Night of the Eagle
Encyclopedia
Night of the Eagle is a 1962 British horror film
directed by Sidney Hayers
. The script by Charles Beaumont
, Richard Matheson
and George Baxt
was based upon the 1943 Fritz Leiber
novel Conjure Wife
. The film was retitled Burn, Witch, Burn! for the US market (not to be confused with the 1932 novel of the same name by Abraham Merritt).
), a psychology
professor lecturing in belief and superstition
, discovers that his wife Tansy (Janet Blair) is practicing witchcraft
. She insists that her charms have been responsible for his academic career, despite him being the youngest and newest among his colleagues, and his well being. A firm rationalist
and angry at her superstition, Taylor forces her to burn all magical objects in the house. Almost immediately things start to go wrong: A female student accuses him of violation
, her boyfriend threatens him, and an unseen menace tries to break into their home. Tansy, willing to sacrifice her life for her husband's, almost drowns herself and is, as the film suggests, only saved in the last minute by Taylor giving in to the practices he despises. Later, Tansy attacks him with a knife, but he manages to disarm her and lock her in her room. Her limping walk during the attack gives Taylor a hint where to find the person responsible for his ill luck. He identifies university secretary Flora Carr (Margaret Johnston
), wife of a colleague whose career stalled in favour of Norman's, as the perpetrator. Flora has his home, where Tansy is still locked in, go up in flames. Then, with the help of a ritualistic sound recording, she awakens the giant stone eagle which presides on the top of the university building's entrance to attack Taylor. Flora's husband arrives at the office and stops the tape machine. The eagle disappears, and Tansy manages to escape her burning home. On her way out of the campus, Flora passes the again immobile stone eagle. The statue topples over and buries Flora under her, killing her in an instant.
The New York Times called Night of the Eagle "quite the most effective 'supernatural' thriller since Village of the Damned
" and perhaps the "best outright goose-pimpler dealing specifically with witchcraft since I Walked with a Zombie
...in 1943." and noted:
Jonathan Rosenbaum
of the Chicago Reader called the film "atmospheric and underplayed in the tradition of Val Lewton
" and, despite judging Sidney Hayers' direction as "needlessly rhetorical at times", "eerily effective".
Film historian William K. Everson
, though critical of Night of the Eagle for its predictability, found good words for the story and Janet Blair's performance.
David Pirie
of Time Out magazine, while not happy with the casting of Janet Blair, acknowledged Hayers' direction "an almost Wellesian
flourish" and the script being "structured with incredible tightness".
Author S. T. Joshi
declared it particularly notable for its realistic portrayal of campus politics.
In 1963 Night of the Eagle was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation
.
(humans turning into animals as in Cat People or The Wolf Man) or Voodoo myths (White Zombie
, I Walked with a Zombie). Night of the Eagle depicts the use of charms or supernatural powers in an 'everyday' environment and juxtaposes it with a rationalist view which is questioned during the progress of events. Jacques Tourneur's
Night of the Demon
(1957), to which William K. Everson compared it unfavourably , works in a similar way.
All three authors involved in Night of the Eagle's screenplay were prolific writers for film and television with the focus being on horror, mystery
and science fiction
. Charles Beaumont and Richard Matheson in particular were repeatedly hired to adapt (though freely) the works of Edgar Allan Poe
and H. P. Lovecraft
for the screen.
While the film was accessible to an under-aged audience in the U.S., it was rated "X" (adults only) in the UK on its initial release. It was later re-rated 15, then 12 for UK home video releases.
Film prints for the U.S. release were preceded by a narrated prologue in which the voice of Paul Frees
was heard to intone a spell to protect the audience members from evil.
setting of the novel was changed to rural Britain. Weird Woman
(1944, starring Lon Chaney Jr.) and Witches' Brew
(1979, starring Teri Garr
, Richard Benjamin
, and Lana Turner
) were also based on Conjure Wife.
Out of print are the 1995 US Image DVD, US-Laserdisc
and VHS video titled Burn, Witch, Burn!, the British DVD-Box titled Horror Classics, consisting of The Masque of the Red Death
, Night of the Eagle and Zoltan, Hound Of Dracula, and the British VHS video Night of the Eagle.
