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.

  

Life is about change, you can not live without changing everyday in ways you never knew. Every experience changes you. These leaves are changing from green to red....

 

They are like my temper right now, I am red and flaming. Someone in Austria hacked mine and other debit cards from another business. Yesterday they wiped our account out 2 hrs after my check was deposited, bounced cable, electric, car insurance, locked my whole account out, untraceable, unrecoverable took us down to $1.94 for next 2 weeks.... it gets worse but I can barely contain myself so lets just suffice to say that if I could meet this person I would burn in hell forever for what my brain tells me I would do. They are checking farther cause it's possible identity theft also... just what I need, a bunch of me's causing more crap for me.... none of you would like the very bipolar psycho bitch I am restraining within myself tonight.

 

thanks for letting me vent though....

Maker: Étienne Carjat (1828-1906)

Born: France

Active: France

Medium: woodburytype

Size: 7 3/8 in x 9 1/8 in

Location:

 

Object No. 2018.692j

Shelf: I-2

 

Publication: Album de la Galerie Contemporaine, Biographies & Portraits, Revue Illustree, 125 Boulevard Ssint Germain, Paris

Galerie Contemporaine, Series 1, Vol 2, 1878

 

Other Collections:

 

Notes: Eugène Spuller (8 December 1835 – 23 July 1896) was a French politician and writer.

 

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

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, with definitive evidence only back to the mid-1800s. 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. The festival's origins are unclear, with claims for both pagan and Christian roots.

 

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.

 

The village hosts a health centre, village shop, Post Office, a store operated by Allendale Co-operative Society, 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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

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

 

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.

 

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.

 

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..

 

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)

 

Northumberland is a ceremonial county in North East England, bordering Scotland. It is bordered by the Scottish Borders to the north, the North Sea to the east, Tyne and Wear and County Durham to the south, and Cumbria to the west. The town of Blyth is the largest settlement.

 

The county has an area of 5,013 km2 (1,936 sq mi) and a population of 320,274, making it the least-densely populated county in England. The south-east contains the largest towns: Blyth (37,339), Cramlington (27,683), Ashington (27,670), and Morpeth (14,304), which is the administrative centre. The remainder of the county is rural, and the largest towns are Berwick-upon-Tweed (12,043) in the far north and Hexham (13,097) in the west. For local government purposes the county is a unitary authority area. The county historically included the parts of Tyne and Wear north of the River Tyne.

 

The west of Northumberland contains part of the Cheviot Hills and North Pennines, while to the east the land becomes flatter before reaching the coast. The Cheviot (815 m (2,674 ft)), after which the range of hills is named, is the county's highest point. The county contains the source of the River North Tyne and much of the South Tyne; near Hexham they combine to form the Tyne, which exits into Tyne and Wear shortly downstream. The other major rivers in Northumberland are, from south to north, the Blyth, Coquet, Aln, Wansbeck and Tweed, the last of which forms part of the Scottish border. The county contains Northumberland National Park and two national landscapes: the Northumberland Coast and part of the North Pennines.

 

Much of the county's history has been defined by its position on a border. In the Roman era most of the county lay north of Hadrian's Wall, and the region was contested between England and Scotland into the Early Modern era, leading to the construction of many castles, peel towers and bastle houses, and the early modern fortifications at Berwick-upon-Tweed. Northumberland is also associated with Celtic Christianity, particularly the tidal island of Lindisfarne. During the Industrial Revolution the area had significant coal mining, shipbuilding, and armaments industries.

 

Northumberland, England's northernmost county, is a land where Roman occupiers once guarded a walled frontier, Anglian invaders fought with Celtic natives, and Norman lords built castles to suppress rebellion and defend a contested border with Scotland. The present-day county is a vestige of an independent kingdom that once stretched from Edinburgh to the Humber, hence its name, meaning literally 'north of the Humber'. Reflecting its tumultuous past, Northumberland has more castles than any other county in England, and the greatest number of recognised battle sites. Once an economically important region that supplied much of the coal that powered the industrial revolution, Northumberland is now a primarily rural county with a small and gradually shrinking population.

 

As attested by many instances of rock art, the Northumberland region has a rich prehistory. Archeologists have studied a Mesolithic structure at Howick, which dates to 7500 BC and was identified as Britain's oldest house until it lost this title in 2010 when the discovery of the even older Star Carr house in North Yorkshire was announced, which dates to 8770 BC. They have also found tools, ornaments, building structures and cairns dating to the bronze and iron ages, when the area was occupied by Brythonic Celtic peoples who had migrated from continental Europe, most likely the Votadini whose territory stretched from Edinburgh and the Firth of Forth to Northumberland. It is not clear where the boundary between the Votadini and the other large tribe, the Brigantes, was, although it probably frequently shifted as a result of wars and as smaller tribes and communities changed allegiances. Unlike neighbouring tribes, Votadini farms were surrounded by large walls, banks and ditches and the people made offerings of fine metal objects, but never wore massive armlets. There are also at least three very large hillforts in their territory (Yeavering Bell, Eildon Hill and Traprain Law, the latter two now in Scotland), each was located on the top of a prominent hill or mountain. The hillforts may have been used for over a thousand years by this time as places of refuge and as places for meetings for political and religious ceremonies. Duddo Five Stones in North Northumberland and the Goatstones near Hadrian's Wall are stone circles dating from the Bronze Age.

 

When Gnaeus Julius Agricola was appointed Roman governor of Britain in 78 AD, most of northern Britain was still controlled by native British tribes. During his governorship Agricola extended Roman control north of Eboracum (York) and into what is now Scotland. Roman settlements, garrisons and roads were established throughout the Northumberland region.

 

The northern frontier of the Roman occupation fluctuated between Pons Aelius (now Newcastle) and the Forth. Hadrian's Wall was completed by about 130 AD, to define and defend the northern boundary of Roman Britain. By 142, the Romans had completed the Antonine Wall, a more northerly defensive border lying between the Forth and Clyde. However, by 164 they abandoned the Antonine Wall to consolidate defences at Hadrian's Wall.

 

Two important Roman roads in the region were the Stanegate and Dere Street, the latter extending through the Cheviot Hills to locations well north of the Tweed. Located at the intersection of these two roads, Coria (Corbridge), a Roman supply-base, was the most northerly large town in the Roman Empire. The Roman forts of Vercovicium (Housesteads) on Hadrian's Wall, and Vindolanda (Chesterholm) built to guard the Stanegate, had extensive civil settlements surrounding them.

 

The Celtic peoples living in the region between the Tyne and the Forth were known to the Romans as the Votadini. When not under direct Roman rule, they functioned as a friendly client kingdom, a somewhat porous buffer against the more warlike Picts to the north.

 

The gradual Roman withdrawal from Britain in the 5th century led to a poorly documented age of conflict and chaos as different peoples contested territories in northern Britain.

 

Nearly 2000-year-old Roman boxing gloves were uncovered at Vindolanda in 2017 by the Vidolanda Trust experts led by Dr Andrew Birley. According to the Guardian, being similar in style and function to the full-hand modern boxing gloves, these two gloves found at Vindolanda look like leather bands date back to 120 AD. It is suggested that based on their difference from gladiator gloves warriors using this type of gloves had no purpose to kill each other. These gloves were probably used in a sport for promoting fighting skills. The gloves are currently displayed at Vindolanda's museum.

 

Conquests by Anglian invaders led to the establishment of the kingdoms of Deira and Bernicia. The first Anglian settlement was effected in 547 by Ida, who, accompanied by his six sons, pushed through the narrow strip of territory between the Cheviots and the sea, and set up a fortress at Bamburgh, which became the royal seat of the Bernician kings. About the end of the 6th century Bernicia was first united with the rival kingdom of Deira under the rule of Æthelfrith of Northumbria, and the district between the Humber and the Forth became known as the kingdom of Northumbria.

 

After Æthelfrith was killed in battle around 616, Edwin of Deira became king of Northumbria. Æthelfrith's son Oswald fled northwest to the Gaelic kingdom of Dál Riata where he was converted to Christianity by the monks of Iona. Meanwhile, Paulinus, the first bishop of York, converted King Edwin to Roman Christianity and began an extensive program of conversion and baptism. By his time the kingdom must have reached the west coast, as Edwin is said to have conquered the islands of Anglesey and Man. Under Edwin the Northumbrian kingdom became the chief power in Britain. However, when Cadwallon ap Cadfan defeated Edwin at Hatfield Chase in 633, Northumbria was divided into the former kingdoms of Bernicia and Deira and Christianity suffered a temporary decline.

 

In 634, Oswald defeated Cadwallon ap Cadfan at the Battle of Heavenfield, resulting in the re-unification of Northumbria. Oswald re-established Christianity in the kingdom and assigned a bishopric at Hexham, where Wilfrid erected a famous early English church. Reunification was followed by a period of Northumbrian expansion into Pictish territory and growing dominance over the Celtic kingdoms of Dál Riata and Strathclyde to the west. Northumbrian encroachments were abruptly curtailed in 685, when Ecgfrith suffered complete defeat by a Pictish force at the Battle of Nechtansmere.

 

When Saint Aidan came at the request of Oswald to preach to the Northumbrians he chose the island of Lindisfarne as the site of his church and monastery, and made it the head of the diocese which he founded in 635. For some years the see continued in peace, numbering among its bishops Saint Cuthbert, but in 793 Vikings landed on the island and burnt the settlement, killing many of the monks. The survivors, however, rebuilt the church and continued to live there until 883, when, through fear of a second invasion of the Danes, they fled inland, taking with them the body of Cuthbert and other holy relics.

 

Against this background, the monasteries of Northumbria developed some remarkably influential cultural products. Cædmon, a monk at Whitby Abbey, authored one of the earliest surviving examples of Old English poetry some time before 680. The Lindisfarne Gospels, an early example of insular art, is attributed to Eadfrith, the bishop of Lindisfarne from 698 to 721. Stenton (1971, p. 191) describes the book as follows.

 

In mere script it is no more than an admirable example of a noble style, and the figure drawing of its illustrations, though probably based on classical models, has more than a touch of naïveté. Its unique importance is due to the beauty and astonishing intricacy of its decoration. The nature of its ornament connects it very closely with a group of Irish manuscripts of which the Book of Kells is the most famous.

 

Bede's writing, at the Northumbrian monasteries at Wearmouth and Jarrow, gained him a reputation as the most learned scholar of his age. His work is notable for both its breadth (encompassing history, theology, science and literature) and quality, exemplified by the rigorous use of citation. Bede's most famous work is Ecclesiastical History of the English People, which is regarded as a highly influential early model of historical scholarship.

 

The kingdom of Northumbria ceased to exist in 927, when it was incorporated into England as an earldom by Athelstan, the first king of a united England[citation needed].. In 937, Athelstan's victory over a combined Norse-Celtic force in the battle of Brunanburh secured England's control of its northern territory.

 

The Scottish king Indulf captured Edinburgh in 954, which thenceforth remained in possession of the Scots. His successors made repeated attempts to extend their territory southwards. Malcolm II was finally successful, when, in 1018, he annihilated the Northumbrian army at Carham on the Tweed, and Eadulf the earl of Northumbria ceded all his territory to the north of that river as the price of peace. Henceforth Lothian, consisting of the former region of Northumbria between the Forth and the Tweed, remained in possession of the Scottish kings.

 

The term Northumberland was first recorded in its contracted modern sense in 1065 in an entry in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle relating to a rebellion against Tostig Godwinson.

 

The vigorous resistance of Northumbria to William the Conqueror was punished by ruthless harrying, mostly south of the River Tees. As recounted by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle:

 

A.D. 1068. This year King William gave Earl Robert the earldom over Northumberland; but the landsmen attacked him in the town of Durham, and slew him, and nine hundred men with him. Soon afterwards Edgar Etheling came with all the Northumbrians to York; and the townsmen made a treaty with him: but King William came from the South unawares on them with a large army, and put them to flight, and slew on the spot those who could not escape; which were many hundred men; and plundered the town. St. Peter's minster he made a profanation, and all other places also he despoiled and trampled upon; and the ethelling went back again to Scotland.

