The film's troublesome production schedule is brought vividly to life through Tony Earnshaw's enthusiastic style - including new research and original interviews. Earnshaw's book tracks the film's development from the original ghost story Casting the Runes by M R James through the various shooting scripts, alternative titles, and the challenging production work, to the final theatrical release. Along the way there are anecdotes, analysis and fascinating insights into British movie making in the 1950s, as well as previously unseen production designs by Sir Ken Adam, who went on to create the gadgets and secret bases that helped make the Bond series an international phenomenon. With a comprehensive location guide and biographies of all the onstage and backstage players, Beating The Devil - the Making of Night of the Demon is the definitive book on what has been described as "The Casablanca of Horror Films".
Book Description
Editorial Reviews
About the Author
Tony Earnshaw is a well-known film critic and writer. He is programme director of the Nationall Media Museum and organiser of the famed Bradford Film Festival.
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
More About the Author
Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
more info uncovered,
By
This review is from: Beating the Devil: The Making of the Night of the Demon (Paperback)
i was happy to put the author in touch with star peggy cummins, etc and i think he has produced a very entertaining book about an excellent film.
as the official historian for elstree film studios, where it was made in 1956, i have met many of those involved behind and in front of the camera on 'night of the demon' over the past 35 years. i even screened the film at the studio in 1987 in the viewing theatre where the rushes were originally screened, to a teenage audience who loved it. sadly many of the actors and crew are no longer with us but tony's book reminded me to dig out notes on various conversations i had with them over the years and some studio files..all of which never before published. i think they may 'put to rest' the questions about the monster sequences, etc. i hope to put in into arcticle form for the excellent american mag 'the little shoppe of horrors' later this year.
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Curse of the Film Bore!,
By Prelati (England) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Beating the Devil: The Making of the Night of the Demon (Paperback)
Night/Curse of the Demon remains a personal favourite and I picked this up with some anticipation. To be fair, it's a workmanlike effort, containing a fair amount of information (Night of the Demon references in Rocky Horror and Kate Bush songs no less!) but it still struggles to fill just over a hundred pages. The author's clearly happier relating the minutiae of creating a film than exploring any of the themes raised, which can be less than enthralling.
As a consequence of this, some interesting threads (the star meeting dotty anthopologist Margaret Murray, inventor of Wicca, for example) are left to hang, while unflattering character sketches of the producer (a crass and commercial producer - well I never!) tend to drag. You'd also expect to see pretty much every still from the film here, but several are missing, and stock photos of some of the locations are frankly a little dull. This is by no means a failure, but certainly a missed opportunity. The intros by Alex Cox and Christopher Fraying both rather leave the author's efforts in the shade, hinting at what could've been done with livelier prose. It's quite possible that Night of the Demon couldn't carry a book on its own, in which case it might've been expanded into something on the career of the director Jaques Tourneur, something on M R James adaptations, Crowley on the big screen, or any one of a dozen other angles. As is, this is an extended monograph on a brilliant B-movie, aimed at film students rather than fright fans. Perhaps it was cursed...
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
'Oh, I believe in them - absolutely',
By
This review is from: Beating the Devil: The Making of the Night of the Demon (Paperback)
Fantastic to have a book in print about my favourite movie ever. Thank you Mr. Earnshaw!
It's actually a very funny story, because nobody who worked on it seemed to be of the opinion that they were making a supernatural masterpiece that would be revered decades on: they all seemed to think that somebody else ruined it somehow. And actors who gave stonking performances like Brian Wilde and Maurice Denham seem to have barely registered that they were actually in it - although I bet Niall McGinnis recognised the worth of what he did. I always thought American lead Dana Andrews was a bit stiff playing the sceptical psychologist, but reading about how he seems to have spent the entire shoot drunk during the day and raving it up in nightclubs in the evening, I now think he must have been an acting genius. Nothing can ever ruin this marvellous film for me - wherever you all are, whether in your dotage or in film peoples' heaven, you all produced a little piece of magic! The dropped star is because in the actors' biographies, where they are all given their photos and bios, the marvellous Peter Elliott - K T Kumar of Bombay - is simply not included. Otherwise, an excellent read.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product).
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
Listmania!
|
|