Horror film
Horror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...
directed by Sidney Hayers
Sidney Hayers
Sidney Hayers was a British film and television director, writer and producer.Born in Edinburgh, Scotland, among his most acclaimed films were Circus of Horrors , The Trap and the occult thriller Night of the Eagle .In British TV, his credits included The Persuaders! and The New Avengers; he...
. The script by Charles Beaumont
Charles Beaumont
Charles Beaumont was a prolific American author of speculative fiction, including short stories in the horror and science fiction subgenres. He is remembered as a writer of classic Twilight Zone episodes, such as "The Howling Man", "Miniature", and "Printer's Devil", but also penned the...
, Richard Matheson
Richard Matheson
Richard Burton Matheson is an American author and screenwriter, primarily in the fantasy, horror, and science fiction genres. He is perhaps best known as the author of What Dreams May Come, Bid Time Return, A Stir of Echoes, The Incredible Shrinking Man, and I Am Legend, all of which have been...
and George Baxt
George Baxt
George Baxt was a prolific American screenwriter and author of crime fiction, best remembered for creating the gay black detective, Pharoah Love.-Life and work:...
was based upon the 1943 Fritz Leiber
Fritz Leiber
Fritz Reuter Leiber, Jr. was an American writer of fantasy, horror and science fiction. He was also a poet, actor in theatre and films, playwright, expert chess player and a champion fencer. Possibly his greatest chess accomplishment was winning clear first in the 1958 Santa Monica Open.. With...
novel Conjure Wife
Conjure Wife
Conjure Wife is a supernatural horror novel by Fritz Leiber.Its premise is that witchcraft flourishes as an open secret among women. The story is told from the point of view of a small-town college professor who discovers that his wife is a witch....
. The film was retitled Burn, Witch, Burn! for the US market (not to be confused with the 1932 novel of the same name by Abraham Merritt).
Synopsis
Norman Taylor (Peter WyngardePeter Wyngarde
Peter Paul Wyngarde is an Anglo-French actor best known for playing the character Jason King, a bestselling novelist turned sleuth, in two British television series in the late 1960s and early 1970s: Department S and Jason King .-Biography:He was born Cyril Goldbert in Marseilles, France, the...
), a psychology
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
professor lecturing in belief and superstition
Superstition
Superstition is a belief in supernatural causality: that one event leads to the cause of another without any process in the physical world linking the two events....
, discovers that his wife Tansy (Janet Blair) is practicing witchcraft
Witchcraft
Witchcraft, in historical, anthropological, religious, and mythological contexts, is the alleged use of supernatural or magical powers. A witch is a practitioner of witchcraft...
. She insists that her charms have been responsible for his academic career, despite him being the youngest and newest among his colleagues, and his well being. A firm rationalist
Rationalism
In epistemology and in its modern sense, rationalism is "any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification" . In more technical terms, it is a method or a theory "in which the criterion of the truth is not sensory but intellectual and deductive"...
and angry at her superstition, Taylor forces her to burn all magical objects in the house. Almost immediately things start to go wrong: A female student accuses him of violation
Rape
Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse, which is initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority or with a person who is incapable of valid consent. The...
, her boyfriend threatens him, and an unseen menace tries to break into their home. Tansy, willing to sacrifice her life for her husband's, almost drowns herself and is, as the film suggests, only saved in the last minute by Taylor giving in to the practices he despises. Later, Tansy attacks him with a knife, but he manages to disarm her and lock her in her room. Her limping walk during the attack gives Taylor a hint where to find the person responsible for his ill luck. He identifies university secretary Flora Carr (Margaret Johnston
Margaret Johnston
Margaret Johnston was an Australian-born British actress. Johnston was most widely admired for her stage performances, but also appeared in 12 films and a handful of TV productions before retiring from acting in 1968 to devote herself to running a theatrical agency.-Early life:Johnston was the...
), wife of a colleague whose career stalled in favour of Norman's, as the perpetrator. Flora has his home, where Tansy is still locked in, go up in flames. Then, with the help of a ritualistic sound recording, she awakens the giant stone eagle which presides on the top of the university building's entrance to attack Taylor. Flora's husband arrives at the office and stops the tape machine. The eagle disappears, and Tansy manages to escape her burning home. On her way out of the campus, Flora passes the again immobile stone eagle. The statue topples over and buries Flora under her, killing her in an instant.
