prefer to destroy irreplaceable film to avoid being criminalized.

Candid shot Mid-Devon County show.

That face just deserves to be an Anti-hero.

"Mac The Knife"

The Threepenny Opera is a lot like the recent television show The Wire. It focuses on the members of society who are supposed to be the worst-of-the-worst: in 1920s Germany, this meant beggars, thieves, and killers. But like The Wire, The Threepenny Opera ultimately paints a picture in which the corruption of so-called criminals is only as bad as the corruption of those in power—and sometimes a little more heroic.

"Mack the Knife," which rather miraculously went from being a sassy show-tune in a leftist German opera to becoming one of the most popular songs in the twentieth-century United States.

"Mack the Knife" was composed on a whim by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill while they were putting the finishing touches on Die Dreigroschenoper in 1928. As the story goes, the diva-esque tenor who was playing the part of Mackie Messer, aka Macheath or Mack the Knife, suggested that a whole song should be written to introduce his character before he comes on stage. As one columnist recently wrote, "the essence of the song is: Oh, look who's coming onstage, it's Mack the Knife - a thief, murderer, arsonist, and rapist." The song, which became the opening number, was composed in less than 24 hours and added to the show at the final hour. Little did Weill and Brecht know it would be one of their most well-known legacies.

Mack the Knife embodies the ambiguous bad guy famously. And "Mack the Knife," the cheery and ubiquitous pop song that topped the charts in 1959, is his theme song. The song cheerfully announces that Mack the Knife is on his way to town, followed by untraceable dead bodies floating up the river, blood on the sidewalks, and the disappearance of rich people and their cash. But, like the guys in The Sopranos, The Godfather and The Wire, you can't help but like him at least a little bit.

“It was over three years ago that I was told I had pancreatic cancer. That very moment when you hear the word cancer, changes your whole life. Time stops. You rewind and play it back again, constantly, in your head. I was lucky in some aspect as they were able to operate, but sadly since then, the cancer has come back three times. In the past I have managed to do the impossible and fight the cancer until it was untraceable through a range of treatments, including chemotherapy. The doctors told me it was always about containing the cancer, and not getting rid of it. I tried to get through it by belittling the whole situation. I would not try to see it as, ‘it’s cancer…again’, but more like, ‘it’s only cancer, again…’. I am now trying to make it untraceable again for the fourth time, and I know I can do it.

The biggest challenge has been the dramatic physical and mental changes I’ve had to endure. I lost a lot of weight after the operation - from 13.5 stone to under 9. I was all bones. It hurt when I sat in the bath. I felt I had gone from 38 to 80. I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror anymore. It not only takes away your identity but also your confidence. My views on life changed - I was always into my gadgets and I found I no longer needed materialistic things. The things that used to stress me out, no longer mattered. I felt I was more calm in certain situations. Having cancer totally changed my perspective on things.

Throughout the three year period, whenever I could, I kept working on my street food business. It was incredibly hard, especially as I got more tired than I used to. But, even if it means planning from my sick bed, it is something which I love to do - it gives me a purpose. Keeping busy and active distracts me from any of the negative thoughts that cancer can produce. My passion of running the business kept me sane.”

Part 2/3

In every Air Force international exercise it is a custom that a formation makes a fly-past over a famous landmark of the hosting country. During “Iniochos 2019”, a Hellenic Air Force organized exercise, a mixed 7-aircraft formation flew over Acropolis, Athens. The formation was led by a Hellenic Air Force Mirage 2000-5 followed by three rows:

a) Italian A.F. F-35A & Panavia Tornado

b) Israeli A.F. F-16C Blk 30 Barak & Hellenic A.F. F-4E AUP Phantom II

c) USAF F-16C Blk 50 & Hellenic A.F. F-16C Blk 52+ Adv

by Ian N. Lynas

West and East, were respectively the gateway and the gateway to the Atlantean civilization. The Columns of Hercules, from the Strait of Gibraltar; these seem to be called the Gateway of Time. They support mental journeys to leave old emotional patterns behind.

The geological history of the Strait of Gibraltar

Curiously, we looked for evidence of this island very far in the Atlantic without ever mentioning the immediate outlet of the Strait of Gibraltar while Plato explicitly says that the island Atlantis is located: "before the columns of Hercules".

Our knowledge of this region has benefited from recent geological studies with a view to a project to build a tunnel between Africa and Europe.

In addition, recent prospecting campaigns are updating our knowledge of the prehistoric archaeology of this key region still little known. Prehistorians are once again questioning the submerged prehistoric sites of the Moroccan and Iberian coasts and the still poorly elucidated relationship between the two continents during the Upper Paleolithic.

It was following these campaigns, at the suggestion of A.Bouzouggar, that we became interested in the Strait of Gibraltar at the end of the last glaciation.

The current landscape of the Strait of Gibraltar is, on the geological time scale, recent: it is the direct legacy of the global warming that followed the last glaciation.The sea level rose by 135 m in the space of twenty thousand years, submerging the continental shelves between 19,000 BP and the beginning of our era. The absence of tectonic overrection of great amplitude during the last 20,000 years has been verified by Spanish geologists. It is therefore sufficient, to reconstruct the geography of the Strait of Gibraltar during the Ice Age, to lower the sea by 135 m (Figure 1). This depth is the one currently admitted for the sea level of the last glacial maximum.

To the northwest of Cape Spartel, a shoal (Banco Majuan or Spartel Bank on Spanish charts, The Ridge on English charts), oriented NE-SW, formed an island (14 km long and 5 km wide). Its summit culminates at -56m (Fig.1, n° 1). This island was not isolated and was part of an archipelago. Three small islets constituted as many relays to the Iberian continent (Fig. 1: n°2, n°3, n°4).

The pass between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, very narrowed compared to the present one, was considerably extended towards the West by the emergence of the European and African continental shelves. The island of Cape Spartel was facing this narrows widened towards the West in a haven protected from the swell of the Ocean. Three islands barred access to the open sea (Fig. 1 n° 5, n° 6 and n° 7).

In total, this paleo-detroit of the last glacial maximum (Fig. 1) was extended by an inland sea bathing an island world. This sluice to the Atlantic Ocean extended 77 km from West to East and 20 to 10 km from North to South.

It is reasonable to assume that this island, located 5-8 km from the coast, was occupied by Paleolithic populations whose presence is abundantly attested on the Moroccan, Spanish and Portuguese coasts.

The emergence period of the Cape Spartel Archipelago coincided with major population replacements.

In North Africa and on the Iberian continent, the glacial maximum, sees the elimination of archaic homo sapiens by modern men of the Upper Paleolithic. These populations spread rapidly along the African and European coasts between 18,000 and 9,000 B.C. before suffering the repercussions of global warming and the rise of the sea on their island and coastal territories.

The end of the paleodetroit

Global warming, which brought an end to the last ice age, was accompanied by accelerated melting of the polar ice caps and a jerky rise in sea level (135 m in total in 10,000 years). For 2000 years, the history of Atlantis, engulfed 9000 years before our era, has been the subject of the most diverse speculations. Atlantis and Gibraltar, a dossier from myth to geological reality.By Jacques Collina-Girard, Geologist. According to Plato (4th century BC) this account would come from the archives of the Egyptian priests of the city of Sais. In the "Timaeus" Plato insists on presenting the account of the sinking of Atlantis as a true story. The moralist then uses this event to develop a utopia of an ideal city. For two thousand years, in the absence of archaeological or geological data, countless speculations on the myth of Atlantis have been based only on the testimony of the Greek philosopher. After centuries of debating the seriousness of the information, the majority of Hellenists now treat this testimony as a fabrication (Vidal-Naquet, 2000). It is true that none of the locations proposed by the supporters of a real Atlantis corresponds, neither in place nor date, to the Egyptian priest. Too many esoteric ramblings have, moreover, discredited the search for an anchorage in a geological reality that is otherwise untraceable (Kukal, 1984). At the beginning of our era, the neo-Platonic philosopher Proclus enumerates the hypotheses envisaged in his time (Festugières, 1966): total philosophical utopia? real fact? partially real fact?

In the absence of factual arguments, two thousand years of exegesis have contributed nothing more to Proclus' analysis, which Brisson took up, to the letter, in his introduction to Critias (Brisson, 1999). We shall discuss the two most extreme positions here before turning to the intermediate position that Geology could now confirm. The stages of this "finiglacial transgression" are well known thanks to the drilling carried out over the last twenty years in tropical coral reefs (Barbados, Tahiti, New Guinea). These reefs are excellent markers of the position of the sea level: coral regrowth accompanies the rise in sea level. Made up of carbonates, these organisms are perfectly datable with carbon 14. The published curves are consistent (Figure 2) and show the same stages in the upwelling of the sea. According to these data, submersion would be regular except during at least two periods of accelerated ice breakup, when sea level rises at a rate of 4 m per century (2 m in a lifetime of about 50 years!). Recent data on the Rio Guadiana estuary (Algarve, coasts of the Spanish-Portuguese border) have made it possible to confirm this scenario locally.

Three different positions

Position 1: Everything is imaginary in Plato's story

Starting from a tradition, presented as authentic, Plato develops the fiction of an Ideal Republic, victoriously opposed to an Atlantic invader. Like a novelist who constructs his subject from a news item, the philosopher constructs a moralizing fable. The complex Atlantean society of the "Critias", a utopia transposed into the past of a story presented as true, is, according to its author, imaginary (emphasis added): "The citizens and the city that yesterday you represented to us as fiction, we will now transpose them into the order of reality: we will assume that this is the city that you imagined, we will say that these are the ones, the real ones, our ancestors, the ones the priest spoke of. There will be complete concordance, and we will not err if we affirm that they are indeed those who existed at that time. “ This is also the opinion of scholars, familiar with Greek texts, who find in them, transposed and idealized, the contemporary city-states of Plato. The current trend among these scholars is even more radical since it generalizes this opinion to the whole story. The evocation of a real event that would be the source of the story is rejected outright and a priori. It is true that all the "interpretations" proposed so far are delusional. An inventory of these literary productions in which science fiction claims to replace science can be found in a recent work on these "imaginary atlantids". Science fiction novelists and proponents of fantastic archaeology have currently contributed to making the ancient philosopher's words a living modern myth, whose sources have often been completely forgotten by the general public, who are more familiar with Walt Disney than with Plato!

Position 2: Everything is real in Plato's story

Outside the scientific field, but claiming to be so, some popularizers, not very demanding in terms of consistency with archaeological and geological data, evoke a continent populated by a very advanced civilization, engulfed somewhere between the Old and New Worlds. This ghost civilization would be the hypothetical but affirmed source of all the great civilizations of antiquity from Egypt to Mesoamerica. Man would thus derive from more illustrious ancestors than those discovered by "official" archaeology. The search for prestigious original Fathers (even extraterrestrial ones!) in authors who are resistant to any rational argument is a sufficiently clear and repetitive constant to refer to widespread psychopathological mechanisms.

Position 3: Plato's account could be partially true

Exasperated by the delusions of Atlantomania, most Hellenists no longer evoke the possibility of a reliable tradition. In the 6th century A.D., Proclus does not exclude this possibility, however, by interpreting Plato's text as a mixture of historical reality and allegory. To support this view Proclus quotes Marcellus and his treatise on geography "on Ethiopic things" (i.e. Africa): this source would confirm Plato's testimony by evoking the tradition of an archipelago of seven islands sunk at the exit of the Columns of Hercules. Some specialists of Greek texts, interviewed by the magazine "Science et Vie", do not seem as categorical as their colleagues and do not deny, without arguments, the possibility that there may be a core of reality in the myth. In fact, in the absence of new facts to be added to the file for two thousand years, supporters and opponents of a real Atlantis only assert, more or less violently, personal impressions ...

The discovery of a sunken island at the place and date indicated by Plato would obviously be a decisive argument in support of a position contrary to the currently dominant ideas. Before the Second World War, this Atlantis "damaged in the sea" had been sought in America, the Azores, the Canary Islands, Madeira, Iceland, Tunisia, Sweden, West Africa, the Sahara ... Etc. The most recent attempt was that of the Greek archaeologist Marinatos who wanted to assimilate Atlantis to Crete, whose civilization would have been ruined by the explosion of Santorini.

This hypothesis is abandoned: neither the place nor the date correspond to Plato's text. In addition, the correlation between the ruin of the Cretan civilization and the explosion of Santorini is no longer so certain! For lack of finding an island sunk in the Atlantic, the Czech geologist Kukal concludes, after a serious inventory of possibilities, that there is nothing habitable in the Atlantic except the area of Madeira and the Azores.

Unfortunately, none of these islands was inhabited in a time old enough to be a candidate. The discovery of Madeira and the Azores does not appear to predate Roman times. The occupation of the Canary Archipelago does not go back more than 2000 years before us and these steep-sided volcanic islands are not surrounded by continental shelves wide enough to hide anything else.

Plato recounted what was breathed into Him, but did not reveal everything because He knew that it would be decried, but his role was to tell You what would be accepted and demonstrated when the time came, both to change the misconceptions about everything that was interpreted so that this world would correspond to what was intended to be presented so that it would corroborate with a reality that would not disturb the interpretations of Those who wanted to keep the Beings under their own guidance. Atlantis was born after the glaciation had totally resorbed, and the vegetation had come back to life, and that all the conditions of life on this Earth were appropriate for living again according to what the Beings intended to live in the context of an Earth that was once again welcoming in all that it could offer in terms of viability. But this required many Beings to breathe their vision of what They themselves wanted this Earth to be. And so many Beings whom You call "the People of Nature" have responded to Your breaths, knowing that They have always been there, but on other levels, waiting for this Earth to come alive again in what They themselves were maintaining at their level. And so life was resumed and much was revealed in the interaction between the world that You call "People of Nature" and this reality. And that' s how it is.It has been said that Atlantis allowed the Humans to emerge from a certain very primitive state to move towards a certain civilization. And I will tell you, my dear friends, that Atlantis was a glorious power that lasted more than 50,000 years, but that there were not before that primitive state, but evolved Beings who allowed, by their presence, the coming of many Consciences that did not really know "Who They Were", and they were welcomed to allow them to live in a new world where everything had to be prepared by the future Generations, including the coming of Beings that you call "Primitive". Then there was a very long period of prosperity and consciousness, until the Atlanteans, as time went on, evolved into another reality much more fragmented, to the point where they had to at some point make the choice to arm themselves and live as Conquerors. And this was the beginning of a long period during which They conquered many territories at their expense, until at some point They themselves found themselves subject to having to bow to Beings more conquerors than Them, and who were thirsty for power over the technology They had, and which was used for destruction, while these technologies allowed remarkable advances in transportation, medicine, electricity and the whole configuration of life as a whole. So, I am not going to detail all that this represented, but it was necessary for the Masters who still remained at that time, to make the decision to protect what this advanced technology allowed the Beings to live in prosperity and abundance. And so it was. It is true, as it has been said, that the Atlanteans settled in large territories such as Mexico, America up to the Pacific Ocean, a large part of Europe, a large part of Africa up to the borders of the Adriatic Sea, and even further. And this has had an impact on all these populations which, even today, without even realizing it, are still evolving with an ancestral knowledge that is far removed from their own ways of being in their own customs, in their own civilizations. They are all borrowed from the consciousness of the Atlanteans, and of course from Lemuria. When You believe that the oldest colony of Atlantis was probably that of Egypt, I will tell You that it is Lemuria that brought the knowledge to the Atlanteans, who themselves benefited from MU, and that spread throughout the world, but in reality the Egyptians benefited from what the Masters taught long before all the Dynasties of the Pharaohs who never understood what was taught at very high levels before this Era of the Dynasties of the Pharaohs settled down to begin the experience of glory, power, the Conquerors, and above all the world power to want to manage everything and appropriate it all. No tools from the Bronze Age in Europe came from Atlantis, but many tools from the Atlantean knowledge were revealed to Peoples throughout the world, with the difference that they could not be of the same technology, the Atlanteans having few resources at their disposal after the sinking of Atlantis, but they had the knowledge, and this allowed them to reconstitute in part what You would call "new powerful tools", but which did not stand the test of time. What You have discovered is the result of primitive manufacturing responding to the relearning of certain primitive Peoples who did not have the Atlantean knowledge. There were in Atlantis hot springs that allowed the Beings to ablutions, but above all to enjoy long relaxations, because this water was volcanic and it brought a vibration to their bodies that was not, in the first millennia of Atlantis, completely of carbonic matter, but mostly of matter that was close to Crystalline. It is during the course of evolution that the Atlanteans lost this vibration and intensified more and more in the carbon density.

What People Say About The Metatronic Keys Course

I have found all three levels of the Metatronic Keys to be powerful, but the third level was by far the most deeply integrated and energy-filled experience of them all. Since then, I am doing a daily practice of auric maintenance and feel so protected and at peace that I KNOW I am functioning from a different vibration than prior to the installation of the Mer-Ka-Na. Sincerely, Susan Oliver, PhD, MD

The MK3 teaching was an amazing process that allowed me to accelerate my Ascension process many levels in only one weekend. The class brought together the role of Sacred Geometry and the physical and energetic process of Conscious Human Evolution in which we are now participating. Tyberonn’s presentation of Auric Maintenance techniques and the absolute importance of maintaining Auric integrity are valuable tools for those of us who are rapidly moving into the higher levels of Consciousness. The meditation to install the Mer-Ka-Na brought me be to a level that I have never experienced, one of complete Unity with myself, my surroundings and my world.I highly recommended MK1 and MK2, but I must say that MK3 is a necessity for anyone consciously pursuing an accelerated path into becoming a Crystalline being. Since taking the class I have become more confident, calm and loving towards myself and others. I have even changed my diet and find that I am eating lighter food. My connection to my higher self has opened and I have received inspiration for writing projects. MK3 a true gift. Since taking the class I have a clearer vision of where I am meant to be and more guidance of how I will proceed. Tyberonn is an excellent teacher, he presents high level information in a clear, easy to follow manner and the class seamlessly flows from one relevant subject into the next. MK3 is one of the most important events of our time and all that feel drawn should take advantage of the opportunity. Peace and Love, Wendy Ann Z

Thanks, Tyb, for supplying this valuable resource of the Metatronic Keys to us. Thank you for your beautiful and clear teaching of the Metatron Keys 3. This was very powerful and I experienced so much love within the group but also notice and teaching of the absolute need for auric integrity with this installation of the Mer-Ka-Na. I feel deeply my commitment to meditate study and reflect daily these truths you have shared through Metatron of the full harmonic pulse of crystalline coherence. (I think that’s the relevant language!) I feel because of your integrity you facilitated my further waking up and I am so very grateful. With much love, Jim and Kathy – New Zealand

Dear Tyberonn, The MK-3 class and especially the installation meditation , Tyb, was an absolutely glorious experience. I am so honored to be able to participate in this most humbling meditation and teachings . My tears did flow. And I thank you so much for bringing these wonderful lessons to us in the Metatronic Keys classes. Love and many blessings, Ruth G

Dear Tyb, All of the Metatronic Keys Levels have been amazing and life-changing, but MK-3 really was truly brilliant. You & Metatron really nailed it , beautiful finish to the classes. Blessings, Bruce

Dear Tyb, The Met-Keys course is awesome. My guides were very sure I needed to participate in the Metatronic Keys and I am glad I did. My reaction to the coarse : It is awesome. The platonic solids, especially the dodecahedron has been coming up in my dreams and other times. I had looked on line and had not found the answer to my question. You answered that in the coarse. The notes that come with it are awesome and very helpful. The meditations were amazing and I look forward to repeating them as necessary. I encourage anyone who has the chance to take this coarse. It is life changing. I have been working with the Alpha Master teachings and other teachings of Archangel Michael for several months. I feel like I have gone a bit higher in my understanding of our potential on earth. I think I understand why I have collected crystals without knowing why for several years.

earth-keeper.com/metatronic-keys-course/

Murderer called pride

-----------------------

I'm untraceable

I'm midnight

the loss of starry sight

the little monster Frankenfright

I'm untouchable

unsinkable

the victimless crime

Gotham's grime

I'm you

I'm in you

i am you

I'm untraceable

I'm untraceable

the shot out headlight

going 60

shot straight across a bridge

headin' clear past Kentucky

Maker: Etienne Carjat (1828-1906)

Born: France

Active: France

Medium: albumen print

Size: 4 in x 6 in

Location:

Object No. 2023.116

Shelf: A-47

Publication:

Other Collections:

Provenance:

Rank: 30

Notes: Étienne Carjat (28 March 1828 in Fareins, Ain – 19 March 1906 in Paris), was a French journalist, caricaturist and photographer. He co-founded the magazine Le Diogène, and founded the review Le Boulevard. He is best known for his numerous portraits and caricatures of political, literary and artistic Parisian figures. His best-known work is the iconic portrait of Arthur Rimbaud which he took in October 1871. The location of much of his photography is untraceable after being sold to a Mr. Roth in 1923.

Georges Bizet (né Alexandre César Léopold Bizet; 25 October 1838 – 3 June 1875) was a French composer of the Romantic era. Best known for his operas in a career cut short by his early death, Bizet achieved few successes before his final work, Carmen, which has become one of the most popular and frequently performed works in the entire opera repertoire.

To view our archive organized by themes and subjects, visit: OUR COLLECTIONS

For information about reproducing this image, visit: THE HISTORY OF PHOTOGRAPHY ARCHIVE

Broadway Bridge, Willamette River, Portland, Oregon.

In the background, the Front Avenue Aggregate Yard of Glacier Northwest, one of the largest suppliers of ready mixed concrete, sand, gravel, rock and cement in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States.

The Broadway Bridge is a Rall-type bascule bridge spanning the Willamette River in Portland, Oregon, United States, built in 1913. It was Portland's first bascule bridge, and it continues to hold the distinction of being the longest span of its bascule design type in the world. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in November 2012.

History and description

The bridge was anticipated to be the world's longest bascule bridge and there was competition between the Strauss, Scherzer, and Rall bascule design patent holders. The "Rall" was selected based on cost.

Ralph Modjeski designed the structure, which opened on April 22, 1913, at a cost of $1.6 million. It was the world's longest double-leaf bascule bridge, of any bascule type, at the time. The bridge's name derives from the street it carries, Broadway, but at the time of the bridge's construction that street name was in use only east of the river. The westside portion of what is now Broadway had been named 7th Avenue, but was renamed Broadway when the bridge opened and connected the two streets.

The bridge has four vehicle lanes (two lanes in each direction) that in 2006 carried about 30,000 vehicles per day. It is also a major bicycle route over the river with more than 2,000 crossings daily in 2005, and has a pair of 11-foot (3.4 m) wide sidewalks. On average, the bridge's draw span is opened about 25 times a month.

In 1927–28, a 2,000-foot (610 m)-long viaduct was built from the bridge's west deck, extending due west above Lovejoy Street to 14th Avenue, providing access to and from the bridge that had previously been blocked by railroad yards. This viaduct was known as the Lovejoy Ramp. A shorter ramp rising from Northwest 10th Avenue at Irving Street and connecting to the easternmost portion of the new Lovejoy viaduct was built in 1927, but not opened, due to delays to the start of work on the Lovejoy viaduct's western section (west of 10th), and did not open until October 1928. Construction of the long viaduct section from 10th to 14th began in mid-1928, and the viaduct opened in December 1928.

The bridge was originally black, in common with the nearby Steel and Hawthorne spans, but Portland architect Lewis Crutcher suggested in 1961 that each have its own distinct color. The Broadway Bridge was repainted "Golden Gate" red (also known as international orange) in 1963.

The bridge was added to the National Register of Historic Places in November 2012. (12000930)

Public transit use

Streetcars originally crossed the bridge from its opening in 1913 until 1940, but by at least 1944, the abandoned tracks had been removed or paved over. Work to reinstall tracks began in 2010, and streetcar service across the bridge resumed in 2012. The Broadway Bridge was also used by trolley buses, from 1937 to 1958. In addition to the Portland Streetcar's A Loop and B Loop lines, one TriMet bus route currently uses the bridge, route 17-Broadway.

Modifications and repairs

Because it is such a complicated bridge there have been frequent repairs to its structure and mechanicals. In 1948, the concrete deck was replaced with steel grating. During 1982, bicycle access was improved through an $18,000 signal and sidewalk upgrade. In order to improve access and reduce energy costs, the sidewalks and lighting were replaced in 2000–2001. The Lovejoy Ramp, the long viaduct to and from 14th Avenue, was removed in 1999 as part of a $12.4 million reconstruction, intended to open up the site of the by-then-abandoned railroad yards for redevelopment. It was rebuilt as a much shorter Lovejoy ramp, from 9th Avenue, which opened in May 2002. A $28 million renovation began in February 2003. Included in this was the replacement of steel grating with a fiber-reinforced polymer composite material called DuraSpan, made by Martin Marietta Materials. The renovation was completed in February 2005.

In July 2010, the bridge was closed to all traffic for two months in order to begin re-installing streetcar infrastructure, for an expansion of the Portland Streetcar system. Progress was sufficient to reopen two of four lanes of the bridge on September 4. Streetcar-related construction continued through 2011, including installation of the overhead power equipment. The new streetcar line opened in September 2012 and was known as the CL Line (Central Loop); in 2015, its name was changed to A Loop (clockwise) and B Loop (counterclockwise).

In popular culture

The Broadway Bridge is prominently featured in the climax of the film Untraceable (2008). In the film, FBI agent Jennifer Marsh (Diane Lane) becomes stranded on the east end of the bridge after an online serial killer hacks into her car's computer. The scene was filmed both on location as well as on a studio sound stage. The bridge is also a setting for the 1996 film Foxfire, its most notable appearance being in the final scene when Legs Sadovsky (Angelina Jolie) and Maddy Wirtz (Hedy Burress) decide to part ways.

(Wikipedia)

A sniping energy rifle. Silent, deadly and almost untraceable. Anyone within a 3 degree zone from the target will see a flash. This image shows the rifle with three extra ammo shells and the bipod and distance targeter stored. the rifle can carry six extra shells, three on each side. Credit to duke for the base reciever.

The Skylon Tower, in Niagara Falls, Ontario, is an observation tower that overlooks both the American Falls, New York, and the larger Horseshoe Falls, Ontario, from the Canadian side of the Niagara River.

History

Construction of the Skylon began in May 1964. The tower was opened on October 6, 1965, by New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller and Ontario Premier John Robarts. Costing $7 million at the time of its construction, the Skylon Tower was owned by a private partnership called Niagara International Centre, which was financed by Hershey Foods shareholdings of Charles Richard Reese, former co-owner of the H. B. Reese Candy Company of Hershey, Pennsylvania. Canadian Pacific Hotels (CPH) was hired to operate the tower restaurants and lounges.

On October 1, 1975, CPH purchased the tower from Mr. Reese and his partners for $11 million. The tower's summit features a verdigris-green copper roof similar to CPH's other properties, including the Château Frontenac in Quebec City and the Banff Springs Hotel in Banff, Alberta. CPH owned and operated the tower until 1986, when it was sold for $18 million to two local Niagara hotel owners, John Gruyich of Michael's Inn and George Yerich of the Holiday Inn By The Falls Motel. In 1988, George Yerich bought out John Gruyich's ownership share of the Skylon for $13 million, however Milicent Gruyich continues to own the land the tower is built on. Mr. Yerich's Skylon land lease will expire in 2060, at which time the Skylon Tower will revert to total ownership by the heirs of Milicent Gruyich.

