"Harry Alan Towers had the idea of making a film in the tradition of British cinema." "It was my first film which was executive produced by Harry Towers." "The only problem was that he liked to do coproductions with everyone:" "This was going to be an Anglo/ American/German/Spanish" "French/Italian coproduction." "The producers in each country had their comments, especially when it came to what they wanted in the movie, not about the things that were not in the movie." "There was a certain amount of confusion about the style of the film." "At first it was supposed to be a horror film with a historical background." "But it became more of a historical film with a background of the inquisition." "Then it became a film primarily about the inquisition with a harsh and negative take on the inquisition, then an erotic film!" "And so each coproducer wanted something different." "These things happen!" "I had a good budget for the film because I took no percentage on the revenues, as others did back then." "Not in my productions." "I believed that the money we had was better used on what we see and hear on the screen, not on other things." "So thanks to this, I had a magnificent cast." "We had Christopher Lee to playJudgeJeffries, and he was perfect for the role." "And he was happy to do it because it was a departure from the monsters he would play for Hammer films and all of that." "He played a character who was just as odious, but that was real, that existed, and that belongs to British history." "So for him it was a big step forward." "I got Leo Genn." "In many countries they mistakenly say Dennis Price instead of Leo Genn because at first Dennis Price was slated for the role." "But Dennis Price was not available." "He couldn't do it." "He was sick." "So we got Leo Genn, who is just as good as Dennis." "We got Margaret Lee." "We got a whole group of superb actors." "Maria Schell played a blind witch." "She did a marvelous job because those character study roles are powerful." "Even Maria Rohm, who is one of the principal performers, does a great job." "We succeeded at the time in not allowing her to put too much makeup on because she always wanted to..." "In short, that's why it works." "Ah!" "Howard Vernon played the role of the executioner." "He was perfect." "I was inspired by a film that was magnificent." "It was a film with Basil Rathbone and Boris Karloff." "It was also a period film about the inquisition in England, and it was directed by Rowland Lee." "Boris Karloff played the executioner." "Howard and I decided to pay tribute to Boris Karloff and create the same character in our film." "He was magnificent in the film." "We shot the film in Portugal and Spain." "In Portugal, we shot almost all the scenes with JudgeJeffries in Leria, north of Lisbon." "It's an extraordinary region that has conserved almost all of its buildings." "There are practically no studio sets in this film." "All the locations were really over there." "We can also find these types of locations in Spain, but they look less British." "Historically we know that Portugal, even if they never admitted it, was practically a British colony." "So there was a perfect match to the style and period there." "Then we did some exteriors in the north of Spain because there were a few scenes that required fields of lavender." "We shot the two battle scenes near Madrid." "There are some fields called "Casa de Campo"" "only ten kilometers from the city." "It was very close to the location of the company that owned all the cannons and the horses." "We were able to get wonderful elements at a bargain rate." "It's been many years now, but I think while filming the two battle scenes we fired the cannons about 350 times," "and it only cost $5000 for the whole thing." "The horses, the costumes, the pyrotechnics, everything: $5000." "Harry Towers fell on his ass when I told him it would only cost that amount." ""Oh shit!" he said, "Do it!"" "I made seven films with Christopher, and we discussed everything." "We were more or less always in agreement, but not on this film." "We had some harsh discussions because he wanted to be more faithful to history than me." "I wanted to be as faithful as possible too, but not at the detriment of the film's rhythm, even if it meant somewhat changing the habits ofJudgeJeffries." "And I wanted him to move around a bit, but Christopher wanted him to stay seated, as it probably happened, in his judge's chair." "It gave a static quality to the image." "I didn't want it that way." "But we discussed it and found an agreement." "But I mention this because on this film was the only time we had a conflict over the character and how we saw him." "Christopher was always cooperative." "The only thing was when scenes were too violent, or erotic with nudity and things like that, he wouldn't do them." "He knew they were necessary." "He just didn't want to participate in them." "It's not that he detested them or that he didn't want them in the film, but he didn't want to be an active participant in such sequences." "On a personal level, I truly began to like him..." "I had always had a liking and friendship for him... but not admiration." "I used to say that's all well and good with Christopher Lee, but there are other actors too." "But when he did Dracula's monologue," "I thought he was fantastic." "It was then that we became better friends, closer, and I think that we are now very good friends." "The proof is that he remembers pranks" "I did to him or that he did to me during the shoot." "They signify something deep." "They are not meaningless." "He began to appreciate me, just as I did him." "It was reciprocal." "As I began to like him as a friend, an actor, everything, he did as well." "There is something I especially admire in him:" "The fact that he is incapable of lying to someone." "If he says that something is good, it is because he truly thinks it." "Or else, he says nothing, just "hello," "good bye."" "That's it." "So that's why I appreciate him because in the world of actors, there are many who say," ""Oh, this is wonderful."" "Not him." "It's dumber and more vulgar than most of the other names." "THE BLOODYJ UDGE was a perfect name for it." "That's what people called him, and it's clear for English-speaking countries, including the U.S." "Its meaning is clear." "And if they have a little bit of education, they'll recognize who the title refers to." "But NIGHT OF THE MONSTER..." "No, it's stupid!" "The film did have many titles..." "There was I L TRONO DI FUOCO in Italian," "THE THRONE OF FI RE." "Not as bad as the American title, but not by much." "In Germany it was called:" "DER HEXENTÖTERVON BLACKMOOR!" "When I read "Blackmoor," I asked myself why?" "What had happened in Blackmoor?" "The German distributors chose this title because there had been a popular film at the time that was based on a novel by Wallace, and it was called something like THE STRANGLER FROM BLACKMOOR." "So they said:" "Ah!" "Blackmoor, Blackmoor again." "Blackmoor meant nothing!" "Hexentöter meant THE WITCHHUNTERS OF BLACKMOOR." "Imagine this title?" "It's so dumb." "I don't know why there isn't a law, and perhaps there will be one thanks to the European community, to prevent any old jerk from changing the title of a work." "It's ridiculous, isn't it?" "Until now, I've tried to raise hell, and it hasn't amounted to anything because on the international market, a film is treated like a box of matches or like a pound of pork meat." "You buy it and you do what you want with it." "The surprise for me was to discover that there were five different versions of the film." "The film was rather long, almost two hours long." "Then, here and there, they cut 4 minutes, 20 minutes." "They replaced things." "They changed the battles." "Anything goes!" "And still, I thought the film deserved another life commercially." "I think the film could work well now." "I saw the film recently, the version that I hate the least, and it's not bad... it works well." "It has rhythm, and the dramatic scenes still work because the actors we had were not bogus actors who spit out their lines." "They did well." "In addition we had music by Bruno Nicolai that was excellent." "I like this film very much."