Anton Szandor LaVey is, of course, most famous for his authorship of The Satanic Bible [1969, HarperCollins Publishers]. He fanned fresh air into the emerging occult movement of the ‘Sixties, and in his subsequent writings he continued to reveal his unique perspective on religion and human nature, on individuality and society’s rebels, on magic, and on the world at large. In tandem with his skill with words was his mastery of music, and most people who had the pleasure and honor of listening to him play acknowledge that he could have continued his career solely as a musician. What is spoken of equally profoundly by those who knew him, is his absolute passion for the moving picture.
Blanche Barton’s biography of LaVey, The Secret Life of a Satanist [1992, Feral House] often dwells on the influence movies had on LaVey as he formulated his world view, the effect on his consciousness of film noir, with its dark and gritty city streets, and of German expressionism, with its dramatic shadows and harsh contrasts. LaVey himself talked of how the anti-heroes of the old detective films created his earliest ECIs, his archetypes for men and women which remained steadfast as he achieved adulthood and became an inveterate people-watcher. Those who visited the old Black House on California St. rarely emerged without having been treated to at least one unique example from LaVey’s collection of films; he aimed to educate us as well as entertain us. “Maybe We Should Watch a Movie Now?” asks Chapter Six of Carl Abrahamsson’s book, Anton LaVey and the Church of Satan: Infernal Wisdom From the Devil’s Den [2022, Inner Traditions]. Carl states: “Anton LaVey was one of the finest film buffs I have ever met. It was reflected not only in the choice of films we watched on video while I was at the Black House, but also in his constant references to both on- and offbeat Hollywood masterpieces — and beyond.”
Could LaVey have had a career in filmmaking? It’s difficult to see him navigating the rough seas of project development, of necessary compromises, of constant disappointments experienced by independent filmmakers as well as by those supported by major studios. Nothing ever goes exactly right, and when magic happens, it’s often by accident and as the result of several people’s ideas and talents coalescing. Anton LaVey liked to control the entire keyboard. He could be charming; he could schmooze, but his tolerance for stupidity wore thin fast. He certainly qualified as a film historian, a critic, an analyst. His creative juices could have churned out screenplay after screenplay, but how long could he have tolerated seeing his work changed, adapted, or left on the cutting room floor? Not long, I’ll wager.
Nevertheless, Hollywood did call. LaVey’s mysterious appearance, the rumors of nefarious activities in a quiet San Francisco neighborhood, the media blitz that had been following him and his Church as surely the most titillating examples of the then-current Occult Explosion — these were all catnip to an army of filmmakers who wanted to explore and exploit the concept of Satanism. Anton LaVey was about to step behind the screen to become embroiled in his own version of a movie career, like it or not.
Before we dim the lights and sweep back the curtains, I should explain a bit about my process in writing this and other articles about LaVey’s experiences and creative life. I’m neither a professional historian or archivist, but I know a good story when I see one. The Church of Satan’s archives were in disarray, but as I organized them and formed categories and timelines, I could see that there was a great deal of light they could shine on LaVey’s thought processes, processes we’d only surmised or guessed at in the past. Here we had his own words; we no longer needed to speculate. I began developing articles from these materials and I am excited to share them with you. I want to reiterate: I work from what I find. I don’t always have an answer for every question. Sometimes, material that could bridge a gap in time or in a relationship, is missing. We’re all very fortunate to have as much as we do; we can thank the exorbitant rates Ma Bell was charging for phone calls back then, for the lengthy letters and reciprocal correspondence that we’ve found. We can infer from many references that LaVey did get on the phone frequently, especially with close friends like Art Ronnie, Will Fowler, Marcello Truzzi, Art Lyons and Ken Anger. “Here’s that thing we talked about the other night!” is often all you might see on a note in an envelope stuffed with clippings and copies. So please sit back and drink up what we do have; I hope you’ll feel that you got to know a little more about Anton LaVey and the history surrounding our Church.
Satanis: The Devil’s Mass - 1970
In 1968, the gloomy house on California St. and the strange doings therein were attracting a tidal wave of excited filmmakers, dragging along their assistants, their equipment, and their many ideas about Satanism. There’s no better testament to how much was going on at the time, than this little run-down in the October 1969 issue of The Cloven Hoof:
“FILMS: At this time we have no specific release dates for the following films, but it is most likely all four will be seen sometime within the next three months. The best we can do is inform you of the nature of each and alert you to the fact that they will be released soon, so you can watch for them. If, by the time the Dec. newsletter is issued, any of these have not yet been released and we have more definite information on when and where you’ll be able to see them, we will include an announcement.”
The first film on the list was something that started out as The Satanists: “…produced in Hollywood by Ray Laurent, may premiere in San Francisco around mid December. This is a feature-length documentary entirely on the Church of Satan and its founder and High Priest.”
Ray Laurent was a film student at UCLA in 1968 when he met Anton LaVey and decided to make a documentary about the Church of Satan. Their contract, dated April 21st, 1968, was typed on red paper and emblazoned with the Sigil of Baphomet. It reads, in part, as follows:
“ANTON SZANDOR LAVEY shall receive the agreed upon sum of $1,500, to be paid upon the signing of this contract.
“ANTON SZANDOR LAVEY shall receive, without charge, one print of said documentary.
“RAY LAURENT and crew shall be free to photograph on film any and all parts of the Church of Satan, the people therein, and ceremonies and extra-curricular activities pertaining to same.
“RAY LAURENT shall hold all legal rights to above mentioned documentary, and shall be free to use as he sees fit.
“The allotted time agreed upon for filming said documentary is three days from approximately 1:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m., with reasonable consideration for additional time which may be required for completion of said documentary.”
The film was shot on or around the Satanic high holiday of April 30th, Walpurgisnacht, 1968, at the original Black House on California St. in San Francisco. A core group of Church of Satan members participated in the filming, including the lovely (and spicy!) redheaded Lenore up on the altar, the delightful Baroness Carin de Plessin, LaVey’s Left Hand Men, John Ferro and John Kincaid, and several more Witches and Warlocks from the Bay area. The filmmaker also solicited interviews with LaVey’s neighbors, a cast of colorful characters we now refer to with affectionate titles, like “The Crabby Man,” “The Excited German Lady,” “The Wistful Would-Be Altar Gal,” and “Pink Lady and Slug Boy.”
Ray Laurent’s subsequent communications describing the post-production process, his ambitions for the film and the mounting costs, give a great perspective on how much film technology has changed. His letters were all handwritten on lined yellow paper, and he eloquently describes his struggles as a student filmmaker.
He followed up on May 13th with a letter to the LaVeys:
“…these last two weeks have been terribly busy, trying to get caught up on all the work I left behind to shoot the film… I know it was long, tedious, often boring, always tiring, but I feel the end will more than justify the means for us all. And if I may quote from an unmentionable best seller, one of my key phrases is, ‘whatever thy hand findest to do, do it with all thy might.’ I do. So if I became mean, nasty, a nuisance, etc., please accept my apologies and offer them to everyone else. I did not want to make a film with which the camera is placed somewhere and just turned on. My goal is a film which reflects in its style, the content of its subject. I feel, I hope, I now have the ingredients for such a film. For me, the work is just beginning.
“Unfortunately, I have yet to see any of the footage we shot. As you know, we exposed twice as much film as had been planned (and budgeted for). I still owe the lab another $2,000 before I can get my film out. I should have this by the end of the week and will be able to tell you better at that time just what we have.
“About getting some sort of distribution commercially. I’ve begun to feel like I’ve created a Frankenstein monster which has gotten out of hand and may end up putting Jenifer and me on skid row. I still plan to make my half hour documentary for UCLA. This will, of course, contain the best of all the footage. I can, however, dupe the original for this, re-cut it, pad it a little, possibly shoot some more (I can see the frowns already) and get some sort of feature picture for us. This is, however, all rather speculative at this point. I will know better what is possible when I see the film projected with sound and can tell what we have and do not have… my sincerest thanks to everyone. You are a great group of people.
“Sincerely, Ray
“PS: my people were instructed not to use the phone for any long distance type calls. I think everyone listened, but there is some doubt in my mind.”
LaVey wrote back quickly and enthusiastically, obviously quite hot to get a look at some of the footage on which they’d all worked so hard. I suppose we have the exorbitant long-distance rates of the 1960’s to thank for letters such as the one he wrote on May 19th:
“We are all very anxious to hear how the film came out, and, of course, to see the finished products. I’m sorry to hear that you had to go so far in debt. Without appearing too optimistic, I think that a feature film, if done properly, could be very salable, especially if the Satanic Bible goes well. A few days ago I sent about 3/4 of the manuscript for the Bible to my agent in L.A., and just received his comments which were very favorable. He is now sending it on to Doubleday and he asked for a decision from them within two weeks.
“I don’t know if you are aware of it but Hollywood is in the process of making four new films with Satanism as their basis. These are by no means low-budget films, but should be good films with top rate casts. One will be Dr. Faustus which will star Taylor and Burton. Another is a comedy with Mickey Rooney [The Devil In Love, Italian, 1966]. One that is being shown now is Bedazzeled [sic], which I haven’t seen, but I’ve heard it’s very good and very Satanic with people playing each of the seven deadly sins — Raquel Welch plays Lust. It looks like I’ve really started something with the Church of Satan, and Rosemary’s Baby has done much to carry the ball. From what I’ve been able to pick up from the book, and also from what the publicists handling Rosemary’s Baby [have said], Ira Levin based quite a bit of the details in the book on my group, which was unknown to me at the time. With all this fiction being produced, and if the Satanic Bible sells well, I think a feature length documentary on the Satanic Church would automatically sell...
“…let’s hope you get a good grade on the film. I’ll do what I can (magically) to see to it that you do… Isaac [Bonewits] will be in L.A. for the summer, and is going to be sure to be there for your showing.
“As far as any trying moments — don’t give it a thought. You, Jenifer, and the rest of the crew were very pleasant and easy to work with. Any impatience or irritation you felt from any of my people must be chalked up to ‘the nature of the beast’ concerned. It was almost unanimously agreed that the film was fun to make and that the people you had with you were very pleasant. Diane especially appreciated the concern and consideration shown by everyone (you and Jenifer in particular). She is so used to having to do everything herself that she was very impressed with the way everyone helped her with the cleaning-up and the concern for the needed decorum in certain situations. All in all I think, considering the amount of work we got done and the number of people involved, it went smoother than could have been expected.”
Laurent responded on June 19th with the usual introductory apology for taking so long, and then plunging into the matter at hand:
“…the faculty has now given me permission to use the film as my thesis. This means I might actually get my masters next year. Having been in school for the last nine years, I won’t know what to do.
“Since the picture is now a thesis there is no immediate deadline on its completion, which is good, as I’ve only gotten to the stage of having picture and sound synced up… I ran most of my rushes Sunday afternoon (wanted to do it Friday midnight, but no one else would go along with it) for my advisor, thesis committee, crew members, and a few selected friends. Here are the impressions and opinions I got from them and myself. It was generally conceded that we have a damn good film. Some of the interviews are priceless gems. You do have some very interesting neighbors! What they gave me was so pertinent in revealing themselves. One lady, after telling me she has absolutely no interest in the church whatsoever and had no desire to attend a service, in the very next sentence is explaining in great detail what she can see Friday nights from her window. Just marvelous! I think you will be quite pleased. On the whole, the interviews are extremely good. The best is, of course, the Mormons. Everyone who sees this ends up in stitches. I plan to intersect them with Lenore on the altar. Everything the one Mormon so violently and pompously puts down, Lenore explains very sincerely, logically. The Mormon makes himself look like a fool, and counterpoint by Lenore will just be devastating. Of interview[s] within the Church members, the group discussion comes off best. Everyone was so relaxed, and many vital points about your philosophy are brought out very naturally. The masturbation discussion, as expected, is great, and I think I can get away with running all eight minutes of it straight, without one cut. It is that good, and you were able to make it work to again bring out points about black magick and Satanism. This is the good stuff. Now…
“The ritual high point will be the voodoo dance, and the invocation of Satan coming a close second. Second because I shot it more conventionally. The voodoo ceremony has much wilder camera angles and effects. The Templars ritual does not seem to work well at all, but I’ll have to play with it to be sure. The Black Mass lies between these two extremes. We shot it completely differently from the others, but I think there is enough there to make it work. This will take some good editing but I think it can be done. Most people felt that the ritual sequence didn’t come off that well, but many felt that the content was bizarre enough to carry it. We shall see.
“Now my plans. I’m going to try something different that I think might work very well. I’m going to attempt a split screen, with two separate images projected side-by-side on a Cinemascope size screen. There are several reasons for this. First, everyone agrees that I have a good half hour film, but most felt I would have a hard time with a commercially distributable feature. The things that would sell a feature would be, of course, the rituals. Cut together, they wouldn’t last too much longer than 20 minutes, and 20 minutes does not a good feature make. By using a split screen, I could leave in much more of the ritual since if it tends to drag, an interview on the other half could carry it. The possibilities of pointing and counterpointing by this method are almost limitless. I can also make good use of all the footage I have inside the house.
“So there are my plans. Please write and let me know what you think. When the picture will be complete is very difficult to say. I hope to have a first rough cut by the end of summer. It is going to be a tremendous task.
“Rosemary’s Baby just opened this weekend. Hope to see it this week. There is also a picture playing a nudie house down here called The Satanist. I want to see this, too, out of sheer curiosity. Almost forgot — thank you for the buttons. I especially liked ‘Pray For Anton LaVey.’”
LaVey responded in an enthusiastic letter dated June 30th, 1968.
“I can visualize very well your idea of interspersing Lenore’s interview with the Mormon’s. It should be a scream! … I would, if at all possible, like to be able to see some of the footage, should I get down to L.A. before you have the film completed. Would there be any chance of this?
“I was going to suggest you see Rosemary’s Baby, so I’m glad to hear that you plan to do so. It is terrific, and the transition from the book to the film is excellent. The impregnation scene is beautifully done — chilling, but still tasteful. Now, I have a surprise for you — I play the part of Satan in the impregnation scene, and again at the end. This was supposed to be kept secret until the film was released, and even now Paramount is ‘leaking’ it in the form of a rumor to add a bizarre touch. Bill Castle pulled a ‘Hitchco*ck’ in the phone booth scene. When Mia Farrow is in the phone booth and she thinks [it’s] Dr. Saperstein but [it’s] only a man waiting for the booth — played by Castle. Oh, by the way, the girl (the nude) in the impregnation scene scene is not Mia Farrow, but a Hollywood starlet with a much better body than Mia. I’m sure your photographer’s eye will spot the difference immediately. The costume I wear as the Devil really looked pretty hokey during the filming, but comes off marvelously in the finished product. You might be able to recognize me through the fur and scales, but it’s really pretty hard to tell.”
A couple of months went by, during which we can presume Ray Laurent was scrambling to edit his movie and put together some financing before he had to consider selling his soul to finish it. LaVey sent another letter on September 5th, this time asking for a favor: he wanted Laurent to scope out a lecture hall in Los Angeles where LaVey could give a public talk. It seemed that as interest in Satanism grew in the southern California area, so too were LaVey’s lectures in San Francisco beginning to burst the old Black House at the seams.
“I hadn’t realized the number of people who would be interested enough in Satanism and other realms of the occult until a couple of months ago when the editor of the entertainment section of the Sunday S.F. paper decided to list announcements of my lectures. For the first few weeks we were turning away as many people as we were able to seat — about 50 (some on the floor and in the hallway). Finally, I decided to do the same lecture two nights a week — Wednesday and Thursday, and we’ve been packing them in like sardines ever since. If this, and the mail I’ve received from L.A. is any indication of the amount of interest in So. California, who knows what could come of it!”
It’s somewhat compelling to reflect on the fact that this burgeoning interest in Satanism was happening before The Satanic Bible was published; in fact, that seminal work wouldn’t appear for almost a year-and-a-half. The letter also touches on LaVey’s search for a publisher:
“Still no word on the Satanic Bible. Doubleday had looked pretty good, and had even made a policy decision on it, but at the last minute got cold feet — it’s a strong Catholic organization, so my agent tells me. He said he has now sent the manuscript to a couple of the large publishers in N.Y. and Bantam Books. They seem, quite interested, but we shall see when it comes right down to sticking their necks out. My agent feels it would be best to try the ‘straight,’ reputable publishers first, before going to the ones that usually handle controversial books, as a last resort.”
In other news, however, LaVey was happy to report that The Satanic Mass LP was in production, “which will have readings from The Satanic Bible on one side and the ceremony on the other. We have one side finished in rough form now, and hope to have the whole thing done within the next couple of weeks.” LaVey also makes reference in this letter to Laurent helping Isaac Bonewits with several public appearances he’d made in Los Angeles that summer.
Laurent wrote back on October 9th, first discussing the hot topic that Satanism and the Church of Satan had become:
“I couldn’t agree with you more on the potential interest in Satanism here in southern California. I have had numerous people display the same in the film and in the Church. Like the rest of the world, they are now familiar with Rosemary’s Baby and automatically equate you with Levin’s coven. I’ve checked a couple auditoriums and the least expensive one so far has been $100 per night, which is outrageous.”
However, the director knew what LaVey really wanted to hear: “About the status of the film. Let’s see, how can I avoid the question. Guess I can’t. So far I have about 45 minutes cut. This, of course is the first (very) rough cut. I would like to get it to about 2 1/2 hours and then start hacking away at it. My biggest problem so far has been giving the film structure. Unlike a fiction film in which everything is planned and structured before shooting, with this type of documentary everything must be assembled and built in the cutting room. And, of course, there is an infinite variety of ways to put it together. My task is to find the one which works best. What I have now is a series of huge chunks of film, very loosely structured, containing everything I want in the picture. Once I get this all together, in about another two weeks I think, my thesis committee wants to see it and then I start making a film out of it. A lot of it, so far, is working very nicely; some, of course, is not. I had been working on the film part time and putting food on the table full time, but two weeks ago I went on unemployment, having saved up enough to last us until Christmas, and am now devoting all my hours to the project. I am sincerely sorry, Anton, that it’s taking so long to complete, but hopefully when the work is finished, we will have something both of us can be proud of.