While much redevelopment has taken place in the surrounding city, the Skylon Tower complex still retains much of its look and feel from the 1970s and 1980s. However the property has recently been expanded to include a 3D/4D Theatre, a Starbucks franchise, other quick-service franchises and a bridge connecting the complex with the newly completed Fallsview Casino. In August and September 2008 the roof of Skylon was restored to its original bright copper colour.

In recent years, the lights that shine up the tower at night have gone from being the typical white lights to a selection of colours that interchange. This is done in a similar fashion to the lights that shine on the falls themselves.

Features

Standing at 160 metres (520 ft) from street level and 236 metres (775 ft) from the bottom of the falls, the tower required approval from both Canadian and United States air transport authorities, due to its proximity to the international boundary. It was the second tower to be built using the slipform method, in which concrete is continuously poured into a form moving slowly up the tower. It was built by Pigott Construction of Hamilton, Ontario. The same methods were also used to build the Inco Superstack in Sudbury, and the CN Tower in Toronto.

The tower features three outside-mounted "Yellow Bug" elevators. At the time of their construction, they were the first such elevators in Canada. They were designed, engineered and maintained by a division of the Otis Elevator Company from Hamilton, Ontario and can carry passengers to the top of the tower in 52 seconds. Unlike conventional elevators that are guided by side rails, the Skylon elevators operate with a guide rail on the backside only. Special equipment is employed to prevent the cables from becoming tangled in the wind or impeded by snow and ice in the winter. A curtain wall on the outside of the tower behind each elevator protects the counterweight and travelling cables from the elements.

The tower has two restaurants at its top, the Revolving Dining Room and the upper Summit Suite Buffet. The Revolving Dining Room seats 276 people and revolves once every hour by resting on a circular rail that is propelled by a 3 horsepower (2.2 kW) motor. An observation deck sits at the tower's summit. The base of the tower features a number of gift shops, fast food restaurants and a large amusement arcade. A floor for conventions is also available, but is seldom utilized.

Niagara Falls is a city in Ontario, Canada. It is on the western bank of the Niagara River in the Golden Horseshoe region of Southern Ontario, with a population of 94,415 at the 2021 census. It is part of the St. Catharines - Niagara Census Metropolitan Area (CMA). Incorporated on 12 June 1903, the city is across the river from Niagara Falls, New York. The Niagara River flows over Niagara Falls at this location, creating a natural spectacle which attracts millions of tourists each year.

The tourist area near the falls includes observation towers, high-rise hotels, souvenir shops, museums, indoor water parks, casinos and theatres, mostly with colourful neon billboards and advertisements. Other parts of the city include golf courses, parks, historic sites from the War of 1812, and residential neighbourhoods.

History

Prior to European arrival, present day Niagara Falls was populated by Iroquoian-speaking Neutral people but, after attacks from the Haudenosaunee and Seneca, the Neutral people population was severely reduced. The Haudenosaunee people remained in the area until Europeans made first contact in the late 17th century. The Niagara Falls area had some European settlement in the 17th century. Louis Hennepin, a French priest and missionary, is considered to be the first European to visit the area in the 1670s. French colonists settled mostly in Lower Canada, beginning near the Atlantic, and in Quebec and Montreal.

After surveys were completed in 1782 the area was referred to as Township Number 2 as well as Mount Dorchester after Guy Carleton, 1st Baron Dorchester (and today is only honoured by Dorchester Road and the community of Dorchester Village). The earliest settlers of Township Number 2 were Philip George Bender (namesake of Bender Street and Bender Hill near Casino Niagara originally from Germany and later New Jersey and Philadelphia) and Thomas McMicken (a Scottish-born British Army veteran). Increased settlement in this area took place during and after the American Revolutionary War, when the British Crown made land grants to Loyalists to help them resettle in Upper Canada and provide some compensation for their losses after the United States became independent. Loyalist Robert Land received 200 acres (81 ha) and was one of the first people of European descent to settle in the Niagara Region. He moved to nearby Hamilton three years later due to the relentless noise of the falls.

In 1791, John Graves Simcoe renamed the town was Stamford after Stamford, Lincolnshire in England[7] but today Stamford is only used for an area northwest of downtown Niagara Falls as well as Stamford Street. During the war of 1812, the battle of Lundy's Lane took place in July 1814. In 1856, the Town of Clifton was incorporated by Ogden Creighton after Clifton, Bristol. The name of the town was changed to Niagara Falls in 1881. In 1882, the community of Drummondville (near the present-day corner of Lundy's Lane and Main Street) was incorporated as the village of Niagara Falls (South). The village was referred to as Niagara Falls South to differentiate it from the town. In 1904, the town and village amalgamated to form the City of Niagara Falls. In 1963, the city amalgamated with the surrounding Stamford Township. In 1970, the Niagara regional government was formed. This resulted in the village of Chippawa, Willoughby Township, and part of Crowland Township being annexed into Niagara Falls.

An internment camp for Germans was set up at The Armoury (now Niagara Military Museum) in Niagara Falls from December 1914 to August 1918.

Black history

Niagara Falls has had a Black population since at least 1783. Up to 12 African-Americans were a part of the Butler's Rangers, including Richard Pierpoint. When they were disbanded in 1783, they tried to establish themselves through farming nearby, making them among the first Black settlers in the region. It is estimated that nearly 10 percent of the Loyalists to settle in the area were Black Loyalists.

Niagara Falls' Black population increased in the following decades, as a destination on the Underground Railroad. In 1856, a British Methodist Episcopal (BME) Church was established for African-Canadian worshipers. The BME Church, Nathaniel Dett Memorial Chapel is now a National Historic Site, remaining in operation into the 21st century. Composer, organist, pianist and music professor Nathaniel Dett was born in Niagara Falls in 1882.

In 1886, Burr Plato became one of the first African Canadians to be elected to political office, holding the position of City Councillor of Niagara Falls until 1901.

Geography

Niagara Falls is approximately 130 km (81 mi) by road from Ontario's capital of Toronto, which is across Lake Ontario to the north. The area of the Niagara Region is approximately 1,800 km2 (690 sq mi).

Topography

The city is built along the Niagara Falls waterfalls and the Niagara Gorge on the Niagara River, which flows from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario.

Climate

The city of Niagara Falls has a humid continental climate (Köppen Dfa) which is moderated to an extent in all seasons by proximity to water bodies. Winters are cold, with a January high of −0.4 °C (31.3 °F) and a low of −7.8 °C (18.0 °F). However, temperatures above 0 °C (32.0 °F) are common during winter. The average annual snowfall is 154 centimetres (61 in), in which it can receive lake effect snow from both lakes Erie and Ontario. Summers are warm to hot and humid, with a July high of 27.4 °C (81.3 °F) and a low of 17 °C (62.6 °F). The average annual precipitation is 970.2 millimetres (38 in), which is relatively evenly distributed throughout the year.

In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada, Niagara Falls had a population of 94,415 living in 37,793 of its 39,778 total private dwellings, a change of 7.2% from its 2016 population of 88,071. With a land area of 210.25 km2 (81.18 sq mi), it had a population density of 449.1/km2 (1,163.1/sq mi) in 2021.

At the census metropolitan area (CMA) level in the 2021 census, the St. Catharines - Niagara CMA had a population of 433,604 living in 179,224 of its 190,878 total private dwellings, a change of 6.8% from its 2016 population of 406,074. With a land area of 1,397.09 km2 (539.42 sq mi), it had a population density of 310.4/km2 (803.8/sq mi) in 2021.

As of the 2021 Census, 20.9% of the city's population were visible minorities, 3.5% had Indigenous ancestry, and the remaining 75.6% were White. The largest visible minority groups were South Asian (6.3%), Black (3.1%), Filipino (3.0%), Chinese (2.4%), Latin American (1.6%) and Arab (1.1%).

60.1% of Niagara Falls city residents self-identified with Christian denominations in 2021, down from 74.1% in 2011. 33.2% of residents were Catholic, 13.9% were Protestant, 7.1% were Christians of unspecified denomination, and 2.4% were Christian Orthodox. All other Christian denominations/Christian related traditions made up 3.5%. 30.9% of residents were irreligious or secular, up from 22.5% in 2011. Overall, followers of non-Christian religions/spiritual traditions were 9.0% of the population. The largest of these were Islam (4.1%), Hinduism (2.0%), Sikhism (1.4%) and Buddhism (0.8%)

Tourism started in the early 19th century and has been a vital part of the local economy since that time. The falls became known as a natural wonder, in part to their being featured in paintings by prominent American artists of the 19th century such as Albert Bierstadt. Such works were reproduced as lithographs, becoming widely distributed. Niagara Falls marketed itself as a honeymoon destination, describing itself as the "honeymoon capital of the world". Its counterpart in New York also used the moniker. The phrase was most commonly used in brochures in the early twentieth century and declined in usage around the 1960s.

With a plentiful and inexpensive source of hydroelectric power from the waterfalls, many electro-chemical and electro-metallurgical industries located there in the early to mid-20th century. Industry began moving out of the city in the 1970s and 80s because of economic recession and increasing global competition in the manufacturing sector. Tourism increasingly became the city's most important revenue source.

In 2004, several tourist establishments in Niagara Falls began adding a three percent marketing fee to bills. The collected money is untraceable, and there are no controls over how each establishment spends it. The Ontario government—concerned tourists could be misled into believing the fees were endorsed by the government—warned hotels and restaurants in 2008 not to claim the fee if it was not being remitted to a legitimate non-profit agency that promotes tourism. The practise continues, and takes in an estimated $15 million per-year from tourists unaware the fee is voluntary and can be removed from their bill.

Recent development has been mostly centred on the Clifton Hill and Fallsview areas. The Niagara Falls downtown (Queen Street) is undergoing a major revitalization; the city is encouraging redevelopment of this area as an arts and culture district. The downtown was a major centre for local commerce and night life up until the 1970s, when the Niagara Square Shopping Centre began to draw away crowds and retailers. Since 2006, Historic Niagara has brought art galleries, boutiques, cafés and bistros to the street. Attractions include renovation of the Seneca Theatre.

Comparison to Niagara Falls, New York

In the 20th century, there was a favourable exchange rate when comparing Canadian and U.S. currencies.

Niagara Falls, New York, struggles to compete against Niagara Falls, Ontario; the Canadian side has a greater average annual income, a higher average home price, and lower levels of vacant buildings and blight, as well as a more vibrant economy and better tourism infrastructure. The population of Niagara Falls, New York fell by half from the 1960s to 2012. In contrast, the population of Niagara Falls, Ontario more than tripled.

The Ontario government introduced legal gambling to the local economy in the mid-1990s. Casino Niagara precipitated an economic boom in the late 1990s as numerous luxury hotels and tourist attractions were built, and a second casino, Niagara Fallsview, opened in 2004. Both attracted American tourists due in part to the comparatively less expensive Canadian dollar, and despite the opening of the Seneca Niagara Casino on the American side. When the Canadian and US currencies moved closer to parity in the 2000s, Niagara Falls, Ontario continued to be a popular destination for Americans, while Niagara Falls, New York, experienced a prolonged economic downturn. Ontario's legal drinking age is 19, which attracts potential alcohol consumers from across the border, as the American drinking age is 21.

Attractions

Table Rock Welcome Centre

Journey Behind the Falls

Skylon Tower

Niagara SkyWheel

Winter Festival of Lights

Niagara Parks Butterfly Conservatory

Niagara Heritage Trail

Dufferin Islands

Niagara Parks School of Horticulture

The Rainbow Carillon, which sounds from the Rainbow Tower

Clifton Hill, Niagara Falls — Tourist promenade featuring a Ripley's Believe It Or Not Museum, arcades, five haunted houses, four wax museums including a Louis Tussauds Wax Works, and themed restaurants including the Hard Rock Cafe and Rainforest Cafe.

Marineland — Aquatic theme park

Casinos — Casino Niagara and Niagara Fallsview Casino Resort

IMAX Theatre and Daredevil museum

Fallsview Tourist Area

Fallsview Indoor Waterpark

Tower Hotel (Niagara Falls)

Notable people

Bruno Agostinelli, professional tennis player[48]

Ray Barkwill, Canadian national rugby player[49]

Harold Bradley, classical pianist

Cathy Marie Buchanan, author

James Cameron, film director

Bill Cupolo, NHL player

Kevin Dallman, NHL player

Marty Dallman, NHL player

Frank Dancevic, professional tennis player

Sandro DeAngelis, CFL kicker

Robert Nathaniel Dett, composer born in Drummondville

Joe Fletcher, referee at FIFA World Cup

Tre Ford, CFL quarterback

Tyrell Ford, former CFL and NFL cornerback

Barbara Frum, CBC broadcaster

William Giauque, recipient of 1949 Nobel Prize in Chemistry

Mike Glumac, professional hockey player

Brian Greenspan, lawyer

Eddie Greenspan, lawyer

Bobby Gunn, boxer

Obs Heximer, NHL player

Tim Hicks, country singer

Honeymoon Suite, rock band

Harold Howard, retired mixed martial artist and UFC fighter

Jon Klassen, illustrator and children's book author

Johnathan Kovacevic, NHL player

Judy LaMarsh, second female federal cabinet minister in Canadian history

Steve Ludzik, NHL player

Denise Matthews, evangelist, singer

Bob Manno, NHL player

John McCall MacBain, philanthropist, billionaire businessman, founder and former CEO of Trader Classified Media

Nenad Medic, poker player

Stephan Moccio, musician, arranger, composer

Tom Moore, trade unionist

Rick Morocco, ice hockey executive and professional player[50]

Johnny Mowers, NHL goalie

Rob Nicholson, former Minister of Justice and Attorney General for Canada

Terry O'Reilly, NHL player and head coach

Roula Partheniou, contemporary artist

Frank Pietrangelo, NHL goalie

Burr Plato, politician

deadmau5, musician and DJ

Isabelle Rezazadeh, DJ and record producer

Phil Roberto, NHL player

Derek Sanderson, NHL player

Jarrod Skalde, NHL player

Russell Teibert, soccer player

Jay Triano, former NBA head coach

Gillian Robertson, UFC Fighter

Tvangeste, symphonic black metal band formerly based on Kaliningrad, Russia

Wave, pop band

Sherman Zavitz, historian

Murda Beatz, Producer and DJ

Steve Terreberry, musician, comedian, and YouTuber

Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, lawyer and professor; former judge

Greg Kovacs, bodybuilder

youtu.be/KcPcJ9ycEu4?t=2m22s Full Feature

Curse of the Demon / Night of the Demon

Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment

1957/58 / B&W / 1:78 anamorphic 16:9 / 82, 95 min. / Street Date August 13, 2002 / $24.95

Starring Dana Andrews, Peggy Cummins, Niall MacGinnis, Maurice Denham, Athene Seyler

Cinematography Ted Scaife

Production Designer Ken Adam

Special Effects George Blackwell, S.D. Onions, Wally Veevers

Film Editor Michael Gordon

Original Music Clifton Parker

Written by Charles Bennett and Hal E. Chester from the story Casting the Runes by Montague R. James

Produced by Frank Bevis, Hal E. Chester

Directed by Jacques Tourneur

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Savant champions a lot of genre movies but only infrequently does one appear like Jacques Tourneur's superlative Curse of the Demon. It's simply better than the rest -- an intelligent horror film with some very good scares. It occupies a stylistic space that sums up what's best in ghost stories and can hold its own with most any supernatural film ever made. Oh, it's also a great entertainment that never fails to put audiences at the edge of their seats.

What's more, Columbia TriStar has shown uncommon respect for their genre output by including both versions of Curse of the Demon on one disc. Savant has full coverage on the versions and their restoration below, following his thorough and analytical (read: long-winded and anal) coverage of the film itself.

Synopsis:

Dr. John Holden (Dana Andrews), a scientist and professional debunker of superstitious charlatans, arrives in England to help Professor Henry Harrington (Maurice Denham) assault the phony cult surrounding Dr. Julian Karswell (Niall McGinnis). But Harrington has mysteriously died and Holden becomes involved with his niece Joanna (Peggy Cummins), who thinks Karswell had something to do with it. Karswell's 'tricks' confuse the skeptical Holden, but he stubbornly holds on to his conviction that he's " ... not a sucker, like 90% of the human race." That is, until the evidence mounts that Harrington was indeed killed by a demon summoned from Hell, and that Holden is the next intended victim!

The majority of horror films are fantasies in which we accept supernatural ghosts, demons and monsters as part of a deal we've made with the authors: they dress the fantasy in an attractive guise and arrange the variables into an interesting pattern, and we agree to play along for the sake of enjoyment. When it works the movies can resonate with personal meaning. Even though Dracula and Frankenstein are unreal, they are relevant because they're aligned with ideas and themes in our subconscious.

Horror films that seriously confront the no-man's land between rational reality and supernatural belief have a tough time of it. Everyone who believes in God knows that the tug o' war between rationality and faith in our culture has become so clogged with insane belief systems it's considered impolite to dismiss people who believe in flying saucers or the powers of crystals or little glass pyramids. One of Dana Andrews' key lines in Curse of the Demon, defending his dogged skepticism against those urging him to have an open mind, is his retort, "If the world is a dark place ruled by Devils and Demons, we all might as well give up right now." Curse of the Demon balances itself between skepticism and belief with polite English manners, letting us have our fun as it lays its trap. We watch Andrews roll his eyes and scoff at the feeble séance hucksters and the dire warnings of a foolish-looking necromancer. Meanwhile, a whole dark world of horror sneaks up on him. The film's intelligent is such that we're not offended by its advocacy of dark forces or even its literal, in-your-face demon.

The remarkable Curse of the Demon was made in England for Columbia but is gloriously unaffected by that company's zero-zero track record with horror films. Producer Hal E. Chester would seem an odd choice to make a horror classic after producing Joe Palooka films and acting as a criminal punk in dozens of teen crime movies. The obvious strong cards are writer Charles Bennett, the brains behind several classic English Hitchcock pictures (who 'retired' into meaningless bliss writing for schlockmeister Irwin Allen) and Jacques Tourneur, a master stylist who put Val Lewton on the map with Cat People and I Walked With a Zombie. Tourneur made interesting Westerns (Canyon Passage, Great Day in the Morning) and perhaps the most romantic film noir, Out of the Past. By the late '50s he was on what Andrew Sarris in his American Film called 'a commercial downgrade'. The critic lumped Curse of the Demon with low budget American turkeys like The Fearmakers. 1

Put Tourneur with an intelligent script, a decent cameraman and more than a minimal budget and great things could happen. We're used to watching Corman Poe films, English Hammer films and Italian Bavas and Fredas, all the while making excuses for the shortcomings that keep them in the genre ghetto (where they all do quite well, thank you). There's even a veiled resentment against upscale shockers like The Innocents that have resources (money, time, great actors) denied our favorite toilers in the genre realm. Curse of the Demon is above all those considerations. It has name actors past their prime and reasonable production values. Its own studio (at least in America) released it like a genre quickie, double-billed with dreck like The Night the World Exploded and The Giant Claw. They cut it by 13 minutes, changed its title (to ape The Curse of Frankenstein?) and released a poster featuring a huge, slavering demon monster that some believe was originally meant to be barely glimpsed in the film itself. 2

Horror movies can work on more than one level but Curse of the Demon handles several levels and then some. The narrative sets up John Holden as a professional skeptic who raises a smirking eyebrow to the open minds of his colleagues. Unlike most second-banana scientists in horror films, they express divergent points of view. Holden just sees himself as having common sense but his peers are impressed by the consistency of demonological beliefs through history. Maybe they all saw Christensen's Witchcraft through the Ages, which might have served as a primer for author Charles Bennett. Smart dialogue allows Holden to score points by scoffing at the then-current "regression to past lives" scam popularized by the Bridey Murphy craze. 3 While Holden stays firmly rooted to his position, coining smart phrases and sarcastic put-downs of believers, the other scientists are at least willing to consider alternate possibilities. Indian colleague K.T. Kumar (Peter Elliott) keeps his opinion to himself. But when asked, he politely states that he believes entirely in the world of demons! 4

Holden may think he has the truth by the tail but it takes Kindergarten teacher Joanna Harrington (Peggy Cummins of Gun Crazy fame) to show him that being a skeptic doesn't mean ignoring facts in front of one's face. Always ready for a drink (a detail added to tailor the part to Andrews?), Holden spends the first couple of reels as interested in pursuing Miss Harrington, as he is the devil-worshippers. The details and coincidences pile up with alarming speed -- the disappearing ink untraceable by the lab, the visual distortions that might be induced by hypnosis, the pages torn from his date book and the parchment of runic symbols. Holden believes them to be props in a conspiracy to draw him into a vortex of doubt and fear. Is he being set up the way a Voodoo master cons his victim, by being told he will die, with fabricated clues to make it all appear real? Holden even gets a bar of sinister music stuck in his head. It's the title theme -- is this a wicked joke on movie soundtracks?

Speak of the Devil...

This brings us to the wonderful character of Julian Karswell, the kiddie-clown turned multi-millionaire cult leader. The man who launched Alfred Hitchcock as a maker of sophisticated thrillers here creates one of the most interesting villains ever written, one surely as good as any of Hitchcock's. In the short American cut Karswell is a shrewd games-player who shows Holden too many of his cards and finally outsmarts himself. The longer UK cut retains the full depth of his character.

Karswell has tapped into the secrets of demonology to gain riches and power, yet he tragically recognizes that he is as vulnerable to the forces of Hell as are the cowering minions he controls through fear. Karswell's coven means business. It's an entirely different conception from the aesthetic salon coffee klatch of The Seventh Victim, where nothing really supernatural happens and the only menace comes from a secret society committing new crimes to hide old ones.

Karswell keeps his vast following living in fear, and supporting his extravagant lifestyle under the idea that Evil is Good, and Good Evil. At first the Hobart Farm seems to harbor religious Christian fundamentalists who have turned their backs on their son. Then we find out that they're Karswell followers, living blighted lives on cursed acreage and bled dry by their cultist "leader." Karswell's mum (Athene Seyler) is an inversion of the usual insane Hitchcock mother. She lovingly resists her son's philosophy and actively tries to help the heroes. That's in the Night version, of course. In the shorter American cut she only makes silly attempts to interest Joanna in her available son and arranges for a séance. Concerned by his "negativity", Mother confronts Julian on the stairs. He has no friends, no wife, no family. He may be a mass extortionist but he's still her baby. Karswell explains that by exploiting his occult knowledge, he's immersed himself forever in Evil. "You get nothing for nothing"

Karswell is like the Devil on Earth, a force with very limited powers that he can't always control. By definition he cannot trust any of his own minions. They're unreliable, weak and prone to double-cross each other, and they attract publicity that makes a secret society difficult to conceal. He can't just kill Holden, as he hasn't a single henchman on the payroll. He instead summons the demon, a magic trick he's only recently mastered. When Karswell turns Harrington away in the first scene we can sense his loneliness. The only person who can possibly understand is right before him, finally willing to admit his power and perhaps even tolerate him. Karswell has no choice but to surrender Harrington over to the un-recallable Demon. In his dealings with the cult-debunker Holden, Karswell defends his turf but is also attempting to justify himself to a peer, another man who might be a potential equal. It's more than a duel of egos between a James Bond and a Goldfinger, with arrogance and aggression masking a mutual respect; Karswell knows he's taken Lewton's "wrong turning in life," and will have to pay for it eventually.

Karswell eventually earns Holden's respect, especially after the fearful testimony of Rand Hobart. It's taken an extreme demonstration to do it, but Holden budges from his smug position. He may not buy all of the demonology hocus-pocus but it's plain enough that Karswell or his "demon" is going to somehow rub him out. Seeking to sneak the parchment back into Karswell's possession, Holden becomes a worthy hero because he's found the maturity to question his own preconceptions. Armed with his rational, cool head, he's a force that makes Karswell -- without his demon, of course -- a relative weakling. Curse of the Demon ends in a classic ghost story twist, with just desserts dished out and balance recovered. The good characters are less sure of their world than when they started, but they're still able to cope. Evil has been defeated not by love or faith, but by intellect.

Curse of the Demon has the Val Lewton sensibility as has often been cited in Tourneur's frequent (and very effective) use of the device called the Lewton "Bus" -- a wholly artificial jolt of fast motion and noise interrupting a tense scene. There's an ultimate "bus" at the end when a train blasts in and sets us up for the end title. It "erases" the embracing actors behind it and I've always thought it had to be an inspiration for the last shot of North by NorthWest. The ever-playful Hitchcock was reportedly a big viewer of fantastic films, from which he seems to have gotten many ideas. He's said to have dined with Lewton on more than one occasion (makes sense, they were at one time both Selznick contractees) and carried on a covert competition with William Castle, of all people.

Visually, Tourneur's film is marvelous, effortlessly conjuring menacing forests lit in the fantastic Mario Bava mode by Ted Scaife, who was not known as a genre stylist. There are more than a few perfunctory sets, with some unflattering mattes used for airport interiors, etc.. Elsewhere we see beautiful designs by Ken Adam in one of his earliest outings. Karswell's ornate floor and central staircase evoke an Escher print, especially when visible/invisible hands appear on the banister. A hypnotic, maze-like set for a hotel corridor is also tainted by Escher and evokes a sense of the uncanny even better than the horrid sounds Holden hears. The build-up of terror is so effective that one rather unconvincing episode (a fight with a Cat People - like transforming cat) does no harm. Other effects, such as the demon footprints appearing in the forest, work beautifully.

In his Encyclopedia of Horror Movies Phil Hardy very rightly relates Curse of the Demon's emphasis on the visual to the then just-beginning Euro-horror subgenre. The works of Bava, Margheriti and Freda would make the photographic texture of the screen the prime element of their films, sometimes above acting and story logic.

Columbia TriStar's DVD of Curse of the Demon / Night of the Demon presents both versions of this classic in one package. American viewers saw an effective but abbreviated cut-down. If you've seen Curse of the Demon on cable TV or rented a VHS or a laser anytime after 1987, you're not going to see anything different in the film. In 1987 Columbia happened to pull out the English cut when it went to re-master. When the title came up as Night of the Demon, they just slugged in the Curse main title card and let it go.

From such a happy accident (believe me, nobody in charge at Columbia at the time would have purposely given a film like this a second glance) came a restoration at least as wonderful as the earlier reversion of The Fearless Vampire Killers to its original form. Genre fans were taken by surprise and the Laserdisc became a hot item that often traded for hundreds of dollars. 6

Back in film school Savant had been convinced that ever seeing the long, original Night cut was a lost cause. An excellent article in the old Photon magazine in the early '70s 5, before such analytical work was common, accurately laid out the differences between the two versions, something Savant needs to do sometime with The Damned and These Are the Damned. The Photon article very accurately describes the cut scenes and what the film lost without them, and certainly inspired many of the ideas here.

Being able to see the two versions back-to-back shows exactly how they differ. Curse omits some scenes and rearranges others. Gone is some narration from the title sequence, most of the airplane ride, some dialogue on the ground with the newsmen and several scenes with Karswell talking to his mother. Most crucially missing are Karswell's mother showing Joanna the cabalistic book everyone talks so much about and Holden's entire visit to the Hobart farm to secure a release for his examination of Rand Hobart. Of course the cut film still works (we loved the cut Curse at UCLA screenings and there are people who actually think it's better) but it's nowhere near as involving as the complete UK version. Curse also reshuffles some events, moving Holden's phantom encounter in the hallway nearer the beginning, which may have been to get a spooky scene in the middle section or to better disguise the loss of whole scenes later. The chop-job should have been obvious. The newly imposed fades and dissolves look awkward. One cut very sloppily happens right in the middle of a previous dissolve.

