Satan Never Sleeps

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Satan Never Sleeps
DVD Cover
Directed byLeo McCarey
Screenplay byClaude Binyon
Story byPearl S. Buck
Produced byLeo McCarey
StarringWilliam Holden
Clifton Webb
France Nuyen
Athene Seyler
Martin Benson
CinematographyOswald Morris
Edited byGordon Pilkington
Music byRichard Rodney Bennett
Distributed byTwentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation
Release date
  • March 23, 1962 (1962-03-23) (United States)
Running time
125 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$2,885,000[1]
Box office$1.5 million (US/Canada)[2]

Satan Never Sleeps (also known as The Devil Never Sleeps and Flight from Terror[3]) is a 1962 American drama romance war film directed by Leo McCarey, his final film, in which he returns to the religious themes of his classics Going My Way (1944) and The Bells of St. Mary's (1945).[4] It also is the final screen appearance of actor Clifton Webb.

Plot[edit]

In 1949, Catholic priests O'Banion and Bovard are constantly harassed by the Communist People's Party at their remote mission outpost in China. Adding to Father O'Banion's troubles is the mission's cook Siu Lan, an attractive Chinese girl who makes no secret of her love for him.

Under the leadership of Ho San, the communists wreck the mission dispensary and desecrate the chapel. Ho San straps O'Banion to a chair and rapes Siu Lan. Later, when she gives birth to a son, Ho San displays paternal pride but refuses to stop persecuting the priests.

Only after the villagers revolt and his superiors order the killing of all Christians, including his parents, does Ho San become convinced that communism will never solve China's problems. He tries to smuggle Siu Lan, his son and the two priests out of the compound, but their journey is halted within a few miles of freedom by a helicopter sent to prevent Ho San's defection. Before he can be restrained, Father Bovard dons Ho San's military cap and coat and drives away in the colonel's car. He dies in a spray of bullets from the helicopter, but his sacrifice enables the others to escape. Later, at mission headquarters in Hong Kong, O'Banion officiates at the wedding of Siu Lan and Ho San and baptizes their child.

Cast[edit]

An East Asian young woman smiling with her hands on her cheeks and a white priest in a pilot jacket. A wooden building is in the background. In the foreground, the text "A CINEMASCOPE PICTURE COLOR BY DELUXE / PRODUCED AND DIRECTED BY LEO MCCAREY
Nuyen and Holden in the film trailer.

Production[edit]

Satan Never Sleeps had The China Story for working title.[3] The film was based on an original screenplay by Pearl S. Buck called China Story that had been sold to 20th Century Fox.[6][failed verification] In 1950, Hal B. Wallis acquired it and in 1960, it came to Leo McCarey.

Hooper and Poague report McCarey’s difficulties directing Satan Never Sleeps which he discussed in a 1965 Cahiers du Cinéma interview.[7][8] According to McCarey, he left the film in disgust [due to] constant studio interference with his work and “modifications” to his script, and the final week’s shooting was left to an assistant. [9] They add that the final cut of Satan Never Sleeps was neither supervised nor approved by McCarey, “which may explain (if not excuse) the bizarre aspects of the film’s ending.” [10]

Biographer Wes D. Gehring notes that McCarey had conceived a denouement different from that which the studio inserted, in which “William Holden’s priest dies, rather than act upon his love for a woman.”[11]

The film was shot in England and Wales.[12]

Reception[edit]

In a contemporary review for The New York Times, critic A. H. Weiler called Satan Never Sleeps "a lackluster imitation" of Leo McCarey's Going My Way and wrote: "There is no doubt that the hearts of Mr. McCarey and company are in the right places but Satan Never Sleeps has little heart in it. This Satan is a direct descendant of Madama Butterfly and soap opera."[13]

Critic Archer Winsten in The New York Post declared the film “embarrassingly predictable until it becomes so bad you couldn’t even imagine it.”[14]

In a current-day review, Time Out described Satan Never Sleeps as a "dreadful, trashy yarn" and "propaganda designed to equate Communism with Satan." The review concluded: "Satan may not sleep, but you will."[15]

Theme[edit]