“One favor I must ask of you. Could you check the San Francisco TV stations about availability of stock footage or news footage on the Church. I am particularly interested in what they might have on the funeral and wedding ceremonies. Anything on Togare would also be appreciated. I thought I could get something here from CBS, but they have nothing and everything the news services might have is in New York.”
It seems that Isaac Bonewits had made a recent appearance on The Joe Pyne Show, the talk show where LaVey had received rather rude treatment, and Laurent and friends “sat around the tube and watched him anyway. If you talk to Isaac please give him my heartiest congratulations. He handled himself beautifully.” Also: “Saw Bedazzled. Don’t waste your time. It’s miserable.”
Laurent then went on to say that he and his wife Jenifer were well, but that a recent trip home to Pennsylvania had confirmed for him all the good reasons he had to live in California. “Ran some of the ritual footage for my parents. They took it all rather calmly, but a neighbor who had come over and decided to stay for the show kept repeating, ‘I don’t believe it! I don’t believe it!’ I think it rather unnerved her.” I don’t imagine it sat very well with LaVey that Laurent had hauled the ritual footage of Satanis all the way to Pennsylvania for the entertainment of his parents and some hayseed neighbor of theirs, while the High Priest was waiting eagerly for the smallest glimpse of it himself.
No more letters arrived from Laurent until February, 1969, and his typically apologetic opening paragraph cited work, school and “most important, the film have left me with little spare time. But now that the work is close to being finished, I felt I must let you know where we are.
“I had a screening Friday evening for students and a few faculty members of my rough cut, and the film was extremely well received. It now runs 80 minutes and should be cut down to about 50, as there are some sections which drag quite a bit. Even with these, however, we were able to keep people interested and entertained. I had so many questions about you and the church afterward that I’m sure, if the thing gets a good commercial release, you will be swamped with applications for membership.
“My plans are as follows. To get any kind of commercial release, the film should be no shorter than 75 to 80 minutes. There are a few changes I’d like to make, then we shall begin showing it to different distributors and see what happens. If it gets sold, then we are both home safe. I would then like to cut out the 30 to 35 minutes worth of padding the film now contains and submit it as my thesis. We also have plans of entering it in several student and international film festivals. I may be too optimistic, but I do feel the film is worth an award or two. Even people who, after seeing the rushes many months ago, had told me they didn’t know how we’d ever get a movie out of all of that, came up Friday and expressed their amazement. As you can see, I’m fairly pleased and I believe we have something we can all be proud of.
“You will also be pleased to know that the Satanic Church comes off very well as an organization. There are some things which did shock or even disgust some people: the whipping, the voodoo ritual, the masturbation discussion. But people were in deep sympathy with the logic of your basic beliefs. It’s really funny. I start the film with the invocation, and for the first two or three minutes there was an awful lot of heckling. Most people thought the whole thing was a put-on. But by the end of the sequence, the audience had realized that it was for real and they were stone silent. It was quite a transformation to behold. I sincerely believe that you and everyone in the church will be very happy.”
He goes on to discuss the nuts and bolts of getting the film finished, dubbed, printed, and promises to fly to San Francisco “soon” and show everyone the results. “I had one rather demonic thought: wouldn’t it be interesting to invite all the neighbors, etc. who participated over to your place and run the film then? This would be priceless!
“Please give my best regards to your family and to everyone in the church. I know it’s been almost a year coming, but I feel certain that the end result will have been worth waiting for.
“Sincerely, Ray Laurent.
“PS: Please tell Karen [The Baroness, Carin de Plessin] that she is a hit. I’ve had two people so far who said they would like to use her in a film of their own.”
LaVey lost no time in responding in a letter dated February 14th, 1969, which was full of news of his own:
“It goes without saying that everyone is very anxious to see the finished product… we now have a recording entitled The Satanic Mass, which has the entire Satanic ceremony on one side and readings from The Satanic Bible on the other. Also, we’ve sold the Bible. Avon Books plans a first printing of 125,000 copies, and have been very agreeable with my ideas for marketing and packaging it. They hope to have it out by around the first of May [it actually appeared in November]. This, in addition to the record, will undoubtedly do much to create a demand for your film. I’m sure you can see the potential.
“As always, things have been going fast and furious around here; but if it were not so, then I would worry. I will begin a weekly column on magic and the supernormal in the National Insider newspaper. (They just finished a six-part article, and the last issue, Feb. 9th, had a front-page review of our record.) If you can get the Feb. 9th issue it will tell you quite a lot about the record -- there’s a page and a half of text inside, in addition to the half-page announcement of the review on the front page.
“Also, Playboy has an article entitled ‘Cultsville U.S.A.’ in the current issue [March 1969]. We are included in the story, but it is a rather sarcastically and certainly uninformed article. As usual, Playboy is two years behind the times — the article was written about two years ago. Everyone who ‘knows,’ though, says don’t knock it, it reaches ten million people, and anyone who is sincerely interested will be able to read between the lines… A member and writer, Burton Wolfe, has begun a book on myself and the church, which he hopes will be a good follow-up to The Satanic Bible.”
However, this cheery and avuncular letter was followed up three days later by another, one that was full of frustration, annoyance and barely-suppressed steam. We’ll let LaVey explain it himself:
“As I said in the last letter and many times over in the past, we are all extremely anxious to see the film — even if it isn’t finished. Today, a young actress who is a member of the Church said she had been talking with a friend, also an actor, and had mentioned the Church of Satan. She was about to explain to him a bit about the Church, when he stopped her by saying last weekend he had seen a film on the Satanic Church, and he knew about it already.
“The film he saw, (in Berkeley) was your film! It couldn’t have been any other, as he described it in great detail — from the Knights Templar ceremony to the Sign of the Horns being given by the congregation. Naturally, it is rather perturbing and frustrating to know that others in the Bay Area are seeing the film, when we, the subjects of it, have not even seen it.
“Rudy mentioned that he saw you in North Beach a few weeks ago, but I passed it off as a case of mistaken identification combined with wishful thinking on Rudy’s part. But now that I’ve been told of the film being shown in Berkeley, by someone I consider to be a reliable source, I’m not sure Rudy was mistaken.
“It probably sounds as though I’m a bit disgruntled — well I am! I realize the film has taken much time and work on your part, but I have been passifying [sic] the members so long and assuring them that as soon as it was completed we would be the first to know…and to see it. Now I don’t know what to say.
“Please let me know when we will be able to see it. If it were a question of your not having enough time to come to S.F. for us to see it, we certainly would have gone to Berkeley for the showing.”
This letter is dated February 17th, 1969. We can only speculate as to what Laurent’s justification (excuses) may have been for not inviting LaVey & Co. to the Berkeley screening — perhaps it was one last audience test, or maybe he didn’t want LaVey or his followers to have to endure any heckling or inappropriate laughter. Certainly, an angry High Priest storming out of the theater would have been a hair-raising experience for everyone, but mostly for Ray Laurent. In any case, there couldn’t have been a valid reason for not informing LaVey and arranging a private screening at the Black House before or after the public one. LaVey and his congregants had worked hard and waited a long time, and excluding them was thoughtless and rude. The archive contains no more enthusiastic, supportive letters from Anton LaVey, and only one from Laurent, which arrived after a long silence of ten months, dated December 14th, 1969:
“Our film is almost finished, but before we put the final touches on it, my distributor needs the enclosed agreement signed. Please return it to me as soon as possible so we can finish the picture.” Certainly a different tone prevails here, to say nothing of the plain old nerve of using “as soon as possible” with LaVey after the glacial amount of time he’d taken himself. The agreement mentioned was a simple release of LaVey’s organ music, for which he received the nominal sum of one dollar.
Laurent continues with a remote, professional tone, while attempting to mend fences with the offer of “proceeds:”
“If things go as planned, the picture will open in San Francisco sometime in February or March. You will, of course, get a chance to see it before it is shown publicly.” So even after that somewhat blistering letter and TEN MONTHS, LaVey still hadn’t seen Satanis? I’d say Laurent could have kept his of-courses to himself at this point. “And my distributor definitely wants the opening night to be a benefit for the Church, the first day’s proceeds to be donated to you. It should be lots of fun. We all plan to fly up to S.F. for the occasion.”
Laurent kept it professional from here on out, engaging Claire Harrison, Publicity and Public Relations, to put together the pressers for Anton LaVey and Satanis. The big press push took place in February. Things stepped off at 11:00 a.m. on February 18th with the first screening, attended by Jon Carroll from the San Francisco Chronicle, Richard Ogar from the Berkeley Barb, Brad Messer from KYA Radio, Loran Shapiro from Berkeley Tribe (an underground, counterculture newspaper), and Sam Silver from Good Times (same). Another screening took place at 4:00 p.m. with live coverage by Stefan Ponek of KSAN, and then at 7:30 p.m. the team converged on the Chez Leon restaurant, where Jon Carroll, who wrote for the Chronicle’s Datebook, interviewed “Lilith” from the Church of Satan, one of the witches who appears in the film.
An even more extensive publicity push took place about a week later, with critics’ screenings on Thursday, February 26th at the Times Theater. The invitees included Jerry Kay from KGO-FM, Rolfe Peterson from KGO-TV, John Wasserman from the San Francisco Chronicle, Jeanne Miller from the San Francisco Examiner, Gerald Nachman from the Oakland Tribune, Gene Robertson from the San Francisco Sun, Barbara Bladen from the Santa Maria Times and Carter Smith from KSFO.
The next day, Friday, February 27th, publicity for Satanis: The Devil’s Mass reached every corner of San Francisco, with interviews scheduled approximately every 30 minutes starting at 10:30 a.m. These interviews appeared to be short radio appearances at locations all over the city, in studios and on the street. In addition to the journalists mentioned above, there were conversations with Walter Earle of KQED-FM, Mike Forrest of KNEW, Dave Niles of KNBR, Bob Brakow of KFOG and Tom Swift of KMFX. At 12:45 p.m. there was a Drama Critics Luncheon at Oreste’s Restaurant, with the invitees from the previous day’s screening.
The film opened in San Francisco on March 4th, 1970 at the Times Theater, in a double feature with Kenneth Anger’s Invocation of My Demon Brother. Both films were being distributed by Sherpix, a distributor of mainly erotic and X-rated films, most notoriously, The Stewardesses. “Louis K. Sher is an unjustly neglected pioneer of exploitation cinema,” per John Minson in “The Wages of Sin: The Irrepressible Rise of All-American Smut,” an article on BrightLightsFilm.com. “He played a major role in defending Louis Malle’s Les Amants (1958) against obscenity charges, all the way to the Supreme Court.” Other non-p*rn films distributed by Sherpix include Flesh and Lonesome Cowboy by Andy Warhol.
Footage from Satanis was immediately picked up by every news agency and began hitting nightly news broadcasts all over the USA and most of the world. I remember seeing it as a child at a friend’s home as her parents watched the news; they had a color TV and the garish colors of the ritual footage made a permanent impression on me.
The film was shown mainly in art houses, at film festivals, and fell into obscurity into the 1980’s, when the only way to watch it was to rent a 16mm print from a small company called Budget Films. Bootleg VHS versions circulated into the early 90’s, and the film was finally picked up for a commercial release by Something Weird Video, a champion of all things underground. Their initial VHS release with Johnny Legend/Untamed Video happened in 1996, and the videocassette’s cover included a leopard print background behind some unfortunate graphics. In 2002, there was another VHS release by Something Weird, under the august auspices of Frank Henenlotter’s Sexy Shockers From the Vaults, with the same regrettable illustrations, and then in 2003 Something Weird put the film out on DVD along with Sinthia, The Devil’s Doll. Satanis: The Devil’s Mass was released one more time in 2019 on blu-ray, paired with Satan’s Children, another independent film from the Seventies. This release was a partnership of Something Weird with AGFA, the American Genre Film Archive; the producers contacted the Church of Satan for supplemental material, and conducted interviews with High Priest Peter H. Gilmore and myself which didn’t make it to the package. It was also shown in special viewings at several Alamo Draft House theaters around the time of its release.
To this day, Satanis is often mined for documentaries, not just for its seminal images about Satanism, but because of how well it personifies aspects of the occult explosion, San Francisco, the Sixties, and more — it remains representative of a fascinating time of revolutionary thought and changing mores in this country and our world at large.
Invocation of My Demon Brother — 1969
Anton LaVey appears in a brief cameo in his longtime friend Kenneth Anger’s 11-minute film. Anger was a San Francisco local and his face-to-face encounters with LaVey, while putting together his film, have engendered no documents that remain in our archive. While much has been written elsewhere about this groundbreaking art film, it was only mentioned once in The Cloven Hoof, to announce it as part of the double-feature that comprised the premiere of Satanis: The Devil’s Mass.
In March of 1969, just as he was venting his frustration with Ray Laurent over not being able to see footage from Satanis, Anton LaVey received a telephone call from from Luigi Scattini, an Italian filmmaker visiting Los Angeles; Scattini asked LaVey to describe the rituals of the Church of Satan, with an eye to including the Church in a new documentary. LaVey responded promptly and a meeting was arranged with Scattini and his associate; the agreement between LaVey and Caravel Films was signed on March 9th, 1969, and LaVey was to receive $1,000 for the filming of “a complete sequence in and around his residence church.” At this point, Scattini’s working title for the project was Magic Report.
The October 1969 issue of The Cloven Hoof again comes to our aid:
Angela Bianca, Angela Nera [sic] — “…produced by Caravel-Atlas Films, the Italian company whose past accomplishments include the controversial and internationally acclaimed Mondo Cane. This is a documentary on magic, which devotes a large segment to the Church of Satan. When this film was released in Rome last month, it received very favorable notices from the critics. The director, Luigi Scattini, pridefully points to the part on the C of S as the high-point of the film. (You may recall our mention of this film in the April issue of the newsletter.) We have been told that this will probably be released in Dec.”
Scattini worked fast; frankly, the film shows it. In any case, within only a couple of months of completing the filming, he was on the phone with LaVey again, apparently talking up an all-expense paid trip to Rome for the premiere of what was now called Angeli Bianchi, Angeli Neri. Then, several weeks of silence. A telegram went out from San Francisco, followed by this letter from LaVey dated September 4th, 1969:
“I have postponed the scheduling of my activities for the next few weeks, because I did not want to make any commitments which might interfere with our trip to Rome for the opening of the film… Therefore, I would appreciate it if you would call or send a telegram as soon as you receive this letter.”
Scattini responded to the telegram on August 28th, 1969, via a Special Delivery letter but LaVey didn’t receive it until after he’d written on September 4th:
“Dear Mr. LaVey:
“Referring to my telephone conversation of a few days ago and your very nice cable, I regret to inform you that due to the Censorship formalities, we will have some delay in the releasing of the film.
“I will not fail to inform you as soon as we will get over with the difficulties we are having now.
“I remember with pleasure our meeting and your nice collaboration to my film.
“Kindest regards to Mrs. LaVey and to yourself.”
This Special Delivery was followed by another postal letter on September 8th:
“Dear Mr. LaVey:
“Herewith enclosed please find a xerocopy [sic] of my letter of the 28th Aug., that probably you had not yet received when you wrote to me.
“I have sent you the following cable today: ‘following our letter 28th August confirm impossibility your travel stop letter follows regards Scattini.’
“At the moment, we do not [know] anything about the Censorship’s decision for our film and we will keep you informed.
“Thanking you for your kind letter, I remain yours faithfully, Luigi Scattini.”
LaVey didn’t receive the August or September communication until the middle of October, when he wrote the following to Scattini:
“I am rapidly losing patience with the U.S. Postal Dept., as your letters are not the only ones which have gone astray… I greatly appreciate your sending the photos. The composition is excellent and the color is exquisite. If they are any indication of the quality of the film, I have no doubt that it is a masterpiece.” These photos are not in the archive and their location is unknown.
LaVey went on: “The members of the Church and I look forward to seeing the film when it is released in the U.S. Can you give me any information as to when that will be and the types of theatres in which it will be shown? … I have received a goodly amount of mail from Italy as a result of your film, and the correspondents seems to be highly intelligent and personable individuals. Who knows, perhaps one day we will have a Satanic Vatican there! … I am sorry the events which transpired following our telephone conversation negated my trip to Rome, but can certainly understand your predicament concerning the local censorship. My only regret is that I was denied the opportunity to visit with my Italian friends — yourself, Mauro, Mr. Lomedicao, etc. — once again. But perhaps we shall meet again sometime in our future travels.
“When my book, The Satanic Bible, is released this Dec., I shall send you a copy.”
Scattini wrote back on November 24th, 1969: “After having had many censorship’s difficulties with the film Angeli Bianchi, Angeli Neri which also took [from] me the pleasure in having you as my guest in Rome, I can tell you that the film is just doing well.
“I don’t know when the film will be released in the States because we did not yet reached [sic] an agreement with our American distributor. I will be pleased to inform you about it in due time.
“I was very glad that you received many letters from Italy after the releasing of the film — this is a very nice way to be introduced with a lot of people and to be acquainted in the international field.”
Seven months later, LaVey was still waiting to see any part of Angeli Bianchi, Angeli Neri. After his long, mostly patient, wait for Satanis, he was surely becoming familiar with the lag times in the film industry. However, by June 29, 1970, he made so bold to say:
“Dear Mr. Scattini:
“You have been on our mind and have come up in our conversation many times since I wrote last. Naturally, the main reason is our curiosity concerning when — if ever — the documentary you did containing a part on the Church of Satan will be released in this country…
“We received clippings from friends of ours in Paris and was pleased to know it was showing at several theatres at once there. They saw it and said the entire documentary was fascinating and excellently produced. As you can assume, we were very envious that they had a chance to see it before we did! I have checked around trying to find out anything about its release in the U.S. but unfortunately had no success. Therefore, even though I dislike having to bother you about it, I would very much appreciate it if you could shed some light on the situation — if you have any further information. Please drop us a note concerning this.”
LaVey received a response from Scattini in October 1970, four months later:
“I’m sorry I’m so late in writing back to you, but I have been in Asia during the last three months and I could not reply to you before. In fact the mail could not reach me in the spots where I was.
“First of all, I wish to thank you for the sending of The Satanic Bible. I have got it. It’s fantastic!
