The Ninth Configuration
Encyclopedia
The Ninth Configuration, (also known as Twinkle, Twinkle, "Killer" Kane) is an American
-made film, released in 1980, directed by William Peter Blatty
. The film is based on Blatty's novel, The Ninth Configuration (1978) which was itself a reworking of an earlier version of the novel, first published in 1966 as Twinkle, Twinkle, "Killer" Kane! The initial 1966 publication of the novel featured an exclamation mark
at the end of the title, while all subsequent publications saw it removed.
The first half of the film has the predominant tone and style of a comic farce. In the second half, the film becomes darker as it delves deeper into its central issues of human suffering, sacrifice and faith. The film also frequently blurs the line between the sane and the insane.
), a United States Marine Corps
psychiatrist suffering from nightmares, arrives at a castle in the American Pacific Northwest where mentally ill soldiers from the Vietnam war are being treated. The castle's staff has been unable to control the patients, many of whom are suspected of faking their illness to get out of combat. The permissive Kane opens himself up to listen to anything the soldiers have to say to him in an effort to heal them, while at the same time suffering from his own demons.
rocket awaits launch as a Jupiter-sized moon rises behind it. Colonel Kane awakes from the dream in a car, being driven to the castle. On the way there, they pass a pickup truck, going in the other direction, that is overloaded with members of a biker gang whom we see later in the movie; in the pickup is an old man tied to a chair. On Kane's arrival at the castle, the staff struggles to maintain discipline in the rowdy and irreverent patients, many of whom are dressed in ridiculous costumes. Kane begins speaking to a doctor (played by Blatty himself), but discovers that the doctor is actually another patient in disguise. Colonel Fell (Ed Flanders
), shoos the imposter away and introduces himself as the real doctor.
Kane takes a permissive tone with the patients rather than the adversarial one shown by the rest of the staff. He allows several patients to rant at him about their respective delusions, and insists that he is always available to listen to the patients. At night, however, Kane has nightmares consisting of violent and disjointed images.
Cutshaw, one of the patients, is an astronaut (he was at Chris MacNeil's party where her possessed daughter, Regan, told him "You're gonna die up there.")who lost his sanity just before launching into space. After an angry tirade insisting that Kane leave the castle, Cutshaw calms down and agrees to give Kane his saint's medallion. Later that night, Kane writes his notes in red ink and makes a notation about the curative properties of "shock therapy." He then inspects Cutshaw's medallion and grips the chain like a garrote
as his expression darkens.
Fell wakes Kane from another nightmare and questions him about his dreams. Kane says that they are another man's nightmares, explaining that another man described the dreams to him and now he gets them as well. Fell asks who the man was, and Kane responds that it was his brother, who is a "murderer". Kane asks if Fell has heard of Vincent "Killer" Kane, a guerilla soldier personally responsible for killing dozens of enemies. Kane says "Killer" Kane was his brother, but is now dead. Fell leaves, but as he closes Kane's door his jovial demeanor breaks suddenly into sobs.
Later, Cutshaw talks with another patient about Kane. Cutshaw suspects that Kane is crazy himself. He asserts that psychiatrists often go crazy and have the highest suicide rate of any profession. Cutshaw goes to talk with Kane again, angrily denying the existence of a purpose or divine plan. Kane, who believes that the existence of a God is far more likely than humanity having emerged from "random chance", tries to argue that deeds of pure self-sacrifice are proof of human goodness, which can only be explained by divine purpose. Cutshaw demands that Kane recall one concrete example of pure self-sacrifice from his personal experience, but Kane cannot.
Cutshaw convinces Kane to take him to a church service. Cutshaw interrupts the service with several outbursts. Looking at an altar boy, Kane momentarily sees a Vietnamese boy, but he dispels the illusion with difficulty. Back at the castle, Cutshaw thanks Kane and asks him to send him a sign as proof of an afterlife should Kane die first. Kane promises to try.
