For years I had wanted to see this movie, based on the ad--a painting in the style of "True" or "Argosy," from one of which it was probably lifted, showing a randy centaur with a woman flung across his back and a cartoon devil leering down at him from above. I shouldn't have been surprised that the movie doesn't live up to this, but I had hoped for at least a sort of try at a centaur. Instead there's Ed Nelson. Maybe if you squinted.... The story plays like a bad episode of "Perry Mason," with a little black magic thrown in. In a California desert town with about four residents, Nelson shows up and introduces himself as the nephew of the old hermit recently found dead. What we know, and the locals don't, is that the hermit scratched out an agreement in goat's blood on goat skin, and signed it in his own blood (OLD goat's blood), whereafter it was co-signed by a black hand. This is the Devil's-Partner part (and, as a footnote to the history of African-Americans in popular entertainment, the only appearance of a black performer in the film). Nelson doesn't sweat in hot weather, and his black magic, practiced for unconsidered reasons, consists of sending out bad vibes to a dog and a horse, causing them to attack people, not excitingly. What does interest me some is the question of Nelson's identity: he can change into the old man, but the old man didn't change into him to start with, he died; and if he's the old man, why doesn't he recognize anybody, or know his way around his own shack? And why DON'T he sweat?
Review of Devil's Partner