“About the picture, I can only tell you that I have sold it to an American distribution company (American International) in the States.
“Of course I can’t be sure of that — because from the moment I sold it — they can do what they like, but I suppose they’ve got interest in releasing the picture as soon as possible.”
Sigh. Well, it didn’t take too much longer. Angeli Bianchi, Angela Neri, now known as Witchcraft ‘70, appeared in the US in December 1970, just in time for Christmas. American International had handed it over to director Lee Frost, known for directing Mondo Bizarro and a few years later, Race With the Devil, starring Peter Fonda, Warren Oates, Loretta Swit and Dark Shadows favorite, Lara Parker. American International had a division set up for their more outré productions, Trans American, and Witchcraft ‘70 fit right in. Lee Frost’s specialty at the time was “Americanizing” the exploitation films coming out of Europe, particularly Italy, and he went to work on Witchcraft ‘70, replacing the narration with one that smirked at and put down the on-screen participants; he filmed some extra scenes for the American release.
One of those scenes focused on a police officer from Capitola, California, warning of the dangers of occultism and the manner in which it leads to drug use and crime. On December 15th, 1970, the Santa Cruz Sentinel contained a short article:
“Officer Miscast In ‘X’ Movie: A Capitola policeman has turned up in an X-rated film on witchcraft, much to the embarrassment of Capitola and the officer himself.
“A team of Capitola officials tonight will view the movie, now showing at a Santa Cruz theater, to determine what if any action should be taken by the city.
“Lt. Dave Esty said he was told by the film makers that the movie was to be an educational documentary warning of the dangers of dabbling in drugs and witchcraft.
“Thus, when approached by makers of the film, which is distributed by Trans American Corp., Esty readily agreed to deliver a warning message. Chief Marty Bergthold gave his permission to the project.
“What neither of them knew was that the movie was to be heavily sex-oriented. ‘That’s where the misrepresentation comes in,’ Bergthold said.
“Adding insult to injury is that Esty delivers his filmed message in front of a plainly marked Capitola police car.”
A follow-up article appeared in the same paper on December 17th, 1970, expounding upon the dismay of city officials:
“‘We’re looking into it,’ said City Attorney John Marlo. ‘There’s a lot of legal research involved in something like this.’
“Marlo said he is in no position to evaluate the chances of legal action against makers of the film until he has talk to Capitola Police Lt. Dave Esty, and as yet, he has had no opportunity to do so.
“Esty figures prominently in the film as he delivers warnings against the increasing use of narcotics, the spread of witchcraft and the link between the two.
“Esty has carried on a long-standing campaign against narcotics, and in the course of his investigations has noticed [a] strong connection between drugs and witchcraft.
“When asked by the film makers to deliver a warning against drugs and witchcraft, Esty agreed, since, he reported, the movie people assured him the film would be an educational documentary.
“It turned out to be, according to Capitola City Manager Ryder Ray, ‘a trash movie. There’s very little documentary or educational value to it. It’s just another X-rated sex movie.’
“Capitola officials are disturbed over more than Esty’s appearance in the film — the movie hints that Capitola is a center of drug abuse and witchcraft practice.
“Ray, who viewed the film Tuesday night with Marlo, said he feels ‘Dave Esty was taken. He made an honest presentation and it was twisted to misrepresent what he was doing.
“It was junk. I went into it with as open a mind as possible, and I still think that way.’
“Marlo said, ‘It was tasteless.’”
These two small articles found their way into the hands of a local Church of Satan member, and thereby on to the desk of Anton LaVey. Already displeased with the American version of Witchcraft ‘70 and the snide voiceover commentary that had been substituted by Lee Frost, LaVey was more than ready to heap blame on the film makers and support the local constabulary. In his letter of January 13, 1971, LaVey related the following to City Attorney John Marlo:
“…Even before I read the Sentinel’s reports, I was relatively certain that the sequence of Witchcraft ‘70 devoted to the Church of Satan was not the only misrepresentative portion. Therefore, the clarification of Lt. Esty’s position only corroborated my earlier suspicions — that the well-meaning office (and undoubtedly others, as well) had been equally exploited. I felt that Lt. Esty’s comments were twisted into a derisively moralistic diatribe, which, by contrast to the rest of the film, only served to heighten the lurid aspects and further satisfy the prurient interests of the viewers. This was, of course, the intention of the hypocritical film makers, for they knew full well that the good officers admonition would provide the necessary credibility factor for their otherwise shoddy production, thereby justifying its distasteful portions.
“Had this exploitive quasi-documentary been more concerned with proper documentation of the subject matter, than it was with sensationalism, Lt. Esty’s very urgent message about drug abuse and unlawful pseudo-witchcraft practices would have served the purpose for which he surely intended it. His aim was, naturally, to alert the audiences to the dangers awaiting those who might innocently but indiscriminately involve themselves with deviant groups, who rationalize their illegal activities with euphemistic occult terms, hence misleading the naive participants who might otherwise refuse to perform such atrocities as were shown in the disgusting sequence on the so-called (hippie) witchcraft group at the Spahn Ranch.
“It would undoubtedly be assumed that we would feel animosity toward Lt. Esty, since his comments could hardly be considered helpful to our cause. On the contrary, however, my purpose in writing is first to commend him for his efforts and then to offer my assistance, should you determine that the film’s misrepresentation of Lt. Esty does, indeed, warrant legal action. I am convinced that he was acting in all sincerity and did not intend to convey the impression that he is disdainful of any (or all) occult-based group itself, but only his disapproval and concern regarding the obvious drug problem related to seventy-five percent (conservative estimate), and general illicit behavior of at least thirty-five to forty percent of the increasingly-popular occult movement.
“This unlawful element is comprised predominantly of the violently-defiant, anti-Establishment, under thirty set (hippie-types, for lack of a better term), so undoubtedly realizing this, Lt. Esty’s apprehension over its corruptive effect upon the youth of his community (and the rest of the country) is well-founded.
“I was recently discussing Witchcraft ‘70 with an associate of mine, Arthur Lyons (author of the first properly researched and documented work on the subject, The Second Coming: Satanism in America), and I asked him his opinion of Lt. Esty’s part in the film. He knows the officer quite well, for he had spent quite a bit of time in the Santa Cruz/Capitola area doing research on The Second Coming and another book he is presently writing on the violent aspects of the occult movement, and has been consulted by the police there concerning occult activities in the area. He said the provincial, self-righteous image the film conveyed of Lt. Esty was absurd for in reality, he is a sincerely dedicated law enforcement officer who performs his professional duties with an open mind and a keen sense of justice, which has gained him the respect and affection of the members (young and old) of his community.
“I assure you, Mr. Marlo, that despite my deceptively-esoteric profession, I am first and foremost a realist and have, in fact, based my religion on the very realistic principles I have learned through my various professions, which range from wild animal trainer to police photographer. I, therefore, realize you may consider my offer of dubious value, for because of my rather unorthodox occupation the validity of my testimony in Lt. Esty’s behalf might be deemed questionable by those responsible for the dispensation of the case, should it reach the courts. Nevertheless, facts are facts, and it is because of that very unconventionality of my profession, that I am in an excellent position to substantiate Lt. Esty’s charge of misrepresentation.
“Due to my knowledge of the film’s subject matter, I am able to cite countless examples of fallacious statements in the narrative and misleading editing (of both audio and visual portions) of the film, which grossly misrepresent not only my own organization, but others as well. And if it is shown that misrepresentation (and in some cases, outright slander) was the rule rather than the exception throughout the film, it would lend credence to Lt. Esty’s objections concerning his part.
“In my own case, for example, nearly every statement was erroneous. Disappointed with the lack of sex and sensationalism of the footage on us, and in an attempt to compensate for the (non-titillating) seriousness of our participants, the narrator attributed what he termed our ‘bored expressions’ to the fact that we are a group of ‘jaded, middle-aged dilettantes who perform the same or similar ceremonies as often as three times a day, seven days a week…always for a fee.’ In other words, he attempted to convert a serious religious ceremony (which, incidentally, we perform only once a week) into a into a sort of carnival ‘grind show.’ He further tries to ‘spice up’ our sequence with the ludicrous allusion to my ‘sexually initiating new brides prior to joining them in unholy matrimony.’ This is so utterly preposterous that I hesitate to mention it, but do so only to demonstrate the sort of misinformation offered by the film. The absurdities propagated by Witchcraft ‘70 might be ignored, were it not for the fact that the many misconceptions about Satanism that we have worked so diligently to dispel have now, sadly, been given new life. We have been considerably inconvenienced by having to dissuade all the ‘sex nuts’ who have subsequently contacted us assuming we are little more than a procurement agency.
“Out of deference to the original production crew, it should be mentioned that the European version, which was critically well received, bore little resemblance to the re-edited and addended American production. The commentary for the original (Caravel-Atlas) version was written by one of Italy’s most respected script writers and narrated by a top-notch European actor. Also, the two most distasteful segments — those showing animal sacrifice, blood feasts, and orgiastic sexual activity — were added to the film once it reached our shores. These were the (obviously staged) voodoo ritual and the part on the Spahn Ranch. If you feel it would be of benefit to Lt. Esty’s case to examine more closely the difference between the European version and the American bastardization, as a means of establishing the exploitive intent on the part of the American company, I can offer some assistance and also provide you with the name of who you might contact regarding the Italian version.
“The crowning insult, not only to us but to the intelligence (?) of the viewers, was the closing line, which follows up the Spahn Ranch/Manson sequence with a trite moralism warning about the prevalence of drug-abuse and even witchcraft practice amongst our young people. This implies that witchcraft is more dangerous than drugs! Such unfounded inflammatory propaganda went out with heretic hooks!”
LaVey sent a copy to Capitola Police Chief Marty Bergthold.
John Marlo responded positively and promptly to LaVey’s diatribe. In his letter of January 27th, 1971, he thanked LaVey for the offer of assistance and asked for the names of all parties involved at the production level of the film. “I would also like to meet with you in the near future to discuss the points raised in your letter — specifically in regard to the misrepresentations that you indicated were present in the film. Your comments regarding Lt. Esty’s sincerity are well taken. He is certainly respected in this community for his efforts in attempting to educate the youth of our community. He was greatly embarrassed by the film and it has had an irreparable effect on his activities in his educational programs.”
Upon receiving this letter, LaVey put his office staff to the job of working the phones and sent Marlo another letter, dated February 3rd, 1971:
“My secretary was able to obtain most of the information you require, plus a possible lead as to who was responsible for the American version (or should I say travesty).”
It seems LaVey had already made previous contact with American International/Trans America to work out an arrangement for a screening — the production company had offered LaVey and a group of his followers a private screening of Witchcraft ‘70. But that was before the film had actually arrived in their offices and they’d obtained a whiff of how the Church of Satan was treated in this Americanized version. Suddenly, they were unable to secure a screening room at any time before the San Francisco premiere. This exchange had yielded one advantage for LaVey, however: he had a couple of names, and dropping those names got his secretary through the switchboard. “She used their names as a means of establishing the legitimacy of her queries. She expressed the distinct feeling that the woman with whom she spoke was reticent to provide any information about the American additions, until after she said she had spoken with Mr. [Hal] Gruber and Mr. [Stan] Siegel concerning same.” LaVey went on to provide all the individual names and company addresses Marlo had requested, with the additional recommendation that he contact journalist Duilio Pallottelli. “I dined with Mr. Pallottelli during his most recent trip to San Francisco about a month ago, and I mentioned my displeasure with Witchcraft ‘70. He said Mr. Scattini was equally distressed over Trans America’s shoddy, inaccurate translation of his production, and expressed concern over what he knew would be my reaction to it. I sincerely believe Trans America is totally to blame for the embarrassment Lt. Esty has suffered, for I know the other gentlemen well enough to be fairly certain their work would not have contained similar misrepresentation, but would in fact be a legitimate documentary.
“I trust the contents of this letter will be at least partially responsible for an affirmative decision to the question of whether or not legal action should (or can) be taken.” LaVey went on to stress the heavy workload he was currently facing thanks to the imminent publication of The Compleat Witch, including the looming promotional tour upon which he left only a week later.
If action was ever taken against Lee Frost and Trans America by the City of Capitola, we have been unable to find a media reference; perhaps a settlement was reached, or maybe John Marlo thought a lawsuit would bring even more attention to an earnest police officer appearing in an X-rated film. What the scuffle does provide us, is a clear and unambiguous look at LaVey’s reaction to Witchcraft ‘70.
As for the Italian journalist Duilio Pallottelli, mentioned above, his association with LaVey was integral to another piece of Church of Satan history, and it came about through the associations LaVey established with Witchcraft ‘70. In a letter dated November 17th, 1969, LaVey tells director Luigi Scattini:
“I have just returned from New York where, among other things, I met with your friend, Mr. Duilio Pallottelli. Duilio contacted me a week before my departure for N.Y. and visited with me here in San Francisco. He originally called to say he had a copy of L’EUROPEO in which photos and an article on the Church appeared. During his visit we talked of many things and one subject that arose was the ‘Zodiac’ killings. We arranged to meet when I arrived in N.Y. and consequently visited with him and had a tour of his office building [Pallottelli worked at Rizzoli; their beautiful building at 712 5th Avenue also housed a gorgeous bookstore that surely tempted LaVey to spend a few hours] and a delightful lunch at an excellent Italian restaurant. We struck up a very nice friendship — Duilio is indeed a fine person. Your name came up several times in the conversation, as did Mauro’s and Mr. Lomedico, all in fond terms, of course.
“Duilio suggested to the police reporter on the ‘Zodiac’ case that he contact me, as he felt I might be of some assistance. After I returned to San Francisco I received a call from him and we have been working on the case ever since.
“I mentioned to Duilio that I had written to you around mid-October concerning ANGELI BIANCA, ANGELA NERI, and he informed me that there had been a postal strike in Rome and suggested that if I didn’t receive a reply from you within a few weeks I should write again. I’m enclosing a copy of my last letter to you…”
LaVey wrote a letter to Duilio Pallottelli on the same day, November 17th, with more details about the information they exchanged about the Zodiac case:
“As I might have known, the activities awaiting me when I returned have left little time for correspondence, also, the first chance I had to get together with Paul Avery at the Chronicle was last Wednesday. I thought you would want to know what has transpired concerning the ‘Zodiac’ case, so I didn’t want to postpone writing any longer than necessary.
“It seems my calculations were very close to those of Paul’s, even though I knew relatively little about the specifics involved and was basing most of my deductions on the conversations I had with you. We have gone through about two thirds of our files and have given Paul several sample letters, which he in turn brought to the handwriting expert. I just saw him today and he said that the handwriting man felt one of the samples I gave him was closer than any others he has received to date — he’s gone over approximately one hundred others. I don’t know what if anything this will lead to, but I know the person in question and aside from the build, the description is rather close. He’s also a very strange character — not outwardly, but if you know what to look for, he’s a pretty weird duck. We plan to go through the rest of our files sometime this week, so I’ll keep you posted on progress made.
“Diane and I thoroughly enjoyed our visit with you and thank you very much for your kind hospitality… There is ample opportunity for me to come in contact with a vast number of people, so when a person strikes a receptive chord with me, it’s based on a strong selectivity.”
Pallottelli responded immediately with a letter on Rizzoli stationery dated November 21st, 1969:
“I’m here enclosing a copy of the magazine with the Zodiac story. As you can see the only picture that was published was the one I took in your house. The story is written under the name ‘Adriano Botta’ which is a second name I use when two stories of mine are published in the same issue… I also feel I now have good friends in San Francisco and I promise you that I’ll stop sending people to Hell like I have done in the last 37 years. Let’s not overcrowd the Hell…”
Pallottelli’s association with LaVey continued for years via fond postcards, gifts and letters. In addition to his writing, Pallottelli was a well-known photographer, taking iconic photos of Pier Pasolini, Andy Warhol, and some of the last photos of Malcolm X with his family, only a day before his assassination.
At the time of this writing, Witchcraft ‘70 is available for rent or purchase on Amazon Prime. It has the Italian narration, written by Alberto Bevilacqua, an Italian screenwriter and filmmaker, and spoken by Enrico Maria Salerno, an Italian actor who provided the voice of Clint Eastwood in the Italian versions of the Sergio Leone Dollars films.
This slideshow requires JavaScript.
Rosemary’s Baby - 1968
In May of 1967, Anton LaVey was contacted by David Horowitz of the Solters & Sabine publicity firm in Hollywood, informing him that they were representing the book, Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin, and were supplying LaVey with a copy in the hope that he would offer some comments. Horowitz included his phone number. There is no record of LaVey’s response. However, in July Horowitz wrote again to inform LaVey that his agency was fielding several inquiries on his behalf:
“We have great interest in you exhibited by a major television network show and two magazines. However, all of them have asked for more details on you and your church. I would greatly appreciate receiving copies of any magazine pieces you have… May I have your earliest cooperation, please.” Horowitz wrote again in early August thanking LaVey for the material he’d sent and saying, “I hope to have some answers on the interview dates very soon.” After a gap in written correspondence of several months, there is a letter from LaVey to Horowitz, dated January 28, 1968:
“Any new developments on ‘Rosemary’s Baby’? I don’t think a day goes by that I don’t mention it either on the air or in conversation.” I think it can be assumed from this that LaVey had agreed not only to assist with the promotion of Rosemary’s Baby, but to allow Solters & Sabine to represent him as well.
A letter then arrived from journalist John Simes, again from Solters & Sabine, informing LaVey that he’d received the go-ahead “to do a major magazine piece on you and The First Church of Satan… They are advancing the expenses for the trip so we know that they have something big in mind. They will approach Life, Look and Saturday Evening Post first with the article.” Chester Maydole would take the photos.
In June of 1968, Public Relations Pacific on behalf of Paramount Pictures sent out the following release, and supplied LaVey with a copy:
“Anton LaVey, High Priest of the Church of Satan, and officials of his church, are special invited guests to opening night of ROSEMARY’S BABY, Wednesday, June 26, at Cinema 21.
“LaVey, who acted as a consultant on Ira Levin’s best-selling book, will arrive in his limousine in satanic elegance, promptly at 7:30 p.m., with his hooded followers, for the 7:44 p.m. curtain.