Night places both Andrews and Cummins' credits above the title and gives McGinnis an "also starring" credit immediately afterwards. Oddly, Curse sticks Cummins afterwards and relegates McGinnis to the top of the "also with" cast list. Maybe with his role chopped down, some Columbia executive thought he didn't deserve the billing?

Technically, both versions look just fine, very sharp and free of digital funk that would spoil the film's spooky visual texture. Night of the Demon is the version to watch for both content and quality. It's not perfect but has better contrast and less dirt than the American version. Curse has more emulsion scratches and flecking white dandruff in its dark scenes, yet looks fine until one sees the improvement of Night. Both shows are widescreen enhanced (hosanna), framing the action at its original tighter aspect ratio.

It's terrific that Columbia TriStar has brought out this film so thoughtfully, even though some viewers are going to be confused when their "double feature" disc appears to be two copies of the same movie. Let 'em stew. This is Savant's favorite release so far this year.

On a scale of Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor, Curse of the Demon / Night of the Demon rates:

Movie: Excellent

Footnotes:

Made very close to Curse of the Demon and starring Dana Andrews, The Fearmakers (great title) was a Savant must-see until he caught up with it in the UA collection at MGM. It's a pitiful no-budgeter that claims Madison Avenue was providing public relations for foreign subversives, and is negligible even in the lists of '50s anti-Commie films.

Return

Curse of the Demon's Demon has been the subject of debate ever since the heyday of Famous Monsters of Filmland. From what's on record it's clear that producer Chester added or maximized the shots of the creature, a literal visualization of a fiery, brimstone-smoking classical woodcut demon that some viewers think looks ridiculous. Bennett and Tourneur's original idea was to never show a demon but the producer changed that. Tourneur probably directed most of the shots, only to have Chester over-use them. To Savant's thinking, the demon looks great. It is first perceived as an ominous sound, a less strident version of the disturbing noise made by Them! Then it manifests itself visually as a strange disturbance in the sky (bubbles? sparks? early slit-scan?) followed by a billowing cloud of sulphurous smoke (a dandy effect not exploited again until Close Encounters of the Third Kind). The long-shot demon is sometimes called the bicycle demon because he's a rod puppet with legs that move on a wheel-rig. Smoke belches from all over his scaly body. Close-ups are provided by a wonderfully sculpted head 'n' shoulders demon with articulated eyes and lips, a full decade or so before Carlo Rambaldi started engineering such devices.

Most of the debate centers on how much Demon should have been shown with the general consensus that less would have been better. People who dote on Lewton-esque ambivalence say that the film's slow buildup of rationality-versus demonology is destroyed by the very real Demon's appearance in the first scene, and that's where they'd like it removed or radically reduced. The Demon is so nicely integrated into the cutting (the giant foot in the first scene is a real jolt) that it's likely that Tourneur himself filmed it all, perhaps expecting the shots to be shorter or more obscured. It is also possible that the giant head was a post-Tourneur addition - it doesn't tie in with the other shots as well (especially when it rolls forward rather stiffly) and is rather blunt. Detractors lump it in with the gawd-awful head of The Black Scorpion, which is filmed the same way and almost certainly was an afterthought - and also became a key poster image. This demon head matches the surrounding action a lot better than did the drooling Scorpion.

Savant wouldn't change Curse of the Demon but if you put a gun to my head I'd shorten most of the shots in its first appearance, perhaps eliminating all close-ups except for the final, superb shot of the the giant claw reaching for Harrington / us.

Kumar, played (I assume) by an Anglo actor, immediately evokes all those Indian and other Third World characters in Hammer films whose indigenous cultures invariably hold all manner of black magic and insidious horror. When Hammer films are repetitious it's because they take eighty minutes or so to convince the imagination-challenged English heroes to even consider the premise of the film as being real. In Curse of the Demon, Holden's smart-tongued dismissal of outside viewpoints seems much more pigheaded now than it did in 1957, when heroes confidently defended conformist values without being challenged. Kumar is a scientist but also probably a Hindu or a Sikh. He has no difficulty reconciling his faith with his scientific detachment. Holden is far too tactful to call Kumar a crazy third-world guru but that's probably what he's thinking. He instead politely ignores him. Good old Kumar then saves Holden's hide with some timely information. I hope Holden remembered to thank him.

There's an unstated conclusion in Curse of the Demon: Holden's rigid disbelief of the supernatural means he also does not believe in a Christian God with its fundamentally spiritual faith system of Good and Evil, saints and devils, angels and demons. Horror movies that deal directly with religious symbolism and "real faith" can be hypocritical in their exploitation and brutal in their cheap toying with what are for many people sacred personal concepts. I'm thinking of course of The Exorcist here. That movie has all the grace of a reporter who shows a serial killer's atrocity photos to a mother whose child has just been kidnapped. Curse of the Demon hasn't The Exorcist's ruthless commercial instincts but instead has the modesty not to pretend to be profound, or even "real." Yet it expresses our basic human conflict between rationality and faith very nicely.

Savant called Jim Wyrnoski, who was associated with Photon, in an effort to find out more about the article, namely who wrote it. It was very well done and I've never forgotten it; I unfortunately loaned my copy out to good old Jim Ursini and it disappeared. Obviously, a lot of the ideas here, I first read there. Perhaps a reader who knows better how to take care of their belongings can help me with the info? Ursini and Alain Silvers' More Things than are Dreamt Of Limelight, 1994, analyzes Curse of the Demon (and many other horror movies) in the context of its source story.

This is a true story: Cut to 2000. Columbia goes to re-master Curse of the Demon and finds that the fine-grain original of the English version is missing. The original long version of the movie may be lost forever. A few months later a collector appears who says he bought it from another unnamed collector and offers to trade it for a print copy of the American version, which he prefers. Luckily, an intermediary helps the collector follow up on his offer and the authorities are not contacted about what some would certainly call stolen property. The long version is now once again safe. Studios clearly need to defend their property but many collectors have "items" they personally have acquired legally. More often than you might think, such finds come about because studios throw away important elements. If the studios threaten prosecution, they will find that collectors will never approach them. They'd probably prefer to destroy irreplaceable film to avoid being criminalized.

for kuroshiro

---

when we arrive, sons & daughters

we'll make our homes on the water

we'll build our walls of aluminum

we'll fill our mouths with cinnamon now

-- sons & daughters, by the decemberists

Niagara Falls is a city in Ontario, Canada. It is on the western bank of the Niagara River in the Golden Horseshoe region of Southern Ontario, with a population of 94,415 at the 2021 census. It is part of the St. Catharines - Niagara Census Metropolitan Area (CMA). Incorporated on 12 June 1903, the city is across the river from Niagara Falls, New York. The Niagara River flows over Niagara Falls at this location, creating a natural spectacle which attracts millions of tourists each year.

The tourist area near the falls includes observation towers, high-rise hotels, souvenir shops, museums, indoor water parks, casinos and theatres, mostly with colourful neon billboards and advertisements. Other parts of the city include golf courses, parks, historic sites from the War of 1812, and residential neighbourhoods.

History

Prior to European arrival, present day Niagara Falls was populated by Iroquoian-speaking Neutral people but, after attacks from the Haudenosaunee and Seneca, the Neutral people population was severely reduced. The Haudenosaunee people remained in the area until Europeans made first contact in the late 17th century. The Niagara Falls area had some European settlement in the 17th century. Louis Hennepin, a French priest and missionary, is considered to be the first European to visit the area in the 1670s. French colonists settled mostly in Lower Canada, beginning near the Atlantic, and in Quebec and Montreal.

After surveys were completed in 1782 the area was referred to as Township Number 2 as well as Mount Dorchester after Guy Carleton, 1st Baron Dorchester (and today is only honoured by Dorchester Road and the community of Dorchester Village). The earliest settlers of Township Number 2 were Philip George Bender (namesake of Bender Street and Bender Hill near Casino Niagara originally from Germany and later New Jersey and Philadelphia) and Thomas McMicken (a Scottish-born British Army veteran). Increased settlement in this area took place during and after the American Revolutionary War, when the British Crown made land grants to Loyalists to help them resettle in Upper Canada and provide some compensation for their losses after the United States became independent. Loyalist Robert Land received 200 acres (81 ha) and was one of the first people of European descent to settle in the Niagara Region. He moved to nearby Hamilton three years later due to the relentless noise of the falls.

In 1791, John Graves Simcoe renamed the town was Stamford after Stamford, Lincolnshire in England[7] but today Stamford is only used for an area northwest of downtown Niagara Falls as well as Stamford Street. During the war of 1812, the battle of Lundy's Lane took place in July 1814. In 1856, the Town of Clifton was incorporated by Ogden Creighton after Clifton, Bristol. The name of the town was changed to Niagara Falls in 1881. In 1882, the community of Drummondville (near the present-day corner of Lundy's Lane and Main Street) was incorporated as the village of Niagara Falls (South). The village was referred to as Niagara Falls South to differentiate it from the town. In 1904, the town and village amalgamated to form the City of Niagara Falls. In 1963, the city amalgamated with the surrounding Stamford Township. In 1970, the Niagara regional government was formed. This resulted in the village of Chippawa, Willoughby Township, and part of Crowland Township being annexed into Niagara Falls.

An internment camp for Germans was set up at The Armoury (now Niagara Military Museum) in Niagara Falls from December 1914 to August 1918.

Black history

Niagara Falls has had a Black population since at least 1783. Up to 12 African-Americans were a part of the Butler's Rangers, including Richard Pierpoint. When they were disbanded in 1783, they tried to establish themselves through farming nearby, making them among the first Black settlers in the region. It is estimated that nearly 10 percent of the Loyalists to settle in the area were Black Loyalists.

Niagara Falls' Black population increased in the following decades, as a destination on the Underground Railroad. In 1856, a British Methodist Episcopal (BME) Church was established for African-Canadian worshipers. The BME Church, Nathaniel Dett Memorial Chapel is now a National Historic Site, remaining in operation into the 21st century. Composer, organist, pianist and music professor Nathaniel Dett was born in Niagara Falls in 1882.

In 1886, Burr Plato became one of the first African Canadians to be elected to political office, holding the position of City Councillor of Niagara Falls until 1901.

Geography

Niagara Falls is approximately 130 km (81 mi) by road from Ontario's capital of Toronto, which is across Lake Ontario to the north. The area of the Niagara Region is approximately 1,800 km2 (690 sq mi).

Topography

The city is built along the Niagara Falls waterfalls and the Niagara Gorge on the Niagara River, which flows from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario.

Climate

The city of Niagara Falls has a humid continental climate (Köppen Dfa) which is moderated to an extent in all seasons by proximity to water bodies. Winters are cold, with a January high of −0.4 °C (31.3 °F) and a low of −7.8 °C (18.0 °F). However, temperatures above 0 °C (32.0 °F) are common during winter. The average annual snowfall is 154 centimetres (61 in), in which it can receive lake effect snow from both lakes Erie and Ontario. Summers are warm to hot and humid, with a July high of 27.4 °C (81.3 °F) and a low of 17 °C (62.6 °F). The average annual precipitation is 970.2 millimetres (38 in), which is relatively evenly distributed throughout the year.

In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada, Niagara Falls had a population of 94,415 living in 37,793 of its 39,778 total private dwellings, a change of 7.2% from its 2016 population of 88,071. With a land area of 210.25 km2 (81.18 sq mi), it had a population density of 449.1/km2 (1,163.1/sq mi) in 2021.

At the census metropolitan area (CMA) level in the 2021 census, the St. Catharines - Niagara CMA had a population of 433,604 living in 179,224 of its 190,878 total private dwellings, a change of 6.8% from its 2016 population of 406,074. With a land area of 1,397.09 km2 (539.42 sq mi), it had a population density of 310.4/km2 (803.8/sq mi) in 2021.

As of the 2021 Census, 20.9% of the city's population were visible minorities, 3.5% had Indigenous ancestry, and the remaining 75.6% were White. The largest visible minority groups were South Asian (6.3%), Black (3.1%), Filipino (3.0%), Chinese (2.4%), Latin American (1.6%) and Arab (1.1%).

60.1% of Niagara Falls city residents self-identified with Christian denominations in 2021, down from 74.1% in 2011. 33.2% of residents were Catholic, 13.9% were Protestant, 7.1% were Christians of unspecified denomination, and 2.4% were Christian Orthodox. All other Christian denominations/Christian related traditions made up 3.5%. 30.9% of residents were irreligious or secular, up from 22.5% in 2011. Overall, followers of non-Christian religions/spiritual traditions were 9.0% of the population. The largest of these were Islam (4.1%), Hinduism (2.0%), Sikhism (1.4%) and Buddhism (0.8%)

Tourism started in the early 19th century and has been a vital part of the local economy since that time. The falls became known as a natural wonder, in part to their being featured in paintings by prominent American artists of the 19th century such as Albert Bierstadt. Such works were reproduced as lithographs, becoming widely distributed. Niagara Falls marketed itself as a honeymoon destination, describing itself as the "honeymoon capital of the world". Its counterpart in New York also used the moniker. The phrase was most commonly used in brochures in the early twentieth century and declined in usage around the 1960s.

With a plentiful and inexpensive source of hydroelectric power from the waterfalls, many electro-chemical and electro-metallurgical industries located there in the early to mid-20th century. Industry began moving out of the city in the 1970s and 80s because of economic recession and increasing global competition in the manufacturing sector. Tourism increasingly became the city's most important revenue source.

In 2004, several tourist establishments in Niagara Falls began adding a three percent marketing fee to bills. The collected money is untraceable, and there are no controls over how each establishment spends it. The Ontario government—concerned tourists could be misled into believing the fees were endorsed by the government—warned hotels and restaurants in 2008 not to claim the fee if it was not being remitted to a legitimate non-profit agency that promotes tourism. The practise continues, and takes in an estimated $15 million per-year from tourists unaware the fee is voluntary and can be removed from their bill.

Recent development has been mostly centred on the Clifton Hill and Fallsview areas. The Niagara Falls downtown (Queen Street) is undergoing a major revitalization; the city is encouraging redevelopment of this area as an arts and culture district. The downtown was a major centre for local commerce and night life up until the 1970s, when the Niagara Square Shopping Centre began to draw away crowds and retailers. Since 2006, Historic Niagara has brought art galleries, boutiques, cafés and bistros to the street. Attractions include renovation of the Seneca Theatre.

Comparison to Niagara Falls, New York

In the 20th century, there was a favourable exchange rate when comparing Canadian and U.S. currencies.

Niagara Falls, New York, struggles to compete against Niagara Falls, Ontario; the Canadian side has a greater average annual income, a higher average home price, and lower levels of vacant buildings and blight, as well as a more vibrant economy and better tourism infrastructure. The population of Niagara Falls, New York fell by half from the 1960s to 2012. In contrast, the population of Niagara Falls, Ontario more than tripled.

The Ontario government introduced legal gambling to the local economy in the mid-1990s. Casino Niagara precipitated an economic boom in the late 1990s as numerous luxury hotels and tourist attractions were built, and a second casino, Niagara Fallsview, opened in 2004. Both attracted American tourists due in part to the comparatively less expensive Canadian dollar, and despite the opening of the Seneca Niagara Casino on the American side. When the Canadian and US currencies moved closer to parity in the 2000s, Niagara Falls, Ontario continued to be a popular destination for Americans, while Niagara Falls, New York, experienced a prolonged economic downturn. Ontario's legal drinking age is 19, which attracts potential alcohol consumers from across the border, as the American drinking age is 21.

Attractions

Table Rock Welcome Centre

Journey Behind the Falls

Skylon Tower

Niagara SkyWheel

Winter Festival of Lights

Niagara Parks Butterfly Conservatory

Niagara Heritage Trail

Dufferin Islands

Niagara Parks School of Horticulture

The Rainbow Carillon, which sounds from the Rainbow Tower

Clifton Hill, Niagara Falls — Tourist promenade featuring a Ripley's Believe It Or Not Museum, arcades, five haunted houses, four wax museums including a Louis Tussauds Wax Works, and themed restaurants including the Hard Rock Cafe and Rainforest Cafe.

Marineland — Aquatic theme park

Casinos — Casino Niagara and Niagara Fallsview Casino Resort

IMAX Theatre and Daredevil museum

Fallsview Tourist Area

Fallsview Indoor Waterpark

Tower Hotel (Niagara Falls)

Notable people

Bruno Agostinelli, professional tennis player[48]

Ray Barkwill, Canadian national rugby player[49]

Harold Bradley, classical pianist

Cathy Marie Buchanan, author

James Cameron, film director

Bill Cupolo, NHL player

Kevin Dallman, NHL player

Marty Dallman, NHL player

Frank Dancevic, professional tennis player

Sandro DeAngelis, CFL kicker

Robert Nathaniel Dett, composer born in Drummondville

Joe Fletcher, referee at FIFA World Cup

Tre Ford, CFL quarterback

Tyrell Ford, former CFL and NFL cornerback

Barbara Frum, CBC broadcaster

William Giauque, recipient of 1949 Nobel Prize in Chemistry

Mike Glumac, professional hockey player

Brian Greenspan, lawyer

Eddie Greenspan, lawyer

Bobby Gunn, boxer

Obs Heximer, NHL player

Tim Hicks, country singer

Honeymoon Suite, rock band

Harold Howard, retired mixed martial artist and UFC fighter

Jon Klassen, illustrator and children's book author

Johnathan Kovacevic, NHL player

Judy LaMarsh, second female federal cabinet minister in Canadian history

Steve Ludzik, NHL player

Denise Matthews, evangelist, singer

Bob Manno, NHL player

John McCall MacBain, philanthropist, billionaire businessman, founder and former CEO of Trader Classified Media

Nenad Medic, poker player

Stephan Moccio, musician, arranger, composer

Tom Moore, trade unionist

Rick Morocco, ice hockey executive and professional player[50]

Johnny Mowers, NHL goalie

Rob Nicholson, former Minister of Justice and Attorney General for Canada

Terry O'Reilly, NHL player and head coach

Roula Partheniou, contemporary artist

Frank Pietrangelo, NHL goalie

Burr Plato, politician

deadmau5, musician and DJ

Isabelle Rezazadeh, DJ and record producer

Phil Roberto, NHL player

Derek Sanderson, NHL player

Jarrod Skalde, NHL player

Russell Teibert, soccer player

Jay Triano, former NBA head coach

Gillian Robertson, UFC Fighter

Tvangeste, symphonic black metal band formerly based on Kaliningrad, Russia

Wave, pop band

Sherman Zavitz, historian

Murda Beatz, Producer and DJ

Steve Terreberry, musician, comedian, and YouTuber

Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, lawyer and professor; former judge

Greg Kovacs, bodybuilder

The cottage that is now The Nobody Inn was one of “dwelling houses or messuages” in 1837. The Inn has had a curious role in the parish. It did not formally become an Inn until 1838. However from the early 1600’s at least it was virtually the village’s unofficial Church House. It was originally called Pophill House but details seem untraceable until 1752 when it is owned by Stephen Diggines “the carpenter”. Stephen and his son Stephen did carpentry work for the church and his house continued to be a centre for parish affairs and de facto inn and meeting place.

Pophill House did not become “The New Inn” until after Stephen Jr. died in 1837. . Since then the Inn has only changed ownership five times and always to people who love the history, the beautiful village, good food and wine and always give a warm welcome to their customers.

II is believed to have been informally established in the late 18c to provide "liquid refreshments" for the many men who worked in the mines of the hills at Ashton, Doddiscombsleigh and Christow, in their efforts to satisfy the huge demand for manganese for use in the potteries and for bleaching.

(Two not very plausible explanations on record of the unusual name , one says it came into being about 1952 when the landlord died, and the undertaker and the pallbearers failed to notice that there was no body in the coffin when it was buried in the village churchyard. The same day, the undertakers noticed that they still had the body. They telephoned the inn during the wake and the mourners were told of the mishap. The empty coffin was duly dug up and re-buried.

An alternative explanation is that a landlord of the inn was in the habit of leaving his potman in charge of the inn when he went out on business. The potman was either shy or lazy, and when travellers came knocking at the inn door seeking refreshment would shout "There's nobody in !")

Rude Health CCL www.geograph.org.uk/photo/3253787 & Trish Steel CCL commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_sign_for_the_Nobody_I...

One of the most amazing reflections I've ever seen is the one near Devils mountain. These hills with 3 peaks have always been an area of remarkable stories and witchcraft in regional history.

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This is an area where witches still roam today and practice old rituals in the night. Some days hiking up and down the hills you can find man made stone circles or symbols in the sand, mainly on hill tops.

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The photograph you see here shows, hidden in the woods ,one of two, almost untraceable black water holes called 'witches swirls'. A place where they once drowned witches. I've never seen photographs or images anywhere of this place.

(Updated on February 16, 2025)

One word of caution: this photo is almost half a century old, though in this old man's mind it seems to have been taken yesterday. The point is that there has been additional building restoration in the decades since.

I first came to this sacred site in 1973 and, like so many other visitors, I was wholly unprepared for my first encounter with the overwhelming power and implications of the central dome's Pantocrator mosaic. To say it's one of the most remarkable works in the millennium-long legacy of Byzantine art is saying a lot, but it's also not saying enough. It's one of the most remarkable works of art in all of human history.

Now, so many years later, I also appreciate the church's overall design and architectural geology. Among its various points of interest is the fact the exterior is a textbook example of a masonry technique known as cloisonné.

While this term is also used for inlay in metalwork and related media, architectural cloisonné specifically refers to the practice of separating blocks of ashlar stone with brick spacers. In this case, Middle-Period Byzantine builders used wafer-thin bricks—an inheritance, perhaps, from a type often used by their Imperial Roman predecessors.

Brick is also used here as a very effective decorative element in window frames, as following photos will more clearly show. Regrettably, its origin is not cited in any source I've found.

Similarly, the identity of the stone has not been described in literature that is now publicly accessible. Still, it is almost certainly the kind of easily worked sedimentary rock known to the ancients and to modern archaeologists alike as Poros.

Regrettably, Poros is a maddeningly imprecise term encompassing a bevy of soft, low-density varieties ranging from marly limestones to travertines and sandstones. Quarried in such places as Piraeus, Aegina, Megara, Sicyon, and Corinth, most seem to be Tertiary or Quaternary in age. They are frequently untraceable to a specific locale.

As poorly sourced as these building materials are, we'll see them in used again and again at other Byzantine sites in Athens proper.

To see the other photos and descriptions in this series, visit my Architectural Geology of Byzantine Churches of the Athens Region album.

Niagara Falls is a city in Ontario, Canada. It is on the western bank of the Niagara River in the Golden Horseshoe region of Southern Ontario, with a population of 94,415 at the 2021 census. It is part of the St. Catharines - Niagara Census Metropolitan Area (CMA). Incorporated on 12 June 1903, the city is across the river from Niagara Falls, New York. The Niagara River flows over Niagara Falls at this location, creating a natural spectacle which attracts millions of tourists each year.

The tourist area near the falls includes observation towers, high-rise hotels, souvenir shops, museums, indoor water parks, casinos and theatres, mostly with colourful neon billboards and advertisements. Other parts of the city include golf courses, parks, historic sites from the War of 1812, and residential neighbourhoods.

History

Prior to European arrival, present day Niagara Falls was populated by Iroquoian-speaking Neutral people but, after attacks from the Haudenosaunee and Seneca, the Neutral people population was severely reduced. The Haudenosaunee people remained in the area until Europeans made first contact in the late 17th century. The Niagara Falls area had some European settlement in the 17th century. Louis Hennepin, a French priest and missionary, is considered to be the first European to visit the area in the 1670s. French colonists settled mostly in Lower Canada, beginning near the Atlantic, and in Quebec and Montreal.

After surveys were completed in 1782 the area was referred to as Township Number 2 as well as Mount Dorchester after Guy Carleton, 1st Baron Dorchester (and today is only honoured by Dorchester Road and the community of Dorchester Village). The earliest settlers of Township Number 2 were Philip George Bender (namesake of Bender Street and Bender Hill near Casino Niagara originally from Germany and later New Jersey and Philadelphia) and Thomas McMicken (a Scottish-born British Army veteran). Increased settlement in this area took place during and after the American Revolutionary War, when the British Crown made land grants to Loyalists to help them resettle in Upper Canada and provide some compensation for their losses after the United States became independent. Loyalist Robert Land received 200 acres (81 ha) and was one of the first people of European descent to settle in the Niagara Region. He moved to nearby Hamilton three years later due to the relentless noise of the falls.

In 1791, John Graves Simcoe renamed the town was Stamford after Stamford, Lincolnshire in England[7] but today Stamford is only used for an area northwest of downtown Niagara Falls as well as Stamford Street. During the war of 1812, the battle of Lundy's Lane took place in July 1814. In 1856, the Town of Clifton was incorporated by Ogden Creighton after Clifton, Bristol. The name of the town was changed to Niagara Falls in 1881. In 1882, the community of Drummondville (near the present-day corner of Lundy's Lane and Main Street) was incorporated as the village of Niagara Falls (South). The village was referred to as Niagara Falls South to differentiate it from the town. In 1904, the town and village amalgamated to form the City of Niagara Falls. In 1963, the city amalgamated with the surrounding Stamford Township. In 1970, the Niagara regional government was formed. This resulted in the village of Chippawa, Willoughby Township, and part of Crowland Township being annexed into Niagara Falls.

An internment camp for Germans was set up at The Armoury (now Niagara Military Museum) in Niagara Falls from December 1914 to August 1918.

Black history

Niagara Falls has had a Black population since at least 1783. Up to 12 African-Americans were a part of the Butler's Rangers, including Richard Pierpoint. When they were disbanded in 1783, they tried to establish themselves through farming nearby, making them among the first Black settlers in the region. It is estimated that nearly 10 percent of the Loyalists to settle in the area were Black Loyalists.

Niagara Falls' Black population increased in the following decades, as a destination on the Underground Railroad. In 1856, a British Methodist Episcopal (BME) Church was established for African-Canadian worshipers. The BME Church, Nathaniel Dett Memorial Chapel is now a National Historic Site, remaining in operation into the 21st century. Composer, organist, pianist and music professor Nathaniel Dett was born in Niagara Falls in 1882.

In 1886, Burr Plato became one of the first African Canadians to be elected to political office, holding the position of City Councillor of Niagara Falls until 1901.

Geography

Niagara Falls is approximately 130 km (81 mi) by road from Ontario's capital of Toronto, which is across Lake Ontario to the north. The area of the Niagara Region is approximately 1,800 km2 (690 sq mi).

Topography

The city is built along the Niagara Falls waterfalls and the Niagara Gorge on the Niagara River, which flows from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario.

Climate

The city of Niagara Falls has a humid continental climate (Köppen Dfa) which is moderated to an extent in all seasons by proximity to water bodies. Winters are cold, with a January high of −0.4 °C (31.3 °F) and a low of −7.8 °C (18.0 °F). However, temperatures above 0 °C (32.0 °F) are common during winter. The average annual snowfall is 154 centimetres (61 in), in which it can receive lake effect snow from both lakes Erie and Ontario. Summers are warm to hot and humid, with a July high of 27.4 °C (81.3 °F) and a low of 17 °C (62.6 °F). The average annual precipitation is 970.2 millimetres (38 in), which is relatively evenly distributed throughout the year.

