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The Exorcist

“I’m telling you that that thing upstairs isn’t my daughter!"

The Exorcist is a 1973 American supernatural horror film directed by William Friedkin and written and produced by William Peter Blatty, based on his 1971 novel. Ellen Burstyn stars as Chris MacNeil, an actress whose twelve-year-old daughter Regan becomes possessed by the ancient demon Pazuzu; Jason Miller plays Father Damien Karras, a priest in crisis of faith called to investigate; Max von Sydow plays Father Lankester Merrin, the exorcist summoned to perform the ritual. Linda Blair, Lee J. Cobb, Kitty Winn, and Jack MacGowran round out the ensemble, with Mercedes McCambridge providing the demon’s voice uncredited. Distributed by Warner Bros., the film was the first horror film ever nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture and remains one of the defining films of American cinema. Andy Nelson and Pete Wright discuss the film on The Next Reel, a TruStory FM podcast now in its fifteenth season, as part of their Ellen Burstyn series.

The Film That Stopped Audiences Cold

Released on Boxing Day 1973, The Exorcist did something no horror film had done before: it sent people to the hospital. Audiences fainted. Some vomited. Cities attempted to ban it. Billy Graham preached against it from the pulpit. And still people lined up in the cold for sold-out screenings—partly because they were frightened, partly because they couldn’t believe it was real, and partly because what Friedkin and Blatty had made was simply unlike anything audiences had seen. By the time its original run ended, it had grossed nearly $200 million domestically on a $12 million budget, become the first horror film nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards, and won two Oscars: Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Sound. Join us—Pete Wright and Andy Nelson—as we continue the Ellen Burstyn series with The Exorcist.

A Mother’s Faith

Underneath the possession story, Pete and Andy argue, The Exorcist is about helplessness—specifically, the helplessness of a parent who cannot fix what is wrong with her child. Chris MacNeil is not a woman of faith; she puts her faith first in medicine, then in psychiatry, then finally in the Church, not because she believes but because she has run out of everything else. Burstyn carries that arc with complete commitment, and the campus scene where she finally breaks—having been told to go back to the doctors who sent her to the priests—lands as hard as anything in the film. Andy connects this directly to the previous episode in the series: Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore and The Exorcist are both films about mothers bearing impossible weight, and Burstyn makes both of them feel entirely real.

The Priest Who Changes

Jason Miller’s Father Karras is the film’s structural hero—the character whose arc the film has been building toward from its opening. A priest sent through medical school by the Church, Karras is in genuine crisis of faith, his belief eroded by education and cracked open by his mother’s death. The demon knows this and uses it against him. Pete and Andy spend real time on the hero’s journey underneath the horror: the mentor’s death, the restoration of faith in the moment when Chris asks him whether Regan is going to die, and the final act that is unambiguously a sacrifice—however some audiences and studio executives read it at the time. Miller was a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright before he was an actor, winning for That Championship Season, and Pete notes that the original Broadway cast of that play featured Richard Dysart—the subject of an early Next Reel interview worth tracking down.

Naturalism as Horror

The reason The Exorcist still works, Pete and Andy agree, is that Friedkin refused to let it look like horror. Owen Roizman’s cinematography is practical and clean—bright, overlit hospital rooms; dark, chiaroscuro bars; a possession sequence shot in refrigerated temperatures with no music and no cuts away from what the body is doing. The angiography sequence—the needle entering the neck, the blood shooting outward, the mother watching from the other side of the observation glass—is the hardest sequence in the film for Pete to watch, not because it is supernatural but because it is surgical and real. Andy traces Friedkin’s formal approach to a deliberate yin-yang: loud and bright for the horror, quiet and dark for the human moments. Both note that Roizman was doing the same thing around the same time in Network—bright studio lights for the mania, green-lit conference rooms for the quiet rot underneath—and that it is one of his most distinctive signatures as a cinematographer.

The Craft You Don’t Notice

Dick Smith’s makeup is the conversation’s other major craft discussion. The choice he and Friedkin made for Linda Blair’s deterioration—making it look self-inflicted, like untreated scratches with gangrene setting in, rather than a dramatic monster mask—keeps the little girl visible underneath the possession. You see Regan, not a creature, and that is a large part of why the film’s emotional stakes never collapse into pure spectacle. In contrast, Smith aged Max von Sydow thirty to forty years for Father Merrin—a transformation so complete that Pete’s brain still can’t square the von Sydow he loves in Intacto with the ancient priest he sees on screen. The sound design—sparse, deliberate, punctuated by sudden screaming out of near-silence—is the invisible architecture the whole film rests on. The music most people remember is Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells, used only in fragments from its twenty-five-minute opening movement; Friedkin assembled the rest from Oldfield and Krzysztof Penderecki. What he fired was Lalo Schifrin’s original score—which he hated so much he threw the recording across a parking lot when he walked out of the session.

Friedkin’s Methods

This is a film about extremity, made by a director who pursued extremity in every department. Friedkin refrigerated the exorcism set to temperatures that required crew to work in winter parkas while the actors performed in robes. A stunt rig yanked Burstyn backward so hard she landed on her coccyx and fractured it; Friedkin used the take. Blair’s harness was cutting into her skin during the bed-levitation sequences; her screaming to stop was real; he kept rolling. He fired a hidden gun near Jason Miller to jolt him into a reaction. And to get Mercedes McCambridge’s voice for the demon—after weeks of failed audio processing—he strapped her to a chair, made her restart smoking after she’d quit (three packs a day), had her drinking straight whiskey between takes, and fed her raw eggs. The performance she delivered, uncredited in the original release, may have cost Linda Blair her Oscar. That sequence of decisions, Andy argues, is the ends and the means of Friedkin’s entire directing philosophy, concentrated into a single session. His next film was Sorcerer, where he nearly killed his actors driving across a collapsing bridge. Both hosts agree: he crossed a line. The film exists because he crossed it.

Key Discussion Points

The two-version debate—1973 original vs. the 2000 Director’s Cut—covers three key additions: the spider walk (cut originally because wire effects showed; cleaned up for the rerelease but still slightly off, and still deeply disturbing), the Merrin/Karras theological exchange during the exorcism break, which Andy finds valuable and Pete finds take-it-or-leave-it, and the alternate ending with Kinderman and Father Dyer talking outside—added because Blatty felt some audiences read the original ending as the demon winning, a reading both Pete and Andy find baffling
Blatty’s background as a comedy writer: he wrote for Blake Edwards in the 1960s (A Shot in the Dark, What Did You Do in the War, Daddy?, and related material) and turned to The Exorcist when that comedy market dried up; Andy finds the pivot genuinely strange and admires what it produced
The research underneath the novel: Blatty corresponded with a former teacher—a Jesuit priest—to get details of the 1949 Roland Doe exorcism case that forms the basis of the story; the priest agreed to cooperate only if Blatty told it honestly; Andy argues that honesty is what stops the film from ever feeling like genre product
The medical establishment’s role: the film’s most interesting structural twist is that the doctors are the ones who eventually suggest Chris see a priest—not because they believe in possession, but because they’ve exhausted every other explanation; the Church, meanwhile, is the institution that is circumspect and reluctant; both hosts find that inversion brilliantly handled
Linda Blair at twelve: both hosts are troubled in retrospect by what Friedkin got her to do on screen—she later described the process as purely mechanical, that she didn’t understand the sexual content, that Regan was doing it and not her; Andy finds the compartmentalization astonishing; Pete notes that the moment you remember she’s thirteen, the film becomes harder to watch cleanly
Mercedes McCambridge’s uncredited work and Blair’s Oscar: when the demon’s voice was known not to be Blair’s, her frontrunner status for Best Supporting Actress evaporated; both hosts are uncertain whether McCambridge was the real reason or a convenient explanation for the Academy’s usual reluctance to award very young performers
Lee J. Cobb as Kinderman: gentle, slightly forgetful, never threatening—Blatty believed the character anticipated Columbo, a parallel Andy endorses; Cobb plays the interrogation scene with MacNeil in a way that keeps the law as witness rather than obstacle, which is exactly right for the film’s architecture; Andy has also wanted to cover the In Like Flint films and the Cobb connection there
The cultural shockwave: nine people associated with the production died during filming (not because of it, but the number was real and fed the narrative); a weekend set fire; subliminal single-frame devil images appearing throughout; Billy Graham’s condemnation from the pulpit; Andy recalls being told in junior high that if you saw the devil in the film, you would die
The Flickchart ranking: after Pete gives Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? the edge in the first session—requiring a complete redo—The Exorcist settles at #19 out of 162 on the combined list; Andy considers it a five-star film in either cut

Before You Watch

What is the Ellen Burstyn series on The Next Reel?

The Ellen Burstyn series traces a career defined by commitment to complex, woman-centered material—films she fought for, shaped from the inside, and delivered at the height of her craft. The series started in Season 4 and continues in Season 15 with Resurrection. The Exorcist is the second episode; the series begins with Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore.

What did Pete and Andy think of The Exorcist?

Both consider it one of the great films. Andy calls it a five-star experience in either version. Pete came in with typical distance from horror and found himself more engaged than expected—particularly with the theological and psychological architecture underneath the possession story. Neither host has ever read the ending as the demon winning. The conversation is enthusiastic throughout, with the Linda Blair section turning genuinely melancholy.

Should I watch the 1973 original or the 2000 Director’s Cut?

Pete watched the 2000 version; Andy knows both well. The additions are meaningful but not transformative—the Merrin/Karras theological exchange adds context; the spider walk is memorably disturbing; the alternate ending is the most contested addition and the one both hosts find most puzzling. Andy’s position: the 1973 cut is the tighter film, but the Merrin/Karras exchange is worth having. Either version qualifies.

Is The Exorcist actually scary?

Yes—but not in the way most horror is. The possession sequences are genuinely disturbing, but the hospital angiography sequence—shot with natural light and no music—is the one that gets Pete lightheaded every time. The film is frightening because it refuses to look like a horror film. What happens onscreen feels like it could be happening in a room you know.

The Ellen Burstyn series continues with Requiem for a Dream—another entry on the list of films Pete and Andy call genuinely terrifying, for entirely different reasons. Pete describes it as the film every parent should show their children to keep them off drugs, and immediately clarifies he isn’t actually advocating that. We have a great time talking about it, so check it out then tune in. The Next Reel on TruStory FM—when the movie ends, our conversation begins!

Episode Resources

Watch & Discover

Film Sundries

Cinderella – Trailer — Kenneth Branagh’s live-action Cinderella was Andy’s trailer of the week, recorded just before the film’s March 2015 release. Andy finds the animated original tedious but is cautiously optimistic—Cate Blanchett as the wicked stepmother strikes him as genuinely strong casting. Pete is not interested, and is very grateful his daughter has never been particularly interested in Cinderella.
X+Y – Trailer — Pete’s pick: Asa Butterfield and Rafe Spall in a film about a socially awkward teenage math prodigy finding confidence at the International Mathematics Olympiad. Pete loves the trailer and thinks this is a real stretch for Butterfield; Andy agrees and brings up Hugo as evidence that Butterfield can carry something special when the material meets him right.

