EYE OF THE DEVIL

Deborah Kerr

EYE OF THE DEVIL (1966). Director: J. Lee Thompson.

Phillipe de Montfaucon (David Niven) lives in Paris with his wife, Catherine (Deborah Kerr), and their two beautiful children, Jacques (Robert Duncan) and Toni (Suky Appeby). Learning that there is a possibility that his vineyards back in his ancestral home of Bellenac may be failing, Phillipe returns there and tells Catherine to stay in Paris with the children. But Catherine misses her husband and brings the children to his side, where she discovers strange things are going on around the Castle Bellenac. Men in black robes gather in underground rooms and in the forest, and also hovering about are a strange brother and sister team, Christian (David Hemmings). who shoots doves with his bow and arrow, and Odile (Sharon Tate), who seems to have magical powers. Catherine eventually figures out exactly why her husband came back to Bellenac, but she may be too late to save him ... Eye of the Devil predates both The Wicker Man and Thomas Tryon's novel Harvest Home, both of which also deal with pagan sacrifice, but there's something a little off in this movie. Niven and Kerr, along with Edward Mulhare, Flora Robson, Donald Pleasence and little Robert Duncan all give good performances, but there doesn't seem to be much of an attempt to create real tension or a sense of encroaching dread until the admittedly effective climax. Two sequences when Jacques and then his mother nearly fall to their deaths from the castle roof are also taut. Sharon Tate [Valley of the Dolls] had appeared in one film and several TV shows before she was "introduced" in this movie, and she is perfectly cast and adept (if possibly dubbed) as the very strange and rather sinister Odile. Hemmings [Deep Red] has less to do but maintains the proper spooky attitude.

Verdict: Not entirely successful and slightly supernatural thriller. **1/2.

RETURN FROM THE ASHES

Ingrid Thulin and Maximilian Schell

RETURN FROM THE ASHES (1965). Director: J. Lee Thompson.

"I was revolted, curious, shocked -- even thrilled."

"A man should always marry a woman with beautiful eyes. That way there's always something to love, no matter what happens."

"I came to you for advice, not the truth."

Michelle (Ingrid Thulin), a wealthy widow who also happens to be a doctor, falls in love with a poor chess player named Stanislaus Pilgrin (Maximilian Schell) in pre-WW 2 Paris. After the Nazis occupy the city, Stan marries the Jewish Michelle more as an act of defiance than anything else, but immediately after the wedding she's taken off to a concentration camp. After four years of Hell and a fifth in a sanitarium, Michelle makes her way back to Paris. At first Stan not only doesn't recognize his own wife, but thinks she must be dead and this woman her mere lookalike. He asks her to "pretend" to be Michelle -- herself -- so that he and her step-daughter, Fabienne (Samantha Eggar), can claim her 30 million franc fortune. And things get more twisted after that ... In a pre-credit sequence set on a train taking Michelle to Paris, a mischievous little boy falls through the door, and an old man remarks to his wife that Michelle, who has absolutely no reaction to the child's death, must have an "incredible lack of feeling." Then he sees the numbers tattooed on her arm and realizes why she is emotionally dead inside ... The trouble with Return from the Ashes is that nothing else as powerful as this opening sequence ever occurs in the movie, which turns more or less into a comparatively ordinary suspense film. On the other hand, Return sets up some intriguing situations, isn't entirely predictable, and boasts excellent performances from the entire cast, including Herbert Lom as a doctor friend of Michelle's. Attractive Thulin [The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse] gives an assured and authoritative lead performance; Schell [Judgment at Nuremberg] makes a charismatic "bad boy;" and Eggar expertly limns the petulant, sexual woman-child. The film also has interesting characters and some excellent dialogue. Still one might have hoped that such a momentous occurrence as the Holocaust might have developed into something a little more explosive than a fairly standard murder mystery. Attempts to equate atheism with "evil" are a little tiresome. J. Lee Thompson also directed Happy Birthday to Me.

Verdict: Despite disappointing aspects, this is an absorbing suspense film with some fascinating elements and several fine performances. ***.

THE REINCARNATION OF PETER PROUD

Michael Sarrazin as Peter Proud

THE REINCARNATION OF PETER PROUD (1975). Director: J. Lee Thompson. Screenplay by Max Erlich, from his novel.

College professor Peter Proud (Michael Sarrazin) keeps having weird dreams of being murdered with a paddle by a woman in a boat, so he seeks help from everyone from shrinks to a sleep researcher named Sam (Paul Hecht). Of course, the title of the movie clues the viewer in early on that what Peter thinks are dreams are actually memories of his former life as Jeff Curtis (Tony Stephano), a war hero who played around a little too much on his wife, Marcia (Margot Kidder). Determined to find out what happened, Peter searches for the town he/Jeff grew up in, and encounters his former wife and daughter (Jennifer O'Neill of Scanners), with whom he ... well, let's just say it isn't incest if the two aren't biologically related. The acting in the film is perfectly okay [although Kidder is not especially convincing as a woman in her fifties], but the movie is just kind of blah. The best, very moving scene has Jeff's almost hopelessly senile mother seeing Peter in a nursing home and recognizing him as her son. Very downbeat ending and a somewhat strange score by Jerry Goldsmith.The picture came out at a time when the subject of reincarnation had once again become very trendy, as it does every few years or so. Stephano was a handsome male model who appeared in only one other film, Tron, seven years later. Hecht has had a busy career, mostly on television. Thompson also directed Happy Birthday to Me and many other movies.

Verdict: As this is currently being remade, maybe it will come back as a much better movie. **1/2.