Reception
While not universally regarded as a classic by critics, Night of the Eagle mostly met and meets with sympathetic reviews:The New York Times called Night of the Eagle "quite the most effective 'supernatural' thriller since Village of the Damned
Village of the Damned (1960 film)
Village of the Damned is a 1960 British science fiction film by German director Wolf Rilla. The film is a fairly faithful adaptation of the novel The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham. The lead role of Professor Gordon Zellaby was played by George Sanders. This film was #92 on Bravo's 100 Scariest...
" and perhaps the "best outright goose-pimpler dealing specifically with witchcraft since I Walked with a Zombie
I Walked with a Zombie
I Walked with a Zombie is a 1943 horror film directed by Jacques Tourneur. It was the second horror film from producer Val Lewton for RKO Pictures; the first was the very successful Cat People, also directed by Tourneur...
...in 1943." and noted:
- Simply as a suspense yarn, blending lurid conjecture and brisk reality, growing chillier by the minute, and finally whipping up an ice-cold crescendo of fright, the result is admirable. Excellently photographed (not a single "frame" is wasted), and cunningly directed by Sidney Hayers, the incidents gather a pounding, graphic drive that is diabolically teasing. The climax is a nightmarish hair-curler but, we maintain, entirely logical within the context.
Jonathan Rosenbaum
Jonathan Rosenbaum
Jonathan Rosenbaum is an American film critic. Rosenbaum was the head film critic for the Chicago Reader from 1987 until 2008, when he retired at the age of 65...
of the Chicago Reader called the film "atmospheric and underplayed in the tradition of Val Lewton
Val Lewton
Val Lewton was an American film producer and screenwriter, best known for a string of low-budget horror films he produced for RKO Pictures in the 1940s.-Early life:...
" and, despite judging Sidney Hayers' direction as "needlessly rhetorical at times", "eerily effective".
Film historian William K. Everson
William K. Everson
William Keith "Bill" Everson was an English-American archivist, author, critic, educator, collector and film historian. He often discovered lost films.-Early life and career:...
, though critical of Night of the Eagle for its predictability, found good words for the story and Janet Blair's performance.
David Pirie
David Pirie
David Pirie is a screenwriter, film producer, film critic, and novelist.As a screenwriter, Pirie has written numerous mysteries and horror-themed works, mostly for television, including recently the hit ITV series Murderland starring Robbie Coltrane . He was nominated for a BAFTA for his...
of Time Out magazine, while not happy with the casting of Janet Blair, acknowledged Hayers' direction "an almost Wellesian
Orson Welles
George Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...
flourish" and the script being "structured with incredible tightness".
Author S. T. Joshi
S. T. Joshi
Sunand Tryambak Joshi — known as S. T. Joshi — is an award-winning Indian American literary critic, novelist, and a leading figure in the study of Howard Phillips Lovecraft and other authors of weird and fantastic fiction...
declared it particularly notable for its realistic portrayal of campus politics.
In 1963 Night of the Eagle was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation
Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation
The Hugo Awards are given every year by the World Science Fiction Society for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year. The award is named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories, and was once officially...
.
Background info
Witchcraft had been a recurring theme in the horror genre, though often in combination with TherianthropyTherianthropy
Therianthropy refers to the metamorphosis of humans into other animals. Therianthropes are said to change forms via shapeshifting. Therianthropes have long existed in mythology, appearing in ancient cave drawings such as the Sorcerer at Les Trois Frères....
(humans turning into animals as in Cat People or The Wolf Man) or Voodoo myths (White Zombie
White Zombie (film)
White Zombie is a 1932 American independent Pre-Code horror film directed and produced by brothers Victor Halperin and Edward Halperin, respectively. The screenplay by Garnett Weston tells the story of a young woman's transformation into a zombie at the hands of an evil voodoo master. Béla Lugosi...
, I Walked with a Zombie). Night of the Eagle depicts the use of charms or supernatural powers in an 'everyday' environment and juxtaposes it with a rationalist view which is questioned during the progress of events. Jacques Tourneur's
Jacques Tourneur
Jacques Tourneur was a French-American film director.-Life:Born in Paris, France, he was the son of film director Maurice Tourneur. At age 10, Jacques moved to the United States with his father. He started a career in cinema while still attending high school as an extra and later as a script clerk...
