STEPPENWOLF 1974

Price of Admission is Your Mind

I read Hermann Hesse’s Steppenwolf when I was 15-years-old. The year was 1972 and my family had moved across the Bay Bridge from San Francisco to Berkeley; a college town still so enmeshed in hippie-era philosophical exploration and the quest for spiritual enlightenment that Steppenwolf and Hesse’s Siddhartha were practically required-by-law reading in order to cross the border. Self-reflection of the sort encouraged by these novels was a big part of the appropriately-labeled “Me Decade,” novelist Tom Wolfe's name for the era of mass navel-gazing and spiritual introspection that coincided with my adolescence. 

For emotionally untethered teens such as I, adrift in a sea of inner conflicts and uncertain certainties (when our limited experience of the world tricks us into believing the truth of our feelings is truth itself), J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye was held up as the go-to novel of adolescent angst. Several of my classmates found something they could connect with in Holden Caulfield’s privileged-class bellyaching, but I came away with a strong dislike for the novel, finding nothing in it remotely relatable to me or my experience.

As was my custom in those days, I went to the local library to check out books I knew were adapted into films I was too young to see. In 1972 Siddhartha was made into a film whose provocative poster, R-rating, and arthouse cachet had captured my imagination. So, not knowing anything of the novel beforehand, I read the book and found the exotic chronicle of the trials and travails of its spiritually-disenchanted hero, if not exactly relatable, most certainly flattering to my Catholic School image of myself. My unexpected enthusiasm for Siddhartha led me to read Steppenwolf not long thereafter. And what a mind-blower that one turned out to be! At age 15, I won’t say I actually saw myself AS Harry Haller, the misanthropic and melancholy 49-year-old man/wolf protagonist of Hesse’s Jungian rumination on the dual nature of man...but I will say that I most certainly saw a great deal of myself IN Harry Haller.

Max von Sydow as Harry Haller

Dominique Sanda as Hermine

Pierre Clementi as Pablo

Carla Romanelli as Maria

Set in Basel, Switzerland in the 1920s, German author Harry Haller is the self-proclaimed Steppenwolf of the title. A bourgeois intellectual and pacifist suffering from gout, loneliness, and a lingering post-war malaise occasioning both his physical abandonment of his nationalist homeland and his spiritual dissociation from mankind. He is, both inside and out, a stranger in a strange land. A divorcé, Harry reads a great deal, drinks to excess, treats his pain with morphine, and spends entirely too much time living in his head. His soul longs for the peace and tranquility of self-realization--things he’s long-believed attainable by living the life of an intellectual ascetic--but due to an indistinct restiveness within, his searching only makes his isolation and self-estrangement more keenly felt.

This is in part due to Harry’s fault-finding dissatisfaction with the world around him. For he is a man who holds the achievements of the dead in high regard—the lofty spirituality in the compositions of Mozart, the idealist principles in the literature of Goethe—while disparaging the modern, jazz-age distractions of the day (automobiles, gramophones, dancing) as idle and worthless as those who pursue them.

The other side of Harry's discontent is rooted in his lifelong belief that he is preternaturally a subhuman creature separate and apart from others. A creature of contrasting dual personality…neither wholly a man nor fully a beast…that exists as a primitive animal masked by the thin veneer of a cultured human.

Harry’s conformist side—nurtured and validated by bourgeois society—is ever at war with his wild, rebellious side, a side that has been vigorously suppressed since childhood. All would be fine if Harry were content to walk the centrist tightrope preferred by his peers, but in finding himself emotionally drawn to the hedonist and intellectually drawn to the spiritualist; Harry is, within his soul, unable to make peace with his conflicting sybarite compulsions and pious sensibilities.

Tractate on The Steppenwolf
Czechoslovakian artist Jaroslav Bradac contributed surreal cutout
art and animation reminiscent of Terry Gilliam (Monty Python)

In much the same way that the depressed spirit longs for the release of sleep, Harry’s beleaguered soul has come to idealize the possibility of suicide. Unfortunately, the notion of irrevocable escape by his own hand (in his 50^th year, via “an accident while shaving”) only makes the pain of life easier to accept, not easier to endure.

Beset by dark, brooding feelings of dread, Harry aimlessly roams the desolate streets, seeking occasional solace on the stairs of neighbors’ homes—like an animal too wild to be allowed indoors, too domesticated to survive on its own in the wilds. In this middle world he sits, comforted by the clean steps, polished doors, perfumed window boxes, and warmth emanating from behind the closed doors; resigned to remaining alone and apart from the interactions of humans…a wolf residing on the steps...a Steppenwolf.

