And soon they are embroiled in a duel of wits against Mocata, climaxing in creating a pentagram as a means of warding off evil. Worried that Aron is dabbling in the black arts, De Richleau and Van Ryn go haring down to his country house where they meet black magic high priest Mocata (Charles Gray) and discover tools for satanic worship. Original British hardback cover.Īs with the book, the story moves swiftly. The laid-back Paul Eddington hardly connects with the Wheatley characterization and Patrick Mower is too young for Aron.
And while screenwriter Richard Matheson stuck pretty much to the core of the Wheatley story, the film was hampered by the actors. Although of differing temperaments and backgrounds his quartet – the Russian-born Duke De Richleau (Christopher Lee in the film), American aviator Rex Van Ryn (Leon Greene) and wealthy Englishmen Richard Eaton (Paul Eddington) and Simon Aron (Patrick Mower) – are intrepid. The Devil Rides Out, his fourth novel, published in 1934, featured the “musketeers” involved in his phenomenally successful debut The Forbidden Territory (1933), and introduced readers to his interest in the occult. In other words, he created the template for thriller writers like Alistair MacLean and Lee Child.
Although largely out of fashion these days, Wheatley set the tone for brisk thrillers, stories that took place over a short period of time and in which the heroes tumbled from one peril to another. In addition, he had gained notoriety for books about black magic, which often involved series characters, as well as sundry tales like The Lost Continent. Dennis Wheatley was a prolific bestseller producing three or four titles a year, famous for a historical series set around Napoleonic times, another at the start of the Second World War and a third featuring the “four modern musketeers” that spanned a couple of decades.
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