What to Listen to Next

The Next Reel
- The Ellen Burstyn Series – The Next Reel — The full series: Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, The Exorcist, Requiem for a Dream, and the current-season addition, Resurrection.
- Requiem for a Dream – The Next Reel — Next in the Ellen Burstyn series. Pete’s description of it as the film every parent should show their children, delivered with immediate self-correction, is one of the episode’s better moments.
- Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore – The Next Reel — Previous in the Ellen Burstyn series: the Scorsese film Burstyn spent years building from scratch, and the one Andy argues is the closest companion to this one in her filmography.
- The French Connection – The Next Reel — Friedkin the year before The Exorcist, at the peak of his powers. The studio didn’t want him for The Exorcist; both hosts find that baffling given what he’d just delivered.
- William Friedkin – The Next Reel — All Next Reel episodes covering Friedkin’s work (and an intro to The Exorcist Minute)
- Network – The Next Reel — Owen Roizman’s cinematography is a thread Pete draws explicitly: the contrast of bright studio light and dark conference rooms in Network is the same formal instinct at work as the yin-yang of The Exorcist.
- The Sting – The Next Reel — The film that beat The Exorcist for Best Picture at the 1974 Academy Awards. Andy calls it another amazing film from that year, and means it.
- Stand By Me – The Next Reel — Andy brings up Rob Reiner’s difficulty casting child actors in demanding roles as a direct parallel to what Friedkin asked of Linda Blair—and what she somehow delivered.
- Intacto – The Next Reel — Pete invokes Max von Sydow in Intacto to illustrate just how complete Dick Smith’s age transformation was: the two versions of von Sydow feel like entirely different people.
Movies We Like
- Production Designer Roger Fires on The Exorcist – Movies We Like — A recent MWL conversation with the film’s production designer, going deep on the craft decisions that made The Exorcist‘s world feel so grounded and real.

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Episode Transcript

*This transcript is produced using transcription software and reviewed for quality. Despite our best efforts, some passages may be incomplete or contain errors due to audio quality or software limitations.*

Pete Wright:
But I could be I could be a hat guy.

Andy Nelson:
You could be.

Pete Wright:
The guy at the store said the guy at the store said, you know, the hat that you’re buying, we call that the gateway hat. I said, what do you mean by that? He says, well, I you know, once you buy one, I mean, you’ll be back. And his buddy’s standing there and he looks up. Oh, yeah.

You’ll be back.

Andy Nelson:
Wow. Now that’s a salesman.

Pete Wright:
Right? And they were and of course, it’s Portland. So they were hipsters. And so they had, you know, they were very classy in their hats, but that one of them had a ZZ Top beard, very cool beard. Is that cool?

Very hip. It was very hip. It was very Portland chic is what that was. Oh. But he took good care of me, man.

They took great care of me at this, hat store. I felt pretty good about it.

Andy Nelson:
I just picture him, like, you know, putting the hat on your head, looking at like, having you in front of a mirror and looking at you over your shoulder with his hands on on your shoulder saying, oh, yeah. You’ll be back.

Pete Wright:
That’s a, That’s not how it happened. They don’t actually touch you, but he did there was a lot of judging. Like, I could just feel there was a lot of head judging.

Andy Nelson:
Uh-huh.

Pete Wright:
And, you know, it’s things like this what they say. I don’t like the width of the brim there. Got a little bit of flare on the brim on that one. Like, my head was just not and it was never that the hat wasn’t right for my head. It really was that my head was not right for the hat.

Andy Nelson:
Wow. Okay.

Pete Wright:
You know, when you take your hats so seriously. I may be I may be at next time you see me, I may be in some sort of a fedora. Maybe.

Andy Nelson:
It’s pretty. Maybe.

Pete Wright:
Oh, stop.

Andy Nelson:
No. That’s fantastic.

Pete Wright:
Now you’re just jealous.

Andy Nelson:
It’s fantastic. I’m thrilled

Pete Wright:
hat. I’m gonna get you a hat.

Andy Nelson:
I’m thrilled my gateway? Yeah. You got me my gateway hat?

Pete Wright:
Did you do anything this, this week? Did you catch up on anything or just sleep?

Andy Nelson:
All I’ve done is sleep. I just woke up, as a matter of fact.

Pete Wright:
I, you know, I say we just get into it. What do you say?

Andy Nelson:
Let’s do it. Let’s just Let’s You know what? Let’s kick it.

Pete Wright:
Yeah. Let’s just do it. Kicking it. Let’s tell the people where we’re from.

Andy Nelson:
Where are we from?

Pete Wright:
Hey, everybody. It’s The Next Reel. Thank you so much for, hanging out with us. We spoil movies. I’m Pete Wright.

That over that over there is Andy Nelson. Hey. And soon I should say soon to be hat wearing Andy Nelson. And and we’re really, really excited to be hanging with you tonight. We are talking about a an old favorite tonight.

But before we dig into that, you should get to know us a little bit better. Head over to TheNextReel.com, and you can learn all about it and hear all of our past shows. You can subscribe to the show for free in iTunes or your podcatcher of choice. If you if you do go over to iTunes, if you are one of the iTunes, folks, we sure would appreciate your kind, five star reviews. Helps other people discover the show.

When they search for things like, hey. I wanna learn about movies in the iTunes store. They search for, hey. I wanna learn about movies. Hopefully, we’ll show up.

Andy Nelson:
But don’t get to Yeah.

Pete Wright:
It has to have it’s a it’s a team sport.

Andy Nelson:
And then they can hear us talk about hats.

Pete Wright:
That’s right. And so there, you know, we’re on Twitter. On Facebook. We’re on Google Plus and, of course, on the web. So you should hang out with us in any one of those noble places, and there you have it.

And now, Andy, it’s time for the Instagram hashtag pony prize hashtag standee versus the people hashtag this could be your lucky day hashtag million thousand dollars. What? How’d we do this week?

Andy Nelson:
Hopefully, it’s not a million thousand dollars prize. Wait a minute. I thought it was just a pony.

Pete Wright:
That’s next year’s prize. Look at that. We’re upping the odds. I love it. That’s a lie.

There’s never any money.

Andy Nelson:
We it’ll be pretend money. Monopoly money. Right?

Pete Wright:
I don’t even have that much Monopoly money.

Andy Nelson:
That’s a lot of Monopoly money. Really is. We need to illegally be printing Monopoly money, which really is

Pete Wright:
just sad. It’s counterfeit monopoly money. That is so that’s as sad as it gets.

Andy Nelson:
It really is. Well, it was a good week. I think, you know, Steven Smart, picked, some pretty solid images from the movie, which is Frank, a fairly recent film. And it took, it took, I think it was five images before, Cameron l Ryan came through and was able to figure out, that it was Frank indeed. So, yeah.

I think the Kraken was out there and, in full force. And this was a I mean, it’s an indie film, but, Michael Fassbender is in it. So it’s

Pete Wright:
you not seen it? It’s bananas.

Andy Nelson:
I haven’t. It’s one of those that’s on my list. I definitely want to because it just looks so strange.

Pete Wright:
Oh, it’s fantastic. It’s it’s bananas, but it’s, we did it as a I swear we did it as a trailer. Right? I think it was I think I brought this one up. It it was it was wonderful, and I love those images.

They look great.

Andy Nelson:
Yeah. They do look great. And it was a it was a fun week to see all a variety of guesses. I mean, there’s a lot of guesses all over the place. So, very fun to see what people are coming up with, and, congratulations, Cameron L.

Ryan. She has yet again entered to win the pony prize.

Pete Wright:
Dominate. Let’s do trailers. I will, hedge your face.

Andy Nelson:
Go first.

Pete Wright:
Oh, okay. Alright. You go first.

Andy Nelson:
I’m gonna go first because my trailer is, it’s almost like, the the, the gods above planned my trailer to be discussed with the film tonight.

Pete Wright:
Oh, yeah.

Andy Nelson:
I think so. Don’t you? It it just seems to be that way. Yeah. It’s a perfect fit.

You know, we’re talking about The Exorcist. And what better film to discuss than Kenneth Branagh’s new film, Cinderella?

Pete Wright:
It’s it’s, you know, it really is perfect pairing

Andy Nelson:
Yes. Movie

Pete Wright:
tonight. It really is. It really is.

Andy Nelson:
You know, I’ll be honest.

Pete Wright:
Tell me.

Andy Nelson:
Cinderella, the Disney animated classic. As much as I love Disney and I love Disney’s animated films, Cinderella is one of my least favorites. It’s Now

Pete Wright:
why is that? Why do you why do you hate on the Cinderella?

Andy Nelson:
The story it’s the story of in the film, I find very tedious. It’s it’s done in this, like, weird fifty fifty split between the story of Cinderella and, you know, having to, you know, deal with her horrible stepmother and stepsisters and wants to go meet the prince and all that sort of stuff. And it’s got the typical, you know, the story that involves this prince that is like, who is this guy? I don’t know. He falls in love with her, and you just but, you know, she’s got the perfect foot and all this stuff.

I don’t know. I don’t like any of that. But then the thing that really bugs me about the story is the fact that you spend, like, half of it following the mice and their exploits of helping Cinderella. And you’ve got the annoying cat that her stepmother owns, a cat named Lucifer. That’s always a bad idea to name your cat Lucifer.

Pete Wright:
So you see

Pete Wright:
that see that one coming.

Andy Nelson:
Yeah. And I don’t know. I just I get so tired of that element of the story, and I feel like it’s just Tom and Jerry antics for half of it. So this, Kenneth Branagh version proves to be, a very similar story to that version. It’s got all of the same elements, including the cutesy little

Pete Wright:
High fiving mice?

Andy Nelson:
Yeah. The little high fiving mice, and the mice get turned into the, the horse for the carriage and all that. So, yes, I have a lot of concerns about that. But I am I’m hoping that because it’s kind of gonna be done with modern storytelling style, it’s got Kenneth Branagh at the helm. I’m hoping that that’s a plus.

And, you know, it’s got people in the cast that I like, including the lovely Kate Blanchett as as the wicked stepmother, which I you know, I mean, that to me is really solid casting. I think that I she does such a great job of being so nice in films that I’m kind of excited to see her be a horrible mean stepmother. I think that’s kind of a fun twist. And Helena Bonacarta, you know, she’s she is who she is. And sometimes she annoys me, sometimes she’s great.

This might be one that I like her in. But then I’m I’m kind of oddly most excited about prince charming, which is strange to me, but it’s Richard Madden, aka Rob Stark.

Pete Wright:
Mm-hmm..

Andy Nelson:
Playing, playing him. And, you know, it’s just nice to see him back in there doing something, like this. So, yeah, I don’t know what to expect. I know my daughter is excited to see it. I’m gonna give this one a shot and hope that it does more for me than the animated version does.

Pete Wright:
I hear your skepticism, and I don’t even think my interest raises up to that. I really I mean, I saw the trailer. I was like, is it just looks like another, you know, interpretation of a, oh my goodness. Isn’t it fantastic when the hard luck girl gets pretty and gets the boy? Like, that’s just not a story that I’m interested in.

My daughter has never been interested in it, and I’m just very thankful in that. And and let let’s not forget that the last Kenneth Branagh thing was I know. Jack Ryan’s shadow recruit. Like

Andy Nelson:
Oh, I know.

Pete Wright:
You know, there there there were some issues with that.

Andy Nelson:
I’m pretending that one didn’t happen, but I’m I’m you know, he’s done stuff I really enjoy, but I’m really like, come on. I

Pete Wright:
I feel like What would you give it? Yeah. Fifty fifty? I his Shakespeare stuff, I like. Dead Again, I liked.

You know, Thor I liked Thor. Was Thor was good. Yeah. But there’s a lot of stuff he’s done that I just don’t like. Well Even some of his Shakespeare stuff.

Andy Nelson:
Haven’t seen all of it. I mean, he’s done so much.