“The marriage which concludes the movie—a marriage which binds a rapist and his victim together for the sake of the rape-concieved child—can hardly be described as symbolic of social or personal health. Indeed, the fact of the marriage is attributable to an over-rigid social structure which McCarey implicitly condemns. The rape victim is cast out by her father, in order to save face: she has no real choice by to marry child’s father.”— Film historian Leland Poague in The Hollywood Professionals, volume 7: Wilder and McCarey (1980)[16]

Critic Leland Poague reports that both of McCarey’s “Anti-Communist” films—My Son John (1952) and Satan Never Sleep—are “difficult to watch.”[17][18] Poague locates the weakness of Satan Never Sleeps less in its political metaphor for “personal and social rigidity” associated with Communist regimes, but rather a fundamental shift in McCarey’s outlook that was “genuinely darker by the time he made the film.”[19][20]

Families, as social units, are “terribly important” to McCarey according to film historian Leland Poague. McCarey presents families as “basic to the continuation of life and society” in a number of his films, among these Make Way for Tomorrow (1937), Good Sam (1948), My Son John (1952), as well as Satan Never Sleeps.[21] The appearance of priests in McCarey’s films is a device that advances this theme. Poague notes the function of priests—here, Father O’Banion and Father Bovard—in addressing the conflicts inherent in family relationships:

McCarey’s sense of family dynamics allows us to account for the importance he generally assigns to priests in his films. Priests are unconventional to the degree that they have opted out of the family system, and as outsiders can provide the insight and knowledge required to save families from themselves…[22]

See also[edit]

Footnotes[edit]

  1. ^ Aubrey Solomon, Twentieth Century Fox: A Corporate and Financial History, Scarecrow Press, 1989 p. 253
  2. ^ "Big Rental Pictures of 1962". Variety. 9 Jan 1963. p. 13. Please note these are rentals and not gross figures
  3. ^ a b "AFI|Catalog". catalog.afi.com. Retrieved 2023-05-08.
  4. ^ Hooper and Poague, 1980 p. 314: Filmography section.
  5. ^ John Howard Reid (January 2006). Cinemascope 3: Hollywood Takes the Plunge. Lulu.com. p. 210. ISBN 978-1-4116-7188-1. Retrieved 21 July 2015.
  6. ^ "Satan never sleeps". New York, Pocket Books. 1962.
  7. ^ Poague, 1980 p. 293: See footnote no. 1.
  8. ^ Hooper and Poague, 1980 p.312: Filmography section, see here for quoted material, and Cahiers page number (p. 54)
  9. ^ Hooper and Poague, 1980 p. 312
  10. ^ Hooper and Poague, 1980 p. 312
  11. ^ Gehring, 2005 p. 234
  12. ^ Nat Segaloff, Final Cuts: The Last Films of 50 Great Directors, Bear Manor Media 2013 p 195-200
  13. ^ Weiler, A. H. (1962-02-22). "Screen: Nelson Algren's 'Walk on the Wild Side' Opens at 2 Theatres". The New York Times. p. 20.
  14. ^ Gehring, 2005 p. 227, and see footnote no. 43, p. 230
  15. ^ "Satan Never Sleeps" Time Out London. Retrieved 7th March 2020.
  16. ^ Poague, 1980 p. 277-278
  17. ^ Poague, 1980 p. 277
  18. ^ Gehring, 2005 p. 226: Gehring cites Poague “difficult to watch” comment.
  19. ^ Poague, 1980 p. 277
  20. ^ Gehring, 2005 p. 11: “McCarey’s airy Catholicism would become bogged down by both McCarthyism and the politics in the far right in My Son John (1952) and Satan Never Sleeps.
  21. ^ Poague, 1980 p. 219
  22. ^ Poague, 1980 p. 219

Sources[edit]

  • Gehring, Wes D. 2005. Leo McCarey: From Marx to McCarthy. The Scarecrow Press. Lantham,Maryland, Toronto, Oxford. ISBN 0-8108-5263-2
  • Hooper, Gary and Poague, Leland. 1980. Leo McCarey Filmography in The Hollywood Professionals: Wilder and McCarey, Volume 7. The Tanvity Press, A. S. Barnes and Company, Inc, San Diego, California. pp. 295-314 ISBN 978-0498021817
  • Poague, Leland. 1980. The Hollywood Professionals: Wilder and McCarey, Volume 7. The Tanvity Press, A. S. Barnes and Company, Inc. San Diego, California. ISBN 978-0498021817

External links[edit]

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