Devil's Partner (1961)

Newcomer Ed Nelson has a unique way of making friends... and losing them. He introduces himself to town-folk as the nephew of a recently deceased resident whom nobody liked, a hermit who was found dead covered in blood along side a goat which obviously had its throat slit. Bizarre goings on reveal that Nelson isn't the nice man he appears to be, and the town doctor and sheriff try to discover what is really behind all of the recent tragic events. The sudden attack of the rival to Nelson's attempt to win the doctor's daughter by his devoted dog, the discovery of a trampled body of the town drunk, and other bizarre happenings prove that something spiritually evil is taking place.Nelson, a cult actor who found romantic leads on the soap operas "Peyton Place" and "Capital", is a bizarre presence, his easy going demeanor hiding something truly foul. The poor drunk gets a first hand view, and his terror in realizing what he's witnessed isn't a hallucination is truly frightening. This is the type of horror movie that probably sent viewers immediately to church to pray or home to shower. It's cheaply made, adequately acted, and truly disturbingI can't watch films like this and praise them simply for that reason, even though I think that later horror films like " Rosemary's Baby" and "The Omen" are classics among the genre. This has an element of trashiness to it that puts it in the classification of exploitation rather than a piece of art.

A few years after Ed Nelson was 'introduced' in this film he got a great career break playing in the television version of Peyton Place for several years. But I'll bet the folks who produced Peyton Place never saw Nelson playing in a monstrosity.Devil's Partner finds Ed Nelson as an old man who's apparently got the hots for this young woman. But naturally she won't give him the time of day. So he makes a deal with the devil who grants him all kinds of powers and he starts making his moves on Jean Allison daughter of the town physician Edgar Buchanan.Part of his deal with the devil has him becoming young and he becomes the Ed Nelson familiar to us from the Sixties as Dr. Michael Rossi on Peyton Place. He can also shapeshift like Odo and command the animals to do his bidding. I'll let you see the film to see what he has them do.Where was Edgar Buchanan's agent to allow him to do such a monstrosity of a film? For that matter Richard Crane who was television's Rocky Jones in the Fifties was similarly dumped on by his agent. Crane plays the filling station owner that Allison has her heart set on. Crane was on the downside of his career, but Buchanan was a respected character actor and Nelson had a future despite this film.The ending, ripped off from The Invisible Man. I'll bet the cast members wished they were invisible after being in this.

If you're going to do a horror movie, you need to establish the rules a bit. At no time did I ever really understand what this guy was up to. What sort of pact did he make and why did he act the way he did after the pact? An old hermit makes a deal with the devil using goats blood and asks for some time to be something different. He comes back as a young handsome man, but then he hangs around the same town, working in a gas station, hurting people who may find out about him. He falls in love with a young woman who is engaged to be married. He attacks here fiancée and moves in. The film becomes empty and meaningless at times. There's a scene where the man transforms himself into a horse and kills an old wino. Why? Just to see if he can do it. Then there's a long explanation from a witness when we already know what happened. It's as if they needed a few more minutes of film to make a feature length film. There are more questions than answers. That's the problem.

I paid $4 for a DVD in the cheap bin which contained Monstrosity, Black Dragons (w/Bela Lugosi), Night of the Blood Beast and of course, the Devil's Partner. Considering the price, I would say that it was a pretty entertaining film which sustained my interest throughout.What I liked most about the movie was the villain, and I was cheering for him to cause even more havoc, to get the girl, and ride off across the River Styx into Hades.I'm surprised that a sequel hasn't been planned, I hope they make one someday :)These movie packs of old, forgotten films are great for a guy like me who works nightshift--if I have 75 minutes to kill before going to work (or even in the morning after work), I can escape into classic movieland magic.