Pete Wright:
Love, labor’s lost and, you know, it’s not I did not like that one. Hamlet was good. Frankenstein?

Andy Nelson:
I actually liked Frankenstein. Don’t

Pete Wright:
hang on. Don’t be dissin’ on Frankenstein. Oh. I’m just I’m just saying I have this I’m not hot for this one.

Andy Nelson:
I’m saying my my expectations are low with this one. All I’m saying is that I’m hoping that there’s something there’s a glimmer of, hope that this one will be other than what, the other one is. Because I mean, Drew Barrymore did ever after a Cinderella story ten years ago or so. Yeah. And and my wife and I actually really enjoyed that one.

It was a it was a much more, I mean, quote unquote, realistic version of the Cinderella story. But I liked it a lot better than any of the

Pete Wright:
other Cinderella

Andy Nelson:
stories I’ve seen.

Pete Wright:
Alright. That’s fair. Yeah. That was it. That one was that was cute.

And maybe I’m just in a different place now, especially with that horrible Barbie. I can be a computer engineer thing floating around. Have you seen that horrible piece of tripe?

Andy Nelson:
I saw your post. I never had time to look at it.

Pete Wright:
Well, it’s awful. Yeah. My other laptop’s a boy. It’s just like there is so many countless countless ways that is not an appropriate message for today. That’s all for saying.

Andy Nelson:
Right.

Pete Wright:
So I so anyway, good. Well, I you know, this this one of those things where I’m glad that you’re you are there and your life exists to serve as a warning to others.

Andy Nelson:
So you can Right. That’s right. See

Pete Wright:
this one first.

Andy Nelson:
We’ll see how it goes come next March when it opens. Yes. Yes.

Pete Wright:
But mine is you know, I don’t know. I I’m excited about mine. I it’s this gives me a warm fuzzy feeling, and it’s about math. And those two things don’t usually go together.

Andy Nelson:
Math and fun.

Pete Wright:
Mine is x plus y. Asa Butterfield and Rafe Spall star in this film, about a socially awkward teenage math prodigy, gains new confidence and friendships when he hits the, British squad at the International Mathematics Olympiad. And I just I really love the trail of this. I the trailer for this, I feel like, Ace of Butter Ace of Butterfield looks like this much more of a stretch role for him than Ender’s Game, and I enjoyed his his, you know, his part was fun in Ender’s Game, but but this, this looks like a media role for him. He’s a young actor that I’m excited to see grow, and, and this looks like one of those, one of those parts that that, feels like there are a lot of flaming hoops to jump through, to deliver a good performance.

I look forward to seeing him try.

Andy Nelson:
Yeah. I agree. I, it has all the right pieces in it, and I hope that I hope that he pulls it off. Mean, I Ace has done a lot of great stuff, you know, so far. I really enjoyed Hugo.

Pete Wright:
You know, that’s a real I had forgotten about Hugo. That was that was a terrific performance from him. That was great.

Andy Nelson:
Yeah. And and even though I wasn’t crazy about the film, I thought he was good in The Boy in the Striped Pajamas.

Pete Wright:
Mm-hmm..

Andy Nelson:
And and then, I, you know, I mean, I will say the Nanny McPhee movies, we, you know, as a family, they the kids really enjoyed Nanny McPhee Returns. So

Pete Wright:
Yeah. We haven’t seen any of those.

Andy Nelson:
Yeah. It’s it’s definitely my kid’s age. Probably not yours. But, you know, I think Ace has got a great, presence as a young a young person. And, this one looks like you’re I think you’re right.

I mean, it looks like he’s kind of, branching out a little bit, doing something new. So, yeah, excited about this one.

Pete Wright:
And I think it, I think it hits in March. March 2015 so it’s, you know we got a couple of months but it looks like it’s gonna be a lot of fun.

Andy Nelson:
Maybe this and Cinderella will go head to head.

Pete Wright:
Well, I look forward to that.

Andy Nelson:
That’s right. That’s right.

Pete Wright:
Alright, Andy.

Pete Wright:
Why you do this why you do this to me, PD? Why why you do this to me?

Pete Wright:
You’re gonna die up there.

Pete Wright:
Somewhere between science and superstition, there is another world. The world of darkness. Nobody expected it.

Pete Wright:
Nobody

Pete Wright:
believed it, And nothing could stop it. There are no experts. You probably know as much about possession as most priests. Look, your daughter doesn’t say she’s a demon, she says she’s the devil himself. I’m telling you that thing upstairs isn’t my daughter.

Now I want you to tell

Pete Wright:
me that you know for a fact that there’s nothing wrong with my daughter except in her mind. You tell me you know for a fact that an exorcism wouldn’t do any good. You tell me that.

Pete Wright:
The one hope, the only hope, The Exorcist.

Pete Wright:
The Exorcist, Andy. 1973. Directed by William Friedkin, written by William Peter Blatty, based on his own novel. Stars Ellen Burstyn and Max von Sydow, but really who why do we care about either of them? This movie is about Linda Blair.

And, holy smokes. The original, of the original, really sets the tone for many, horror films to come. How when was the last time you you’ve seen this movie before this week? Do you watch is this a shelf movie for you? Do you watch this often?

Andy Nelson:
It’s it’s been a shelf movie off and on, but it hasn’t been recently. It’s probably been three years, three or four years.

Pete Wright:
It’s been well longer for me because, as you know, I don’t, I don’t tend to watch the horror

Andy Nelson:
Right.

Pete Wright:
All that often. But this one this one is different. I found myself really into it this time around. I really enjoyed my experience with this film, and I think it was well, we can talk about kind of get into it. But I think, generally, it was because of the way the film, is it really exists at this nexus between, a complicated family life, work life, and this event that is horrific, but it is not put together, in in my view as just another serialized horror bit.

You know, there there’s so much more meat to the relationships, and the depth of the relationship that are are you know, the religious protagonists in this film end up dealing with their their own belief systems, and I find that really compelling. And not to mention, of course, the performances by, Linda Blair and Ellen Burstyn. It’s amazing.

Andy Nelson:
By by everyone, really. I mean, the really, for me, taps into I mentioned it last week, the whole feel of, kind of just the turn that cinema had taken in the seventies where it had this very realistic kind of tone through through it. And and Friedkin, you know, he that was one reason that when the studio was talking to Blatty about the director in the process of negotiating the deal for the contract to to buy the rights to the book. He said he really wanted Friedkin and there was a lot of back and forth as far as who was going to direct it and they, you know, they put together a list of directors they agreed on. The studio did not want Friedkin.

They wanted a bunch of other people like Stanley Kubrick and and, just a bunch of other names. I believe they’re pushing for Mark Rydell, and he really wanted Friedkin. And and all the other names passed, they were going to offer it to Mark Rydell and, and he kind of, put his foot down and said that they couldn’t have it, basically, unless it was Friedkin. So they the studio reluctantly went to Friedkin, which, I mean, coming off The French Connection, I don’t know what what their hesitation would have been because I thought French Connection, we we love that

Pete Wright:
movie. We love that movie. He was at the top of his game.

Andy Nelson:
Yeah. Absolutely. And and it really, has a great sense of that reality in that film. And I think he was able to take Blatty’s story and keep that sense of grounding in this story as well. And that’s something, I mean, he Friedkins even said when he first got the script, when when Blatty first adapted it, he was really trying to pull a lot of cinematic tricks because he was compressing time and all that.

And it just and put a lot of stuff into it that was turning it into something that it shouldn’t have been. It was taking it and turning it into something that felt a lot more silly. And so Friedkin really worked with him to bring the tone back from all of that kind of the antics and everything, and focus on just the essence of the story. And I think this a whichever version you watch, the original version or the version that you’ve never seen that came out, in 2000. Either one, I think is a just a, you know, five star horror experience for me.

Pete Wright:
You know, I what is the you wanna walk through the difference between the differences between the, the film? And what is substantively different about the 2000 rerelease?

Andy Nelson:
You know, the 2000 rerelease I mean, there’s some little things here and there, like it opens, it actually has a couple shots, in Georgetown, a shot of the house, a shot of the, statue the of Mary that gets desecrated later on before it cuts to Iraq. You know, it has some small changes like that, but there’s a lot more of Reagan’s medical tests when she’s going through that. And then the the big change the three big changes that I would say. One that everybody talks about is the spider walk, and it’s a it’s it’s, think it’s right after they find out that Burke, is dead.

Pete Wright:
And she comes downstairs.

Andy Nelson:
She crawls down the stairs like a spider, and, it freaks everybody out. And it’s a it’s a very terrifying moment, And my understanding is that Friedkin cut it at the time because he felt like the effect didn’t look right, like you could see the wires and stuff. And I don’t doesn’t look right.

Pete Wright:
It looks weird. Because she’s upside down and backwards too, and it’s really kind of horrifying.

Andy Nelson:
Yeah. It’s and it’s a contortionist that they hired to actually do that. So I guess You

Pete Wright:
can just see her. You can see her hands kind of not making contact with the stairs in one of the one of the tracking shots. Yeah. And so I can see that happen.

Andy Nelson:
Yeah. So it’s just one of those things. And they cleaned up the wires obviously for the 2,000. But it still looks a little funky, but I don’t know. It’s still creepy.

It’s still one of those things that you just don’t want to look at because it is kind of terrifying. The other, two let’s see. The the other one is, there’s a moment between Karras and Merrin, when they’re having a kind of a break in the in the exorcism where they’re talking, and Karras asks him why the demon would be doing this. And and Merrin kind of explains his reason as to why he thinks the demon would be doing this. How it’s just it’s, you know, it’s just to take away the sense of humanity.

I can’t remember exactly what it is that Merrin says, but it’s kind of just to make us feel, less hope for the for humanity, something like that. Right. Which I think is a very key conversation. I think it works fine without that, but I do like having that in there because it’s like a moment where we get to acknowledge the this this, kind of question that we all have about why is this happening in the first place. And then the ending, I think, the last bit.

And you’ve got a moment where where Chris, Ellen Burstyn’s character, gives father Dyer this this pendant that had belonged to, Father Karras. And then in the original, then they drive away. In the 2,000 version, he then gives it back to her. And so it’s an interesting little I am not quite sure why they cut that because I actually like him giving it back to her, like, keep this talisman sort of moment. And then the scene continues in the in the 2,000 version where Kinderman, the police detective who’s investigating this this whole case, ends up having this conversation with Dyer outside of the house about movies and kinda it’s like this Casablanca ending.

And and that’s an interesting ending, a bit of contention between Blatty and Friedkin because Friedkin felt that he ended it where it should have ended. And he he added this back in because I think people just kind of wanted to have that in there. But but if you hear Blatty talk about it, he felt that the original ending from 73 made people feel like the devil won. And I don’t understand that, but apparently, some people thought that the demon, when it took over Father Karras is the one who threw Karras out the window, killing him. And I have never seen it that way, and that’s not how, this that’s according to the story, that’s not how it goes.

But that’s, what people kind of thought and felt that the that the devil won, and they felt that it was a very downer ending. And so Blatty liked having this other ending between these two guys just to kind of give it a sense of uplifting, feeling again that, you know, the the devil didn’t necessarily win.

Pete Wright:
Yeah. That feels a little bit weird to me. I mean, I never saw that even in the first you know, and I haven’t seen the original in a long time. The the rerelease is all I have. But I’ve never I also have never interpreted it that way.

Like, this was this was a this was a sacrificial ending. It was very clear to me that that, Karras Karras gained brief dominance and sacrificed himself for the good.

