CURSE OF THE DEMON (1957)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *good*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical*

It's been years since I read M.R. James' classic short ghost story "Casting the Runes," and I chose not to read it again before reviewing CURSE OF THE DEMON. But I remember enough of the story to state that the movie-script should be a prime example of how to expand a short story into a feature-film structure.

Of necessity, the James story merely sketches out the basic conflict. Black magician Karswell inflicts a supernatural curse on an unbelieving victim via a parchment bearing "runes," but this modern-day wizard becomes the target of the demonic forces he unleashes. Though the story has a slight touch of "maybe it was just coincidence Karswell died" ambivalence, few readers are likely to believe the rationalistic explanation.

Director Jacques Tourneur and writers Charles Bennett and Hal Chester upped the stakes of the original story, so that it become a pronounced struggle between the rationalistic, scientific view of the world and an endorsement of archaic supernaturalism. The movie's viewpoint character becomes an American debunker of the supernatural, Dr. John Holden (played by fifty-something Dana Andrews), and though this exigency was probably a move to court the American film market, it has the effect of making the conflict more global in nature. 

While Holden is flying to Britain to attend a conference of superstition-debunkers (or something like that), a British professor, one Harrington, perishes due to having irritated occultist Julian Karswell (Niall McGinnis) with negative press. In quick succession Holden, who has also criticized Karswell in print, meets both Karswell and Joanna (Peggy Cummins), the bereaved niece of Harrington. Both are believers in the occult, and Holden regards their ideas as childish and un-scientific.

Strictly speaking, Joanna's not necessary to the story, but she adds some tension, constantly trying to persuade Holden of the truth to prevent a repeat of her uncle's fate. The script adds other characters who are also focused upon helping Holden in spite of his rationalistic myopia, but the most consequential is Karswell's own mother, who is apparently aware of her son's iniquities and wishes to prevent another curse-crime.

I won't dilate on the many events that take place to convert Holden to the magical worldview, or on the strategy Holden uses to divert the curse back upon its author. But I'm often puzzled by the stories of back-stage quarrels about how explicit to make the magical threat. I understand that, as in the short story, the movie script wants some ambivalence so that an unwitting public will judge the deaths of the cursed men as mere coincidence. But to the viewing audience, the script is selling the idea that the occult is real, beginning with the opening shots of mystery-laden Stonehenge. DEMON would make absolutely no sense if the rationalistic explanation was as believable as the supernatural one. There are films that can get away with this, to be sure. But even if someone had excised the scenes of visible demons from the film, as director Tourneur reportedly wished, no viewer watching the film would have believed that Holden's rational worldview had in any way prevailed.

Andrews and Cummins are both good in their leading roles, but without doubt McGinnis gives the star turn here. The character in the short story is barely more than a stereotype, but the Karswell of DEMON is a more rounded character, displaying a childish pettiness that offsets his formidable magical skills. The only weakness in the script re: Karswell is that he's supposedly the head of some vaguely Satanic cult. Said cult is only talked about, and thus this proves an unnecessary distraction to the main struggle between science and magic.