When the Exorcist was released in Britain, the people of the North East were among the first to see it – and to say exactly what they thought of it.
The film was directed by William Friedkin, who had already won an Academy Award for The French Connection, and it grossed almost $200mn during its initial US run – more than any film since The Sound of Music. It also found favour with critics, having been nominated for ten Oscars before it even arrived here.
But it was extremely controversial, dealing as it did with the supposed demonic possession of a 12-year-old girl, and showing her being confronted by a Roman Catholic priest. In scenes that are still notorious, the girl is seen tied to a bed, her face disfigured by sores and her head turning 360 degrees. She performs apparently sacrilegious acts with a crucifix and ‘spider-walks’ down stairs. And noxious substances and foul language abound.
The campaign against The Exorcist was led in Britain by the Nationwide Festival of Light, a Christian pressure group founded by Mary Whitehouse and Lord Longford. The group’s director, Raymond Johnston, had been a lecturer at Newcastle University, and though he hadn’t seen the film himself, he nevertheless wrote to the Home Secretary, demanding that it be banned. Councillors across the country were lobbied as well, and while most remained unmoved, showings of the film were prohibited in Wakefield, Gloucester and Swindon.
Mind how you go
This was all in keeping with the fractious mood of the times. The IRA had embarked on a bombing campaign in England, while the Miners’ Strike and Three-Day Week had only recently come to an end. Corrupt architect John Poulson, who had North East connections, had been sent to jail. And an attempt had even been made to kidnap Princess Anne in the Mall.
Yet despite – or perhaps because of – all that, there were long queues of people wanting to see The Exorcist when it opened in London in March 1974. And it was announced that the film’s first provincial showings would take place in Newcastle, at the Classic Cinema on Westgate Row. Adverts in local newspapers said simply, ‘The Exorcist … is coming’, and the film was said to have been brought up the A1 in a Securicor van.
Before the public showings began, there was a private preview at the Classic, in front of a select audience, some of whom who were interviewed afterwards. A Mrs June McKay called it ‘a wonderful film, beautifully made and sensitively acted’, but a businessman from Gosforth said it was ‘a sick movie for sick people’. Councillors also demanded an early viewing, having themselves been lobbied by the Festival of Light, and they promptly voted to allow The Exorcist to be shown. It opened officially on the last Sunday in March, when its competition in the city included The Wicker Man, A Fistful of Dollars, and The Sting – to say nothing of Holiday on the Buses.
The first reviews weren’t favourable. The Journal said the violence in the film was ‘crude and melodramatic,’ and the exorcism itself ‘no more convincing than the average Hammer production.’ And the Evening Chronicle’s critic called the film itself ‘unsubtle’ – although he did add, ‘I had rather a troubled sleep the night after seeing The Exorcist. Just coincidence, I suppose, but mind how you go.’
Home exorcised
The film did excellent business nevertheless, with almost 50,000 people seeing it in Newcastle in less than a month. But the showings didn’t all go smoothly. The Classic’s manager revealed that a score of people were fainting there every day, and that she’d had to arrange for a St John Ambulance crew to be present at every performance.
Problems were also reported elsewhere in the country, with two people – a Plymouth sailor and a young Londoner – reported to have died after seeing The Exorcist and becoming distressed. And spectral goings-on were suddenly all over the news. Back in the North East, a New Hartley woman had her Bristol Street home exorcised after she was reportedly pestered by the ghost of a Great War soldier. And the Bishop of Newcastle announced that he had taken on two priests to help people possessed by evil spirits.
The Exorcist ended its run at the Newcastle Classic in June, to be replaced by a martial arts movie. It would be shown for several months at the Studio 1-2-3-4, on Waterloo Street, and then at the Apollo in Byker. But first, it went to the Classic in Durham, and then to the ABC in Hartlepool.
On the rampage
The ABC in Sunderland began showing the film at the end of summer, when the place re-opened after being renovated. And the great crowd of people queueing to see it there were given details of clergymen they could phone if they felt distressed. Concern in the town escalated after a 17-year-old youth who had seen The Exorcist several times went on the rampage in Azalea Terrace and it took five policemen to calm him down. And the minister of the Bethesda Free Church said he had received 70 telephone calls for help. The film did, however, go on to be seen in Gateshead, despite attempted by the town’s Mothers’ Union group to have it banned. It was also seen in Ashington, South Shields, Horden and Middlesbrough before the year was out.
After that, The Exorcist went from strength to strength. It came out on home video in 1981, and though it was withdrawn during the panic over ‘video nasties’, it returned with a vengeance in the 1990s, featuring on more than one late-night horror bill at Newcastle’s Tyneside Cinema. The film’s gross earnings are now approaching $500mn. And in 2001, it was even broadcast on British television – although, in a sign of just how much things had changed since it was first released, viewers now had to wait until the end of Celebrity Big Brother to see it.
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