Andy Nelson:
Exactly. And I guess, I mean, maybe it was something of the time because this movie really struck people at the time. It was very, intense as far as the reactions that it got out of people because of the intense, just fright that they had of this possession that felt so realistic of, just I mean, everything for the medical stuff. I mean, that test where they stick the needle up into her carotid artery artery and all that. I mean, there’s just some horrifying stuff that caused people serious fright and people fainting and throwing up in the theaters and all that sort of stuff that you don’t really hear about anymore.

Just super horrific. And, I mean, even the head of Warner Brothers, when Blatty was talking to him, he thought that, the demon threw the guy out the window. And I think maybe at the time because people were so invested in this intense, film and that they hadn’t seen this sort of thing before. Maybe they just kind of missed it because it was so new for the time and it was just too intense for them to catch that. I don’t know.

But for me, it’s always been perfectly clear.

Pete Wright:
Yeah. It it has to me too. I think, you know, it’s an interesting point when you think about what makes this film scary, and I’m gonna I wanna pivot a little bit because I feel like you introduced it. To to talk just a bit about Owen Roizman and, and the cinematography of this film, particularly because I think the style is, it’s really clean and very simple. Right?

I mean, there it’s it’s very practical, and it is that practicality, that simplicity is really showcased in, think, one of the most terrifying sequences in the film, which is the angiography in in the hospital. It is and I don’t remember. I can’t you know, this the sequence in the rerelease, I get I gather is longer. Yeah. But they have a, you know, a bona fide radiographer.

Right? Is that what they’re called? Radiographer?

Andy Nelson:
I don’t know.

Pete Wright:
Anyway Angiographer. It’s a it’s a it’s a part of part of the field of radiography?

Andy Nelson:
Yeah. Know.

Pete Wright:
Anyway, so it’s a thing. And they have Linda Blair on this, on this on the table, and you’re right. They stick the needle inside of her, and they they it is so clean and so sterile and shot so practically with no music. The only sound you get is the sound of that sort of hollow room. It’s all natural light in the, you know, shot with hospital light.

And when they stick the needle in and the blood comes shooting out, it shoots out six feet from her neck. Right? And and that sequence is, for me, the most difficult sequence to watch. It’s the sequence that causes me to to get a little lightheaded. Like, it’s it’s really horrifying.

And that that’s I’m not the only person I know who feels that way about this movie. Everything else you can kind of you can kind of move through, but that’s the part that feels like it touches home the most. It is a real, you know, little girl sitting on this thing, and her mother is on the other side of the observation glass, not even in the room with her watching this go through her, watching the medical system inflict horror upon her, to attempt to discover what’s wrong with her. And we already know that what’s wrong with her cannot be satisfied by a medical, intervention at this point. And I think that is such a strong point in the right in the middle of the film that that, you know, it’s it’s horrible.

Andy Nelson:
Well, I mean, it’s all about beliefs. Right? Mm-hmm.. And and it’s it’s this story about this mother who has to, kind of just she doesn’t have any experience in handling this. So she has to find faith in in various people that she can, you know, quote unquote count on to fix her little girl.

And as a person who’s not necessarily one of faith, you know, she’s initially puts her faith in all these doctors. And it just gets more and more horrifying as it goes on. And it’s very frightening, the stuff that they do to this little girl in the hopes of finding this, you know, whether it’s a brain lesion Right. Or whatever it is. And I I think you’re absolutely right.

The way that Roizman and, and Friedkin chose to to shoot these scenes. It’s it’s so sterile and unrelenting in the way that it’s set up and we don’t get to cut away when that needle goes into the neck and all that sort of stuff. It’s it’s really brutal. Even though it’s all, you know, obviously, Hollywood tricks to make it look that way, but it just doesn’t feel like there’s any tricks going on. It feels like we’re watching this this horrible test done on this little girl, and it’s it’s just frightening.

Pete Wright:
It it is. It’s it’s really frightening. And I think that style that you know, he sets that style, and it carries through the other major set pieces, certainly in her room, you know, which is a major set piece for the for the film that what they what they capture in the room is is, you know, it it’s a it’s a base kind of little girl’s room, and it’s not even a terribly full room because it’s not their, you know, they’re they’re on location. Right? They’re shooting a film.

And so that’s not their home. It’s their it’s like a temporary home. And and it really feels kind of kind of like like that, like they’re they’re squatting in somebody else’s residence. But once you get in that room and things start flying around, you know, it it feels like we’re in it to me. It feels really constrained and really, natural.

Andy Nelson:
Well and, you know, there’s a great balance of the, of the look and even the sound of this film that Friedkin Oh, yeah. Is really pushing for with Roizman and then also his team of sound engineers. But the, the idea of what he wanted was to find this balance. It it almost like this constant yin yang of really bright scenes and then really dark scenes and really loud scenes and really soft scenes. And he was always looking for that.

And I think you’ll see that and because you’ll have these really bright scenes like all of the stuff in the medical lab and even some of the scenes, during the exorcism. But then you also balance that with these just really dark scenes like this beautiful scene where, where Karras is sitting in a bar talking to, another of the, the priests, like the head of the university, I think, about how he’s losing his faith. And it’s this, you know, this amazing Gordon Willis godfather dark chiaroscuro sort of lighting. And you just get these faces kind of coming out of the shadows. And it’s just it’s beautiful and it’s haunting and it’s frightening.

And and there’s that great there’s a great balance in the film of the different lighting styles going on. But I find it really interesting how they, for the most part, seem to keep the horrific stuff to be the brighter stuff. You know, that’s that’s the stuff that’s it’s it’s like they’re not letting it hide in the shadows. They’re really kind of keeping it, out exposed. And by by exposing it, I think that lends to the horror because it forces us to to join in this psychological battle of good and evil that they’re facing.

Pete Wright:
Absolutely. And, you know, speaking of lighting, think we’d be remiss if we didn’t just call attention to the fact that we’ve already had talked quite favorably about Roizman’s work in network. And I couldn’t help but think connection. Well, and French connection, obviously, which came right before this, for him. But but I couldn’t help but think of the masterful use of light and the contrast of light, you know, in in network as well, which I think is another, example of really playing with the brights and the darks.

And and there, you get the bright, bright studio lights in network and and, you know, the biggest rants happen under those studio lights and then the darkness and the green light of the conference room. And so, you know, he just clearly is a is a cinematographer that has a real flair for, for manipulating light and doing great things with natural light. Yeah. So

Andy Nelson:
Yeah. Absolutely. He does a great job working in this with, with Friedkin.

Pete Wright:
Yeah. Makeup too, I think, is know, there’s a sort of a parallel angle on makeup here, and particularly for Linda Blair. Her makeup as she descends into the more possessed role, is it I remember it as much more garish than it is. Yeah. My memory of it is really horrible, but, really, it’s it’s very natural.

Like, you see under this little girl or under this horrific devil kind of, you know, scarred face, you see the little girl underneath there, and I think that’s a, you know, that’s a an extremely intentional, you know, choice, right, to to make her, you know, between William A. Farley and Dick Smith, Dick Smith in particular, to make her look like a, you know, a little girl, a 12 year old girl who is you know, and not put just a horrible mask on her that makes it look, you know, like she’s not who she is anymore. I think it it allows you to kind of see the human inside that she’s just injured. She is fundamentally, you know, sort of degraded, but she’s still herself in there. And I think it further builds that emotional connection. And in contrast, the incredible eerie transformation of Max Von Saito to from young Max von Sydow at this this period in the early seventies to, you know, Max von Sydow old.

That was crazy.

Andy Nelson:
Yeah. He I don’t think I ever realized how much makeup they had applied to him, because he’s just one of those actors who’s always seemed

Pete Wright:
just He’s always been that old.

Andy Nelson:
He’s always that old guy. Yeah. But, he’s yeah. They I mean, they aged him, like, thirty or forty years to, to be in his, like, seventies. It’s what they wanted the character to be.

Pete Wright:
I just can’t like, really wrap your head around that. Like, imagine imagine what it’s like to be Max von Sydow. Right?

Andy Nelson:
I know.

Pete Wright:
To, like, be what was the movie we like so much with the Spanish with the bug you want? Intacto. Intacto. Okay. So imagine you’re Intacto, Max von Sydow, and you go back and you watch The Exorcist Max von Sydow.

What are you saying? You’re saying, like, how did they know?

Andy Nelson:
Right. Right.

Pete Wright:
How did they know that this would be me? That was so good. Yeah.

Andy Nelson:
They do a great job. Dick Smith really just excelled at the makeup effects in this. And Max just I mean, he really pulls it off playing this this old old priest. And He was

Pete Wright:
he was born to be old. That guy was born to be old. Everything between then and old was just farce. Now, I’m yeah.

Andy Nelson:
But he’s, yeah. It it, it works really well. And and, and like you were saying with, with, the little girl with Linda Blair also, I mean, it always was done in kind of that realistic style. And if you look at some of the makeup tests that they had done, I mean, they had really done some tests of much more garish over the top makeup. And, again, going back to this whole idea of this this realism with the story, Friedkin was really trying to find a way to make it much more realistic and they tapped into this idea of let’s make it look like her wounds are all kind of self inflicted.

So it’s like scratches on her face that maybe some gangrene is starting to set in and stuff like that because nothing’s getting treated. And so as time progresses, she gets worse and worse. And just is horrifying. And that balanced with, Max’s makeup. I mean, it’s just to me, it’s just, you know, a stellar example of really solid makeup effects in in cinema where you’ve got great kind of the horror makeup effects, but you also get great age makeup.

And I think it’s an incredible balance between the two.

Pete Wright:
It really is. The effects that you don’t even know are effects. Yeah. You know, it was it was really artfully done.

Andy Nelson:
Yeah. Absolutely.

Pete Wright:
So, let’s talk a little bit about, Ellen Burstyn and and, her role as mom. Chris

Andy Nelson:
Yeah. Another another solid, mother role, you know, that leads into the, the one we talked about last week. Alice doesn’t live here anymore.

Pete Wright:
Right. She is a she’s a famous actress. We don’t get a whole lot of context about her career other than the fact that she’s famous, and there are some nice little moments in here when the when the detective asks for her autograph, you know, during the investigation and of the death of the other, priest. You know, it’s there are these wonderful little hints that she’s really quite famous, but, otherwise, you know, my impression of her portrayal of Chris McNeil is that she, is the anchor of The Exorcist as a film about a mother daughter story. Yeah.

Right? This this a this a story about a relationship between a mother daughter and another protective mother trying to sort of that mama bear trying to protect her daughter and lead her back into the light. And that’s that’s the that provides the substance that makes this film more interesting than just a run of the mill horror movie.

Andy Nelson:
Yeah. It really is the soul of the film. You know, you get this this just very hard story about this mother, dealing with this situation that she just doesn’t understand. And she I mean, I can’t imagine, the pain for any parent in a situation where your your kid is having an issue and you can’t do anything about it. It’s like the most the most helpless feeling you can have as a parent because, you know, your role is to always kinda be there and fix things for your kid.

And and, you know, yes, you have to there’s there’s limits that you can can do, but, you know, hopefully, medical science can take care of most of the other problems that could arise. Clearly, she’s not in that situation as, you know I mean, things just clearly are, as we all know watching the film, not in in the world of medical science for her. And when she finally has to come to Father Karras, in the last part of the film and ask about the exorcism, I mean, the pain that you see in her as a person is just it’s just heartbreaking. I mean, she’s she’s completely broken and really has nowhere else to turn to. And, just that conversation that she has with Karras as they’re walking in, you know, across the Georgetown University campus.