When it appears as though Harry has reached the point of seeing or feeling little else other than the pain of his own existence, spiritual deliverance materializes in the form of an enigmatic courtesan named Hermine. Hermine introduces him first to a razor (“You don’t have to use it, you know”); then an antithetical option to his thirst for rebellion (“Obedience is like sex: nothing like it if you’ve been without it too long”); culminating with a mocking castigation of his presumptuous world-weariness (“You’ve got a lot of nerve saying you’ve tasted life to the bottom and found nothing in it. You haven’t even found the easy, fun part yet!”).

Alfred Bailou as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 

Allowing himself to be taken under the wing of this mysterious stranger who knows more about him than he's ever dared explore within himself, Harry embarks—through means both medicinal and metaphysical—upon a trippy, existential Magical Mystery Tour of spiritual discovery and soul realignment. A journey back to the eternal "home" of the self where beckons the unification of the physical and the spiritual.

Helen Hesse, Hermann Hesse's granddaughter appears as Frau Hefte 

To recognize Steppenwolf as a film that clearly bears the stamp of the ‘70s is to be grateful that Hermann Hesse’s illusive philosophical tome was adapted in the era when cinema freely embraced its inner weird. Fred Haines’ directorial vision (he also penned the screenplay) manages to be every bit as structurally bizarre as its source material and makes no effort to simplify Hesse’s inscrutable prose or make the wordy speeches sound less pedagogic. Steppenwolf is a film inherently meditative and somber, but it is not without wit, it is extremely gentle with its characters, and ultimately, its message proves to be both optimistic and joyous.

It’s a boon to a film like this that the ‘70s were also a time when movies felt free to pace themselves; developing character and employing editing methods to manipulate the concept of time (in this instance, fractured and stream-of-consciousness) for dramatic effect. Lastly, the look of Steppenwolf—so in step with the nostalgia trends of the day—atmospherically evokes the look and feel of the 1920s in tableaus stylized and shimmering in one moment, dark and distorted the next. 

Not a film without its flaws, Steppenwolf is nonetheless a faithful adaptation true to the tone of a sometimes-difficult book.

Pablo, a jazz musician, bandleader, and drug dealer, appraises Harry: "He is very beautiful." 

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT THIS FILM 

Steppenwolf may have had the distinction of being a film adaptation of a classic 1927 novel written by a Nobel Prize-winning author, but in the pop-cultural zeitgeist of the ‘70s, it felt as though it was at least the 900^th movie released in the still-young decade about a nonconformist male in search of his true self.  With its emphasis on depicting the psychedelic states of mind-expansion, while exploring such then-popular counterculture themes as self-actualization (the EST movement was still in its infancy), spirituality, drug use, and free love; Steppenwolf at times feels like a film made a good four or five years earlier.

The first and only directing effort of screenwriter Fred Haines (Ulysses – 1967) and apparently a labor of love, Steppenwolf was released in December of 1974. And although I wanted to see it badly, in terms of publicity overload, Christmas '74 was so dominated in my mind by the debuts of both The Towering Inferno and The Godfather Part II, the modestly-budgeted Steppenwolf slipped past my radar. I didn't manage to see it until well after its initial run, practically waiting for it to fall into my lap when it was booked at the movie theater where I ushered on weekends. I wound up seeing it at least five times during its run.

A critic once observed that the character of Henry Haller seemed psychologically stalled at 14; the age he first caught sight of, but failed to speak to, his first love, Rosa Kreisler. I'm sure this was meant as a criticism of the perhaps superficial conflicts at the center of Haller's existential crisis. But it was an observation that explained (at last) why, at age 15, I found myself so completely relating to a character nearing his 50s. I was 17 when the film version was released, but no less overburdened with adolescent angst, so I was thrilled to discover Steppenwolf to be as affecting on the screen as it was on the page. Seeing it now, I know I feel much the same. I guess there's something elemental about the quest to find out who we are that changes very little, no matter what our age. 

