Witchfinder General (1968)

Sometimes it takes a show-business death to make one revisit a film. In this case, it's actress Hilary Dwyer aka Hilary Heath who died on earlier this month at age 75. The English actress had a cinematic stretch in the late 1960s and early 70s appearing in Two Gentlemen Sharing, The Oblong Box, The File of the Golden Glove, The Body Stealers, Cry of the Banshee and a 1970 version of Wuthering Heights with Timothy Datlon as Heathcliff. She would later become a producer with over a dozen credits including the films Criminal Law, An Awfully Big Adventure and Nil by Mouth.

After a handful of guest spots in British television in the mid-60s, she made her cinematic debut as Sara in 1968's Witchfinder General. Set in 17th century England, corrupt witch hunter Matthew Hopkins (Vincent Price) and his minion (Robert Russell) travel from village to village accusing people of witchcraft, interrogating, torturing and eventually financially collecting all in the name of God. This becomes a problem for gallant soldier Richard Marshall (Ian Ogilvy) when the preacher father (Rupert Davies) of his fiance (Dwyer) becomes a target of Hopkins.

Sad to report while it's a really good film, there's not much for Miss Dwyer to do. In these American International and similar studio pictures (Hammer, or in this case Tigon British Film Productions), she's required to scream and look good in and out of corsets. She also has the obligatory scene where she begs Hopkins for mercy on her father and will do anything to save him. Witchfinder General belongs to Vincent Price.

By the mid-1960s when Price appeared in several films "based" on the works of Edgar Allen Poe, he was beocming more known for parodying his screen villain image. Roles in the Dr. Goldfoot films and Egghead in the Batman television series gave Price a wider audience, a decent paycheck and very little challenge. Witchfinder General would be the start of the last great stretch of Price-driven thrillers, including the Dr. Phibes films, Theatre of Blood and Madhouse.

According to numerous reports, Price and director Michael Reeves did not get along during filming. Reeves wanted Donald Pleasance to play Hopkins, but the studio insisted on Price. Reeves often called Price out if he felt the actor was phoning it in. It did lead to one of Price's best performances, if not his best. Price even thought so after finally seeing the finished product in New York. He is especially nasty as Hopkins, verbally running roughshod over everyone, oozing righteous domination.

The scenes of torture, drownings, hangings and burnings still pack a punch, even a year after the stylized violence of Bonnie and Clyde. Reeves clashed with British censors, saying it was an anti-violent film, saying how evil is contagious. Some politicians called it the most violent film made in England (at that time). Plus a downer of an ending (Spoiler Alert on a film over a helf-century old) where yes, technically, revenge is served but the aftermath damns the survivors.

Director Reeves was 23 when he made Witchfinder General, his third full-length film after the Boris Karloff film The Sorcerers and The She Beast. He showed promise as a director, making the most on a limited budget. Reeves died in 1969 of an accidental overdose. Gorgeous countryside shots mixed with the early incarnation of hand-held shots, courtesy of John Coquillon, who would later work with Sam Peckinpah on Straw Dogs, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, Cross of Iron and The Osterman Weekend.

Shot in England for Tigon Pictures (remember The Blood on Satan's Claw and The Creeping Flesh?), Witchfinder was released in the United States by American International Pictures as The Conqueror Worm and included a voiceover of Price reading the Edgar Allen Poe poem, which had nothing to do with the film. Studio trickery by cashing in the Price/Poe films. Witchfinder General is more of a revenge western than a gothic film. Come for the pretty damsel in distress (again, salute to Hilary Dwyer and her career in front and behind the camera), stay for one of the Vincent Price's best performances and little budget film that still packs a punch... or a branding... or a hanging...

Matthew Socey is host of FILM SOCEYOLOGY for WFYI 90.1 FM in Indianapolis.