It’s a it’s it’s a very heartbreaking scene, and, but it also has that almost kinda like that desperate plea that she’s got of, you know, I she’s, at this point, going to do anything to to try to find a way to get her girl back.

Pete Wright:
Right. You know, it was a yeah. I agree with you. I think that that, you know, that conversation was particularly strong, and it was when she she you can see her lose. Like, she keeps a tenuous grip on control of her emotions during that conversation until he says, you know, she needs to see a psychiatrist.

He says, I’ve seen all the psychiatrists. I’ve seen all the psychiatrists, and they told me to come to you. Now you’re telling me to go back to them, and she just sort of loses it. And, you know, I love that moment where, you know, you can see her finding faith just because she’s out of she’s running out of hope. Yeah.

Right? She’s she has to put faith in this stuff she doesn’t understand has never given thought to, and she plays that really, really well.

Andy Nelson:
Yeah. Yeah. It’s just a broken mom. And and just all of the moments, like, there’s a moment later when she comes back in, as as Karras has kind of been kicked out of the room because, the demon was getting to him. And and Merrin could tell that that, he was kind of breaking, and so he asked asked Father Karras to step out.

And you’ve got that great moment where she comes, into the into the room and sees him there and is asking him some questions about, you know, how it’s going and is if her daughter’s going to make it and everything. And it’s just, you know, it’s simple. She’s always trying to be the good hostess, you know, can I get you a drink? All that sort of stuff. But it’s all that kind of desperation of this mother who just doesn’t know what to do anymore and is just trying to get by by just doing these things just to so she doesn’t lose her mind.

And and I particularly love that moment because her question actually is the instigation for Father Karras when she says, is she going to die? And you got that great shot of Father Karras as he kind of looks back up to the room, and it’s just like, no. And then you see him climb the stairs and go back up into the room to to, take on the demon one last time.

Pete Wright:
Once you see the end of the film, I feel like you you know, hindsight is sets in. And and to me, that no is, you know, I have a plan. Is that how you hear it? Yeah.

Andy Nelson:
I don’t I don’t see it as I have a plan, but it’s it’s it’s it’s that sense for me where it’s like, I have I’ve found my faith again. I feel like I can confront this demon now and not let it break me.

Pete Wright:
And do whatever it takes.

Andy Nelson:
Yeah. Right. Which he does. I mean, it’s the most, you know, the biggest step that anyone performing an exorcism could take, which is taking the demon into himself and then killing himself.

Pete Wright:
He, role is played by Jason Miller, who’s a fantastic, obviously, fantastic actor and a Pulitzer Prize winning dramatist. He’s a playwright and, as well and really

Andy Nelson:
quite talented. More primarily as a playwright, really. Yeah.

Pete Wright:
It it’s just a fantastic and sort of subdued portrayal of this this, you know, a priest who was originally a priest, who was sent through medical school by the cloth. And, you know, the way I read it, he is he found his sort of crisis of faith as a result of his ongoing kind of education and and, and then is sort of pushed, at the death of his mother. And and so it’s a really interesting kind of parallel story for the first half of the film where we where we kind of learn about Father Karras, and see his his relationships sort of unfold and unravel, and get to see his pain in a whole different way than the pain we’re experiencing with the McNeil family. What’s your take on on Jason?

Andy Nelson:
It’s a it’s a really I mean, it’s an it’s, I think, an integral part of the story is having this this balance between, you know, Chris McNeil trying to figure out what’s wrong with her daughter and you’re you’re always kind of coming back to this priest and his crisis of faith and just trying to figure out, you know, what what to do within his, his own path that he’s taken. And it’s it’s really interesting because you’re not quite sure, as the film progresses, who the titular exorcist is going to be. Right? Mm-hmm..

Pete Wright:
Is it

Andy Nelson:
going to be because we were introduced first to Father Merrin who finds this, you know, all these interesting puzzle pieces about the demon Pazuzu in this dig in Iraq at the beginning of the film. But then we come back to, you know, we don’t see him for so long. He’s talked about later as as The Exorcist coming in. And, but Father Karras is the one that we end up spending more time with as far as, you know, the priests go. And I you know, his character is for me, it’s it’s really that integral integral change character that we need to have in the story that kind of reflects the the arc, the character arc that the growing that our character needs to do.

And and he’s the one who changes and through this crisis of faith that he’s having, we, the audience, get to kind of go along for the ride with him as he’s struggling with his beliefs and he’s struggling with, you know, the loss of his mother and everything going on in his life. And it’s it’s it’s because of this situation with with the demon that is in this girl and Father Merrin who’s an amazingly religious figure. I mean, as evil as Pazuzu is, Merrin is good. You know, he reflects the goodness in things. And and Karras is just struggling with all that and the demon is constantly toying with him and he and he does lose his faith and he’s kicked out of the room.

And it’s not until that conversation with with Chris that he’s able to find that again and go back up to the room, and that’s when he really changes and grows as a character. And I think that is what makes that last moment so strong because when he finds Father Merrin has had a heart attack in the room, he is able to step up and take on the demon. Finally, now he’s grown, and we, as as the audience, get to experience that growth with him as he finally confronts the demon, takes him head on, and is able to extract him from the girl and then, you know, sacrifice himself.

Pete Wright:
Yeah. It really is a wonderful sort of case study of the hero’s journey. You know? Right? And particularly in that last sequence, his the mentor.

You know, his mentor is killed, and he steps up through sort of the resurrection, and he, you know, he is able to, sacrifice himself with, you know, the elixir, so to speak, and of the exorcism. It’s he plays it just wonderfully. I I, you know, I forgot to mention the Pulitzer Prize that he won was for a play called the championship season, and the original Broadway cast featured Richard Dysart.

Andy Nelson:
That’s right.

Pete Wright:
Which we, if you haven’t heard our Richard Dysart interview, you should, you should check it out on the website. We’ll put a link in there. It’s really good too.

Andy Nelson:
Yes. Absolutely.

Pete Wright:
Yeah. So Linda Blair. Yeah. Right. Wow.

Bananas.

Andy Nelson:
I can’t believe that this a 12 year old girl doing all of this stuff.

Pete Wright:
This is, Friedkin. I would I would kid her into doing things on screen that had never been asked of a child. Mm-hmm..

Andy Nelson:
He’s, you know

Pete Wright:
He’s a bit of a strange guy.

Andy Nelson:
He’s a terrifying director. I mean, there are stories on set about, like, to, to get, well, I mean, that he he refrigerated the room and made it incredibly cold. I mean, down to, like, negative 30 or 40 degrees that they would be working in, and all the crew would be bundled up in all their their winter parkas and everything. And then our poor actors are in there, you know, just They’re streaks. Acting with their their robes on.

And, and it was just incredibly hard on the actors. And they could only film for so long before all the lights would warm up the room too much, and they’d have and they wouldn’t see the breath anymore, so they’d have to stop and refrigerate the room again. They would do that. Ellen Burstyn was on this this, you know, rig for a stunt, and when they yanked her, it pulled, so hard that she flew backward and landed on her coccyx and broke it, well, at least in one report. And and the shot that you see in the film when she lands and screams is the shot where she did that.

And she was reportedly very upset with with Friedkin that he used that shot. Likewise, Linda Blair is in this rig that when she when her body is is smacking up and down in the bed, she’s in this in this rig that is pulling her up and down and all this. And the harnesses were slipping. They weren’t tied on tight enough. And so it’s actually digging into her skin as it was yanking her backward and forward.

And she’s screaming like, please stop. Please make it stop. And that was actually her screaming because she was in so much pain. And Just. And he and then he was he was trying to get, Jason Miller to, to do something, to kind of be more shaken.

And he had a secret gun hidden on set that he shot next to the actor to jolt him, to shock him into, the performance that he wanted. I mean, he’s a crazy director, and everybody acknowledges it. And and he pushes people. And then, you know, coming after this, you get Sorcerer, where he almost kills the actors driving across this bridge. So, I mean, he’s an act a director who really would push his actors, beyond the point where, a director probably should for something as as, I guess, you could say benign as a movie.

It’s not something that should lead to, torment and pain and, you know, death and injury and all this sort of stuff. I mean, it’s it’s pretty horrifying. But

Pete Wright:
He goes he goes full Shia.

Andy Nelson:
He he he is yeah. He has crossed the Shia threshold.

Pete Wright:
Crossed the Shia threshold. Has. He

Andy Nelson:
And but, Linda, I mean, you know, the thing that blows me away with her is people would come up to her, like the crew, and saying, how do you feel about saying all these things that you’re saying and doing these things you’re doing? And she’s like, oh, I’m not doing them. Reagan is doing Reagan is saying that. And as a as a an actress who was just, you know, clearly, doing some horrific things And and but as very young, she was really connected to this idea of I’m an actress, but and I’m not doing any of this. This all part of the character.

And that’s what really blows me away is that is that she was in this mental space where she was able to say and do these things, and it didn’t affect her. Because I tell you, I mean, I would be horrified to ever I always think about this watching child performances. Like, what kind of parent lets their kid do this? Yeah. You know?

Because I I’d be horrified if if my daughter was, was performing in a role like this.

Pete Wright:
She, there’s a pretty good interview with her on the, the extra features, in the iTunes download where, you know, she talks about she, you know, she the way she frames it is that, you know, it was purely mechanical. Like, she didn’t understand some of the sexual stuff. She didn’t understand you know, she’d heard a lot of the language, but she didn’t really, you know, she didn’t really understand kind of what those things were. She was just told to do them by Friedkin, and she did them. And that’s the way she sort of, compartmentalizes it now.

And Yeah. I sort of the way I have to too because it’s a it’s a phenomenally entertaining movie. As soon as I take off that hat and think about this as a you know, she was, I think, 13 at the time, that it is it becomes no longer appropriate. Yeah. It’s just bananas what they got her to do.

They really asked her to do. And So it takes back to this this quote of Friedkin. I would kid her, you know, that they had a really strong relationship on scene and that he would kid her or tease her into doing these things. And to hear him talk in particular about the crucifix sequence, you know, asking her to do with the crucifix what, you know, what she did not know what was going on with the crucifix, you know, was was one of those things. And hearing him tell that story, well, I just said, okay.

Now you’re gonna have to put it there. It just sounded so creepy. It was not right.

Andy Nelson:
Yeah. It’s definitely, definitely disturbing.

Pete Wright:
Yeah. It really is.

Andy Nelson:
But but, again, she does it all so well.

Pete Wright:
That’s the problem.

Andy Nelson:
That’s, yeah, that’s the thing that freaks me out. It’s like it’s like, I okay. I’m glad that she didn’t understand what she’s doing, but, man, she sure seems like she knows what’s going on. And it creeps me out. But, you know, I mean, she won a Golden Globe for best supporting actress.

She was nominated for an Oscar for this. Yeah. I, you know, I, you know clearly, she had some good understanding of this and was able to tap into something horrific. But, you know, it’s funny because you hear, like, we talked about Stand By Me not that long ago and how Rob Reiner had a hard time finding the right sort of person to play Teddy, because none of the kids had that darkness in them. And here we come watching Linda Blair play this this character that ends up having a lot of this darkness in her.

But, man, you listen to her talk, and you hear about her childhood and all that. It’s like, she had, like, the perfect life. Where was that darkness? What was she pulling it from? I have no idea, but she sure tapped into it.

Pete Wright:
Yeah. You know, it’s it’s so funny too. Like, looking at just sort of where her career went, you know, wow. Looking at this performance, you would think that and this was an interesting bit of controversy. I’m interested in your take on this.