Another patient, who is staging a production of Hamlet
using dogs as actors, gives a long speech to Kane asserting that Hamlet had to pretend to be crazy in order to stay sane. As he leaves, he meets with Cutshaw, who asks if "they bought it". The director responds, "Hell, I bought it".
A new patient is scheduled to arrive at the castle and Kane goes to meet him. Kane instantly recognizes the soldier, triggering a flashback. In the jungles of Vietnam, the soldier stumbles upon Kane, who is kneeling on the ground and muttering that he cut a boy's head off with a wire, but the boy "kept on talking". Insisting that they need to leave, the soldier advances on Kane, whom he sees is holding a severed head in his hands. Kane screams and the flashback ends. In the castle, Kane collapses unconscious.
Fell explains to the staff that Kane really is Vincent "Killer" Kane, and had suffered a breakdown in Vietnam. When Fell, who is actually Kane's brother Hudson, was dispatched back to America, Kane received the dispatch by accident. Kane came to believe that he was really his psychiatrist brother in order to escape from his guilt. He returned to America, subconsciously hoping to heal people to make up for his "murders". Realizing Kane's mental state, the Army psychiatric staff maintained the charade and sent him to Fell's hospital under the pretext of being its commanding officer. In reality, Fell has been the commanding officer all along. Kane awakens and remembers nothing of the incident.
Cutshaw escapes the castle and visits a bar. A biker gang recognizes Cutshaw and begins brutalizing him. A waitress contacts Kane, who arrives at the bar to retrieve him. The gang surrounds the two soldiers and insists that Kane perform a number of demeaning acts before he can leave. Kane complies with all of the demands with increasing difficulty. The gang grows angry at Kane's perceived spinelessness and continues to brutalize Cutshaw. When one of the bikers tries to rape Cutshaw, Kane finally stands up to the bikers and, in an astonishing display of violence, kills most of them with his bare hands.
Back at the castle, Cutshaw visits Kane, who has wrapped himself in a blanket. Dreamy and distant, Kane disjointedly mumbles to Cutshaw about God and proof of human goodness before passing out. As Cutshaw leaves, Kane's hand emerges from his blankets and drops a bloody knife. Cutshaw soon notices a spot of blood on his shoe. Returning to Kane's office, Cutshaw discovers that Kane has sacrificed his own life to directly provide the concrete example of human goodness which he was unable to demonstrate in a key scene earlier in the film.
Some time later, Cutshaw has returned to uniform and visits the now-abandoned castle. He sits in Kane's office and reads a note written to him by Kane. Kane writes that he hopes his death will "shock" Cutshaw back into sanity, but at any rate, he now has his one example of pure self-sacrifice. Cutshaw returns to his car and discovers that a saint's medallion has miraculously appeared on the seat. He turns it over to confirm whether it was the one he gave to Kane and silently rejoices at what he sees.
. Blatty said that the script "was what you might call bizarre material. I had hoped to direct it myself. But after seeing The Night They Raided Minsky's
I thought the script would be safe with Friedkin. I sent it along to him. He liked it. But we couldn't find a studio that liked it." Blatty and Friedkin would later collaborate on the film version of The Exorcist
(1973), with Blatty as screenwriter/producer and Friedkin as director, before Blatty returned to Twinkle, Twinkle, "Killer" Kane. In lieu of filming the novel, Blatty decided to rewrite it: "After The Exorcist, I decided that I could develop the story a great deal. So I rewrote it and fleshed it out, and fully developed the deeper implications and theological themes." The rewritten version of Twinkle, Twinkle, "Killer" Kane was published in 1978 under the title The Ninth Configuration. Blatty has said that he prefers the first version of the book to the second: "the first one is infinitely funnier and wilder, and stranger and more of a one of a kind; the second one has the same plot, but the prose is more finely crafted, I think. In the first one I allowed the comedy to carry me, so I think I prefer that one...I loved the characters and it was a pleasure to write."