In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada, Niagara Falls had a population of 94,415 living in 37,793 of its 39,778 total private dwellings, a change of 7.2% from its 2016 population of 88,071. With a land area of 210.25 km2 (81.18 sq mi), it had a population density of 449.1/km2 (1,163.1/sq mi) in 2021.

At the census metropolitan area (CMA) level in the 2021 census, the St. Catharines - Niagara CMA had a population of 433,604 living in 179,224 of its 190,878 total private dwellings, a change of 6.8% from its 2016 population of 406,074. With a land area of 1,397.09 km2 (539.42 sq mi), it had a population density of 310.4/km2 (803.8/sq mi) in 2021.

As of the 2021 Census, 20.9% of the city's population were visible minorities, 3.5% had Indigenous ancestry, and the remaining 75.6% were White. The largest visible minority groups were South Asian (6.3%), Black (3.1%), Filipino (3.0%), Chinese (2.4%), Latin American (1.6%) and Arab (1.1%).

60.1% of Niagara Falls city residents self-identified with Christian denominations in 2021, down from 74.1% in 2011. 33.2% of residents were Catholic, 13.9% were Protestant, 7.1% were Christians of unspecified denomination, and 2.4% were Christian Orthodox. All other Christian denominations/Christian related traditions made up 3.5%. 30.9% of residents were irreligious or secular, up from 22.5% in 2011. Overall, followers of non-Christian religions/spiritual traditions were 9.0% of the population. The largest of these were Islam (4.1%), Hinduism (2.0%), Sikhism (1.4%) and Buddhism (0.8%)

Tourism started in the early 19th century and has been a vital part of the local economy since that time. The falls became known as a natural wonder, in part to their being featured in paintings by prominent American artists of the 19th century such as Albert Bierstadt. Such works were reproduced as lithographs, becoming widely distributed. Niagara Falls marketed itself as a honeymoon destination, describing itself as the "honeymoon capital of the world". Its counterpart in New York also used the moniker. The phrase was most commonly used in brochures in the early twentieth century and declined in usage around the 1960s.

With a plentiful and inexpensive source of hydroelectric power from the waterfalls, many electro-chemical and electro-metallurgical industries located there in the early to mid-20th century. Industry began moving out of the city in the 1970s and 80s because of economic recession and increasing global competition in the manufacturing sector. Tourism increasingly became the city's most important revenue source.

In 2004, several tourist establishments in Niagara Falls began adding a three percent marketing fee to bills. The collected money is untraceable, and there are no controls over how each establishment spends it. The Ontario government—concerned tourists could be misled into believing the fees were endorsed by the government—warned hotels and restaurants in 2008 not to claim the fee if it was not being remitted to a legitimate non-profit agency that promotes tourism. The practise continues, and takes in an estimated $15 million per-year from tourists unaware the fee is voluntary and can be removed from their bill.

Recent development has been mostly centred on the Clifton Hill and Fallsview areas. The Niagara Falls downtown (Queen Street) is undergoing a major revitalization; the city is encouraging redevelopment of this area as an arts and culture district. The downtown was a major centre for local commerce and night life up until the 1970s, when the Niagara Square Shopping Centre began to draw away crowds and retailers. Since 2006, Historic Niagara has brought art galleries, boutiques, cafés and bistros to the street. Attractions include renovation of the Seneca Theatre.

Comparison to Niagara Falls, New York

In the 20th century, there was a favourable exchange rate when comparing Canadian and U.S. currencies.

Niagara Falls, New York, struggles to compete against Niagara Falls, Ontario; the Canadian side has a greater average annual income, a higher average home price, and lower levels of vacant buildings and blight, as well as a more vibrant economy and better tourism infrastructure. The population of Niagara Falls, New York fell by half from the 1960s to 2012. In contrast, the population of Niagara Falls, Ontario more than tripled.

The Ontario government introduced legal gambling to the local economy in the mid-1990s. Casino Niagara precipitated an economic boom in the late 1990s as numerous luxury hotels and tourist attractions were built, and a second casino, Niagara Fallsview, opened in 2004. Both attracted American tourists due in part to the comparatively less expensive Canadian dollar, and despite the opening of the Seneca Niagara Casino on the American side. When the Canadian and US currencies moved closer to parity in the 2000s, Niagara Falls, Ontario continued to be a popular destination for Americans, while Niagara Falls, New York, experienced a prolonged economic downturn. Ontario's legal drinking age is 19, which attracts potential alcohol consumers from across the border, as the American drinking age is 21.

Attractions

Table Rock Welcome Centre

Journey Behind the Falls

Skylon Tower

Niagara SkyWheel

Winter Festival of Lights

Niagara Parks Butterfly Conservatory

Niagara Heritage Trail

Dufferin Islands

Niagara Parks School of Horticulture

The Rainbow Carillon, which sounds from the Rainbow Tower

Clifton Hill, Niagara Falls — Tourist promenade featuring a Ripley's Believe It Or Not Museum, arcades, five haunted houses, four wax museums including a Louis Tussauds Wax Works, and themed restaurants including the Hard Rock Cafe and Rainforest Cafe.

Marineland — Aquatic theme park

Casinos — Casino Niagara and Niagara Fallsview Casino Resort

IMAX Theatre and Daredevil museum

Fallsview Tourist Area

Fallsview Indoor Waterpark

Tower Hotel (Niagara Falls)

Notable people

Bruno Agostinelli, professional tennis player[48]

Ray Barkwill, Canadian national rugby player[49]

Harold Bradley, classical pianist

Cathy Marie Buchanan, author

James Cameron, film director

Bill Cupolo, NHL player

Kevin Dallman, NHL player

Marty Dallman, NHL player

Frank Dancevic, professional tennis player

Sandro DeAngelis, CFL kicker

Robert Nathaniel Dett, composer born in Drummondville

Joe Fletcher, referee at FIFA World Cup

Tre Ford, CFL quarterback

Tyrell Ford, former CFL and NFL cornerback

Barbara Frum, CBC broadcaster

William Giauque, recipient of 1949 Nobel Prize in Chemistry

Mike Glumac, professional hockey player

Brian Greenspan, lawyer

Eddie Greenspan, lawyer

Bobby Gunn, boxer

Obs Heximer, NHL player

Tim Hicks, country singer

Honeymoon Suite, rock band

Harold Howard, retired mixed martial artist and UFC fighter

Jon Klassen, illustrator and children's book author

Johnathan Kovacevic, NHL player

Judy LaMarsh, second female federal cabinet minister in Canadian history

Steve Ludzik, NHL player

Denise Matthews, evangelist, singer

Bob Manno, NHL player

John McCall MacBain, philanthropist, billionaire businessman, founder and former CEO of Trader Classified Media

Nenad Medic, poker player

Stephan Moccio, musician, arranger, composer

Tom Moore, trade unionist

Rick Morocco, ice hockey executive and professional player[50]

Johnny Mowers, NHL goalie

Rob Nicholson, former Minister of Justice and Attorney General for Canada

Terry O'Reilly, NHL player and head coach

Roula Partheniou, contemporary artist

Frank Pietrangelo, NHL goalie

Burr Plato, politician

deadmau5, musician and DJ

Isabelle Rezazadeh, DJ and record producer

Phil Roberto, NHL player

Derek Sanderson, NHL player

Jarrod Skalde, NHL player

Russell Teibert, soccer player

Jay Triano, former NBA head coach

Gillian Robertson, UFC Fighter

Tvangeste, symphonic black metal band formerly based on Kaliningrad, Russia

Wave, pop band

Sherman Zavitz, historian

Murda Beatz, Producer and DJ

Steve Terreberry, musician, comedian, and YouTuber

Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, lawyer and professor; former judge

Greg Kovacs, bodybuilder

Modern Conflict

Trail Gone Cold

Act I

Part II

I stepped out of my office and slammed the door behind me. The guard jolted awake from his light nap.

“Sorry sir, just dozing off a little, heh.”

“Well, if you wanted to get yourself shot by an assassin or lined up against a wall in front of a firing squad, I suppose you would have been completely asleep by now.” I glanced over my shoulder and smirked to show him I was pulling his leg. He opened his mouth to say something but closed it again and he fell into step at my shoulder. His face hardened, suppressing a grin. We walked in silence for a few minutes before he spoke.

“Where are we headed sir?” I glanced back at him.

“DRK Kliniken Berlin.” I said simply enough.

“Oh.” he said in a tone that bordered stupid and brutish. He turned to the radio attached to the shoulder of his armor vest, and detailed one of his subordinates to prepare a car for me. We stepped into a lift and descended to the basement, walking out into the damp thick air the smells of cigarettes and flatulence permeated throughout the lower garage. I walked briskly towards the gently humming armored car, the driver opened the door and I stepped in sinking into the overly padded back bench and the guard followed me in closing the door behind him. Two outriders roared past on motor bikes and we started out of the garage.

The drive was pleasant enough I stared quietly out the window as we passed through old East Berlin. After nearly a twenty minute trip, the driver rolled us to a halt out front of the hospital. He hurried out and opened the door for me this time my guard leading me out, I strode out to meet the white uniformed nurse. Her apron was spattered with dry blood and she seemed a bit disgruntled.

“Ah, Mister Muellner pleased to meet you.” she said quickly “Doctor Van Eisel is just about finished with the autopsies, do you wish me to escort you?” her clipped tone hid the fact that she was really just trying to be polite rather well.

“No, no thank you miss. I should be able to find her on my own.” I said hiding my irritation. My entourage of four suited body guards waited for me to reach the doorway before greeting me.

“Sir.” the lead trooper snapped a salute which I returned, the other three stood at easy attention.

“Lead the way.” I said, he turned and lead the rest of us through the doors and up a flight of steps.

“Miss Van Eisel is on the third story, sir.” he told me without turning around. Our little group climbed up the stairs quietly and soon the point man indicated a door, to be honest it didn’t look any different from the multitudes of service doors and other such doors but he seemed to think it was the right one. He passed through and held it open for me and the others. A desk attendant looked up from some routine paperwork and squinted at me. Then she turned to what looked like a PA microphone but seemed to be wired to personal communications units behind the white double doors.

“Miss Van Eisel, Muellner is here to see you.” her high pitched, raspy voice was like nails on a chalk board. I turned to my team leader.

“I think it’s best you stay here sergeant, the matters the doctor and I are discussing are rather…sensitive.”

He nodded, “Sir.” as if he thought that was an adequate reply.

“The doctor is just right through here sir.” the desk attendant informed me.

“Thank you.” I nodded and passed through the doors. The dark hallway stank of chemicals and blood. The doctor opened the door at the other end of the hallway just as I entered and she stepped out. I quickened my pace to meet her halfway. “Doctor Van Eisel.” I projected my voice so I could at least sound a bit confident, on the inside I was worried about what findings the doctor had made.

“Mister Muellner, a pleasure.”

“No, no it’s all mine.” I insisted. “So what have you found?” I said unable to keep a note of uncertainty out of my voice.

“Well,” she said, removing her laytex gloves and stepping back so she didn’t have to look up at me to speak to my face. “I’ve determined that all five were…assassinated. By whom remains to be seen.”

“What’s that supposed to mean.” I said, “The Du-…our uh, friends told us what happened.”

“Were those sources verified? Evidence is conflicting and if you can’t prove this…Syndicate killed these men…” she trailed off then motioned with her head, “Let’s go take a look.” I was at a loss for words. This guy was efficient. There was a wide window that let us see in from the outside which I would have been perfectly fine with carrying on the discussion out in the hallway while the bodies stayed in there. Unfortunately the doctor lead the way into the lab. Four black body bags were laid out on four metal tables.

“There were five victims.” I said my stomach twisting into tighter and tighter knots with each passing minute.

“Yes, that’s true.” she said unzipping the nearest bag. The stench of chemicals and despair assaulted my sinuses.

“Then why are there only four body bags?” I asked dreading the answer but it was part of my job, I had to ask.

“I never said all five bodies were recovered.” she let out a mirthless chuckle, “By the time your recovery team responded, the fifth, an Edward Leibler, wasn’t much more than a stain on the carpet.” then she sighed, “Quite a big one at that.” My stomach certainly wouldn’t be recovering any time soon. “This is Otto Voors,” she said gesturing to the open bag, “a radical who was leading the Patriot Nuclear Deterrence Modification Project. He was burned badly in the throat area on the outside and the larynx was disintegrated by the same chemical. The windpipe collapsed in on itself because of the erosion, then Mister Voors was shot what appears to be twice in the head. The bullet cluster is so tight that on first examination he was killed by an assault rifle caliber bullet. Upon closer examination it was determined that it was a smaller caliber, a handgun maybe. The overlapping of the wounds were off just enough to disrupt the entry hole. This is preventing us from determining what gun fired it, the casings were removed from the scene and the actual bullets were not recovered. Whoever this was delivered a completely surgical and nearly untraceable assault.”

“This guy has apparently been deep undercover for quite a long time. When his handlers tried to pull him back in… this happened. Whoever this guy is…the Dutch have better got a leash on their maniac soon.”

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Part two of Modern Conflict! This scene is not as satisfactory as the first but gets the job done. Let me know what you think in the comments. Also yes I'll be writing for the Dutch!

Maker: Etienne Carjat (1828-1906)

Born: France

Active: France

Medium: woodburytype

Size: 7 7/8 in x 8 3/4 in

Location:

Object No. 2020.474

Shelf: D-19

Publication: Etienne Carjat, 1828-1906 Photographe, Musee Carnavalet, Paris, 1982, pg 26

Bruce Bernard, Photodiscovery, Harry Abram’s, New or, 1980, pg 112

Other Collections:

Provenance:

Notes: Léon Gambetta, (born April 2, 1838, Cahors, France—died Dec. 31, 1882, Ville-d’Avray, near Paris), French republican statesman who helped direct the defense of France during the Franco-German War of 1870–71. In helping to found the Third Republic, he made three essential contributions: first, by his speeches and articles, he converted many Frenchmen to the ideals of moderate democratic republicanism. Second, by his political influence and personal social contacts, he gathered support for an elective democratic political party, the Republican Union. Finally, by backing Adolphe Thiers, who was elected provisional head of government by the National Assembly of 1871, against royalists and Bonapartists, he helped transform the new regime into a parliamentary republic. Gambetta was briefly premier of France from Nov. 14, 1881, to Jan. 16, 1882.

Étienne Carjat (28 March 1828 in Fareins, Ain – 19 March 1906 in Paris), was a French journalist, caricaturist and photographer. He co-founded the magazine Le Diogène, and founded the review Le Boulevard. He is best known for his numerous portraits and caricatures of political, literary and artistic Parisian figures. His best-known work is the iconic portrait of Arthur Rimbaud which he took in October 1871. The location of much of his photography is untraceable after being sold to a Mr. Roth in 1923.

To view our archive organized by Collections, visit: OUR COLLECTIONS

For information about reproducing this image, visit: THE HISTORY OF PHOTOGRAPHY ARCHIVE

Maker: Etienne Carjat (1828-1906)

Born: France

Active: France

Medium: drawing

Size: 9.1" x 6.3"

Location: France

Object No. 2016.622

Shelf: N-22

Publication:

Other Collections:

Provenance: Encheres Oceanes, June 18, 2016, lot 101

Rank: 214

Notes: Jean Baptiste Prosper Bressant (1815-1886) was a French actor born in Chalon-sur-Saône, Saône-et-Loire, in 1815. In 1838 he went to the French theatre at St. Petersburg, where for eight years he played important parts with ever-increasing reputation.

Étienne Carjat (28 March 1828 in Fareins, Ain – 19 March 1906 in Paris), was a French journalist, caricaturist and photographer. He co-founded the magazine Le Diogène, and founded the review Le Boulevard. He is best known for his numerous portraits and caricatures of political, literary and artistic Parisian figures. His best-known work is the iconic portrait of Arthur Rimbaud which he took in October 1871. The location of much of his photography is untraceable after being sold to a Mr. Roth in 1923.

To view our archive organized by themes and subjects, visit: OUR COLLECTIONS

For information about reproducing this image, visit: THE HISTORY OF PHOTOGRAPHY ARCHIVE

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allendale,_Northumberland

Allendale, often marked on maps as Allendale Town, is a village and civil parish in south west Northumberland, England. It is located within the North Pennines Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

At the 2001 census, the parish had a population of 2,120, decreasing to 2,021 at the 2011 Census. Allendale is within the North Pennines Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB); the second largest of the 40 AONB's in England and Wales. The local economy is predominantly based on agriculture (notably sheep farming) and tourism, although of late it has become a popular commuter town for Newcastle upon Tyne.

Allendale is located around 11 miles (18 km) by road from the town of Hexham, and around 34 miles (55 km) from both Carlisle and Newcastle upon Tyne.

Allendale refers to the "dale" or valley of the River Allen. Evidence of prehistoric settlement has been found on the surrounding moorland. In the 16th century this area, close to the Scottish border, was a lawless and troubled place. Fortified farmhouses known as 'bastles' were constructed to protect residents and livestock against reiver raids. Allendale has a concentration of bastles, around 40 can still be seen, many as scenic ruins.

Local mining for lead has occurred since Roman times, with the first smelting mill being constructed in the 1600s. The significant growth of Allendale Town and the surrounding villages was fuelled by that of the local lead-mining and smelting industries in the 19th century. The remains of two flues from the former smelting mill (between Allendale and Catton) run to chimneys up on the fells high above the village. The smelting mill is now home to the Allendale Brewery and the Allenmills Regeneration Project. In 1874 Allendale Co-operative Society was established.

In 1869, the Hexham and Allendale Railway was opened to provide improved transport, but its opening coincided with a rapid decline in the industry due to cheap imports of lead. The last mines in the area closed in 1894 (although an attempt was made to re-open the mine at Allenheads in the 1970s).

With the closure of the lead mines, the population rapidly declined and Allendale became a popular tourist destination for Edwardian Tynesiders seeking a country escape. The railway was finally closed to passengers in 1930 and to goods in 1950 (when the local terminus was bought by the stationmaster and opened as a caravan park.

Popularly held to be the town or dale that is referenced in Charles Jefferys' and Sidney Nelson's 1835 ballad The Rose of Allandale Rose of Allendale, published in the New York Mirror, and later sung by Paddy Reilly, The Dubliners and many others, it seems more likely that this song is either metaphorical or refers literally to the community on Allan Water in the Scottish Highlands at the beginning of the Firth of Forth. The explicit reference to Allendale, moreover, in 'Lucy Gray of Allendale', a musical setting of the earliest known work by Cumbrian poet Robert Anderson, manages to get the spelling of the town correctly.

The town's New Year celebrations involve lighted tar barrels that are carried on the heads of revellers called guisers. This tradition dates back so far that it is untraceable. It appears to have originated from the lighting of a silver band that were carolling at New Year. They were unable to use candles to light their music due to the strong winds, so someone suggested a tar barrel be used. Having to move from place to place, it would have been easier to carry the barrels upon the guisers' heads, rather than rolling them. There have been claims that it is a pagan festival. However, these claims are unfounded.

Governance

Allendale is in the parliamentary constituency of Hexham, Guy Opperman of the Conservative Party is the Member of Parliament. In 2023 Joe Morris was selected to stand as the Labour Party candidate at the next General Election.

Prior to Brexit, for the European Parliament its residents voted to elect MEP's for the North East England constituency.

For Local Government purposes it belongs to Northumberland County Council a unitary authority, with Allendale lying in the Tynedale Division. Prior to the 2009 structural changes to local government in England it was part of Tynedale Council.

Allendale has its own Parish Council; Allendale Parish Council.

Economy

The village hosts a health centre, village shop, Post Office, a store operated by Allendale Co-operative Society,[13] brewery, butchers, chemist, gift shop, tea-room, art-cafe, beauty and holistic healing centre, and several pubs.

Owing to its location, Allendale is a popular country holiday destination. There are a number of holiday cottages in and around the village as well as a caravan park.

The Museum of Classic Sci-Fi is housed in a cellar in the village.

Public services

Anglican church of St. Cuthbert's in winter

Allendale hosts a scout group and there is an active village hall that hosts regular events. Allendale Library is located at Dawson Place in the village square.

There is also a fire station in the town.

The local community is served both by the Anglican Church of St. Cuthbert's and a Methodist chapel.

Transport

Air

The nearest airports are Carlisle Lake District Airport and Newcastle International Airport, which are located around 29 and 32 miles (47 and 51 km) from the village by road respectively.

Bus

The village is served by Go North East's 688 bus service, which links Allenheads, Sinderhope and Allendale with Catton, Langley and Hexham.

Rail

The nearest railway stations are located at Hexham and Haydon Bridge, both of which are on the Tyne Valley Line, which runs between Newcastle and Carlisle. From Hexham, three trains per hour run to Newcastle, with two trains per hour to Carlisle. A less regular service is provided at Haydon Bridge, with 19 trains per day to Newcastle and 17 trains per day to Carlisle.

Road

Allendale is located around 11 miles (18 km) by road from the town of Hexham, and 34 miles (55 km) from both Carlisle and Newcastle upon Tyne.

Sports

Allen Valley Angling and Conservation provides permits to fish the River East Allen and supports conservation efforts to improve fish stock and riverside access. The river is home to wild brown trout and visiting spawning sea trout and salmon.

Allendale Sports Club operates senior and junior football clubs and other associated sports groups, including a local league netball team. It also has 4 full size tennis courts. The Allen Valley Striders running club welcomes runners of all abilities, including novices, and is also based at the Allendale Sports Club.

Allendale Golf Club was founded in 1906.

Allendale Cricket Club fields two weekly teams and is affiliated with both the Northumberland Cricket Board and the West Tyne Senior Cricket League.

Each Spring, the Allendale Challenge is a fell challenge walk. Organised by the North of Tyne Mountain Rescue Team the 25 miles (40 km) route covers some of the peat bogs in the North Pennines on an anti-clockwise loop from Allendale town.

There is a Bowling Green adjacent to the Village Hall..

Awards

The village was the all-England winner of the Calor Village of The Year competition (2007). The Calor Village of the Year competition is organised annually by Community Action Northumberland with sponsorship provided by LPG supplier Calor.

Notable people

Philip Larkin (poet)

youtu.be/KcPcJ9ycEu4?t=2m22s Full Feature

Curse of the Demon / Night of the Demon

Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment

1957/58 / B&W / 1:78 anamorphic 16:9 / 82, 95 min. / Street Date August 13, 2002 / $24.95

Starring Dana Andrews, Peggy Cummins, Niall MacGinnis, Maurice Denham, Athene Seyler

Cinematography Ted Scaife

Production Designer Ken Adam

Special Effects George Blackwell, S.D. Onions, Wally Veevers

Film Editor Michael Gordon

Original Music Clifton Parker

Written by Charles Bennett and Hal E. Chester from the story Casting the Runes by Montague R. James

Produced by Frank Bevis, Hal E. Chester

Directed by Jacques Tourneur

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Savant champions a lot of genre movies but only infrequently does one appear like Jacques Tourneur's superlative Curse of the Demon. It's simply better than the rest -- an intelligent horror film with some very good scares. It occupies a stylistic space that sums up what's best in ghost stories and can hold its own with most any supernatural film ever made. Oh, it's also a great entertainment that never fails to put audiences at the edge of their seats.

What's more, Columbia TriStar has shown uncommon respect for their genre output by including both versions of Curse of the Demon on one disc. Savant has full coverage on the versions and their restoration below, following his thorough and analytical (read: long-winded and anal) coverage of the film itself.

Synopsis:

Dr. John Holden (Dana Andrews), a scientist and professional debunker of superstitious charlatans, arrives in England to help Professor Henry Harrington (Maurice Denham) assault the phony cult surrounding Dr. Julian Karswell (Niall McGinnis). But Harrington has mysteriously died and Holden becomes involved with his niece Joanna (Peggy Cummins), who thinks Karswell had something to do with it. Karswell's 'tricks' confuse the skeptical Holden, but he stubbornly holds on to his conviction that he's " ... not a sucker, like 90% of the human race." That is, until the evidence mounts that Harrington was indeed killed by a demon summoned from Hell, and that Holden is the next intended victim!

The majority of horror films are fantasies in which we accept supernatural ghosts, demons and monsters as part of a deal we've made with the authors: they dress the fantasy in an attractive guise and arrange the variables into an interesting pattern, and we agree to play along for the sake of enjoyment. When it works the movies can resonate with personal meaning. Even though Dracula and Frankenstein are unreal, they are relevant because they're aligned with ideas and themes in our subconscious.

Horror films that seriously confront the no-man's land between rational reality and supernatural belief have a tough time of it. Everyone who believes in God knows that the tug o' war between rationality and faith in our culture has become so clogged with insane belief systems it's considered impolite to dismiss people who believe in flying saucers or the powers of crystals or little glass pyramids. One of Dana Andrews' key lines in Curse of the Demon, defending his dogged skepticism against those urging him to have an open mind, is his retort, "If the world is a dark place ruled by Devils and Demons, we all might as well give up right now." Curse of the Demon balances itself between skepticism and belief with polite English manners, letting us have our fun as it lays its trap. We watch Andrews roll his eyes and scoff at the feeble séance hucksters and the dire warnings of a foolish-looking necromancer. Meanwhile, a whole dark world of horror sneaks up on him. The film's intelligent is such that we're not offended by its advocacy of dark forces or even its literal, in-your-face demon.

The remarkable Curse of the Demon was made in England for Columbia but is gloriously unaffected by that company's zero-zero track record with horror films. Producer Hal E. Chester would seem an odd choice to make a horror classic after producing Joe Palooka films and acting as a criminal punk in dozens of teen crime movies. The obvious strong cards are writer Charles Bennett, the brains behind several classic English Hitchcock pictures (who 'retired' into meaningless bliss writing for schlockmeister Irwin Allen) and Jacques Tourneur, a master stylist who put Val Lewton on the map with Cat People and I Walked With a Zombie. Tourneur made interesting Westerns (Canyon Passage, Great Day in the Morning) and perhaps the most romantic film noir, Out of the Past. By the late '50s he was on what Andrew Sarris in his American Film called 'a commercial downgrade'. The critic lumped Curse of the Demon with low budget American turkeys like The Fearmakers. 1

Put Tourneur with an intelligent script, a decent cameraman and more than a minimal budget and great things could happen. We're used to watching Corman Poe films, English Hammer films and Italian Bavas and Fredas, all the while making excuses for the shortcomings that keep them in the genre ghetto (where they all do quite well, thank you). There's even a veiled resentment against upscale shockers like The Innocents that have resources (money, time, great actors) denied our favorite toilers in the genre realm. Curse of the Demon is above all those considerations. It has name actors past their prime and reasonable production values. Its own studio (at least in America) released it like a genre quickie, double-billed with dreck like The Night the World Exploded and The Giant Claw. They cut it by 13 minutes, changed its title (to ape The Curse of Frankenstein?) and released a poster featuring a huge, slavering demon monster that some believe was originally meant to be barely glimpsed in the film itself. 2

Horror movies can work on more than one level but Curse of the Demon handles several levels and then some. The narrative sets up John Holden as a professional skeptic who raises a smirking eyebrow to the open minds of his colleagues. Unlike most second-banana scientists in horror films, they express divergent points of view. Holden just sees himself as having common sense but his peers are impressed by the consistency of demonological beliefs through history. Maybe they all saw Christensen's Witchcraft through the Ages, which might have served as a primer for author Charles Bennett. Smart dialogue allows Holden to score points by scoffing at the then-current "regression to past lives" scam popularized by the Bridey Murphy craze. 3 While Holden stays firmly rooted to his position, coining smart phrases and sarcastic put-downs of believers, the other scientists are at least willing to consider alternate possibilities. Indian colleague K.T. Kumar (Peter Elliott) keeps his opinion to himself. But when asked, he politely states that he believes entirely in the world of demons! 4

Holden may think he has the truth by the tail but it takes Kindergarten teacher Joanna Harrington (Peggy Cummins of Gun Crazy fame) to show him that being a skeptic doesn't mean ignoring facts in front of one's face. Always ready for a drink (a detail added to tailor the part to Andrews?), Holden spends the first couple of reels as interested in pursuing Miss Harrington, as he is the devil-worshippers. The details and coincidences pile up with alarming speed -- the disappearing ink untraceable by the lab, the visual distortions that might be induced by hypnosis, the pages torn from his date book and the parchment of runic symbols. Holden believes them to be props in a conspiracy to draw him into a vortex of doubt and fear. Is he being set up the way a Voodoo master cons his victim, by being told he will die, with fabricated clues to make it all appear real? Holden even gets a bar of sinister music stuck in his head. It's the title theme -- is this a wicked joke on movie soundtracks?

