QUICK REVIEW: STRANGE GOINGS ON: HAMMER FILMS 'THE WITCHES' 'THE DEVIL'S OWN' (1967)

QUICK REVIEW: THE WITCHES / THE DEVIL'S OWN: HAMMER FILMS (1967)

CAST:

Joan Fontaine (Gwen Mayfield), Kay Walsh (Stephanie Bax), Alec McCowen (Alan Bax), Ingrid Brett (Linda Rigg), Martin Stephens (Ronnie Dowsett), Gwen Ffangcorn-Davies (Granny Rigg), John Collin (Dowsett), Leonard Rossiter (Dr Wallis), Michele Dotrice (Valerie Creek), Duncan Lamont (Bob Curd), Carmel McSharry (Mrs Dowsett), Ann Bell (Sally Benson)

 

PRODUCTION:

Director – Cyril Frankel, Screenplay – Nigel Kneale, Based on the Novel The Devil’s Own by Peter Curtis [Norah Lofts], Producer – Anthony Nelson Keys, Photography – Arthur Grant, Music – Richard Rodney Bennett, Musical Supervisor – Philip Martell, Makeup – George Partleton, Production Design – Bernard Robinson. Production Company – Seven Arts/Hammer Films. UK. 1966.

 

SYNOPSIS:

Recovering from a nervous breakdown after being attacked during a native uprising at a mission school in Africa, Gwen Mayfield accepts a job as teacher in the sleepy English country village of Heddaby. She finds strange things happening around the village. Two of her pupils, teenagers Linda Rigg and Ronnie Dowsett, are attracted to one another but everybody seeks to keep them apart. Ronnie then has a mysterious accident and Gwen afterwards finds a voodoo doll with pins poked into it. Her insistence on trying to dig into what is happening uncovers evidence that Ronnie’s accident and other deaths may be being caused by witchcraft.

 

GALLERY AND FULL REVIEW: HERE