Blatty then developed The Ninth Configuration into a screenplay for Columbia Pictures
(Blatty did not want to work with Warner Bros.
as he had sued that studio over his proper share of profits from The Exorcist). Columbia then placed the screenplay in turnaround; Blatty took the script to Universal Pictures
. Universal rejected it; according to Blatty, this was "not because of any consideration of quality, but simply because Columbia had let it go. There was nobody prepared to take a chance on their own judgement."
With no major film studio prepared to fund The Ninth Configuration, Blatty decided to raise the film's $4 million budget by putting up half the money himself, and persuading the PepsiCo
conglomerate to provide the remaining $2 million. As writer/director of the film, Blatty was promised complete creative control over the production by PepsiCo with only one stipulation: that the film had to be shot in Hungary
(PepsiCo had block funds in that country, and reinvested money from the film's production into a Pepsi
bottling plant there). Ironically, Warner Bros. wound up initially releasing the film in selected markets, despite Blatty's misgivings.
, who had played Father Karras in The Exorcist, for The Ninth Configuration. Ed Flanders
(once considered for the role of Karras in The Exorcist) was also cast; Michael Moriarty
was set to play Captain Billy Cutshaw but dropped out of the production (he was replaced by Scott Wilson
, who was originally cast in a different role). For the central role of Colonel Kane, Blatty cast Stacy Keach
(another contender for the part of Father Karras in The Exorcist). Blatty had originally cast Nicol Williamson
in the role of Kane, before deciding that the British actor was wrong for the part: "I was deluding myself. I so desperately admired [Williamson] and wanted him in my picture that I persuaded myself that he could be an American Marine corps colonel. I realised during rehearsals. He was magnificent, but there was no way he could be an American colonel. He came to Budapest
and we rehearsed for two weeks. And we were coming up to the weekend before our first shoot on the following Monday, and then I remembered one of the people I'd strongly considered was Stacy Keach
. And we found out that night that he was available and he was with us on Tuesday." Blatty himself appears briefly near the start of the film as an army doctor.
Tom Atkins
also had a minor role in the film, and in an interview in January 2009, he discussed what the film shoot was like: "I have always believed that a movie about the making of that film would have been much better than the actual movie turned out to be. It was kind of a zoo from the very beginning. William Peter Blatty wrote and directed it and financed part of it by selling a home that he had in Malibu. His idea of getting a good ensemble effort from his actors was to take people over to Budapest for two months—the part I had might have taken two weeks in the States but he had us all over there for two months. All he ended up getting was 22 really upset, angry and drunk actors who had a lot of trouble showing up for work. I thought that the script was wonderful but I don’t think that Blatty ever got what he wanted up on the screen. I think a lot of us took the job because we would be able to go to Prague and Moscow and bounce around Europe when we weren’t working. He decided that he would put up the call sheet for the next day at midnight so that you couldn’t go anywhere."
's Dawn of the Dead, picked up the film and released it in other markets under the title Twinkle, Twinkle, "Killer" Kane. Blatty initially sold the videocassette rights to New World Pictures, who released it on tape in 1988. Later on, Warner Bros. reacquired the U.S. rights to the film for all media, though their current DVD is basically a clone of the UK edition produced by independent distributor Blue Dolphin.
Leonard Maltin
has described the movie as "hilarious yet thought-provoking, with endlessly quotable dialogue and an amazing barroom fight scene." Blatty's screenplay was later published in 2000 with commentary by English film critic Mark Kermode
(Kermode also contributed to the audio commentary and feauturette on the film's DVD release in 2002). Kermode has described The Ninth Configuration as "a breathtaking cocktail of philosophy, eye-popping visuals, jaw-dropping pretentiousness, rib-tickling humour and heart-stopping action. From exotically hallucinogenic visions of a lunar crucifixion to the claustrophobic realism of a bar-room brawl, via such twisted vignettes as Robert Loggia
karaoking to Al Jolson
and Moses Gunn in Superman
drag, Blatty directs like a man with no understanding of, or interest in, the supposed limits of mainstream movie-making. The result is a work of matchless madness which divides audiences as spectacularly as the waves of the Red Sea
, a cult classic that continues to provoke either apostolic devotion or baffled dismissal 20 years on."
