Development From the late 1950s to the early 1960s, the Italy-based production company Galatea was among the most active producers of
genre films. They had initiated the
sword-and-sandal phenomenon of the time with their productions
Hercules (1958) and
Hercules Unchained (1959), which were both successful at the American box office. The company made films in other genres, such as the
science fiction film
Caltiki – The Immortal Monster (1959), which enjoyed less financial success. Following the success of the two
Hercules films, American distributors were willing to pay in advance for genre films from Italy, even if they were not popular there. Aside from working on both of the
Hercules films, cinematographer
Mario Bava had partially directed other films without credit, including
Caltiki – The Immortal Monster and
The Giant of Marathon (1959). This led to Galatea's president, Lionello Santi, offering him the opportunity to make a film for foreign markets. According to producer Massimo De Rita, an oft-repeated story suggesting that Santi approached Bava to make a film based on a story of his own choosing after being impressed with his work on
The Giant of Marathon is
apocryphal; De Rita claims that he was responsible for persuading Santi to allow Bava to make a film of his own and that he also begged Santi to increase the film's budget compared to what he felt would allow the film to turn a profit. Due to the recent success of
Terence Fisher's version of
Dracula for
Hammer Film Productions, Bava decided to make a horror film. To compete with
Dracula, Santi wanted the film to be shot in
Technicolor, but Bava insisted on shooting in black and white; he justified this as both a stylistic and practical choice, as the makeup transformation sequences required special red and green lights that would have made them impossible to film with color. The shooting budget of
Black Sunday is unknown. De Rita remembers it being between $50,000 and $60,000, while production manager Armando Govoni recalled the final budget was around $100,000.
Writing and pre-production Bava chose to base his project on
Nikolai Gogol's "
Viy", first published in the 1835 collection
Mirgorod. The story concerns a group of students and their encounter with an old witch capable of transforming into a beautiful woman. The witch's death summons the Viy, a
gnome chieftain with a face made of iron and eyes that are capable of penetrating spiritual barriers, which are covered by heavy eyelids that droop to the ground. Bava frequently read this story to his children before their bedtime. His first outline of the film, a four-page
treatment titled
Il Vij, is dated September 1, 1959 and closely follows Gogol's original story. Transposing the story to the present day, it tells the story of a young, married couple who come across a derelict church and encounter an old man who tells them the story of a
centurion's daughter who would take the form of a witch by night to harass a philosopher, who eventually beat her to death. The undead witch then called upon the Viy to scare the philosopher's soul from his body. Upon the story's end, it is revealed that the couple are reincarnations of the philosopher and the witch, who declares that she will haunt him forever. Santi deemed Bava's treatment unsatisfactory and hired Galatea's top screenwriter
Ennio De Concini, who had co-written both of the
Hercules films and
The Giant of Marathon, to help the director turn the concept into a workable screenplay. Many of the film's themes bear similarity to De Concini's sword-and-sandal films, including the tarnishing of holy places, the collapse of a decadent sovereign entity, and the casting of one actress in dual roles symbolizing
good and evil, as was the case for
Silvana Mangano in
Ulysses (1954). According to
Sergio Leone, De Concini "was far better at improvising stories, live, in front of producers, then writing them down"; this, coupled with his highly prolific resume, has led Bava biographer
Tim Lucas to believe that while De Concini contributed many ideas to what would become
Black Sunday, he did little of the actual scripting, which Lucas attributes to Marcello Coscia, who co-wrote Bava's early science fiction film
The Day the Sky Exploded (1958). The film's credits list only De Concini and the film's editor,
Mario Serandrei, as the screenwriters; official papers archived at the
Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia (CSC) library in Rome credit Bava, Serandrei, De Concini and Coscia, as well as Dino De Palma. Other papers also credit Fede Arnaud, Domenico Bernabei, Walter Bedogni, Lucia Torelli and Maria Nota. Bava later noted that, "Such was the genius of the screenwriters, myself included, that absolutely nothing remained of Gogol's tale." The references to "Viy" in the resulting film are mostly superficial: the film's characters Andrej Gorobec, Choma Kruvajan, and Javutich are named after the story's characters Gorobets, Khoma Brut, and Yavtukh, while the village of Mirgorod shares its name with the collection Gogol's tale appeared in. A ruined chapel is prominently featured in both works, as is the transformation of a witch into a beautiful young woman; the bronze "Mask of Satan" hammered onto Asa and Javutich's faces is a possible reference to the Viy's iron face and eyelids. During the scripting phase, the film's title was changed from
Il Viy to
La maschera del demonio to capitalize on the success of two other horror films —
House of Wax (1953) (released in Italy as
La maschera di cera) and
The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) (
La maschera di Frankenstein). The Ministerial Commission of Revision, through which all Italian film scripts were required to be submitted for review, remarked that
Black Sundays script "is so stuffed with witches, vampires, skeletons, ghosts, with its complement of murders and dead bodies, that [Fisher's
Dracula] looks like a children's show when compared to it." Bava drew extensive
storyboards from the film, during which he developed the film's visual style based on his earlier works as cinematographer and co-director. Lucas notes that the film features a recurring
motif related to eyes and sight, as well as the impairment of both, such as the subjective shot of Asa looking at the spikes of the "Mask of Satan" as it is brought towards her, Andrej falling for Katia
at first sight, as well as Kruvajan being staked through the eye; it also features a circularity in its choice of first and last images, as both are of flames that are to be used to put Asa to death. Drawing on both of the films that he had co-directed with
Riccardo Freda,
I Vampiri (1957) and
Caltiki, Bava used
Black Sunday to develop his frequent use of
backstories to expand the scope of his films beyond their narrative and budgetary constraints; in this case, the death of another of Asa's lookalike descendants, Masha, is used to highlight the power Asa continues to hold over the family even prior to her resurrection. As storyboarded, the hammering of the "Mask of Satan" was originally supposed to include a shot of the nails of the mask piercing through the wood of the stake Asa is tied to, amplifying the violence of the scene.
