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The Night of the Eagle (Burn, Witch, Burn)

PaladinNites :_vip:

Posted at 2020-02-29 00:01:21(244Wks ago) Report Permalink URL

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Welcome to the First Nighter Theater

Your usual seat awaits you, front row, balcony. Oh there is a bag on your seat. It contains some graveyard dirt, an Iron nail, salt, lodestone. Just some things that might come in handy during tonight's viewing...

This eve enjoy an adaptation of Fritz Leiber's story Conjure Wife(1943) It has been filmed 3 times, and this is the best of the lot.
Starring;
Peter Wyngarde - Norman
Janet Blair - Tansy
Margaret Johnston - Flora
Kathleen Byron - Evelyn

Welcome to Hempnell!
Just a tale of everyday witchcraft in an English university.

Norman Taylor is a psychology professor lecturing about belief systems,superstition & witch craft. He scribbles on the chalk board
I DO NOT BELIEVE.

Well you know anyone who does that is in for a rather rude awakening.

Norman Taylor, a young professor who is rising through the academic ranks at an alarming speed. His loyal wife, Tansy, has been making that rise to success happen by indulging in a little black magic in the home.

It begins with a card game;
Barely disguised interdepartmental discord is brought forward with great intensity; it’s clear from
the opening sequences, in which Tansy hosts an uncomfortable evening of bridge at their home, that Flora hates Norman and Tansy
with a passion, and will do anything to stop Norman’s rise to power.

Even more interesting, there is an implicit understanding between Flora and Tansy that they are indeed both practitioners of the
magic arts, and their mutual dislike and distrust is telegraphed from the first frame. Despite this, all of the men in the film remain
entirely oblivious, even as events begin to spiral uncomfortably out of control.
After the party Tansy searches frantically and finds a poppet effigy of Norman in the lampshade left by...someone who means harm
to Norman, and destroys it. It could only have been Flora.With her sinister, twisted smile and sharp, sarcastic manner. Flora is a formidable opponent, and Tansy knows it.

After finding a trickn' bag pinned to a suit lapel, Norman prowls among Tansy' things, and he discovers that Tansy has amassed a collection of graveyard dirt, iron filings, effigy's, silver, lodestone. All things used in practicing obeah or"conjure magic," which she learned in Jamaica.
She insists that her charms have been responsible for his rapid advancement in his academia and for his general well-being. Along with primarily a defense against those in Hempnell who wish them harm.
Ever the firm rationalist, Norman is angered by her acceptance of superstition, and he forces her to burn all of her magical paraphernalia in the fire place to teach her that is just silly superstition.

Almost immediately, things start to go wrong:
While crossing the road next day, Norman is almost run down. Curiously Flora is near at hand.
A female student (Judith Stott) accuses Norman of rape.
Her boyfriend (Bill Mitchell) threatens him with with a gun.

Now comes the night of the storm:
A package is delivered, it contains a tape recording Norman has been waiting on. As it plays, just in the background are sounds...Tansy realizes what it is and stops the tape, with Norman getting up set.
The phone rings and audible is the haunting tones. Tansy knocks the phone out of his hand screaming to 'hang up Norman". As he is berating her, comes the sounds outside the door, and some kind of creature cries out.
Norman heads for the door, lights flicker off. Tansy yanks the phone cord - Norman gets to the door and is blown back by a near gale force wind. A flash of lightning reveals the shadow of someone...or some thing just outside. As she rips the cord out of the wall, The sounds and the 'something' dissipates.
Tansy knows that forces have targeted Norman for destruction, and she uses the one remaining effigy that Norman failed to burn to create a transference spell taking the curse upon herself, to sacrifice her life for her husband's safety.
So she gets Norman very drunk. And arouses him just enough to hear her recite the conjure words and gets him to say "all that I have is yours'...and Norman passes out.

Upon arising the next day, Tansy is no where to be found. The living room is a mess and the tape recording has been moved. As he plays it, Tansy's voice comes across. Telling him that she has taken on the curse that has hung over him, and that by the witching hour it will be over.
And that there is nothing he can do. Evelyn stops by and tells him that Tansy was seen boarding a coach, with a smirk that tells volumes.

It is slowly dawning upon Norman that there might be something to all of this. He concludes that Tansy could only be going to their cottage by the sea and sets out in pursuit. Almost preternaturally he encounters traffic jams, road blocks. Finally catching up to the bus he pulls along side and sees Tansy - who is in a blank stare daze. Then comes the car crash...

After all these delays Norman finally makes it to their cottage house, but the time is 11:30 pm. Tick tock, tick tock.
In their cottage he finds in one of Tansy's books on magic a hand written note;
"...To remove the curse the following rite must be performed in the House of the Dead, in the place of the Dead"
Loading his pockets with candles and a few other select paraphernalia he rushes down the hill, across the beach and towards the graveyard.
What he misses is Tansy standing by the rocks. Eyes blank and unblinking.
Tick tock...tick tock.

