Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Better Late Then Never

Absolutely Fantastic

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

Anyone who compares this film to Rosemary's Baby apparently never saw the latter. While RB is a great classic, this looks like a cheap movie-of-the-week, complete with a bad acting, a confusing plot, a loud, intrusive score, bad lighting, and a few naughty bits to entice customers in. There were good actors in this who did better movies and I'll bet few of them included this laughable turkey on their resume.

I enjoyed this and am pretty sure I have never seen it before. This is rather surprising given my interest in horror films particularly of the satanic bent but then this film seems to have suffered general neglect, probably due to several other and possibly better such films at this time. I liked the stylish opening credits and the Jerry Goldsmith score immediately and was similarly held throughout. Director, Paul Wendkos worked mainly for television and there are scenes here that have that rather flat, studio bound look. In the main though, helped especially by great performances from Jacqueline Bisset and Barbara Parkins, not forgetting a splendid central role from Curt Jurgens, this has a certain majesty about it. One is drawn in by a string of nasty and mysterious happenings and certainly my attention was held throughout. There was a promise all the time of a big satanic scene which never really happens but then there is the most wonderful and scary party scene that could have been longer as I don't think I have ever seen the like.

Featuring a compelling story line that conflates both transmigration and Satanic elements, a truly winning cast of attractive pros, expert direction and handsome production values, "The Mephisto Waltz" would be expected to have a greater popular renown; a horror film that should be more highly regarded than seems to be the case. I have seen it four times now, since its release in April 1971, and each time am impressed anew at what a literate and gripping horror gem it is. Hardly just a retread cousin of 1968's "Rosemary's Baby," although surely in debt to that Polanski masterpiece, the film, I feel, can proudly stand as one of the finest horror outings of the early '70s.In the film, we meet a very attractive and likable couple, the Clarksons. Myles (played by Alan Alda, here just 18 months away from his 11-year run on TV's "M*A*S*H") is a former pianist who now works as a musical journalist, while Paula (scrumptious Jacqueline Bisset) runs an antique and oddities shop near their L.A. home. When we first encounter the pair, Myles is overjoyed to learn that he has just landed an interview with the world's foremost classical pianist, Duncan Ely (imposingly played by German actor Curt Jurgens). At their initial meeting in Ely's palatial mansion, Ely is so impressed with Myles' hands, and his talented-amateur playing abilities, that he cannot resist showing him off to his daughter, Roxanne (beautiful Barbara Parkins, who many viewers will recall from the 1967 film "Valley of the Dolls," and who older baby boomers may remember from her role as "bad girl" Betty Anderson on TV's first prime-time soap opera, "Peyton Place," in which she played opposite future Rosemary Woodhouse herself, Mia Farrow). Ely--who is dying of leukemia, as it turns out--and his daughter latch themselves onto the Clarksons, to Myles' delight and Paula's increasing suspicion and discomfort. And as it happens, Paula has good reason to feel worried. What the Clarksons don't realize is that Duncan and Roxanne are Satanists--and incestuous lovers, to boot--and that Roxanne has the spells, the book, the masks, the ointment AND the Satanic contacts needed to place her dying father's soul into Myles' young body! And before long, Paula has even more cause for concern, as Myles' personality undergoes a drastic change, and his abilities at the piano start to develop at an alarming rate....As in "Rosemary's Baby," "The Mephisto Waltz" features a young wife whose husband has become compromised by his association with a Satanic couple; in both, that Satanic couple is initially seen as both innocuous and actually helpful; in both, the young wife gradually grows aware of the diabolic doings around her. The two films also share a decidedly trippy dream sequence, scenes in a doctor's office (the 1971 film features a doc played by William Windom, a far less sinister doctor than that played in "Rosemary's Baby" by Ralph Bellamy), several diabolic slayings, an ever-increasing quotient of paranoia, and an ending that can be seen as either upbeat or downbeat, depending on the viewer's perspective. The Polanski film is clearly the superior of the two--indeed, it is one of the finest and classiest horror outings ever made--but the latter film can still hold its head high next to its older, bigger brother. Stunningly directed with a remarkable amount of style by Paul Wendkos, "Mephisto" is consistently "freaky" throughout...perhaps even more so than the 1968 film. Wendkos, utilizing a constantly probing/revolving camera, unusual shooting angles, fish-eye lenses, smeared lenses, and reflected images in mirrors and other surfaces (such as Bisset seen simultaneously in a grandfather clock's pendulum and glass door), manages to engender a truly disorienting atmosphere. The film also dishes out several scenes--a psychedelic New Year's Eve party, that dream sequence, and the soul-transfer scene itself--that must have hugely appealed to the lysergically enhanced members of the theatrical audiences back when, to say the least! The use of bizarre background music--at times, almost coming off as musique concrete--only enhances the macabre goings-on on screen. The picture showcases some sumptuous sets (most especially in Duncan's home), and every one of the actors is excellent, especially--and perhaps surprisingly--Bisset, who manages to steal the film away from her fellows. Astonishingly gorgeous, she gives a highly convincing, intelligent, gutsy performance here, and really lets us feel the escalating paranoia that her character experiences. (The fact that Paula is twice mentioned as wearing Shalimar perfume only makes me like her more; that scent has always had a strange biochemical effect on me!) This viewer is an admitted sucker for the old mind/body switcheroo story line--I've long been a defender of the much-reviled final episode of "Star Trek," the one entitled "Turnabout Intruder," in which the spirit of Dr. Janice Lester takes over the body of Capt. Kirk--and the one on display in "The Mephisto Waltz," with its Satanic underpinnings, is a doozy. A classy horror outing in every way, the film holds up marvelously well, now more than 40+ years later, and is surely ripe for reappraisal. And really, the scene in which Paula squares off against Robin, the demon dog from Hell, is worth the price of admission alone....

