Night of the Eagle

Night of the Eagle
British film poster
Directed bySidney Hayers
Screenplay by
Based onConjure Wife
by Fritz Leiber
Produced by
Starring
CinematographyReginald Wyer
Edited byRalph Sheldon
Music byWilliam Alwyn
Production
company
Distributed by
Release dates
  • 25 April 1962 (1962-04-25) (US)
  • 11 May 1962 (1962-05-11) (UK)[1]
Running time
87 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
Budget£50,000[2]
Box officeUS$3 million[3]

Night of the Eagle (U.S. title: Burn, Witch, Burn; also known as Conjure Wife [4]) is a 1962 British horror film directed by Sidney Hayers and starring Peter Wyngarde and Janet Blair.[4] Its plot follows an esteemed sociology professor who discovers that his professional achievements and successes are the result of his wife practicing witchcraft. The screenplay by Charles Beaumont, Richard Matheson, and George Baxt was based upon the 1943 Fritz Leiber novel Conjure Wife.[5] It was made by AIP and Anglo-Amalgamated who co produced a number of films together including Circus of Horrors.[6]

Plot

Norman Taylor is a psychology professor lecturing about belief systems and superstition at an English university. After a scene in which his American wife, Tansy, searches frantically and finds a poppet left by a jealous work rival, he discovers that Tansy is practising obeah, referred to in the film as "conjure magic", which she learned in Jamaica. She insists that her charms have been responsible for his rapid advancement in his academic career and for his general well-being. A firm rationalist, Norman is angered by her acceptance of superstition. He forces her to burn all her magical paraphernalia.

Almost immediately things start to go wrong: a female student accuses Norman of rape, her boyfriend threatens him with violence, and someone tries to break into the Taylors' home during a thunderstorm. Tansy, willing to sacrifice her life for her husband's safety, almost drowns herself and is only saved at the last minute by Norman giving in to the practices he despises.

Tansy attacks him with a knife while in a trance, but Norman disarms her and locks her in her room. Her limping walk during the attack gives Norman a clue to the person responsible for his ill luck: university secretary Flora Carr, the wife of Lindsay whose career had stalled in favour of Norman's. Flora uses witchcraft to set fire to the Taylor home with Tansy trapped inside.

Using a form of auditory hypnosis over a loudspeaker system, Flora convinces Norman that a giant stone eagle perching at the top of the university chapel has come to life to attack him. Lindsay arrives at the office and turns off the loudspeaker, and the illusory eagle vanishes. Tansy escapes her burning home and rejoins her no longer sceptical husband. On their way out of the campus, Lindsay sees the chapel's heavy doors are ajar (left thus by Norman in his "escape" from the eagle), and insists on securing them despite Flora's protests. As she waits for him, the eagle statue falls from the roof and kills her.

Cast

Production

Richard Matheson and Charles Beaumont were admirers of the novel and decided to adapt it. They were paid $5,000 each by James H. Nicholson of AIP, who passed the project over to AIP's regular co-producers, Anglo-Amalgamated in England. They agreed to finance, allocating the movie to Independent Artists to produce. Producer Albert Fennell bought in George Baxt to work on the script.[2] The original script (commenced by Matheson and completed by Beaumont) was published in the Gauntlet Press edition of He Is Legend, a Matheson tribute anthology, but not in the subsequent paperback.[7]

Filming took six weeks.[8] Part of the deal of Anglo-Amalgamated financing was that a star play the lead; Peter Cushing was originally meant to star but decided to make Captain Clegg instead. Musical comedy star Janet Blair came on board and the male lead was rumoured[citation needed] to have been offered to both Peter Finch and Cushing; Finch turned the part down and Cushing was unwell at the time the film was due to go into production. Peter Wyngarde was cast at the last minute.[2]

Release

The film was acquired for North American distribution by American International Pictures, who released it under the alternative title Burn, Witch, Burn, premiering in Buffalo, New York on 25 April 1962.[9] Film prints for the US 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.[10][11] For protection, American theatre audiences were given a special pack of salt and words to an ancient incantation.

The film opened in the United Kingdom under its original title, Night of the Eagle, on 11 May 1962.[3] While the film was accessible to an under-aged audience in the US, 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.[12]

Home media

In 2007, Optimum Releasing released Night of the Eagle on DVD in the United Kingdom. The MGM Limited Edition Collection released the Burn, Witch, Burn! version in the United States on 16 May 2011.[13]

Out of print are the 1995 US Image DVD, American-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.

