Review of To the Devil a Daughter (1976) by Robert B — 04 Jul 2012

To the Devil a Daughter (Peter Sykes, 1976).

One of those late-era Hammer filmsâ"it was, in fact, their penultimate feature before the studio went over to all-TV in the eighties (the last one was a forgettable remake of The Lady Vanishes)â"that puts one more in mind of the stuff they've been doing since the 2008 rescuscitation than the stuff they did in the fifties-sixties golden age. (The Resident, anyone?) Richard Widmark plays a hapless novelist trying to rescue a lovely young thing (Nastassja Kinski in her second film role) from the clutches of a rogue priest (Christopher Lee) and his coven. True to Hammer standards, the movie has a simply amazing cast (aside from the above, Denholm Elliott, Michael Goodliffe, and Anthony Valentine, among many other recognizable faces, show up for the dance), but something went horribly, horribly wrong in either the scriptwriting department or post-production editing. Or, more likely a bit of both; the movie turns out a confused muddle, and in at least one placeâ"the climaxâ"we know it's down to overzealous editing because production stills of the real ending exist (though the footage has supposedly not survived). But can that be true of the whole film, or can we just blame Peacock and Wicking's adaptation of Dennis Wheatley's novel? The jury's still out on that one, though I've pushed the novel much closer to the top of the ever-growing list of stuff to get read sooner rather than later. It's mush, but it's watchable mush with an incredible acting stable that Hammer second-stringer Sykes (The Legend of Spider Forest) wrings solid performances out of; worth watching if you've never seen it, but probably won't make it onto your short shelf of Hammer Classics. ***.