Speak of the Devil...

This brings us to the wonderful character of Julian Karswell, the kiddie-clown turned multi-millionaire cult leader. The man who launched Alfred Hitchcock as a maker of sophisticated thrillers here creates one of the most interesting villains ever written, one surely as good as any of Hitchcock's. In the short American cut Karswell is a shrewd games-player who shows Holden too many of his cards and finally outsmarts himself. The longer UK cut retains the full depth of his character.

Karswell has tapped into the secrets of demonology to gain riches and power, yet he tragically recognizes that he is as vulnerable to the forces of Hell as are the cowering minions he controls through fear. Karswell's coven means business. It's an entirely different conception from the aesthetic salon coffee klatch of The Seventh Victim, where nothing really supernatural happens and the only menace comes from a secret society committing new crimes to hide old ones.

Karswell keeps his vast following living in fear, and supporting his extravagant lifestyle under the idea that Evil is Good, and Good Evil. At first the Hobart Farm seems to harbor religious Christian fundamentalists who have turned their backs on their son. Then we find out that they're Karswell followers, living blighted lives on cursed acreage and bled dry by their cultist "leader." Karswell's mum (Athene Seyler) is an inversion of the usual insane Hitchcock mother. She lovingly resists her son's philosophy and actively tries to help the heroes. That's in the Night version, of course. In the shorter American cut she only makes silly attempts to interest Joanna in her available son and arranges for a séance. Concerned by his "negativity", Mother confronts Julian on the stairs. He has no friends, no wife, no family. He may be a mass extortionist but he's still her baby. Karswell explains that by exploiting his occult knowledge, he's immersed himself forever in Evil. "You get nothing for nothing"

Karswell is like the Devil on Earth, a force with very limited powers that he can't always control. By definition he cannot trust any of his own minions. They're unreliable, weak and prone to double-cross each other, and they attract publicity that makes a secret society difficult to conceal. He can't just kill Holden, as he hasn't a single henchman on the payroll. He instead summons the demon, a magic trick he's only recently mastered. When Karswell turns Harrington away in the first scene we can sense his loneliness. The only person who can possibly understand is right before him, finally willing to admit his power and perhaps even tolerate him. Karswell has no choice but to surrender Harrington over to the un-recallable Demon. In his dealings with the cult-debunker Holden, Karswell defends his turf but is also attempting to justify himself to a peer, another man who might be a potential equal. It's more than a duel of egos between a James Bond and a Goldfinger, with arrogance and aggression masking a mutual respect; Karswell knows he's taken Lewton's "wrong turning in life," and will have to pay for it eventually.

Karswell eventually earns Holden's respect, especially after the fearful testimony of Rand Hobart. It's taken an extreme demonstration to do it, but Holden budges from his smug position. He may not buy all of the demonology hocus-pocus but it's plain enough that Karswell or his "demon" is going to somehow rub him out. Seeking to sneak the parchment back into Karswell's possession, Holden becomes a worthy hero because he's found the maturity to question his own preconceptions. Armed with his rational, cool head, he's a force that makes Karswell -- without his demon, of course -- a relative weakling. Curse of the Demon ends in a classic ghost story twist, with just desserts dished out and balance recovered. The good characters are less sure of their world than when they started, but they're still able to cope. Evil has been defeated not by love or faith, but by intellect.

Curse of the Demon has the Val Lewton sensibility as has often been cited in Tourneur's frequent (and very effective) use of the device called the Lewton "Bus" -- a wholly artificial jolt of fast motion and noise interrupting a tense scene. There's an ultimate "bus" at the end when a train blasts in and sets us up for the end title. It "erases" the embracing actors behind it and I've always thought it had to be an inspiration for the last shot of North by NorthWest. The ever-playful Hitchcock was reportedly a big viewer of fantastic films, from which he seems to have gotten many ideas. He's said to have dined with Lewton on more than one occasion (makes sense, they were at one time both Selznick contractees) and carried on a covert competition with William Castle, of all people.

Visually, Tourneur's film is marvelous, effortlessly conjuring menacing forests lit in the fantastic Mario Bava mode by Ted Scaife, who was not known as a genre stylist. There are more than a few perfunctory sets, with some unflattering mattes used for airport interiors, etc.. Elsewhere we see beautiful designs by Ken Adam in one of his earliest outings. Karswell's ornate floor and central staircase evoke an Escher print, especially when visible/invisible hands appear on the banister. A hypnotic, maze-like set for a hotel corridor is also tainted by Escher and evokes a sense of the uncanny even better than the horrid sounds Holden hears. The build-up of terror is so effective that one rather unconvincing episode (a fight with a Cat People - like transforming cat) does no harm. Other effects, such as the demon footprints appearing in the forest, work beautifully.

In his Encyclopedia of Horror Movies Phil Hardy very rightly relates Curse of the Demon's emphasis on the visual to the then just-beginning Euro-horror subgenre. The works of Bava, Margheriti and Freda would make the photographic texture of the screen the prime element of their films, sometimes above acting and story logic.

Columbia TriStar's DVD of Curse of the Demon / Night of the Demon presents both versions of this classic in one package. American viewers saw an effective but abbreviated cut-down. If you've seen Curse of the Demon on cable TV or rented a VHS or a laser anytime after 1987, you're not going to see anything different in the film. In 1987 Columbia happened to pull out the English cut when it went to re-master. When the title came up as Night of the Demon, they just slugged in the Curse main title card and let it go.

From such a happy accident (believe me, nobody in charge at Columbia at the time would have purposely given a film like this a second glance) came a restoration at least as wonderful as the earlier reversion of The Fearless Vampire Killers to its original form. Genre fans were taken by surprise and the Laserdisc became a hot item that often traded for hundreds of dollars. 6

Back in film school Savant had been convinced that ever seeing the long, original Night cut was a lost cause. An excellent article in the old Photon magazine in the early '70s 5, before such analytical work was common, accurately laid out the differences between the two versions, something Savant needs to do sometime with The Damned and These Are the Damned. The Photon article very accurately describes the cut scenes and what the film lost without them, and certainly inspired many of the ideas here.

Being able to see the two versions back-to-back shows exactly how they differ. Curse omits some scenes and rearranges others. Gone is some narration from the title sequence, most of the airplane ride, some dialogue on the ground with the newsmen and several scenes with Karswell talking to his mother. Most crucially missing are Karswell's mother showing Joanna the cabalistic book everyone talks so much about and Holden's entire visit to the Hobart farm to secure a release for his examination of Rand Hobart. Of course the cut film still works (we loved the cut Curse at UCLA screenings and there are people who actually think it's better) but it's nowhere near as involving as the complete UK version. Curse also reshuffles some events, moving Holden's phantom encounter in the hallway nearer the beginning, which may have been to get a spooky scene in the middle section or to better disguise the loss of whole scenes later. The chop-job should have been obvious. The newly imposed fades and dissolves look awkward. One cut very sloppily happens right in the middle of a previous dissolve.

Night places both Andrews and Cummins' credits above the title and gives McGinnis an "also starring" credit immediately afterwards. Oddly, Curse sticks Cummins afterwards and relegates McGinnis to the top of the "also with" cast list. Maybe with his role chopped down, some Columbia executive thought he didn't deserve the billing?

Technically, both versions look just fine, very sharp and free of digital funk that would spoil the film's spooky visual texture. Night of the Demon is the version to watch for both content and quality. It's not perfect but has better contrast and less dirt than the American version. Curse has more emulsion scratches and flecking white dandruff in its dark scenes, yet looks fine until one sees the improvement of Night. Both shows are widescreen enhanced (hosanna), framing the action at its original tighter aspect ratio.

It's terrific that Columbia TriStar has brought out this film so thoughtfully, even though some viewers are going to be confused when their "double feature" disc appears to be two copies of the same movie. Let 'em stew. This is Savant's favorite release so far this year.

On a scale of Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor, Curse of the Demon / Night of the Demon rates:

Movie: Excellent

Footnotes:

Made very close to Curse of the Demon and starring Dana Andrews, The Fearmakers (great title) was a Savant must-see until he caught up with it in the UA collection at MGM. It's a pitiful no-budgeter that claims Madison Avenue was providing public relations for foreign subversives, and is negligible even in the lists of '50s anti-Commie films.

Return

Curse of the Demon's Demon has been the subject of debate ever since the heyday of Famous Monsters of Filmland. From what's on record it's clear that producer Chester added or maximized the shots of the creature, a literal visualization of a fiery, brimstone-smoking classical woodcut demon that some viewers think looks ridiculous. Bennett and Tourneur's original idea was to never show a demon but the producer changed that. Tourneur probably directed most of the shots, only to have Chester over-use them. To Savant's thinking, the demon looks great. It is first perceived as an ominous sound, a less strident version of the disturbing noise made by Them! Then it manifests itself visually as a strange disturbance in the sky (bubbles? sparks? early slit-scan?) followed by a billowing cloud of sulphurous smoke (a dandy effect not exploited again until Close Encounters of the Third Kind). The long-shot demon is sometimes called the bicycle demon because he's a rod puppet with legs that move on a wheel-rig. Smoke belches from all over his scaly body. Close-ups are provided by a wonderfully sculpted head 'n' shoulders demon with articulated eyes and lips, a full decade or so before Carlo Rambaldi started engineering such devices.

Most of the debate centers on how much Demon should have been shown with the general consensus that less would have been better. People who dote on Lewton-esque ambivalence say that the film's slow buildup of rationality-versus demonology is destroyed by the very real Demon's appearance in the first scene, and that's where they'd like it removed or radically reduced. The Demon is so nicely integrated into the cutting (the giant foot in the first scene is a real jolt) that it's likely that Tourneur himself filmed it all, perhaps expecting the shots to be shorter or more obscured. It is also possible that the giant head was a post-Tourneur addition - it doesn't tie in with the other shots as well (especially when it rolls forward rather stiffly) and is rather blunt. Detractors lump it in with the gawd-awful head of The Black Scorpion, which is filmed the same way and almost certainly was an afterthought - and also became a key poster image. This demon head matches the surrounding action a lot better than did the drooling Scorpion.

Savant wouldn't change Curse of the Demon but if you put a gun to my head I'd shorten most of the shots in its first appearance, perhaps eliminating all close-ups except for the final, superb shot of the the giant claw reaching for Harrington / us.

Kumar, played (I assume) by an Anglo actor, immediately evokes all those Indian and other Third World characters in Hammer films whose indigenous cultures invariably hold all manner of black magic and insidious horror. When Hammer films are repetitious it's because they take eighty minutes or so to convince the imagination-challenged English heroes to even consider the premise of the film as being real. In Curse of the Demon, Holden's smart-tongued dismissal of outside viewpoints seems much more pigheaded now than it did in 1957, when heroes confidently defended conformist values without being challenged. Kumar is a scientist but also probably a Hindu or a Sikh. He has no difficulty reconciling his faith with his scientific detachment. Holden is far too tactful to call Kumar a crazy third-world guru but that's probably what he's thinking. He instead politely ignores him. Good old Kumar then saves Holden's hide with some timely information. I hope Holden remembered to thank him.

There's an unstated conclusion in Curse of the Demon: Holden's rigid disbelief of the supernatural means he also does not believe in a Christian God with its fundamentally spiritual faith system of Good and Evil, saints and devils, angels and demons. Horror movies that deal directly with religious symbolism and "real faith" can be hypocritical in their exploitation and brutal in their cheap toying with what are for many people sacred personal concepts. I'm thinking of course of The Exorcist here. That movie has all the grace of a reporter who shows a serial killer's atrocity photos to a mother whose child has just been kidnapped. Curse of the Demon hasn't The Exorcist's ruthless commercial instincts but instead has the modesty not to pretend to be profound, or even "real." Yet it expresses our basic human conflict between rationality and faith very nicely.

Savant called Jim Wyrnoski, who was associated with Photon, in an effort to find out more about the article, namely who wrote it. It was very well done and I've never forgotten it; I unfortunately loaned my copy out to good old Jim Ursini and it disappeared. Obviously, a lot of the ideas here, I first read there. Perhaps a reader who knows better how to take care of their belongings can help me with the info? Ursini and Alain Silvers' More Things than are Dreamt Of Limelight, 1994, analyzes Curse of the Demon (and many other horror movies) in the context of its source story.

This is a true story: Cut to 2000. Columbia goes to re-master Curse of the Demon and finds that the fine-grain original of the English version is missing. The original long version of the movie may be lost forever. A few months later a collector appears who says he bought it from another unnamed collector and offers to trade it for a print copy of the American version, which he prefers. Luckily, an intermediary helps the collector follow up on his offer and the authorities are not contacted about what some would certainly call stolen property. The long version is now once again safe. Studios clearly need to defend their property but many collectors have "items" they personally have acquired legally. More often than you might think, such finds come about because studios throw away important elements. If the studios threaten prosecution, they will find that collectors will never approach them. They'd probably prefer to destroy irreplaceable film to avoid being criminalized.

New branding to be rolled out across UK bus with a common theme of "Pulse".

Leeds services with this branding will be promoted as "every 10 mins or Better" on common route sections.

youtu.be/KcPcJ9ycEu4?t=2m22s Full Feature

Curse of the Demon / Night of the Demon

Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment

1957/58 / B&W / 1:78 anamorphic 16:9 / 82, 95 min. / Street Date August 13, 2002 / $24.95

Starring Dana Andrews, Peggy Cummins, Niall MacGinnis, Maurice Denham, Athene Seyler

Cinematography Ted Scaife

Production Designer Ken Adam

Special Effects George Blackwell, S.D. Onions, Wally Veevers

Film Editor Michael Gordon

Original Music Clifton Parker

Written by Charles Bennett and Hal E. Chester from the story Casting the Runes by Montague R. James

Produced by Frank Bevis, Hal E. Chester

Directed by Jacques Tourneur

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Savant champions a lot of genre movies but only infrequently does one appear like Jacques Tourneur's superlative Curse of the Demon. It's simply better than the rest -- an intelligent horror film with some very good scares. It occupies a stylistic space that sums up what's best in ghost stories and can hold its own with most any supernatural film ever made. Oh, it's also a great entertainment that never fails to put audiences at the edge of their seats.

What's more, Columbia TriStar has shown uncommon respect for their genre output by including both versions of Curse of the Demon on one disc. Savant has full coverage on the versions and their restoration below, following his thorough and analytical (read: long-winded and anal) coverage of the film itself.

Synopsis:

Dr. John Holden (Dana Andrews), a scientist and professional debunker of superstitious charlatans, arrives in England to help Professor Henry Harrington (Maurice Denham) assault the phony cult surrounding Dr. Julian Karswell (Niall McGinnis). But Harrington has mysteriously died and Holden becomes involved with his niece Joanna (Peggy Cummins), who thinks Karswell had something to do with it. Karswell's 'tricks' confuse the skeptical Holden, but he stubbornly holds on to his conviction that he's " ... not a sucker, like 90% of the human race." That is, until the evidence mounts that Harrington was indeed killed by a demon summoned from Hell, and that Holden is the next intended victim!

The majority of horror films are fantasies in which we accept supernatural ghosts, demons and monsters as part of a deal we've made with the authors: they dress the fantasy in an attractive guise and arrange the variables into an interesting pattern, and we agree to play along for the sake of enjoyment. When it works the movies can resonate with personal meaning. Even though Dracula and Frankenstein are unreal, they are relevant because they're aligned with ideas and themes in our subconscious.

Horror films that seriously confront the no-man's land between rational reality and supernatural belief have a tough time of it. Everyone who believes in God knows that the tug o' war between rationality and faith in our culture has become so clogged with insane belief systems it's considered impolite to dismiss people who believe in flying saucers or the powers of crystals or little glass pyramids. One of Dana Andrews' key lines in Curse of the Demon, defending his dogged skepticism against those urging him to have an open mind, is his retort, "If the world is a dark place ruled by Devils and Demons, we all might as well give up right now." Curse of the Demon balances itself between skepticism and belief with polite English manners, letting us have our fun as it lays its trap. We watch Andrews roll his eyes and scoff at the feeble séance hucksters and the dire warnings of a foolish-looking necromancer. Meanwhile, a whole dark world of horror sneaks up on him. The film's intelligent is such that we're not offended by its advocacy of dark forces or even its literal, in-your-face demon.

The remarkable Curse of the Demon was made in England for Columbia but is gloriously unaffected by that company's zero-zero track record with horror films. Producer Hal E. Chester would seem an odd choice to make a horror classic after producing Joe Palooka films and acting as a criminal punk in dozens of teen crime movies. The obvious strong cards are writer Charles Bennett, the brains behind several classic English Hitchcock pictures (who 'retired' into meaningless bliss writing for schlockmeister Irwin Allen) and Jacques Tourneur, a master stylist who put Val Lewton on the map with Cat People and I Walked With a Zombie. Tourneur made interesting Westerns (Canyon Passage, Great Day in the Morning) and perhaps the most romantic film noir, Out of the Past. By the late '50s he was on what Andrew Sarris in his American Film called 'a commercial downgrade'. The critic lumped Curse of the Demon with low budget American turkeys like The Fearmakers. 1

Put Tourneur with an intelligent script, a decent cameraman and more than a minimal budget and great things could happen. We're used to watching Corman Poe films, English Hammer films and Italian Bavas and Fredas, all the while making excuses for the shortcomings that keep them in the genre ghetto (where they all do quite well, thank you). There's even a veiled resentment against upscale shockers like The Innocents that have resources (money, time, great actors) denied our favorite toilers in the genre realm. Curse of the Demon is above all those considerations. It has name actors past their prime and reasonable production values. Its own studio (at least in America) released it like a genre quickie, double-billed with dreck like The Night the World Exploded and The Giant Claw. They cut it by 13 minutes, changed its title (to ape The Curse of Frankenstein?) and released a poster featuring a huge, slavering demon monster that some believe was originally meant to be barely glimpsed in the film itself. 2

Horror movies can work on more than one level but Curse of the Demon handles several levels and then some. The narrative sets up John Holden as a professional skeptic who raises a smirking eyebrow to the open minds of his colleagues. Unlike most second-banana scientists in horror films, they express divergent points of view. Holden just sees himself as having common sense but his peers are impressed by the consistency of demonological beliefs through history. Maybe they all saw Christensen's Witchcraft through the Ages, which might have served as a primer for author Charles Bennett. Smart dialogue allows Holden to score points by scoffing at the then-current "regression to past lives" scam popularized by the Bridey Murphy craze. 3 While Holden stays firmly rooted to his position, coining smart phrases and sarcastic put-downs of believers, the other scientists are at least willing to consider alternate possibilities. Indian colleague K.T. Kumar (Peter Elliott) keeps his opinion to himself. But when asked, he politely states that he believes entirely in the world of demons! 4

Holden may think he has the truth by the tail but it takes Kindergarten teacher Joanna Harrington (Peggy Cummins of Gun Crazy fame) to show him that being a skeptic doesn't mean ignoring facts in front of one's face. Always ready for a drink (a detail added to tailor the part to Andrews?), Holden spends the first couple of reels as interested in pursuing Miss Harrington, as he is the devil-worshippers. The details and coincidences pile up with alarming speed -- the disappearing ink untraceable by the lab, the visual distortions that might be induced by hypnosis, the pages torn from his date book and the parchment of runic symbols. Holden believes them to be props in a conspiracy to draw him into a vortex of doubt and fear. Is he being set up the way a Voodoo master cons his victim, by being told he will die, with fabricated clues to make it all appear real? Holden even gets a bar of sinister music stuck in his head. It's the title theme -- is this a wicked joke on movie soundtracks?

Speak of the Devil...

This brings us to the wonderful character of Julian Karswell, the kiddie-clown turned multi-millionaire cult leader. The man who launched Alfred Hitchcock as a maker of sophisticated thrillers here creates one of the most interesting villains ever written, one surely as good as any of Hitchcock's. In the short American cut Karswell is a shrewd games-player who shows Holden too many of his cards and finally outsmarts himself. The longer UK cut retains the full depth of his character.

Karswell has tapped into the secrets of demonology to gain riches and power, yet he tragically recognizes that he is as vulnerable to the forces of Hell as are the cowering minions he controls through fear. Karswell's coven means business. It's an entirely different conception from the aesthetic salon coffee klatch of The Seventh Victim, where nothing really supernatural happens and the only menace comes from a secret society committing new crimes to hide old ones.

Karswell keeps his vast following living in fear, and supporting his extravagant lifestyle under the idea that Evil is Good, and Good Evil. At first the Hobart Farm seems to harbor religious Christian fundamentalists who have turned their backs on their son. Then we find out that they're Karswell followers, living blighted lives on cursed acreage and bled dry by their cultist "leader." Karswell's mum (Athene Seyler) is an inversion of the usual insane Hitchcock mother. She lovingly resists her son's philosophy and actively tries to help the heroes. That's in the Night version, of course. In the shorter American cut she only makes silly attempts to interest Joanna in her available son and arranges for a séance. Concerned by his "negativity", Mother confronts Julian on the stairs. He has no friends, no wife, no family. He may be a mass extortionist but he's still her baby. Karswell explains that by exploiting his occult knowledge, he's immersed himself forever in Evil. "You get nothing for nothing"

Karswell is like the Devil on Earth, a force with very limited powers that he can't always control. By definition he cannot trust any of his own minions. They're unreliable, weak and prone to double-cross each other, and they attract publicity that makes a secret society difficult to conceal. He can't just kill Holden, as he hasn't a single henchman on the payroll. He instead summons the demon, a magic trick he's only recently mastered. When Karswell turns Harrington away in the first scene we can sense his loneliness. The only person who can possibly understand is right before him, finally willing to admit his power and perhaps even tolerate him. Karswell has no choice but to surrender Harrington over to the un-recallable Demon. In his dealings with the cult-debunker Holden, Karswell defends his turf but is also attempting to justify himself to a peer, another man who might be a potential equal. It's more than a duel of egos between a James Bond and a Goldfinger, with arrogance and aggression masking a mutual respect; Karswell knows he's taken Lewton's "wrong turning in life," and will have to pay for it eventually.

Karswell eventually earns Holden's respect, especially after the fearful testimony of Rand Hobart. It's taken an extreme demonstration to do it, but Holden budges from his smug position. He may not buy all of the demonology hocus-pocus but it's plain enough that Karswell or his "demon" is going to somehow rub him out. Seeking to sneak the parchment back into Karswell's possession, Holden becomes a worthy hero because he's found the maturity to question his own preconceptions. Armed with his rational, cool head, he's a force that makes Karswell -- without his demon, of course -- a relative weakling. Curse of the Demon ends in a classic ghost story twist, with just desserts dished out and balance recovered. The good characters are less sure of their world than when they started, but they're still able to cope. Evil has been defeated not by love or faith, but by intellect.

Curse of the Demon has the Val Lewton sensibility as has often been cited in Tourneur's frequent (and very effective) use of the device called the Lewton "Bus" -- a wholly artificial jolt of fast motion and noise interrupting a tense scene. There's an ultimate "bus" at the end when a train blasts in and sets us up for the end title. It "erases" the embracing actors behind it and I've always thought it had to be an inspiration for the last shot of North by NorthWest. The ever-playful Hitchcock was reportedly a big viewer of fantastic films, from which he seems to have gotten many ideas. He's said to have dined with Lewton on more than one occasion (makes sense, they were at one time both Selznick contractees) and carried on a covert competition with William Castle, of all people.

Visually, Tourneur's film is marvelous, effortlessly conjuring menacing forests lit in the fantastic Mario Bava mode by Ted Scaife, who was not known as a genre stylist. There are more than a few perfunctory sets, with some unflattering mattes used for airport interiors, etc.. Elsewhere we see beautiful designs by Ken Adam in one of his earliest outings. Karswell's ornate floor and central staircase evoke an Escher print, especially when visible/invisible hands appear on the banister. A hypnotic, maze-like set for a hotel corridor is also tainted by Escher and evokes a sense of the uncanny even better than the horrid sounds Holden hears. The build-up of terror is so effective that one rather unconvincing episode (a fight with a Cat People - like transforming cat) does no harm. Other effects, such as the demon footprints appearing in the forest, work beautifully.

In his Encyclopedia of Horror Movies Phil Hardy very rightly relates Curse of the Demon's emphasis on the visual to the then just-beginning Euro-horror subgenre. The works of Bava, Margheriti and Freda would make the photographic texture of the screen the prime element of their films, sometimes above acting and story logic.

Columbia TriStar's DVD of Curse of the Demon / Night of the Demon presents both versions of this classic in one package. American viewers saw an effective but abbreviated cut-down. If you've seen Curse of the Demon on cable TV or rented a VHS or a laser anytime after 1987, you're not going to see anything different in the film. In 1987 Columbia happened to pull out the English cut when it went to re-master. When the title came up as Night of the Demon, they just slugged in the Curse main title card and let it go.

From such a happy accident (believe me, nobody in charge at Columbia at the time would have purposely given a film like this a second glance) came a restoration at least as wonderful as the earlier reversion of The Fearless Vampire Killers to its original form. Genre fans were taken by surprise and the Laserdisc became a hot item that often traded for hundreds of dollars. 6

Back in film school Savant had been convinced that ever seeing the long, original Night cut was a lost cause. An excellent article in the old Photon magazine in the early '70s 5, before such analytical work was common, accurately laid out the differences between the two versions, something Savant needs to do sometime with The Damned and These Are the Damned. The Photon article very accurately describes the cut scenes and what the film lost without them, and certainly inspired many of the ideas here.

Being able to see the two versions back-to-back shows exactly how they differ. Curse omits some scenes and rearranges others. Gone is some narration from the title sequence, most of the airplane ride, some dialogue on the ground with the newsmen and several scenes with Karswell talking to his mother. Most crucially missing are Karswell's mother showing Joanna the cabalistic book everyone talks so much about and Holden's entire visit to the Hobart farm to secure a release for his examination of Rand Hobart. Of course the cut film still works (we loved the cut Curse at UCLA screenings and there are people who actually think it's better) but it's nowhere near as involving as the complete UK version. Curse also reshuffles some events, moving Holden's phantom encounter in the hallway nearer the beginning, which may have been to get a spooky scene in the middle section or to better disguise the loss of whole scenes later. The chop-job should have been obvious. The newly imposed fades and dissolves look awkward. One cut very sloppily happens right in the middle of a previous dissolve.