“As a consultant for the book, LaVey, expressed his pleasure with reports that the film closely followed the original story.
“To those who ask LaVey if it is true that he portrays the role of Satan in the film, he will only reply, ‘See the picture and judge for yourself.’”
The archives are quite sparse on the subject of Rosemary’s Baby. Film professionals generally worked the phones in those days as they do now; they weren’t big on writing the kind of detailed letters that we can enjoy from LaVey’s literary contacts. To hear the details of his participation in the filming of Rosemary’s Baby in his own words, I refer the reader back to LaVey’s letter to Ray Laurent.
The film Rosemary’s Baby was released on June 12, 1968. What did LaVey himself think of it, and its relationship to the burgeoning movement of Satanism? In a letter to publicist Tom Bishop, LaVey said:
“…the less technical inaccuracies a book or motion picture contains, the better response it will get from both the critics and the general public. Rosemary’s Baby was an excellent example of this, in that it certainly had popular appeal, but still eradicated many of the popular misconceptions concerning Satanism. The fictional story line was necessary as an attention-getter, but the old adage, ‘truth is stranger than fiction,’ was amply supported by the fact that the authenticity of the film made it far more horrific than did the fictional parts. Rosemary’s Baby was a real breakthrough for Satanism and scored a hit for the motion picture industry, as well.”
Hans Holzer — 1968-1970
Hans Holzer had terrible handwriting, and the first note from him to Anton LaVey, mailed on November 19th, 1968, is written in green ink. “Dear Anton LaVey: I’ll be in S.F. Thurs. - Fr. Nov 28-30 and would like to talk to you — we’re finishing a documentary on The Craft and associated underground[?] religions and may like to schedule[?] an interview with you — I’ll phone you after arrival Nov. 28 pm. Sincerely, Hans Holzer.”
It appears that this meeting and interview did happen, because the files contain a letter back to Holzer dated June 25th, 1969:
“Dear Hans: Last November you and an associate did a film segment on myself and the Church of Satan. At the time, I believe you said it was to be used for a Twentieth Century Fox television documentary, and it would be shown sometime this year. Has the film been scheduled, and if so, when and on what station will it be aired?
“I am in the process of compiling a schedule of coming events and public appearances for Avon Books (who is publishing my Satanic Bible), so any information you can give me regarding the film would be appreciated.
“It would be helpful if you could get this to me at your earliest convenience, as Avon is most anxious to get things under way.”
Holzer threw a note in the mail right away, on June 30th, 1969 in fact, and fortunately, he typed it. “Congratulations on the book! Our film will be release [sic] in the fall — to be safe, figure around November onward — and you’re in it of course… May all your devils be friendly ones, Hans.” Holzer further requested that LaVey get in touch directly with Bob Wiemer, the film’s producer, regarding releases, which he did via a letter dated July 15th, 1969:
“Dear Bob: I wrote to Hans to find out how the film has progressed and to inquire about its release date. He advised me that we should count on it around November or a little later. I’d appreciate it if you would notify me as soon as you have the film scheduled, concerning the network (it is charted for T.V. isn’t it?), time and date. I will want to make an announcement to our members in the issue of our newsletter which comes out closest to the time the film will be shown… P.S. My Satanic Bible will be released this Dec. So it will correspond nicely to the release of the film.”
Wiemer wrote back a few weeks later. “Dear Anton: Our plans at the moment are to release an uncut version of our film theatrically sometime in October. A censored version will be made part of our television series which will go into syndication next year.
“When we are finished with the workprint in the cutting room, I’ll send it along to you so your people can see everything we shot and not just the edited version.”
LaVey responded to Wiemer with model releases and contact information for two photographers, John Hendricks and Chester Maydole, who had published prominent photo layouts with the Church of Satan.
Robert E. Wiemer had a long and varied career as a director and producer of independent documentaries and television series, most notably, the children’s educational series The Big Blue Marble, as well as directing several episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. His optimistic offer to send LaVey his actual interview footage was certainly not the norm, but unfortunately, Bob did not stick with the project, for reasons unknown.
LaVey was clearly feeling positive and looking forward to seeing the results; a television special would be an excellent boost in light of the upcoming publication (at last!) of The Satanic Bible. Again, we turn to the October 1969 issue of The Cloven Hoof:
“…a documentary on witchcraft — produced by Hans Holzer in cooperation with 20th Century Fox will either be shown as a television special or else released to movie houses. Again, we will provide any further information we get in the Dec. issue of The Cloven Hoof.”
The next piece of communication regarding this project is from Holzer and is dated July 29th, 1970, almost a year later. It is written in his difficult handwriting, this time in read:
“Dear Anton: Finally, I managed to straighten out the witchcraft film business (minus B. Wiemer!!!) and we will proceed to final editing in the fall and release certainly by year’s end — I understand you have a great new book due soon also — good luck! I’ll be in S.F. In late October — I need another release (to me, rather than the company as before) please sign and send to my address in N.Y.”
Holzer sent a release form which remains unsigned in the archives. It says:
“CONFIRMATION AND RELEASE
“Date _____
“This will confirm that I have appeared in the documentary film ‘The Truth About Witchcraft’ based upon Hans Holzer's book and in cooperation with him, and that I am in sympathy with his aims in presenting this documentary. Hans Holzer and those associated with him have my approval for the use of my filmed appearance in aforementioned film, for any professional use, medium, presentation Hans Holzer and/or associates decide.
“Signed, _____”
I certainly wouldn’t sign such a generalized release (who are the “associates?”) and I don’t think LaVey did, either. On August 25th, 1970, the following letter went out to Holzer from San Francisco:
“Dear Mr. Holzer:
“We have received your letter of July 29th and the ‘Confirmation and Release’ form which was enclosed. We regret that this reply is rather tardy, but Dr. LaVey has been out of town for the past few weeks, so we could not discuss it with him.
“When he called the church today we conveyed the contents of your letter to him and asked when he would return and be available to sign the release. He said that he would have to see the segment of the film in which he and the Church of Satan are featured, before signing the form. We have had other films produced quite a long time before they were subsequently released and have found that our policies have changed considerably during the interim, and regretted that an outdated image of the Church was presented to the public. This has caused us much extra work (explaining various changes in membership requirements and fees, socio-political views which bear only slight similarities to our original stand -- due to the rapidly changing mores of our society, etc.). Therefore, if you will arrange for Dr. LaVey to view the film -- you can either mail a print to us, or wait until he comes to New York around the latter part of October -- we are certain matters can be resolved to benefit both the Church of Satan and yourself.
“This will also enable you to cut any portions which are not presently relevant to us and assure you of a factual, up-to-date job of reporting.
“We trust you understand our position and once again thank you for your patience.
“Sincerely, John M. Kincaid, Minister of Information.”
This prompted a breezy little note from Holzer dated September 4th, 1970, which carries just a whiff of “I don’t need your old release, anyway, and I’ll do what I want,” but maybe that’s just me:
“Dear Anton:
“Your friend Kincaid wrote me regarding the release forms I sent you from Europe. You need not worry about being misrepresented as you know me well enough for that.
“Happily, you already signed a release when Bob Wiemer filmed you, so it will not even be necessary to do anything further. The film should be available in theatres early next year.
“When I am in S.F. again in late Oct. I surely will call you and maybe come over as no doubt you have developed some new and fascinating rituals I may not yet be familiar with.
“Best wishes with your new book, I hear it is very good -
“Cordially, Hans.”
There is no further correspondence in our archives, nor can I find any further reference to the film in the pages of The Cloven Hoof. Is there a lost, early interview with Anton LaVey mouldering away in a film archive somewhere, or did this footage wind up in another piece of media over the years? I welcome the input of anyone who can find out.
Alex Grasshoff, Director — 1969
It never rains, but it doth pour. In August of 1969, LaVey received a letter on the stationery of Alex Grasshoff Productions, Inc. Grasshoff was located in Los Angeles and had been most recently distinguished for his film The Young Americans, which won the Oscar for Best Documentary in 1969 (later rescinded due to an undisclosed early release date). Even more significantly from my fangirl perspective: he directed three episodes of Kolchak: The Night Stalker.
The letter was written, however, by Karl Schanzer. “I am writing a feature length documentary film on magic and the paranormal around the world, which Mr. Grasshoff will direct and produce, and a sequence with you and/or your group would be a valuable addition.”
Schanzer went on. “I have been a student of the arcane for many years, and I want to present a picture of magic which will capture the people by telling them the truth. As you know, there is presently a world-wide renaissance of interest in the Old Ways. Groups are springing up everywhere, and the time has never been better for a film of this type.” Buddy, who do you think you’re talking to?
On September 3rd, 1969, LaVey responded politely, recalled meeting Alex Grasshoff at a restaurant in Hollywood and complimented him on the fine work of The Young Americans. Occult documentaries were flying at him fast and furiously, he told Schanzer. “Each producer, without exception, has expressed the opinion that the part dealing with the Church of Satan is the high point of the film. This, combined with the fact that we are the largest, most widely publicized Satanic organization in the world, seems to indicate that no documentary on the black arts would be complete without a sizable part devoted to the Church of Satan. I might add that we are definitely Satanic and bear little resemblance to witchcraft (usually ‘white’ witchcraft groups), and would therefore lend a strong feeling of contrast to the film.
“Our ceremonies are very involved and diversified — from West Indian voodoo rituals and Yezidee [sic] rites, to ceremonies originated by the Fourteenth Century Knights Templar (from whom we have taken, among other devices, our Satanic emblem, Baphomet, or the Black Goat) and secret rituals of the Black Order of Germany. As you can see, if it’s film-worthy material you are seeking, you have reached the best source. All of the services are extremely visual and capable of producing much effective, dramatic footage. The attached recording, The Satanic Mass, will give a better indication of what we term a ‘standard’ Satanic ceremony, although for the sake of generalization, the ritual which had to be performed for this was more or less a conglomeration of several basic ceremonies.
“I must commend Mr. Grasshoff’s pragmatism. Satanism, witchcraft and other related subjects dealing with the occult, supernormal and bizarre are indeed becoming favorites with the general public and are no longer confined to a special, if rather limited, market. I am constantly confronted with new evidence of this trend towards the occult. It seems one cannot enter a bookstore or open a newspaper without running across some reminder of this. My own Satanic Bible, which will be released by Avon Books this December, is scheduled for a first printing of 125,000, which I am told is large for a first issuance. Nationwide distribution of the Satanic Mass recording will coincide with the release of the Bible. These two factors alone will obviously generate a great deal of interest in any films, which would consequently come out on the Church of Satan and other groups based on occult principles. I also will have published within one year, two additional books — one, a manual on practical and applied witchcraft and enchantment for women; and the other, an anthology of fictional devil lore stories. These would also help promote your film, assuming that, like most films, it is released at least six months after completion.
“The remunerations I have received for past films have ranged from $1,000 to $4,000. Realizing the publicity value of a film such as Mr. Grasshoff’s and assuming our part would require no more than one day of shooting, I would accept a fee of $1,500. I would, of course, provide the Church building, a large victorian structure, the interior decor of which is extremely bizarre and colorful, having been described by many authors as ‘Charles Addams’ genre; as well as all devices, material, participants, including our traditional nude female altar, and a personal interview, explaining our philosophy and ceremony, should you so desire.
“… I will be leaving soon for Rome for the opening of another film on the Church of Satan. In such event as you call while I am away, I have instructed my secretary, Miss Lana Green, to handle any transactions in my absence. She had done so in the past and is quite familiar with all aspects of the Church of Satan from the philosophy, to business matters, so I am certain she can answer any questions you may have and advise you on my behalf.”
Neither Alex Grasshoff nor Karl Schanzer got back to LaVey. What stopped the project? Perhaps it was the request for financial consideration, although I think they were getting off cheap — LaVey was providing location, cast, props and offering some talking head footage along with it. And an Oscar winner would surely have been working with a decent budget for any new proposal he was kicking around. My guess is that Grasshoff got involved in his next major film, Future Shock, and found the subject matter — the disturbing acceleration and conglomeration of new technologies and the way they were changing society — more compelling than looking back at what Schanzer called the “Old Ways” of occultism.
Karl Schanzer was an Associate Producer on Future Shock, but he might also be known best to my readers as an actor. He played the sleazy lawyer Mr. Schlocker in cult favorite, Spider Baby.
Jack Wodell - 1969
Dave Allen of the publicity firm Jack Wodell Associates in San Francisco, sent Anton LaVey four passes to a new movie they were promoting, All the Loving Couples. The accompanying letter is dated October 16th, 1969 and was apparently a follow-up to a phone conversation: “We’re looking forward to being in touch with you soon regarding the project which we discussed last Tuesday evening…. Also enclosed is a publicity still from a film entitled THE WITCHMAKER which I thought you might like to have.” The Witchmaker (1969) was a supernatural horror film depicting parapsychologists, a witch coven and serial murder down on the bayou. One of its producers was hard-working TV regular L. Q. Jones, who starred in Brotherhood of Satan (1971).
All the Loving Couples was apparently another soft-core semi-p*rno taking advantage of the current exploration of what was then called “wife-swapping.” It was sufficiently classy for date night with your spouse, and critics have referred to its bait-and-switch tendency to revert to a certain Puritanism. LaVey gave Dave Allen his regards thusly:
“Thank you very much for the passes to ALL THE LOVING COUPLES, which my associates and I thoroughly enjoyed. Any criticism one might have concerning the acting ability of the stars would be automatically negated by the effectiveness (in authenticity of types) produced by their very lack of professionalism. Indeed, it conveyed the impression of a documentary, rather than a fictional drama. And the subtleties, undoubtedly missed by most critics, were well executed and integral to the total impact of the film. I particularly liked your choice of the Marilyn Monroe type — always trying, but never quite making it. Also, the ‘eunuch’ conveyed his type extremely well.”
He then goes on to relate his upcoming plans for a trip to Los Angeles, “…and will contact Mr. Frank prior to my departure. If you communicate with him in the meantime, please express to him my praise for the film.” Milo O. Frank, Jr. was one of the producers of All the Loving Couples; we could assume he was the individual interested in working with LaVey on the project under discussion. Or could it have been the person who wrote to LaVey in the first place, Dave Allen?
According to IMDB, Dave Allen was also known as “Tex” Allen and had an interesting and diverse career. In addition to acting and publicity, he produced a low-budget, exploitation movie titled Diamond Ring of Satan.
There is no further record in the archives that would tell us how this proposed collaboration developed, if it did at all.
Lancer - 1969
Burton Wolfe’s 1974 biography of Anton LaVey, The Devil’s Avenger, contains a photograph of Anton LaVey dressed in vintage garb and holding open a sample case of housewares; the caption reads, in part: “In 1970, on the 20th-Century Fox weekly ‘Lancer’ TV series, a Western featuring strange situations, LaVey plays the Devil in the disguise of a drummer (a traveling salesman of miscellaneous wares).” For many years, we’d longed to come across that episode somewhere in rerun land.
A couple of years back, I was at an undisclosed location and able to watch MeTV (a channel that specializes in classic American television) in the week before Halloween. I noticed that their morning lineup of old Westerns was featuring the spooky or occult episodes that every series seemed obligated to include in those late 60’s/early 70’s days of the Occult Revolution. And that included Lancer.
Lancer’s episode was titled “A Scarecrow At Hacket’s” and it was a rather sad story of a dying father refusing to bequeath his ranch to his young son Silas; he’s already signed it off to the Devil, you see. And the Devil appears, in the form of traveling salesman Absolem Weir, played by Pat Hingle, who does a wonderful job. The Lancers and Johnny Madrid spend the rest of the episode trying to outwit Weir and retain the ranch and Silas’ beloved horse, Cinder. That all works out, but in the last scene, everyone decides to celebrate in town. Everyone except Jelly, the comic relief ranch hand.
When my archive project began, more (but not all) was revealed. While there was virtually no correspondence with the producers, there was LaVey’s shooting script for the episode. Here’s the pertinent part of the revised script dated 10/6:
JELLY: If Weir wasn’t the Devil, why’d he go to so much bother tryin’ to look like he was?
MURDOCH: I’d say to scare us mortals off looking into that note. [a slight glance Johnny’s way] A good thing a few people won’t knuckle under to fear. [then] Beers in town! It’s on me!
Murdoch turns out, Scott and Johnny moving to join him. Jelly stretches hugely.
JELLY: I’m going to grab me a snack and bed down early.
The WIND rises as Jelly moves lazily toward the kitchen door, suddenly he reacts as he sees Weir’s cane leaning against wall then:
VOICE: (o.s.) Mr. Hoskins?
Jelly whirls to see a man dressed in a style reminiscent of Absolem Weir and carrying a black case. Jelly can only nod in numb terror. The man holds up the case as he speaks, begins opening it. We will see the case is fitted with samples of kitchen utensils.
THE MAN: I hope you’ll forgive the intrusion but a man in my line must depend on the…
He trails off, looks up just in time to see a terrified Jelly disappearing after the Lancers. Jelly’s VOICE drifts back.
JELLY: Wait for me!
CAMERA MOVES IN TIGHT on man who stares enigmatically after Jelly for a long moment then slowly smiles.
FADE OUT END OF EPISODE
There are some confusing dates here, and nothing that explains what happened with LaVey’s appearance. The stills of him in costume are wonderful. The complete “final” script is dated September 30, 1969 on the cover. The pages containing the episode’s conclusion in that “final,” bound script, are dated as “REVISED - ‘SCARECROW AT HACKET’S’ - 10/6/69;” however, there is also a loose page that says “REVISED - ‘SCARECROW AT HACKET’S’ - 10/2/69.” That page reads the same until the section below:
JELLY: I’m going to grab me a snack an’ bed down early.
The WIND rises as Jelly moves lazily toward the kitchen door, suddenly he reacts as he sees Weir’s cane. In a panic, he hurls it away then suddenly realizes what he’s done. He runs wildly after the others.
JELLY: Wait for me!
FADE OUT END OF EPISODE
This was the ending they used in the broadcast version of the episode. However, there were a couple of small edits to the dialogue, and Johnny isn’t in the shot, indicating that there was some last minute rewriting:
JELLY: If Weir wasn’t the Devil, how is it he took so much trouble to make us think he was?
