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    Nostalgia Central
    Home»Movies»Movies by Decade»Movies - 1970s
    Movies - 1970s Movies - M 2 Mins Read

    Mephisto Waltz, The (1971)

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    Freelance writer and former ungifted pianist Myles Clarkson (Alan Alda) goes to interview Duncan Ely (Curt Jürgens), a world-famous and mysterious concert pianist who is dying of leukaemia.

    Myles and his beautiful wife, Paula (Jacqueline Bisset) are caught up in the almost decadent luxury surrounding Ely and his beautiful slinky daughter Roxanne (Barbara Parkins).

    Seduced and flattered, Myles is soon playing duets with the maestro and just skirting involvement with Roxanne while his wife looks on, still unthreatened and certainly unimpressed.

    Suddenly fantastic things begin to occur. Ely dies, and Myles, constantly at the keyboard, obviously is playing the piano as well as the dead artist – and with his frenzied, flamboyant style. And when he does drag himself home to his wife, he turns into a new man in bed, with enormous sexual appetites and unusual demands – so much so that Paula becomes convinced she’s not sleeping with her husband any longer.

    Discoveries go from bad to worse and Paula is faced with horrible conjectures – that Ely has somehow been reincarnated in Myles.

    When she starts playing detective to get to the truth, she can’t live with it because she finds evidence of transmigration, satanism, incest between Ely and his daughter, murder, and finally her own pact with Satan that is a more satisfying deal than Dr Faustus ever got.

    The cast is first class and The Mephisto Waltz is a modern Gothic chiller that ranks with Rosemary’s Baby(1968) in its nightmarish implications. The title comes from a musical score by Franz Liszt and refers to Mephistopheles, the name assigned to Satan in Faust.

    When released in the spring of 1971, the film did very well in some markets and virtually no business in others. 20th Century Fox research showed that in the south and mid-west of America, potential moviegoers thought the movie was about people waltzing (!). The film was pulled from those markets and returned a few months later with the more obvious title Satan’s Transplant.

    Myles Clarkson
    Alan Alda
    Paula Clarkson
    Jacqueline Bisset
    Roxanne
    Barbara Parkins
    Bill Delancey
    Bradford Dillman
    Dr West
    William Windom
    Maggie West
    Kathleen Widdoes
    Abby Clarkson
    Pamelyn Ferdin
    Duncan Ely
    Curt Jürgens
    Agency Chief
    Curt Lowens
    Conductor
    Gregory Morton
    Agency Chief’s Girlfriend
    Janee Michelle
    Woman Writer
    Lilyan Chauvin
    Zanc Theun
    Khigh Dhiegh
    Bennett
    Alberto Morin
    Raymont
    Berry Kroeger

    Director
    Paul Wendkos

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