I this didn’t seem like such a big deal to me. Right? But the she did the film and was on track to, you know, there there was talk that she was on track to be, to win an Oscar for this film.

Andy Nelson:
Mm-hmm..

Pete Wright:
And, in the it was uncredited in the the, in the credits, in the initial release. There was an uncredited performance of the demon by, the famous, radio personality Mercedes McCambridge. They had, ended up overdubbing the demon sequences with Mercedes’ voice. Mm-hmm.. And when that came out, it is said she you know, her chances for that Oscar went away.

Is that how you understand it? Am I missing something?

Andy Nelson:
You know, it’s it’s always such a game trying to figure out what people were thinking and why they were thinking it and everything. And, you know, there’s there’s certainly is a possibility that that’s the reason. You know, I don’t know. I always think, you know, they seem to shy away from kids anyway. I mean, every now and then, you’ll get the random kid that they give an award to, but often, the award is getting a nomination.

Pete Wright:
Yeah. Right. Right.

Andy Nelson:
You know? And so I don’t know. I I have a hard time, you know, saying if that’s the reason or not. I didn’t find anything that really said it one way or another, and that’s one of those, you know, rumor sorts of things anyway. It’s like, how do you how do you end up proving that?

But it’s you know, if it’s out there, it certainly is something to, to look at as far as something that could have happened.

Pete Wright:
So from from this film, she, she, you know, she’s got a number of credits, but they never quite, they never quite took off.

Andy Nelson:
Yeah. Her career, trajectory, I think, this one of those things where it can really get tainted by a great young performance.

Pete Wright:
Yeah. Well, you know, you compare it to Jodie Foster. Mm-hmm.. Right? You have this extremely strong, set of performances as a young actress.

And and then what? You know, there’s this inciting event, and suddenly things change. And then and I think, you know, Linda Blair’s case, it may have been the cocaine when she was 18. But from there, she went one way, and Jodie Foster went the other. Yeah.

You know? There’s it’s a direct parallel for me watching these two young actresses both incredibly talented on screen, incredibly talented. And I just I look at Linda Blair, and I’m just really sad because her, you know, her performances just did not

Andy Nelson:
yeah. Yeah. She was never able to she was never able to kind of jump start her career again. And, you know, she did end up having to do a whole bunch of low end horror flicks is where she kinda ended

Pete Wright:
up Calendar Girl, Cop, Killer? The Bambi Bembenek Story?

Andy Nelson:
Yeah.

Pete Wright:
Is that kinda what you’re talking about?

Andy Nelson:
Well, I was talking about even, even earlier, like, the eighties, like, you know, like, hell night, chain heat, rifle, savage streets, terror in the aisles. She ended up at just a string of really

Pete Wright:
She did do Red Heat.

Andy Nelson:
She did do Red Heat. Yep. What is that?

Pete Wright:
A women in prison film.

Andy Nelson:
Yeah.

Pete Wright:
That’s a whole category apparently.

Andy Nelson:
And, of course, then there then there’s all the Exorcist spoofs that she ended up kind of being a part of, like Repossessed was one. That was the Leslie Nielsen Yeah. Spoof The Exorcist that, Linda Blair was in, and the whole idea of her being this girl that she gets possessed again. It’s just like, that and even in gosh. Where was it?

There’s another bit that she popped up in. It was kind of just a little spoof it. I can’t remember if it was scream or something like that.

Pete Wright:
Yeah. She was uncredited in screen. She was one of the reporters.

Andy Nelson:
Oh, that’s right. Yeah.

Pete Wright:
Yeah. Any case, sad story, incredible performance. One for the ages in in The Exorcist.

Andy Nelson:
Yeah. Going going back to Mercedes McCambridge real quick. Mm-hmm.. That’s another really interesting story. The the way that ties directly into Friedkin and his madness.

He found he he did they did initially try to do audio

Pete Wright:
With Linda.

Andy Nelson:
Jiggering of Linda and mod modulate her voice to try finding something that was really horrific and scary, but he never could find something. It just sounded kind of silly. And and so and this, of course, was after weeks of working on it. And so he was trying to find he said some voice that didn’t sound like a man’s voice because he didn’t want it to just sound like a man. He thought that would sound weird coming out of her, and he didn’t want a woman’s voice.

He wanted a voice that was almost a blend of man woman. And McCambridge has kind of this raspy voice that works really well. And so he that’s what made him think of her, and they brought her on board to do the voice for for the demon. And but that wasn’t good enough for Friedkin. He strapped her to a chair.

He made her she he she had quit smoking. He made her start smoking again, and she was out she was smoking, like, three packs a day while they were doing the voice recordings to get that scratchiness of her voice. He had her drinking shots of whiskey constantly, just, you know, straight whiskey to kind of help with that voice. And, it just like and it just like this what he put her through in order to get the performance that he wanted. I’m like, man, do you really need to go to that length to do it?

But, you know, I, you know, I guess it worked, but at the same time, it’s, you know, strapped to a chair. Oh, and he she was like he was making her swallow raw eggs. It’s just like all this horrible stuff. Oh, man. It’s like you’re gonna have this this chain smoking drunk actress strapped to a chair reading these lines.

I don’t know, man. But he got the performance he wanted.

Pete Wright:
Performance. That’s that’s the that’s that’s unfortunately, the end justified the means.

Andy Nelson:
Yeah. I guess so. Scary to say.

Pete Wright:
But yeah. Scary. Anybody else, jump out at you that you wanna talk about?

Andy Nelson:
I absolutely think we should talk Lee J. Cobb, who I think is great as Kinderman.

Pete Wright:
Yeah. You’re right.

Andy Nelson:
He, we haven’t talked about him on the show before, but he certainly is a man who’s been in a lot of stuff. I mean, he’s a very busy man. I don’t think we’ve talked about it before.

Pete Wright:
I don’t think so. I’ve we’ve fantasized about talking about him because we’ve talked about doing 12 Angry Men.

Andy Nelson:
Yeah. Right. Exactly. And, and he’s in the, he’s in the Flint series. I’d love to talk about it.

Right? Flint movies one day because I just love those ones. And he’s just he is an actor who is just so great in everything. I mean, what On the Waterfront, another amazing performance from him. And and if you look at On the Waterfront, it’s such a different performance than what he gives here for Kinderman.

He’s so gentle and just kind of this this this almost like this this kind little papa bear detective who just is so kind and and, you know, they they kind of, say he it’s almost like this precursor to Columbo and Blatty actually, he actually thinks that they stole the Columbo, you know, some of the Columbo ticks from this performance. And, you know, he said he’s never had proof it or anything like that. But you can certainly see it. He’s kind of he plays to be forgetful and everything, and he’s just kind of the way that he acts about everything. I love Lee J. Cobb in this.

I think his role as Kinderman is this as this police officer who’s I mean, he’s really kind of trapped in this in this case of trying to solve this death of Burke, the director. And it’s clearly a case where he’s weighing over his head. And I think at the end, it’s an interesting kind of moment there where it’s just like he it’s like he doesn’t know where to go with this case because it’s so over his head as far as dealing with demons and and, exorcisms and all this. And and I like the way he plays it as this guy who’s just trying to figure out something that’s not something he’ll be able to figure out through legal or through the through the law. You know?

Pete Wright:
Structurally, I love the way they play this part because it it makes the law nonthreatening. Right? He plays out sort

Andy Nelson:
of Great.

Pete Wright:
It it’s innocuous. Right? It it’s it’s a part that you know there are these mechanics that are going on elsewhere, and he is investigating this serious, you know, death. Right? It it’s a serious case, but he is, you know, he’s not he’s not an obstacle, because the obstacle of the possession and getting the church to buy in and doing, you know, doing the exorcism is obstacle enough.

And I think that is, I think that works really, really well. It allows us to just like the guy and not be cynical of kind of the role of the law in film, which is so often, you know, as as an obstacle to some other larger story.

Andy Nelson:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He’s solid.

Pete Wright:
He really is. Very gentle. His his sequence with with, Burstein, you know, is you know, I mentioned that the, the autograph scene, but but that whole conversation, you know, I couldn’t help but thinking, I wonder how he’s playing this because when I watch him in it, I get the feeling that he’s really genuinely processing with her. You know? Like, he’s saying things like, the only way I can figure it is that this was done by a large man.

You know, not obviously, not your daughter, but your daughter was in there alone. How could she possibly have done that? You know, that’s the Columbo tick. Yeah. But with Columbo, you know he’s processing something on a different level.

And with with Lee J. Cobb’s portrayal here, I don’t feel like it’s I I’m I don’t get that cynical vibe. Maybe I’m alone.

Andy Nelson:
Well, no. I agree. I don’t either. And that scene, I think, is also another of my many favorites in this film because you have this this man, this this, who’s it’s like he is trying to figure this out, and he kind of it’s almost like he latches on to the idea that Reagan was the only one here. She’s the only one who could potentially have done this.

But I’m not going to talk about that because, one, it seems unrealistic. But two, you know, I don’t I’m here with the mother, and I don’t want to freak her out about all this. But then Chris in this conversation at the same time, and she’s you can clearly see under her face that she’s processing the same thing. Reagan is the only one here. She’s the only one who could have done it.

Oh my god. My daughter killed Burke.

Pete Wright:
Right.

Andy Nelson:
And and all of that is this amazing subtext going on in the scene that none of it gets said, and it’s just it’s beautifully portrayed and beautifully shot. That’s another, wonderful Owen Roizman moment where you’ve got this this beautiful, these subtle pushes in, these dollies into each character as they’re as they’re each talking, going up to kind of this discovery and kind of this this moment of figuring things out, only to start retracting and pulling back as they kind of change direction and and say, well, you know, it can’t be that and all that. And and the camera kinda pulls back and it’s it’s this beautiful way to kind of build that tension and then and you can just kinda feel it getting tense and then feel it relaxing a little bit. And it’s a it’s a very strong way to tell that scene. Yeah.

I agree.

Pete Wright:
I agree. It’s a it is lovely. Who else?

Andy Nelson:
You know, something that I’ve never known is that William Peter Blatty, who wrote this, I never knew he was a comedy guy. And this was kind of like the strange little sidestep for him because he was, struggling trying to find work because the comedy, world that he had been working in was kind of drying up. People weren’t tapping into that sort of comedy in the early seventies. And and so it was just one of those things, late sixties, early seventies, I guess. And and he turns to this and and, you know, he was fascinated by this thing, and he kind of kind of got, you know, really set on telling this story.

And so it was a big turn for him. So I had no idea that he was this this guy that, was, you know, behind, like, a shot in the dark. And and some of these other, you know, shot in the dark. John Goldfarb, please come home. Promise her anything.

What did you do in the war, daddy? And Gun, the Peter Gun movie and stuff. It’s that, that Blake Edwards did. So it’s it’s really funny to me that, he ended up being the guy who, who tapped into the his dark side to tell this story.

Pete Wright:
Well, you know, it’s a it’s a funny it’s a funny case. There’s an you know, watching this, the you know, his his, I guess, an old teacher of his Mm-hmm.. And it was who was also a priest. He had written to this this, priest to get some information on the 1994 or 1949 exorcism of Roland Doe, which is which is, you know, essentially the story of the exorcist. And and so when you think about this, like, you think about here’s this comic writer looking for something to kind of sink his teeth into, and he finds this case that is documented and that there is a there is a witness who can talk, you know, that becomes the story of a lifetime.