Like Hesse’s Magic Theater itself, Steppenwolf is not for everyone. Full of bizarre images and curious rhythms, it’s a strange film in ways that suggest it is indeed intended "For Madmen Only." But there’s something so gentle about it…something so touching in its reaffirmation of the redemptive power of laughter and the importance of not taking life or oneself so seriously, that I found it to be an uncommonly engaging cinema experience. Steppenwolf didn't inspire in me my usual desire to forget myself and escape into a film's narrative; it encouraged me to constantly look for traces of myself in its characters and situations. 

Pablo and Hermine require Harry to confront and extinguish his
concept of personality before entering the Magic Theater 

PERFORMANCES

Possessed of a Mona Lisa smile and an ethereal sensuality, Dominique Sanda’s enigmatic beauty graced many a European arthouse film in the’70s (The Conformist, The Garden of the Finzi-Continis, 1900). Often cast as an unattainable dream girl or sphinxlike woman of mystery, the French-born actress has the gift of always looking as though she knows a great deal more than she’s willing to disclose. Steppenwolf was the first time I ever saw Sanda in a film, and in an instant, she won me over as the most ideal Hermine imaginable.

In a role requiring her to be more of an idea than a person, the actress’ years as a model prove an asset in bringing to Hermine a striking, vaguely androgynous bearing in her stillness (at times she resembles Mark Lester in Oliver!) that is at once open and yet impenetrable. Her intelligent, questioning eyes express wit and wisdom, her marvelous voice and sometimes unusual vocal inflections only contributing to her overall otherworldly allure. (Like a great many European films with international casts, Steppenwolf relies quite a bit on dubbing.)

As mesmerizing an entity as Dominique Sanda’s Hermine is for me (she has the same enlivening effect on me as she does Harry and the film in general), it is Max von Sydow’s agonized Steppenwolf who ultimately makes the film work. The Ingmar Bergman stalwart (11 films total) gives one of my favorite of his many outstanding screen performances as Hesse's alter-ego. Anyone reading Hesse’s novel is bound to picture Harry Haller differently, but I can’t think of an actor better suited to play the range of compulsions and conflicts raging war within Hesse’s straining-against-optimism hero.

Von Sydow, who was forty-four at the time, uses his rangy elegance and gentle, expressive eyes to create empathy for his character. A factor that prevents Haller’s internal and largely self-inflicted despair from ever coming across as self-centered.  

THE STUFF OF FANTASY

Steppenwolf did well in San Francisco where its then-vanguard imagery and visual effects made it a favorite of the college crowd (aka, young people who got stoned at the screenings). In addition to the many fantasy interludes and dream-logic lapses throughout the narrative (in one naturalistic scene a bicyclist is viewed moving in reverse in the background), the 15-minute Magic Theater sequence presents a surreal reinforcement of the philosophical themes of Hesse's novel pertaining to identity, the psyche, and the spirit.

Life's Options

The Metaphysical Struggle of Modern Man

The Fragments of Harry's Personality

THE STUFF OF DREAMS

When Steppenwolf (book and film) came into my life, I was every bit as rootless as Hesse's hero. Like a great many teenagers, I carried around an image of myself as being too smart and too sensitive for this world. Perceived by others as a kid who “kept to himself”; inside me, there wasn't actually much of a real “self” to keep to…being painfully shy, I merely felt isolated and apart. These feelings were intensified by my home life (the only boy in a household of women with a loving but old-fashioned dad); burgeoning self-awareness (onset puberty as a gay teen); my environment (a Black male in an all-white neighborhood); a spiritual crisis (a Catholic school kid, growing ever more disillusioned with organized religion); and the times in which I lived (I never knew a U.S. that wasn’t at war, and it was Nixon’s second term, to boot). 

Hermine introduces Harry to the joys of contemporary culture 

As a way of dealing with my shyness, I read a great deal, often gravitating to works by Black authors that fed my rage and abhorrence of injustice. Even more often I was caught off guard by the works of white authors who engaged in the erasure of my existence and/or experience. Out of instinct more than intent, films became my own personal Magic Theater of self-examination and discovery. A means by which my mind could be surrendered...all the better to explore what lay within my soul.

Like Hesse's Harry Haller, over time I learned to appreciate the aspects of my own nature (cerebral/emotional) that once felt at odds with the person I thought I wanted to be.

And it was then I discovered the frivolous joy of good/bad films. My life changed the moment I realized absolute truth and beauty could be found as authentically in the sight of Jane Fonda doing a zero-gravity striptease as could be found in the haunting image of a medieval knight playing chess with the specter of Death. It taught me that life is simultaneously sacred and profane, crass and astute, nightmarish and glorious...and none of it is to be taken too seriously.
Movies taught my adolescent self to lighten up, and in accord, open up. In the end, this is what saved me. Just as it did Harry Haller.