 

The Normans rebuilt the Anglian monasteries of Lindisfarne, Hexham and Tynemouth, and founded Norman abbeys at Newminster (1139), Alnwick (1147), Brinkburn (1180), Hulne, and Blanchland. Castles were built at Newcastle (1080), Alnwick (1096), Bamburgh (1131), Harbottle (1157), Prudhoe (1172), Warkworth (1205), Chillingham, Ford (1287), Dunstanburgh (1313), Morpeth, Langley (1350), Wark on Tweed and Norham (1121), the latter an enclave of the palatine bishops of Durham.

 

Northumberland county is not mentioned in the Domesday Survey, but the account of the issues of the county, as rendered by Odard the sheriff, is entered in the Great Roll of the Exchequer for 1131.

 

In 1237, Scotland renounced claims to Northumberland county in the Treaty of York.

 

During the reign of Edward I (1272–1307), the county of Northumberland was the district between the Tees and the Tweed, and had within it several scattered liberties subject to other powers: Durham, Sadberge, Bedlingtonshire, and Norhamshire belonging to the bishop of Durham; Hexhamshire to the archbishop of York; Tynedale to the king of Scotland; Emildon to the earl of Lancaster; and Redesdale to Gilbert de Umfraville, Earl of Angus. These franchises were exempt from the ordinary jurisdiction of the shire. Over time, some were incorporated within the county: Tynedale in 1495; Hexhamshire in 1572; and Norhamshire, Islandshire and Bedlingtonshire by the Counties (Detached Parts) Act 1844.

 

The county court for Northumberland was held at different times at Newcastle, Alnwick and Morpeth, until by statute of 1549 it was ordered that the court should thenceforth be held in the town and castle of Alnwick. Under the same statute the sheriffs of Northumberland, who had been in the habit of appropriating the issues of the county to their private use, were required thereafter to deliver in their accounts to the Exchequer in the same manner as the sheriffs of other counties.

 

From the Norman Conquest until the union of England and Scotland under James I and VI, Northumberland was the scene of perpetual inroads and devastations by the Scots. Norham, Alnwick and Wark were captured by David I of Scotland in the wars of Stephen's reign. In 1174, during his invasion of Northumbria, William I of Scotland, also known as William the Lion, was captured by a party of about four hundred mounted knights, led by Ranulf de Glanvill. This incident became known as the Battle of Alnwick. In 1295, Robert de Ros and the earls of Athol and Menteith ravaged Redesdale, Coquetdale and Tynedale. In 1314 the county was ravaged by king Robert Bruce. And so dire was the Scottish threat in 1382, that by special enactment the earl of Northumberland was ordered to remain on his estates to protect the border. In 1388, Henry Percy was taken prisoner and 1500 of his men slain at the battle of Otterburn, immortalised in the ballad of Chevy Chase.

 

Alnwick, Bamburgh and Dunstanburgh were garrisoned for the Lancastrian cause in 1462, but after the Yorkist victories of Hexham and Hedgley Moor in 1464, Alnwick and Dunstanburgh surrendered, and Bamburgh was taken by storm.

 

In September 1513, King James IV of Scotland was killed at the Battle of Flodden on Branxton Moor.

 

Roman Catholic support in Northumberland for Mary, Queen of Scots, led to the Rising of the North in 1569.

 

After uniting the English and Scottish thrones, James VI and I sharply curbed the lawlessness of the border reivers and brought relative peace to the region. There were Church of Scotland congregations in Northumberland in the 17th and 18th centuries.

 

During the Civil War of the 17th century, Newcastle was garrisoned for the king by the earl of Newcastle, but in 1644 it was captured by the Scots under the earl of Leven, and in 1646 Charles I was led there a captive under the charge of David Leslie.

 

Many of the chief Northumberland families were ruined in the Jacobite rebellion of 1715.

 

The mineral resources of the area appear to have been exploited to some extent from remote times. It is certain that coal was used by the Romans in Northumberland, and some coal ornaments found at Angerton have been attributed to the 7th century. In a 13th-century grant to Newminster Abbey a road for the conveyance of sea coal from the shore about Blyth is mentioned, and the Blyth coal field was worked throughout the 14th and 15th centuries. The coal trade on the Tyne did not exist to any extent before the 13th century, but from that period it developed rapidly, and Newcastle acquired the monopoly of the river shipping and coal trade. Lead was exported from Newcastle in the 12th century, probably from Hexhamshire, the lead mines of which were very prosperous throughout the 16th and 17th centuries. In a charter from Richard I to Hugh de Puiset creating him earl of Northumberland, mines of silver and iron are mentioned. A salt pan is mentioned at Warkworth in the 12th century; in the 13th century the salt industry flourished at the mouth of the river Blyth, and in the 15th century formed the principal occupation of the inhabitants of North and South Shields. In the reign of Elizabeth I, glass factories were set up at Newcastle by foreign refugees, and the industry spread rapidly along the Tyne. Tanning, both of leather and of nets, was largely practised in the 13th century, and the salmon fisheries in the Tyne were famous in the reign of Henry I.

 

John Smeaton designed the Coldstream Bridge and a bridge at Hexham.

Stephenson's Rocket

Invention of the steam turbine by Charles Algernon Parsons

c/n SA078.

Despite the accurate Belgian markings, this is actually ‘7727’, an ex South African Air Force machine. It was one of 30 T-6 airframes remanufactured to T-6G standard in the mid 1950’s specifically for the SAAF, with their original identities being untraceable.

Privately owned and Antwerp based, she is seen taxiing in after displaying at the 2016 Belgian Air Force Day,

Florennes, Belgium.

25th June 2016

 

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.

  

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

  

Usually when we work we like to get paid with a large bag of untraceable diamonds but very occasionally we'll do it just to see a row of smiling children's faces that come complete with questions/statements such as 'Wow. You're really good', 'Will you paint a rainbow?', 'How do you get to do that as a job?' and 'How do you know which bits to colour?'. Worth it for that alone.

 

Anyway when the local primary school comes knocking it seems like it's time to give a little back. We were asked if we could brighten up some old sheds with the school character's which are anthropomorphic creatures that embody the school's values. Such as Casey Courage (the hedgehog), Courtney Curiosity (the magpie), Eddie Excellence (the sea lion/walrus) and Intanya Integrity (the badger).

 

A couple of hours later and hey presto! you've got yourself a mural. At least the kids seem to like it as they even sent us a card telling us so! At least our karma score is safe for now...

 

Love

 

id-iom

 

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

Terminators squad in a custom color scheme based on my custom chapter called "Blue Comet". Note the one at right has been customized, it is installed with a radar.

 

This is my first Warhammer model since I made the previous one back in high school many years ago! I am back finally!

 

The history of the "Blue Comet" Chapter's origin:

During the Horus Heresy, a scattered group of Space Marines from an original unit formations of a loyalist Space Marine Legion (the legion is untraceable today), was beaten back by the evil Chaos gods after the long struggle. Unfortunately their home-world was encircled and completely isolated from the rest of the legion in the war. In order to survive, this group broke out in a small space fleet successfully but with heavy losses. The remaining fleet travelled in the vast empty space searching and trying to make contact with the legion in vain, so instead they looked for a new home-world but most of the planets were either already consumed by Chaos or occupied by other races. After a long ten years in space, the fleet came across a large comet by chance, in which it trails with a stream of blue coma that stretches for tens of millions of kilometers. To much of their surprise, this blue comet has the size of a planet, and it has all the essential elements that could support life. The earth crust is thick enough to sustain an underground city. Therefore, the group decided to settle on this Comet and established their new home-world.They created a new legion called the "Blue Comet", named after this unique new home, roughly 3 years after the Second Founding. Their world has since travelled in a orbital period of several millions of years, fighting many wars within their path...

 

Their chapter colors are White, Gray & Blue, they represents: White: Bright white light emerges from the front of the comet. Gray: Earth color of the comet itself. Blue: Color of the long blue coma

Usually when we work we like to get paid with a large bag of untraceable diamonds but very occasionally we'll do it just to see a row of smiling children's faces that come complete with questions/statements such as 'Wow. You're really good', 'Will you paint a rainbow?', 'How do you get to do that as a job?' and 'How do you know which bits to colour?'. Worth it for that alone.

 

Anyway when the local primary school comes knocking it seems like it's time to give a little back. We were asked if we could brighten up some old sheds with the school character's which are anthropomorphic creatures that embody the school's values. Such as Casey Courage (the hedgehog), Courtney Curiosity (the magpie), Eddie Excellence (the sea lion/walrus) and Intanya Integrity (the badger).

 

A couple of hours later and hey presto! you've got yourself a mural. At least the kids seem to like it as they even sent us a card telling us so! At least our karma score is safe for now...

 

Love

 

id-iom

 

Historical Background

 

Ajmer is situated at the foot of an 800-feet high mountain on the top of which stands, in solemn splendour, the celebrated fort of Garh Beetli or Bithali named after Bithaldas Gaur the trusted General of Emperor Shah Jahan, which is now called Taragarh (the star citadel). This city stretches out in all directions of a spacious valley and is hemmed in on all sides by picturesque hills. Its holy traditions are equally replete with Rajput chivalry and Muslim supremacy in the past history of Hindustan. Few cities of India can boast of Ajmer’s religious sanctity for both Hindus and Muslims, its glorious history and it natural beauty. It was in Ajmer that Khawaja Muinuddin Chishti laid the permanent foundation of Islam in India in 1192 A.D. by his spiritual powers and peaceful preachings. It was in Ajmer that Sir Thomas Roe, as ambassador of King James I of England, had his audience with Emperor Jahangir on 19th January 1616 A.D. which laid the steping stone of the British Raj in India through the charter of free trading granted to the East India Company by the Emperor. It was in Ajmer that Shah Jahan, on the death of Jahangir, proclaimed himself Emperor of India while returning from Udaipur and proceeding to Delhi in 1627 A.D. And it was in Ajmer again that a beginning of the decline of Moghul Empire was made with the victory of Aurangzeb against his brother Dara Shikeh after a furious battle on 11th, 12th and 13th March 1659 A.D. In addition to these major historical events, Ajmer has seen many vicissitudes of time in its long history of about 1400 years.

 

Why Ajmer Was Chosen

 

Why Ajmer was particularly selected to be pivot of Hazrat Khawaja Muinuddin Chishti’s mission in India? This is a pertinent question which may be asked by some critical readers. A careful study of the history of India before Khawaja Saheb’s arrival, and of the period of his stay in Ajmer will answer this question satisfactory. We have already thrown sufficient light on this point in one of the previous chapters. In this chapter, we trace a brief history of Ajmer and the Khawaja Saheb’s Dargah which attracts millions of people every year to seek spiritual blessings of the great saint.

 

Geographically, Ajmer is situated in the heart of Rajasthan, at one time the citadel of India kingdom, and thus it suited the grand mission of Khawaja Saheb best. Politically, Ajmer the seat of a most powerful kingdom of the last Rajput Emperor of India, Raja Prithviraj Chauhan (1179-1192 A.D.) whose whole life was “one of unbroken chain of chivalrous deeds and glorious exploits which have won for him eternal fame and a name that will last as long as chivalry itself.” Prithviraj was the son of Someshwara (1170-1179 A.D.) who was the 29th descendant in the lineage of King Vasudeva who flourished as far back as 551 A.D. Vasudeva has descended from Chahuan (the founder of the Rajput clan of Chauhans) whose date is untraceable in the description of Ajmer. As given in Sarga IX of the famous documentary “Prithviraj Vijaya”, runs as below:-

 

The city was so densely populated and there were so many gardens, tanks and wells that not more than one-tenth of the earth was visible to sun, and water in the wells was only two cubits from the ground surface. Karpurdevi (mother of Prithviraj) under whose regency he was brought up also founded a town”.

