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Night of the Eagle (Burn, Witch, Burn!) [1962]

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Burn, Witch, Burn! (1962)

Night of the Eagle (original title)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056279/

The Night of the Eagle was a 1962 British horror film that was directed by Sidney Hayers and produced by Albert Fennell. The script by Charles Beaumont and Richard Matheson was based upon the 1943 Fritz Leiber novel Conjure Wife. The film starred Janet Blair, Peter Wyngarde, Margaret Johnston and Anthony Nicholls. The American title of this film was Burn, Witch, Burn!; not to be confused with the 1932 novel of the same name by Abraham Merritt. Conjure Wife has in fact seen three film adaptations, with Night of the Eagle preceded by the 1944 Weird Woman and followed in 1980 by a more light-hearted take on the story, Witches Brew.

Peter Wyngarde ... Norman Taylor
Janet Blair ... Tansy Taylor
Margaret Johnston ... Flora Carr
Anthony Nicholls ... Harvey Sawtelle
Colin Gordon ... Lindsay Carr
Kathleen Byron ... Evelyn Sawtelle
Reginald Beckwith ... Harold Gunnison
Jessica Dunning ... Hilda Gunnison
Norman Bird ... Doctor
Judith Stott ... Margaret Abbott
Bill Mitchell ... Fred Jennings


The story has been called particularly notable for its realistic portrayal of campus politics. In 1963 it was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation.

The New York Times called it quite the most effective supernatural thriller since Village of the Damned and perhaps the best outright goose-pimpler dealing specifically with witchcraft since I Walked with a Zombie...in 1943. and noted:

Simply as a suspense yarn, blending lurid conjecture and brisk reality, growing chillier by the minute, and finally whipping up an ice-cold crescendo of fright, the result is admirable. Excellently photographed (not a single frame is wasted), and cunningly directed by Sidney Hayers, the incidents gather a pounding, graphic drive that is diabolically teasing. The climax is a nightmarish hair-curler but, we maintain, entirely logical within the context.

The performances, too, are first rate. Wyngarde, who had scared the hell out of audiences the year before as the ghostly Quint in Jack Claytons The Innocents, is perfectly cast as Taylor, a man just a little too successful, a little too handsome, a little too suave, for his own good. Wyngarde portrays Taylors growing sense of unease and panic with great conviction, culminating in the famous shot when, cowering in his classroom, he staggers back against the blackboard, inadvertently rubbing out the word Not from his original declaration.

Janet Blair, whose previous films had mainly been undistinguished Hollywood musicals, also gives a marvellous performance, her large, expressive eyes and thin lips perfectly conveying the combination of dottiness anxiety and determination of the loyal-until-death (and beyond) Tansy. Margaret Johnston is splendidly frustrated and deranged as Flora, uttering the line used as the films American title (Burn, witch, burn!) with a venomous relish which makes one regret that she made so few films in her distinguished career. The only disappointment with regard to the cast is the criminal waste of Kathleen Byron; so terrifying as the sex-crazed Sister Ruth in Powell and Pressburgers Black Narcissus, in Night of the Eagle her role doesnt even amount to that of a red herring. Reginald Beckwith, seen overindulging in the funny-voice department as the medium in Night of the Demon, is considerably more restrained here, which is not a bad thing.

Sidney Hayers also directed the enjoyable Circus of Horrors (1960) about a psychopathic beauty-obsessed plastic surgeon hiding at a circus and two minor psycho-thrillers Assault (1970) and Revenge (1971). He is also credited as director on the third cinematically released Battlestar Galactica movie, Conquest of the Earth (1981), although this was merely recut from episodes originally written for the Galactica 1980 tv series.

The Fritz Leiber novel was later filmed as the cheap Witches Brew (1979), which plays the story for comedy. The only other Fritz Leiber work to have been adapted to the screen is the vampire film The Girl with the Hungry Eyes (1993).

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