Learning to laugh with the Immortals

For Madmen Only

"As a body, everyone is alone. As a soul, never."

Copyright © Ken Anderson   2009 - 2019

THE EXORCIST 1973

I remember first becoming aware of William Peter Blatty’s novel, The Exorcist in 1971 when I saw an actress talking about it on The Merv Griffin Show. As hard as it is to imagine now, the average person in the '70s didn't know what an exorcist was, so Griffin initially (and perhaps intentionally) misheard the title and thought the actress was talking about a fitness book. Upon hearing what a terrifying read it was, coupled with the inevitable comparisons to that longtime fave of mine, Ira Levin’s Rosemary’s Baby – the most high-profile Devil vs. Catholicism novel to date – I went to the library and was put on a long waiting list to get The Exorcist.

Before the shot of Father Merrin standing under the streetlamp became an iconic touchstone, the image of an open bedroom window with the drapes blowing outward was the primary advertising image for The Exorcist

In 1971 I was just a freshman at Saint Mary’s Catholic High School in Berkeley, California. And while devout at the time, I wasn't quite the same religiously impressionable Catholic School kid who was traumatized by Rosemary’s Baby in 1968. As a novel, I thought The Exorcist revelled a little too much in detailing the grotesqueries of demonic possession for me to take it as the serious discourse on the eternal battle between Christian faith and evil its author purported it to be, but it did grab me as one of the singularly most gripping and harrowing horror novels I'd ever read. What a page-turner! It was scary, emotionally credible, and rooted in a theological world I was familiar with. I'd never read anything quite like it, and I couldn't put it down.
When the film adaptation of The Exorcist came out on the day after Christmas (!) in 1973—with much advance fanfare but very little in the way of actual "How are they going to make a movie of THAT book?" details—I was somehow successful in persuading my entire family to go to San Francisco's Northpoint Theater (where it played for six months...an unheard-of run today) to see it before news and reviews gave too much info away. After waiting in a reasonable-sized line to get in (the very last time lines would ever be that small for most of the film's run), my family and I all had the supreme pleasure of having the holy crap scared out of us in stereophonic sound. Seasons Greetings!

Ellen Bursty as Chris MacNeil

Linda Blair as Regan MacNeil

Max von Sydow as Father Lankester Merrin

Jason Miller as Damian Karras

Lee J. Cobb as Lt. William Kinderman

When we saw The Exorcist, Mike Oldfield’s eerie “Tubular Bells” theme was in heavy rotation on the radio under the title: The Theme from ‘The Exorcist, and advance word had it that people were passing out, vomiting, and being carried out of theaters in hysterics in reaction to the unprecedented horror of what transpired onscreen. Anticipation was so high and lines for the movie were so long that people were even passing out before getting into the theater. 

Where we lucked out is that we saw The Exorcist right away, while people were still away on Christmas holiday, before the film went into wide release, and before word-of-mouth spread and mass hysteria set in. Few people remember it, but The Exorcist was really the dark horse release of 1973. The really heavily anticipated films that Christmas season were Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman in the prison escape film Papillon; Clint Eastwood in Magnum Force, the sequel to the hugely popular Dirty Harry (1971); and The Sting - a comedy (and thus the most holiday-friendly release of those listed) which marked the much-anticipated re-teaming of Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid’s Paul Newman and Robert Redford. 

Jack MacGowran as Burke Dennings
The character actor, familiar to fans of Roman Polanski by his appearances in the films Cul-De-Sac and The Fearless Vampire Killers, died not long after completing work on The Exorcist. His death at age 54 (from flu-related complications) is often cited as part of the so-called The Exorcist Curse. Details about which can be found throughout the internet.

All the smart holiday boxoffice money was riding on the above three films. Each movie was a major release boasting the absolute top-ranking stars of their day, promoted with massive publicity campaigns and pre-sold audience interest. In addition, each film had a significant release date jump on The Exorcist (December 16th for Papillon, Christmas Day for The Sting and Magnum Force). The Sting, in particular, was blessed with the added advantage of having received largely positive reviews from the critics, and was shored up promotionally by the growing popularity of its theme music: Marvin Hamlisch’s jaunty adaptation of Scott Joplin’s “The Entertainer,” which became an instant MOR favorite on radio.
By way of contrast, The Exorcist was based on a popular and controversial bestseller, but featured a cast of actors whose names (if known at all) meant absolutely nothing at the boxoffice. In fact, author William Peter Blatty and Academy Award-winning director William Friedkin (The French Connection) were initially The Exorcist’s most exploitable commodities.