 

Describing Ajmer in his “Picturesque India” (p.77) Mr. Caine, says:-

 

“It is an ancient, beautiful city full of interest, both historical and architectural; its gay busy bazars and its old houses with carved fronts, some of which are among the finest in India, giving added attractions to its superb situation. A well built stone wall with give gateways surrounds the city”.

 

Anasager Lake

 

According to “Prithviraj Vijaya” Arnoraja or Raja Anaji (1130-1150 A. D.) the grandfather of Emperor Prithviraj Chauhan, had built the picturesque lake of Anasagar at Ajmer in order to purify the land which was alleged to have been despoiled by the spilling of the Mussalman blood in a battle fought at this place. (It is the same Anasagar lake on the banks of which the Khawaja Saheb had stayed after his arrival in Ajmer in 1192 A. D. The exact place of his stay is known as ” Chilla Khawaja Saheb ” which is situated on the top of the Anasagar Ghati). In 1637 A. D., Shah Jahan built five beautiful pavilions (called Baradaris) of polished marble on the embankment of Anasagar which are still preserved in their original glory.

 

Jama Al-Tamish Or Dhai Din-Ka-Jhonpra

 

One of the oldest and most interesting historical building of Ajmer, is Jama Al-tamish popularly known as Dhai-din-ka-Jhonpra, situating in Ankerkot at the foot of the Taragarh hill According to Tod Rajasthan ” it is a relic of nobler days and architect and the antiquarian because of its multifarious artistic attractions.

 

The monumental mosque has, however, been the subject of diverse opinion about its origin. According to Ajmer Historical and Descriptive (by Dewan Bahadur Harbilas Sarda) it is claimed to be a Saraswati Mandir which is said to have been built in 1153 A. D. by Raja Visaldeva who was the first Chauhan Emperor of India. But according to the Arabic inscription appearing on the marble arch in the centre of the mosque and the convincing arguments advanced by the author of Main-ul-Arifin (P. 150-154) it is recognised to be a mosque ever since its origin which was built by Sultan Shahabuddin Ghori in 595 A. H. (12th century A.D.) wherein Hazrat Khwaja Muinuddin Chishti himself (who came to Ajmer in 587 A. H.) is said to have offered his prayers for a considerable time. Later on, Sultan Shamsuddin Altamish of Delhi (607 to 633 A. H.) is reported to have built its present massive structure of red stone which was completed in 614 A. H. by Ali Ahmed mason under the supervision of one Mohammed Ariz – a claim which is also substantiated by another Arabic inscrition on its central arch. (Ahsan-us-Siar, P. 87-92). In any case, this magnificent mosque is one of the rare historic monuments of India.

 

General Cunningham., Director of Archaeology Government of India, who inspected this mosque in 1864 A. D., appears to have fallen into the error of accepting the common belief that it was built in Dhai-din i.e. two and a half days, as its name implies out of the material released from some demolished temples – a judgment which is difficult to believe in view of its extensive and massive stony structure replete with extremlely fine and most intricate workmanship on stone. It seems that only the smaller marble arch in the centre of the mosque may have been finished in 2-1/2 days to meet an emergency but the whole massive structure, with its elaborate Arabic tracings and delicate engraving details, is definitely a work of many years sustained labour.

 

Writing of the beautiful details of this marvellous edifice, Mr. Furgusson, author of the Eastern and Indian Architecture (P. 513 ) says – “As example of surface decoration, the Jhonpra and the mosque of Al-tamish at Delhi are probably unrivalled. Nothing in Cairo or in Persia and nothing in Spain or Syria is so exquisite in detail and can approach them for beauty or surface decoration. The gorgeous prodigality of ornamental work , the fascinating richness of tracery, the delicate sharpness of finish, the fascinating richness of tracery, the delicate sharpness of finish, the endless variety of detail and the accurate and laborious workmanship, are eternal credit to its past Indian engineers and masons”. There is a rich variety of Quranic verse inscribed all over the building to tax the brains of both inquisitive historians and the antiquarians alike . In short, it is a model of excellence in the art Indian architecture.

 

Dargah Of Miran Syed Husain

 

On the highest point of Taragarh fort stands the Dargah of Hazrat Miran Syed Husian Asghar Khangswar who was the governor of Ajmer after its conquest by Sultan Shahabuddin Ghori.. On the death of Qutubuddin Aibak in 1210 A.D., the Rathor and Chauhan Rajputs joined in a night attack on the Taragarh Fort when most of the men of Miran Saheb were out collecting taxes in the district, and the number of his garrison was, therefore, numerically very small. The Rajpurs thus massacred Miran Saheb and his garrison to a man on 18th Rajab.

 

The Fort Of Taragarh

 

According to Akhbar-ul-Akhyar, the first fort built on a hill in India was the fortress of Taragarh at Ajmer. Its unique defence and strength lie in the impregnable ruggedness and acclivity of the mountain upon which it is built. This ancient fort has seen many historic battles and nerve-wrecking sieges and has changed hands with the Rajput, Muslim, Maratha and the British conquerors during its long and checkered history. Ajameru Doorg, as it was originally called, was built by Raja Ajairaj Chauhan who was the king of Sapadlaksh territory having Sakambhari (now Sambhar as his capital in the early part of 6th century A.D. He also built the town of Ajmer and the village of Ajaisar, lying in the south of Foysagar lake, still commemorates his name.

  

courtesy

 

dargahajmer.com/ajmer-sharif/

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.

  

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

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.

This is assistant director Basil Keys’ annotated shooting script for Jacques Tourneur’s scary occult classic Night of the Demon (1957). Note the working title ‘The Haunted’ on the cover page, then turn to the page where the demon appears in the trees on a dark night.

The demon’s apparition is famously referenced later in the film in a séance scene, where Professor Harrington (Maurice Denham) – in the grip of communion with the spirit world – utters the bone-chilling words: “It’s in the trees! It’s coming.”

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: woodburytype

Size: 9.5 in x 7.5 in

Location: France

 

Object No. 2014.257

Shelf: B-7

 

Publication: Galerie Contemporaine, Vol 2, No 1, 1877

Julia Van Haaften, From Talbot To Stieglitz, Thames and Hudson, 1982, pl 91

Kristin L. Spangenberg, Photographic Treasures from the Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati, 1989, pg 76

Alles Wahrheit! Alles Luge!, Photographie und Wirklichkeit im 19. Jahrhundert, Museen de Stadt Koln, 1996, pg 146

Jacques Delanoe, Les Pionniers de la Photographie, Terre de Brume Editions, Rennes, 1996, pg 100

Nadar, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1995, pg 25

 

Other Collections: Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, NYPL,

Cincinnati Art Museum, Auer Photo Foundation, National Gallery of Canada

 

Notes: Monnier was a famous French actor, pictured playing the part of Monsieur Prudhomme. Printed by Goupil et Cie from a negative by Carjat. The Galerie Contemporaine is a high point in photographic publishing. Issued in parts from 1876 to 1884 by the firm of Goupil, the series contained 241 portraits of leading figures from the worlds of art, literature, music, science, and politics by a host of Parisian photographers. The illustrations were printed as woodburytypes–a photomechanical process that reproduced the continuous tones of photography but did so with printer's ink. The speed and economy with which woodburytypes could be printed, as well as their permanence (unlike traditional photographic processes that were subject to fading), made them a highly practical substitute for albumen silver prints in book publication or other situations where mass production was desirable.

 

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

Absolutely heartbroken that I can't find out anything about Cleaties Bowser, a coal minor who was arrested for adultry (sic and sic).

 

The misspellings on the card might make you assume that his name is misspelled, too, but it isn't. The only trace of him I could find was on the 1940 census, where his name is spelled just like that.

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.

  

The Third Rashō of Shura, Han fights with hurricane-like Hokuto Ryū Ken techniques, which are so fast that they cannot be followed by the human eye and cast no shadow. Despite this, he is the least powerful of the three Rashos.

 

As Third General, Han ruled over the Land of Asura alongside his fellow leaders Hyoh and Kaioh. With his life in constant danger of assassination due to being the weakest Rasho, he claims to have lost count after killing the 100th assassin. Han frequently laments the boredom of his daily life as nobody was able to provide him with a true challenge, and would spend his time playing chess against himself. Despite his brutality, he is less brutal than Kaioh as he occasionally spares his would-be assassins, mostly because he feels that they are not worth killing. He ends up fighting Kenshiro after the latter arrives at his castle to rescue Lin, who was brought there earlier by Shachi as part of his plan to have Han fight Kenshiro. Han is the one who reveals Kenshiro's origin to him during their fight. Following an intense battle, Kenshiro manages to damage his vision and then finishes him with the Hyakuretsu Ken.

 

Before his death, Han warns Kenshiro that he will never defeat the Second Rashō (Hyoh) and only death awaits him if he doesn't turn back, before plummeting into the river below. His body later washes up inside Hyoh's castle, who mourns the death of his friend and vows vengeance against his murderer.

 

Like his fellow generals, Han was a master of the Hokuto Ryū Ken, a sister fighting style to Kenshiro's Hokuto Shinken. His prowess allowed him to ascend to the esteemed position of Third Rasho of Asura, trumped in power only by Hyo and Kaioh. Han's particular skill lay in his exceptional speed, which was untraceable by human eyes save for exceptionally strong fighters like Kenshiro. Even Shachi, one of the strongest fighters in the Land of Asura and fellow user of Hokuto Ryu Ken, was unable to follow Han's movements during their first encounter.

 

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Han was also shown to be highly resistant to poison, as he drank an entire goblet of poisoned wine without any ill side effects. It is highly possible that he uses his matoki to nullify the poison as his eyes shine when he ingests the poison.

 

He is shown to be unable to perform Anryu Tenha, making him the weakest Rasho.

__________________________

A year of the shows and performers of the Bijou Planks Theater.

  

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.

  

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

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

This is assistant director Basil Keys’ annotated shooting script for Jacques Tourneur’s scary occult classic Night of the Demon (1957). Note the working title ‘The Haunted’ on the cover page, then turn to the page where the demon appears in the trees on a dark night.

The demon’s apparition is famously referenced later in the film in a séance scene, where Professor Harrington (Maurice Denham) – in the grip of communion with the spirit world – utters the bone-chilling words: “It’s in the trees! It’s coming.”

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.

  

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.

This is assistant director Basil Keys’ annotated shooting script for Jacques Tourneur’s scary occult classic Night of the Demon (1957). Note the working title ‘The Haunted’ on the cover page, then turn to the page where the demon appears in the trees on a dark night.

The demon’s apparition is famously referenced later in the film in a séance scene, where Professor Harrington (Maurice Denham) – in the grip of communion with the spirit world – utters the bone-chilling words: “It’s in the trees! It’s coming.”

 

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

  

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.

  

Me and My Peacock or Peacock and My Me

A dialogue Across Space and Time

(Words and Centuries)

A house, around the house a garden; in the garden, a peacock. No, let us put it this way-my heart, in the heart a house, around the house a garden, in the garden a peacock. This peacock a moving feast of colours comes to me wherever I am. The peahen pulls at my pyjamas. If I fail to take notice of her and remain preoccupied with reading, or writing she keeps teasing me, makes unintelligible accosting sounds, asking for something to eat, like a child asks his mother. If I throw the grain on the floor, she will not touch it, continues to grumble with sounds rejecting it protesting: only when I offered with my hands she eats, eyes full of lustre. And after she is appeased does not vanish but keeps moving about in my surroundings, now and then pulling at my sleeves to remind me of her presence because she seems to like that I should always take notice of her.

 

When I return home tired after my day’s work, she arrives promptly in front of me, like a rainbow into the garden of clouds. Alas! She cannot speak, she cannot express. Inside her feelings ebb like an ocean tide, waves knock at her soul for expression. Deprived of it the sea within her rebels gets enraged and furious. How torturous is this delicate bird’s; light! What inexplicable agony! How irredeemable, given even the enormous sympathy! She curses her creator for the deformity of speechlessness the foremost of all deformities.

