CaptainHowdy.com The #1 Exorcist Fansite Since 1999
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Somewhat more seriously, we all feel for Billy. After all, he brought us our favorite horror movie, to say the least. It’s sad that he and his partner were victimized. I hope the culprits are caught, and the items returned.
You’re a great audience… I’ve probably addressed just about everything I can remember… here’s another one, nothing earth-shaking.
A panel of people involved with the film was on a TV talk show – maybe Mike Douglas, I can’t recall exactly – and Fr. William O’Malley was one of them. He made a pitch for the reality of possession, something like, “As a Christian, I believe that there is a spiritual realm where God and spirits and angels and saints and people who have died live. For example, I believe that my dead loved ones go on living in heaven after death. Our spirits do go on living. But not all of them have to be good.” It was a short step from that assertion to the claim that some evil spirits can influence our world of the physically-living, including possessing some of us.
At about this time, The Catholic Digest (then a moderately conservative Catholic popular magazine similar to Reader’s Digest) ran a several-page article on O’Malley training Jason Miller for the Karras role, with anecdotes about movie-making vis-a-vis The Exorcist.
========================================If anyone is interested I would be happy to dig around amongst my old movie memorabilia to see if I have any contemporary accounts about The Exorcist. If memory serves, I might have that Commonweal issue I mentioned in another post – and maybe some other stuff. If I still have it, it’s probably in a musty box along with my “Jaws” clippings…
Wow! Thanks very much, Ryan! I love it! And I can see a resemblance… thanks for the time and effort.
Thanks, Blizzi. I unearthed several 70s articles that I will post here this weekend – one is an interview with Fr. O’Malley.
Thanks, Blizzi – I will be posting a couple articles from the 70s in the “other topics” section this weekend. Thanks for your continued interest.
Yeah, they all seem mostly to forgive his shooting off guns to get shock reactions, slamming Burstein to the floor, smacking O’Malley across the chops… apparently genius has its privileges.
Thanks you guys for your cordial invitations… Frankly, I’m really not competent to review the novel page by page! A far better person would be someone like Ryan who has a profound literary grasp of all Blatty texts (I’m not trying to volunteer Ryan, just saying that someone with his expertise would be better at such a task)…
I do have a vague memory of the ’74 Oscars. I seem to recall Blatty thanking his parents “who came to this country on a cattle boat”. I also have a memory – though it may not be from the same awards ceremony – of Linda Blair saying something “bad” (don’t recall what it was) and then quipping, “I guess the Devil made me say that”. Someone told me she later appeared on SNL in a mock-Oscar ceremony and as ahe accepted the “Oscar”, a demonic voice started growling, “LICK IT, LINDA!” and so forth.
The “screenplay to screen” is the same book as Novel to Film – I just couldn’t remember its precise title.
Well, sometimes I get it right… interesting to be reminded that “it takes all types”, including those – like the complainer – who will to align themselves with the Exorcist, only to diss it. And as etrigan says, maybe the poster’s claim to be related to Bowden is bogus…
Thanks for explicating that issue, etrigan… my praise for the post was unquantified by the data you just presented.
Yeah… the Angel also happens to be another loss from the Legion movie… would have been nice to see the idea mentioned.
I am unworthy! But am flattered nonetheless.
It’s hard to describe the utterly unprecedented nature of the film and its impact. Possession and exorcism had never before been seriously and extensively treated in mainstream cinema. The public realized that something special was in the air – a horror film that expanded the genre into considerations of our daily lives and into ultimate questions.
The expectation was high, sometimes bordering on hysteria: “No, they can’t make a movie of that book!” They could never film THAT scene!”, etc., etc.
I recall that the film fed into fundamentalist insecurities. TV Pastor George Vandeman (sp) decried the film because it showed Satan as ugly, whereas Satan tempts us with his beauty. Apparently the good pastor didn’t think to be grateful that Blatty/Friedkin exposed Satan’s true colors.
Billy Graham came out with his own share of brain-dead sentiments. One was a reply to a questioner asking his opinion of the film: “I haven’t seen it! I’m scared to see it!” Then, after having seen it, he suggested that a demon actually dwells in the film’s celluloid. Then – still not having grasped the basics – he said that “demons are actually driven out by faith, not by a ritual, as in the film”.
As every attentive viewer realizes, the filmic ritual was _not_ driving out the demon (although it seemed at times to aggravate Pazuzu). Eventually only Karras’s self-sacrifice got rid of the demon – and this was not a “driving out”, but an invitation to “come into me (and I’ll take you out the window)”.
Secondly, neither the Catholic church nor the ritual itself claims to be able to drive out demons. Indeed, it is “the power of _Christ_ that compels” the demon – another point that flew over the head of the rather meagerly-gifted Dr. Graham. One senses a trace of the old Reformationist cavil in Graham’s remarks – he seemed to think that the Catholic ritual was one of those nasty Papist “works” – as opposed to the “pure” Reformationist ideal of “faith alone”.
Anyway, I’m happy to share any relevant Exorcist memories that ooze up from the murk of my senescent brain…
