The Mephisto Waltz

Directed by Paul Wendkos, The Mephisto Waltz follows music journalist Myles Clarkson as he falls prey to an aging pianist/Satanist (Curd Jürgens’ Duncan Ely) looking to transfer his soul into a new, younger body. It’s exceedingly familiar subject matter that’s employed to tedious and predominantly interminable effect by Wendkos, as the filmmaker, working from Ben Maddow’s script, delivers a hopelessly sluggish endeavor that contains more than its fair share of questionable elements – with the ensuing (and pervasive) arms-length atmosphere compounded by a paint-by-numbers narrative that hits virtually every touchstone and plot point one might’ve anticipated. (It doesn’t help, either, that Wendkos and cinematographer William W. Spencer suffuse the proceedings with patience-testing and momentum-killing visual flourishes.) Far more problematic (and downright disastrous) is the decision to keep Myles’ wife (Jacqueline Bisset’s Paula) in the dark for the bulk of the picture’s endless midsection, as the viewer is essentially forced to wait and wait (and wait) for the character to catch up and figure out what’s long-since been eye-rollingly obvious – with the spinning-its-wheels atmosphere paving the way for a twist-heavy yet entirely anticlimactic final stretch. The end result is a thoroughly misbegotten misfire that fails on just about every level it attempts, with Alda’s predictably compelling performance the sole bright spot within an otherwise worthless piece of work.

* out of ****