You know? I mean, it’s almost as as much of a fictional account of a of, you know, something of dubious belief. It’s almost more of a journalistic endeavor for him, to to meticulously research the stories of the story of this true exorcism of a twelve twelve year old girl, and, you know, her mother’s, you know, her mother’s fight.

Andy Nelson:
Yeah.

Pete Wright:
And I think it’s a it it makes the movie more interesting knowing that, to me. You know, it makes it, you know, less of a of a knockoff horror film and more of a, yeah, more of a tale.

Andy Nelson:
Well, and that’s something else that really I think works so well for this film is this sense of, an honest portrayal, kind of this this religious portrayal of looking at this world of exorcism. And and, I mean, they even say, you know, it never happens anymore. And when you first when she first asked Father Karras about it, he’s like, well, you’re gonna have to jump into a time machine and go back to the sixteen hundreds. They just don’t do them anymore. And they look at all of this in in such a realistic way about this idea of exorcisms being it’s it’s not really something that that, you know, society sees as normal.

And they look at they treat it in the film as this it’s it’s this very rare thing that happens because of the situation is so rare and frightening. And the fact that he did investigate in this this exorcism from the forties and really kind of pulled a lot of the realities from that case to put into this. And and even, like, you mentioned his his teacher, this this priest that taught him, who I believe is actually one of the priests end up in the film, he told him, I’m not gonna help you unless you really tell it like it is, and then just be really honest and truthful about it. And I think that comes across incredibly well, and that is just this other element that just keeps this strength in the film that I don’t think will ever make it dated because it just it has this this very honest look at the this darkness in the world and how, you know, the the holy side of things can come to kind of help it.

Pete Wright:
It is. It it makes it such an interesting twist too that it’s the it is the religious establishment that is, circumspect. Yeah. And and you bring up that sequence again in the park. You know, well, it just doesn’t happen anymore, miss McNeil.

Since when? Since we learned about mental illness, about paranoia, dual personality, all the things they taught me at Harvard, you know, that it was the the religious establishment that was circumspect, and it was the medical establishment that said, you know, you should probably go talk to a priest. Mm-hmm.. It it makes for, you know, an even more interesting twist in the story.

Andy Nelson:
Yeah. Well and I love how they’re all like, yeah. You should talk to it because, you know, try an exorcism. Yeah. It’s not that it works because of the reasons they think

Pete Wright:
it does. Exactly.

Andy Nelson:
You know? It’s it’s, you know, it’s it’s mental. It’s psychological game, and it’s it’s just brilliant. I think all of those elements are really brilliant to to make this, into something that feels incredibly real.

Pete Wright:
Because they’re all anchored in reality and not the supernatural even though fundamentally we’re dealing with the supernatural. That’s a brilliant. It’s brilliant.

Andy Nelson:
Yeah.

Pete Wright:
Okay. Anybody else? Any any other how to we talked about cinematography. We’ve talked about we should talk about sound and music.

Andy Nelson:
Yeah. Definitely. I think, the the sound design in this I mean, I mentioned how Friedkin wanted to go from loud to soft and loud to soft and you got these amazing moments of quiet that are punctuated all of a sudden by an incredible like, you’ve got the screaming coming from upstairs or you’ve got, you know, dogs fighting or whatever it is. And, you know, one of my favorites is you’ve got this really fascinating dream sequence when, Father Karras is having this dream and these amazing images of his mother and this pendant falling and, you know, the little flashes of the devil and all that sort of stuff. And, it’s silent.

There’s really nothing other than kind of his his breathing while he’s sleeping. And then what what this the loud punctuation to that is when the pendant hits the ground, you get Reagan just screaming at the top of her lungs because of something that’s happening. And the way that they play the sound throughout this is just really, it’s solid.

Pete Wright:
Absolutely agree. And and, again, the you know, when you go to the quiet sequences, like, again, the hospital is just so natural and very, very clear, that it adds to just that grounding of the entire it’s really solid. The music is iconic.

Andy Nelson:
Yeah. Although the, mostly because, not because of the composer, but really it’s just because of tubular bells, I think.

Pete Wright:
Exactly. Which which I think has taken on really only the role of Exorcist in history.

Andy Nelson:
Yeah. Right. Right. Exactly. Yeah.

It’s a strange track. Have you ever listened to Tubular Bells outside of the movie?

Pete Wright:
I have not.

Andy Nelson:
It, you know, Mike Oldfield, who wrote it, it’s it’s it’s one of those weird tracks that, I mean, he wrote right around the time, and it’s a I don’t even know what I’d call it. It it I mean, it’s definitely kind of a contemporary classical sort of stuff, but it it like, he has talking going on through it. It’s really long. It’s like an incredibly incredibly long track, like twenty some minutes or something like that. Yeah.

Twenty five there’s two tracks on the record. I’m looking at it now. The first

Pete Wright:
So where does where does the part that we hear come in? Is that, like, the beginning?

Andy Nelson:
Yeah. That’s, like, the main part.

Pete Wright:
Okay.

Andy Nelson:
Kind of the opening part of it. And then and let’s see what it says here. Oldfield plays all the instruments himself, including such oddities as the farficial organ, the low re organ, and the flageolet. Yeah. The familiar lay.

I know. The familiar eerie opening made famous by its use in The Exorcist starts the album off slowly as each instrument acoustically wriggles its way into the current noise that is heard until there’s a grand unison of eccentric sounds that wildly excites the ears. Yeah. And then the tempo is kind of changed throughout. You get mandolins and Spanish guitars that join and, all these bells that come in.

And then in the middle of the album, guest Viv Stanshall announces each instrument seconds before it is heard. So it’s like that’s it’s kind of a weird way to do your music, and it’s just he kind of blends all these instruments together to create this really unforgettable piece of music. But, yeah, the piece that we hear is definitely not the full twenty five minute piece.

Pete Wright:
This was was this, this was contemporary at the time. I believe it was it came out in 1973?

Andy Nelson:
Exactly. Yep. Fascinating. And it’s funny because, he had actually, Friedkin had, Lalo Schifrin on board to do the score, and, he came in and and, listened to the music and thought it was so awful, he fired Shifrin on the spot. And Shifrin is there with his mother and his wife or his wife and his daughter, I mean.

And he he fired him and just hated the music so much and kicked him out. And he he took the the I don’t know if it’s on a tape or whatever. And he walked out of the room and he chucked it across the parking lot because he hated this music so much.

Pete Wright:
Wow.

Andy Nelson:
Friedkin is a madman, I tell you. He’s crazy. But, yeah. So anyway, Schifrin didn’t end up doing it, and he was trying to find Friedkin was trying to find something, and somehow he heard this piece or somebody recommended, you should listen to this. And he heard it and was like, oh, that is exactly what I’ve been looking for.

And so he he used that and he used just some other random things like, Krzysztof Penderecki, I believe, somebody that we talked about with The Shining. And, so he uses a little bit of that and just a lot of random music that kind of, you know, it works really well. And then he did have, a little bit of music composed for the film. But

Pete Wright:
Yeah. It is sparse. You know, the music is sparse. And I think, you know, again, the when you hit that final sequence of the exorcism itself, no music, for most of that sequence. It is really, really spartan.

Andy Nelson:
Yeah. Yeah. Jack Nitzsche did the, the few little bits that you hear. It’s just there’s there’s not a lot of it there. And we I mean, he did gosh.

We didn’t we talked about him briefly, I think, maybe back in the Bullet episode. He did a little bit of music there. But, yeah, he’s just he’s very not somebody we’ve talked about much.

Pete Wright:
Have you been to the Exorcist Stairs?

Andy Nelson:
I have never been to the Exorcist Stairs, but, I it’s it’s on my list of places I’d love to go visit in George or visit period.

Pete Wright:
Yeah. Georgetown. Yeah. Yep. Famous stairs.

Never been there myself either.

Andy Nelson:
No. There’s 97 Stairs. It used to be called the Hitchcock Steps until The Exorcist came out. Then all of a sudden, people started calling them The Exorcist Stairs. The stuntman who rolls down as Father Karras, he did it twice.

They actually the effects guy put rubber, like a half inch rubber all the way down the whole flight of stairs. And, and then the guy, he did this stunt twice where he literally threw himself down two times from top to bottom. And I guess, Jason Miller asked him. He’s like, how are you doing this? How can you handle it?

And the guy said, totally zen. I just go zen, and I let my body just completely relax, and I just, I just don’t, I just, you know, don’t feel anything. I just, take it in and be completely limp. Not something I could ever do.

Pete Wright:
No. Special special breed.

Andy Nelson:
Yeah. Exactly.

Pete Wright:
Any other highlights you wanna cover on this before we talk about money?

Andy Nelson:
Yeah. Two last things that I want to, just mention. Well, one, Oscars. It was nominated for 10 Oscars, and this was the first horror film nominated for best picture, which, I think is pretty interesting. It didn’t win best picture.

That went to The Sting, another amazing film from the year that we talked about. Ellen Burstyn was nominated for best actress. Jason Miller, best supporting actor. Linda Blair, best supporting actress. William Friedkin, best director.

Owen Roizman, best cinematographer. Best art direction set decoration by Bill Malley and Jerry Wunderlich. Film editing by Jordan Leondopoulos, Bud Smith, Evan A. Lottman, and Norman Gay. Those were all nominated. It ended up winning for best adapted screenplay by William Peter Blatty and best sound by Robert Knutson and Christopher Newman.

It did film did really well for itself. Golden Globes, it won best best picture, actually, in the

Pete Wright:
Golden Globes Mm-hmm..

Andy Nelson:
Best drama, and then BAFTA Wars, it got nominated for a bunch. It’s just one of those films that, really tapped into the just what you know, a great film. It scared them, but it also, people could tell that there’s something great about it. But that, leads me to the next thing that I wanna say, and that’s just the nature of a film like this coming out and what it does to, people and society. I mean, Billy Graham I mean, this was a this was a hugely successful film.

Very, very successful film. But Billy Graham watched this film and he he said, he went out and said on on, you know, one of his, when he’s preaching, he said, there is a power of evil in this film and he was trying to get people to not watch it. Rona Barrett went on and talked about how how like all this stuff, like how it had damaged, Linda Blair and just all this sort of stuff even though Linda Blair wasn’t psychologically damaged from the film or anything like that. But it was just one of those films that really just you know, kind of created this this this kind of strange interpretation, I guess, you could almost say in society about how this movie was evil and how it was affecting people and what you know, it’s just kind of this weirdness. And, I mean, I would say it even would went, you know, beyond when it came out.

I mean, even when I was in in junior high and high school, I remember a friend who told me about this movie, and he’s just like, oh, but don’t watch it because if you if if you watch it, if you see the devil in the movie, you’re going to die. You know, I would hear things like that. I’m like, oh, I’m not gonna watch that movie then. You know? And it’s it’s one of those things because they’ve got those those little

Pete Wright:
Yeah. The subliminals.

Andy Nelson:
Yeah. The little subliminal, one frame flash of the devil face that happens three or four times throughout the film. That’s really terrifying. It really is. But that’s the sort of thing that happened because of this film where people, really, would were looking at it like, oh, this film is evil.

I mean, nine people died in the making of this film. Not necessarily because of the making of this film, but, like, things like Max von Sydow’ brother died, and there’s a the guy who was rigging all the AC units died. But it was it was just a very high number for people, you know, involved in the making of a film to end up dying over the course of the film. There’s a set fire where over a weekend, the set caught on fire. So yeah.

It’s just one of those things where people look at it like, this a possessed film. Don’t watch it. It’s too evil.

Pete Wright:
Well, it is evil, and you probably are going to hell.

