Few things are as calming to me as a British black-and-white horror movie. I’m thinking of movies like Dead of Night (1945), Village of the Damned 1960), and The Haunting (1963), which were meant to be horrifying but, for whatever reason, have the opposite effect on me. In fact, I’ve been watching a lot of them lately, to sooth myself while I come to terms with the recent and quite unexpected death of my husband. Paradoxical as it seems, it works.
What makes these films so therapeutic? Maybe it’s the simplicity necessitated by low budgets, maybe it’s the better-than-expected acting, maybe it’s the economical storytelling and straightforward progression from start to finish. But I expect the real appeal may lie in the fact that these movies leave the viewer with the impression that, whatever horrors may have transpired on the screen, now everything’s been taken care of and all’s right with the world. Sort of like an Agatha Christie novel, in fact. If that’s the kind of film you’re in the market for, Sidney Hayers’ Burn, Witch, Burn, released as Night of the Eagle* in the U.K., will certainly fill the bill.
Burn, Witch, Burn is based on the American-set novel Conjure Wife by Fritz Leiber and was adapted for the screen by Charles Beaumont, Richard Matheson, and George Baxt. The story involves a notably successful young academic named Norman Taylor (Peter Wyngarde, whose life history reads like a rather improbable movie) who thinks he got there on his merits, as such people generally do. So how to you imagine he reacts when he discovers that his wife Tansy (Janet Blair) is a witch, and his success is due to her machinations?
Yes, he’s mad at her, even though she loves him more than life itself, as she will prove before the final credits roll. And even though she has not only brought about his rapid rise through Hempnell Medical College (shot in Taplow Court, Berkshire) but is also protecting him from the evil spells of other witches, mainly the wives of his academic competition. Because that’s academia in the early 1960’s: it’s a white boys’ game and the best women can do is try to back the right horse and do whatever they can to see that he comes in first. If there’s a little light witchcraft involved, so be it, because a gal’s got to do what a gal’s got to do.
The presentation of witchcraft in Burn, Witch, Burn is pretty silly, but probably consonant with what people expected to see in 1962: poppets and spiders and people becoming murderous while under spells. What is more surprising is the number of action sequences included in this film, presumably to make good use of Wyngarde’s talents: he would go on to play a James Bond-like character in two television series (although trust me, he was no Sean Connery).
The slipcase included with this release includes some period-appropriate art and advertising copy to promote the film, which, predictably, give an entirely false idea of what it is actually like. What’s basically a movie about campus politics, and in which people remain decently attired most of the time, is pitched with a sexy Janet Blair in her nightgown against a background of a faceless hooded figure and a foggy graveyard, with the question “Do the undead demons of hell still arise to terrorize the world?” To find the answer that question, my friend, you must watch this movie, and that’s the point. | Sarah Boslaugh
*This film includes a fair amount of eagle imagery, including some dire effects near the end, which explain the source of the UK title. Not much of an attention-getter, that one, at least in comparison to Burn, Witch Burn.
Burn, Witch, Burn is distributed on Blu-ray by Kino Lorber, with a print based on a 4K scan of the original camera negative. Both the US (Burn, Witch, Burn) and original UK versions (Night of the Eagle) are included. Extras on the disc include two audio commentaries, by novelist and critic Tim Lucas and screenwriter Richard Matheson, an interview with Peter Wyngarde, and trailers for Burn, Witch, Burn, and Night of the Eagle.
