To the Devil… A Daughter is a 1976 horror film made by Hammer Film Productions, directed by Peter Sykes. It stars Richard Widmark, Christopher Lee, Honor Blackman, Nastassja Kinski and Denholm Elliott. The original music score was composed by Paul Glass.

The film was adapted from the 1953 novel of the same name by Dennis Wheatley. It was the second of Wheatley’s “black magic” novels to be filmed by Hammer, following The Devil Rides Out, released in 1968. It was marketed with the tagline “…and suddenly the screams of a baby born in Hell!”

Trivia:

• Michael Goodliffe and Anthony Valentine were cast at short notice
• The last film Of Michael Goodliffe.
• Olivia Newton-John was a candidate for Catherine.
• Cliff Robertson was seriously favored for Verney (Richard Widmark).
• Ken Russell and Mike Hodges were approached to direct the film.
• The “Hill near Warburton” Mausoleum is actually the Dashwood Mausoleum in West Wycombe. Currently National Trust Property, it used to belong to the notorious Hellfire Club.
• The preproduction was troubled by Hammer and EMI problems in finding a suitable name actor for Verney and a director too.
• Two high-priced British actors were cast as David and George De Grass but because Richard Widmark fee was higher than expected. The roles of David and George De Grass were recast at the 11th hour.

Nastassja Kinski

Nastassja Kinski (born January 24, 1959) is a German-born American-based actress who has appeared in more than 60 films. Her starring roles include her Golden Globe Award-winning portrayal of the title character in Tess and her roles in two erotic films (Stay As You Are and Cat People), as well as parts in Wim Wenders’ films The Wrong Move, Paris, Texas, and Faraway, So Close!. In the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s, Kinski was widely regarded as an international sex symbol: Richard Avedon’s photo of her, nude with a large python, was marketed as a poster.

Trivia:

Has a son, Aljosha (b. 1984), with ‘Vincent Spano’, and a daughter, Sonja Kinski (b. as Sonja Moussa in 1986), with Ibrahim Moussa.

Her daughter Kenya Julia Miambi Sarah Jones, with Quincy Jones, was born in 1993.

Is a vegetarian.

Daughter of Klaus Kinski.

Cousin of Lara Lamberti.

Supported the “International Red Cross” financially and in the media.

Nastassja Kinski spent some days in a German prison when a sin of youth caught up with her. She had used public transportation several times without paying, did not pay the fines, did not work in a hospital as she was sentenced to do by a juvenile court… In 1978 she was finally arrested. She spent 5 days in prison despite being already a celebrity at that time. After 5 days she was released early because of good conduct.

Some sources show she was born in 1959, but she claims 1961.

Shared an apartment with Demi Moore in the early 80s.

Prevented her ex-husband, Ibrahim Moussa, from having their son, Aljosha Kinski, circumcised when he turned 14 years-old in 1998.

Measurements: 33-23-33 1/2 (Source: Celebrity Sleuth magazine)

Is fluent in English, German, French, Italian and Russian.

Is of German origin.

Member of the jury at the Cannes Film Festival in 1988

Half-sister of Nikolai Kinski and Pola Kinski.

Has played a doctor in four films.

Battles with a form of narcolepsy and has stopped driving at night.

Cat People is a 1942 horror film produced by Val Lewton and directed by Jacques Tourneur. The writing is credited to DeWitt Bodeen, but Tourneur, composer Roy Webb, Lewton and his secretary all contributed to the script. The cinematographer was Tourneur’s sometime collaborator Nicholas Musuraca. The film stars Simone Simon, Kent Smith and Tom Conway.

Cat People was followed by a sequel, The Curse of the Cat People, in 1944. A remake directed by Paul Schrader and starring Nastassja Kinski, Malcolm McDowell, and John Heard was released in 1982.

In 1993, Cat People was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”.

Trivia:

• Original trade reviews appeared Friday the 13 November 1942.
• The film was in theaters for so long that critics who had originally bashed the film were able to see it again and many rewrote their reviews with a more positive spin.
• When “The Cat Woman” (played, uncredited, by Elizabeth Russell) speaks to Irina in Serbian and calls her “my sister”, Russell’s dialog is dubbed by Simone Simon,
• Several actors in studio records and casting call lists did not appear in the movie. These were (with their character names) George Ford (Whistling cop), Leda Nicova (Patient), and Bud Geary (Mounted policeman).
• Supervisor Lou L. Ostrow was so dissatisfied with the style of the movie he wanted to replace director Jacques Tourneur after four days of filming. Producer Val Lewton got studio head Charles Koerner to reinstate Tourneur, and when Ostrow insisted on the panther appearing in the drafting room sequence, Lewton had Tourneur use low lighting putting the panther in the shadows.
• The film was such a hit at the box office, the releases of the next two Lewton films (I Walked with a Zombie (1943) and The Leopard Man (1943)) were delayed.
• R.K.O. gave Val Lewton only $150,000 to make the film, resulting in “creative” producing. This forced many of the scenes requiring special effects to be done in shadows which many believe increased the suspense of the film. When studio execs insisted that more footage of the panther be included in the movie, Lewton was able to maintain the budget and the suspense of the film by limiting how many scenes the panther could be visibly seen and told the cinematographer to “keep the panther in the shadows.” Thus the panther was only visible in the office and zoo cage.
• Because of the incredibly tight budget, sets from Orson Welles’ The Magnificent Ambersons (1942) were re-used.