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Dr Winson (George Macready) has been a noble man all of his life, a
doctor who would treat the poor, wouldn't judge people for their money,
and had a kind word for everyone ... but now he's dying, and since neither
of his best friends, fellow doctor Vance (Jim Bannon) and priest Stevens
(Erik Rolf) can help him, his wife Ann (Jeanne Bates) calls upon the devil
to chip in ... and a few minutes later, Lilyan (Rose Hobart) knocks at the
door and promises to save Winson - and so she does ... but Winson isn't
the same anymore, he's suddenly short-tempered, doesn't care too much
about healing the poor and medicine as such anymore, and grows indifferent
towards his wife ... and then he's pretty much summoned to Lilyan, whom he
leaves his wife for. Upon Ann's request, Stevens wants to check his friend
out, but Winson almost kills him ... until Stevens rather accidently drops
a golden crucifix, which drives Winson off. And now Stevens knows he's
possessed. Winson eventually takes up surgery again, but his colleague
Vance could swear he has no pulse, and when cut quite deeply, Winson just
doesn't bleed. When Vance mouths these facts to both Winson and Lilyan,
they are quick to find excuses, but then Lilyan runs him over in her car.
Vance is brought to Winson's practice, but in front of witnesses, Winson
does not perform the surgery that could easily save Vance's life. Winson
is arrested for this and tried, and he could face execution for Vance's
death, but still he's released on bail - and only with execution already
threatening, Stevens is able to talk sense into Winson, and he goes to
face Lilyan ... who now wants to shoot him and make it look like suicide.
But even though she riddles his chest with bullets, he manages to grab her
and throw her out of the window to her death ... ... but no,
Winson is still on his death bed, and when he hears his wife invocating
dark powers, he commands her to stop and let him die in piece ... Old
fashioned and at times quite atmospheric supernatural thriller ... that
falls several feet short of its promise, basically because it's too
straight-forward. It's established that Lilyan's the hell spawn right at
the beginning, so where's the mystery. And subsequently, Winson's being
possessed is never second-guessed, and the struggle he's in is hardly ever
really shown, only hinted at. And thus, the story fails to really capture
the audience with some nice twists and turns, it just moves ahead as
predictably as can be. That said, as hinted to above, the whole thing is
certainly not free of atmospheric scenes - it's just decidedly less than
perfect as a whole.
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