Casting Bava felt that
Black Sunday needed a British cast to convince the audience that they would be watching a film as strong as
Dracula.
Barbara Steele was cast in the dual role of Asa and Katia Vajda. She had appeared in several films for
The Rank Organisation, including
Bachelor of Hearts (1958),
Sapphire and
Upstairs and Downstairs (both 1959), before Rank sold her contract to
20th Century Fox. Steele seldom worked in the United States: she was cast opposite
Elvis Presley in the Western
Flaming Star, but a falling-out with director
Don Siegel led to her being replaced during the first week of shooting by
Barbara Eden. After a
Screen Actors Guild strike in March 1960 left her free to pursue her own interests, she traveled to Italy, leading to her casting in
Black Sunday. There are two accounts describing how Steele came to be cast in the film: one suggests that Bava, while perusing through
head shots of British actors under contract at Fox, selected Steele from these photos. Steele, however, recalled that Bava tracked her down after being captivated by photos of her in a
Life magazine photoshoot. Bava later commented that Steele "had the perfect face for my films".
John Richardson was cast as Katia's love interest Andrej. A colleague of Steele who had appeared in
Sapphire and
Bachelor of Hearts, Richardson's Rank contract was similarly sold to Fox and he had come to Italy searching for film work; by this time, both he and Steele were represented by the same agent from
William Morris Endeavor. Among the Italian cast members was
Andrea Checchi, who had previously worked in various Italian productions including
Michelangelo Antonioni's
The Lady Without Camelias (1953). Checci later appeared in two other films in 1960:
Vittorio De Sica's
Two Women and
Fritz Lang's
The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse.
Arturo Dominici, who previously appeared as Eurysteus in
Hercules and as Nieto in
Caltiki, played the role of Javutich; his daughter Germana also portrayed Sonya, the innkeeper's daughter.
Ivo Garrani, who portrayed Prince Vajda, was a veteran of earlier films photographed by Bava; the actor reflected that his friend's on-set behavior changed little in his transition to directing full-time "because Mario was already a director. He had proven this in the movies we had made together before, since he always found himself directing and saving other people's movies. So it was just a natural thing to see him in the director's chair at last. But Mario was also very shy; he always tended to undervalue himself. You could never pay him a compliment. He would always say, 'C'mon Ivo, what the hell are you saying? Be serious. But he was unique, and we all knew it".
Filming . According to Lucas,
principal photography for
Black Sunday lasted approximately six weeks — an average schedule for a Galatea production, but longer than the three to four weeks normally allotted to Italian films of the time — beginning on March 28, 1960, and ending on May 7. Meanwhile, film historian and critic Roberto Curti has stated that shooting began in June, and ran for seven weeks. Most of the film was shot at the studios of Scalera Film, with exteriors and some interiors shot at Castle Massimo in
Arsoli. Despite the film being shot in black and white, Bava permitted numerous production and publicity stills to be photographed in color; these stills are representative of the lighting choices Bava and his crew made for the film, and were not arranged to accommodate the still photographer. in a promotional photograph as Javutich, wearing
fangs that are not seen in the film. Govoni recalled the shoot to be a "very tiring" experience characterized by long work hours. Lucas believes that this was partially the result of the film entering production prematurely, without a thorough revision of the script or consideration for certain filming logistics, prompting Bava to rely on his instincts and improvise; this is evident in Asa and Javutich being variously described or portrayed throughout the film as witches,
Satanists and/or vampires. Steele and Dominici were initially outfitted with prop
fangs which do not appear in the final film: Bava recalled that he eventually asked the actors to discard them due to their clichéd appearance, while Govoni stated that the fangs were kept during the shoot, but "Serandrei cut around them" during editing. Most of the cast delivered their dialogue in English, with the exception of Checchi and the Dominicis; Govoni recalled that while the translation of the original Italian text the cast was given to work with was crude, they mostly stuck to it. Throughout the shoot, Steele proved to be difficult to work with; Govoni later described her as a "strange, neurotic person" and Bava proclaimed that "Steele was half-crazy, afraid of Italians." The actress frequently missed her call times or refused to arrive on-set due to misunderstandings: one instance of the former resulted in Arturo Dominici fainting under his costume while the crew waited for her arrival, prompting the actor to angrily tell Bava, "Who does she think she is?
