Customer Reviews

Beating the Devil: The Making of the Night of the Demon

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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...

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.

This book has been described by the press as a "masterpiece", and indeed it is. This well-written book is just the ideal length to cover a film such as this. No turgid analysis here, but a lively, enthusiastic revelation of the making of this film (which was fraught with many problems from the beginning). Well illustrated, despite Columbia Pictures strange refusal to allow many of the stills to be reproduced. The first print run is just about gone - film fans have snapped up this collector's item!

If you are a fan of the movie Night of The Demon/Curse of the Demon I think you will really enjoy this book.It's really interesting to see the pictures of the locations where this movie was filmed and what these locations look like today.The mini biographies on the actors that were in the movie are very interesting too.With all the other little bits of information about the movie and the great pictures makes this book well worth the price.I'am a fan of this movie and I really enjoyed this book.