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
-made film, released in 1980, directed by William Peter Blatty
William Peter Blatty
William Peter Blatty is an American writer and filmmaker. The novel The Exorcist, written in 1971, is his magnum opus; he also penned the subsequent screenplay version of the film, for which he won an Academy Award....
. The film is based on Blatty's novel, The Ninth Configuration (1978) which was itself a reworking of an earlier version of the novel, first published in 1966 as Twinkle, Twinkle, "Killer" Kane! The initial 1966 publication of the novel featured an exclamation mark
Exclamation mark
The exclamation mark, exclamation point, or bang, or "dembanger" is a punctuation mark usually used after an interjection or exclamation to indicate strong feelings or high volume , and often marks the end of a sentence. Example: “Watch out!” The character is encoded in Unicode at...
at the end of the title, while all subsequent publications saw it removed.
The first half of the film has the predominant tone and style of a comic farce. In the second half, the film becomes darker as it delves deeper into its central issues of human suffering, sacrifice and faith. The film also frequently blurs the line between the sane and the insane.
Synopsis
Colonel Kane (Stacy KeachStacy Keach
Stacy Keach is an American actor and narrator. He is most famous for his dramatic roles; however, he has done narration work in educational programming on PBS and the Discovery Channel, as well as some comedy and musical...
), a United States Marine Corps
United States Marine Corps
The United States Marine Corps is a branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for providing power projection from the sea, using the mobility of the United States Navy to deliver combined-arms task forces rapidly. It is one of seven uniformed services of the United States...
psychiatrist suffering from nightmares, arrives at a castle in the American Pacific Northwest where mentally ill soldiers from the Vietnam war are being treated. The castle's staff has been unable to control the patients, many of whom are suspected of faking their illness to get out of combat. The permissive Kane opens himself up to listen to anything the soldiers have to say to him in an effort to heal them, while at the same time suffering from his own demons.
Plot
On a dreary day, Captain Billy Cutshaw sits in a window of a large castle and listens to a melancholy song. As the song ends, he looks out the window and announces, "Someone is coming." Over the film credits, a majestic Saturn FiveSaturn V
The Saturn V was an American human-rated expendable rocket used by NASA's Apollo and Skylab programs from 1967 until 1973. A multistage liquid-fueled launch vehicle, NASA launched 13 Saturn Vs from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida with no loss of crew or payload...
rocket awaits launch as a Jupiter-sized moon rises behind it. Colonel Kane awakes from the dream in a car, being driven to the castle. On the way there, they pass a pickup truck, going in the other direction, that is overloaded with members of a biker gang whom we see later in the movie; in the pickup is an old man tied to a chair. On Kane's arrival at the castle, the staff struggles to maintain discipline in the rowdy and irreverent patients, many of whom are dressed in ridiculous costumes. Kane begins speaking to a doctor (played by Blatty himself), but discovers that the doctor is actually another patient in disguise. Colonel Fell (Ed Flanders
Ed Flanders
Edward Paul Flanders was an American actor best known for his role as Dr. Donald Westphall in the television series St. Elsewhere.- Biography :...
), shoos the imposter away and introduces himself as the real doctor.
Kane takes a permissive tone with the patients rather than the adversarial one shown by the rest of the staff. He allows several patients to rant at him about their respective delusions, and insists that he is always available to listen to the patients. At night, however, Kane has nightmares consisting of violent and disjointed images.
