Quote:From reading what he wrote about the story in his letters, I think that CAS intended "The Return of the Sorcerer" to be a bit over-the-top insofar as its gruesomeness was concerned [...]
I really didn't get the sense from what I read of CAS's comments on the tale in the
Selected Letters that he intended it to be "over-the-top" as in "campy"; rather, that he was reaching for a
ne plus ultra of gruesomeness. What makes the
Night Gallery adaptation so awful is not so much the handling of the "return"; that part really wasn't too badly done, especially given the standards for special effects at the time, and the realities of televison shows' budgets. Rather, for me, it's the campy behavior of the characters and their dialog: Price's over-acting, Billy Bixby, in general ("Look, man, I just happen be good at this Arabic thing, you dig?", or something atrocious to that effect), etc., that really mars the adaptation. We seem to agree that the interjection of '60's hippie jargon, though, was ruinous.
Quote:I wonder, though, if producer Jack Laird did not perhaps have Church of Satan leader (and Smith acquaintance) Anton Svander LaVey in mind when they filmed the story?
That's an interesting thought. LaVey himself was an embodiment of camp, so, if that were Laird's idea, then he could not have found a fitter model. Speaking of LaVey, I've always been curious as to how well CAS knew him, and whether he ever made private comments about him. LaVey, as I imagine you know, was a notorious liar, and was not above telling whoppers about his past, in particular. For that reason, I wonder whether the meeting commemorated in the photo with CAS and Robert Barbour Johnson was the only time LaVey spoke to CAS. I seem dimly to remember LaVey's saying somewhere that CAS's conversation was "very politically incorrect", which, despite the characterization's being a bit anachronistic, I would imagine to be true!
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 13 Apr 05 | 05:30PM by Kyberean.