MURDOCH: Well, I’d say it was to keep us ordinary mortals from wanting to look into that note. Luckily, though, some of us wouldn’t knuckle under to fear, right Jelly? (smiles at Scott) See ya in town! The first round’s on me!
JELLY: Well, no, I’m going to stay here an’ bed down early.
MURDOCH: Well, so long, Jelly.
SCOTT: See you later, Jelly.
TERESA: Bye.
And Jelly sees the cane, widens his eyes, “wait for me!”, dashes after the others. End of episode.
So the sequence is that as of the 10/2 revision, there was no mysterious stranger. LaVey’s character of The Man is added in the 10/6 revision, but some time before the episode made it to broadcast, they reverted to the original concept of Jelly simply being struck with fear by the sight of Absolem Weir’s cane.
The October 1969 issue of The Cloven Hoof had a notice:
“…produced by 20th Century Fox for CBS-TV enlisted the aid of Dr. LaVey as technical advisor on an episode of ‘Lancer’ which will be shown some time in January. The appearance of Dr. LaVey finalizes the episode, whose storyline deals with the townspeople’s apprehension that a stranger in town may be the Devil. We are certain this will be most entertaining, as well as presenting our High Priest to the public in a different light than that in which he is usually seen.”
It’s clear from the archives that they filmed LaVey’s scene. As noted, there are some very nice stills. But there’s also a three-day contract with Twentieth Century Fox, for a total salary of $306, and LaVey received residual checks for the rest of his life; the stubs are on file.
LaVey most likely got the gig via his friend, Will Fowler, who was working at Twentieth Century Fox Television at the time. There’s a letter from him dated November 25th, 1969, on Fox stationery, mentioning that he was relieved to hear LaVey had been paid and had taken a letter from LaVey “down to casting.” The same letter refers to another of LaVey’s friends, Art Ronnie, following up and obtaining prints of the on-set photos of LaVey in costume and posing with other cast members.
My speculation is this: as the original script was revised on 10/02/69 without the character of The Man, then updated only four days later on 10/06/69 to include LaVey’s scene, the entire concept for the ambiguous tag-ending with a notorious real-world “devil” guy was very last-minute. Then there was a post-production decision made to return to the way the episode originally ended and cancel any participation by the notorious High Priest of Satan. I’ve read comments in a fan blog about Lancer by a “friend of a producer” who claimed that management got cold feet about associating the show with LaVey; comparing the broadcast scene to the original script, it has an almost hasty, ad-libbed feeling. As late as December 7, 1969, the Battle Creek Enquirer published this piece of publicity:
“Lancer ‘devil’ had many roles — Anton Szandor LaVey will play the ‘devil’ in 20th Century Fox Television’s ‘Lancer’ episode, ‘Scarecrow at Hackett’s’ [sic], Tuesday, Dec. 16, on CBS-TV… LaVey doesn’t only play Satan in the ‘Scarecrow at Hackett’s’ — he is also the segment’s technical adviser.” This is the only reference I’ve seen to the technical adviser role, aside from the one in The Cloven Hoof, but it’s interesting that they were still promoting LaVey’s participation less than 10 days before the air date. Maybe this particular piece of information hit the wrong ears at the wrong time? The cancellation was clearly a surprise to everyone; LaVey’s pal Art Ronnie quickly dropped a line to say, “I watched the show last Tuesday and am a little puzzled. Obviously, you are too. You were not in the tag as expected.”
Lancer’s producers clearly made the wrong decision; LaVey’s scene would have been subtle, creepy, and very cool. If only we could watch it today.
The Black Magic of Dr. Zen - 1970
July of 1970 brought an interesting missive on the letterhead of Belgravia Productions — “London, New York, Hollywood.” Screenwriter and producer Norman Thaddeus Vane was wondering if LaVey would be interested in playing the title role of Dr. Zen, a task that would require approximately three or four weeks of shooting. The screenplay was enclosed.
In his letter, Vane referred to his latest film, Twinky, starring Charles Bronson and Trevor Howard. A quick search reveals that this film, directed by Richard Donner, was based on the Lolita story and the cast also included Orson Bean, Honor Blackman, Robert Morley and a young Susan George in the title role. Twinky eventually became Lola and/or A London Affair.
LaVey took a look at the screenplay, and wrote back swiftly on July 29, 1970:
“Thank you for sending the script for The Black Magic of Dr. Zen, which I found most entertaining. Despite the fact that I enjoyed many evocative parts, I simply could not play the role of Dr. Zen, as it now stands, without winding up with my foot planted firmly in my mouth.
“As you may know from reading The Satanic Bible, much of the script is antithetical to Satanism, although I do find several subtleties you’ve picked up from me which add a certain amount of credence to the story.
“If you would be interested in re-working the script, let me know and perhaps we can arrange something.”
Norman Thaddeus Vane expressed disappointment but extended hope for a future endeavor: “If you have any ideas about doing a modern, authentic, black magic or horror film I will be delighted to talk to you when I am in ‘Frisco the end of the month.” Unfortunately for history, he wanted the script back, and LaVey evidently sent it. There is no further evidence of them working together.
In 1983, Vane wrote and directed the horror film Frightmare, and the cast included a youthful Jeffrey Combs in one of his first film roles.
The Mephisto Waltz - 1971
The Mephisto Waltz was based on a rather successful novel of the same name by Fred Mustard Stewart; Stewart had originally wanted to be a concert pianist, so the subject matter came naturally to him. The popularity of the book was followed by an option for a film, and in April of 1970, Anton LaVey received a letter from his showbiz pal, Art Ronnie:
“Got a call from a friend of mine, Tom Bishop. He is a publicist with Jerry Pam & Associates. They are working on a picture called THE MEPHISTO WALTZ. Tom wants to get in touch with you for some reason so he will soon be dropping you a line. Told him I would write to alert you.”
LaVey wrote back on April 20th, 1970 and assured Art that he’d been meaning to get to Los Angeles to visit him but something always intervened. “It’s not that I’m stuck in San Francisco, either, as since I last saw you I have been to N.Y. twice, Toronto, Zurich, Denver and various other places, all much more distant than southern Calif. Maybe THE MEPHISTO WALTZ project might be the catalyst I need to get down there! I’ve read the book with much enthusiasm, and am certainly looking forward to any involvement which may be in the offing.”
LaVey goes on to update Ronnie with various and sundry news, emphasizing, as most of his letters from this time period did, how hard he was working on The Compleat Witch. He also tells an anecdote which bears repeating here, if you will allow it:
“Forry Ackerman was up here for his birthday, so I attended a small gathering for him and cut the cake with appropriate Satanic blessing. Your name came up during our visit and I mentioned how you had so kindly sent me the script for THE BLACK CAT. The other night the film was run on local T.V., so I had some real fun by placing the script inside a magazine which it appeared I had been reading prior to the movie’s scheduled time. Then, with the magazine apparently in my lap (where I could glance at the script contained within its covers) I made periodic outbursts to a few of my associates who viewed the film with me, in a manner that confounded them as to how I knew exactly what the next words to be uttered would be! I passed off the whole thing by saying that in a film of this type each line was a veritable cliché, which could be assumed by ANYONE with an ounce of foresight! Naturally, they went away feeling incredibly incompetent, but later in the week I showed them what I had done, as a lesson in lesser magic. Don’t think me too honest, however, as had they not been valued and trusted friends and associates, I would have gotten all the mileage possible from such a ruse.”
Tom Bishop of Jerry Pam & Associates did get in touch via letter on May 6th, 1970, about The Mephisto Waltz:
“Art Ronnie was kind enough to pass along to me a copy of your letter regarding ‘The Mephisto Waltz’ and your enthusiasm for the project.
“Our client, Paul Wendkos, is preparing to direct the film, which begins shooting June 29 for 20th Century-Fox, where Art and I worked together.
“Paul is most anxious to meet with you, either here or in San Francisco, to discuss various elements of of the picture and to develop some sort of link which would benefit the film through promotion and publicity. There already has been some preliminary publicity generated in this area.”
LaVey got right back to him in a letter dated May 8th, 1970:
“I was most pleased to receive your letter of May 6th, and would certainly enjoy meeting Mr. Wendkos to discuss his work on ‘The Mephisto Waltz.’ As you know, interest in all aspects of the occult and Satanism in particular is very intense and widespread. To cite just a few examples: My own book, The Satanic Bible, is going into a second printing, after having sold 125,000 copies in just four months. I have just received word from the publisher of my next book, The Compleat Witch, or What to Do When Virtue Fails, that I have until this June to complete the manuscript. And The London Daily Telegraph has just finished a story to be accompanied by eight pages of color photos on myself and the Church of Satan for their weekend magazine supplement, which I’m told equals Life magazine in quality and international circulation. This will give you a slight indication of the degree of interest both here and abroad. If Mr. Wendkos hasn’t seen the article in the March issue of McCall’s, he might want to get a back issue, as it provides some current information on us…
“Naturally, I am as anxious as Mr. Wendkos undoubtedly is to insure the authenticity of ‘Mephisto,’ for it has been far too long that the subject of Satanism has been presented in an inaccurate fashion. I hasten to assure you, however, that I am well aware of the necessity for dramatic effect and popular appeal, and I am not so much a purist that I can’t see room for artistic license in certain areas. I would like to point out, though, that since these subjects are as popular as they seem to be and there are more and more factual sources each week to which enthusiasts can refer, the less technical inaccuracies a book or motion picture contains, the better response it will get from both the critics and the general public. ‘Rosemary’s Baby’ was an excellent example of this, in concerning Satanism. The fictional story line was necessary as an attention-getter, but the old adage, ‘truth is stranger than fiction,’ was amply supported by the fact that the authenticity of the film made it far more horrific than did the fictional parts. ‘Rosemary’s Baby’ was a real breakthrough for Satanism and scored a hit for the motion picture industry, as well. I am thoroughly convinced that ‘Mephisto’ could be just as big a box office success, as the story contains many of the needed ingredients.
“Whether Mr. Wendkos and I meet here or in Los Angeles would depend upon what he has in mind. If he intends to shoot any segments on location at the Church of Satan, then it would be best for him to come to San Francisco. But if he simply wants to discuss the script with me and has not formulated any plans which might require his seeing the church, then it would give me an opportunity to take care of some much-neglected business in So. Calif. if I were to fly down there. As I said above, I have very little time left to complete my current book, and I still have quite a bit of work to do on it. Therefore, in order to justify a trip to L.A. (to myself as well as my publisher), I would have to take the opportunity to do some research and consult with some of my associates, in addition to meeting with Mr. Wendkos. Since I am devoting nearly all of my time at present to writing, I have tried to schedule any appointments which simply can’t be put off for Wednesdays; so whether I go down there or Mr. Wendkos comes up here, our meeting should be set for a day other than Wed. Please feel free to call me at the above number any afternoon. In case I am out, my secretary would have my schedule and would probably be able to make arrangements with you for the appointment. If you need anything further, I would be happy to talk with you.”
On May 22, 1970, The Los Angeles Evening Citizen News published an article by John Austin entitled “Occult Film Rise Seen,” and featuring discussion with Paul Wendkos on production of The Mephisto Waltz:
“The major new film trend, according to director Paul Wendkos, will be focused on the occult — black magic, Satan worship, astrology, witchcraft, divination and other bizarre phenomena. And Wendkos is right in the middle of this new cult as he prepares to direct ‘The Mephisto Waltz,’ Quinn Martin’s first motion picture production for 20th Century-Fox release, which stars Jacqueline Bisset, Barbara Parkins and Alan Alda…
“Wendkos told me several major universities have invested heavily in facilities to study parapsychology and the emerging cults or religions, ‘including USC and UCLA locally, and the long-established Duke University center on the east coast.’
“‘I think a large number of people today are not only willing to explore and, in some cases, experience the practices of witchcraft or Satan worship,’ said Wendkos, who describes himself as a ‘middle class mystic,’ ‘but many of them are saying: ‘Look at what’s happening in this hypocritical world; the forces of evil are in triumph…’
“‘The Mephisto Waltz,’ which will be shot in various Los Angeles locations, will tear away many of the many misconceptions about Satanism and the mystical world,’ he said, ‘and will, I hope broaden the experience of the audience, in an area that is occluded with misconception and lack of understanding.’
“To this end, Wendkos has not only thoroughly researched the phenomena reported at Duke and at U.C.L.A. But has established an advisory relationship with Anton Szandor LaVey, founder and ‘high priest’ of the Church of Satan in San Francisco. LaVey, the best-known Satanist in the world, was technical advisor on ‘Rosemary’s Baby.’
“‘LaVey has been cooperative to the fullest,’ said Wendkos, ‘even to offering the use of his church in San Francisco for location shooting. He’s as interested as Quinn Martin and I are in tearing away the misconceptions I mentioned.’”
What happened next? As had been so often the case in Anton LaVey’s dealings with those in the film and publishing arenas, absolutely nothing.
Over six weeks later, LaVey pulled himself away from the final touches to The Compleat Witch to the deafening sound of crickets from the direction of Hollywood, and wrote another letter to Tom Bishop on June 27th, 1970:
“I just received a card from Art Ronnie… Art’s note reminded me that I had intended to write to you concerning ‘The Mephisto Waltz.’ I am rather perplexed concerning Mr. Wendkos’ plans, as I had received a call from a Swedish journalist in L.A. who had seen an article in the Citizen News, in which I was mentioned as technical consultant. However, I have not heard from Mr. Wendkos himself. Evidently, someone gave the paper the information on me, and I am curious to know just who it was, and if indeed Mr. Wendkos plans to contact me.
“My main reason for writing is do [sic] to curiosity rather than impatience, so please just drop me a note informing me of what, if anything, has transpired in this regard. I have no idea what the schedule is on the film or even if one has been set; but I thought I would inform you that since my book is due to be released this October, I will undoubtedly be quite busy with promotion on it and thought you should be aware of this, in case you are planning to ask my assistance on the film.”
Tom Bishop took a month to reply. On July 27th, 1970, he wrote the following to Anton LaVey:
“Please forgive the long delay in answering your last letter… As to ‘The Mephisto Waltz’ and Mr. Wendkos, I’m sorry to say that I can’t be of much help in providing a great deal of information on that situation, inasmuch as we are no longer representing Mr. Wendkos — by his choice.
“What I can report is the following: he is in production on the picture. I, at his request, turned over to him all the material you had sent me, including the Satanic Bible and the album of the Satanic Mass. He told me at the time he would be making contact directly with you. Obviously, Mr. Wendkos has not, otherwise your curiosity about the project would not have been stimulated. I don’t know how well he’s progressing with the filming, but I assume all is rather well, even though since we have ceased to represent him, I’ve seen little or no publicity on the production.”
Sigh. LaVey continued his work on The Compleat Witch as well as other projects; the concepts of witchcraft, Satanism and occultism in general were bouncing interview and photo requests his way on a daily basis. Add that to the duties of a High Priest and leader of a burgeoning global organization, and one sees that there was little reason for LaVey to ponder this most recent “ghosting” by another production company. However, Paul Wendkos was a prominent director — after all, he’d directed three Gidget movies as well as The Burglar with Jayne Mansfield — and The Mephisto Waltz would undoubtedly get a lot of attention. So on September 3rd, 1970, he tried again, writing directly to Wendkos at 20th Century-Fox:
“In the past couple of months, I have been contacted by both Art Ronnie (Twentieth Century-Fox Television publicity department) and Tom Bishop (Jerry Pam & Associates) concerning your work with ‘The Mephisto Waltz.’ They informed me that you were interested in discussing the possibility of my acting as technical advisor on the film….
“A few weeks ago I received a letter from Mr. Bishop stating that his company was no longer in your employ, but that the material I had sent him had been forwarded to you…
“My purpose in writing to you at this time is to determine, once and for all, whether you are still considering enlisting my services; and, if so, in what capacity. Under normal circ*mstances I would have merely waited for you to contact me, and if I received no word from you, would have concluded that you had made other arrangements. Due to circ*mstances which have arisen in the past couple of weeks, however, I I felt it necessary to solicit a definite decision from you, before proceeding with my own plans.
“While I was in Los Angeles doing The Steve Allen Show, I was approached by the producer of another film dealing with Satanism, for which shooting will commence in a few weeks. His other films have won critical acclaim and have been financial successes, despite their relatively low-budget production; and he has offered me near carte blanche insofar as changes in the script, which would allow for my appearance and the presentation of my Satanic doctrine in such a way as to provide much valuable promotional value for the Church of Satan, while adding considerable authenticity to the film. The only drawback is the basic atmosphere of the story, which is the antithesis of ‘Mephisto’ and, I might add, the mystique of the Church of Satan. However, this could be easily turned to advantage, as the contract between the activities of the main character and those of myself would only make my position seem more logical and awe-inspiring. Nevertheless, since ‘Mephisto’ is, as it stands, tailor-made for any association I might have with the film (promotion, technical consultant, cameo appearance, etc.), I would, if given the opportunity, choose it over the other film.
“I could, of course, work with both films: but have considered the possibility of spreading myself too thin, so to speak, or weakening the impact of whichever film is released last. I am assuming both will be released around the same time, if not simultaneously, since I believe low-budget productions generally take less time to produce than those made by major companies, such as Twentieth. I have also considered the matter of ethics — yes, the Devil does have ethics — and felt it only fair to check with you regarding any possibility of my involvement with ‘Mephisto,’ before deciding whether to accept the other offer. Since a write-up in The Citizen News in L.A. made mention of myself as technical consultant, but I have no way of knowing if the information came from your office, I thought it best to contact you before proceeding further.
“In any case, I wish you much success with ‘Mephisto.’ It has the makings of an excellent production which, if handled properly, will do very well, critically speaking, as well as financially…”
Paul Wendkos was gracious enough to write back in a timely fashion, perhaps having realized how utterly rude it was to have pumped up his LaVey connection in the Citizen article while simultaneously leaving the notorious High Priest hanging and waiting for a conversation. His letter, dated September 16th, 1970 and written on Twentieth Century-Fox stationery, was appropriately contrite:
“I am terribly sorry that I failed to get in touch with you about the possibility of you participating in some way in our production of ‘The Mephisto Waltz.’