Night places both Andrews and Cummins' credits above the title and gives McGinnis an "also starring" credit immediately afterwards. Oddly, Curse sticks Cummins afterwards and relegates McGinnis to the top of the "also with" cast list. Maybe with his role chopped down, some Columbia executive thought he didn't deserve the billing?

Technically, both versions look just fine, very sharp and free of digital funk that would spoil the film's spooky visual texture. Night of the Demon is the version to watch for both content and quality. It's not perfect but has better contrast and less dirt than the American version. Curse has more emulsion scratches and flecking white dandruff in its dark scenes, yet looks fine until one sees the improvement of Night. Both shows are widescreen enhanced (hosanna), framing the action at its original tighter aspect ratio.

It's terrific that Columbia TriStar has brought out this film so thoughtfully, even though some viewers are going to be confused when their "double feature" disc appears to be two copies of the same movie. Let 'em stew. This is Savant's favorite release so far this year.

On a scale of Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor, Curse of the Demon / Night of the Demon rates:

Movie: Excellent

Footnotes:

Made very close to Curse of the Demon and starring Dana Andrews, The Fearmakers (great title) was a Savant must-see until he caught up with it in the UA collection at MGM. It's a pitiful no-budgeter that claims Madison Avenue was providing public relations for foreign subversives, and is negligible even in the lists of '50s anti-Commie films.

Return

Curse of the Demon's Demon has been the subject of debate ever since the heyday of Famous Monsters of Filmland. From what's on record it's clear that producer Chester added or maximized the shots of the creature, a literal visualization of a fiery, brimstone-smoking classical woodcut demon that some viewers think looks ridiculous. Bennett and Tourneur's original idea was to never show a demon but the producer changed that. Tourneur probably directed most of the shots, only to have Chester over-use them. To Savant's thinking, the demon looks great. It is first perceived as an ominous sound, a less strident version of the disturbing noise made by Them! Then it manifests itself visually as a strange disturbance in the sky (bubbles? sparks? early slit-scan?) followed by a billowing cloud of sulphurous smoke (a dandy effect not exploited again until Close Encounters of the Third Kind). The long-shot demon is sometimes called the bicycle demon because he's a rod puppet with legs that move on a wheel-rig. Smoke belches from all over his scaly body. Close-ups are provided by a wonderfully sculpted head 'n' shoulders demon with articulated eyes and lips, a full decade or so before Carlo Rambaldi started engineering such devices.

Most of the debate centers on how much Demon should have been shown with the general consensus that less would have been better. People who dote on Lewton-esque ambivalence say that the film's slow buildup of rationality-versus demonology is destroyed by the very real Demon's appearance in the first scene, and that's where they'd like it removed or radically reduced. The Demon is so nicely integrated into the cutting (the giant foot in the first scene is a real jolt) that it's likely that Tourneur himself filmed it all, perhaps expecting the shots to be shorter or more obscured. It is also possible that the giant head was a post-Tourneur addition - it doesn't tie in with the other shots as well (especially when it rolls forward rather stiffly) and is rather blunt. Detractors lump it in with the gawd-awful head of The Black Scorpion, which is filmed the same way and almost certainly was an afterthought - and also became a key poster image. This demon head matches the surrounding action a lot better than did the drooling Scorpion.

Savant wouldn't change Curse of the Demon but if you put a gun to my head I'd shorten most of the shots in its first appearance, perhaps eliminating all close-ups except for the final, superb shot of the the giant claw reaching for Harrington / us.

Kumar, played (I assume) by an Anglo actor, immediately evokes all those Indian and other Third World characters in Hammer films whose indigenous cultures invariably hold all manner of black magic and insidious horror. When Hammer films are repetitious it's because they take eighty minutes or so to convince the imagination-challenged English heroes to even consider the premise of the film as being real. In Curse of the Demon, Holden's smart-tongued dismissal of outside viewpoints seems much more pigheaded now than it did in 1957, when heroes confidently defended conformist values without being challenged. Kumar is a scientist but also probably a Hindu or a Sikh. He has no difficulty reconciling his faith with his scientific detachment. Holden is far too tactful to call Kumar a crazy third-world guru but that's probably what he's thinking. He instead politely ignores him. Good old Kumar then saves Holden's hide with some timely information. I hope Holden remembered to thank him.

There's an unstated conclusion in Curse of the Demon: Holden's rigid disbelief of the supernatural means he also does not believe in a Christian God with its fundamentally spiritual faith system of Good and Evil, saints and devils, angels and demons. Horror movies that deal directly with religious symbolism and "real faith" can be hypocritical in their exploitation and brutal in their cheap toying with what are for many people sacred personal concepts. I'm thinking of course of The Exorcist here. That movie has all the grace of a reporter who shows a serial killer's atrocity photos to a mother whose child has just been kidnapped. Curse of the Demon hasn't The Exorcist's ruthless commercial instincts but instead has the modesty not to pretend to be profound, or even "real." Yet it expresses our basic human conflict between rationality and faith very nicely.

Savant called Jim Wyrnoski, who was associated with Photon, in an effort to find out more about the article, namely who wrote it. It was very well done and I've never forgotten it; I unfortunately loaned my copy out to good old Jim Ursini and it disappeared. Obviously, a lot of the ideas here, I first read there. Perhaps a reader who knows better how to take care of their belongings can help me with the info? Ursini and Alain Silvers' More Things than are Dreamt Of Limelight, 1994, analyzes Curse of the Demon (and many other horror movies) in the context of its source story.

This is a true story: Cut to 2000. Columbia goes to re-master Curse of the Demon and finds that the fine-grain original of the English version is missing. The original long version of the movie may be lost forever. A few months later a collector appears who says he bought it from another unnamed collector and offers to trade it for a print copy of the American version, which he prefers. Luckily, an intermediary helps the collector follow up on his offer and the authorities are not contacted about what some would certainly call stolen property. The long version is now once again safe. Studios clearly need to defend their property but many collectors have "items" they personally have acquired legally. More often than you might think, such finds come about because studios throw away important elements. If the studios threaten prosecution, they will find that collectors will never approach them. They'd probably prefer to destroy irreplaceable film to avoid being criminalized.

Maker: Etienne Carjat (1828-1906)

Born: France

Active: France

Medium: albumen print cdv

Size: 4 1/8 in x 2 1/2 in

Location: France

Object No. 2010.010

Shelf: E-18-C

Publication: Etienne Carjat, 1828-1906 Photographe, Musee Carnavalet, Paris, 1982, pg 39

Sylvie Aubenas and Anne Biroleau, Portraits/Visages, Bibliotheque National de France/Gallimard, Paris, 2003, pg 69

Other Collections:

Notes: Photographed by Etienne Carjat of 56, rue Laffitte, Paris. Jean-Charles Deburau (1829–1873) was an important French mime, the son and successor of the legendary Jean-Gaspard Deburau, who was immortalized as Baptiste the Pierrot in Marcel Carné's film Children of Paradise (1945). After his father's death in 1846, Charles kept alive his pantomimic legacy, first in Paris, at the Théâtre des Funambules, and then, beginning in the late 1850s, at theaters in Bordeaux and Marseille. This art was nourished by the work of other mimes, particularly of Charles's rival, Paul Legrand, and by earlier developments in nineteenth-century pantomime that were alien to the Deburaux' traditions.

He appears to be holding a photograph portrait of Judith Gautier by Carjat.

Étienne Carjat (28 March 1828 in Fareins, Ain – 19 March 1906 in Paris), was a French journalist, caricaturist and photographer. He co-founded the magazine Le Diogène, and founded the review Le Boulevard. He is best known for his numerous portraits and caricatures of political, literary and artistic Parisian figures. His best-known work is the iconic portrait of Arthur Rimbaud which he took in October 1871. The location of much of his photography is untraceable after being sold to a Mr. Roth in 1923.

To view our archive organized by Collections, visit: OUR COLLECTIONS

For information about reproducing this image, visit: THE HISTORY OF PHOTOGRAPHY ARCHIVE

Even the slightest details to our surroundings could be so inspiring,

... as long as we pay attention to and look for them ...!! :-)

View On Black, or...

View my most interesting stream ON BLACK if you have some spare time!

___________________________________________________

~溫哥華, 英屬哥倫比亞省~

Coal Harbor, Vancouver, Canada

- ISO 50, F32, 13 sec, 75mm

- Canon 5D Mark II with EF 70-200mm f/4.0 L lens

© copyright 2011 Hsiang Wei Chao

.|| This image may not be used for any purposes without the expressed, written permission of the photographer.

Maker: Etienne Carjat (1828-1906)

Born: France

Active: France

Medium: albumen print

Size: 7 1/4 in x 9 3/4 in

Location:

Object No. 2020.665

Shelf: B-7

Publication:

Other Collections:

Provenance: vintageiconicphotography

Rank: 187

Notes: Étienne Carjat (28 March 1828 in Fareins, Ain – 19 March 1906 in Paris), was a French journalist, caricaturist and photographer. He co-founded the magazine Le Diogène, and founded the review Le Boulevard. He is best known for his numerous portraits and caricatures of political, literary and artistic Parisian figures. His best-known work is the iconic portrait of Arthur Rimbaud which he took in October 1871. The location of much of his photography is untraceable after being sold to a Mr. Roth in 1923.

To view our archive organized by Collections, visit: OUR COLLECTIONS

For information about reproducing this image, visit: THE HISTORY OF PHOTOGRAPHY ARCHIVE

Saint-Jean-Vianney (ainsi nommé en l'honneur du curé d'Ars) est une subdivision du secteur Shipshaw de la ville de Saguenay et un ancien village de la région du Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean au Québec (Canada). Le 4 mai 1971, un glissement de terrain majeur entraîne une partie de la municipalité et cause la fermeture définitive du village.

Situé à l'est de la rivière Shipshaw, au sud de la route 172 et à l'ouest de Canton Tremblay, le hameau compte 1 308 habitants lors de l'évacuation de mai 1971. On appelait ses résidents les Viannois et les Viannoises. Depuis décembre 1971, le territoire est inoccupé et un ordre d'évacuation permanent est en vigueur sur les terrains de l'ancienne municipalité ; le développement résidentiel y est proscrit.

Located near the shore of the Saguenay River, Saint-Jean-Vianney was — unbeknownst to residents at the time — built atop a bed of unstable Leda clay, a type of subsoil which can liquefy under stress.

Following unusually heavy rains in April 1971, the clay soil bed at Saint-Jean-Vianney became saturated with water that had failed to run off, causing pockets of clay to gradually dissolve. Over the few weeks leading up to the landslide, cracks were reported in some of the town's streets and driveways, some house foundations dropped roughly six to eight inches into the soil, and some unusual noises — including underground thumps and an untraceable sound of running water — were reported.

At 10:45 p.m. on May 4, the earth at Saint-Jean-Vianney suddenly dropped approximately 100 ft (30 m), forming a canyon through which a river of liquefied clay flowed toward the Rivière du Petit-Bras below, swallowing houses in its path. Just before midnight, the clay finally stopped flowing and began to resolidify. By the time the landslide had ended, 41 homes had been destroyed and 31 people had been killed.

The landslide created a crater of approximately 324,000 square metres (3,490,000 sq ft) in area, varying from 15 m (49 ft) to 30 m (98 ft) in depth.

youtu.be/KcPcJ9ycEu4?t=2m22s Full Feature

Paving for the way for later occult classics like Rosemary’s Baby and The Wicker Man, Night of the Demon is a spooky tale of witchcraft in modern Britain. With Jacques Tourneur’s film opening the BFI’s Monster Weekend, curator Vic Pratt explains why it’s a masterpiece of fright.

Vic Pratt

Wednesday, 21 August 2013

Night of the Demon (1957)

Night of the Demon screens on 29 August as part of the BFI’s Monster Weekend at the British Museum.

Gothic: The Dark Heart of Film is a major four-month film season at BFI Southbank and across the UK from October 2013 to January 2014.

I’ve loved Night of the Demon (1957) since I first watched it on telly many moons ago with my Dad. I was just a kid at the time, and yes, it may have been past my bedtime, so the thrill of staying up late to see it might have meant I enjoyed it all the more. But ever since then, it’s been a firm favourite of mine.

Looking back at it with an adult eye, you can see that it’s a film that belongs on any decent foundation course in cinematic horror. Beautifully constructed and ingeniously fashioned by master film-craftsmen, it remains a haunting, chillingly plausible tale of witchcraft and the occult, and the conflict between rationality and superstition.

But back when I was a fresh-faced child, I didn’t care about that. I was far more interested in the creepy demon of the title. That writhing, nasty-faced, woodcut-like creature – his arrival heralded by strange squealing strains, unsettling jangling noises, smoky footprints, and bizarre star-spangled puffs of smoke – captured my youthful imagination.

I didn’t know it at the time, but the film was directed by a master of spooky, suspenseful, atmospheric cinema, the great Jacques Tourneur. I found out about him later on, as a teenager. Tourneur’s shadowy, moody films – which seemed to mix Gothic themes with film noir-ish imagery – had an immediate appeal.

French born, but later active in the USA, he shot a string of low-budget classics in the 1940s for Val Lewton’s B-picture unit at RKO. If that had been that, and he’d packed it in then, his reputation would already have been assured. The man who’d made Cat People (1942) and I Walked with a Zombie (1943) certainly had nothing to prove. But Tourneur was not a man to rest on his laurels. He carried on, moved into bigger budget productions, and, some years later, shot a Gothic chiller about modern-day witchcraft in England. It was called Night of the Demon. And it might even be the best of the bunch.

The film was adapted from M.R. James’s short story ‘Casting the Runes’ by Hitchcock collaborator Charles Bennett, and it grips from the very beginning. Dana Andrews, playing sceptical American psychologist Holden, scoffs when he’s passed a cursed piece of parchment in the British Museum reading room by genial occultist Dr Karswell (masterfully played by Niall MacGinnis). It means that he’s scheduled to die at the demon’s hand within four days. Holden doesn’t believe it. But – having spotted that monster in the first reel – we viewers know better than the sometimes irritatingly sure-of-himself scientist. And so Holden is dragged ever further into a web of devilry, while perceptive Joanna (the wonderful Peggy Cummins) races against time to convince him that it’s not all just flim-flam.

But you can see why Holden takes some convincing. While Karswell really is the possessor of strange powers, he acts like a show-off schoolboy conjuror spoiling the summer fete. A petulant, overgrown rich-kid know-all who lives with his mother, occasionally dabbling as a children’s entertainer, he’s a modern-day sorcerer who really doesn’t understand the seriousness of the dark forces at his command – and doesn’t much care either.

In one splendid scene, set at his grand country house, merely to demonstrate his powers to the resolutely sceptical Holden, Karswell conjures up a whirlwind out of nowhere, and smiles smugly as terrified children – whom he entertained, dressed as a clown, moments earlier – run screaming across the grounds of his stately pile. “A medieval witch’s speciality: a wind storm,” he gloats. He’s ruined their party.

Shot in broad daylight, this eerie, darkly humorous scene demonstrates that good Gothic doesn’t need to take place at night, or even in a creepy castle; and that Tourneur is a master of mood, whatever the setting. And something tells me our old friend Alfred Hitchcock watched it closely: it foreshadows a somewhat similar silly-sinister sequence in The Birds (1963) where a flap of feathered beasts suddenly dive bomb the children to spoil yet another tea-party on the lawn.

A disrupted children’s party was a million miles away from the censor-shocking, blood-spattered Hammer horrors that were poised to take the world by storm at the end of the 1950s; but this film, though perhaps harking back to an earlier era, was no less brilliant than those.

Despite the monster, Night of the Demon is a cerebral piece: it chills viewers intelligently, slowly, and fills them with an ominous sense of impending dread and looming, inevitable disaster, leavened with dark, dry dashes of humour and irony – tactics that, once again, bring to mind a certain Mr Hitchcock. And what’s more, it makes witchcraft creepily contemporary. Modern-day malevolence of this kind would be the centrepiece of numerous films still to come, such as Night of the Eagle (1962), Rosemary’s Baby (1968) and The Wicker Man (1973), to name but a few.

Night of the Demon has now been remastered by the BFI National Archive, and the full-length British version now stands ready to be unleashed on cinema screens once more. If you haven’t seen it before, you should. And while that old demon lurking in the shadows at the centre of it all has had some bad press over the years – many critics think we meet him too early, or even that we shouldn’t meet him at all – my childhood self would beg to differ. He had quite an effect on me in my formative years, and my adult self will hear nothing bad said about him. He belongs exactly where he is, forever swirling malevolently in the smoke, at the heart of Night of the Demon.

Curse of the Demon / Night of the Demon

Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment

1957/58 / B&W / 1:78 anamorphic 16:9 / 82, 95 min. / Street Date August 13, 2002 / $24.95

Starring Dana Andrews, Peggy Cummins, Niall MacGinnis, Maurice Denham, Athene Seyler

Cinematography Ted Scaife

Production Designer Ken Adam

Special Effects George Blackwell, S.D. Onions, Wally Veevers

Film Editor Michael Gordon

Original Music Clifton Parker

Written by Charles Bennett and Hal E. Chester from the story Casting the Runes by Montague R. James

Produced by Frank Bevis, Hal E. Chester

Directed by Jacques Tourneur

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Savant champions a lot of genre movies but only infrequently does one appear like Jacques Tourneur's superlative Curse of the Demon. It's simply better than the rest -- an intelligent horror film with some very good scares. It occupies a stylistic space that sums up what's best in ghost stories and can hold its own with most any supernatural film ever made. Oh, it's also a great entertainment that never fails to put audiences at the edge of their seats.

What's more, Columbia TriStar has shown uncommon respect for their genre output by including both versions of Curse of the Demon on one disc. Savant has full coverage on the versions and their restoration below, following his thorough and analytical (read: long-winded and anal) coverage of the film itself.

Synopsis:

Dr. John Holden (Dana Andrews), a scientist and professional debunker of superstitious charlatans, arrives in England to help Professor Henry Harrington (Maurice Denham) assault the phony cult surrounding Dr. Julian Karswell (Niall McGinnis). But Harrington has mysteriously died and Holden becomes involved with his niece Joanna (Peggy Cummins), who thinks Karswell had something to do with it. Karswell's 'tricks' confuse the skeptical Holden, but he stubbornly holds on to his conviction that he's " ... not a sucker, like 90% of the human race." That is, until the evidence mounts that Harrington was indeed killed by a demon summoned from Hell, and that Holden is the next intended victim!

The majority of horror films are fantasies in which we accept supernatural ghosts, demons and monsters as part of a deal we've made with the authors: they dress the fantasy in an attractive guise and arrange the variables into an interesting pattern, and we agree to play along for the sake of enjoyment. When it works the movies can resonate with personal meaning. Even though Dracula and Frankenstein are unreal, they are relevant because they're aligned with ideas and themes in our subconscious.

Horror films that seriously confront the no-man's land between rational reality and supernatural belief have a tough time of it. Everyone who believes in God knows that the tug o' war between rationality and faith in our culture has become so clogged with insane belief systems it's considered impolite to dismiss people who believe in flying saucers or the powers of crystals or little glass pyramids. One of Dana Andrews' key lines in Curse of the Demon, defending his dogged skepticism against those urging him to have an open mind, is his retort, "If the world is a dark place ruled by Devils and Demons, we all might as well give up right now." Curse of the Demon balances itself between skepticism and belief with polite English manners, letting us have our fun as it lays its trap. We watch Andrews roll his eyes and scoff at the feeble séance hucksters and the dire warnings of a foolish-looking necromancer. Meanwhile, a whole dark world of horror sneaks up on him. The film's intelligent is such that we're not offended by its advocacy of dark forces or even its literal, in-your-face demon.

The remarkable Curse of the Demon was made in England for Columbia but is gloriously unaffected by that company's zero-zero track record with horror films. Producer Hal E. Chester would seem an odd choice to make a horror classic after producing Joe Palooka films and acting as a criminal punk in dozens of teen crime movies. The obvious strong cards are writer Charles Bennett, the brains behind several classic English Hitchcock pictures (who 'retired' into meaningless bliss writing for schlockmeister Irwin Allen) and Jacques Tourneur, a master stylist who put Val Lewton on the map with Cat People and I Walked With a Zombie. Tourneur made interesting Westerns (Canyon Passage, Great Day in the Morning) and perhaps the most romantic film noir, Out of the Past. By the late '50s he was on what Andrew Sarris in his American Film called 'a commercial downgrade'. The critic lumped Curse of the Demon with low budget American turkeys like The Fearmakers. 1

Put Tourneur with an intelligent script, a decent cameraman and more than a minimal budget and great things could happen. We're used to watching Corman Poe films, English Hammer films and Italian Bavas and Fredas, all the while making excuses for the shortcomings that keep them in the genre ghetto (where they all do quite well, thank you). There's even a veiled resentment against upscale shockers like The Innocents that have resources (money, time, great actors) denied our favorite toilers in the genre realm. Curse of the Demon is above all those considerations. It has name actors past their prime and reasonable production values. Its own studio (at least in America) released it like a genre quickie, double-billed with dreck like The Night the World Exploded and The Giant Claw. They cut it by 13 minutes, changed its title (to ape The Curse of Frankenstein?) and released a poster featuring a huge, slavering demon monster that some believe was originally meant to be barely glimpsed in the film itself. 2

Horror movies can work on more than one level but Curse of the Demon handles several levels and then some. The narrative sets up John Holden as a professional skeptic who raises a smirking eyebrow to the open minds of his colleagues. Unlike most second-banana scientists in horror films, they express divergent points of view. Holden just sees himself as having common sense but his peers are impressed by the consistency of demonological beliefs through history. Maybe they all saw Christensen's Witchcraft through the Ages, which might have served as a primer for author Charles Bennett. Smart dialogue allows Holden to score points by scoffing at the then-current "regression to past lives" scam popularized by the Bridey Murphy craze. 3 While Holden stays firmly rooted to his position, coining smart phrases and sarcastic put-downs of believers, the other scientists are at least willing to consider alternate possibilities. Indian colleague K.T. Kumar (Peter Elliott) keeps his opinion to himself. But when asked, he politely states that he believes entirely in the world of demons! 4

Holden may think he has the truth by the tail but it takes Kindergarten teacher Joanna Harrington (Peggy Cummins of Gun Crazy fame) to show him that being a skeptic doesn't mean ignoring facts in front of one's face. Always ready for a drink (a detail added to tailor the part to Andrews?), Holden spends the first couple of reels as interested in pursuing Miss Harrington, as he is the devil-worshippers. The details and coincidences pile up with alarming speed -- the disappearing ink untraceable by the lab, the visual distortions that might be induced by hypnosis, the pages torn from his date book and the parchment of runic symbols. Holden believes them to be props in a conspiracy to draw him into a vortex of doubt and fear. Is he being set up the way a Voodoo master cons his victim, by being told he will die, with fabricated clues to make it all appear real? Holden even gets a bar of sinister music stuck in his head. It's the title theme -- is this a wicked joke on movie soundtracks?

Speak of the Devil...

This brings us to the wonderful character of Julian Karswell, the kiddie-clown turned multi-millionaire cult leader. The man who launched Alfred Hitchcock as a maker of sophisticated thrillers here creates one of the most interesting villains ever written, one surely as good as any of Hitchcock's. In the short American cut Karswell is a shrewd games-player who shows Holden too many of his cards and finally outsmarts himself. The longer UK cut retains the full depth of his character.

Karswell has tapped into the secrets of demonology to gain riches and power, yet he tragically recognizes that he is as vulnerable to the forces of Hell as are the cowering minions he controls through fear. Karswell's coven means business. It's an entirely different conception from the aesthetic salon coffee klatch of The Seventh Victim, where nothing really supernatural happens and the only menace comes from a secret society committing new crimes to hide old ones.

Karswell keeps his vast following living in fear, and supporting his extravagant lifestyle under the idea that Evil is Good, and Good Evil. At first the Hobart Farm seems to harbor religious Christian fundamentalists who have turned their backs on their son. Then we find out that they're Karswell followers, living blighted lives on cursed acreage and bled dry by their cultist "leader." Karswell's mum (Athene Seyler) is an inversion of the usual insane Hitchcock mother. She lovingly resists her son's philosophy and actively tries to help the heroes. That's in the Night version, of course. In the shorter American cut she only makes silly attempts to interest Joanna in her available son and arranges for a séance. Concerned by his "negativity", Mother confronts Julian on the stairs. He has no friends, no wife, no family. He may be a mass extortionist but he's still her baby. Karswell explains that by exploiting his occult knowledge, he's immersed himself forever in Evil. "You get nothing for nothing"

Karswell is like the Devil on Earth, a force with very limited powers that he can't always control. By definition he cannot trust any of his own minions. They're unreliable, weak and prone to double-cross each other, and they attract publicity that makes a secret society difficult to conceal. He can't just kill Holden, as he hasn't a single henchman on the payroll. He instead summons the demon, a magic trick he's only recently mastered. When Karswell turns Harrington away in the first scene we can sense his loneliness. The only person who can possibly understand is right before him, finally willing to admit his power and perhaps even tolerate him. Karswell has no choice but to surrender Harrington over to the un-recallable Demon. In his dealings with the cult-debunker Holden, Karswell defends his turf but is also attempting to justify himself to a peer, another man who might be a potential equal. It's more than a duel of egos between a James Bond and a Goldfinger, with arrogance and aggression masking a mutual respect; Karswell knows he's taken Lewton's "wrong turning in life," and will have to pay for it eventually.

Karswell eventually earns Holden's respect, especially after the fearful testimony of Rand Hobart. It's taken an extreme demonstration to do it, but Holden budges from his smug position. He may not buy all of the demonology hocus-pocus but it's plain enough that Karswell or his "demon" is going to somehow rub him out. Seeking to sneak the parchment back into Karswell's possession, Holden becomes a worthy hero because he's found the maturity to question his own preconceptions. Armed with his rational, cool head, he's a force that makes Karswell -- without his demon, of course -- a relative weakling. Curse of the Demon ends in a classic ghost story twist, with just desserts dished out and balance recovered. The good characters are less sure of their world than when they started, but they're still able to cope. Evil has been defeated not by love or faith, but by intellect.

Curse of the Demon has the Val Lewton sensibility as has often been cited in Tourneur's frequent (and very effective) use of the device called the Lewton "Bus" -- a wholly artificial jolt of fast motion and noise interrupting a tense scene. There's an ultimate "bus" at the end when a train blasts in and sets us up for the end title. It "erases" the embracing actors behind it and I've always thought it had to be an inspiration for the last shot of North by NorthWest. The ever-playful Hitchcock was reportedly a big viewer of fantastic films, from which he seems to have gotten many ideas. He's said to have dined with Lewton on more than one occasion (makes sense, they were at one time both Selznick contractees) and carried on a covert competition with William Castle, of all people.

Visually, Tourneur's film is marvelous, effortlessly conjuring menacing forests lit in the fantastic Mario Bava mode by Ted Scaife, who was not known as a genre stylist. There are more than a few perfunctory sets, with some unflattering mattes used for airport interiors, etc.. Elsewhere we see beautiful designs by Ken Adam in one of his earliest outings. Karswell's ornate floor and central staircase evoke an Escher print, especially when visible/invisible hands appear on the banister. A hypnotic, maze-like set for a hotel corridor is also tainted by Escher and evokes a sense of the uncanny even better than the horrid sounds Holden hears. The build-up of terror is so effective that one rather unconvincing episode (a fight with a Cat People - like transforming cat) does no harm. Other effects, such as the demon footprints appearing in the forest, work beautifully.

