Eye Of The Devil

Odd, but intensely compelling film
I am surprised this movie is not out on DVD or video because it's one of the few films of the beautiful Sharon Tate, the actress killed by the Mason Cult. Supposedly her "introduction" film along with fellow actor David Hemmings, MGM made a big todo of showcasing them before the films release.

The film was also called 13 in some releases, and the supposedly unlucky number seems apropos for the film with Tate later being murdered, and the trouble over initial casting. The simply gorgeous Kim Novak was set to play the lead, they had actually begun filming when she was thrown from a horse. A broken bone resulted in her being replaced by the powerhouse Deborah Kerr, who seems, truthfully, better suited to be playing David Niven's wife.

This is like no other Niven film, an high popular, but I believe, underrated actor. He made it seems so easy. But you watch him with Gregory Peck in GUNS OF NAVARONE and you will see he was a marvellous talent.

It's a low-key thriller, in the...

Stunning Black And White Photography, Compelling Performances
From the novel "The Day Of The Arrow" by Phillip Loraine, this is a supernatural thriller concerning a creepy ch?teau in the French countryside, beset by bizarre occurrences and rumors of witchcraft. Phillipe De Monfaucon, Marquis de Bellac (David Niven), his wife, Catherine (Deborah Kerr) and their children, Jacques (Robert Duncan) and Antionette (Suky Appleby) become concerned and then victimized by the mysteriousness, including the presence of foreboding brother and sister, Christian (David Hemmings) and Odile (Sharon Tate)D'Carey. It soon becomes clear that the menacing pair is attempting to initiate the family into their cult. Even the village priest Father Dominick (Donald Pleasance) appears to have a sinister agenda. An interesting premise, excellent cast, glorious black and white photography; a cult favorite in the making. Young up and comers Hemmings and Tate embody their cherubic blonde innocence and evil blackness wonderfully - their appearance only enhances one's feelings...

Paganistic Inheritance
The sixties gave birth to many films dealing with every aspect of the occult from witchcraft to demonic possession and sometimes they branched off into something else of which director J. Lee Thompson's 'EYE OF THE DEVIL' is one of them. Without giving way the essence of the plot, the wife of a grand marquis in modern day France gets mixed up in a nightmare involving her husband and children, suffice it too say that it truly is not a horror film per se but an exercise in Paganism and predates Robin Hardy and Anthony Schaeffer's production of 'THE WICKER MAN' by a number of years. David Niven gives a subdued performance as the Marquis and Deborah Kerr in a role reminiscent of her turn as the governess in Jack Clayton's 'THE INNOCENTS' gives her wife in peril performance a fine driven feel. David Hemmings right from his debut in Antonioni's 'BLOW UP' and Sharon Tate in her first film role give the proceedings an eerie, unsettling twist but the real stars of the affair are the first...

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