“We decided against it because of the pressure of time being such that we just had to get into production immediately and it was felt that under these circ*mstances your contribution could only be of a limited nature.
“Thank you again for your interest and the material that you sent to me. It was of great interest. I am at a loss to understand why it has not been returned to you, since I gave it to a Mr. Tom Bishop of the Jerry Pam organization to return to you several months ago. I will put a tracer on it and try to get it back to you as soon as possible.
“Please forgive our negligence and good luck in your other project.
“Cordially, Paul Wendkos.”
There is no evidence in the archives that Wendkos ever followed up with LaVey about the lost materials, and I’m sure no one is surprised that they went astray. Filching a package of Satanic materials from the actual Church of Satan had to be quite the perk of working in an office in 1970.
As for clearing up any misconceptions about Satanism or any other form of occultism, Wendkos’ remarks to that effect in the article above, were clearly just lip service. Nothing was cleared up and the supernatural phenomena in The Mephisto Waltz was made up out of whole cloth. Roger Ebert’s review from May 6th, 1971, was extremely perceptive about what didn’t work in this regard:
“‘The Mephisto Waltz,’ which is inferior to ‘Rosemary's Baby’ on all sorts of fundamental levels like direction, photography and acting, is fatally inferior in its understanding of the supernatural. If a horror movie is to be taken seriously, it has to pretend to take horror seriously. And this one doesn't. It reduces magic to a simpleminded ritual that anyone can perform: all our heroine has to do is steal some funny blue stuff and read pig Latin out of a book. The magic works for her, too… you get the notion that the people who made the film didn't take magic seriously enough. I don't mean they should believe in it; but they should have made a film that pretended to.”
Anton LaVey could have certainly assisted in this department.
Simon, King of the Witches - 1971
So what was that “other film” LaVey so tantalizingly referred to (see above) in his letter to Wendkos? I’m pretty sure it was Simon, King of the Witches, a wonderful and iconic product of its time, featuring hippie occultism, drug dealers, governmental corruption, swinger parties, gay sex workers and even a real-life witch in a key role.
David Harris, a Hollywood publicist who used a memorandum pad from the United States Senate for his correspondence, wrote to Anton LaVey on August 18th, 1970:
“It’s been one hell of a long time since we’ve talked — however, I have not forgotten about you — have been collecting news clippings on you for the last three years.
“I have enclosed an advertisem*nt for the forthcoming production of a film called ‘Simon - King of the Witches.’ I have sent the producers of this film the press book on you and they are most interested.
“There is the possibility of your being contracted as the star and/or consultant for this feature film. Please let me know as soon as possible if you are interested in either proposition.”
LaVey got right back to him via letter on August 20th, 1970:
“Thank you for your letter and the ad for ‘Simon - King of the Witches,’ which arrived today. Before I make any comment one way or the other on the film, I’d like to know more about it. I will be in L.A. Tues. and Wed. (Aug. 25th & 26th) to do the Steve Allen Show, so if you want to try and arrange a meeting with the producers during that time, I’d be happy to discuss it with them. I’ll be at the Ambassador Hotel in Hollywood…”
Such a meeting obviously did take place, if we can rely on LaVey’s letter to Paul Wendkos (above), and David Harris sent a follow-up note to LaVey on August 28th, 1970:
“Please let me know what you want to do re Joe Solomon and his script [Joe Solomon is listed as Executive Producer - PN]. Also, if you would care to set down a synopsis of sorts on your film idea, we may be able to work it into a negotiable and profitable property. If you have an extra copy of The Satanic Bible, I would appreciate very much having one with the author’s salutation.”
Anton LaVey’s response letter is in draft form and undated, but it can be presumed to have been written some time in the first weeks of September, 1970. He had a lot to say about Simon: King of the Witches:
“After reading over the script of ‘Simon,’ I find myself with mixed emotions as to my involvement. That the film will make money, is beyond a doubt, as it has a great deal of impact and should really get people talking. There IS a place for me in the film, but it would have to be written in. To do so, however, would only require a slight addition to an already conducive plot. Aside from any backgrounds which I might supply, I feel my role as a sort of ‘mysterious stranger’ who reappears throughout the film, implying that I am the ‘master’ who observes Simon’s magical progression. I could appear as the Devil himself, in a sort of hallucinatory vision throughout Simon’s activities, but subtly and fleetingly enough so as not to be hokey. In this way, the burden of Simon’s subsequent failure would not reflect on the Devil’s weakness or the inadequacy of Satanic magic but upon Simon’s improper timing. The outcome of the story would be then strengthened to mean that Satanic magic is an all-pervasive force but the bungling magician will lose out, NOT THE DEVIL! This will also drive home the validity of the magical balance factor which I describe in my Satanic Bible. Insomuch as there is reference to Simon’s ‘master’ throughout the story, this type of mysterious appearance is made to order. Technically speaking, the script is quite good, with only a few needed changes to make it really Satanic. These, however are VERY IMPORTANT points, and should be observed. The script writer has produced what purports to be a unique venture into the black arts, film-wise.
“The only way I could imagine using the Church of Satan in the film would be to write it into a scene where Simon obtains ‘higher power’ thereby encouraging him to sink his teeth into bigger magic. The prospect of using the Church as a lesser
entity than Simon’s own magical capabilities is definitely out, however.
“I trust this explains my position concerning the film. I leave it to you to proceed from here, concerning any further arrangements. You impressed me as being a very capable young man, and I’d like to see you benefit from any future developments concerning this project. See what Mr. Solomon comes up with, and we’ll work from there. As it stands, I will be willing to play a role in the picture which is conducive to my real image. Likewise the Church. In addition, I would tighten up the authenticity of the plot and its details without altering the substance of the script at all.
“This will have no bearing on the other project I mentioned to you, as it can be pursued independently, while still doing ‘Simon.’”
A brief note came back from David Harris on September 23rd, 1970: “I have sent a copy of your recent letter to Joe Solomon and his producer, David Hammond after discussing same with them… will now await their reaction.” There is no record in the archive of their reaction, or of any further contact with LaVey regarding the film.
World Wide Pictures — 1972
Our files contain a letter from one Steven C. Bobek, who was a production coordinator for World Wide Pictures in Burbank, California. The letter, dated February 28, 1972, was in response to one written by a Church of Satan administrator and a carbon was not retained, but the gist seems to involve an inquiry from World Wide about filming an interview with Anton LaVey. Bobek states: “Although there have been delays in production, we are still continuing with our project.” World Wide’s stationery displayed the same timeless globe for their logo that they use today. You can find their list of films on their website; they’re part of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. I wonder when Bobek finally revealed who he was working for?
Lucifer’s Women/Doctor Dracula — 1974
Anton LaVey is listed in the credits as a technical consultant for both these films, which are kind of the same film but not exactly. Paul Aratow was a San Francisco local and directed the first version of the film in 1974; Al Adamson shot additional footage and re-released the film, toning down some of the sexual explicitness and targeting it for television. Varying sources say this happened in 1978, 1980 or 1983.
But the very first release of the film was only to theaters in San Francisco, and its title was Svengali the Magician. A handful of newspaper reviews of the film under that title are clipped and collected in the archives, but no other correspondence or documentation could be referenced. Such is the way when film collaborations are local, and the director can stop by the house or get you on the phone. The big Baphomet featured in the film will have to suffice.
Black Mass - 1975
R. C. Hörsch, often listed as Raymond or Ray ho*rsch, is a fascinating character who can claim a unique place in the history of adult films. He is an artist, photographer, director, sometimes actor, and his credits include writing the screenplay for The Erotic Memoirs of a Male Chauvinist Pig starring Georgina Spelvin (1973). In a lively interview conducted by Ashley West of TheRialtoReport.com in December of 2013, Hörsch describes the span of his career, from serving as a gofer on the set of The Burglar with Jayne Mansfield (and directed by the aforementioned Paul Wendkos), to his brushes with the law.
In May of 1974, LaVey’s literary agency, Allied Literary, forwarded a letter from Hörsch on his Cinema Monteuse stationery: “Re: The Satanic Bible. I would like permission to quote Mr. LaVey in a documentary film on modern Satanism that this company is producing.”
John Kincaid, the Church of Satan’s Minister of Information, quickly responded: “You do not state… if it is a portion of the book that you wish to use or a quote from Mr. LaVey obtained from another media source. We would appreciate your clarification. If you will send us a copy of the lines you wish to use, we will more than likely be able to obtain Mr. LaVey’s permission for you.
“We would also like to know the nature of the documentary, when it will be released, and whether it will be available for viewing by the general public (i.e. in motion picture houses or on television) or if it is to be a specialized film for a particular audience (i.e. schools, churches, libraries, etc.). If you have decided on a title, please inform us of that, too. And if you should require any technical advice on Satanism, or the occult in general or the Church of Satan in particular, perhaps we can assist you.”
Hörsch replied on June 21, 1974: “We wish to produce a film documentary that will represent, as accurately as possible, the religious services as practiced by modern Satanists. The film is to include a Black Mass, a Satanic Baptism, and a Satanic Rite to either Lust or Destruction.
“In a religion as old and as varied as the many and various branches of Satanism, Mr. LaVey’s translations and interpretations are singularly representative and comprehensible. We would like to quote his translations of the Black Mass in their entirety and his interpretations of Satanic Baptism and Satanic Rite (The Thirteen Steps) in part.”
A telephone call took place and Hörsch followed up with a letter to memorialize that conversation:
“Specifically, we wish to produce a film that will be an accurate, factual and complete depiction of a Satanic Service that begins with a celebration of a Black Mass, a Satanic Baptism, and a Satanic Rite for the Invocation of Lust. We would like to use as our dialogue and source of technical information certain passages from The Satanic Bible and The Satanic Rituals. From The Satanic Bible [sic] [he meant Rituals - PN] we would like to present verbatim, or as closely as possible, the Black Mass and the Satanic Baptism (for adults). From The Satanic Bible, we would like to use the sections concerning the Satanic Rituals, specifically the Invocation to Lust.
“It is my intent to present the services intact without editorial of any kind. Specifically, the film would begin with the Processional and end with the Pollutionary and contain only the actual services in between. I think it is this basic intent and the manner in which the material is presented that you are most curious about.” Indeed.
To expedite matters, Hörsch included a signed Letter of Intent, a signed Agreement between himself and LaVey, a check for $250, and a signed Description of Copyrighted Materials, all co-signed by LaVey and dated July 1974. The Description includes the following:
“(1) From The Satanic Bible: All material pertaining to the Satanic Ritual as depicted in the BOOK OF BELIAL, Ch. V, and the BOOK OF LEVIATHAN, Ch. I-VI.
“(2) From The Satanic Rituals: All material pertaining to THE BLACK MASS and THE SATANIC BAPTISM (adult).”
The archives contain no further correspondence between LaVey and Hörsch. So what happened to Black Mass?
On February 28th, 1975, the Philadelphia Inquirer published a news item:
“Protest Raised Here On ‘Black Mass’ Film
“Christian and Jewish leaders of Greater Philadelphia combined Thursday in an effort to discourage the showing of a new movie, Black Mass, which reportedly was scheduled to open here this weekend.
“…The movie has been described by its producer-director, Ray ho*rsch, as ‘the Satanic Mass… the exact inversion of the Catholic ceremony’ with ‘every part of it reversed in blasphemy, for its intention is a deliberate corruption, a parody of the Mass.’
“‘We call upon all those involved in the film industry in the Greater Philadelphia area… to recognize the outrage being voiced by religious people of all faiths and to resist and reject every attempt to market or portray this film,’ said a statement issued by the religious leaders.
“…They described the film as ‘a frontal attack on the Sacred itself…offensive to persons of all religious faiths’ and ‘a blasphemous attack on religious rites held in sacred reverence by millions of Christian believers.’
‘’It not only constitutes an obscene travesty of Catholic sancta, but deeply outrages the religious sensitivities of all God-fearing people,’ said Rabbis Lacks and Goldfarb.”
That was a great deal of opinion from people who hadn’t actually seen the film. But they were probably right.
The Philadelphia Inquirer wasn’t done with this juicy piece of outrage, however. In their Weekend section (“What scandalous blasphemy shall we partake of tonight, Gladys? Let me peruse this helpful guide…”) published the same day, they filled in a few details:
“‘Black Mass,’ the controversial film by Chestnut Hill filmmaker Ray ho*rsch, will be shown at the Germantown Bandbox Theater this Saturday at midnight. Originally scheduled for a midnight showing at the Arcadia, the film was cancelled after reported pressure by the Philadelphia Archdiocese, according to the Bandbox’s Art Carduner, who gave the film a new home. Producer-director ho*rsch will attend the opening which will benefit the Friends of the Bandbox.”
As observed by the helpful Monster Kid film fans at tapatalk.com, the Band Box was most definitely an art and foreign house, so it is unlikely that Black Mass was straight-out p*rn.
It’s well worth a return to Ashley West’s interview with Hörsch; here we have the director’s own frank observations about what he remembers about making the film:
46:30
RCH: “I took the money I’d made from Erotic Memoirs and a couple of the other films and I made this unfortunate Black Mass film. Kinda lost all the money, made it, lost it, and ended up back at ground zero and slipped into a really deep depression, which really just kinda closed that era of my life.”
AW: “What was that film called, by the way?”
RCH: “It was called Black Mass.”
AW: “And was that an adult film as well?”
RCH: “It was a literal Catholic Black Mass, in Latin.”
AW: “That you just filmed? From start to finish?”
RCH: “It was done cinematically, scene to scene.”
AW: “Sure.”
RCH: “A literal Black Mass in Latin, and strangely, not many of the film going audience at the time spoke Latin and the film kinda bombed.”
AW: “That actually came out in the cinema, did it?”
RCH: “Yeah, it had one screening and then the Catholic archdiocese of Philadelphia actually had the whole run of the film cancelled. They had quite a bit of clout back then. But I still have the film rights to Anton LaVey’s Satanic Bible. I purchased the film rights to that, I think, for $150 [see above - PN].”
AW: “The choice of filming a Black Mass seems strange. What was the attraction to you of that?”
RCH: “Something to do that was contrary, I mean, something to get me…”
AW: “In trouble.”
RCH: “Something to get me in trouble.”
To date, Hörsch’s Black Mass has not been unearthed and we could find no commentary from anyone who has seen it. It may be moldering away in a storage facility somewhere; it may have been destroyed. Anyone with more information is encouraged to contact me.
In October of 1974, a letter arrived from producer George Gale of American National Enterprises, Inc., asking LaVey to call him “regarding the possibility of filming a sequence in your church.” At this point in time, LaVey was already in touch with the producers of The Devil’s Rain, a much bigger deal, but he considered the request as Gale said right up front that payment would be involved.
George Gale was one of those hardworking Hollywood types involved in projects that ran the gamut from Jean Renoir’s The River in 1951, to one of my favorite childhood television productions, Daktari. He died only recently, in 2022 at the age of 103.
LaVey must have decided he was getting pulled in too many directions around then, so he arranged with the members of the Karnak Grotto in Santa Cruz to film at the home of their leader. Correspondence from those who had visited there described the ritual chamber as quite beautiful and capacious, with an Egyptian theme, and the few scant minutes of footage that were used in the film certainly bear this out.
The agreement between the Church of Satan, Inc., and American National Enterprises, Inc. stipulates as follows:
“The Church hereby agrees to supply location and props and a minimum of five participants to stage a ‘Black Mass’ type of ceremony and grant an interview explaining the nature of the ceremony and worship.” In return for this, the Church was paid $500. A further stipulation was noted:
“The name of our organization is the Church of Satan. It is incorporated under that name and that is the name which must be used in the film. It is, furthermore, an international organization, not limited to ‘of San Francisco.’”
In 1981, the Church of Satan was contacted by Avatar Learning Inc., as they sought permission to use the Church’s segment from Mysteries From Beyond Earth “in a thirty-minute educational film we are producing in association with Encyclopedia Britannica Educational Corporation. The film will be seen on syndicated television and deals with an historical survey of man’s attempts to deal with the unknown. It is tentatively titled Mysteries of the Unknown.” There is no further correspondence regarding this request. It will have to remain one of those big mysteries.
Mysteries From Beyond Earth is another mondo-type compilation that was typical of the time period, serving the type of market base that would later flock to shows like In Search Of and The X-Files. The Satanists may be the only group in the film whose activities are rooted in reality. Although generally considered to be quite schlocky, it’s still a fun choice when you’re feeling nostalgic for this kind of material.
The Devil’s Rain - 1975
On August 5th, 1974, Jim Cullen, a Co-Producer at Sandy Howard Productions, wrote a letter to Anton LaVey’s secretary, Lana Green, and conveyed the following:
“We are very interested in exploring the possibility of Mr. LaVey acting as Technical Advisor as well as helping the promotion on The Devil’s Rain which is scheduled for a January 16, 1975 start date. The Film is being produced in cooperation with and distributed by Bryanston Pictures, now successfully releasing Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein.”
Ms. Green responded promptly and supplied Cullen with a copy of The Satanic Mass LP:
“I thought this might give you an idea or two. It came out in 1968 and has been distributed mainly through Lyle Stuart (The Mystic Arts Book club). It was the first recording of its kind and has since been imitated by others.
“Enclosed is the handbill I described to you as being quite similar to the one advertising Dr. Anton Phibes’s similar persuasion. It is circa 1947-48, during which time Mr. LaVey played Hammond organ, band organ, calliope, etc. (!), for the circus and carnival. The handbill will be reproduced in The Devil’s Avenger, a biography on Mr. LaVey scheduled for publication by Pyramid Books this October 15th. I thought Mr. Feust [sic] might find it interesting.
“I remember how impressed Mr. LaVey was with the ingenious use of musical incongruity (note the conclusion to Side II when you listen to The Satanic Mass) in The Abominable Dr. Phibes, so please convey his compliments to Mr. Feust [sic]. The magic [of] music and the music of magic have been predominating themes throughout Mr. LaVey’s life, so he will undoubtedly offer some suggestions in that regard, as well, when he gets together with you on The Devil’s Rain.”