Kitty Winn as Sharon Spencer

The Exorcist was such a talked-about book that a great deal of interest surrounded its film release, but advance reviews of the film were poor to mixed, and few Hollywood oddsmakers had any confidence that holiday audiences would be in the mood to see a dark-themed horror film the day after Christmas. So, while most of San Francisco was lining up to swoon over Paul Newman’s blue eyes or see Clint Eastwood blowing bad guys away with his .45; my family and I got in to see The Exorcist with comparative ease. Lucky for us that we did. The Exorcist opened on a Wednesday, and by the weekend, it had grown into the must-see film of the season. Lines wound around the block and crowd control tactics had to be employed to deal with the overflow numbers. In the course of a few days, The Exorcist had become a cultural phenomenon.

Site of Where I Had the Holy Hell Scared Out of Me
The Exorcist opened at San Francisco's Northpoint Theater, located on the corner of Bay and Powell. Click HERE to see great documentary footage of theater patrons from 1973 reacting to seeing The Exorcist for the first time.

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT THIS FILM

Looking back on that first time seeing The Exorcist,  the memory that stands out the strongest is of the entire experience being so thrilling and emotional. There was just a feeling in the air that gave me the sense I was seeing something really special. A feeling more exciting than mere anticipation of the unknown; something deeper than being frightened, something more electric than my response to the film's ability to shock, unsettle, repulse, or take me by surprise.  It was the sense that I was being treated to a really different kind of film and being drawn into a reality calculated to get me to respond on a visceral level.
It was a thrilling, one-of-a-kind experience seeing The Exorcist for the first time. It generated for me the kind of excitement that makes you shiver in your seat and pull your coat up around your chin. You sit there with your eyes wide open, not wanting to miss a thing, and then every once in a while something would happen that would make your jaw fly open or cause you to cover your eyes. As one grows older, this type of total emotional immersion becomes harder to come by, but at age 16, I was just mature enough and just naïve enough for The Exorcist to give me the thrill ride of my life.

Home & Family and the Illusion of Safety
When I saw The Exorcist, I was still at the age where one still feels home and family is sufficient a blanket of security to keep harm at bay. The Exorcist, in detailing the banal normalcy of the lives of Chris and her daughter (juxtaposed with the barely-acknowledged tension of familial discord and divorce), shattered the illusion of home as sanctuary.

Religious Imagery
Even though, at age 16, I was starting to question all  I had been taught in years of Catholic School, the traditions of religion; its mythology and iconography, could still prove unsettling to me in a context as violent and anarchic as The Exorcist. 

Adult as Protector
In a teenager's world, adults are still the figures one looks to for strength and the reestablishment of order when things go wrong. The Exorcist, in showing a mother helpless to save her child in the face of an unnamed evil, hit a raw nerve with me. This cutaway shot of Chris reacting to the horror of Regan's possession just blew me away as a kid. Even today, this brief shot still stands as one of the most powerful images in the film for me.

Rev. William O'Malley as Father Joseph Dyer
Most of the teachers at my school were either priests or Catholic Brothers. A great many of them looked exactly like real-life priest William O'Malley. A fact that only went to further cement the disturbing verisimilitude within the fantasy that was The Exorcist.

Good vs Evil
I daresay that the disheartening state of the contemporary world is enough to challenge anyone's faith. But to be raised Catholic is to feel acutely the disparity between what one is taught to believe and what one encounters in the world. The visual excesses of The Exorcist have always felt like such a perfect dramatization of the inexplicable ugliness in the world that exists side-by-side with all that is beautiful. Though I'd hasten to label it poetic, I wouldn't hesitate for a minute to call it powerful (and occasionally moving).

Science vs. Religion
Today, I find the willful disavowal of science in favor of myth and ignorance to be fairly absurd, but in my youth, both Rosemary's Baby and (most explicitly) The Exorcist provocatively held forth on the possibility that science was perhaps no match for that which could not be explained. This point was driven agonizingly home when The Exorcist's scenes of medical science at work proved far more shocking and inhumane than anything the Devil was able to cook up.