At the graveyard he enters an old mausoleum...time now is 11:56 pm. Upon an old coffin he lights and arranges the candles
Tick tock, tick tock
Down on the beach we are treated to a scene of solitary footprints...leading towards the sea. A figure of a woman slowly enters the sea.
Tick tock, tick tock
The church clock strikes midnight.Norman senses a presence, turns and finds Tansy at the doorway. Soaking wet, unblinking. An automation. Clutched in her hand is a tape.

We now see through Tansy's eyes at the Doctor's office.

She can hear, and as the Doctor says she needs to be in a hospital Tansy communicates In a monotone voice
"Take. Me. Home. Take. Me. Home'
Norman's logical, rational mind is slowly coming apart. As he can no longer accept as coincidence of all that has happened.
Tansy has a curious bouts of awakening, and she describes being 'pulled into the sea'.
Later Tansy awakes in a trance guided by someone, and attacks him with a knife, Norman disarms her and locks her in her room. But what he notices during the attack was a curious limping gait Tansy displayed. He's seen that before. And that gives Norman a clue to the person possibly responsible for all this. University secretary Flora Carr, the wife of Lindsay whose career had stalled in favor of Norman's.
Confronting Flora in her office, and playing the tape which has a visible effect on her.
She asks Norman "After all that has happened. Do you mean to tell me that you still put it down to...natural causes?"

With only a shred of his so-called rational explanations, Flora counters each and every one. All with a most disconcerting smirk. She reminds
Norman that witchcraft is one of the oldest religions...as she takes out a Tarot card deck.And begins to build a house out of the cards,
She asks Norman about his car wreck. Which no one should have known about. Norman is about to loose the last scrap of logic and reason...
She declares one card to be his house, and the final card that makes the roof "and this one is Tansy".
Looking directly at Norman, she strikes a match...
"Just a silly woman, setting fire to a bunch of cards"
As she touches the flame to the first card, back at Norman's home the cat is spooked and leaps out of the window, knocking over a vase on the oil heater...which begins an unnaturally fast spreading fire. And Norman has locked Tansy's room.
"Do you really believe your home is burning?... Is your house on fire?... Is Tansy dying?"

Norman runs out, and Flora plays the tape over the PA system. As Norman runs, it seems as it the eagle figures heads are following him.

But it's in the chapel courtyard that Norman comes face to face with the main figure head Eagle...it has come to life and swoops down at him. And pursues him into the chapel building bursting through the main door until....

Lindsay, Flora's husband arrives at the office. Scolding Flora for playing the tape inadvertently through the PA system, he switches that off so the sound is only in the office. And Flora jolts like she has been hit, She manages to turn off the player and pockets the tape.

The warbling sound in Norman's head is gone, and so is the eagle figure. As he leaves the building, the door that the eagle broke through, is still in one piece.
Norman makes it to his house, now fully engulfed in flames and Tansy has been rescued the the firemen.

On their way out of the campus, Lindsay sees the chapel's heavy doors are ajar (left thus by Norman in his "escape" from the eagle), and insists upon securing them despite Flora's protests. As she waits for him, the main figure eagle statue begins to sway back and forth on the roof and plunges forward.

The three fold law has run it's course

Trailer;

The Production;
What makes this movie work so well? At times your never quite sure if what was happening to Norman and Tansy is real or just imagination.
Like the great Lawton/Tourneur film-noir horror movies of the 1940's "Burn Whitch Burn" lets your mind,not the special effects, do the thinking.
The script from Twilight Zone regulars Richard Matheson and Charles Beaumont creates a mood that is truly unique.

Film prints for the U.S. were preceded by a narrated prologue in which the voice of Paul Frees was heard to intone a spell to protect the
audience members from evil.

And taking a page out of William Castle's formula, in certain areas, theater audiences were given a special pack
of salt and words to an ancient incantation for protection.

The infamous stone eagle is shown in the foreground or background of every scene at the university.

Peter Wyngarde's reaction to the infamous eagle attack was genuine as the bird had a near 10 foot wingspan and
tremendous talons. Raw meat was placed on Peter jacket back to make the trained eagle swoop down at him during the finale.

The shot of the eagle bursting through the door was achieved by punching a glove puppet through a miniature door.
There are only a few frames of this sequence before a very quick cut to a shot of the actual eagle in a miniature of the hallway,
but the shape of a hand and wrist can just be made out in silhouette, if your sharp eyed.

When Norman hides in the classroom "I Do Not Believe" is still on the chalk board with other key words related to witchcraft.
As something off screen appears to him, he backs up to the chalkboard in fear. As the PA system is silenced, he walks back to
the door. The blackboard has been smudged, creatively revealing the phrase "I Do...Believe"

Reportedly the California home of star Janet Blair burnt during production. Ironically, it occurred during the shooting of the
climactic scene where the Taylor house burns down. Blair received the call while shooting the blazing sequence that her actual house was on fire.