Word: demonism
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There are some better performances among the seven stars. As Shotover's indescribable daughter Hesione, Diana Wynward is splendid, and Pamela Brown is at least intriguing as her sister Ariadne, Lady Utterword. (They are not the "demon women" Hector describes, but that is Shaw's fault more than theirs.) Ellie Dunn, who begins as a romantic ingenue and becomes one of the quietly scary, hard-as-nails young women only Shaw could create, is played well enough by Diane Cilento...
Perhaps the only mistake which the makers of Golden Demon made was in the title, which suggests violence and Oriental supernaturalism like that in Ugestu and Gate of Hell. Lest anyone be driven away by visions of gibbering 16th century warriors and otherworldly music, it should be explained that the "golden demon" is money and the film is about love and pride in Japan of the 1890's. It contains the striking color photography of Michio Takahashi, with its scrupulous attention to mood and detail, a high level of emotional excitement sustained throughout an uncomplicated plot, and fine acting...
...Golden Demon unfolds in a series of tableaux; transitions are sharp, symbolism through color contrasts more than obvious. To fill in some of the larger gaps, a narrator quotes (?) Japanese poetry as the camera sweeps over the landscape and the background music swells...
Playing with Golden Demon are History of the Cinema and Tara the Stonecutter, both above-average cartoons. "Tara," based on a Japanese legend about a man who desired to be the most powerful thing on earth, suffers from an "Ah, so" third person narrator, but is very well drawn...
Based on a novel by Russian Symbolist Poet Valery Bryusov (1873-1924), the opera unfolds the story of a demon-haunted doxy named Renata, who grows up in 16th century Germany in the company of an angel, but loses her impulse to sainthood when she decides that she wants to be his mate. The angel disappears in an angry burst of flame, and Renata keeps looking for him until she at last runs afoul of the Inquisition and is sentenced to death at the stake. Part of the fascination of this murky Gothic tale is that most of it exists...