PERFORMANCES

One benefit afforded me back in 1973 that’s denied most viewers of The Exorcist today, was my wholesale unfamiliarity with the film’s cast. Linda Blair and Jason Miller were, of course, making their film debuts, but outside of Lee J. Cobb, The Exorcist was the first time I’d ever seen Ellen Burstyn and Max von Sydow on the screen. The removal of that extra layer of subliminal artificiality—born of watching actors one knows from earlier films portraying entirely different characters—immeasurably enhanced The Exorcist’s verisimilitude and heightened its intensity for me. The actors were the characters they played. It's something you can't always count on or anticipate, but when a film asks an audience to accept fantastic events as realistic, it helps to eliminate as many reminders as possible that one is "watching a movie." In this instance, my ignorance contributed to my bliss.

Ellen Burstyn’s Oscar-nominated performance is a good example of why, even when making cheap horror films, it’s worth the expense and trouble to get good actors. Neither Damien Karras' crisis of faith nor Father Merrin's preordained encounter with the forces of evil engaged me as much as the gradual emotional disintegration of Chris MacNeil and her mounting desperation. Burstyn's incredibly committed performance has always been The Exorcist's emotional center for me, and it's precisely the kind of grounded realism she brings to her role that draws me into the film's events and gets me to believe in it. Even as the film's special effects begin to look quaint in this age of CGI, Burstyn's performance never gets old. Everyone in The Exorcist is terrific, but I have total confidence in my belief that the film wouldn't have worked at all without her. 

I've come to look kindlier upon Lee J. Cobb's ramshackle Lt. Kinderman over the years. When The Exorcist first came out, Peter Falk's Columbo was still on the air and Cobb's takes-forever-to-get-to-the-point detective seemed then like an imitation. 

When it comes to genre films, the most elaborate special effects in the world don’t amount to much when there is nothing human at the center of all that carnage and melodrama. Many a well-made horror film has been ruined by actors incapable of registering even the most rudimentary signs of fear, despair, anguish, or trauma…recognizable human reactions that raise the emotional stakes of the drama, helping the audience to become invested in the outcome.

THE STUFF OF FANTASY

No point in going on about The Exorcist's then-unprecedented shocks. Suffice it to say that I spent a great deal of the latter part of the film with my coat at the ready to shield my eyes; my little sister was reduced to tears, and a sizable portion of my popcorn went uneaten. There's been much written about what an emotional roller-coaster ride The Exorcist is, but few mention what a physical toll this movie takes. I remember my body being wound tighter than a mainspring every time a character approached that bedroom door. The sense of apprehension and dread I felt at every reveal of the degree of Linda Blair's possession was almost unbearable. And the sound! Was there ever a film with a more active and jarring soundtrack? Even when your eyes were closed the movie terrified you.

No one fainted or passed out during the screening I attended, but such screaming and yelping you never heard in your life. People leaving the theater had the look of folks who had just been rescued off of a sinking ship or something. Some were giddy and pleased with themselves for having survived, others looked drained and in need of physical support, and many were just stumbling out as if a daze. Me? I recall wobbly knees and teary eyes (It always makes me cry when Linda Blair kisses the clerical collar of Father Dyer). Was I grossed out? Yes! Was I entertained? Oh, but yes...it was wonderful!

The Exorcist author and screenwriter William Peter Blatty (r.) makes a cameo appearance.

THE STUFF OF DREAMS

The enduring legacy of The Exorcist disproves the popular belief held in 1973 among the film’s detractors who claimed that once the shock value of the gross-out effects were experienced, there was little of substance in the film for audiences to enjoy. On the contrary, my familiarity with the film’s shock effects has allowed me, over the ears, to grow ever more appreciative of what a superior example of filmmaking as storytelling The Exorcist really is. Whether one takes it seriously as the “theological thriller” it was intended to be, or, like me, merely enjoy it as one of the best horror movies ever made, The Exorcist is a bona fide, gold-plated classic of the first order. And I’m thrilled to have been around to experience The Exorcist cultural phenomenon first-hand. I’ll never forget it.

THE AUTOGRAPH FILES: 

Linda Blair
Met her in a L.A. supermarket and she was such a sweetie when I asked for an autograph. I commented on how she is one of my favorite screen criers, to which she replied "You've seen those movies,..believe me, it's heartfelt!" 

Copyright © Ken Anderson