Marilyn Monroe?". An example of the latter was due to her belief in a rumor that Bava had invented a special
film stock that made its subjects appear nude. Critic and editor Martyn Conterio considers many of Steele's recollections of the film's production to be unreliable. This includes her claim that the film was shot in winter, and that everyone on set had worn black and white costumes, neither of which are true. Steele admitted to her misbehavior during the film's shoot later in life and noted that towards the end of the shoot, she and Richardson were prone to nervous fits of laughter due to the stress they had accumulated over the course of filming. Although Bava is credited as the film's cinematographer, Govoni stated that camera operator
Ubaldo Terzano was the actual director of photography, and insisted he had lit the sets "so perfectly that Bava seldom had to correct him". Lucas concurs on this point, noting that while Bava would provide storyboards and occasionally adjust lights and lenses, Terzano was largely in control of which takes would be printed. The final week of the shooting schedule was reserved for
special effects work and
tracking shots, for which Bava was able to use a
dolly in one of the few occasions of his directorial career. In a scene in which Javutich appears to float towards Prince Vajda, Dominici was shot in
close-up as he was pulled along by another, makeshift dolly. A later scene where Katia and Constantine look over their dead father's face employs a 180° pivot which was accomplished using a specially-customized camera with modifications by Bava's father,
Eugenio, which included a rear system of radiating handlebars capable of spinning the camera on its axis. Its movement was so imperceptible that Garrani believed that the pivot was achieved through editing.
Props and special effects Eugenio Bava developed several of the practical effects used in the film. These included an articulated wax head with a mechanized interior, used to represent Prince Vajda's head as it is being burned in a fireplace, and a foam latex mask of Asa's face, which he made based on photos of Steele without having to make a
lifecast. To create the illusion of Asa's eyes regenerating within the sockets, a section of the character's tomb was built containing a hollow area under the mask, into which tomato soup and rice were used to simulate blood and maggots. These were then substituted with poached eggs, representing the eyes. Eugenio also designed the "Mask of Satan" used in the film. Two versions of each mask were made — one cast in bronze and another being a rubber substitute to be used when worn by the actors. Mario Bava recalled that after the film's release he had received several offers for the mask. Most of the scenes depicting horse carriage rides were shot at Scalera. Due to the small size of the sound stage being used, forests were suggested by filming with glass
matte paintings painted with black streaks and augmented with pieces of dead wood and foregrounded bracken. Smoke was filtered through the studio to disguise a
cyclorama. These were edited with actual exteriors shot near Castle Massimo to lend credibility to them; because the exteriors were shot
day for night, Bava camouflaged the sunlight through dead trees placed in the foreground. When Steele was required to play both Asa and Katia within the same frame, the footage was double-exposed and matted over the jagged edge of Asa's tomb. Other examples of Bava's matte work in the film include an exterior shot of Castle Vajda as a window is illuminated by the moon, and a subjective shot of the pit of spikes over which Andrej and Javutich fight. When Javutich appears to materialize in front of Constantine, Dominici stood off-camera, and his reflection was bounced off a mirror onto a black section of Asa's painting. The scene in which Asa touches Katia and drains her youth reprised an effect Bava had previously employed on
I Vampiri. Wrinkles were drawn on Steele's face with red
grease pencil, while
rouge was applied around her eyes and on her cheeks to make them appear sullen. These were made to initially appear invisible under red lighting, but became more prominent as green lights were gradually raised in their place. The explosion of Asa's tomb was a
miniature effect; pieces of the lid were pulled away by fine wires to reveal a doll of Asa inside.
