MY MONSTER SCRAPBOOK: THE MEPHISTO WALTZ

The movie posters and ads proclaimed: "When was the last time you were afraid? Really afraid?" Well, when I sat down in the theater to watch THE MEPHISTO WALTZ, I was expecting to be at least thrilled. I should have been warned when I saw that it was a Quinn Martin Production. Mr. Martin was the mastermind behind a number of oddly formulaic TV shows in the 70s. Did I neglect to say that they were more often times than not, a little hokey, too? Some, like THE INVADERS, were engaging, at least, and that's what I could have said about THE MEPHISTO WALTZ.

Trimmed with all the trappings of the hip occultism of the day, it nevertheless paled in comparison with its Polanski-directed predecessor, ROSEMARY'S BABY. What was left could have been shown as a TV Movie of the Week.

A great cast including Alan Alda, Jacqueline Bisset, Barbara Parkins, Bradford Dillman, and Curt Jurgens couldn't save this from the fringes of the marginal. But, as an impressionable 16-year old, it had enough going for it that I reviewed it in my ongoing homemade monster magazine, called (of course) MONSTERS MAGAZINE. The ads were also alluring enough to include in my scrapbook binder of ghoulish goodies. Here, for the first time in over 40 years, those very same pages have been unearthed and presented here at MONSTER MAGAZINE WORLD!

NOTE: The first review is by long-time movie critic Charles Champlin, is from the Los Angeles Times. The other is from The Freep, a.k.a. The Los Angeles Free Press.