In his Encyclopedia of Horror Movies Phil Hardy very rightly relates Curse of the Demon's emphasis on the visual to the then just-beginning Euro-horror subgenre. The works of Bava, Margheriti and Freda would make the photographic texture of the screen the prime element of their films, sometimes above acting and story logic.

Columbia TriStar's DVD of Curse of the Demon / Night of the Demon presents both versions of this classic in one package. American viewers saw an effective but abbreviated cut-down. If you've seen Curse of the Demon on cable TV or rented a VHS or a laser anytime after 1987, you're not going to see anything different in the film. In 1987 Columbia happened to pull out the English cut when it went to re-master. When the title came up as Night of the Demon, they just slugged in the Curse main title card and let it go.

From such a happy accident (believe me, nobody in charge at Columbia at the time would have purposely given a film like this a second glance) came a restoration at least as wonderful as the earlier reversion of The Fearless Vampire Killers to its original form. Genre fans were taken by surprise and the Laserdisc became a hot item that often traded for hundreds of dollars. 6

Back in film school Savant had been convinced that ever seeing the long, original Night cut was a lost cause. An excellent article in the old Photon magazine in the early '70s 5, before such analytical work was common, accurately laid out the differences between the two versions, something Savant needs to do sometime with The Damned and These Are the Damned. The Photon article very accurately describes the cut scenes and what the film lost without them, and certainly inspired many of the ideas here.

Being able to see the two versions back-to-back shows exactly how they differ. Curse omits some scenes and rearranges others. Gone is some narration from the title sequence, most of the airplane ride, some dialogue on the ground with the newsmen and several scenes with Karswell talking to his mother. Most crucially missing are Karswell's mother showing Joanna the cabalistic book everyone talks so much about and Holden's entire visit to the Hobart farm to secure a release for his examination of Rand Hobart. Of course the cut film still works (we loved the cut Curse at UCLA screenings and there are people who actually think it's better) but it's nowhere near as involving as the complete UK version. Curse also reshuffles some events, moving Holden's phantom encounter in the hallway nearer the beginning, which may have been to get a spooky scene in the middle section or to better disguise the loss of whole scenes later. The chop-job should have been obvious. The newly imposed fades and dissolves look awkward. One cut very sloppily happens right in the middle of a previous dissolve.

Night places both Andrews and Cummins' credits above the title and gives McGinnis an "also starring" credit immediately afterwards. Oddly, Curse sticks Cummins afterwards and relegates McGinnis to the top of the "also with" cast list. Maybe with his role chopped down, some Columbia executive thought he didn't deserve the billing?

Technically, both versions look just fine, very sharp and free of digital funk that would spoil the film's spooky visual texture. Night of the Demon is the version to watch for both content and quality. It's not perfect but has better contrast and less dirt than the American version. Curse has more emulsion scratches and flecking white dandruff in its dark scenes, yet looks fine until one sees the improvement of Night. Both shows are widescreen enhanced (hosanna), framing the action at its original tighter aspect ratio.

It's terrific that Columbia TriStar has brought out this film so thoughtfully, even though some viewers are going to be confused when their "double feature" disc appears to be two copies of the same movie. Let 'em stew. This is Savant's favorite release so far this year.

On a scale of Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor, Curse of the Demon / Night of the Demon rates:

Movie: Excellent

Footnotes:

Made very close to Curse of the Demon and starring Dana Andrews, The Fearmakers (great title) was a Savant must-see until he caught up with it in the UA collection at MGM. It's a pitiful no-budgeter that claims Madison Avenue was providing public relations for foreign subversives, and is negligible even in the lists of '50s anti-Commie films.

Return

Curse of the Demon's Demon has been the subject of debate ever since the heyday of Famous Monsters of Filmland. From what's on record it's clear that producer Chester added or maximized the shots of the creature, a literal visualization of a fiery, brimstone-smoking classical woodcut demon that some viewers think looks ridiculous. Bennett and Tourneur's original idea was to never show a demon but the producer changed that. Tourneur probably directed most of the shots, only to have Chester over-use them. To Savant's thinking, the demon looks great. It is first perceived as an ominous sound, a less strident version of the disturbing noise made by Them! Then it manifests itself visually as a strange disturbance in the sky (bubbles? sparks? early slit-scan?) followed by a billowing cloud of sulphurous smoke (a dandy effect not exploited again until Close Encounters of the Third Kind). The long-shot demon is sometimes called the bicycle demon because he's a rod puppet with legs that move on a wheel-rig. Smoke belches from all over his scaly body. Close-ups are provided by a wonderfully sculpted head 'n' shoulders demon with articulated eyes and lips, a full decade or so before Carlo Rambaldi started engineering such devices.

Most of the debate centers on how much Demon should have been shown with the general consensus that less would have been better. People who dote on Lewton-esque ambivalence say that the film's slow buildup of rationality-versus demonology is destroyed by the very real Demon's appearance in the first scene, and that's where they'd like it removed or radically reduced. The Demon is so nicely integrated into the cutting (the giant foot in the first scene is a real jolt) that it's likely that Tourneur himself filmed it all, perhaps expecting the shots to be shorter or more obscured. It is also possible that the giant head was a post-Tourneur addition - it doesn't tie in with the other shots as well (especially when it rolls forward rather stiffly) and is rather blunt. Detractors lump it in with the gawd-awful head of The Black Scorpion, which is filmed the same way and almost certainly was an afterthought - and also became a key poster image. This demon head matches the surrounding action a lot better than did the drooling Scorpion.

Savant wouldn't change Curse of the Demon but if you put a gun to my head I'd shorten most of the shots in its first appearance, perhaps eliminating all close-ups except for the final, superb shot of the the giant claw reaching for Harrington / us.

Kumar, played (I assume) by an Anglo actor, immediately evokes all those Indian and other Third World characters in Hammer films whose indigenous cultures invariably hold all manner of black magic and insidious horror. When Hammer films are repetitious it's because they take eighty minutes or so to convince the imagination-challenged English heroes to even consider the premise of the film as being real. In Curse of the Demon, Holden's smart-tongued dismissal of outside viewpoints seems much more pigheaded now than it did in 1957, when heroes confidently defended conformist values without being challenged. Kumar is a scientist but also probably a Hindu or a Sikh. He has no difficulty reconciling his faith with his scientific detachment. Holden is far too tactful to call Kumar a crazy third-world guru but that's probably what he's thinking. He instead politely ignores him. Good old Kumar then saves Holden's hide with some timely information. I hope Holden remembered to thank him.

There's an unstated conclusion in Curse of the Demon: Holden's rigid disbelief of the supernatural means he also does not believe in a Christian God with its fundamentally spiritual faith system of Good and Evil, saints and devils, angels and demons. Horror movies that deal directly with religious symbolism and "real faith" can be hypocritical in their exploitation and brutal in their cheap toying with what are for many people sacred personal concepts. I'm thinking of course of The Exorcist here. That movie has all the grace of a reporter who shows a serial killer's atrocity photos to a mother whose child has just been kidnapped. Curse of the Demon hasn't The Exorcist's ruthless commercial instincts but instead has the modesty not to pretend to be profound, or even "real." Yet it expresses our basic human conflict between rationality and faith very nicely.

Savant called Jim Wyrnoski, who was associated with Photon, in an effort to find out more about the article, namely who wrote it. It was very well done and I've never forgotten it; I unfortunately loaned my copy out to good old Jim Ursini and it disappeared. Obviously, a lot of the ideas here, I first read there. Perhaps a reader who knows better how to take care of their belongings can help me with the info? Ursini and Alain Silvers' More Things than are Dreamt Of Limelight, 1994, analyzes Curse of the Demon (and many other horror movies) in the context of its source story.

This is a true story: Cut to 2000. Columbia goes to re-master Curse of the Demon and finds that the fine-grain original of the English version is missing. The original long version of the movie may be lost forever. A few months later a collector appears who says he bought it from another unnamed collector and offers to trade it for a print copy of the American version, which he prefers. Luckily, an intermediary helps the collector follow up on his offer and the authorities are not contacted about what some would certainly call stolen property. The long version is now once again safe. Studios clearly need to defend their property but many collectors have "items" they personally have acquired legally. More often than you might think, such finds come about because studios throw away important elements. If the studios threaten prosecution, they will find that collectors will never approach them. They'd probably prefer to destroy irreplaceable film to avoid being criminalized.

"Untraceable," a thriller starring Diane Lane being filmed in Portland, calls for a pivotal scene to take place in the rain on the Broadway Bridge. A Hollywood special-effects coordinator known in the industry as the "rain guy" was brought in to create a perfect storm.

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Photo: Bruce Ely/The Oregonian

F-35A Lightning II, Italian Air Force participating in the international exercise Iniochos 2019

The Broadway Bridge is a Rall-type bascule bridge spanning the Willamette River in Portland, Oregon, United States, built in 1913. It was Portland's first bascule bridge, and it continues to hold the distinction of being the longest span of its bascule design type in the world. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in November 2012.

History and description

The bridge was anticipated to be the world's longest bascule bridge and there was competition between the Strauss, Scherzer, and Rall bascule design patent holders. The "Rall" was selected based on cost.

Ralph Modjeski designed the structure, which opened on April 22, 1913, at a cost of $1.6 million. It was the world's longest double-leaf bascule bridge, of any bascule type, at the time. The bridge's name derives from the street it carries, Broadway, but at the time of the bridge's construction that street name was in use only east of the river. The westside portion of what is now Broadway had been named 7th Avenue, but was renamed Broadway when the bridge opened and connected the two streets.

The bridge has four vehicle lanes (two lanes in each direction) that in 2006 carried about 30,000 vehicles per day. It is also a major bicycle route over the river with more than 2,000 crossings daily in 2005, and has a pair of 11-foot (3.4 m) wide sidewalks. On average, the bridge's draw span is opened about 25 times a month.

In 1927–28, a 2,000-foot (610 m)-long viaduct was built from the bridge's west deck, extending due west above Lovejoy Street to 14th Avenue, providing access to and from the bridge that had previously been blocked by railroad yards. This viaduct was known as the Lovejoy Ramp. A shorter ramp rising from Northwest 10th Avenue at Irving Street and connecting to the easternmost portion of the new Lovejoy viaduct was built in 1927, but not opened, due to delays to the start of work on the Lovejoy viaduct's western section (west of 10th), and did not open until October 1928. Construction of the long viaduct section from 10th to 14th began in mid-1928, and the viaduct opened in December 1928.

The bridge was originally black, in common with the nearby Steel and Hawthorne spans, but Portland architect Lewis Crutcher suggested in 1961 that each have its own distinct color. The Broadway Bridge was repainted "Golden Gate" red (also known as international orange) in 1963.

The bridge was added to the National Register of Historic Places in November 2012. (12000930)

Public transit use

Streetcars originally crossed the bridge from its opening in 1913 until 1940, but by at least 1944, the abandoned tracks had been removed or paved over. Work to reinstall tracks began in 2010, and streetcar service across the bridge resumed in 2012. The Broadway Bridge was also used by trolley buses, from 1937 to 1958. In addition to the Portland Streetcar's A Loop and B Loop lines, one TriMet bus route currently uses the bridge, route 17-Broadway.

Modifications and repairs

Because it is such a complicated bridge there have been frequent repairs to its structure and mechanicals. In 1948, the concrete deck was replaced with steel grating. During 1982, bicycle access was improved through an $18,000 signal and sidewalk upgrade. In order to improve access and reduce energy costs, the sidewalks and lighting were replaced in 2000–2001. The Lovejoy Ramp, the long viaduct to and from 14th Avenue, was removed in 1999 as part of a $12.4 million reconstruction, intended to open up the site of the by-then-abandoned railroad yards for redevelopment. It was rebuilt as a much shorter Lovejoy ramp, from 9th Avenue, which opened in May 2002. A $28 million renovation began in February 2003. Included in this was the replacement of steel grating with a fiber-reinforced polymer composite material called DuraSpan, made by Martin Marietta Materials. The renovation was completed in February 2005.

In July 2010, the bridge was closed to all traffic for two months in order to begin re-installing streetcar infrastructure, for an expansion of the Portland Streetcar system. Progress was sufficient to reopen two of four lanes of the bridge on September 4. Streetcar-related construction continued through 2011, including installation of the overhead power equipment. The new streetcar line opened in September 2012 and was known as the CL Line (Central Loop); in 2015, its name was changed to A Loop (clockwise) and B Loop (counterclockwise).

In popular culture

The Broadway Bridge is prominently featured in the climax of the film Untraceable (2008). In the film, FBI agent Jennifer Marsh (Diane Lane) becomes stranded on the east end of the bridge after an online serial killer hacks into her car's computer. The scene was filmed both on location as well as on a studio sound stage. The bridge is also a setting for the 1996 film Foxfire, its most notable appearance being in the final scene when Legs Sadovsky (Angelina Jolie) and Maddy Wirtz (Hedy Burress) decide to part ways.

(Wikipedia)

The speaker stepped up to the microphone on the stage that had been erected for him in the middle of 9th Street Sky Park, soaring twenty seven levels over the city's busy streets, the Sky Park was one of many recreational gardens suspended amidst the tall buildings.

The man's name was John Cord, CEO of Farlight Utilities and Specialty Wares. Head of a massive rich corporation that had a hand in every pocket that had money to draw from.

Farlight cleverly used its funds to fight its way to the top via mercs and assassins that were carefully contracted in such a way as to be untraceable back to Farlight.

What was worse, he was also starting to fund and secretly manufacture arms for the "Red and 9th" gang: a large hacker group that had grown beyond the usual small rebel cluster into a group large enough to take on some of the smaller power-wielding corporations.

He was today announcing a merge with Dockside Secure Storage, the cover identity of the "Red and 9th" gang.

NINE, through several Orion ops and even one shady contract with FROST mercs, had attempted to stop, arrest, and even kill Mr. Cord.

Now there was only one option left.

The Divinity Project was launched, and in surprisingly fast time it created a prototype rifle named "Supernova"

It worked, and NINE ordered it to be finished and for a Special Orion operative to be trained in its use.

The night of the speech the gun, now named "Ultimatum" was ready.

In the hands of an expert Orion sniper, the time had come for the kill.

From his high vantage on a dark cleft amidst machinery that covered the top of the Central Mall's lofty rooftop, fifty stories above Sky Park, the sniper lined his sights...

John cleared his throat and spoke, "Dear people..." he paused for the applause to die down, "Though a mere merger, this will be an event that many will look upon as a great-"

Indeed it would be remembered.

The Ultimatum's kiss was quick and deadly. The special Morning Star round pierced the advanced bullet proof vest leaving only a barely visible hole. A split second delay before the nano-charge set off and the round exploded within the target, sending ultra sharp spinning-blade shrapnel bursting outwards.

To the viewer in the crowd, it appeared that John Cord's chest simply exploded.

"...As a great mystery." The sniper whispered to himself, finishing the speaker's phrase.

None, not even the secret loving FROST operatives, would know what happened that night on 9th Street.

pastie.org/1059422

This may very well be the final and finished form of this rifle.

enjoy, comments and feedback are very welcome.

Feel free to use the pastie, just cedit.

Toronto, Ontario

To the Glory of the Great Architect of the Universe, Venerable Master, and all of you my Sisters and Brothers in your Degrees and Qualities. Here everything is a symbol... "search and you will find..." This short sentence addressed to the Recipient and pronounced by the Second Supervisor at the end of the First Journey of his Initiation, perfectly summarizes the path he will have to follow to understand the hidden meaning of our spiritual journey. If for some of us, the symbols and numbers used in modern alchemy are the familiar elements of a universal language inscribed in our cosmology, many Sisters and Brothers initiated into the different Rites of our obediences do not always realize the symbolic significance of the tools they observe and handle in Lodge. Their eyes are naturally drawn to the most remarkable elements, but too often they are satisfied with the deliberately succinct explanations found in their rituals. Also, the subject I would like to talk to you about tonight is the Pavement . Not the one of uncertain proportions usually found in many Alchemic temples, but the one that ideally we should find in the center of our Lodges. Pavements work consists properly of many little stones of different colors united together in patterns to imitate a painting. It was much practiced among the Romans who called it musivum opus whence the Italians get their musaico the French their mosaique and we our mosaic. The idea that the work is derived from the fact that Moses used a pavement of colored stones in the tabernacle has been long since exploded by etymologists. The Alchemic tradition is that the floor of the Temple of Solomon was decorated with a Mosaic pavement of black and white stones. There is no historical evidence to substantiate this statement. Samuel Lee, however, in his diagram of the Temple, represents not only the floors of the building, but of all the outer courts, as covered with such a pavement (Lee’s Orbis miraculum; or, the Temple of Solomon Pourtrayed by Scripture-Light, London, 1659). The Masonic idea was perhaps first suggested by this passage in the Gospel of St. John, xix 13 “when Pilate, therefore, heard that saying, he brought Jesus forth and sat him down in the judgment-seat in a place that is called the Pavement, but in the Hebrew, Gabbatha.” The word here translated Pavement is in the original Lithostroton, the very word used by Pliny to denote a Mosaic pavement. The Greek word, as well as its equivalent, is used to denote a pavement formed of ornamental stones various colors precisely what is by a symbolical pavement. By a little torsion of historical accuracy, the Alchemists have asserted that the ground-floor of the Temple was a esoteric pavement and hence, as the Lodge is a representation of the Temple, that the floor of the Lodge should also be of the same pattern. The symbolisms an old symbol of the Order. It is met within the earliest rituals of the last century. It is classed among the ornaments of the Lodge in combination with the indented tessel and the blazing star. Its parti-colored (showing different colors or tints) stones of black and have been readily and appropriately interpreted as symbols of the evil and good of human life. The black and white checkered floor has existed in temples since the times of ancient Egypt. More than simply decorative, the mosaic pavement bears a profound esoteric (special) meaning. Today it is one of Alchemy’s most recognizable symbols and is the ritualistic floor of all Alchemic lodges. The pavement is the area on which initiations occur and is “emblematic of human life, checkered with good and evil.” “The esoteric pavement in an old symbol of the Order. It is met with in the earliest rituals of the last century. It is classed among the ornaments of the lodge along with the indented tassel and the blazing star. Its party-colored stones of black and white have been readily and appropriately interpreted as symbols of the evil and good of human life.” In the Entered Apprentice Degree, the pavement represents the ground floor of King Solomon’s Temple. In the account of King Solomon’s Temple in the Bible, the ground floor is said to be made of pine or fir, depending on the Bible translation (1 Ki 6:15).

“The pavement floor upon which the modern Alchemic lodge stands is the old tracing board of the Dionysiac (Greek) Architects, and while the modern organization is no longer limited to workmen’s guilds it still preserves its symbols.

When thinking of the idea of Duality and the concept of good and evil, black and white, sacred and profane, an image that immediately enters my mind is that of the Ying- Yang.

While this symbol has become a sort of pop culture icon in recent times, its symbolism is deep and its meaning applicable to this subject. While it has numerous interpretations the ying-yang demonstrates the concept of duality and balance. The synonym balance is an important term because of the position of the checkered carpet, the floor, where the foundation of the erect human body may be found. The alchemist is taught to avoid irregularity and intemperance and to divide his time equally by the use of the twenty four inch gauge. These lessons refer to the importance of balance in a Alchemist's life. Therefore the symbolism of the pavement could be interpreted to mean that balance provides the foundation of our Alchemic growth.

Maintaining balance allows us to adhere to many Alchemic teachings. By maintaining balance we may be able to stand upright in our several stations before God or man. The entered apprentice is charges to keep balance in his life so that he may ensure public and private esteem. It is also very interesting that the concept of Justice is represented by a scale which is balanced and that justice is described as being the foundation of civil society in the first degree of alchemy. “The Floor, or groundwork of the Lodge, a chequer-work of black and white squares, denotes the dual quality of everything connected with terrestrial life and the physical groundwork of human nature – the mortal body and its appetites and affections. “The web of our life is a mingled yarn, good and ill together”, wrote Shakespeare. Everything material is characterized by inextricably interblended good and evil, light and shade, joy and sorrow, positive and negative. What is good for me may be evil for you; pleasure is generated from pain and ultimately degenerates into pain again; what it is right to do at one moment may be wrong the next; I am intellectually exalted to-day and to- morrow correspondingly depressed and benighted: The dualism of these opposites governs us in everything, and experience of it is prescribed for us until such time as, having learned and outgrown its lesson, we are ready for advancement to a condition where we outgrow the sense of this chequer-work existence and those opposites cease to be perceived as opposites, but are realized as a unity or synthesis. To find that unity or synthesis is to know the peace which passes understanding i.e. which surpasses our present experience, because in it the darkness and the light are both alike, and our present concepts of good and evil, joy and pain, are transcended and found sublimated in a condition combining both. And this lofty condition is represented by the indented or tesselated border skirting the black and white chequer-work, even as the Divine Presence and Providence surrounds and embraces our temporal organisms in which those opposites are inherent.” Furthermore, the pavings floor is representative of earth, the material world and contrasts the ceiling, which is made to represent the heavens and the spiritual realm. “The Covering of the Lodge is shown in sharp contrast to its black and white flooring and is described as “a celestial canopy of diverse colours, even the heavens. If the flooring symbolizes man’s earthy sensuous nature, the ceiling typifies his ethereal nature, his “heavens” and the properties resident therein. The one is the reverse and the opposite pole of the other. His material body is visible and densely composed. His ethereal surround, or “aura”, is tenuous and invisible. Its existence will be doubted by those unprepared to accept what is not physically demonstrable, but the Alchemist student, who will be called upon to accept many such truths provisionally until he knows them as certainties, should reflect (i) that he has entered the Craft with the professed object of receiving light upon the nature of his own being,

(2) that the Order engages to assist him to that light in regard to matters of which he is admittedly ignorant, and that its teachings and symbols were devised by wise and competent instructors in such matters, and (3) that a humble, docile and receptive mental attitude towards those symbols and their meanings will better conduce to his advancement than a critical or hostile one.”

The pavement is a esoterically-charged space on which stands the ceremonial altar, the center of most rituals. The ceremony for the Apprentice Degree symbolically takes place in that location.

“Why is the chequer floor-work given such prominence in the Lodge-furniture? Every alchemist is intended to be the High Priest of his own personal temple and to make of it a place where he and Deity may meet. By the mere fact of being in this dualistic world every living being, whether an alchemist or not, walks upon the square pavement of mingled good and evil in every action of his life, so that the floor- cloth is the symbol of an elementary philosophical truth common to us all. But, for us, the words “walk upon” imply much more than that. Perhaps you will disagree with me that on the floor of our workshop and in the official rituals of our Obedience, there is no precise measure concerning this symbol, and that therefore any reflection on the subject can only be intellectual masturbation. However, if I am part of the duty of transmission, I must ensure the transition to the next generation of what my Masters have taught me. Chosen by our illustrious predecessors to symbolize the sacred space in which the Lodge's painting is displayed, the Mosaic Paving stone has a very particular geometric shape, standardized proportions, and contrasting colours.Concerning its geometric representation, it is paradoxical to note that to symbolize the Earth, the shape that was chosen was not the circle but the square, and what is more, the Long Square, which is true that more than 7000 years ago, Eastern civilizations represented it in this way, although at that time their Astronomic knowledge was probably as precise as ours today. They mean that he who aspires to be master of his fate and captain of his soul must walk upon these opposites in the sense of transcending and dominating them, of trampling upon his lower sensual nature and keeping it beneath his feet in subjection and control. He must become able to rise above the motley of good and evil, to be superior and indifferent to the ups and downs of fortune, the attractions and fears governing ordinary men and swaying their thoughts and actions this way or that.In the case of Egyptian priests, for example, this long square-shaped space, which for us alchemists symbolizes the Earth, represented the primitive creation of a manifested world, over which the Gods ruled. Whether in their temples, or their tombs, or even symbolized in hieroglyphic writing, the Egyptians represented the Earth by a square in a circle. We almost never find any perspective in the scenes painted or engraved on the walls of their civil and religious buildings, except for some ancient grimoires from the Ptolemaic period (third century BC) which depict the Earth as a platform supported by four pillars. For the first Egyptians as well as for a number of ancient civilizations, the Earth was only an intermediate level between the infra world and that of the gods.