Cutshaw, one of the patients, is an astronaut (he was at Chris MacNeil's party where her possessed daughter, Regan, told him "You're gonna die up there.")who lost his sanity just before launching into space. After an angry tirade insisting that Kane leave the castle, Cutshaw calms down and agrees to give Kane his saint's medallion. Later that night, Kane writes his notes in red ink and makes a notation about the curative properties of "shock therapy." He then inspects Cutshaw's medallion and grips the chain like a garrote
Garrote
A garrote or garrote vil is a handheld weapon, most often referring to a ligature of chain, rope, scarf, wire or fishing line used to strangle someone....
as his expression darkens.
Fell wakes Kane from another nightmare and questions him about his dreams. Kane says that they are another man's nightmares, explaining that another man described the dreams to him and now he gets them as well. Fell asks who the man was, and Kane responds that it was his brother, who is a "murderer". Kane asks if Fell has heard of Vincent "Killer" Kane, a guerilla soldier personally responsible for killing dozens of enemies. Kane says "Killer" Kane was his brother, but is now dead. Fell leaves, but as he closes Kane's door his jovial demeanor breaks suddenly into sobs.
Later, Cutshaw talks with another patient about Kane. Cutshaw suspects that Kane is crazy himself. He asserts that psychiatrists often go crazy and have the highest suicide rate of any profession. Cutshaw goes to talk with Kane again, angrily denying the existence of a purpose or divine plan. Kane, who believes that the existence of a God is far more likely than humanity having emerged from "random chance", tries to argue that deeds of pure self-sacrifice are proof of human goodness, which can only be explained by divine purpose. Cutshaw demands that Kane recall one concrete example of pure self-sacrifice from his personal experience, but Kane cannot.
Cutshaw convinces Kane to take him to a church service. Cutshaw interrupts the service with several outbursts. Looking at an altar boy, Kane momentarily sees a Vietnamese boy, but he dispels the illusion with difficulty. Back at the castle, Cutshaw thanks Kane and asks him to send him a sign as proof of an afterlife should Kane die first. Kane promises to try.
Another patient, who is staging a production of Hamlet
Hamlet
The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, or more simply Hamlet, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601...
using dogs as actors, gives a long speech to Kane asserting that Hamlet had to pretend to be crazy in order to stay sane. As he leaves, he meets with Cutshaw, who asks if "they bought it". The director responds, "Hell, I bought it".
A new patient is scheduled to arrive at the castle and Kane goes to meet him. Kane instantly recognizes the soldier, triggering a flashback. In the jungles of Vietnam, the soldier stumbles upon Kane, who is kneeling on the ground and muttering that he cut a boy's head off with a wire, but the boy "kept on talking". Insisting that they need to leave, the soldier advances on Kane, whom he sees is holding a severed head in his hands. Kane screams and the flashback ends. In the castle, Kane collapses unconscious.
Fell explains to the staff that Kane really is Vincent "Killer" Kane, and had suffered a breakdown in Vietnam. When Fell, who is actually Kane's brother Hudson, was dispatched back to America, Kane received the dispatch by accident. Kane came to believe that he was really his psychiatrist brother in order to escape from his guilt. He returned to America, subconsciously hoping to heal people to make up for his "murders". Realizing Kane's mental state, the Army psychiatric staff maintained the charade and sent him to Fell's hospital under the pretext of being its commanding officer. In reality, Fell has been the commanding officer all along. Kane awakens and remembers nothing of the incident.
Cutshaw escapes the castle and visits a bar. A biker gang recognizes Cutshaw and begins brutalizing him. A waitress contacts Kane, who arrives at the bar to retrieve him. The gang surrounds the two soldiers and insists that Kane perform a number of demeaning acts before he can leave. Kane complies with all of the demands with increasing difficulty. The gang grows angry at Kane's perceived spinelessness and continues to brutalize Cutshaw. When one of the bikers tries to rape Cutshaw, Kane finally stands up to the bikers and, in an astonishing display of violence, kills most of them with his bare hands.