"Rosemary's Baby" must have influenced a lot of films that were sucked into its wake, and this is one of them. A normal couple -- the beautiful wife, Jacqueline Bissett, the husband, Alan Alda, a not-quite-fulfilled professional pianist -- are invited to the home of a weird couple -- a mysterious Curt Jurgens who dresses all in black and is a little too friendly, his daughter the gorgeous Barbara Parkins who also dresses in black and ties her hair severely back and never smiles. They're pretty witchy already and we don't even know them.Jurgens is a virtuoso on the piano himself and takes a great interest in Alda's career. He dies of leukemia and leaves his estate to Alda and to his daughter. There are dream sequences. There are ALWAYS dream sequences in these kinds of movies. Or ARE they dreams? In "Rosemary's Baby," they were a mixture of dreams and half-awake fantasies. Here -- ditto. There is also a guy on the outside who wants to be helpful and pays the price that Maurice Evans paid in "Rosemary's Baby." I won't go on. Jurgens' soul is transferred by means of perfumes, pentagons, candles, and chants into the body of Alan Alda, who begins to make it with Barbara Parkins. That would make perfect sense, except that it means the soul of Jurgens is schtupping his own daughter and -- well, even then.... It still makes sense if you remember what Barbara Parkins looked like.On the other hand, it means that Alan Alda is ignoring the needs of his own wife, the supernal Jackie Bissett. Why can't he do both of them? The mind reels with possibilities.I see I'm kind of skipping over the plot but there's not much in it that will surprise you if you've seen "Rosemary's Baby." I don't mean to imply that everything is ripped of from that original template. Not at all. The ending -- in which a good person sacrifices his (or her) life for the salvation of another -- is ripped off from "The Exorcist." Oh, the TV guide says that there is "brief nudity." There is in fact brief nudity, but it's nice brief nudity.The musical score is freaky and disturbing -- dark, tumbling, jagged with dissonant chords that strike out of the murk like flashes of lightning -- enough to drive you mad. I kind of liked it. If you can have a Dance Macabre, why not a Mephisto Waltz? It's apt too. Faust sold his soul to Mephistopheles to have his wishes granted, and that's what Alan Alda does here, though, to be sure, in Alda's case he'd been subject to an enhanced pitch and the deal was signed while he was evidently asleep.