Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, August 27, 1993 TAG: 9308270060
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MICHAEL H. PRICE FORT WORTH STAR-TELEGRAM
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
By "this," Lowry means the movie version of the Stephen King novel "Needful Things," arriving Friday.
The Swedish actor in question is Max von Sydow, who at 36 played Jesus Christ in George Stevens' "The Greatest Story Ever Told" (1965) and who now, at 64, plays Old Scratch himself in "Needful Things." The devil, you say.
Speaking of gamuts, one of von Sydow's colleagues on "Greatest" was Charlton Heston, playing John the Baptist. Von Sydow's director on "Needful Things" is Fraser Heston, son of Charlton.
Von Sydow's new character is named Leland Gaunt, a variation on the theme of aliases for Beelzebub. Mr. Gaunt runs a shop called Needful Things, and his customer perks include devastating hostilities, gratis with every purchase.
"I knew instantly that portraying [Satan] would be an actor's delight," von Sydow says in background notes for "Needful Things."
He speaks for an entire profession. The role requires a certain type, granted - von Sydow fares better than Wilford Brimley would have. But playing the devil seems either to bring out an actor's unaccustomed ferocity, or tap into a wicked streak that's been there all along.
Ray Walston, as a striking example, stretched his lightweight comic image to the breaking point with an unforgettable devil in Broadway's "Damn Yankees" (filmed in 1958).
But when Jack Nicholson tackled the part in 1987's "The Witches of Eastwick," it was more a case of So What Else Is New? Nicholson had been playing things demonically all along.
Von Sydow's star turn in "Needful Things" is bound to whet appetites for additional satanic histrionics, so here follows a selective history of cinematic devilment. Most of these titles can be had at any well-stocked video shop:
n Vincent Price is, like Nicholson, one of those players who seem born to raise the devil on screen. Key portrayals from early and late in Price's career resonate with the suave menace one expects from the Lord of the Lies: the bad shrink in 1946's "Shock," the guardian of a vile secret in 1969's "The Oblong Box." But the beloved ham gets down to specific satanic stereotypes in "The Story of Mankind" (1957).
n Robert De Niro enacts a priceless Satan in "Angel Heart" (1987). The character's pseudonym here is one of the great puns: Louis Cypher. Say it fast.
n Claude Rains has a devil of a time keeping reform-minded convict Paul Muni off the straight-and-narrow in "Angel on My Shoulder" (1946). (Not to be confused with its inferior remake of 1980.)
n Devilment is decidedly against type for mild-mannered Ray Milland. He pulls it off impressively, all the same, in "Alias Nick Beal" - another great "nom de fume." This savvy Faustian allegory involves a campaign to corrupt honest politician Thomas Mitchell.
n And so who said the devil has to be a guy? A coldly elegant Rose Hobart tempts humanitarian George Macready in "The Soul of a Monster" (1944), another modern-dress "Faust." Hobart's interpretation is brilliantly understated, and her witty makeup includes a hairdo suggesting concealed horns.
Space grows short as we hit the list of other screen devils too numerous and/or humorous to mention. But quickly: Walter Huston in "The Devil and Daniel Webster" (1941), Bill Cosby in "The Devil and Max Devlin" (1981), Tim Curry in "Legend" (England; 1985) and - just to bring things full-circle - Donald Pleasance as Satan to Max von Sydow's Christ in "The Greatest Story Ever Told."
by CNB