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THE SATANIC SCREEN
Night Of The Eagk
delivered to earth. When his envoy asks who the missive is to be del ivered to, the Devil turns to the camera and leers, "To them ! " indicating the aud ience. They return to earth, providing human ity with the formula for a doomsday bomb of un precedented power. The screen fills with a g igantic explosion that annihilates entire cities. The Devil bursts into laughter, pleased with the success of his coup. Now the entire human population have condemned themselves to Hell. Herbert L. Strock's d irection fluctuates between black humour and melancholy moodiness, making for a refreshingly off-beat anthology. Lon Chaney Jr.'s gleefully apocalyptic Satan is one of his best-latter day parts, far more lively than the l istless performances he usually gave in this period. American fantasist Fritz Leiber's 1 953 novel Conjure Wife was filmed as THE NIGHT OF THE EAGLE aka BURN WITCH BURN in 1 96 1 . This picture's clever script was by Charles Beaumont and Richard Matheson, who would both make other important contributions to the Satanic cinema of the 1 960s. An intrusion of left hand path feminine black magic into the rational right hand path male sphere of academia, the tale reflected Leiber's life-long preoccupation with supernatural female characters. Portray ing black magic in a contemporary setting, the British film was an early warning sign of the incipient witchiness of the times. The film is constructed with a pleasing circularity, opening with un iversity professor Norman Taylor (Peter Wyngarde) expounding his rationalist ph ilosophy to his students. "I do not believe" he writes on the blackboard, defining an outlook that will soon be shaken to its core. He defines belief in witchcraft as "a morbid escape from reality" Taylor seems to have the perfect life, inspiring one colleague to jokingly ask if he's sold his soul to the Devil. When he d iscovers that