 

One day I died, people were crying in the room. Lo, and behold hesitating the Peahen slowly moved towards the door, throwing bewildered looks all suspiciously in all directions. She was afraid yet compelled to come forward by something which she does not know or you people do not know, fear of death did not deter her: it means she did not care for death. Though I died, I was watching the peacock come. I was greatly amused. Crowds of people were falling over my dead body and they were weeping. Guy de Maupassant"s story LOVE flashed across my mind like a lightening as I lay dead. In that story a hunter kills a female bird. She falls to the ground from the sky. The hunter tells his friend:" Look this will bring the male bird also. Soon he will bag two instead of one, without any effort" soon, exactly as the hunter predicted the male bird flew in, hazarding danger, irresistibly drawn to his mate wailing even louder, with heartrending sounds, began circling the sky over the spot where his companion lay mutilated and soaked in blood. However the hunter is a hunter, unmoved and cold-blooded, his fingers pressed the trigger and the male bird was shot as he came within the range of the gun. He too fell dead by the side of his mate. Suddenly I heard a voice of hoary past and I knew it was Valmiki. It came resounding from the vaults of time. It was now cursing the hunter of Maupassant; heard dazed in my death. This Valmiki had cursed a hunter before and was cursing another one now. Does he keep cursing all the hunters all the time? How? Is it a voice raised against brutality for all ages to come? Doesn’t Valmiki die? Isn"t Valmiki dead? Is he cursing even today those tribes of hunters who have made it their life’s mission to violate humanity and propagate hate in letters of blood? Is this voice policing the highways of time day and night to shield humanity from attacks of the brute! Great minds turn into sound and thus revolve around the universe, around the world from age to age, from country to country eternally and endlessly.

 

One evening in the 21st century Albert Camus and I found ourselves in the swimming pool of a park. Swimming in that blood we were like two morning suns that rose at the same time. I said"Camus, you have said no great work has ever been been based on hatred or contempt" Now what is this blood in which we are swimming? Had not this blood in which we are swimming? Isn’t this blood shed due to the love of man? Had not this blood flown, these children today would not be playing there amongst those flowers so innocently and freely; these evenings and mornings could not have scattered these hues and passions for one and all".

 

Before Camus spoke Kafka sitting by the side of a flowering bush nearby interjected;

 

"These rivers of blood are necessary but remember that there are some who ferry their ambitions in these waters reach destinations of power: their dream is to reach those exalted peaks of fame but not a thought of ushering in or bequeathing a dawn to those who shed their blood for the cause. They do not shed one drop themselves but when others shed their blood they commemorate with songs."

 

Little further up Plato and Bhavabhuthi were admiring a painting." this is the picture of Hanuman from Thailand’, said Bhavabhuthi. Plato said this is the message of humanity teaching us across the oceans of time."

 

In the meanwhile over-hearing the words of Kafka Plato intervened;"Franz, these pirates of bloody oceans are always there, these very people made my Guru drink hemlock, and these very people after his death became the high priests of his philosophy. When were dishonest people not there? One of them last year broke the ears and nose of PIETA in the Sistine Chapel. To this day the last words of Socrates resound in my ears before he empties the cup of hemlock.’wherefore, O judges, be of good cheer about death, and know o f certainty, that no evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death. The gods do not neglect him and his; nor has my own approaching end happened by mere chance. But I see clearly that the time had arrived when it was better for me to die and be released from trouble.

 

"I am not angry with my condemners, or with my accusers; they have done me no harm although they did not mean to do me any good; and for this I may gently blame them.

 

"Since I have a favour to ask of them." When my sons are grown up, I would ask you my friends to punish them; and would have you trouble them as I have troubled you. If they seem to care about riches, or anything, more than about virtue; or if they pretend to be something when they are really nothing then reprove them, as I have reproved you, for not caring about that for which they ought to care, and thinking that they are something when they are really nothing; and if you do this, both I and my sons will have received justice at your hands".

 

That which Socrates drank was not hemlock, that historic tragedy is touchstone of impeccable honesty-

 

Mohammed Iqbal who was listening intently intercepted;"Socretes was before time and became a martyr of time. It is after the slaughter of countless stars that dawn takes birth. –

 

After five hundred years Socrates was reborn perhaps as Christ. A hundred years before his birth he flashed like lightening in the mind of the great poet Virgil who sand the last chapter of that divine song in eclogues (1$) Now comes the final age (announced) in the cumean (Sybil’s) chant; the great succession of epochs is born anew. Now the virgin returns; now a new race descends from the heaven on high. O chaste Luciana (goddess of births) smile upon the boy just born, in whose time the race of iron shall first cease, and a race of gold shall arise through out the world."

 

That is why he is known today as the Christian before Christ.

 

On the television I saw the face of Mac Diarmid; he was singing his Third hymn to Lenin

 

Michael Roberts and and All Angels! Auden, Spender, those bhoyos.

 

All yellow twicers; not one of them with a lithe of Carlyle’s courage and integrity. Unlike those psuedos I of-not for the working class".

 

I spontaneously remarked:"wll said. Shall I narrate an interesting episode?- The other day one of my books of the 19th century French Verse disappeared from my desk, over which I was very upset. I looked for it and didn’t find it. Undoubtedly somebody had stolen it and a few days later Lo and behold! I suddenly came across it in the prose-poems of a modern poet".

 

"Who is he? Is he a telugu friend?" queried Mac Diarmid innocently.

 

One night a dream entered me, a technicoloured dream, it spread over the multidimensional screen of my mind. Jean Cocteau and I were sitting together and smoking opium.

 

"Opium is the only vegetable substance which communicates the vegetable state to us. Through it we get an idea of that other speed of plants" Picasso who was sitting across the table rejoined." the smell of opium is the least stup9id smell in the world. The only smell one can compare with it is the smell of circus or a seaport".

 

Jeau Cocteau,"The smell spreads magic; flies gather round the tray and dream, the lizards with their little mittens swoon on the ceiling above the lamp and wait for the". I said; you carried opium from our continent but we do not know the secrets of opium as much as you people do-

 

Cocteau replied: "young Asia no longer smokes because grand father smoked, Young Europe smokes because grand father did not smoke. Since, Alas, Young Asia imitates young Euorope,it is through us that opium will return to its starting point".

 

As the conversation progressed, my mind began to evaporate. Like volatile camphor it melted into the air." Why am I feeling like this" I asked aloud.

 

Cocteau:"don"nt wake up. Once a poet wakes up he is stupid I mean intelligent, where am I? he asks, like ladies who fainted. Notes written by a poet who is awake are not worth much"." Then how does one understand the writings of a poet whose head is buried in dreams" asked Cocteau" A poet, unless he is politician’’’’’ must only count on readers who know his language, the spirit of his language, the spirit of his language and the soul of his language. It is unlike a poet to crave for masses of readers." Eliot intervening said," I entirely agree with you. A political association may help to give poetry immediate attention. It is in spite of this association that the poetry will be read If it is read tomorrow. Beacause unless the political matter is humanised and transformed into poetry it deserves to be forgotten".

 

"Yes unless you become an idiot you cannot become a poet. If you smoke a few puffs of opium you wouldn’t be within yourself recommend the patient to burry his head in his arms, to glue his ears to that arm, and wait…. Cataststrophes, riots, factories blowing up, armies in fligfht, floods: the ear can detect a whole apocalypse in the the starry night of the human body."

 

By then, time and distance disappeared in me. The symphony of sounds and oceans began to rage within me. From out of those tumultuous waves arose Pablo Neruda holding out his poem"Mcchu Picchu"…

 

"Arise to birth with me, my brother" his shout rent the air, stamping his feet on the waves he cried aloud-

 

"Let me have back the slave you buried here! Wrench from these lands the stale-bread of the poor".

 

The smoke of opium spread all over the room. Flies began to dream, lizards began to swoon clutching at the walls, and the mosquitoes began to float in utter abandon. Crowds of yellow dreams and full-throated voices of brown races of the earth began to speak. Ishikawa Takuboku was reciting in his deep Japanese voice.

 

"My character is an unhappy character. I a weakling with a marvellous sword inferior to none. I can’t stand it unless I fight and yet I am unable win, that means that death is the only possible course for me. But I dislike the thought of death. I don’t want to die! Then how am I to live?"

 

Love which is another form of humanity, another name of conscientiousness, fearlessness and honesty, love which fuses unknown human being together and brings the entire mankind into the crucible of history to celebrate TIME as a saga of peace and prosperity. Love which makes man brandish his iron fists in fury against the injustice perpetrated on fellowmen, Love which makes man dig his axe into the evil force that obstruct justice and make oblations in blood to the murdered humanity in our own century. In such ddays, when love is trampled and desecrated those that ignore sentiment are setting bloody trends in poetry using it as a ladder to climb peaks of fame: exploiting the blood and sweat of the dumb millions for making crowns to adorn their own heads: hycracy, theft, envy, hatred and ignorance are spreading like epidemics in the exalted field of poetry.

 

In such times, the man in whom peaks that kiss the skies, the skies that take into their blue arms the pure winds, the innocent winds that speak in hush voices the language of flowers; the flowers that spit flaming colours on the brute and the cheat, colours that play a gentle game of hide-and-seek, make a festival of moonlight,-that man, it is better he dies. I am lucky I died. To be alive is an ugly involvement. Dead I can see the fun of all these mean men what more do I need? What more fame do I crave?

 

My poetry the winds have kissed, the flowers have drunk, the birds have sung, the hills and forests echo, the rivers and the sea gasther, the sunrises and sunsets gesticulate. It is in the sounds of the pulsating universe, in the peoples of all the nations; so goodbye to the pen.

 

Things invisible to the living become visible to the dead; sounds become visible, centuries become visible, audible songs become visible and visible colours become audible—ears do the work of eyes, eyes the work of ears, hands take over the function of legs and the legs those of hands; like this it the functions of limbs and senses are dislocated the essence of death can be realised in life and the essence of life can be realised in death. This exactly is the enviable state that I am enjoying now.

 

Jean Cocteau desired to attain this by smoking opium, he says." After five pipes an idea would become distorted diffused slowly in the water of the body with all the noble whims of Chinese ink, foreshortened like a black diver…Opium enables me to hive form to the unformed……… concepts acquire volume… Opium may make us slightly visible to the invisible, may make sceptres of us to frighten sceptres in their own haunts. After smoking the body becomes thinks… the body becomes soft, flaky the body flies… the smoker has a bird’s eye view of himself".

 

April arrived; forest flame blossomed in the garden. I was reading Sri Sri: s letter, which had just then arrived. Coffee was brought and served to Rimbaud and me. Rimbaud was sitting with me in the garden reading a book, sipping coffee I asked the bearer "is it made with powdered milk?" He replied smiling" Yes sir even buffalo’s do not wakeup before ten O’clock in Hydrerabad."

 

Rimbaud laughed, and then turned and asked me;" what did sri sri write?"

 

I read out one line-"sense, in your poetry a search for alchemy…"

 

"Does Sri Sri know alchemy"querried Rimbaud."I don’t know".

 

You might be interested to know that I wandered across many countries, like Belgium, Scandinavia, Italy, Cyprus and Abyssinia in search of Alchemy. That was s a long time ago though"." Really? P{perhaps that is the reason why there are many words, symbols and expressions in your poetry which sound mystic and are incomprehensible, something like Vemanna.""Which poem are you referring to? It is Enfance of mine?" Rimbaud asked amused." Yes and also Sonnet des voyells"

 

"In sonnet des Voyells certain concepts are akin to your Tantras. There every sound has a colour and every colour has a sound". Said Rimbaud gravely still drinking, coffee.

 

I was stupefied. A minute of silence passed before I asked,"would’nt you like to meet Vemanna?"

 

" I would like that very much, where is his ashram?"

 

"Where shall I say it is? He has a very peculiar mind. trees and forest, all the villages are his ashrams."