Night of the Demon
Night of the Demon
Night of the Demon is a 1957 British horror film directed by Jacques Tourneur, starring Dana Andrews, Peggy Cummins and Niall MacGinnis. An adaptation of the M. R...
(1957), to which William K. Everson compared it unfavourably , works in a similar way.
All three authors involved in Night of the Eagle's screenplay were prolific writers for film and television with the focus being on horror, mystery
Mystery fiction
Mystery fiction is a loosely-defined term.1.It is often used as a synonym for detective fiction or crime fiction— in other words a novel or short story in which a detective investigates and solves a crime mystery. Sometimes mystery books are nonfiction...
and science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
. Charles Beaumont and Richard Matheson in particular were repeatedly hired to adapt (though freely) the works of Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective...
and H. P. Lovecraft
H. P. Lovecraft
Howard Phillips Lovecraft --often credited as H.P. Lovecraft — was an American author of horror, fantasy and science fiction, especially the subgenre known as weird fiction....
for the screen.
While the film was accessible to an under-aged audience in the U.S., it was rated "X" (adults only) in the UK on its initial release. It was later re-rated 15, then 12 for UK home video releases.
Film prints for the U.S. release were preceded by a narrated prologue in which the voice of Paul Frees
Paul Frees
Paul Frees was an American voice actor and character actor.-Biography:He was born Solomon Hersh Frees in Chicago...
was heard to intone a spell to protect the audience members from evil.
Novel and adaptions
Fritz Leiber's Conjure Wife was first published (in shorter form) in 1943 in Unknown magazine and as a single book in 1953. For Night of the Eagle, the New EnglandNew England
New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...
setting of the novel was changed to rural Britain. Weird Woman
Weird Woman
Weird Woman is an Inner Sanctum mystery film directed by Reginald Le Borg, and starring Lon Chaney, Jr., Anne Gwynne, and Evelyn Ankers. The "Inner Sanctum" franchise originated with a popular radio series and all of the films star Lon Chaney, Jr....
(1944, starring Lon Chaney Jr.) and Witches' Brew
Witches' Brew (film)
Witches' Brew is a 1980 horror comedy film directed by Herbert L. Strock and Richard Shorr who co-wrote screenplay with Syd Dutton. It was based on Fritz Leiber Jr.'s novel Conjure Wife...
(1979, starring Teri Garr
Teri Garr
-Early life:Garr was born in Lakewood, Ohio in 1947. Her father, Eddie Garr , was a vaudeville performer, comedian and actor whose career peaked when he briefly took over the lead role in the Broadway drama Tobacco Road...
, Richard Benjamin
Richard Benjamin
Richard Benjamin is an American actor and film director. He has starred in a number of productions, including Goodbye, Columbus , based on the novella by Philip Roth, and Westworld .-Life and career:...
, and Lana Turner
Lana Turner
Lana Turner was an American actress.Discovered and signed to a film contract by MGM at the age of sixteen, Turner first attracted attention in They Won't Forget . She played featured roles, often as the ingenue, in such films as Love Finds Andy Hardy...
) were also based on Conjure Wife.
DVD-Releases
The following DVD-Releases were available in 2011:- Night of the Eagle, UK 2007, Optimum Releasing
- Burn, Witch, Burn!, US 2011, MGM (DVD-RDVD-RDVD-R is a DVD recordable format. A DVD-R typically has a storage capacity of 4.71 GB. Pioneer has also developed an 8.5 GB dual layer version, DVD-R DL, which appeared on the market in 2005....
"on demand").
Out of print are the 1995 US Image DVD, US-Laserdisc
Laserdisc
LaserDisc was a home video format and the first commercial optical disc storage medium. Initially licensed, sold, and marketed as MCA DiscoVision in North America in 1978, the technology was previously referred to interally as Optical Videodisc System, Reflective Optical Videodisc, Laser Optical...
and VHS video titled Burn, Witch, Burn!, the British DVD-Box titled Horror Classics, consisting of The Masque of the Red Death
The Masque of the Red Death (film)
The Masque of the Red Death is a 1964 British horror film starring Vincent Price in a tale about a prince who terrorizes a plague-ridden peasantry while merrymaking in a lonely castle with his jaded courtiers. The film was directed by Roger Corman; the screenplay by Charles Beaumont and R...
, Night of the Eagle and Zoltan, Hound Of Dracula, and the British VHS video Night of the Eagle.