Kino Lorber released Burn, Witch, Burn on Blu-ray in the United States on 18 August 2015. This release features both versions of the film, featuring the original Night of the Eagle opening, as well as the Paul Frees-narrated opening prologue released in the United States under the Burn, Witch, Burn title.[14] Kino Lorber reissued the Blu-ray in a special edition on 1 October 2024.[15]

Reception

Box office

In the United States, the film grossed approximately $3 million.[3]

Critical response

The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote:

The fact that three screenwriters have worked on its expansion possibly explains why the film is not all one had hoped it might be. The producers have had little success making the subject-matter believable, for all that much of the action is underplayed, and it is impossible to accept the situation of two presumably intelligent women succumbing to the lure of black magic. But director Sidney Hayer's stage management is fresh and exciting for the most part, skilful in its reliance on suggestion, naggingly effective as a study of psychic attack. Peter Wyngarde succeeds in conveying the young professor's confusion and doubt, while Margaret Johnston enjoys herself along broader lines as the wild-eyed, madly frustrated Flora.[16]

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:[17]

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 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".[18]

Film historian William K. Everson, though critical of Night of the Eagle for its predictability, praised the film for its story and Janet Blair's performance.[19]

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".[20]

Author S. T. Joshi declared it particularly notable for its realistic portrayal of campus politics.[21]

Accolades

In 1963 Night of the Eagle was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation.[22]

References

  1. ^ "Next Week In Birmingham". The Birmingham Post. 4 May 1962. p. 4 – via Newspapers.com.
  2. ^ a b c Hamilton 2013, pp. 101–107.
  3. ^ a b c Sylvester, Robert (8 April 1962). "Dream Street". New York Daily News. p. C17 – via Newspapers.com.
  4. ^ a b "Night of the Eagle". British Film Institute Collections. Archived from the original on 2 January 2024.
  5. ^ Botting, Josephine (13 November 2013). "Why I love ... Night of the Eagle". British Film Institute. Archived from the original on 13 January 2025.
  6. ^ Vagg, Stephen (16 January 2025). "Forgotten British moguls: Nat Cohen – Part Two (1957-1962)". Filmink. Retrieved 16 January 2015.
  7. ^ "Fiction Book Review: He Is Legend: An Anthology Celebrating Richard Matheson by Christopher Conlon". Publishers Weekly. Archived from the original on 13 January 2025.
  8. ^ Weaver, Tom (1 January 2004). Science Fiction and Fantasy Film Flashbacks: Conversations with 24 Actors, Writers, Producers and Directors from the Golden Age. McFarland. ISBN 9780786420704 – via Google Books.
  9. ^ "Burn, Witch, Burn (1962) – Film Details". Turner Classic Movies. Retrieved 13 January 2025.
  10. ^ Craig 2019, p. 82.
  11. ^ Erickson, Glenn. "DVD Savant Review: Burn, Witch, Burn MGM Ltd. Edition Collection". DVD Talk. Archived from the original on 28 July 2012.
  12. ^ "Night of the Eagle". British Board of Film Classification. Archived from the original on 13 January 2025.
  13. ^ Mavis, Paul (16 June 2011). "Burn, Witch, Burn! (Night of the Eagle)". DVD Talk. Archived from the original on 13 January 2025.
  14. ^ Jane, Ian. "Burn, Witch, Burn". DVD Talk. Archived from the original on 13 January 2025.
  15. ^ "Burn, Witch, Burn (Special Edition) aka Night of the Eagle". Kino Lorber. Archived from the original on 13 January 2025.
  16. ^ "Night of the Eagle". The Monthly Film Bulletin. 29 (336): 82. 1 January 1962 – via ProQuest.
  17. ^ "Supernatural Thriller Is on Double Bill". The New York Times. 5 July 1962. Archived from the original on 13 January 2025.
  18. ^ Rosenbaum, Jonathan. "Burn Witch, Burn". Chicago Reader. Archived from the original on 7 April 2013.
  19. ^ Everson 1974, p. 239.
  20. ^ Pirie, David. "Night of the Eagle". Time Out. Archived from the original on 13 January 2025.
  21. ^ Joshi 2007, p. 716.
  22. ^ "1963 Hugo Awards". World Science Fiction Society. 26 July 2007. Archived from the original on 15 April 2013.

Sources

  • Craig, Rob (2019). American International Pictures: A Comprehensive Filmography. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland. ISBN 978-1-476-66631-0.
  • Everson, William K. (1974). Classics of the Horror Film. Citadel Press. ISBN 978-0-806-50437-7.
  • Hamilton, John (2013). X-Cert: The British Independent Horror Film. Baltimore, Maryland: Midnight Marquee Press. ISBN 978-1-936-16840-8.
  • Joshi, S. T. (2007). Icons of Horror and the Supernatural: An Encyclopedia of Our Worst Nightmares. Vol. 2. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 716. ISBN 978-0-313-33782-6.
Wikiquote has quotations related to Night of the Eagle.