 

"Then how do we go?" "I do not know, let’s just go, let us launch on this adventure if you are ready."

 

We started after coffee and entered the limitless universe, and began walking through villages, forests, fields, across rivers. Passing through cities we finally came to a small village, from a distance a man could be seen in a street, beneath a tree with one leg stretched out, with the other leg drawn inwards and over it he had placed his chin with his eyes cast on the earth. I pointed vemanna to Rimbaud, we went nearer. He had nothing on his body except a loincloth. He did not sstir, kept sitting in the same position. Would not move, did not stir kept sitting in the same position. Would not move, did not look at us. On his lips a smile appeared for a moment. He was writing something on the ground with a piece of twig.

 

Rimbaud asked; "Did you achieve alchemy?"‘ Did not answer. He threw away the twig and removed his hands from what he was writing. We read what he had scribbled on the earth;’HIRANYA VARNAAM HARNEEM SUVARNA RAJATHA SRAJAAM’ surprised Rimbaud asked." How did he come to know what we had in our minds?" "Thought exists in past, present and future. To think that you have conceived the thought just now is wrong. Thought is formless. The formless becomes visible to some." Without thinking I went on uttering as though someone had possessed me, my mind, my body had been talking through me.

 

We returned,’ it is not gold that I want I want the power which is more valuable than gold. The power by which I can hear the language of flowers, the melody of stars. I must be able to speak to the evening skies. I must perceive the boiling depths of the ocean under the blue sky. I Must see the spirit of man piercing through centuries, through the tree angles of time, see the sounds and hear the colours, and hold eternity which supersedes Time and space between my brow, so I must become a Seer’ I said.

 

"Yes exactly I am also in quest after the same thing."

 

"Then let us go".

 

"Where can we find him? Can we find him at all?"

 

The sun rose, weaving nets of time and space and throwing them upon the peoples of the world, Then again the garden. Frorest flame coffee Rimbaud-Today Seshen is introspective, plunged deep into himself, only his looks are sauntering lazily over the flowers of the forest-flame;" Come come what is this silence?" Pulled up Rimbaub,’enough’- Seshen breakout in a flood of words like some Greek Oracle." A poet must be a seer. How? Commit all sins, drink all poisons, and disorder all senses. It needs great great fortitude of mind to inflict upon oneself tortures: then he becomes a great criminal a great sage, because he has arriv4ed at the unknown. While the people submerged in pleasure stagnate, where they are, this person jumps into the flames of torture comes out like molten god." Achieving gold does not please me. I want to be gold myself."(Rimbaud possessed me.)

 

A flower dropped from the forest-flame. Bhoja alighted from it and came towards us. We rose up and received him and showed him to his seat. He said" While I over heard your conversation and was tempted to come, Listen, Valmiki first committed many sins, experienced many sufferings, lived the life of a wild hunter and then realised the unknwon, reached by experience the point untraceable. At that point he is the criminal and also the curser of the criminal, and also the curser of the criminal, he is the hunter and also the hunted."ITTHAM VILAPYA VIPINE DAYITHAAM VICHINWAN RAAMO NA TATHRA DHRITHIMAAN NAHI LAXMANSCHA THAADRIK VIDHAAMAPI KATHAAM KATHAYAN SWAVAACHAA VALMEEKA JANMA MUNIREVA KATHORA CHETHAAH"

 

Rimbaud became more immersed in thoughts and said"beaudelaire is the first seer, king of kings, the real god among men". I said," look here Rimbaud it is sunrise, that itself is a sunset for another shore. These shores, these sunsets for another shore. These shores, and sunsets and sunrises they are the magic our senses: for that man, who escapes from the net of this magic Valmiki is Beaudelaire, Beaudelaire is valmiki; seer is one who is above time".

 

I rose up and began walking forward leaning on the shoulder of Rimbaud, I felt a heaviness over-powering me, my"kurta" was drenched with perspiration, the shawl was slipping off my shoulders. I was advancing towards the forest-flame not knowing what was happening. Rimbaud stood aghast where he was. Behind me were coming in crowds Bhavabhuthi, Cocteau, Leonardo, Michaelangelo, Beaudelaire, Mallarme, Kalidasa, Eliot, Pound George, Santayana, Bhasa, Bhalib, Zakkana, Sauda, Mir, Srinatha, Lorca, Iqbal, Rodin, Rilke, Virgil, Picasso, Socretes, Kawabata, Cavfy, Sefaris,and multitudes of faces in waves and generations of rays and crowds of light. I was proceeding towards the forest-flame on and on, the forest-flame did not obstruct me: I no longer exist. I went into it: it took me onto itself. I no longer exist, forest flame exists and the generations of faces, crowds coming behind me gradually each merging into a flower slowly finally the forest-flame flowered in its fullness of red blossoms. As usual April_Millons of flowers opened their lips, raised their throats and began singing in one voice.:

  

"GO BECOME DAWNS

 

IN TOMORROW"S GARDEN OF ROSES

 

BECOME DAWNS BECOME DAWNS…………."

-Seshendra Sharma

Visionary Poet of the Millennium

An Indian poet Prophet

Seshendra Sharma

October 20th, 1927 - May 30th, 2007

seshendrasharma.weebly.com/

www.facebook.com/GunturuSeshendraSharma/

 

Usually when we work we like to get paid with a large bag of untraceable diamonds but very occasionally we'll do it just to see a row of smiling children's faces that come complete with questions/statements such as 'Wow. You're really good', 'Will you paint a rainbow?', 'How do you get to do that as a job?' and 'How do you know which bits to colour?'. Worth it for that alone.

 

Anyway when the local primary school comes knocking it seems like it's time to give a little back. We were asked if we could brighten up some old sheds with the school character's which are anthropomorphic creatures that embody the school's values. Such as Casey Courage (the hedgehog), Courtney Curiosity (the magpie), Eddie Excellence (the sea lion/walrus) and Intanya Integrity (the badger).

 

A couple of hours later and hey presto! you've got yourself a mural. At least the kids seem to like it as they even sent us a card telling us so! At least our karma score is safe for now...

 

Love

 

id-iom

 

It is likely that some time over the Memorial Day weekend that the death toll in the US to the COVID 19 pandemic will pass 100,000 deaths.

 

Tens of thousands of these people did not have to die, if only our national leadership had taken the threat seriously and acted to protect our citizens, instead of calling it a hoax, or that it would someday just disappear.

 

A study from Columbia University, has recently shown that had we started the national lock down a week earlier, we would have saved some 36,000 people and two weeks earlier we would have saved some 54,000 people.

 

I’m so happy and proud of my local public health officers, who even with the limited data they were getting from the failed early national testing effort, made the tough decision to enact distancing and then shelter in place orders, in the early March period. Dr Sara Cody, my local Public Health director, saw the number of untraceable cases rising and realized we were rapidly moving past the time they would be able to contain the spread of the virus and needed to move to much more extreme measures to mitigate its further spread. (This was from a briefing she gave a few days before issuing her shelter in place orders, in late February.)

 

Another set of studies projected those early efforts saved about 8400 people in my own county and nearly 20000 in the San Francisco Bay Area as a whole.

 

These concerns were well known, inside the public health community, by this point of time, as they had been growing for most of the month of February and we had seen what had happened in China for a several months by this point.

 

My county was an earlier “Hot Spot” with some of the first US deaths occurring in my county, but I’m quite proud that our public health officials bravely stood up against the “its all a hoax” talk coming from the President and acted locally to save our citizens.

 

In military terms, 20,000 people is more people than in an entire Army division, saving that many people in war time would get you a Medal of Honor.

 

She is just one of many, who stood up in the face of the President’s inaction and attempted to do what they could to fight this pandemic.

 

Santa Clara county has now gone 3 days without a death in our county and our death rate is about 71 people per million compared to a nation wide average of nearly 300 deaths per million and over 1000 deaths per million in several “Hot spots” around the country.

 

I hope you are all well and are still practicing good social distancing. It is likely going to continue to be a major disruption in our lives, for many months to come, but I do believe that if we are all smart, we can avoid catching this or spreading it to others and we will get by, until we can get a vaccine or truly effective methods to treat the disease.

 

Be well and be thankful for and remember those who have helped make the lives we have... possible.

 

Terminators squad in a custom color scheme based on my custom chapter called "Blue Comet". Note the one at the far left has been customized, it is installed with a radar.

 

This is my first Warhammer model since I made the previous one back in high school many years ago! I am back finally!

 

The history of the "Blue Comet" Chapter's origin:

During the Horus Heresy, a scattered group of Space Marines from an original unit formations of a loyalist Space Marine Legion (the legion is untraceable today), was beaten back by the evil Chaos gods after the long struggle. Unfortunately their home-world was encircled and completely isolated from the rest of the legion in the war. In order to survive, this group broke out in a small space fleet successfully but with heavy losses. The remaining fleet travelled in the vast empty space searching and trying to make contact with the legion in vain, so instead they looked for a new home-world but most of the planets were either already consumed by Chaos or occupied by other races. After a long ten years in space, the fleet came across a large comet by chance, in which it trails with a stream of blue coma that stretches for tens of millions of kilometers. To much of their surprise, this blue comet has the size of a planet, and it has all the essential elements that could support life. The earth crust is thick enough to sustain an underground city. Therefore, the group decided to settle on this Comet and established their new home-world.They created a new legion called the "Blue Comet", named after this unique new home, roughly 3 years after the Second Founding. Their world has since travelled in a orbital period of several millions of years, fighting many wars within their path...

 

Their chapter colors are White, Gray & Blue, they represents: White: Bright white light emerges from the front of the comet. Gray: Earth color of the comet itself. Blue: Color of the long blue coma

Maker: Etienne Carjat (1828-1906)

Born: France

Active: France

Medium: woodburytype

Size: 9 in x 7 in

Location: France

 

Object No. 2009.072

Shelf: B-7

 

Publication: Galerie Contemporaine, Vol 1, No 1, 1878

David Acton, Keeping Shadows, Photography at the Worcester Museum of Art, Hudson Hills Press, NY, pg 83

Maria Morris Hambourg, Nadar, Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY, 1994, fig 44

The History of Photography, Helmut Gernsheim, Oxford University Press, London, 1955, pl 233

Beaumont Newhall, Photography and the Book, Trustees of The Public Library of the City of Boston, Boston, 1983, Pl XV

Helmut Gernsheim, A Concise History of Photography, Thames and Hudson, London, 1965, pl 98

Photography:the first eighty years, Colnaghi, London, 1976, pg 71

Helmut Gernsheim, The Rise of Photography 1850-1880, The Age of Collodion, Thames and Hudson, London, 1988, pg 216

Coke, Van Deren, The Painter and the Photograph, The University of New Mexico Press, 1964, pg 20

The Truthful Lens: A Survey of the Photographically Illustrated Book 1844-1914, Lucien. Goldschmidt, The Grolier Club (1980), pl 31

Collection M.+ M. Auer, une histories de la photographie, Editions M.+ M, Hermance, 2003, pg 133

Alles Wahrheit! Alles Luge!, Photographie und Wirklichkeit im 19. Jahrhundert, Museen de Stadt Koln, 1996, pg 142

Icons of Photography, The 19th Century, Prestel, Munich, 2002, pg 55

Rosenblum, Naomi, A World History of Photography, Abbeville Press, New York, 1997, pl 93

Marien, Mary Warner, Photography, A Cultural History, Harry N. Abrams, New York, 2002, fig 3.92

Pioneer der Kamera, Das Erste Jahrhundert Der Fotografie 1840-1900, Fotoforum Bremen, 1987, pg 171

Sobieszek, Robert, Ghost in the Shell, Photography and the Human Soul, 1850-2000, MIT Press, Cambridge, 1999, pg 50

Sylvain Morand, La Memoire Oubliee, Du Daguerreotype au Collodion, Musees de Strasbourg, Strasbourg, 1981, pl 213

Etienne Carjat, 1828-1906 Photographe, Musee Carnavalet, Paris, 1982, pg 46

James Borcomen, 19th Century French Photographs from the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, 2010, fig. 14-1

Julia Van Haaften, From Talbot To Stieglitz, Thames and Hudson, 1982, pl 90

 

Other Collections: Metropolitan Museum of Art, GEM, MOMA, National Gallery of Canada, NYPL, Auer Photo Foundation

 

Provenance: Sotheby's Amsterdam March 13, 2007, Lot 25

Rank: 2454

 

Notes: The Galerie Contemporaine is a high point in photographic publishing. Issued in parts from 1876 to 1884 by the firm of Goupil, the series contained 241 portraits of leading figures from the worlds of art, literature, music, science, and politics by a host of Parisian photographers. The illustrations were printed as woodburytypes–a photomechanical process that reproduced the continuous tones of photography but did so with printer's ink. The speed and economy with which woodburytypes could be printed, as well as their permanence (unlike traditional photographic processes that were subject to fading), made them a highly practical substitute for albumen silver prints in book publication or other situations where mass production was desirable.

