This is Later with Lee Matthews, The Lee Matthews Podcast More of what you
hear weekday Afternoons on the Drive. That second off as a writer, producer,
journalist, Hugo and Locust Award nominated author, and more than two dozen
books about filmmaking in film history. His newest volume is called The Exorcist Legacy
Fifty Years of Fear. I got to start in that with this movie,
and when it came out, it was really the first of a kind in
the horror genre. It was. It came out on December twenty sixth,
nineteen seventy three, and I think it was so powerful because it wasn't from
the people who made it a horror film. It was what they called a
supernatural detective story, and the horror stuff was kind of put onto it,
which of course summoned fears and memories and dogma that audiences had had for thousands
of years, And so it insinuated itself into the culture and into the souls
and mind to the people who watched it because it wasn't what it was,
and that it was what it wasn't. Well, this was a time too,
when movies were doing that. They were weaving themselves into the culture of
America. Whether it was Midnight Cowboy or Jaws or any of the other films
of the time, they it was more than a movie. You went there,
it was a full on experience. That's very astute because the early to
middle seventies were what many of us think was the last great era in American
filmmaking. That movies were not just movies. They had something to say about
society. And there are some people Stephen King is one of them who believes
that The Exorcist is about the breakup of the generations. It's about how,
oh, kids these days are swearing and they're doing things and the parents are
unable to stop them. And that's I think one of the things that made
the Exorcist work because people could identify with both the parents and the children in
it. And oh, yes, there was horror on top of that,
but the real horror was the breakdown of society. Matt Segaloff, as a
writer, producer the Exorcist legacy fifty years of fear it's out now. You
know now, if it came out now, there would be a lot of
talk about how it's treading upon the Catholic Church. But there wasn't that much
when it came out, at least, as I recall, well, no,
because it wasn't treading on the Catholic Church. He was embracing their dogma.
He was embracing the Roman ritual of exorcism, and it was taking the
priests very seriously. That was because the writer of the Ectresses, William Peter
Blandi, had been a Jesuit scholar at Georgetown University and had stumbled upon a
front page but a very small article in the Washington Post in nineteen forty nine
about a lad a fourteen year old boy who had been freed of demonic possession
by priests. And so throughout the film and throughout his life, Bladdie,
who was a very very Catholic and very serious and wonderful menshi man, was
making stories about faith and about transcendence. And so in a sense, the
Exorcist is a religious film. I think so, yeah, And I think
it had the effect on the church that kind of legitimized some of their work.
It did. It did, and that's a good thing in a way,
because the actual possession case in nineteen forty nine may have been a fraud.
And we go into that in the book, which was engineered by the
church to kind of increase their power. But I think Bladdie saw through that.
What Bill Bladdie did in his books The Exorcist, It's sequel, Legion,
and that another book he had written called The Ninth Configuration his Trilogy of
Faith, he did something very interesting. He said, if he could prove
the existence of a personified devil, then perhaps he could also prove the existence
of God and the life everlasting. That's a wonderful, wonderful thing to try
to do. Do you think he succeeded well for certainly people who read the
book and saw the movies because they went home fearing something and also believing in
something else. I'm not sure if that actually works. You know, if
you prove there's a devil and there's a God, it's like saying you can
prove the existence of nectarines, you can also have oranges. But it worked
for Bill, and it worked for many many people who've seen the movies and
read his books. So I can't argue with that. The Exorcist Legacy fifty
Years of Fear and that segle Off as the author, did anybody care at
the time or no at the time that it was based on actual events.
Well, there was some druhaha about that from Warner Brothers. I was one
of the junior publicists working with it in the Boston area, and so there
was some knowledge that it was based on reality, and there was a pamphlet
about an actual possession that had been written and it was secretly circulated among the
Warner Brothers people. Lately it's been online, so I'm not so worried about
discretion about discussing that, but it gives it a certain veracity. But the
real veracity came from watching the movie. You know, the movie did not
have CGI. There was no computer generated defection those days, so that everything
you're seeing on the screen, the floating people, that turning heads, the
bed shaking, the walls cracking, those things actually happened in front of the
camera. Now, they didn't happen because Linda Blair was possessed. They happened
because there was a whole team of technicians behind the scenes making it happen.
But the fact that it was done in a documentary style, which is what
director William Freakin where he had begun and where he has continued, gave the
film a believability that audiences couldn't really put their finger on. But it did
come through, and Linda Blair's back troubles are a proof of all that.
Yeah, that's a shame. One of the machines got kind of out of
control. But you know, Linda Blair is a together, bright, wonderful,
wonderful lady who has done a lot of charity work with animals. So
I all these rumors about her being possessed. If you've ever made a movie,
you'll know it's the most boring thing in the world. They don't have
time to even do anything much. Let's get possessed. The Exorcist Legacy Fifty
Years of Fear. Nat Segaloff is the author. One of the things that's
very distinct about the movie is the soundtrack. Did the piece of music the
one that we identify with the Exorcist tubular Bells? Was it written for the
movie or was it chosen because of the content of the movie? Only a
radio Only a radio guy would ask you about sound Thank you so much.
It happened to be part of an audition that was being sent around. Mike
Oldfield's Tubular Bells was sent to Warner Brothers do you want to distribute this because
in those days of A and R, people went out and actually were interested
in getting new artists I'm like today, And that was one of the things
that William Freakin heard. He was going through trying to find some music that
would work, and tubular bells fit the bill. But you're right about the
sound of the film. You know, it was released with a magnetic soundtrack,
which was not the case. This is just the beginning of the days
of Dolby stereo, and magnetic tracks were where you got the full frequency range
something like one until maybe fifteen decibels. I'm not an audio guy, so
pardon me if I've exaggerated, And that meant that everybody, to every shout
worked with that incredible decibel range. The audience was sucked into what was going
on and then they were blown back in their seats. You didn't have that
with the normal optical soundtrack, which was maybe I don't know, one hundred
two, maybe five thousand cycles per second, and in mono, yeah so,
and in mono, well that was it. It wasn't you know.
Things coming out of the gate was just totally believable. And you mentioned Linda
Blair earlier. She never really ran or hid from the role as some actors
do. She embraced it well. She made a film called Repossessed, which
was a kind of a spoof of it, Leslie Hielsen's what had to be
his spoof. Then she also made the dreaded sequel to The Actresses called The
Heretic, And she had signed on for one film and they wound up making
another one. So it isn't her fault at all that The Heretic got out
of control. That was the one that people don't talk about. It's sort
of like the fight Club with Supernatural film. We don't talk about Heretic actresses
too. Matt segel Off, the name of the book is The Exorcist Legacy
fifty Years of Fear. If you love this behind the scenes stuff, he's
it's chocolate bock full. That here on the fiftieth anniversary of the release of
the film. Nat. Thank you for joining us, Thanks very much,
leave for having me, Thanks for listening to Later with Lee Matthews, the
Lee Matthews Podcast, and remember to listen to The Drive Live weekday afternoons from
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