Andy Nelson:
Probably. That’s what I get for having seen that devil in there.

Pete Wright:
Because you saw the devil all three or four times. Very effective dramatic device subliminals.

Andy Nelson:
Absolutely. Mm-hmm..

Pete Wright:
Alright. Let’s talk about money.

Andy Nelson:
Yeah. This film, this film did really well. Really, really, really

Pete Wright:
Really, really well.

Andy Nelson:
It, it came out, Boxing Day nineteen seventy three. It, the budget on it, what I found is $12,000,000 budget. I couldn’t find anything as far as prints and advertising, but this film, went on to gross domestically about $205,000,000 and internationally almost $200,000,000. When you adjust all of that, and you look at where it is with the with total grosses, it is, not the highest on our list by total grosses. That would still be Jaws.

But when you look at adjusted profit, per finished minute, this now our number one film at almost $17,000,000 per finished minute.

Pete Wright:
16.8. Yeah.

Andy Nelson:
And that’s and I really tried to not include numbers from the 2,000 rerelease because that, you know, that those money, that money wouldn’t

Pete Wright:
That wouldn’t have counted. Yeah.

Andy Nelson:
It wouldn’t have counted. So this you know, for what I could pinpoint, this this looks to be just the money from its release in the seventies.

Pete Wright:
That’s incredible.

Andy Nelson:
$16,800,000 per finished minute.

Pete Wright:
For horror film Yeah. That is Well for the age, exceedingly graphic for an overrated film. Yep. That’s amazing.

Andy Nelson:
It’s interesting that our top two films are both horror films. The Exorcist

Pete Wright:
and Jaunt. Isn’t that funny? Yeah. Are you do have you seen the other, you know, are you a fan of the other, you know, exorcism films? I have not

Andy Nelson:
seen any of them. I think

Pete Wright:
I And I don’t mean just the exorcist, but, you know, since then, you know, we we’ve had some recent exorcism films. Have you seen any of them?

Andy Nelson:
I haven’t. I I’ve kind of missed all of those. I mean, I missed all the exorcist sequels and prequels. I did start watching one of the prequels, not the Renny Harlan version, but the original Paul Schrader one.

Pete Wright:
Mm-hmm..

Andy Nelson:
I never finished it because I didn’t think it was very good, And I never went back to watch the Renny Harlan edited version of it edited and directed version. And then I missed all the other oh, you know what? I take it back. I did see was it The

Pete Wright:
Exorcism of Emily Rose? Of Emily Rose. Yeah. Possession of Gale Bowers. Exorcismus.

Exorcismus? That’s one. Hellbaby. Last Exorcism and The Last Exorcism part two. Requiem, The Right.

The Right was 2,011. Stigmata, that sort of counts.

Andy Nelson:
That doesn’t count. Yeah. Sorta. You know, someone out there is right now making the mexorcist. I kid you not.

Pete Wright:
That’s great.

Andy Nelson:
I do not.

Pete Wright:
Well, so you got some things to catch up on. We’ll have to ask Tommy. I’ll bet he’s seen all of these.

Andy Nelson:
I’ve seen them and loves them all. Oh, yeah.

Pete Wright:
I say we rank it.

Andy Nelson:
Yeah. Let’s do it.

Pete Wright:
Alright. Head over to Flickchart, everybody. Flickchart.com/thenext reel, and you can see if your favorite movies line up with our favorite movies. And, and, let’s see if The Exorcist cracks the top 30.

Andy Nelson:
Alright. I was gonna say, let’s see if it cracks the top 10 because I think it’s that good. You think it’s that good? We’ll go we’ll go for 30. We’ll go for 30.

Pete Wright:
Alright. Yes. Movie can throw it off. Just one movie.

Andy Nelson:
Yeah. That’s right. Know. For it. The Exorcist or Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?

Pete Wright:
Is this the movie?

Andy Nelson:
It’s not for me.

Pete Wright:
Did you say The Exorcist?

Andy Nelson:
Wow. Don’t know. Is a just a top notch work. I would be in a

Pete Wright:
tough spot right here. You do. You do, definitely. I mean, because I would say, oh, brother. I hate to start the very first one with a with a rock, but I think we’re gonna have to just to move us on.

Andy Nelson:
You’re not you’re not swayable?

Pete Wright:
I’m not not on this.

Andy Nelson:
Wow. Okay. Alright. Let’s do rock paper scissors, I Yep.

Pete Wright:
One two three paper. Oh,

Andy Nelson:
son of a monkey.

Pete Wright:
Man, that was a gift. Yeah. I don’t know. Pazuzu.

Andy Nelson:
Pazuzu was present. The Exorcist or Baron Munchausen? Totally.

Pete Wright:
The Exorcist.

Andy Nelson:
Thank you. The Exorcist or Fistful of Dollars. Totally The Exorcist.

Pete Wright:
I did like, for a few dollars more better than A Fistful, though. I’ll give you The Exorcist.

Andy Nelson:
Alright. The Exorcist or When Harry Met Sally.

Pete Wright:
I would say The Exorcist.

Andy Nelson:
Yeah. Absolutely. You know, you killed the chances for it to be in the number or above 30 with your oh, brother.

Pete Wright:
It’s gonna be 31, isn’t it?

Andy Nelson:
Oh, bother. Oh, bother. The Exorcist or Asphalt Jungle?

Pete Wright:
The Exorcist.

Andy Nelson:
Yep. The Exorcist or Knowing.

Pete Wright:
I’m gonna say The Exorcist.

Andy Nelson:
So am I. The Exorcist or Carrie? The Exorcist. Still saying Exorcist. There you go.

82. Thank you very much. No. This old brother is 81. No.

Alright. 82 out of 162.

Pete Wright:
Stop. Rerank it. Start again. No. That’s not that is not right.

I take that back. I’m gonna cut that whole ranking because that’s that is unacceptable. It is so much better than that.

Andy Nelson:
I know it is. I know. Okay. Alright. You ready?

Yes. The Exorcist or O Brother, Where Art Thou?

Pete Wright:
The Exorcist.

Andy Nelson:
It’s totally The Exorcist. Dang it. I know. It hurts. I understand.

These are all great folks. The Exorcist is better. The Exorcist or 12 monkeys.

Pete Wright:
The Exorcist.

Andy Nelson:
Absolutely. The Exorcist or The World’s End? I love The Exorcist.

Pete Wright:
Yeah. Okay. The Exorcist.

Andy Nelson:
Wow. There is some amazing poster art for The Exorcist. I love doing this.

Pete Wright:
Flickchart is the best.

Andy Nelson:
You get to see all these crazy posters that people make, and, and soon, our listeners could go to Pinterest to check them out.

Pete Wright:
Right? That’s right.

Andy Nelson:
The Exorcist or Brazil.

Pete Wright:
Oh,

Andy Nelson:
man.

Pete Wright:
You you go first.

Andy Nelson:
Well, it’s Brazil.

Pete Wright:
I’m so tempted only on principle to make you do rock, paper, scissors, but I’m gonna give you the or I’m gonna give you Brazil on this one.

Andy Nelson:
Alright. Alright.

Pete Wright:
That’s funny.

Andy Nelson:
The Exorcist or aliens?

Pete Wright:
Oh, aliens. Aliens.

Andy Nelson:
Oh, that’s a that’s a hard one. That really is a hard one. I’ll go with aliens though. The Exorcist or the Fisher King. I would do the Fisher King.

Pete Wright:
I think I would too.

Andy Nelson:
Oh, Friedkin or Friedkin? The Exorcist or the French connection?

Pete Wright:
French connection.

Andy Nelson:
And here, I would do The Exorcist. Much might have to rock paper scissors.

Pete Wright:
How much would you Friedkin The

Andy Nelson:
Exorcist? I would totally

Pete Wright:
You would totally Friedkin The Exorcist?

Andy Nelson:
I don’t wanna cross this the Shia threshold or anything, but

Pete Wright:
I would I would pick my toes in Poughkeepsie on this one. Are you ready?

Andy Nelson:
Yes.

Pete Wright:
One, two, three, sisters. Damn.

Andy Nelson:
Alright. French Connection.

Pete Wright:
I got your number tonight, Junior.

Andy Nelson:
You do, man. Alright. The Exorcist or Fight Club?

Pete Wright:
Fight Club.

Andy Nelson:
Yeah. I’ll give you a Fight Club on that one. Alright. Well, hey. Number 20.

Pete Wright:
Oh. Nine out of one

Andy Nelson:
sixty two.

Pete Wright:
That feels good.

Andy Nelson:
That does feel good.

Pete Wright:
That feels just right.

Andy Nelson:
Yeah. Just a brilliant film. I mean, this this truly I mean, it’s on a lot of list as, like, the scariest film of all time. I mean, really it’s it’s a pretty terrifying film.

Pete Wright:
I totally agree.

Andy Nelson:
Mm-hmm..

Pete Wright:
It’s really fucked. Alright. Well, this was a this was a this was a good one. Long. Yeah.

We’ve been talking a long time. We can wrap it up. But where do we go next week?

Andy Nelson:
We’re going to wrap up our Ellen Burstyn series with one of another of the most horrifying films ever made, Requiem for a Dream.

Pete Wright:
So real A film that

Andy Nelson:
every every parent should show their children to keep them from using drugs. Not that I’m advocating that or No. But still.

Pete Wright:
That’s funny. That’s funny. I clearly I have some re ranking to do on mine. The Exorcist is at 88 on my own list. I have done something horribly wrong.

Andy Nelson:
Yeah. It should be higher.

Pete Wright:
It should be higher. Especially after this conversation. I really enjoyed this.

Andy Nelson:
Yeah.

Pete Wright:
There you go. Yeah. Alright. Excellent. I gotta go to bed.

Andy Nelson:
Alright. I gotta gotta demon in the back room. Gotta go deal with.

Pete Wright:
Two stars. I’ve watched that and got scared. I will not buy that ever again. Chill into my spine. Thank you so much.

Have a nice week.

Andy Nelson:
Oh.

Pete Wright:
Two stars, but it seems like it really achieved its goal.

Andy Nelson:
Right? What was the goal?

Pete Wright:
Well, it’s a scary movie. Right?

Andy Nelson:
Uh-huh. Uh-huh.

Pete Wright:
It scared this comic

Andy Nelson:
Oh, the movie the movie achieved its goal. Yes. So they the comic achieved its goal. I couldn’t figure out what that was.

Pete Wright:
I’m just saying that’s, like, why would you give it a two that should be a five star review is what that should be.

Andy Nelson:
Yeah. It worked. Well, mine is a one star review by r Wagner. I doubt it’s Robert Wagner, though.

Pete Wright:
I

Andy Nelson:
I just I don’t think it’s Robert Wagner’s review.

Pete Wright:
It’s Rupprecht Wagner. Rupprecht Wagner.

Andy Nelson:
It was awful then, and it’s awful now. Am I the only person on Earth who thought the original Exorcist movie sucked to high heaven and then back down to hell? This movie is ridiculous. It’s not scary at all and very laughable. Poorly directed, poorly acted, and poorly explained throughout.

The newer Exorcist movies are much better and more interesting. Wow. Clearly a fan of The Last Exorcism.

Pete Wright:
And Exorcist.

Andy Nelson:
And The Mexorcist. He maybe he’s the one who’s making it.

Pete Wright:
He’s probably making it. Yeah. The Mexorcist.

Andy Nelson:
I didn’t look to see who it was.

Pete Wright:
So Globalization. Amazon.

The Next Reel. A show about movies and how they connect.