 

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

Back:

Capitaine (Plasson?) 2 initiales ?

Peint par Mme Walters.

56 Regent Street

Élève de Mme Barnard

 

Très beau travail de Mme Walters, regarder le travail sur le bois du fauteuil...

Mme Walters reste pour moi introuvable, et pour ceux que cela intéresse le 56 Regent Street est en location....

 

Jabez Barnard est né en décembre 1800 et baptisé en février 1801 à la Meeting House de Billericay. Dans le recensement de 1841, il a été répertorié à Oxford St comme Colourman, avec sa femme Mary, en 1851 comme Colourman, employant six mains, en 1861 à 339 Oxford St comme Colourman (...)

William Barnard son fils a annoncé c.1860 comme 'Berlin Wool and Ornamental Needlework Repository', se décrivant comme un fabricant et importateur (publicité liée avec Jabez Barnard, Catalogue de prix des matériaux pour la peinture à l'huile et à l'aquarelle et Dessin). Comme son père, il a publié ou annoncé un certain nombre de manuels, qui présentaient ses propres produits (...)

Ces manuels comprennent "Photo-Chromatographie : une méthode simple pour colorer des photographies", 1868 (...)

 

S: www.npg.org.uk/assets/files/pdf/research/D.marks2_A_D.pdf

  

CDV:calling card

Back:

Captain (Plasson?) 2 initials?

Painted by Mrs.Walters.

56 Regents Street

Student of Mm Barnard

 

Very nice work by Mrs Walters, looking at the work on the wood of the chair...

Mrs Walters remains untraceable to me, and for those who are interested 56 Regent Street is rented....

 

Jabez Barnard was born in December 1800 and baptized in February 1801 at the Meeting House in Billericay. In the 1841 census he was listed at Oxford St as Colourman, with his wife Mary, in 1851 as Colourman, employing six hands, in 1861 at 339 Oxford St as Colourman (...)

William Barnard his son announced c.1860 as 'Berlin Wool and Ornamental Needlework Repository', describing himself as a manufacturer and importer (advertisement related to Jabez Barnard, Price Catalog of Materials for Oil Painting and Watercolor and Drawing). Like his father, he published or advertised a number of textbooks, which presented his own products (...)

These manuals include" Photo-Chromatography: a simple method to color photographs," 1868 (...)

 

S: www.npg.org.uk/assets/files/pdf/research/D.marks2_A_D.pdf

My first book cover

Wanted to share good news with you all! My first ever book cover is out for the book "Untraceable" and is selling so good! Please add a "like" to the authors newly made FB page for the book and check out a blue eyed ME(: Please take a moment to "like" the new facebook page for my first ever book cover for "Untraceable" in stores like Barnes and Noble and Books a Million and for sale online at Amazon and etc. www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Untraceable-by-SR-Johannes/1686...

Galactic Quadrant Gamma, standard deviation 0900.02

[aaUS.171001]: Dropped out of academy today - Mark had the right idea. I used my clearance on the last day to send one of the new Aries models down to the scrap bay with a laundry list of untraceable defects. Picked it up this morning, tossed out the tracker and painted over the serial number. They won't notice it's gone.

Two ionized local-range locust engines, a rear-mounted exteral decompressor core, and a military-grade gauss cannon? It's like they built it for me. Time to meet up with some friends on the dark side of the Delta Rotation. I hear they're curious about what Aries Corp has been putting together lately.

Maker: Etienne Carjat (1828-1906)

Born: France

Active: France

Medium: photogravure

Size: 7.5" x 9.5"

Location: France

 

Object No. 2015.561b

Shelf: J-37

 

Publication: La Comédie Française 1680-1880, Librarie D'Art, Ludovic Baschet, Editeur, Paris,1880

 

Other Collections:

 

Notes: Photogravue by Goupil & Cie. Joseph Isidore Samson (July 2, 1793 – March 28, 1871) was a French actor and playwright. He was born at St. Denis, the son of a restaurant keeper. He took the first prize for comedy at the Conservatoire in 1812, married an actress with whom he toured France, and came to the Comédie-Française in 1826. Here he remained until 1863, creating more than 250 parts.

He became a professor at the Conservatoire in 1829, and under him Rachel, Rose Cheri (1824-1861), the Brohans and others were trained. He wrote several comedies, among them La Belle-Mère et le gendre (1826), and La Famille poisson (1846). Samson died in Paris on the 28th of March 1871.

 

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

Galactic Quadrant Gamma, standard deviation 0900.02

[aaUS.171001]: Dropped out of academy today - Mark had the right idea. I used my clearance on the last day to send one of the new Aries models down to the scrap bay with a laundry list of untraceable defects. Picked it up this morning, tossed out the tracker and painted over the serial number. They won't notice it's gone.

Two ionized local-range locust engines, a rear-mounted exteral decompressor core, and a military-grade gauss cannon? It's like they built it for me. Time to meet up with some friends on the dark side of the Delta Rotation. I hear they're curious about what Aries Corp has been putting together lately.

KABK Graduation Festival

Den Haag 2016

 

A lecture performance addressing identity politics in the development and use of biometric technology. The lecture unpacks the implications of being legible in the eyes of the state and society, and sides with the aesthetics and politics of illegible bodies and faces.

 

THESIS: The Poetics and Politics of Erasure

This research draws from various disciplines, beginning with archeologies of memory storage technology, navigations of remythologized histories, and investigations in digital forgetting and identity politics. From the written word to web analytics, memory storage technology have set a precedent for archival practices that neither forgive nor forget. Such practices reify hierarchical systems of knowledge production and distribution that simultaneously standardize dominant forms of knowledge, and erase knowledge deemed inferior or irrelevant. Loss, erasure and forgetting for me are generative methodologies; methods to reinvent histories; to mutate ideas and identities to the point that they are untraceable to their origins.

Maker: Etienne Carjat (1828-1906)

Born: France

Active: France

Medium: albumen print

Size: 7.5" x 9.4"

Location: France

 

Object No. 2017.682

Shelf: B-7

 

Publication: Galerie Contemporaine, Vol 1, No 1, 1876

Jacques Delanoe, Les Pionniers de la Photographie, Terre de Brume Editions, Rennes, 1996, pg 103

 

Other Collections:

 

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. Gambetta lost his right eye in a childhood accident which is why he is always photographed in profile.

 

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

I know nothing about this guy so let’s make something up- Eric is a marketing team’s dream come true. He is the Coke Zero of the sporting world. How many years can we make this guy look young? In the picture he is already 25. That’s pretty old, especially if you are a 12 year old kid collecting cards with money you stole from your mom’s fake leather purse. So how has young Eric gotten away with it?

 

Maybe people are being distracted by the hideous looking Rockies uniforms of the, o hell, they look bad still. Seriously who picked purple as a team color? That is so wimpy for guys to wear. I know, royalty used to wear purple, give me a break that only works in movies. And yes I still make fun of the Ravens when they wear it and kill people in the off-season. When I think of purple I think of gangster want to be’s rolling up in all black Cadillac Escalades and $100,000 rims trying to steal pot from a mentally handicapped grandpa. Why purple? Why o why? Wait, I think I just think of the Ravens when I think of purple.

 

MLB has since taken away the Tampa Bay Devil Rays title and simply shortened it to the Rays. To appease the Christian religious freaks. Give me another break of that kit-kat bar. Urgh face! Does God like the Cleveland Indians or Washington Redskins. I guess they are just savages so they don’t have room in God’s kingdom to have their names changed. Well back to Young. He is now in his late 90’s im sure so is he still considered young? You know some pharmaceutical company could make him look young again and all it takes is a slim slim slim chance of untraceable cancer. Be young forever Eric!

 

This card is the funniest one in the pack I got of O-Pee-Chee. It even goes with the silly sounding name of the cards. He looks like he is tossing a ping pong ball into a red Solo cup. Or he is getting ready to bowl and his facial expression makes it look even sillier because we don’t see the action laying out.

 

This is a picture that is cropped to crap. We need to see where he is throwing the ball to in this case to tell the whole story and not have it just be a laughing fest. The back of his card he just looks like he is angry or thinking about something, not very flattering to him.

 

Rating - F

 

Hits -

 

-So many jokes about how he is throwing the ball.

-Got to make fun of the Ravens again!

-Sounds like an action movie star. A discount Wesley Snipes.

 

Misses -

 

-Purple for anything involving men.

-His above average playing career.

-Does not look like a ‘Premier trading card.

 

If you have not figured it out from reading this is a work of fiction for fun. So if you don’t have a sense of humor, get one. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. – www.treasureharbor.wordpress.com & www.stinkycrayons.wordpress.com

 

This wooden sign nailed to a telephone pole near our hotel struck me as weird. "It[']s easy to buy Doge," it says. Which may be true, but wooden-sign marketing seems like a strange way to go about saying it.

 

In case you don't know, Doge -- or, more formally, Dogecoin -- is one of those electronic cryptocurrencies, fake computer money that people manufacture on vast collections of energy-sucking computer servers that they can use to "disrupt the system" ... or whatever. I think they were originally invented for international money laundering, trading between untraceable internet bank accounts (not connected to any actual bank) used by drug smugglers, human traffickers, and terrorist arms dealers, but over time they evolved into excuses for tech bros to feel superior to everybody else on the internet. Twenty-something white boys flocked to crypto like Boomer Glenn Beck fans gobbling up gold, and everybody thought they were going to get spectacularly rich. There are a bunch of different cryptocurrencies. the most famous being Bitcoin, and each and every one of them is a big Ponzi scheme doomed to collapse.

 

As you might be gathering, I am not a fan of cryptocurrencies.

 

Doge marries cryptocurrency with another of my great irritations, real-life Bond villain Elon Musk. Musk is the current King of the Tech Libertarians and, as I've mentioned on these pages a few times, Emperor of the Internet Snake Oil Tycoons. Other than ignoring actual science enough to pretend he's going to colonize Mars sometime next week, his primary goal in life is to troll people on the internet. He's currently accomplishing this by pretending to buy Twitter -- Spoiler Alert: That deal's not happening -- but he trolled people in the past by latching onto Dogecoin. Who knows why. Probably because its logo involved a funny looking dog. But he spent a few months talking up Dogecoin, and all his legion of internet tech bro acolytes lapped it up and dropped a bunch of money into Dogecoin investments. This drove up the price of Dogecoin for a while, so that it briefly was worth about 64 cents in US dollars. This never put it anywhere near the value of Bitcoin, which topped out above $64,000, but 64 cents isn't nothing.

 

Now Dogecoin is worth 6.2 cents. Still not nothing. But a lot closer to it.

 

That's the thing about cryptocurrencies. They're not based on anything other than hype, and they have no intrinsic value. Any commodity is only based on what you can talk people into paying for it, but at least the Boomers have a pretty chunk of metal to look at if the price of gold collapses. Dogecoin dopes only have the ones and zeros on their computer screens.

