Burn, Witch, Burn (1962)

Can you ever really know someone? Even after marriage, when you’ll presumably be with your spouse more often than before, it’s not as though you’ll see them 24/7. Unless there’s a nuclear war or maybe a little apocalypse action. Chris Rock once said, “When you meet somebody for the first time, you’re not meeting them. You’re meeting their representative.” 2014’s extremely uncomfortably comedy Force Majeure shows the devastating consequences of showing one’s true self, whether intentionally or not. Taking the good with the bad is one thing, but what if your core beliefs are in direct conflict with your wife/husband? Imagine being made to look like a fool when your carefully constructed argument comes crashing down due to your partner’s indisputable evidence to the contrary. That’s one of many moral quandaries faced by the protagonist in 1962’s underrated gem Burn, Witch, Burn. An exploitative title if there ever was one, with an appropriately provocative word repeated just for good measure, the name belies the classy and often highly intelligent, emotionally-charged events depicted in the film. The English title, Night of the Eagle, sounds terrible to me. Maybe it worked in Great Britain.

In the American version, we begin in total darkness. Legendary voice actor Paul Frees warns us in his dulcet tones that we may be in real danger by viewing this motion picture. Ah, the pre-film announcement, a staple of so many B-movies, including those of distributor James H. Nicholson and Samuel Z. Arkoff’s American International Pictures, or AIP for short. Considering how clever and subdued most of the dialogue, the overwrought nature of this intro comes off as just plain silly, but it’s worth reprinting some of it here. I won’t attempt to include the bizarre incantation.

“Ladies and gentlemen, the motion picture you are about to see contains an evil spell, as used by practitioners of witchcraft for centuries. Even today, in many parts of the world, people practice black magic and witchcraft. Charms, amulets, voodoo candles, grave dirt, and locks of hair are believed to ward off evil spirits and spells. You may doubt the effectiveness of these spells, but through every civilization, people have believed in witches. Could they all be wrong? I don't think so. For I have seen its power proved too many times. I am now about to dispel all evil spirits that may radiate from the screen during this performance! [chant is recited] And now, with a free mind and a protected soul, we ask you to enjoy Burn, Witch, Burn.”

And this is said before the AIP logo even shows up! It’s as if they expect us to thank them for warding off ghosts and goblins that might ruin our viewing experience.

A hotshot Sociology professor (aren’t they all?) has got the world on a string. He’s up for a promotion at the distinguished Hempnell Medical College, where the proud statue of an eagle looms large. He has a pretty wife and is adored by his students (with a very diverse population) and faculty alike. At least, most of them. Norman Taylor (Peter Wyngarde, aka Flash Gordon and just here for the money) spends his class time getting “mooned at” by Margaret (Judith Stott), much to the chagrin of her boyfriend Fred (Bill Mitchell, one of two attempted rapist truck drivers from Supergirl), who later reminds us he’s American by packing a revolver. Margaret hasn’t made her admiration known, but she clearly has a thing for brainy dudes. Unfortunately for her, he’s got a classy lady at home whom he regards as his good luck charm, not that he believes in any of that nonsense.

The lecture concludes with a reprimand of Fred, who hasn’t been doing his homework. The assignments revolve around the four words necessary to destroy the forces of the supernatural, witchcraft, superstitions, and psychic phenomenon: “I do not believe.” It’s quite clear that he’s a man of science and reasoning overrules magical mumbo jumbo. He compares fantasy and reality in sharp terms. “Aladdin rubbed the lamp and the genie appeared. Today we can press a button, and the whole of mankind is obliterated.”

A central theme within Burn, Witch, Burn is action being brought about by petty jealousy. Fred is jealous of Margaret’s interest in Taylor: “There’s a thin line between admiration and infatuation.” Some of the faculty is also disdainful of this young go-getter, including fellow teacher Flora Carr, played with delightful malevolence by Margaret Johnston. Flora, who walks with a pronounced limp, telegraphs her evil from a few kilometers away, but the film smartly keeps things a bit vague by allowing other members of the staff to sarcastically rib and throw backhanded compliments at Taylor to keep the audience off-balance. As Flora’s henpecked husband Lindsay (Colin Gordon) inquires of Taylor, “You sold your soul to the devil?” Well, maybe not Taylor, but his wife...

