The screenplay was by CharlesBennett and the film was directed by Jacques Tourneur.
A primary point of criticism and debate has been the showing of the demon off and on during the film, which was not part of Bennett's original script (which he had written two years' earlier, having purchased the rights to make a film of the story from James' estate), which was supported by Tourneur.
Producer Chester appears to have been the moving force in having the monster as an actual physical presence, though it is generally seen at a distance, in a fog.
Bennett's true genius was at story construction, and his scenarios were built on many devices now regarded as "Hitchcockian" - the 'MacGuffin', the double-chase, the charming villain, and the use of exotic locales woven dramatically into the plot.
With Bennett, Hitchcock's cinematic vision had come into clear focus, and he also charted the course which the most successful of his screenwriting collaborations would take.
Bennett and Hitchcock would meet each day until they completed a detailed treatment, of about 70 to 100 pages.
The director chose the play as the basis of his last silent film and first sound film (confusingly, the silent version was released second, for showing in cinemas that hadn't yet upgraded their projectors); it was adapted for the screen by Benn Levy and produced by British International Pictures.
Yet Bennett is quoted in Patrick McGilligan's 'Backstory: Interviews With Screenwriters of Hollywood's Golden Age' (1986) as saying he 'was under contract to British International from 1929 to 1930'.
Charles’ original notebooks, story drafts, and diaries are either in my possession, or are stored at the Margaret Herrick Library of The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Los Angeles.
April 26 - Stirling Silliphant, American screenwriter and producer (b.
May 11 - Rob Hall, New Zealand mountaineer (b.
May 15 - Charles B. Fulton, American judge (b.
en.wikipedia.org /wiki/1996 (4026 words)
metamovie.de - Night of the Demon/Curse of the Demon(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-24)
ScreenwriterCharlesBennett had been responsible for most of the British Hitchcock films; his intention had been to to direct the screenplay, then called "The Haunted", himself.
Cummins does have a thankless part and has no real chance to make an impression; though Bennett makes some efforts at characterisation, it's obvious that the character was created to give Andrews somebody to talk to, provide some romantic interest and to be abducted for the finale.
Either hints of deprivation were included in the original screenplay and later deleted, or Bennett saw fit to allow some cliches to creep in for the finale.) As for Andrews, I find him quite effective as a stuffy scientist.
Based upon a play by CharlesBennett (who was also responsible for the film's screenplay),
Bennett's commentary is invaluable, provided a fascinating insight into his work and his characters, as well as a generalized look at Hitchcock and the filmmaking process.
In comparison, Birnbaum's commentary, written by Laurent Bouzereau, which switches between focusing on the director and an ill-fated analysis of the film, is dry and fails to fully capture the listener's attention.
This is much like the sequence in "39 Steps" where the fugitive hero is mistaken for the speaker at the political rally and has to actually go to the podium and start speaking in order to throw off his pursuers.
Bennett and Hitchcock also must have concluded that they couldn't transform Tisdall into a hero if he remained a rather shopworn and ineffectual member of the upper class.
Instead, they make him a screenwriter who had met Christine Clay in America and was befriended by her because she wanted him to do a story for her.
DevraDoWrite(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-24)
In a process that lasted more than thirteen years, Clarke personally met and got to know all the main characters, except of course the two killers who were executed so he based his knowledge of them on the lengthy letters they wrote to Truman.
Clarke reports that he worked closely with screenwriter Dan Futterman, allowing him to use the letters to create dialog for the movie.
Bennett Miller, the film’s director, and Philip Seymour Hoffman, who plays Truman, peppered him with questions about Truman’s habits and gestures, and Hoffman studied audio tapes of his conversations with Capote to recreate Truman’s voice patterns and inflections.
(director: Alfred Hitchcock; screenwriter: from the novel The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad/Charles Bennett/Jesse Lasky/Ian Hay/Helen Simpson/E.V.H. Emmett.; cinematographer: Bernard Knowles; editor: Charles Frend; music: Louis Levy; cast: Sylvia Sydney (Mrs.
It was scripted by CharlesBennett among others and based on Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent; the film was retitled A Woman Alone in the US.
The reason for the title change was not to confuse it with Hitchcock's 1935 The Secret Agent.
www.sover.net /~ozus/sabotage.htm (1034 words)
Movie Database - tvguide.com(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-24)
Exceedingly eerie and suspenseful, CURSE OF THE DEMON succeeds brilliantly despite the ham-handed intervention of producer Hal E. Chester.
Used to working with Lewton, both screenwriterCharlesBennett and director Tourneur were shocked by Chester's insensitivity to the material.
The producer brazenly rewrote much of Bennett's script and forced Tourneur to insert shots of a smoke-breathing demon who makes his first appearance only five minutes into the movie!
Garfield lived out the summer with a fractured spine and seemed to be gaining strength until he caught a chill and died on September 19.
1882 Jun 30, Charles Guiteau the assassin of President Garfield was hanged in a Washington jail.
1882 Charles M. Bergstresser bankrolled a publishing venture with Charles Dow and Edward Jones and established the new agency known as the Customer’s Afternoon Letter.
March 1 - Charles Augustus Lindbergh III, the baby son of Anne Morrow Lindbergh and Charles Lindbergh is kidnapped
May 12 - Ten weeks after his abduction, the infant son of Charles Lindbergh is found dead in Hopewell, New Jersey just a few miles from the Lindbergh's home.
May 3 - Charles Fort, American researcher of the unusual (b.