Deep-web Traveller

 

Deep Web Traveller aims to explore and investigate if the result of using the deep web is actually closer to the creation of further fantasy or paradise, rather than a utopia. It tells the story of modern anarchists, and how they realize their own utopia. The ‘deep web’ is an uncharted part of the Internet that, due to its essentially untraceable nature, is a haven for various forms of illegal activity, However, it can also have optimistic points—it can be a utopia for anarchists and dissidents. Based on a real story, the artist poses a question to the viewer about modern utopia, and your utopia.

 

eunuinthemoon@gmail.com

polarbluebird.com/

Maker: Etienne Carjat (1828-1906)

Born: France

Active: France

Medium: woodburytype

Size: 9 in x 7.25 in

Location: France

 

Object No. 2015.211

Shelf: B-7

 

Publication: Galerie Contemporaine, Vol 1, No 1, 1876

Pioneer der Kamera, Das Erste Jahrhundert Der Fotografie 1840-1900, Fotoforum Bremen, 1987, pg 169

Rudolf Skopec, Photographie Im Wandel der Zeiten, Letteren

& Kunst, Amsterdam, pg 242

Rosenblum, Naomi, A World History of Photography, Abbeville Press, New York, 1997, pg 92

 

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.

 

Victor-Marie Hugo, vicomte Hugo (26 February 1802 – 22 May 1885) was a French Romantic writer and politician. During a literary career that spanned more than sixty years, he wrote in a variety of genres and forms. His most famous works are the novels The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (1831) and Les Misérables (1862). In France, Hugo is renowned for his poetry collections, such as Les Contemplations (The Contemplations) and La Légende des siècles (The Legend of the Ages). Hugo was at the forefront of the Romantic literary movement with his play Cromwell and drama Hernani. Many of his works have inspired music, both during his lifetime and after his death, including the opera Rigoletto and the musicals Les Misérables and Notre-Dame de Paris. He produced more than 4,000 drawings in his lifetime, and campaigned for social causes such as the abolition of capital punishment and slavery.

 

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

 

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

A section of London Dada Galerie 6191 ground floor gallery wall, Shoreditch London. Built roughly (ptp) at the turn of the 20th century, the bricklayers obviously by now departed to the building site in the sky and long-forgotten - this being their only tangible legacy, besides geographically scattered, untraceable & well-overgrown graves.

( apologies for the dark humour - I find it helps in geting by )

 

Links tenuously to London Dada Work no 661 from 2013 " Goodbye Winter/ The Human Condition III )

londondada.art/2013/04/15/london-dada-work-661-goodbye-wi...

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 88,071 at the 2016 census. The municipality was incorporated on 12 June 1903. Across the Niagara River is 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.

 

This area, which stretches along the Niagara Parkway and tourist promenade, is particularly concentrated at the brink of the falls. Apart from the river's natural attractions, it includes observation towers, high-rise hotels, souvenir shops, museums, indoor water parks, casinos and theatres, mostly with colourful neon billboards and advertisements, and sufficient parking to accommodate visitors. Farther to the north or south, golf courses are operated alongside historic sites from the War of 1812.

 

This area was long part of the Iroquois Confederacy territory: five powerful First Nations mostly along the southern edge of the Great Lakes. The Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga and Seneca were based largely in present-day New York, ranging from east near the Hudson River, to western areas of Seneca Lake and along Ontario and other Great Lakes.

 

The Niagara Falls area has had some European settlement since the 17th century. Louis Hennepin, a French priest and missionary, is regarded as 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. 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.

 

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. In addition, Niagara Falls markets itself as a honeymoon destination; it is the self-proclaimed "honeymoon capital of the world."

 

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. Generally speaking, Niagara Falls, Ontario is a more popular destination than Niagara Falls, New York, in part due to the better view of the falls from the Canadian side of the river. In the 20th century, there was a favourable exchange rate when comparing Canadian and U.S. currencies, and Ontario had a greater focus on tourism. Also, Ontario's legal drinking age of 19, in comparison to a legal drinking age of 21 in the U.S., attracts potential alcohol consumers from across the border.

 

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. Its tourist areas had many attractions and a vibrancy, while Niagara Falls, New York languished in a prolonged economic downturn.

 

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.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niagara_Falls,_Ontario

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Text_of_Creative_Commons_...

www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/hk-sees-record-cases-olympi...

 

Hong Kong Sees Record Cases; Olympics Infections Rise: Virus Update

 

(Bloomberg) -- Beijing reported a pickup in new Covid infections among arrivals for the Winter Olympics, while China put a city of 4 million people into lockdown. The country has no plans to adjust its zero-Covid policy for the time being, a top epidemiologist said.

 

Hong Kong saw record cases over the weekend, reporting more than 300 locally transmitted infections for two straight days. Australia plans to open its borders to international tourists as soon as possible, a government minister said.

 

Canada’s capital Ottawa declared a state of emergency Sunday as police struggled to rein in ongoing protests largely among truckers against vaccine mandates.

 

Key Developments:

 

Virus Tracker: Cases top 394.5 million; deaths pass 5.7 million

Vaccine Tracker: More than 10.2 billion shots administered

Beijing Olympics locks out omicron but internet is open

CDC expands hunt for early warnings of Covid in sewage waste

Covid rebellion brews in Canada, sending warning across globeIs

Covid becoming endemic? What would that mean?:

QuickTake

 

Japan to Extend Covid Measures in Tokyo: Asahi (7:31 a.m. HK)

 

The Japanese government is making final arrangements to extend a quasi-state of emergency in Tokyo and 12 other prefectures due to expire on Feb. 13, the Asahi reported, citing several unidentified officials.

 

The government is considering extending the measures by about three weeks. A formal decision is expected to come by Thursday. The government remains cautious about declaring a state of emergency for Tokyo

 

Ottawa Declares Emergency as Protests Intensify (5 p.m. NY)

 

Canada’s capital declared a state of emergency Sunday as police struggled to rein in ongoing protests against vaccine mandates.

 

Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson, who declared the emergency, said in a statement that the increasingly rowdy demonstrations posed a “serious danger and threat to the safety and security of residents.” Hundreds of trucks continued to occupy the downtown area near Canada’s parliament with no sign that the protesters planned to leave.

 

The protests started in reaction to Canadian and U.S. laws that went into effect in January, requiring truckers crossing the border to be fully vaccinated. They have since morphed into a rally against Covid restrictions more broadly.

 

Gottlieb Expects U.S. Schools to Ease Masking (1:23 p.m. NY)

 

More U.S. schools are likely to begin lifting mask mandates soon as the overall risk from the omicron wave eases, said Scott Gottlieb, former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration.

 

“We can start to lean forward and take a little bit more risk and try to at least make sure that students in schools have some semblance of normalcy for this spring term,” Gottlieb, a Pfizer Inc. board member, said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “A lot of kids haven’t really known a normal school day for two years now.”

 

He said, however, “we’re tragically still in this fight,” even as infections decline around the U.S. “Some parts of the country still are in the thick of their omicron wave, coming down, but still in the thick of it,” he said.

 

Tributes to India’s ‘Nightingale’ (11:55 p.m. NY)

 

India’s central bank postponed its interest-rate review by a day as the nation and its neighbors mourn the death of celebrated singer Lata Mangeshkar after being diagnosed with Covid-19. She was 92.

 

The Reserve Bank of India’s monetary policy committee will now meet Feb. 8-10, the authority said in a statement late Sunday. Its decision will be announced Thursday.

 

Mangeshkar, known as the “Nightingale of India,” received her home country’s highest civilian award during a career spanning more than six decades, as well as love and respect for her music from across the subcontinent. She had been hospitalized since Jan. 8 after testing positive.

 

Australia to Reopen to Tourists (11:49 a.m. NY)

 

Australia plans to open its borders to international tourists as soon as possible, a government minister said Sunday, following a report that they will be allowed back by the end of February after a Covid-related hiatus of almost two years.

 

“We are getting ready to open as soon as we can,” Home Affairs Minister Karen Andrews said in an ABC TV interview. “We don’t have all the information we need to be able to take the decision, but we are very close.”

 

Overseas tourists could be back within two or three weeks, the Herald Sun paper reported earlier on Sunday, citing an unnamed senior government source. An announcement from the government may come as soon as Monday following a meeting of the National Security Committee, the paper said.

U.K. Cases Lowest Since December (11:22 a.m. NY)

 

The U.K. reported another 54,095 cases on Sunday, the lowest figure since Dec. 12. Infections have been declining since the omicron wave peaked in early January, with the seven-day average down 5% to 83,474. Another 75 fatalities were reported Sunday.

 

The country has stopped requiring those who test positive on lateral-flow devices to confirm the result with a laboratory PCR test. However, reinfections are also included as of last week.

 

China Sticks to Covid-Zero Plans (8:36 a.m. NY)

 

China has no plans to adjust its zero-Covid-tolerance policy for the time being, Wu Zunyou, chief epidemiologist with the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, told the Global Times in an interview.

 

“We previously thought Covid-19 could be basically contained through vaccines, but now it seems that there’s no simple method to control it except with comprehensive measures, although vaccines are the most important weapon,” Wu said.

 

China has vaccinated 86.8% of its population with two doses, according to the Bloomberg Vaccine Tracker, but is behind other nations in booster shots. Its domestically produced vaccines do not use the mRNA technology widely used in countries with advanced booster campaigns.

 

China Puts 4 Million Into Lockdown (6:19 am. NY)

 

The southern Chinese city of Baise began a citywide lockdown on Sunday after 98 people tested positive for Covid-19, China Central Television reported, citing a local press conference.

 

An additional 87 results are still pending review, the report said. Mass testing of 207,506 people was rolled out after a person who traveled to Baise from Shenzhen tested positive on Feb. 4.

 

The city with 4 million population in the province of Guangxi had previously reported a total of 43 positive cases during the mass testing.

 

Israel Severe Cases Hit Record (5:03 p.m. HK)

 

The number of serious coronavirus cases in Israel reached 1,263 on Sunday, the highest reported since the beginning of the pandemic. Before Saturday the previous record of 1,193 severe cases was set in January 2021.

 

At the same time, the number of new daily infections is declining, with about 38,000 new cases on Friday, compared with 49,500 the previous Friday, and a peak of more than 85,000 at the height of the omicron wave.

 

Israel was one of the first countries to roll out vaccines and booster shots, offering a fourth dose to higher-risk people last month.

 

Hong Kong Finds 342 Local Infections (5:40 p.m. HK)

 

Hong Kong reported 342 positive Covid-19 cases on Sunday, health authorities said in a press conference, the second day in a row that the number surpassed 300.

 

All of the latest infections were local, with 136 listed as untraceable. Fifteen cases were detected in public housing estates in Tuen Mun and Sha Tin, where more than 7,200 residents have been tested, officials said. More than 300 preliminary positive cases were reported.

 

“There are invisible transmission chains in the community,” Ronald Lam, director of health, said during the press conference. He added that is impossible to project the peak of the current wave.

 

Hong Kong reported 351 cases on Saturday, a record and more than double the previous high.

 

thehill.com/homenews/administration/592906-white-house-ge...

 

White House gets set for cautious pivot on pandemic

 

The White House is preparing to pivot on the pandemic — but with a different approach than the July 4 celebration last summer that some have subsequently criticized as premature.

 

“No one wants a repeat of last July,” said one Democratic strategist.

 

At the Independence Day event, President Biden declared near “independence” from COVID-19.

 

What followed were the delta and omicron variants, which caused spikes in cases and hospitalizations, contributing to the COVID-19 fatigue that has been a factor in declining approval numbers for President Biden.

 

New evidence is now emerging that gives the White House and plenty of others hope that the nation is veering out of the pandemic.

 

The omicron variant is showing signs of fading: coronavirus cases are on the decline across the country. The White House is signaling that the new phase is about being able to live with the virus.

 

But there is caution in Democratic circles after the bad turns from last summer and fall.

