Mephisto Waltz, The

Mephisto Waltz, The (movie)

(religion, spiritualism, and occult)

1971 movie directed by Paul Wendkos, starring Alan Alda and Jacqueline Bisset. Adapted by Ben Maddow from a novel by Fred Mustard Stewart. The story concerns a journalist, Miles Clarkson, and his young wife, Paula. The wife observes changes in her husband after he meets and interviews Duncan Ely, a dying concert pianist. Clarkson becomes involved with a Satanic cult and gradually becomes possessed by Ely, a black magician who uses Satanic rituals to obtain the journalist's body as a new host in which to live. When Paula realizes what is happening, she becomes possessed. To add to the intrigue, Ely's daughter, Roxanne, was involved in an incestuous affair with her father.