Back at the castle, Cutshaw visits Kane, who has wrapped himself in a blanket. Dreamy and distant, Kane disjointedly mumbles to Cutshaw about God and proof of human goodness before passing out. As Cutshaw leaves, Kane's hand emerges from his blankets and drops a bloody knife. Cutshaw soon notices a spot of blood on his shoe. Returning to Kane's office, Cutshaw discovers that Kane has sacrificed his own life to directly provide the concrete example of human goodness which he was unable to demonstrate in a key scene earlier in the film.
Some time later, Cutshaw has returned to uniform and visits the now-abandoned castle. He sits in Kane's office and reads a note written to him by Kane. Kane writes that he hopes his death will "shock" Cutshaw back into sanity, but at any rate, he now has his one example of pure self-sacrifice. Cutshaw returns to his car and discovers that a saint's medallion has miraculously appeared on the seat. He turns it over to confirm whether it was the one he gave to Kane and silently rejoices at what he sees.
Background
William Peter Blatty's novel Twinkle, Twinkle, "Killer" Kane was first published in 1966. Blatty said, "I considered it a comic novel, but a great deal of philosophy and theology crept into it. But the farcical elements outweighed the serious elements." Blatty adapted the novel into a screenplay, and intended for it to be filmed by William FriedkinWilliam Friedkin
William Friedkin is an American film director, producer and screenwriter best known for directing The French Connection in 1971 and The Exorcist in 1973; for the former, he won the Academy Award for Best Director...
. Blatty said that the script "was what you might call bizarre material. I had hoped to direct it myself. But after seeing The Night They Raided Minsky's
The Night They Raided Minsky's
The Night They Raided Minsky's is a 1968 musical comedy film directed by William Friedkin and produced by Norman Lear. It is a fictional account of the invention of the striptease at Minsky's Burlesque in 1925...
I thought the script would be safe with Friedkin. I sent it along to him. He liked it. But we couldn't find a studio that liked it." Blatty and Friedkin would later collaborate on the film version of The Exorcist
The Exorcist (film)
The Exorcist is a 1973 American horror film directed by William Friedkin, adapted from the 1971 novel of the same name by William Peter Blatty and based on the exorcism case of Robbie Mannheim, dealing with the demonic possession of a young girl and her mother’s desperate attempts to win back her...
(1973), with Blatty as screenwriter/producer and Friedkin as director, before Blatty returned to Twinkle, Twinkle, "Killer" Kane. In lieu of filming the novel, Blatty decided to rewrite it: "After The Exorcist, I decided that I could develop the story a great deal. So I rewrote it and fleshed it out, and fully developed the deeper implications and theological themes." The rewritten version of Twinkle, Twinkle, "Killer" Kane was published in 1978 under the title The Ninth Configuration. Blatty has said that he prefers the first version of the book to the second: "the first one is infinitely funnier and wilder, and stranger and more of a one of a kind; the second one has the same plot, but the prose is more finely crafted, I think. In the first one I allowed the comedy to carry me, so I think I prefer that one...I loved the characters and it was a pleasure to write."
Blatty then developed The Ninth Configuration into a screenplay for Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production and distribution company. Columbia Pictures now forms part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. It is one of the leading film companies...
(Blatty did not want to work with Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
as he had sued that studio over his proper share of profits from The Exorcist). Columbia then placed the screenplay in turnaround; Blatty took the script to Universal Pictures
Universal Pictures
-1920:* White Youth* The Flaming Disc* Am I Dreaming?* The Dragon's Net* The Adorable Savage* Putting It Over* The Line Runners-1921:* The Fire Eater* A Battle of Wits* Dream Girl* The Millionaire...
. Universal rejected it; according to Blatty, this was "not because of any consideration of quality, but simply because Columbia had let it go. There was nobody prepared to take a chance on their own judgement."