 

“We can’t spike the football when we’re dealing with a huge unknown,” the strategist said.

 

Biden administration officials haven’t said much publicly about their plans and have made clear they’re still focused on ushering the country through the current surge of the pandemic.

 

“Our progress over the last year and the tools we now have certainly allow us to get closer to a time when COVID doesn’t disrupt our daily lives but is something we protect against and treat,” White House COVID-19 response director Jeff Zients said Wednesday during a briefing with reporters. “As we make more progress against omicron, we’ll, you know, get closer to that point.”

 

Political observers say the White House needs to hammer home the new approach in the coming months and beyond.

 

“It’s like when you’re preaching: You gotta tell them what you’re gonna tell them. Then you gotta tell them. And then you gotta tell them what you just told them,” said Michael Eric Dyson, the renowned professor and author who is also an ordained minister. “You gotta keep telling the story.

 

“Repetition is our friend,” added Dyson, who met with Biden as part of a conversation with a group of academics last year.

 

Mark McClellan, a former FDA commissioner under George W. Bush, said there are some steps the administration is already taking to prepare for a more endemic phase of the virus. Officials are in touch with vaccine makers working on omicron-specific vaccines, for instance. And they’ve made surplus purchases of tests that are being distributed to Americans free of charge.

 

“It’s definitely time to move towards a more ongoing, robust, resilient strategy to prevent a surge from ever happening again while enabling people to get back to more normal life,” McClellan said. “The public needs some more straight talk and guidance on what to do in this new phase.”

 

It’s unclear whether or when Biden himself plans to outline the way forward in the pandemic. White House officials and health experts say the country still has some time before reaching some kind of “new normal.”

 

“COVID as it is today is not COVID forever and we’re actively working towards that and what that will look like,” an administration official said, emphasizing that the tools the U.S. has to fight the virus are working.

 

Biden on Friday touted a strong jobs report that showed the U.S. economy added 467,000 jobs during the month of December despite the omicron wave. He also sounded a bit of a positive note on the pandemic.

 

“The COVID crisis has been cut in half, down in half in just three weeks,” Biden said during a speech on the jobs report. “Still too many cases, still we have to be on the alert, but to be clear, this is a dramatic decline.”

 

A group of outside health experts are preparing a detailed plan on a forward-looking COVID-19 strategy that they hope to have completed by early March and are planning to send to the White House, according to one former member of the Biden transition advisory team who is involved with the development of the plan.

 

The person described a shift in the White House strategy on COVID-19 as “critical,” but said that the administration and the public health community need to handle the pivot carefully, given the unknowns of future variants and the large pool of unvaccinated people in the nation.

 

“We all have to be careful,” the person said. “Everyone.”

 

Democrats largely agree that the White House shouldn’t rush to move away from the issue. Instead, Biden and his team need to realistically portray the realities of an elusive virus, they say.

 

“It’s time to have a serious conversation with the American people and say that we are going to be living with this for a long time,” said Democratic strategist Rodell Mollineau. “We’ve been looking at this in a very binary way. Things are likely to never go back to normal, but it doesn’t mean we have to live in fear.”

 

Some Democrats and health experts do not fault Biden for the July 4 speech, which was an address to front-line workers at the White House that celebrated a large segment of the eligible population getting vaccinated against COVID-19.

 

The administration official said that the White House has always been clear about the unpredictability of the virus, noting that Biden included a warning about the more contagious delta variant in his address last summer.

 

Lawrence Gostin, a public health law professor at Georgetown University, said the U.S. is in a far different place than last summer due to an overwhelming segment of the population having protection against the virus due to the vaccines or recovery from COVID-19.

 

“We need to assure the public that, unless some really serious variant causes another emergency, that we’re going to soon stop our emergency response and start with a 'living with COVID’ response,” Gostin said.

Liminal Codex of Aeon Von Zark

 

We do not speak of a place.

We speak of a fracture.

A territory that exists only between two blinks of an eye, between the memory of a gesture and the forgetting of a name.

From this breach was born Aeon Von Zark: not as an individual, but as a dissident incarnation of liminality.

 

He does not come from any land, any sky, any measurable realm.

He comes from a dimension of resonance, where every thought becomes matter, where every error becomes truth.

There, memories mingle with future visions; the past contaminates the future, and the future contradicts the past.

Fractures are not accidents but revelations: they are the only reliable language.

 

In this dimension, geography is not made of mountains or rivers, but of symbolic places:

The Mirroring Corridor, where a thousand reflections repeat faces never lived.

The Reefs of Silence, where fragments of vanished objects rest. The Forest of Echoes, where one hears conversations that never took place.

The Brutalist Square, a black ground of proclamation where every word is a block, every sentence a verdict.

The Workshop of Vestiges, a sanctuary of obsolete tools reanimated as creative weapons.

 

Its inhabitants are specters with precise roles:

The Resonants, born of visual repetitions.

The Dissidents, silhouettes rejecting any official narrative.

The Conservators, archivists of error.

And the Spectral Double, the intimate shadow of every creator — both guide and adversary.

Within this cartography also stands Lion, the animal guardian, a bridge between man and myth.

 

The language reigning here is lacunar.

It accepts only ellipsis, fragment, brutal typography.

It rises as black and white monoliths: no ornament, no watermark, no visible signature.

For here, rarity is not a luxury: it is a sacred law.

 

The rituals of this dimension are artistic practices in themselves:

Suturing torn images and leaving the scar visible.

Transforming the glitch into raw matter.

Raising typography as both weapon and confession.

Projecting works into the night, not to be seen, but to be traversed.

 

From this origin flows an ethic:

To refuse ornament.

To embrace the fracture.

To show the break as the only truth.

To create is to open a threshold; to contemplate is to cross a limit.

 

Aeon Von Zark is the agent and witness of this realm.

His works are not images but transcriptions of a territory.

They bear within them the scar of origin, the resonance of the void, and the dissidence of the real.

 

Here, art is ritual.

Here, every brutalist square is an act of invocation.

Here, flesh and glitch, shadow and light, forgetting and memory converge into a liturgy of fractures.

 

We reject decorative complacency.

We affirm the fracture as truth.

We erect works that are clear and untraceable.

 

This is the Liminal Codex.

This is the breath of a dimension you cannot inhabit; yet which, inexorably, already inhabits you.

I know nothing about this guy so let’s make something up- Eric is a marketing team’s dream come true. He is the Coke Zero of the sporting world. How many years can we make this guy look young? In the picture he is already 25. That’s pretty old, especially if you are a 12 year old kid collecting cards with money you stole from your mom’s fake leather purse. So how has young Eric gotten away with it?

 

Maybe people are being distracted by the hideous looking Rockies uniforms of the, o hell, they look bad still. Seriously who picked purple as a team color? That is so wimpy for guys to wear. I know, royalty used to wear purple, give me a break that only works in movies. And yes I still make fun of the Ravens when they wear it and kill people in the off-season. When I think of purple I think of gangster want to be’s rolling up in all black Cadillac Escalades and $100,000 rims trying to steal pot from a mentally handicapped grandpa. Why purple? Why o why? Wait, I think I just think of the Ravens when I think of purple.

 

MLB has since taken away the Tampa Bay Devil Rays title and simply shortened it to the Rays. To appease the Christian religious freaks. Give me another break of that kit-kat bar. Urgh face! Does God like the Cleveland Indians or Washington Redskins. I guess they are just savages so they don’t have room in God’s kingdom to have their names changed. Well back to Young. He is now in his late 90’s im sure so is he still considered young? You know some pharmaceutical company could make him look young again and all it takes is a slim slim slim chance of untraceable cancer. Be young forever Eric!

 

This card is the funniest one in the pack I got of O-Pee-Chee. It even goes with the silly sounding name of the cards. He looks like he is tossing a ping pong ball into a red Solo cup. Or he is getting ready to bowl and his facial expression makes it look even sillier because we don’t see the action laying out.

 

This is a picture that is cropped to crap. We need to see where he is throwing the ball to in this case to tell the whole story and not have it just be a laughing fest. The back of his card he just looks like he is angry or thinking about something, not very flattering to him.

 

Rating - F

 

Hits -

 

-So many jokes about how he is throwing the ball.

-Got to make fun of the Ravens again!

-Sounds like an action movie star. A discount Wesley Snipes.

 

Misses -

 

-Purple for anything involving men.

-His above average playing career.

-Does not look like a ‘Premier trading card.

 

If you have not figured it out from reading this is a work of fiction for fun. So if you don’t have a sense of humor, get one. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. – www.treasureharbor.wordpress.com & www.stinkycrayons.wordpress.com

 

Maker: Etienne Carjat (1828-1906)

Born: France

Active: France

Medium: woodburytype

Size: 10 in x 13 in

Location: France

 

Object No. 2009.119

Shelf: B-7

 

Publication: Galerie Contemporaine, Series 1, Vol 1, 1878

Rosenblum, Naomi, A World History of Photography, Abbeville Press, New York, 1997, pl 87

Lovell, Zwahlen, & Folts, Two Centuries of Shadow Catchers, Delmar Publishers, Albany, New York, 1994, fig. 1.14

The Birth of Photography, Highlights of the Gernsheim Collection, Reiss-Engelhorn-Museen, Kehrer Heidelberg, 2012, pg 225

'From today painting is dead' The Beginnings of Photography, The Arts Council of Great Britain, London, 1972, pl 10

 

Other Collections: GEH, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Auer Photo Foundation

 

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.

 

Alexandre Dumas (born Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie, 24 July 1802 – 5 December 1870) also known as Alexandre Dumas père was a French writer. His works have been translated into many languages, and he is one of the most widely read French authors. Many of his historical novels of high adventure were originally published as serials, including The Count of Monte Cristo, The Three Musketeers, Twenty Years After, and The Vicomte of Bragelonne: Ten Years Later. His novels have been adapted since the early twentieth century into nearly 200 films.

 

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

 

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

Capture in France (Dépt. Nièvre) on 2013 VII 30

Lg. 8 mm

---

Det.: H. Dumas (Identification confirmed by Juuso Paappanen)

---

By using the attached photos, we can happen at the same determination.

 

The Genus Atanycolus contains 10 European species.

The description of A. lateropus (Thomson 1892) is untraceable. Taxapad does not know it, the quotation by FE is doubtful

 

Thus let us see the 9 species which stay.

Main differences between our capture and the 8 species which follow :

* A. denigrator (L. 1758) : Head mainly or entirely black

... p.179/180 in ia800303.us.archive.org/19/items/keystoinsectsofe34bykh/k...

* A. fulviceps (Kriech. 1898) : Thorax ventrally yellow-reddish

... p.246-247 in ia800206.us.archive.org/35/items/entomologischena241898be...

* A. genalis (Thomson 1892) : Head mainly or entirely black

... p.179 in ia800303.us.archive.org/19/items/keystoinsectsofe34bykh/k...

* A. neessi (Marshall 1901) : Head mainly or entirely black

... p.179 in ia800303.us.archive.org/19/items/keystoinsectsofe34bykh/k...

* A. petiolaris (Thomson 1892) : Tergite 1 black

... p.117-118 in ia902606.us.archive.org/14/items/speciesdeshymn52andr/spe...

* A. sculpturatus (Thomson 1892) [sub-species of A. ivanovi] : Head mainly or entirely black

... p.178 in ia800303.us.archive.org/19/items/keystoinsectsofe34bykh/k...

* A. tunetensis Marshall 1901 : Tergite 3 sculptured with 2 Carinae

... p.372 in ia600201.us.archive.org/2/items/bulletindumusumn05musu/bu...

* A. wagneri Fahringer 1925 : In particular, the Thorax is not black

... footnotes p.99-100 in www.zobodat.at/pdf/ANNA_38_0098-0106.pdf

 

The 9th species A. initiator corresponds well to the description given p. 179 in ia800303.us.archive.org/19/items/keystoinsectsofe34bykh/k... , in particular the Head is mainly red

 

of Where the Determination