Post-production Editing and score Because Serandrei rarely worked as a writer, Lucas has suggested that his screenplay credit for
Black Sunday indicates that his responsibilities went beyond cutting scenes together and that he helped Bava correct narrative flaws in post-production. Serandrei's assembly still contains a notable structural flaw — that Asa appears to be powerful enough to destroy her tomb and return Javutich to life, yet remains confined to the tomb even after draining Kruvajan's blood — as well as scenes that exhibit Bava's frequent re-working of the material. These include Katia's irascible dismissal of Sonya's claim that Javutich might be alive, her flirtatious invitation to Andrej to stay in the castle, and her seeing Javutich's reflection while undressing. Lucas believes that these scenes suggest that Javutich was originally intended to kidnap Katia soon after his resurrection, leaving Asa to impersonate her descendant. An English-dubbed version of the film created for international export, titled
The Mask of Satan, was translated from the Italian-language script, directed by George Higgins III and recorded in Rome with the English Language Dubbers Association (ELDA). A scene present in early Italian-language prints was deleted from this version of the film. Depicting a conversation between Katia and Prince Vajda, during which her father notices her melancholy behavior and suggests that the family leave the castle, it was originally intended to take place following her first encounter with Andrej and Kruvajan but was dropped due to the power of the Prince's terrified introduction in a later scene in which Katia plays a piano. The sequence was crudely inserted between Sonya's milking of a cow and Javutich's resurrection without Bava or Serandrei's approval. The music for the Italian and ELDA versions of
Black Sunday was composed by
Roberto Nicolosi and conduced by Pier Luigi Urbini. Lucas notes that both versions used the score sparingly, leaving the creation of much of the soundscape to the sound editor, although key dramatic scenes, such as the climactic fight between Andrej and Javutich, play with no music at all, suggesting the difficulties of creating music for a film in a genre that was in its infancy in Italy. He deems much of the score to be derivative of
James Bernard's work on
Dracula, but singles out the romantic "Katia's Theme" motif for praise.
AIP acquisition and re-editing Samuel Z. Arkoff and
James H. Nicholson of
American International Pictures (AIP) had been buying the American distribution rights to Italian films since 1959. In 1960, the two were invited to Rome by their Italian talent agent,
Fulvio Lucisano, to view
Black Sunday. Arkoff spoke about this screening in 1997, saying that because they were viewing the Italian version of the film, an interpreter and Lucisano helped to guide them through the plot. Arkoff found the film to be a "picture of a first class horror and suspense director", and was introduced to Bava after the screening, congratulating him. AIP acquired the film for approximately $100,000, recovering its production budget. For the film's release in the United States, AIP re-edited scenes, re-dubbed the soundtrack, and changed several of the characters' names. Arkoff deemed the ELDA version of the film to be "technically unacceptable", and had
Lou Rusoff produce a new English version at
Titra Studios in New York City, which was directed by Lee Kresel and edited by Salvatore Billitteri. In contrast to the embellishments of the ELDA version, Titra's dubbing was largely faithful to the cast's spoken dialogue, although some phrases were softened, such as Asa's line "You too can find the joy and happiness in Hades!" which became "You too can find the joy and happiness in
hating!". AIP removed or shortened the more violent and sexual scenes in the film, including the hammering of the "Mask of Satan" onto Asa's face, the scene in which she kisses Kruvajan to drain his blood, and the priest's staking of Kruvajan's eye. Arkoff reasoned that, "All of AIP's films were very clean, so anything that was suggestive of playing around -
fornicating a corpse, you know what I'm saying? - we wouldn't stand for it." A dialogue exchange between Katia and Andrej that serves to develop their romantic relationship, as well as a climactic exchange between Andrej and the priest in which the former melodramatically laments Katia's apparent death, were also cut, as AIP believed that the juvenile audiences it was targeting would react negatively to these scenes. AIP's editing reduced the film's runtime to 83 minutes, compared to the 87 minute runtime of most Italian prints. Nicolosi's score was replaced with a new one by
Les Baxter. Arkoff and Nicholas felt Nicolosi's score was "too Italian" and that American audiences would not like it. Baxter flew to New York City on January 9, 1961, to record the new soundtrack for the film at Titra. Lucas considers the re-score to be a major factor in the success of the American version, noting, "Baxter's score is everything Nicolosi's score is not: boisterous, unsubtle, boldly orchestrated, incessantly busy — musically underlining every footfall, every droplet of dripping blood [...] every smoking undulation of dry ice". Baxter's score incorporates Nicolosi's "Katia's Theme" at several points, although a piano version of the theme representing a piece played by Katia that suggests her mutual feelings for Andrej was re-scored with a
dirge that more closely follows Steele's hand movements on the instrument. He also adapted "Katia's Theme" for the title song of his 1961
exotica album
Jewels of the Sea. ==Release==