THE MANITOU
US, 1978, 104 minutes, Colour.
Tony Curtis, Michael Ansara, Susan Strasberg, Stella Stevens, Jon Cedar, Ann Sothern, Burgess Meredith, Paul Mantee, Jeanette Nolan, Lurene Tuttle.
Directed by William Girdler.
The Manitou is a supernatural thriller coming five years after The Exorcist and in the middle of a lot of animal terror films following Jaws.
The synopsis has to be read to be believed. Susan Strasberg goes to hospital because she has a tumour on her back. Some think that it is alive, a foetus inside the tumour. However, a number of fortune tellers get involved including Tony Curtis who disbelieves it, Stella Stevens who begins to help and the suggestion is, especially from an expert played by Burgess Meredith, that it is a four-hundred-year-old Indian spirit who wants revenge and is coming alive. This means a journey to South Dakota where Tony Curtis’s fortune teller meets an Indian witchdoctor, Michael Ansara, to perform a rite where the Indian spirit will go back to where it belongs. The question asked at the end is, can the spirit actually be sent back.
The film received fairly negative reviews, many considering the outlandish plot implausible to say the least. However, with its starry cast, its belief in its own preposterous story, it is rather entertaining in an oddball kind of way.
The film was the last directed by William Girdler who began direction in 1972, making a number of blacksploitation films including Abby and Sheba Baby as well as two of the animal menace films, Grizzly and Day of the Animals. (Girdler was killed in a helicopter crash in the Philippines just after the film was completed.)
1. An interesting occult thriller? The tradition of The Exorcist and using its plot line? The popularity of this kind of film? Audience interest in the occult and transcendent powers? As in contemporary America, the background of the American Indian? The horror aspects and audience enjoyment of horror fantasy?
2. The focus of the title and its explanation? The images portrayed during the credits and creation of atmosphere? Possession, magic, the Indian religious background of the story and the exorcism?
3. The use of Panavision, the beauty of San Francisco locations and the way these were presented? Plausible material though unreal? A real world to make the events more credible? The world of magic, superstition, seances? This kind of belief in magic and its connection with Red Indian magic and traditions? The importance of the special effects within this context? Karen and the Manitou on her neck, the whirling scenes of destruction especially the climax? The use of coloured visuals especially for the final illusions? The contribution of the score?
4. The plausibility of the plot? The indication that such things are factual especially with the note at the end about the Japanese boy? The world of medicine with which the film opened, x-rays, doctors' consultations, surgery? The contrast of this world with that of the Indians and their spirits, super-human powers? The growing implausibility with the failed operation and the surgeon slashing himself, Mrs Herz and her behaviour, her elevation, throwing herself down the stairs? The transition to Indian medicine and its performance? The explosions, the deaths, the nature of the illusions, the Manitou of the machines having power through Amelia and Harry's love? How easily can an audience suspend disbelief in such plot lines and special effects?
5. The theme of contemporary technology and its power and lack of power? The super-human and the transcendent, the medicine man and the devil? The seance and its power to summon up spirits? The change at the end with the assertion of the Manitou of technology and its being turned against the medicine man and the devil? even if temporarily? Who has the power?
6. Why such malevolence in contemporary society? The Californian Indians and reincarnation? Why the 20th century and contemporary San Francisco?
7. The introduction to Karen, as a person in herself, her concern about the lump and the revelation of the foetus? Her reliance on Harry and their shared experience at Fisherman's Wharf, the night together, her uneasy sleep and her incantation? her experience of the growth, the operations, her being taken over by the Manitou? The icon-like exercise with power at the end? The satisfying return to reality? Suitable heroine for this plot?
8. Tony Curtis's style as Harry? Seeing him as professional adviser, magician, his use of the cards and his pandering to elderly ladies' whims? The tongue-in-cheek attitude of Harry towards these events? The irony of the girl across the corridor? His relationship with Karen and trying to help her? The power of love? His using of the tarot cards and the indication of death? His alertness to her dreams? His consulting with the doctors and not being able to persuade them? His encounter with Mrs Herz and trying to help her and his being amazed at her death? His consulting Dr Snow and learning about Manitou’s, his visit to John Singing Rock and working with him for the medicine? Continued anxiety, his presence, his involvement with the doctors and with John Singing Rock especially in the illusions? The power of his love to save Karen? How convincing a hero for this kind of film? A professional phoney and yet his ability to bring success to a dangerous situation?
9. The personality of John Singing Rock, as a medicine man, his home, wife? His fee and attitude towards money and tobacco, his knowledge of law? His statements on love as power? Drawing the circle, confronting the Manitou especially in its birth, his failure, the training of the Manitou of the technology through Karen and his winning in the end?
10. The character of Amelia and her friendship with Harry, her husband, the attitude towards magic, the holding of the seance and the visual effects, Karen's aunt and her presence, the appearance of the face, the special effects of the storm? The visit to the professor and his humorous absent-mindedness yet revealing the truth to them? The strengths of these portrayals as giving substance to the film especially the portrait of Professor Snow by Burgess Meredith?
11. The importance of focussing on Harry's clients and what they revealed about him, superstition and magic, Mrs Herz and the complexity of her reaction and her death?
12. The portrait of the doctors as 20th century men involved in technology and surgery, their ignorance, fears, involvement? Dr Hughes and his ambiguous attitudes, victim especially with his arm and hand? Dr McEvoy? and his scepticism?
13. The Manitou itself, its growth, the visuals of its birth, killing, eyes, laughing, control, illusions, summoning the great evil, the spectacular nature of its destruction and the confrontation with Karen? The possibility of its reappearance and reincarnation?
14. The overall effect on an audience of this kind of experience? Enjoyment, learning? The facing of fear fantasies?
