‘The Exorcist’ at 50: Celebrating a horror movie classic

Susan King
·7 min read
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Director William Friedkin and producer/screenwriter William Peter Blatty enjoyed having fun with Warner Bros. executives during the production of “The Exorcist.” The Oscar-winning horror masterpiece celebrates its 50th anniversary Dec. 26 “We always put them on,” Friedkin told me in a 2018 L.A. Times interview “They were always concerned that we were both crazy and would eventually implode the movie. So, we staged blowups in front of them, where it looked like we were fiercely arguing over the most minute, meaningless details.”

“The Exorcist” was shot in Iraq, New York City and Georgetown in Washington, D.C.  But Warners wanted the film to be made at the studio in Burbank and to “shoot day for night, so we didn’t get into night shooting,” said Friedkin, who died this past August at 87.”I I said ‘no’ to everything, I said things like ‘Why shoot day for night? Why don’t we just paint all the buildings black when we have to shoot night scenes and then it will look like night?’ I just won the Academy Award [for “The French Connection”] and they looked at me I like was crazy.”

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And what Friedkin and Blatty , who died in 2017 at 89, said next was completely rehearsed. “He said, ‘Bill I have an idea on how we can save $27,000 from the budget. We have to give the crew lunch and dinner if we shoot late. I suggest that we only use one salad dressing. The only salad dressing that I like was Green Goddess.’” Friedkin disagreed proclaiming that the “meat and potato guys” who made up the crew preferred oil and vinegar. The two began to rant and rave over Green Goddess dressing. The mock fight finally ended when Blatty walked out of the meeting in a huff. “There was an ominous silence and [executive] John Calley said to me ‘Does this happen often?’ And I said, ‘Every day.’ They never bothered us. They never got near us.”

Based on Blatty’s 1971 best-seller — it sold some 13 million copies —  “The Exorcist” is still a terrifying thrill ride. Ellen Burstyn plays Chris MacNeil, an actress who is making a movie in Washington, D.C., who discovers her sweet young daughter Regan (Linda Blair) is possessed by the devil. The only want to cast out Satan is to call in two priests-the tormented young Jesuit Father Karras (Jason Miller) and elderly exorcist Father Merrin (Max von Sydow).

People stood in long lines in the cold and snow to see “The Exorcist”;  audiences had visceral reactions. According to History.com “the film terrified audiences to the point of fainting in some cases with scenes in which Regan’s head spins, her body levitates and vomits green bile.” Over the past half-century, “The Exorcist” had made over $441 million and spawned sequels and prequels with 2023’s “The Exorcist: Believer” the sixth in the franchise.

“The Exorcist” received 10 Oscar nominations including best film, director, best actress supporting actress and supporting actor. Blatty took home the Oscar for adapted screen play and the film won best sound. The pre-CGI visual and special effects were cutting edge and are still very effective as is Dick Smith’s extraordinary makeup. Then there was Mike Oldenfield’s “Tubular Bells” music and Mercedes McCambridge’s hair curling voice of the demon.

Friedkin recalled one “completely out of the ordinary and really frightening” occurrence during the production when he was shooting the exorcism sequence at an old sound stage in New York City. “I got a call at 4 in the morning from my production manager… and he said ‘Don’t bother to come in to work this morning. The whole set burned down.’ It turned out there was one watchman outside the locked set door where the girl’s bedroom was built and where we had then started filming. Smoke  came out from under the door and the watchman opened the door and the entire set was on flames. We had to shut down for seven weeks. We did shoot a couple of scenes I was going to shoot last. It was like two days’ worth of shooting. They never found out what happened. But the insurance company paid off on the theory that because it was an old soundstage and there were pigeons flying around in the rafters that a pigeon had flown into a light box and set off a short switch. We had to completely rebuild the set”

Burstyn, who had earned a supporting actress nomination for 1971’s “The Last Picture Show,” wasn’t the studio’s first choice to play Chris. The studio had three bigger names, all Oscar-winners, which Friedkin went along with. Their first choice was Audrey Hepburn who was living in Rome with her second husband and two children. “She said she would do the film if I shot in Rome.’ But the cons outweighed the pros. He asked her one more time and she turned him down. Then they moved on to Anne Bancroft who was in her first months of pregnancy. “I said, ‘Anne I think when you have your first child, you’re not going to want to get right back to work especially not on material like this. So we moved on to Jane Fonda. She called Blatty, and I back and said, ‘Why would I want to be in a piece of capitalist, rip off bullshit?’ I had no answer to that.” Over the years Friedkin and his wife Sherry Lansing would run into Fonda. “I would remind her of this, and she said, ‘Is that what I said?’ I said, ‘that’s it, word for word.”’

According to Friedkin, Burstyn called him about the role. But the actress told me in 2018 that she thinks the casting reps at Warner Brothers suggested her. “They called me and wanted to have a meeting. I requested that it not be in the office but that he come to where I live because I find that office meetings are sometimes really stiff. He came to my house, and we had a lovely meeting.”

As for Blair, Friedkin recalled her mother brought her to see him in New York. “The only thing she had ever done was some modeling. She modeled dresses at the age of 12 that were seen in newspaper ads. When Linda Blair came into my office…the instant she came in the door I knew it was her. She sat down with her mother. She’s cute as hell and totally in the moment.”

Friedkin asked her what she knew about “The Exorcist.’ It turned out to be a lot. In fact, she had read the book. “’It’s about a little girl who gets a possessed by a devil and she does a whole bunch of bad things’ she told Friedkin. “She hits her mother across the face, she pushes a man out of a bedroom window, and she masturbates with a crucifix.” Friedkin asked her if she understood the term masturbate. “She said,’ it’s like jerking off, isn’t it?’ I said have your ever done that?’ And she said, ‘Sure, haven’t you?’”

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