Tansy Taylor (Janet Blair, whose song-and-dance career kept her constantly employed but rarely stretched her talents) loves her husband dearly and although she doesn’t love the faculty, she dutifully sets up their weekly bridge night. As they make small talk, she seems certain he’ll get that promotion and wishes they were back in Jamaica, where she encountered a mystic called Kerubius. Norman, taking his work home with him, calls Kerubius a “male witch with phony black magic.” Tansy seems put-off by this but maintains her composure. He blithely calls her “enchanted,” having no idea whatsoever that his perfect life is about to suffer greatly from his lack of faith in “enchantments.” Wyngarde and Blair have great chemistry and bring a welcome level of realism to essentially ludicrous material.

Flora stares daggers at Tansy while flicking a lighter on and off during the bridge match. She and Evie (Kathleen Byron, the wacko nun from Black Narcissus), another faculty member, are definitely the ones who wear the pants around here. Tansy and Norman often do very well on bridge night and there’s talk of Evie using her hypnotism techniques to level the playing field, but the subject is quickly changed. There’s a very subtle indication that every woman, either in this town or everywhere, dabbles in the dark arts. Basically, the reverse of Harry Potter where the muggles have got the magic touch.

After the evening is over, Tansy spends her time searching for something. Hanging from a lampshade, she finds a tiny, handmade figure draped around the base. She quickly destroys it. While she looks around for more strange objects, Norman finds a dead spider in a small jar. When he confronts Tansy about this weird little trinket, she claims it was a souvenir from their time in Jamaica. The next morning, he finds a hidden pocket in his jacket filled with something resembling dirt or possibly ash. Tansy returns home with groceries to find that he’s ransacked the house and found her ‘stash.’

According to Tansy, these objects are the reason he’s a superstar and she uses “conjure magic to change the future.” Norman is incredulous, insisting that his success has nothing to do with her kooky little ‘hobby.’ He’s calm but subtly dismissive and insulting, seeming to ask whether all women get up to nonsense while the men are at work. “Is this how you spend your time? I’m sorry, you must have been very bored.” She knows it sounds crazy and he knows she’s not crazy, but he puts his foot in his mouth with, “If we were to investigate all the strange rituals based on their so-called intuitions, half the female population would be in an asylum.” It’s not exactly misogynistic or sexist, but it’s close.

He worries about looking like a hypocrite when his own wife is practicing the very things he denounces in class, so he insists every stitch in the pile be burned. As he dumps out the last of a substance in her locket, his picture falls in the fire. She can’t save it, and then looks around, sensing the change in the air. He’s going to learn that being a rationalist has its drawbacks.

The phone immediately rings and a breathy, sexy voice on the other end startles Norman, who hangs up. The next day, he’s ambushed by Fred, ever the dickhead American, saying Norman’s been carrying on a “nasty little affair” with Margaret. He denies it, of course, then he’s called away to confront Margaret, who’s in tears and claiming he violated her. Judith Stott’s performance here is very impressive, bringing a tearful intensity to her confusion and anger. It really does seem that Taylor is in deep trouble, but luckily for him, Fred tried to blackmail Norman earlier for good grades in exchange for his silence. The timeline with Margaret also doesn’t add up. Fred comes back with a gun, but he’s a real poser and is disarmed with a hard slap. Norman finds all of this quite perplexing, but he doesn’t believe it’s due to the “protections” being destroyed.

At home, he receives a mysterious package with a lecture recording and no signature on the letter. Upon playing it, the sound drives Tansy to near madness. There’s a ferocious noise at the door but it turns out to be nothing. The film has a great self-awareness as she says, “I’m not going to say I think there was something out there. I know that’s what you expect me to say.” She wants to appear normal. Since this is a horror movie, we know that these things are real, but the beauty here is the story being grounded in reality. Maybe these objects weren’t protecting him and Tansy isn’t a “conjure woman.” Still, the coincidences are piling up.

He has a freaky dream with images of Margaret moving from side to side. It’s an effective rear-projection technique that gives her movements an otherworldly quality. He wakes up to discover she’s gone, off to their cottage by the shore to sacrifice herself in exchange for his life. He tries to stop her, but he’s slowed down by a ‘diversion’ (British for detour?) and nearly killed in a head-on collision. Considering his tiny car, he should have died.

He makes it to the cottage, but misses her while running along the beach. Ending up in an appropriately spooky cemetery, he breaks down and performs his own ritual. It seems hopeless, but suddenly, there she is, soaking wet and staring into the middle distance, her eyes vacant and eerie. A doctor examines her and claims she’s in shock, but Norman knows there’s something far more sinister going on here. She doesn’t remember any of the last few hours, so it appears she wasn’t in control of her own senses. We get a nifty POV shot with a smeared lens for Tansy’s disoriented vision.