With no major film studio prepared to fund The Ninth Configuration, Blatty decided to raise the film's $4 million budget by putting up half the money himself, and persuading the PepsiCo
PepsiCo
PepsiCo Inc. is an American multinational corporation headquartered in Purchase, New York, United States, with interests in the manufacturing, marketing and distribution of grain-based snack foods, beverages, and other products. PepsiCo was formed in 1965 with the merger of the Pepsi-Cola Company...
conglomerate to provide the remaining $2 million. As writer/director of the film, Blatty was promised complete creative control over the production by PepsiCo with only one stipulation: that the film had to be shot in Hungary
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
(PepsiCo had block funds in that country, and reinvested money from the film's production into a Pepsi
Pepsi
Pepsi is a carbonated soft drink that is produced and manufactured by PepsiCo...
bottling plant there). Ironically, Warner Bros. wound up initially releasing the film in selected markets, despite Blatty's misgivings.
Casting
Blatty retained Jason MillerJason Miller (playwright)
Jason Miller was an American actor and playwright. He received the 1973 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his play That Championship Season, and was widely recognized for his role as Father Damien Karras in the 1973 horror film The Exorcist...
, who had played Father Karras in The Exorcist, for The Ninth Configuration. Ed Flanders
Ed Flanders
Edward Paul Flanders was an American actor best known for his role as Dr. Donald Westphall in the television series St. Elsewhere.- Biography :...
(once considered for the role of Karras in The Exorcist) was also cast; Michael Moriarty
Michael Moriarty
Michael Moriarty is an American-Canadian actor of stage and screen, and a jazz musician. He played Benjamin Stone for four seasons on the TV series Law & Order.-Early life:...
was set to play Captain Billy Cutshaw but dropped out of the production (he was replaced by Scott Wilson
Scott Wilson (actor)
Scott Wilson is an American actor.-Movies:Wilson appeared in such films as In the Heat of the Night, In Cold Blood, The Gypsy Moths, The Great Gatsby, The Right Stuff, A Year of the Quiet Sun, Malone, Dead Man Walking, The Grass Harp, Junebug, The Host, Monster, Young Guns II, Pearl Harbor, and...
, who was originally cast in a different role). For the central role of Colonel Kane, Blatty cast Stacy Keach
Stacy Keach
Stacy Keach is an American actor and narrator. He is most famous for his dramatic roles; however, he has done narration work in educational programming on PBS and the Discovery Channel, as well as some comedy and musical...
(another contender for the part of Father Karras in The Exorcist). Blatty had originally cast Nicol Williamson
Nicol Williamson
Nicol Williamson is a Scottish-born English actor who was described by English playwright John Osborne as "the greatest actor since Marlon Brando".-Early life:...
in the role of Kane, before deciding that the British actor was wrong for the part: "I was deluding myself. I so desperately admired [Williamson] and wanted him in my picture that I persuaded myself that he could be an American Marine corps colonel. I realised during rehearsals. He was magnificent, but there was no way he could be an American colonel. He came to Budapest
Budapest
Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...
and we rehearsed for two weeks. And we were coming up to the weekend before our first shoot on the following Monday, and then I remembered one of the people I'd strongly considered was Stacy Keach
Stacy Keach
Stacy Keach is an American actor and narrator. He is most famous for his dramatic roles; however, he has done narration work in educational programming on PBS and the Discovery Channel, as well as some comedy and musical...
. And we found out that night that he was available and he was with us on Tuesday." Blatty himself appears briefly near the start of the film as an army doctor.
Tom Atkins
Tom Atkins (actor)
Tom Atkins is an American television and film actor. He is primarily known for his work in the horror film genre, having worked with writers and directors such as John Carpenter, Stephen King, and George A. Romero...
also had a minor role in the film, and in an interview in January 2009, he discussed what the film shoot was like: "I have always believed that a movie about the making of that film would have been much better than the actual movie turned out to be. It was kind of a zoo from the very beginning. William Peter Blatty wrote and directed it and financed part of it by selling a home that he had in Malibu. His idea of getting a good ensemble effort from his actors was to take people over to Budapest for two months—the part I had might have taken two weeks in the States but he had us all over there for two months. All he ended up getting was 22 really upset, angry and drunk actors who had a lot of trouble showing up for work. I thought that the script was wonderful but I don’t think that Blatty ever got what he wanted up on the screen. I think a lot of us took the job because we would be able to go to Prague and Moscow and bounce around Europe when we weren’t working. He decided that he would put up the call sheet for the next day at midnight so that you couldn’t go anywhere."