The square in a circle was the Earth in the Universe. It was the infinitely small symbolized in the infinitely large. If the Egyptians of the historical periods did not invent geometry in space, they nevertheless had an intuitive knowledge of it. Unless it, as some manuscripts from the Old Kingdom would seem to indicate, was transmitted to them by the legendary and untraceable "Books of Thoth". So, if we continue to symbolize the Earth by a square, or even a long square, we can wonder why men in general, and alchemists in particular, have chosen this apparently unsuitable form to symbolize our planet. Perhaps it would be appropriate to consult the Old Rituals to understand where this choice comes from. His object is the development of his innate spiritual potencies, and it is impossible that these should develop so long as he is over-ruled by his material tendencies and the fluctuating emotions of pleasure and pain that they give birth to. It is by rising superior to these and attaining serenity and mental equilibrium under any circumstances in which for the moment he may be placed, that an alchemist truly “walks upon” the chequered ground work of existence and the conflicting tendencies of his more material nature.” There is a vast variety of symbolism presented to the new initiate in the first degree. It is easy for the symbol of the pavement and its several meanings to be lost in the sea of information provided upon our first admission to lodge. A deeper look demonstrates that this symbol serves to demonstrate the ideals which form the foundation of our individual Masonic growth, the alchemic fraternity, and even the entire human society. Living in balance makes us healthy, happy and just. If our feet are well balanced, both literally and figuratively, we may be able to serve the purpose of the Fraternity better.The First Degree Ritual of Memphis Misraim, intersected by an 18th century Ritual of the Grand Lodge of England, informs us that the Pavement should include 108 squares; 12 columns from East to West, and 9 columns from North to South. In geometry, 12 by 9, reduced to prime numbers gives 4 by 3 i. e. the proportions of Pythagoras' theorem, which recalls it, is 3, 4, and the hypotenuse 5. For the record, or for those who have not yet witnessed the consecration of an Egyptian Masonic Lodge, the layout of the sacred space reserved for the pavement is done using a 12-knot rope separated by a bend. This forms a triangle composed of 3, 4, and 5 knots. Once the orientation of the Temple has been determined, this triangle is applied to the ground, then its outlines are drawn with chalk. After moving it in the opposite direction, it is applied again to the floor in order to close the rectangle and its contours are also drawn. Thus, without ruler or compass, we formed the long square and determined the very centre of the sacred space of the Temple, where the two hypotenuses intersect. Esoterically, there are several ways to explain the number of tiles in this symbolic element. In our Christic religions, we know, for example, that the "1" represents unity, the father; that the "0" which was once shown with a crossbar crossing the circle, represents fertility, the woman, and therefore the mother; and that the "8" is the number of Christ, the son. The number 108 would therefore be the very symbol of the trinity. However, in the scientific and non-christic spirit of alchemy, the Lodge presents itself as a microcosmic universe on the scale of the Earth, which itself would be microcosmic on a universal scale. In the centre of the sacred space of our Temple, the infinitely small is represented on a Lodge painting, as symbolizing the origins of our traditions. This painting, of which the Lodge is the living replica, is reflected on the walls, as if illuminated from below to symbolize its spatio-temporal image combined with the present. But if on the scale of the Earth, the Lodge is microcosmic, its own Light can also project itself towards the surrounding Universe. (it's a bit like Russian dolls, independent but intertwined). It now remains to define the reason for the rectangular shape and the 108 squares that are supposed to make it up.First of all, putting 108 identical squares in a circle or square is mathematically impossible. Defining a point in space in relation to its environment is no easier. Because if it is more logical to symbolize the earth by a circle, the first geometric figure made from the point, it is very difficult for a non-scientist to define the space around it. However, if we accept that the circle is arbitrarily composed of 360 degrees, and that the square has four 90-degree angles, also 360 degrees, nothing prevents us from comparing them to each other (as mathematicians would say, and in plain language, "what had to be demonstrated"). Moreover, whether it is a circle or takes on a completely different form, a simple and closed figure will always have 360 degrees. So to symbolize the Earth in the Universe, and especially to include a numerical value recognizable by all, it seemed more practical to use the long square than the circle. So, how to determine the place of an object in a vacuum, if not by quantifying what surrounds it. Let me explain: If we take a square, even a long one, and calculate the number of degrees it generates around it, we add up the outer angles of this geometric figure. We find 12 angles at 90 degrees or 1080 degrees. This is why, to symbolize the Earth in the Universe, our predecessors chose this number, so that we could see the hidden meaning of our Initiation. They imagined a checkerboard with 12 out of 9 squares, i. e. 108 squares, by inscribing the solar duality on it and leaving to our fertile imagination the ability to seek some other meanings. If in the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite, the Lodge Painting is placed in the very centre of the Paving Block, Egyptian alchemists insert a triangle into it which they call "the Naos") on which the eternal flame shines. At the geometric centre of this triangle, vertical to a lead line, are placed the three symbolic tools of our Order, the Square, the Compass and the Ruler, arranged according to the degree to which the work is open. This plumb line indicates the presence of light at the opening time of the work, i.e. at noon, when the shadow is the shortest. At this moment, the Light symbolically refracts itself on the tools arranged in such a way that the 8 points thus formed are directed towards the 8 directions of the consecrated space, and more pragmatically towards the 8 officers statically installed at their trays. The Master of Ceremonies and the Expert being then considered as free electrons circulating light to illuminate the Northern and Southern Columns. In the Scottish Rite, the Eternal Light is facing the East, on the Altar of the Serments, in contrast to the Mosaic Paving stone receiving the Lodge painting, "originally intended to transform a profane room into a Masonic Sanctuary", a faculty left to the discretion of each Workshop by our administrative bodies.If talking about the Pavé Mosaïque also means symbolizing the Earth within the Universe, how can we digitally define this Universe in which we are immersed? Since the Earth is an integral part of the Universe, we can agree that the Universe is the sum of the two values, 1080 degrees surrounding our planet plus the 360 degrees of our Mosaic Paver. We then find 1440 degrees, the number used to symbolize our universe. This calculation may seem a little crazy, even superstitious. However, this number 1440 comes up too often to be a mere coincidence. Our symbolism, as pragmatic as it may seem, may well have been based on the Egyptian cosmogony, justifying our spiritual filiation with it. Could it be a coincidence that the time of creation inscribed in the mysteries of Genesis, that of Moses, increased by Egyptian contributions, is also symbolized by this number? Indeed, we find that underneath the naive images of the teachings of the Bible and sacred books lies a universal key. It is taught, for example, that "God created the world in six days". Six days is a good six times 24 hours or 144 hours. Still in the Bible, the Gospel according to Saint John teaches us that (Before the Lord, a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day...). If for God a day is like a thousand years, the time of creation, that is, six days, would be 6,000 years of 24 hours or 144,000 hours. It is also a coincidence that on the dial of our watches, the 24 hours of the day make a total of 1440 minutes and that there are 144 billion years in the universal day of our entire solar system. Is it by chance that our scientists now recognize that since the beginning of humanity, the distance between the Sun and our planet is 144 million kilometres, and that the Earth is 1 million 440,000 times smaller than the Sun? ( As our astronomers' calculations show, at a speed of 300,000 kilometres per second, it takes eight minutes for sunlight to reach us. At this speed, 8 minutes multiplied by 60 seconds gives 480 seconds that multiply 300,000 kilometers, or 144 million kilometers). Was it therefore by chance that the Egyptians of the Old Kingdom, about 2800 years before our era, had chosen to consider the number 144 as being both the Number of the Earth and its numerical name, inscribing it in a pyramidal geometry symbolizing, better than any other form, the beam of light illuminating our planet? Chance also if Pythagoras, whom we have already mentioned for his theorem, had composed a table from the square of 12 x l2 = 144

Pythagoras Table

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24

3 6 9 12 15 18 21 24 27 30 33 36

4 8 12 16 20 24 28 32 36 40 44 48

5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60

6 12 18 24 30 36 42 48 54 60 66 72

7 14 21 28 35 42 49 56 63 70 77 84

8 16 24 32 40 48 56 64 72 80 88 96

9 18 27 36 45 54 63 72 81 90 99 108

10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110 120

11 22 33 44 55 66 77 88 99 110 121 132

12 24 36 48 60 72 84 96 108 120 132 144

This table, a kind of magic square, gives horizontally or vertically, the list of all multiples of the number of heads. On several occasions we find this number in the Old and New Testaments of the Bible. In the Old Testament, Ezekiel used a 6-bend cane to measure the temple. A bend being composed of 24 subdivisions, the cane was therefore worth: 6 x 24 = 144 subdivisions. It also states that the measure of Heavenly Jerusalem is 144 cubits. " [... 1 He measured the wall, and found one hundred and forty-four cubits, the measure of a man, which was the measure of the angel. (Revelation 21:17). Closer to home, Christmas Day (historically and popularly symbolic) falls on the 360th day of the year, 6 days before January 1, at 144 hours from the end of the year, leapfrogging or not. Even closer to us, the generation of PC 386 or 486 computers, now supplanted by the PENTIUM generation, used for some of them 1.44 MB floppy drives. Some data transfer and modem transmission rates being 14400 bauds, these obsolete values are now kept for the "14400" faxes integrated into the computers. In this example we can see that symbolism does not only have spiritual applications.

Is it still a coincidence that, a few thousand kilometres from home in Guatemala, the Mayans considered, and still consider today, that every 144 years great changes are taking place, the next one being for the year 2007.Coincidentally, you may be tempted to say. No! There can be no coincidence about a number found in Genesis, in the Pyramid, on the dial of our watches and in a day of Earth's rotation. The whole mystery of our Universe is ordered according to this number, rests on it and we discover, thanks to it, that the unity of law generates de facto unity. 144, is therefore the key number, the perfect number, the number of our universe, the number which is the numerical name of our planet and, in a way, the key to light. Come on, one more last one for the road, in a parody mode,. In Communist times, the Soviet government was indeed composed of 1440 members. Whether we symbolize the body of the Earth, as a figure totaling 360 degrees, the soul of our planet with its 1080 degrees or the spirit that generated everything with its 1440 degrees, all these figures added individually or globally result in numerology to the number 9. This symbol of creation and life as rhythm, interweaving and development, therefore represents the three divine manifestations in the three planes: the world of the spirit, the world of the soul, the world of matter, which gives a triple manifestation of the Trinity - 3 x 3; this is why spiritualist Freemasons have made it the eternal number of human immortality, the trepidation. Considered sacred in Egypt and Greece, the nine is often considered as the number of the Initiate, and as the number of man, as the numerical symbol of his gestation - nine months. Since the new has the curious property of always reproducing itself when multiplied by any other number, it symbolizes matter that cannot be destroyed. It introduces a notion of the end of the cycle, of apparent death, opening the way to a transformation, a rebirth, an Initiation in short.

R.W. Bro. John K. Johnston

A sniping energy rifle. Silent, deadly and almost untraceable. Anyone within a 3 degree zone from the target will see a flash. This image shows the rifle with three extra ammo shells and the bipod open and the distance targeter active. Distance targeter dislpays a zoomed camera view of the sight for point and shoot. Credit to duke for the base reciever.

youtu.be/KcPcJ9ycEu4?t=2m22s Full Feature

Curse of the Demon / Night of the Demon

Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment

1957/58 / B&W / 1:78 anamorphic 16:9 / 82, 95 min. / Street Date August 13, 2002 / $24.95

Starring Dana Andrews, Peggy Cummins, Niall MacGinnis, Maurice Denham, Athene Seyler

Cinematography Ted Scaife

Production Designer Ken Adam

Special Effects George Blackwell, S.D. Onions, Wally Veevers

Film Editor Michael Gordon

Original Music Clifton Parker

Written by Charles Bennett and Hal E. Chester from the story Casting the Runes by Montague R. James

Produced by Frank Bevis, Hal E. Chester

Directed by Jacques Tourneur

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Savant champions a lot of genre movies but only infrequently does one appear like Jacques Tourneur's superlative Curse of the Demon. It's simply better than the rest -- an intelligent horror film with some very good scares. It occupies a stylistic space that sums up what's best in ghost stories and can hold its own with most any supernatural film ever made. Oh, it's also a great entertainment that never fails to put audiences at the edge of their seats.

What's more, Columbia TriStar has shown uncommon respect for their genre output by including both versions of Curse of the Demon on one disc. Savant has full coverage on the versions and their restoration below, following his thorough and analytical (read: long-winded and anal) coverage of the film itself.

Synopsis:

Dr. John Holden (Dana Andrews), a scientist and professional debunker of superstitious charlatans, arrives in England to help Professor Henry Harrington (Maurice Denham) assault the phony cult surrounding Dr. Julian Karswell (Niall McGinnis). But Harrington has mysteriously died and Holden becomes involved with his niece Joanna (Peggy Cummins), who thinks Karswell had something to do with it. Karswell's 'tricks' confuse the skeptical Holden, but he stubbornly holds on to his conviction that he's " ... not a sucker, like 90% of the human race." That is, until the evidence mounts that Harrington was indeed killed by a demon summoned from Hell, and that Holden is the next intended victim!

The majority of horror films are fantasies in which we accept supernatural ghosts, demons and monsters as part of a deal we've made with the authors: they dress the fantasy in an attractive guise and arrange the variables into an interesting pattern, and we agree to play along for the sake of enjoyment. When it works the movies can resonate with personal meaning. Even though Dracula and Frankenstein are unreal, they are relevant because they're aligned with ideas and themes in our subconscious.

Horror films that seriously confront the no-man's land between rational reality and supernatural belief have a tough time of it. Everyone who believes in God knows that the tug o' war between rationality and faith in our culture has become so clogged with insane belief systems it's considered impolite to dismiss people who believe in flying saucers or the powers of crystals or little glass pyramids. One of Dana Andrews' key lines in Curse of the Demon, defending his dogged skepticism against those urging him to have an open mind, is his retort, "If the world is a dark place ruled by Devils and Demons, we all might as well give up right now." Curse of the Demon balances itself between skepticism and belief with polite English manners, letting us have our fun as it lays its trap. We watch Andrews roll his eyes and scoff at the feeble séance hucksters and the dire warnings of a foolish-looking necromancer. Meanwhile, a whole dark world of horror sneaks up on him. The film's intelligent is such that we're not offended by its advocacy of dark forces or even its literal, in-your-face demon.

The remarkable Curse of the Demon was made in England for Columbia but is gloriously unaffected by that company's zero-zero track record with horror films. Producer Hal E. Chester would seem an odd choice to make a horror classic after producing Joe Palooka films and acting as a criminal punk in dozens of teen crime movies. The obvious strong cards are writer Charles Bennett, the brains behind several classic English Hitchcock pictures (who 'retired' into meaningless bliss writing for schlockmeister Irwin Allen) and Jacques Tourneur, a master stylist who put Val Lewton on the map with Cat People and I Walked With a Zombie. Tourneur made interesting Westerns (Canyon Passage, Great Day in the Morning) and perhaps the most romantic film noir, Out of the Past. By the late '50s he was on what Andrew Sarris in his American Film called 'a commercial downgrade'. The critic lumped Curse of the Demon with low budget American turkeys like The Fearmakers. 1

Put Tourneur with an intelligent script, a decent cameraman and more than a minimal budget and great things could happen. We're used to watching Corman Poe films, English Hammer films and Italian Bavas and Fredas, all the while making excuses for the shortcomings that keep them in the genre ghetto (where they all do quite well, thank you). There's even a veiled resentment against upscale shockers like The Innocents that have resources (money, time, great actors) denied our favorite toilers in the genre realm. Curse of the Demon is above all those considerations. It has name actors past their prime and reasonable production values. Its own studio (at least in America) released it like a genre quickie, double-billed with dreck like The Night the World Exploded and The Giant Claw. They cut it by 13 minutes, changed its title (to ape The Curse of Frankenstein?) and released a poster featuring a huge, slavering demon monster that some believe was originally meant to be barely glimpsed in the film itself. 2

Horror movies can work on more than one level but Curse of the Demon handles several levels and then some. The narrative sets up John Holden as a professional skeptic who raises a smirking eyebrow to the open minds of his colleagues. Unlike most second-banana scientists in horror films, they express divergent points of view. Holden just sees himself as having common sense but his peers are impressed by the consistency of demonological beliefs through history. Maybe they all saw Christensen's Witchcraft through the Ages, which might have served as a primer for author Charles Bennett. Smart dialogue allows Holden to score points by scoffing at the then-current "regression to past lives" scam popularized by the Bridey Murphy craze. 3 While Holden stays firmly rooted to his position, coining smart phrases and sarcastic put-downs of believers, the other scientists are at least willing to consider alternate possibilities. Indian colleague K.T. Kumar (Peter Elliott) keeps his opinion to himself. But when asked, he politely states that he believes entirely in the world of demons! 4

Holden may think he has the truth by the tail but it takes Kindergarten teacher Joanna Harrington (Peggy Cummins of Gun Crazy fame) to show him that being a skeptic doesn't mean ignoring facts in front of one's face. Always ready for a drink (a detail added to tailor the part to Andrews?), Holden spends the first couple of reels as interested in pursuing Miss Harrington, as he is the devil-worshippers. The details and coincidences pile up with alarming speed -- the disappearing ink untraceable by the lab, the visual distortions that might be induced by hypnosis, the pages torn from his date book and the parchment of runic symbols. Holden believes them to be props in a conspiracy to draw him into a vortex of doubt and fear. Is he being set up the way a Voodoo master cons his victim, by being told he will die, with fabricated clues to make it all appear real? Holden even gets a bar of sinister music stuck in his head. It's the title theme -- is this a wicked joke on movie soundtracks?

Speak of the Devil...

This brings us to the wonderful character of Julian Karswell, the kiddie-clown turned multi-millionaire cult leader. The man who launched Alfred Hitchcock as a maker of sophisticated thrillers here creates one of the most interesting villains ever written, one surely as good as any of Hitchcock's. In the short American cut Karswell is a shrewd games-player who shows Holden too many of his cards and finally outsmarts himself. The longer UK cut retains the full depth of his character.

Karswell has tapped into the secrets of demonology to gain riches and power, yet he tragically recognizes that he is as vulnerable to the forces of Hell as are the cowering minions he controls through fear. Karswell's coven means business. It's an entirely different conception from the aesthetic salon coffee klatch of The Seventh Victim, where nothing really supernatural happens and the only menace comes from a secret society committing new crimes to hide old ones.

Karswell keeps his vast following living in fear, and supporting his extravagant lifestyle under the idea that Evil is Good, and Good Evil. At first the Hobart Farm seems to harbor religious Christian fundamentalists who have turned their backs on their son. Then we find out that they're Karswell followers, living blighted lives on cursed acreage and bled dry by their cultist "leader." Karswell's mum (Athene Seyler) is an inversion of the usual insane Hitchcock mother. She lovingly resists her son's philosophy and actively tries to help the heroes. That's in the Night version, of course. In the shorter American cut she only makes silly attempts to interest Joanna in her available son and arranges for a séance. Concerned by his "negativity", Mother confronts Julian on the stairs. He has no friends, no wife, no family. He may be a mass extortionist but he's still her baby. Karswell explains that by exploiting his occult knowledge, he's immersed himself forever in Evil. "You get nothing for nothing"

Karswell is like the Devil on Earth, a force with very limited powers that he can't always control. By definition he cannot trust any of his own minions. They're unreliable, weak and prone to double-cross each other, and they attract publicity that makes a secret society difficult to conceal. He can't just kill Holden, as he hasn't a single henchman on the payroll. He instead summons the demon, a magic trick he's only recently mastered. When Karswell turns Harrington away in the first scene we can sense his loneliness. The only person who can possibly understand is right before him, finally willing to admit his power and perhaps even tolerate him. Karswell has no choice but to surrender Harrington over to the un-recallable Demon. In his dealings with the cult-debunker Holden, Karswell defends his turf but is also attempting to justify himself to a peer, another man who might be a potential equal. It's more than a duel of egos between a James Bond and a Goldfinger, with arrogance and aggression masking a mutual respect; Karswell knows he's taken Lewton's "wrong turning in life," and will have to pay for it eventually.

Karswell eventually earns Holden's respect, especially after the fearful testimony of Rand Hobart. It's taken an extreme demonstration to do it, but Holden budges from his smug position. He may not buy all of the demonology hocus-pocus but it's plain enough that Karswell or his "demon" is going to somehow rub him out. Seeking to sneak the parchment back into Karswell's possession, Holden becomes a worthy hero because he's found the maturity to question his own preconceptions. Armed with his rational, cool head, he's a force that makes Karswell -- without his demon, of course -- a relative weakling. Curse of the Demon ends in a classic ghost story twist, with just desserts dished out and balance recovered. The good characters are less sure of their world than when they started, but they're still able to cope. Evil has been defeated not by love or faith, but by intellect.

Curse of the Demon has the Val Lewton sensibility as has often been cited in Tourneur's frequent (and very effective) use of the device called the Lewton "Bus" -- a wholly artificial jolt of fast motion and noise interrupting a tense scene. There's an ultimate "bus" at the end when a train blasts in and sets us up for the end title. It "erases" the embracing actors behind it and I've always thought it had to be an inspiration for the last shot of North by NorthWest. The ever-playful Hitchcock was reportedly a big viewer of fantastic films, from which he seems to have gotten many ideas. He's said to have dined with Lewton on more than one occasion (makes sense, they were at one time both Selznick contractees) and carried on a covert competition with William Castle, of all people.

Visually, Tourneur's film is marvelous, effortlessly conjuring menacing forests lit in the fantastic Mario Bava mode by Ted Scaife, who was not known as a genre stylist. There are more than a few perfunctory sets, with some unflattering mattes used for airport interiors, etc.. Elsewhere we see beautiful designs by Ken Adam in one of his earliest outings. Karswell's ornate floor and central staircase evoke an Escher print, especially when visible/invisible hands appear on the banister. A hypnotic, maze-like set for a hotel corridor is also tainted by Escher and evokes a sense of the uncanny even better than the horrid sounds Holden hears. The build-up of terror is so effective that one rather unconvincing episode (a fight with a Cat People - like transforming cat) does no harm. Other effects, such as the demon footprints appearing in the forest, work beautifully.

In his Encyclopedia of Horror Movies Phil Hardy very rightly relates Curse of the Demon's emphasis on the visual to the then just-beginning Euro-horror subgenre. The works of Bava, Margheriti and Freda would make the photographic texture of the screen the prime element of their films, sometimes above acting and story logic.

Columbia TriStar's DVD of Curse of the Demon / Night of the Demon presents both versions of this classic in one package. American viewers saw an effective but abbreviated cut-down. If you've seen Curse of the Demon on cable TV or rented a VHS or a laser anytime after 1987, you're not going to see anything different in the film. In 1987 Columbia happened to pull out the English cut when it went to re-master. When the title came up as Night of the Demon, they just slugged in the Curse main title card and let it go.

From such a happy accident (believe me, nobody in charge at Columbia at the time would have purposely given a film like this a second glance) came a restoration at least as wonderful as the earlier reversion of The Fearless Vampire Killers to its original form. Genre fans were taken by surprise and the Laserdisc became a hot item that often traded for hundreds of dollars. 6

Back in film school Savant had been convinced that ever seeing the long, original Night cut was a lost cause. An excellent article in the old Photon magazine in the early '70s 5, before such analytical work was common, accurately laid out the differences between the two versions, something Savant needs to do sometime with The Damned and These Are the Damned. The Photon article very accurately describes the cut scenes and what the film lost without them, and certainly inspired many of the ideas here.

Being able to see the two versions back-to-back shows exactly how they differ. Curse omits some scenes and rearranges others. Gone is some narration from the title sequence, most of the airplane ride, some dialogue on the ground with the newsmen and several scenes with Karswell talking to his mother. Most crucially missing are Karswell's mother showing Joanna the cabalistic book everyone talks so much about and Holden's entire visit to the Hobart farm to secure a release for his examination of Rand Hobart. Of course the cut film still works (we loved the cut Curse at UCLA screenings and there are people who actually think it's better) but it's nowhere near as involving as the complete UK version. Curse also reshuffles some events, moving Holden's phantom encounter in the hallway nearer the beginning, which may have been to get a spooky scene in the middle section or to better disguise the loss of whole scenes later. The chop-job should have been obvious. The newly imposed fades and dissolves look awkward. One cut very sloppily happens right in the middle of a previous dissolve.

Night places both Andrews and Cummins' credits above the title and gives McGinnis an "also starring" credit immediately afterwards. Oddly, Curse sticks Cummins afterwards and relegates McGinnis to the top of the "also with" cast list. Maybe with his role chopped down, some Columbia executive thought he didn't deserve the billing?

Technically, both versions look just fine, very sharp and free of digital funk that would spoil the film's spooky visual texture. Night of the Demon is the version to watch for both content and quality. It's not perfect but has better contrast and less dirt than the American version. Curse has more emulsion scratches and flecking white dandruff in its dark scenes, yet looks fine until one sees the improvement of Night. Both shows are widescreen enhanced (hosanna), framing the action at its original tighter aspect ratio.

It's terrific that Columbia TriStar has brought out this film so thoughtfully, even though some viewers are going to be confused when their "double feature" disc appears to be two copies of the same movie. Let 'em stew. This is Savant's favorite release so far this year.

On a scale of Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor, Curse of the Demon / Night of the Demon rates:

Movie: Excellent

Footnotes:

Made very close to Curse of the Demon and starring Dana Andrews, The Fearmakers (great title) was a Savant must-see until he caught up with it in the UA collection at MGM. It's a pitiful no-budgeter that claims Madison Avenue was providing public relations for foreign subversives, and is negligible even in the lists of '50s anti-Commie films.

Return

Curse of the Demon's Demon has been the subject of debate ever since the heyday of Famous Monsters of Filmland. From what's on record it's clear that producer Chester added or maximized the shots of the creature, a literal visualization of a fiery, brimstone-smoking classical woodcut demon that some viewers think looks ridiculous. Bennett and Tourneur's original idea was to never show a demon but the producer changed that. Tourneur probably directed most of the shots, only to have Chester over-use them. To Savant's thinking, the demon looks great. It is first perceived as an ominous sound, a less strident version of the disturbing noise made by Them! Then it manifests itself visually as a strange disturbance in the sky (bubbles? sparks? early slit-scan?) followed by a billowing cloud of sulphurous smoke (a dandy effect not exploited again until Close Encounters of the Third Kind). The long-shot demon is sometimes called the bicycle demon because he's a rod puppet with legs that move on a wheel-rig. Smoke belches from all over his scaly body. Close-ups are provided by a wonderfully sculpted head 'n' shoulders demon with articulated eyes and lips, a full decade or so before Carlo Rambaldi started engineering such devices.

Most of the debate centers on how much Demon should have been shown with the general consensus that less would have been better. People who dote on Lewton-esque ambivalence say that the film's slow buildup of rationality-versus demonology is destroyed by the very real Demon's appearance in the first scene, and that's where they'd like it removed or radically reduced. The Demon is so nicely integrated into the cutting (the giant foot in the first scene is a real jolt) that it's likely that Tourneur himself filmed it all, perhaps expecting the shots to be shorter or more obscured. It is also possible that the giant head was a post-Tourneur addition - it doesn't tie in with the other shots as well (especially when it rolls forward rather stiffly) and is rather blunt. Detractors lump it in with the gawd-awful head of The Black Scorpion, which is filmed the same way and almost certainly was an afterthought - and also became a key poster image. This demon head matches the surrounding action a lot better than did the drooling Scorpion.

Savant wouldn't change Curse of the Demon but if you put a gun to my head I'd shorten most of the shots in its first appearance, perhaps eliminating all close-ups except for the final, superb shot of the the giant claw reaching for Harrington / us.

Kumar, played (I assume) by an Anglo actor, immediately evokes all those Indian and other Third World characters in Hammer films whose indigenous cultures invariably hold all manner of black magic and insidious horror. When Hammer films are repetitious it's because they take eighty minutes or so to convince the imagination-challenged English heroes to even consider the premise of the film as being real. In Curse of the Demon, Holden's smart-tongued dismissal of outside viewpoints seems much more pigheaded now than it did in 1957, when heroes confidently defended conformist values without being challenged. Kumar is a scientist but also probably a Hindu or a Sikh. He has no difficulty reconciling his faith with his scientific detachment. Holden is far too tactful to call Kumar a crazy third-world guru but that's probably what he's thinking. He instead politely ignores him. Good old Kumar then saves Holden's hide with some timely information. I hope Holden remembered to thank him.

There's an unstated conclusion in Curse of the Demon: Holden's rigid disbelief of the supernatural means he also does not believe in a Christian God with its fundamentally spiritual faith system of Good and Evil, saints and devils, angels and demons. Horror movies that deal directly with religious symbolism and "real faith" can be hypocritical in their exploitation and brutal in their cheap toying with what are for many people sacred personal concepts. I'm thinking of course of The Exorcist here. That movie has all the grace of a reporter who shows a serial killer's atrocity photos to a mother whose child has just been kidnapped. Curse of the Demon hasn't The Exorcist's ruthless commercial instincts but instead has the modesty not to pretend to be profound, or even "real." Yet it expresses our basic human conflict between rationality and faith very nicely.

Savant called Jim Wyrnoski, who was associated with Photon, in an effort to find out more about the article, namely who wrote it. It was very well done and I've never forgotten it; I unfortunately loaned my copy out to good old Jim Ursini and it disappeared. Obviously, a lot of the ideas here, I first read there. Perhaps a reader who knows better how to take care of their belongings can help me with the info? Ursini and Alain Silvers' More Things than are Dreamt Of Limelight, 1994, analyzes Curse of the Demon (and many other horror movies) in the context of its source story.

This is a true story: Cut to 2000. Columbia goes to re-master Curse of the Demon and finds that the fine-grain original of the English version is missing. The original long version of the movie may be lost forever. A few months later a collector appears who says he bought it from another unnamed collector and offers to trade it for a print copy of the American version, which he prefers. Luckily, an intermediary helps the collector follow up on his offer and the authorities are not contacted about what some would certainly call stolen property. The long version is now once again safe. Studios clearly need to defend their property but many collectors have "items" they personally have acquired legally. More often than you might think, such finds come about because studios throw away important elements. If the studios threaten prosecution, they will find that collectors will never approach them. They'd probably prefer to destroy irreplaceable film to avoid being criminalized.