Jim Cullen wrote back in September 1974, now on The Devil’s Rain custom stationery, which included a depiction of the “bottle of souls” all trying to claw their way to freedom. “Thank you for taking the time to stop by and visit us with your lovely wife to discuss your thoughts about The Devil’s Rain. Mr. Teller, Mr. Hopman, and myself are pleased with your initial comments and that you have agreed to act as Technical Advisor on the film and to make a cameo appearance.” Cullen then laid out the specifics: LaVey would receive a $5,000 fee for the Technical Advisor services and for the on-screen appearance, “as possibly the organist.” Additionally, he’d get $300 a week for expenses while on location and first class, round trip transportation. He was also expected to “consider a public appearance tour” when the film was released, and they’d discuss further compensation for that when the time came.
LaVey took his role as consultant quite seriously, and analyzed the script in advance of production with the eye of an experienced film buff as well as that of an expert on Satanism. His notes, and ultimate pan of the script and concept, make for interesting reading. From a letter dated September 23rd, 1974:
“The entire story is so flawed and inaccurate that even if the plot made sense it could not receive serious attention from any reader or viewer with any degree of sophistication. Only two redeeming factors exist, from a Satanist’s point of view: the principle symbol (inverted pentagram) is employed instead of an ankh, regular pentagram, etc. and the ‘forces of evil’ appear to win at the end. These do not make the film or story a Satanic allegory, however.
“The minuses are in abundance. There is absolutely no consistency in the plot. No reasons are given for why the Satanists are ‘evil,’ yet they are supposedly ‘trapped’ into their roles. The book that they seek, as well as the bottle itself appear as desirable trophies, yet there is abject horror associated with both book and bottle. If the bottle contains trapped and tormented ‘damned souls,’ would not those souls welcome its destruction that they might be freed?
“If the worshippers are waxen, pathetic creatures, what’s the attraction in Satanism? If Corbis collected them for his own purposes, wouldn’t they be zombies or drones, rather than Satanists? According to the story, these ‘souls’ are lingering out of revenge for their being ‘burned at the stake in Salem.’ I can’t find the connection between this and the bottle, nor any reason for a waxen form to be assumed. I cannot comprehend why rain would hold a threat — especially to those supposedly destroyed by fire. Rain and storm seem logical attributes to dark forces, rather than anathema. The entire plot is so filled with inconsistencies that it fails to hold together if one stops for a moment to think, rather than observe. Success for the film must, of necessity, depend on total visual stimulation, ruthlessly and constantly applied. Proof of this is the vapidity of the story, when read without visual effects. Either the film version must be made esoteric enough to allow audience participation on a cult level (El Topo, 2001), or reworked into a reasonably feasible potboiler. Either alternative must retain visual impact. Otherwise the entire project should be scrapped, a novel and unprecedented story used, low-budget black and white footage used with existing music, unknown actors, and location sets thereby producing a masterpiece. Since that is impossible, THE DEVIL’S RAIN should either evolve into an insane and interpretive tour de force, without any attempt at plot or continuity, or else be understandable at a critical 10-year-old audience level.
“The EXORCIST had an idee fixee [sic] (possession and exorcism). So did Rosemary’s Baby (the birth of a devil child). The DEVIL’S RAIN has none. If revenge is intended as a theme, it fails because those who supposedly seek or await vindication are defeated, even though they are shown to be innocent victims. When these innocent victims are depicted in other than the Salem scenes, they are heinous monsters with virtually little dialogue qualifying their intended purpose. Despite this, even THEY dread their freedom and emancipation and seem to exist solely for the purpose of scaring the audience. Does it occur to anyone that Hell is not a place of torment to a Satanist? Rather it is paradise. A child who’s never heard of Milton can figure THAT out.
“If the film had been done as a straight horror story — no Satanic implications — but monstrous anomalies or mutations as antagonists, then the same ending could be employed without criticism. There are too many who refuse to buy theological clap-trap nowadays; good and evil are being vitally re-evaluated. Therein lies the folly of incorporating Satanism in the story as it is presented.
“Here is what I must answer, when asked how in the world I could possibly place my approval on this story:
“Money. The same reason those Jesuit priests did it with the EXORCIST. Except that I don’t need to be goody-two-shoes and give theological reasons. They will ask, ‘Don’t you think the story and film will set Satanism back?’ ‘No,’ I answer, ‘Regardless of how ridiculous it is, we win at the end, and the end justifies the means. If we win at the end of enough films, then the public will know we are winners. Then filmmakers will start fitting the films to their endings. They will figure, ‘What the Hell, the Satanists, vampires, werewolves, etc., always win anyway, so we might as well make them heroes.’ Then you will see how the motion picture can mold, influence, and change established thinking. THAT will be something for a filmmaker to be proud of, and make money too.”
LaVey’s notes became more specific as he suggested alternate dialogue and nomenclature throughout the script.
“Pg. 37, Scenes 161, 162, Seduction of Mark by mother. As voluptuary is working on Mark, who is trussed to cross, Corbis exhorts:
CORBIS
Lust is the great giver of life. Whoever is blessed by thoughts and acts of lust is enervated by the spark of creation. Whoever succumbs to lust approaches divinity. In the realization of lust, one who is barren may draw nigh to the Kingdom of Satan. Only in the realm of Satan dwells life everlasting, world without end. In lust there is life!
CONGREGATION
In lust there is life!
CORBIS
In lust there is ecstasy!
CONGREGATION
In lust there is ecstasy!
CORBIS
Purify him, oh Satan, that he may know the radiant joy of fleshly delights. Cleanse him of the putrescent malignancy of false inhibition. By the Great whor* of Babylon, bestow new life unto him, that he might savor the fruits of thy garden Eastward of Eden. Salve the wounds of his piety as he hangs upon the sticks of sanctimonious perfidy! Infuse his weak and yielding form with lust and life, that he might serve our great and noble Lord!
CONGREGATION
In lust there is life! In lust there is ecstasy! In lust there is life! In lust there is ecstasy!
Congregation resumes the second Enochian Key in Enochian, to dissolve at end of 162.
“Book best be called ‘Devil’s Ledger.’ Then reference throughout film could be to ‘Ledger,’ rather than ‘Hammer.’ ‘Ledger’ implies a roster or census of names, souls or whatever. ‘Stanville’ could be ‘Stantonville’ and ‘Corbis’ renamed ‘Stanton’ —could be tied in nicely with his hanging around a ghost town named after his forebears. ‘Stanton’ has more of an ‘American’ and less spooky sound than ‘Corbis,’ yet is more forceful sounding, and has a greater unconscious phonetic association with ‘Satan.’
“‘Preston’ should definitely go. ‘Ingles,’ ‘Hutley,’ ‘Perrier,’ ‘Renner,’ ‘Seeley,’ etc. are plentiful and convincing. ‘Prestons’ and ‘Carsons’ have been done to death. ‘Richards’ is a little better. For the analytical scholar use something like: ‘Seibert,’ ‘Schaffer,’ ‘Baird,’ ‘Mosier,’ ‘Clegg,’ etc.
“Martin Fyfe is ok — a bit too Salem-ish for me, but otherwise convincing.
“‘Julie’ is just too cutsie [sic], though physically she should be. How about ‘Diane.’ No one seems to use it in films, yet it is extremely popular and suited to the role, especially in view of its mythological origin. Of course, I may be partial.
“THE BIRD…
“An ideal vehicle for the smashing of the bottle. References in legend and myth are innumerable. The bottle is a variant of the ‘auric egg,’ the sacred orb of Christianity and the repository of the microcosmos. In our case it is a microcosm of Hell. The bird pecks the bottle open as often is done to assist in the hatching of babies from the egg. The big bird, on orders from the Man Downstairs, pecks the bottle open and releases his charges. The raven is the messenger of Loki (Satan) in Teutonic lore, summoning the news of the destruction of Valhalla and carrying messages to the netherworld. In Rimsky-Korsakoff’s ‘Le Coq d’Or,’ it is the dive-bombing bird that ends the cycle. Even the comic strip ‘Popeye’ had the Sea Hag (daughter of Satan) sending forth and receiving her condor-like emissary when the occasion warranted. The lore is endless. A vulture feeds on the dead, hence its desireability [sic] to serve both as a corrollary [sic] to the bird/egg mythos, but to imply that the homunculi in the bottle are the dead leavings of the ravaged congregants.
“The bird should first appear in an opening scene — 56 or 57 — before any of the town’s inhabitants are seen. It should be perched, sentinal-like [sic], on a post or eave. Music should be a certain section from Le Coq d’Or — a haunting theme subtly establishing the bird’s significance later in the film, but not readily perceived by the audience. The bird remains absent from the film until the end, when it swoops down during scenes 468 to 473. The Aaronessa bit is excised completely and scenes 468-473 to accommodate bird and destruction of bottle.
“Scene 516 insert, instead of showing page stated, close up on page bearing Julie’s name among others. Feminine hand rips away page as per script.
“Scene 517 retains page being hidden under hay, but deletes miniature rain bottle extracted from boot. (518)
“519 stet until somewhere during 525, wherein bird is seen for a couple of beats, perched in a glare of flames on a timber, the rumpled page from the ‘Ledger’ clutched securely in one claw.
RITUAL SETS
“Generally fine as is. Altars should be trapezoidal in form. Symbol of Baphomet (inverted pentagram with goat’s head superimposed) should always be prominent. During lust ritual (Mark’s seduction) a phallus should be prominently depicted, either as a sculpted, painted or stained glass motif, rising from the top and back of the altar. Surrounding the phallus should be a gothic arch, representing the penis inserted into the vagin*. At the apex of the arch is emblazoned the pentagram (see sketch). Explicitness of phallus is, of course, dependent upon whatever the planned audience rating will bear.
“The most relevant use of the phallus as an object of sex worship was the Greek Priapus, depicted as a co*ck, with the beak transformed into a penis and the comb represented by testicl*s. This aspect also adds considerably to the use of a bird later in the film to smash bottle.
“Resting on the altar are a chalice, positioned between the two balls, and a ceremonial sword or dagger, lying in front of the chalice. If Mr. Fuest decides to pull a Dr. Phibes, he might even consider having the balls and penis pulsate with colored light, while the arch glows neon. Wouldn’t that be something!”
The archive contains no further exchange or response to this very frank and detailed criticism of the screenplay. Do movie producers usually want a lot of advice from a Technical Advisor, or just a notorious name to use in their publicity? What was the reaction back in Hollywood to words like “flawed” and “inaccurate,” as well as the implication that even a ten-year-old would think the plotline was kind of dumb? We may never know, but at least it didn’t irritate Jim Cullen and friends enough to cancel LaVey’s participation.
On September 25th, 1974, Hollywood publicist Bill Watters sent out the following release:
“Executive Producer Sandy Howard has signed Anton Szandor LaVey, founder and first high priest of the million-member Church of Satan in San Francisco, to serve as technical adviser on ‘The Devil’s Rain,’ Sandy Howard Productions feature scheduled to begin filming in Mexico City on Jan. 20, for release by Bryanston Pictures.
“LaVey, who founded the Bay City church in 1966, now claims more than one million members worldwide for his Satanist cult.”
In October 1974, Jim Cullen sent LaVey the Dell paperback galley-proof of The Devil’s Rain novel. Both Dell and Bryanston were hoping LaVey would agree to write something for inclusion in the book, and offered $500. Since the novel presumably followed the same storyline LaVey was enthusiastically criticizing in his script suggestions, he wasn’t about to endorse it as any kind of depiction of Satanism:
“Being sort of out on a limb with an unrevisable paperback galley, I felt the best approach to be a subjective one, rather than scholarly. I assume an inside or back cover blurb is what you and Dell have in mind. Historically flawed as it is, any comment from me based on other than the story’s entertainment value would display me to be as a complete nincompoop to those whose opinions I would value.
“I think this will definitely help sell the book, while not affecting my reputation and/or subsequent modifications in the film treatment: ‘A fast-paced thriller in the Weird Tales tradition of the thirties — NOT to be read on a rainy night.’ If you need expansion, can do.”
It can be inferred that this was definitely NOT what the publisher and the film company had in mind, and the blurb did not appear. Those who continue to insist that “LaVey did it for the money” can take note. He turned down $500 (which converts to over $3,000 in 2023) rather than endorse an inaccurate and sensationalistic depiction of Satanism as anything but fiction.
Maud Willis, the author of The Devil’s Rain novel, also wrote several Bionic Woman tie-in novels. During her career, she produced over 20 other tie-in and science fiction novels using different pseudonyms as well as under her real name, Eileen Lottman. Ms. Lottman’s obituary appears on the Freedom From Religion Foundation’s website, where her attendance at their New York City events is noted.
LaVey received the formal agreement for his work on The Devil’s Rain in November 1974. It was tweaked and signed by all parties in December. In January 1975, a letter welcoming the LaVeys to the production arrived, with instructions about on-set life:
“On behalf of Sandy Howard Productions, we would like to welcome you to the production of ‘DEVIL’S RAIN,’ and we are looking forward to having the pleasure of working with you… Filming on this production will commence January 27th 1975 in Durango, Mexico. The total shooting schedule will be five (5) weeks. We will provide your transportation… During the months of January and February, the weather in Durango is chilly with a little rain and since part of our filming will be done at night, please bring warm and protective clothing. As we are in a foreign country, it is recommended that you bring an alarm clock for morning wake-up calls…”
So Anton LaVey traveled to Durango, Mexico, and stayed there for about a month as an on-site consultant and actor in The Devil’s Rain, a horror film directed by Robert Fuest and produced by James V. Cullen and Michael S. Glick for Sandy Howard Productions. Diane LaVey accompanied her husband and has a brief on-screen appearance as a Puritan in one of the historical flashbacks.
Durango had an “Old West Town” film lot, frequently used in Hollywood productions and made particularly famous by John Wayne, who shot half a dozen films there, including The Sons of Katie Elder. The list of productions filmed in Durango is quite long, and not all were Westerns — Ben Hur also made use of its dramatic landscapes and wide open spaces. The Devil’s Rain began shooting there on January 27th, 1975. Cast and crew were scattered among several local hotels; the LaVeys were housed in Room 14 at Campo Mexico Courts, along with Ida Lupino, William Shatner and Alex Phillips, the cinematographer, with whom LaVey struck up a fast friendship.
Diane LaVey actually preceded Anton on set; her first day of filming was January 28th, and she worked for three days. The location was the Wellington House; it’s 1683, and Corbis’ cult is meeting there in secret. They’re interrupted by the Puritans who come to punish them. Diane is identified on several memos as “Evelyn LaVey,” and her character’s name is “Priscilla.” While LaVey was presumably on set every day in his role as Technical Advisor, he doesn’t appear on the call sheets for the cast members until February 4th, when the crew began shooting interiors in the old church, located on John Wayne St. Shooting could occur in the daytime or at night; sometimes, the LaVeys were picked up at their hotel at 7:00 a.m. — a big switch for the nocturnal High Priest. Evening shooting began with a pickup at 5:00 p.m., pastry and coffee on set at 5:30 p.m., “lunch” at 9:00 p.m., and in observation of the frigid outdoor desert temperatures, hot chocolate and soup were available at midnight. The torchlit procession through the gully could not have been very comfortable, but the great thing about ritual robes is that they allow for a lot of long underwear.
When LaVey was needed on set for front-of-camera work, his character is alternately identified as “Organist” for the church interior inserts, and “Raven” when he is the golden-helmeted Satanic Priest in the ritual sequences. For years, watching The Devil’s Rain on late night television, we’d be deprived of the full measure of LaVey’s participation, as his commanding presence was dropped off the TV screen by pan-and-scan technology. It was exciting to finally watch the letterbox version when it arrived on VHS.
Life in and around Durango while constantly on call for this busy production must have been both exhausting and lots of fun. The Mexican cast and crew had the day off on February 5th for their country’s Constitution Day, but the Americans worked anyway, shooting insert shots. The cast was also required to be available to the press as much as possible. Among the memos and call sheets are several announcements and schedules for press opportunities, when a cadre of journalists, with their cameramen, would appear in Durango for media days. Sam Askinazy was the unit publicist, providing blurbs to Time, People and Copley News. A reporter named George Natanson, a part-time expat American who spent his winters in Durango, found LaVey a compelling interview subject and their friendship lasted for years.
Older articles on LaVey and the Church of Satan mention adherents to Satanism among the cast and crew of The Devil’s Rain. There was certainly a lot of warm camaraderie on the set and LaVey’s charm and earthiness always drew people to him. Ida Lupino, the first woman to direct a Hollywood film noir and the only woman to direct an episode of The Twilight Zone, was a particular favorite. So was The Devil’s Rain’s cinematographer, Alex Phillips. Early in his career, Phillips served as cinematographer for one of LaVey’s favorite films, Yanco; Diane wrote to him about it shortly after the LaVeys were able to re-watch it at home in San Francisco, when a friend was able to borrow a print:
“Yanco is even better than we had remembered it. The photography is so beautiful that almost any frame taken at random from the film could be enlarged and framed as a fine work of art. As it happened, our friend, filmmaker Kenneth Anger (whom I believe we discussed with you), called to invite us to a showing of his ‘Hollywood Babylon’ film-clips the same day we got the good news about Yanco. So when we got back that evening we all watched it. Ken, who is not at all complimentary of other film people usually, agreed with us that Yanco is one of the most enchanted films ever made. He was extremely impressed with what he called ‘incredibly sophisticated’ black and white film techniques, and was surprised to learn how young you were when you made it. And I commented to Anton that Yanco could have been a story of his childhood. We may have mentioned to you that Anton studied violin for nine years when he was a child (beginning at age five), he then switched to oboe and did well enough with it to play professionally with the San Francisco Symphony when he was only sixteen. The whole time he was growing up he also played piano, which he taught himself by ear, and at seventeen when he joined the circus he played calliope and band organ. So you can see that music is his great love. But more than that, the character of the little boy in Yanco was so similar to what I know of Anton as a child in other ways: his greater comfort with animals than with other children, his sensitivity to harsh sounds and boisterous people and hatred of same, the old man who saw in him the rare genius that he himself had had and developed in the boy (Anton had several "adopted fathers" who recognized his unique talents and nurtured them as they would with their own son.) The one touch that hit me more than anything, though, was when the boy was having his picture taken on the burro and his mother stopped the photographer long enough to hand him the toy rifle and hang the ammunition belt over his shoulder. Most kids who were as sensitive as the Yanco character would tend to be timid and frightened by guns and such. But not him ... and not Anton. He has always been an odd combination of artist and fighter. The film is a haunting and beautiful parable, and the camera work is exquisite. You must be very proud of it as your first work. We think it [should be] shown to school children in America, as it might make them feel a bit ashamed of their intolerance of exceptional children around them.”