While Norman rests at home, she rises from the bed and retrieves a sharp knife from the kitchen. Walking with a limp (nice touch), she re-enters the bedroom and stabs at a shape she thinks is Norman. We cut to a pair of hands stabbing a voodoo doll of some kind, but Norman overpowers Tansy and the doll is dropped.

He suspects Flora is the one behind all of this due to the limp, so he sneaks into her office that night and rifles through her things. She unexpectedly arrives. In an outstanding scene, she toys with Norman mercilessly, even producing a pack of “harmless” tarot cards. She constructs a small house out of a few cards then lights it on fire. She mocks Norman for believing in witchcraft when she’s “just a silly woman setting fire to some cards.” She is, in truth, very powerful because the Taylor house bursts into flames with Tansy inside. Norman tries to play the lecture recording but Flora can’t stand it. He rushes out to check on Tansy, but she plays the recording over the intercom system, disorienting Norman. Looking up, the statue of the eagle has come to life and swoops down on him.

In real life, Wyngarde said the bird was quite intimidating, having a nine-foot wing span. It slashes at his back with its huge talons. Another tidbit is that he had meat under his jacket to attract the bird, which it flies down and slashes at. Although low budget, the forced perspective mixed with miniature sets makes for a convincingly huge eagle. In fact, the eagle bursting through the door of the school is genuinely terrifying. At the last instant, Lindsay shows up and turns off the recording, allowing Norman to escape. He finds Tansy safe outside but his house is burning down. Flora and Lindsay decide to go on a little getaway, but it’s going to be a bit difficult since the eagle, now a statue again, falls on top of Flora, crushing her. There’s a close-up on the recording in the middle of the street. The End.

The film is immaculately made. Very little in terms of gore or violence. It’s all about mood and atmosphere. That being said, the ending feels both rushed and compromised, although I can’t seem to find that being the case based on my research. The plot hurriedly wraps up far too quickly. A darker way to have approached the ending may have been Tansy dying in the fire and/or the eagle continuing its rampage and killing either Norman or Flora in the process. I could see Flora being unable to control the eagle and it destroying her. For now, it appears that Flora holding the recording makes her a mark of some kind and the statue crushing her is her inevitable fate. Still, it could also be a simple matter of karmic re-alignment for all of the awful things she’s done in her quest to vanquish those whom she is jealous of. For now, it’s left a bit vague, despite the end shot of the recording, whether the physical act of holding the recording is enough to get someone killed. It feels like one of the those studio-mandated notes where the villain can’t get away with it, so we get a ridiculous ending like in The Bad Seed (1956) or a ‘screw you’ ending like in Edgar G. Ulmer’s Detour (1945).

As stated above, the movie looks absolutely perfect. Credit cinematographer Reginald Wyer, whose work mainly consisted of genre fare, including several for Hammer’s Terence Fisher, with beautiful black and white photography. His use of light and shadow indicates a master DP who would only be alive for about 6 more years at the time, passing away at age 68. Also of note is editor Ralph Sheldon’s work, who uses simple tricks like inserting close-ups of eyes and hard cuts to keep the viewer off-balance. Also, he edited the hilariously bad Shanghai Surprise (1986), so there’s that. Editor-turned-director Sidney Hayers directed other features but worked mainly in television for nearly 40 years. He directs with a clear, crisp style, never drawing attention away from the story, which is top-notch.

Ah, to be in the room with two certified geniuses of the horror/sci-fi genre. This was the second time Fritz Leiber Jr.’s “Conjure Wife” had been adapted for the screen. Leiber is a writer first, but let’s not forget he also played Dr. Waterman in Dennis Muren’s freshman effort, Equinox (1970). The dynamic duo screenwriting team of Richard Matheson and Charles Beaumont, having worked together on The Twilight Zone, were fans of the novel and wanted to work together. Between the two of them, their credits include Roger Corman’s unjustly ignored The Intruder, I Am Legend, 7 Faces of Dr. Lao, The Incredible Shrinking Man, and some of the greatest Twilight Zone episodes ever, including “Living Doll, Nightmare at 20,000 Feet, Perchance to Dream, Printer’s Devil, and The Invaders.” Yes, writer George Baxt, best known for his “Pharoah Love and Hollywood” murder mystery books, was brought in to do some more work on the script, but I still imagine the best of the script belongs to Matheson and Beaumont, who would tragically die only a few years later.

AIP made its fair share of schlock, but the talent on hand went above and beyond for Burn, Witch, Burn. It’s high class entertainment from a company that often produced lowbrow fare.