Release and reception
The Ninth Configuration was not a commercial success upon its cinematic release in 1980; however, it received generally strong notices and a Best Picture nomination at the 1981 Golden Globe Awards. Although the film did not win, Blatty did win a Golden Globe for the film's screenplay. After initially poor box office returns in its test markets, Warner Bros. returned the film to Blatty and allowed him to take it to another distributor. United Film Distribution, affiliated with the United Artists theatre chain and best known for releasing George A. RomeroGeorge A. Romero
George Andrew Romero is a Canadian-American film director, screenwriter and editor, best known for his gruesome and satirical horror films about a hypothetical zombie apocalypse. He is nicknamed "Godfather of all Zombies." -Life and career:...
's Dawn of the Dead, picked up the film and released it in other markets under the title Twinkle, Twinkle, "Killer" Kane. Blatty initially sold the videocassette rights to New World Pictures, who released it on tape in 1988. Later on, Warner Bros. reacquired the U.S. rights to the film for all media, though their current DVD is basically a clone of the UK edition produced by independent distributor Blue Dolphin.
Leonard Maltin
Leonard Maltin
Leonard Maltin is an American film and animated film critic and historian, author of several mainstream books on cinema, focusing on nostalgic, celebratory narratives.-Personal life:...
has described the movie as "hilarious yet thought-provoking, with endlessly quotable dialogue and an amazing barroom fight scene." Blatty's screenplay was later published in 2000 with commentary by English film critic Mark Kermode
Mark Kermode
Mark Kermode is an English film critic, musician and a member of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. He contributes to Sight and Sound magazine, The Observer newspaper and BBC Radio 5 Live, where he presents Kermode and Mayo's Film Reviews with Simon Mayo on Friday afternoons...
(Kermode also contributed to the audio commentary and feauturette on the film's DVD release in 2002). Kermode has described The Ninth Configuration as "a breathtaking cocktail of philosophy, eye-popping visuals, jaw-dropping pretentiousness, rib-tickling humour and heart-stopping action. From exotically hallucinogenic visions of a lunar crucifixion to the claustrophobic realism of a bar-room brawl, via such twisted vignettes as Robert Loggia
Robert Loggia
Robert Loggia is an American film and television actor and director.- Early life :Loggia, an Italian American, was born on Staten Island, the son of Elena Blandino, a homemaker, and Benjamin Loggia, a shoemaker, both of whom were born in Sicily, Italy...
karaoking to Al Jolson
Al Jolson
Al Jolson was an American singer, comedian and actor. In his heyday, he was dubbed "The World's Greatest Entertainer"....
and Moses Gunn in Superman
Superman
Superman is a fictional comic book superhero appearing in publications by DC Comics, widely considered to be an American cultural icon. Created by American writer Jerry Siegel and Canadian-born American artist Joe Shuster in 1932 while both were living in Cleveland, Ohio, and sold to Detective...
drag, Blatty directs like a man with no understanding of, or interest in, the supposed limits of mainstream movie-making. The result is a work of matchless madness which divides audiences as spectacularly as the waves of the Red Sea
Red Sea
The Red Sea is a seawater inlet of the Indian Ocean, lying between Africa and Asia. The connection to the ocean is in the south through the Bab el Mandeb strait and the Gulf of Aden. In the north, there is the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Aqaba, and the Gulf of Suez...
, a cult classic that continues to provoke either apostolic devotion or baffled dismissal 20 years on."
Awards and nominations
- Golden Globe Awards
- Best Film - Drama - Nomination
- Best Supporting Actor - Scott Wilson - Nomination
- Best Screenplay - William Peter Blatty - WON