In respect to the Church of Satan’s privacy policy, I will only confirm that there were several “official” memberships and probably a few underground memberships that occurred among those on set in Durango. LaVey was very much aware of the need for discretion among members with careers to think about.
LaVey’s last day of filming appears to have been February 20, 1975 and filming in Durango wrapped on March 1st. The news column in The Cloven Hoof, Volume 7, Number 4, July/August 1975, contains the following juicy tidbits:
“Concerning The Devil’s Rain and the June Argosy article: Star Ernest Borgnine is not a member of the C/S, but when asked by a bevy of reports (including Argosy’s Dick Russell) whether he would consider being an actual ‘priest’ of Satan, he replied that he would accept such an honor if it came from Dr. LaVey, because he respected him as a man. That’s as far as Mr. Borgnine’s ‘ordination’ went, though. Many of the performers and crew of the film are self-admitted Satanists, several of whom are C/S members of varying degrees… The ‘director’ mentioned in Argosy’s story was not a director, but an inept and arrogant associate producer, who minimized everyone on the set, from Ida Lupino to the Mexican extras. It was thus a collective ‘working’ that earned the High Priest an opportunity to leave for other Latin-American commitments a week ahead of completion, with no complaints and fond memories of Durango (it was at his suggestion that the film was shot there).”
If you are inclined to further study: the June 1975 Argosy article is the result of an extended conversation the author Dick Russell had with Anton LaVey in Durango, during the filming of The Devil’s Rain. The article includes quite a few details about LaVey’s life during filming and the whispered legends by cast and crew about possibly paranormal happenings on and around the set.
On October 31st, 2017, Severin Films released the first-ever HD blu-ray of The Devil’s Rain. It’s an excellent version of the film and the bonus material includes interviews with myself, Magus Peter H. Gilmore, High Priest of the Church of Satan, and Magistra Blanche Barton, LaVey’s biographer and life partner.
This slideshow requires JavaScript.
The Car - 1977
Issue #67 (May-June 1977) of the Church of Satan’s newsletter, The Cloven Hoof, contains a mini-review for The Car, released on May 13th, 1977:
“If you get tired of seeing ‘Satanic’ films that contain the usual ingredients — demonic possession, diabolical children, hooded and robed groups chanting, or predatory devil-worshippers, a fresh approach has surfaced. It is The Car, directed by Elliot Silverstein for Universal. Based on the premise that commonplace objects can become ‘monstrous machines of annihilation,’ its Satanic Bible opening sets the pace for the magical authenticity which runs throughout.”
While most reviewers over the years have agreed that the film takes a promising premise and fails to deliver much interest or suspense, Anton LaVey was pretty clear about his approval of the car itself. Sleek, black, and foreboding, the 1971 Lincoln Continental Mark III was customized to look even more like the automotive version of the “heavy” from any good film noir crime movie, eyes barely glinting from under the rim of his fedora and holding a substantial cannon of a handgun pointed right at you. Taking inspiration from Duel (1971), Steven Spielberg’s early breakout film, The Car nevertheless inspired other films, most obviously Christine (1983).
The Car does indeed open with a slightly-altered quote from The Satanic Bible:
“Oh great brothers of the night, who rideth upon the hots winds of Hell, who dwelleth in the Devil’s lair: Move and appear!”
Anton LaVey received his agreement for the use of this quote on March 30th, 1977, and Universal paid him $500. Tom Gray of Universal’s press department also mailed LaVey a couple of publicity stills of the car itself: “a mysterious, malevolent machine that terrorizes a small southwestern town without apparent motive.”
Witchcraft - 1977
Bob Cawley Enterprises and Reina Productions sent Anton LaVey a letter in April of 1977 that started in the usual fashion:
“I have started pre-production on a feature film that will go in front of the cameras in mid-July titled, WITCHCRAFT. This film has world-wide distribution.
“I am interested in having you in my film as well as information and film on your Church of Satan and an update on the Santanic [sic] movement in the United States.
“If you are interested in being in this film please let me know as soon as possible so that I can come to San Francisco to meet with you and discuss this project.”
There is very little information available on Bob Cawley or Reina Productions circa 1977. There is one film, Treasure of Tayopa, which he appears to have produced in 1974. In 1980, he was a producer on The Anita Bryant Spectacular.
LaVey had his secretary make a phone call — there is an attached list of questions for Cawley. The next letter arrived promptly:
“I talked with a young lady in your office last week regarding my documentary film, WITCHCRAFT. She said that someone would be in contact with me the first of this week to discuss filming in either the United States or the Netherlands.
“It is most important that I get this worked out as I have to turn in my final shooting budget the Monday (May 9) of next week.
“Would you be so kind as to have someone on your staff contact me as soon as possible regarding this project.”
Another phone call must have swiftly taken place; its content can only be surmised from the letter of contract that followed on May 18th, 1977. That contract includes an agreement to pay LaVey $2,000 for permission to record a “major secret ritual of The Church of Satan” at the Church’s location in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. This was the location of the Church’s Grotto Magistratis. The contract goes on to state that “this ritual will be selected for the action and shock content involved and will include nudity, sacrifice, sexual acts, ceremonial rites and any and all things that are normal to this ritual.” I think I feel the brakes pumping here. The contract is unsigned.
Another letter dated June 1st, 1977 was sent to LaVey, prompting him to return the signed contract so they could get the show on the road. “Your secretary informed me that your man was involved in theater and motion pictures in Europe and of course this will be of great help.”
Indeed. The Grotto leader in Amsterdam, a city famous for sex clubs and live sex shows, could have staged a Satanic ritual that would have blown any audience’s socks off. He could have simulated blood sacrifices and horrendous depravity just for the camera. But at the last minute, it doesn’t look like Anton LaVey was comfortable with what would have been essentially a misrepresentation of a true Satanic ritual, happening far away and without his supervision. His signature is not on this contract, and there is no reference to such a filming in the correspondence with this Grotto.
Richard Jay Silverthorn - 1980
This connection to LaVey, as with some others, did not result in a collaboration, but Richard Silverthorn’s participation in one of those terrible/wonderful horror movies of the 80’s makes his exchange with LaVey that much more compelling. I will let his letter of September 9th, 1980 clue you in; it appears that there was a previous exchange and LaVey asked Silverthorn to tell him how much experience he had in professional filmmaking:
“Excuse me for not responding sooner to your inquiry regarding my telephone message at the end of June, but I was waiting for more information to be available.
“I play Lucifer’s fleshly incarnation of Italian nobleman, Rossario Bonommo in the first five minutes of FEAR NO EVIL to be released to theatres by Avco-Embassy Pictures in May of 1981. I die with the golden cross of St. Michael through my heart of my own will, in 1961, in order to be reborn and elude my pursuer, an old priest who is the incarnation of the archangel Rafael. I am born again in 1963 and the role of young Lucifer as a high school student is played for the rest of the film by Stefan Arngrim. The story concerns two women, incarnations of Michael and Gabriel, who band together to destroy young Lucifer before he can proclaim his kingdom in Earth in 1981. The film was shot in New York State last summer, mainly at the Boldt Castle, on one of the Thousand Islands of the St. Lawrence River. The castle represents the re-building of the Temple on boatloads of soil brought to America from Jerusalem.
“I acted in the film, did all makeup and rubber prosthetics and am now finishing up optical effects in Los Angeles. Film will be ready by Halloween and we plan a sneak preview in Rochester and an entry into the Milan, Italy film festival.
“The only bit of magic researched in the film is the use of the word AiWasz to summon our powers before our destruction. The end of the film has spectacular special effects, including the second coming of Christ. I may also be writing the novelization of the screenplay, THE SATAN TRILOGY: A Tale of the AntiChrist.
“Rege Satanas!
“Richard Jay Silverthorn.”
There’s one more piece of correspondence, and no indication that Silverthorn had a film project in mind for LaVey at this point; rather, he was interested in making his novelization sound as authentic as he could in regard to Satanic “liturgy.” Another letter appeared in May of 1981:
“The novel is entitled THE SATAN TRILOGY and will deal with 3 earthly incarnations of Lucifer as he battles again 3 incarnations of Archangels Rafael, Michael and Gabriel.
“Enclosed is my check for $4 for your book SATANIC RITUALS. Please send it out as soon as possible. While I do not intend direct quotes, I may use portions for inspiration. I am particularly interested in Black Mass and summoning Lucifer out of Hell.”
Silverthorn did ultimately publish his novelization of Fear No Evil; it was put out by Avon Books under the title Satan’s Spawn in 1988. Tragically, Silverthorn passed away in 1987 of AIDS complications, per IMDB.
The 1982 Telluride Film Festival
Anton LaVey’s relationship with the film Freaks (1932) by director Tod Browning has been discussed in various outlets, most notably, in Carl Abrahamsson’s book, Anton LaVey and The Church of Satan: Infernal Wisdom From The Devil’s Den. In Chapter 6, Abrahamsson relates the path the film took, from being an obsession of LaVey’s, which prompted his urging Willy Werby to gain the rights to it for her San Francisco film festival, to his finally possessing his own 16 mm print which he’d often screen for visitors to the Black House. In fact, LaVey’s enthusiasm for Freaks and his ability to disseminate an interest in it among the movers and shakers of the 80’s and 90’s, led to its revival at film festivals and its place now as an icon of cult films.
So how did Anton LaVey become an invited guest at the 1982 Telluride Film Festival? Well, the program included a screening of Tod Browning’s The Thirteenth Chair, to be shown on the director’s 100th birthday. It’s not clear from the correspondence how the connection was made, but LaVey was to bring a film — unnamed in the correspondence — and I strongly suspect the film was Freaks.
The LaVeys were sufficiently excited about their invitation to the festival to discuss it with their dear friend Jacques Vallee, who mentions the conversation in the third volume of his collected journals, Forbidden Science 3 (Anomalist Books, 2012, pg. 100). Telluride is part of The National Film Preserve Ltd., and the festival’s manager, Stella Pence, wrote to LaVey on August 16th, 1982 to inform him of the arrangements. They were flying him there via United and Frontier Airlines and he’d be staying at the New Sheraton Hotel. “As you will see from the enclosed brochure, Telluride is a very small and informal town. The Telluride Film Festival follows suit and maintains a pleasant, intimate ambiance. There are no formal occasions and we encourage you to wear whatever you please. Please do bring sturdy shoes as there is only one paved street and you might enjoy exploring the mountain trails; a hat is advisable as the mountain sun is strong; and a warm jacket to weather the cold nights. Sunglasses would be in order as well. There is nothing so spectacular as the cloudless brilliance of the Colorado sky.
“But just in case, bring something to fight off an unwelcome rainstorm.”
The Telluride trip was clearly an enjoyable adventure, and there are numerous invitations to brunch and dinner in the file, as well as maps for the different venues for the film tributes. What we don’t have is an hour-by-hour schedule of events, or a specific instruction for LaVey aside from “there are a few events, however, which require your participation,” per Stella Pence’s letter of September 2, 1982. An examination of Telluride’s web resources, as well as a direct inquiry, have not been helpful regarding Anton LaVey’s role as a guest of the film festival that year.
Death Scenes - 1989
When Nick Bougas had his inspiration for a video project based on a scrapbook that had been created and maintained by a homicide detective, he couldn’t think of a better narrator than Anton LaVey. While never a voice actor, LaVey’s gruff, no-nonsense delivery would bestow a unique level of verisimilitude to the images as they rolled past the viewer; the High Priest’s past work as a police photographer coupled with the notoriety of a lifetime representing Satanism, would only add to the film’s macabre appeal.
Nick and LaVey conducted most of their negotiations and brainstorming in person and via telephone; after traveling to San Francisco to show the scrapbook itself to LaVey, the project went into motion swiftly and the few notes we have indicate that LaVey received the script, video and a photocopy of the entire scrapbook, then made his recordings soon after that. The producer wanted the video on shelves by the middle of November 1989, and Nick indicates that he would need to give it round-the-clock attention until then. Nevertheless, he urged LaVey to work at his own comfort level.
Death Scenes was directed by Nick Bougas, who also produced with Ray Atherton, was edited by Sandra Weinberg and written by Nick Bougas and F. B. Vincinzo.
In 1996, Feral House published the scrapbook as a small coffee table book, Death Scenes: A Homicide Detective’s Scrapbook, with text by Katherine Dunn (Geek Love).
Speak of the Devil - 1993
In 1989, Anton LaVey taped some interview footage with Video Werewolf, with the goal of creating a short documentary about the Church of Satan; this was the height of the Satanic Panic and it seemed that some clarification from the fountainhead of Satanism was in order. From Carl Abrahamsson’s book, Anton LaVey and The Church of Satan: Infernal Wisdom From The Devil’s Den:
“In the late 1980’s, after some years of negative exposure under the umbrella of what has been called the Satanic Panic, Anton LaVey decided it would be good to have some new and official information about what Satanism is, and what it isn’t.”
The documentary was titled Hail Satan! Due to creative differences, the principles at Video Werewolf signed off on the project in January of 1990 and relinquished all rights to the footage.
But fear not; that footage was not lost, and would be pressed into service in another project — or two. 1990 was a big year for Satanism, and time and effort were not to be wasted. As The Secret Life of a Satanist by Blanche Barton moved into print production, its publisher, Adam Parfrey, looked into ways to promote the “brand” and sent a letter, dated May 24, 1990:
“Now that the biography is practically on its way to the printer, perhaps it’s time to plot out the next moves on the space-time continuum of mass consciousness.
“As part of the publicity campaign for Blanche’s book, I’d like to edit together a ‘message from hdqts.’ … Though I haven’t seen the [Hail Satan!] tape, I am led to understand that there are some very good things on it… I feel confident in my ability to rent time in a professional video editing studio (hiring a lackey to twirl the appropriate knobs), and come up with a short but powerful document…” Adam was hoping to develop the right kind of media package to hand off to TV producers when they came calling, as well as create a 30-40 minute short video that he could market for sale through Feral House, The Black Flame, and the Church of Satan itself. He thought the footage originally intended as Hail Satan! would be a good place to start.
The contract for this project arrived in June, and by this time the 30-minute video had evolved into a proposed feature-length documentary on Anton LaVey, founder of the Church of Satan.
Proposed title: Satan’s War.
Adam Parfrey wrote up a five-page treatment for Satan’s War, a treatment that is designed to show the many interesting facets of LaVey’s life and career that would appeal to a film production company with generous funding. Most of what’s in the treatment does eventually show up onscreen, although there are some proposed scenes that did not. For example, Adam projected a dramatic opening that included LaVey stepping off a jet after returning from one of his remote hideaways, being picked up in his 1932 Cord, then being whisked off by his stalwart driver Tony to a quick business meeting with his Girl Friday, Blanche Barton.
Satan’s War eventually became Speak of the Devil: The Canon of Anton LaVey. Nick Bougas teamed up with Adam to film it, and Wavelength Video was the production company. Ray Atherton produced alongside Nick, and Sandra Weinberg was the editor. Adam Parfrey became the main cameraman and cinematographer. Carl Abrahamsson quotes Adam, again from The Devil’s Den:
“I bought a Hi-8 camera to film it, did a lot of the camera work and interviewing with Anton and others. Even purchased the videotapes… Since I was a friend of both Anton and Nick at that time, I saw it as a group effort.”
Speak of the Devil offers a time capsule on film, an inside look for outsiders at a moment in Anton LaVey’s life when he was surrounded by things and people he loved, ensconced in his mysterious manse, in decent health and following his own inclinations and propensities. It’s a good way to learn about him, but it’s also a wonderful way to remember him.
“Anton LaVey was a showman, a carny,” they’ll tell you. “He was in it for the money; he really pulled the wool over the eyes of the rubes,” they’ll say.
“He didn’t even believe in Satan.”
No, he didn’t. But he believed in Satanism. He believed in his Church of Satan.
Time and again, in what I’ve written above, you see Anton LaVey being offered proposals by filmmakers to depict Satanism as something it’s not, something it’s been accused of being, something those other than LaVey wanted to portray it as, to the point that people started to believe it. That’s how Satanic Panics start. That’s how Q-Anon conspiracies begin.
He could have been richer; he could have had much more screen time. His responses to the producers were often humorous and friendly, but they were never less than steadfast:
“I simply could not play the role of Dr. Zen, as it now stands, without winding up with my foot planted firmly in my mouth… As you may know from reading The Satanic Bible, much of the script is antithetical to Satanism…”
Anton LaVey would not compromise his beliefs for these opportunities. He had worked too long and too hard to clarify and promote his unique philosophy, one that championed humanity’s carnal nature, to participate in depicting it as corrupt, abusive, and murderous, as many of the world’s major religions have ultimately proven themselves to be.
Will there ever be a movie that depicts Satanism accurately, but with an exciting fictional storyline? Satanist as hero, inventor, creative genius, titan of industry? Certainly some films have championed Satanic aesthetics and attitudes — Addams Family Values comes to mind. Or the Satanic obsession with a total environment, such as we see in PeeWee’s Big Adventure. Satanic justice appears in Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Factory, among others; we all have our favorites.
If you want to see a Satanic movie about Satanists, you’re just going to have to make one. As Anton LaVey used to say to me:
Address: 2033 Gerhold Pine, Port Jocelyn, VA 12101-5654
Phone: +8524399971620
Job: Central Manufacturing Supervisor
Hobby: Jogging, Metalworking, Tai chi, Shopping, Puzzles, Rock climbing, Crocheting
Introduction: My name is Edmund Hettinger DC, I am a adventurous, colorful, gifted, determined, precious, open, colorful person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
We notice you're using an ad blocker
Without advertising income, we can't keep making this site awesome for you.
