The Possession of Joel Delaney (film)

The Possession of Joel Delaney
Original theatrical poster
Directed by	Waris Hussein
Screenplay by	Grimes Grice Matt Robinson
Based on	The Possession of Joel Delaney by Ramona Stewart
Produced by	Martin Poll[i]
Starring	Shirley MacLaine Perry King
Cinematography	Arthur J. Ornitz
Edited by	John Victor Smith
Music by	Joe Raposo
Production companies	Haworth Productions ITC Entertainment[2]
Distributed by	Paramount Pictures (United States)[2] Scotia-Barber (United Kingdom)[3]
Release dates	May 24, 1972 (1972-05-24) (United States) August 18, 1972 (1972-08-18) (United Kingdom)
Running time	105 minutes[4]
Countries	United States[5][6] United Kingdom[5][6]
Languages	English Spanish
Budget	$1.5 million[7]

The Possession of Joel Delaney is a 1972 supernatural horror film directed by Waris Hussein and starring Shirley MacLaine and Perry King. It is based on the 1970 novel of the same title by Ramona Stewart. The plot follows a wealthy New York City divorcee whose brother becomes possessed by a deceased serial killer who committed a series of gruesome murders in Spanish Harlem.

Originally developed by producer Martin Poll and his production company, Haworth Productions, Poll abandoned the project shortly after filming began, due to creative differences with actress Shirley MacLaine. Following Poll's departure, British producer Lew Grade of ITC Entertainment overtook the project. Principal photography took place in New York City and London during the winter of 1971, on a budget of $1.5 million.

The Possession of Joel Delaney was released theatrically in the United States by Paramount Pictures in May 1972, and subsequently entered competition at the 22nd Berlin International Film Festival. It received a theatrical release in the United Kingdom shortly after, in August 1972. The film received mixed reviews from critics, though its theme of possession subsequently resulted in parallels being drawn by critics to The Exorcist, released a year later.^[8]

In the intervening years, the film has been the subject of film criticism surrounding its themes of social inequality, as well as familial relationships and incest.

Norah Benson is an upperclass Manhattan divorcee living with her two children, Carrie and Peter. Her ex-husband, Ted, an esteemed physician, has recently remarried. One night, Norah, accompanied by her younger brother, Joel Delaney, attends a party held by her psychologist friend, Erika Lorenz. In contrast to Norah's elitism, Joel has a more bohemian view of the world, and has recently returned to New York after an extended visit to Tangier. Despite their differences, the siblings remain close, bonded by the suicide of their socialite mother that occurred when Joel was still a child; Norah, a young adult at the time, became Joel's guardian.

Two days after Erika's party, Joel fails to arrive at a dinner Norah has planned at her house. Concerned, Norah goes to Joel's apartment in the East Village, where she witnesses him being escorted by police to the psychiatric ward of Bellevue Hospital. She is disturbed to learn that Joel attacked the building's superintendent. In Joel's apartment, Norah finds a large switchblade knife, and notices an esoteric hand symbol painted on the wall. Norah is met by Joel's former girlfriend, Sherry, who comments on Joel's "dark side." Norah learns that the apartment previously belonged to a man named Tonio Pérez, the superintendent's son.

Unable to recall the events that landed him in the hospital, Joel is convinced by Norah to lie to the doctors and claim he was under the influence of hallucinogens. He is discharged on the provision that he meet with a psychiatrist; Norah arranges for him to see Erika, who has known Joel most of his life. During their sessions, Joel recounts to Erika his close friendship with Tonio. Meanwhile, Norah, having welcomed Joel to stay with her, observes increasingly odd behavior: He first asks Norah inappropriate questions about her sex life, and later, at his birthday party, exhibits manic behavior, culminating in a series of crude insults to Norah's Puerto Rican maid, Veronica, which he relays in Spanish.

The following day, Norah visits Sherry's apartment to return an earring she left behind at the party. Upon entering, she finds Sherry's decapitated corpse lying in her bed, and her severed head hanging from a houseplant. Police interview Norah, and remark that Sherry's murder resembles serial killings that occurred the summer before in Spanish Harlem, which received little publicity because the victims were all Hispanic females. Detectives presume the perpetrator to be Tonio, who has been missing for several months, but his family and friends refuse to cooperate with authorities.

With Veronica's help, Norah meets Don Pedro, a Santería practitioner in Harlem who agrees to help her. He arranges a ceremony to banish Tonio's spirit, which he believes has possessed Joel's body. In attendance is Tonio's grief-stricken mother, who admits to Norah that Tonio was in fact a murderer, and that when his father discovered Tonio's crimes, he murdered Tonio himself and disposed of his remains. Don concludes the ceremony as unsuccessful due to Norah's agnosticism toward the supernatural.

Norah returns home to find Joel screaming hysterically in Spanish. Frightened for the children's safety, she brings them to the family's beachfront vacation home in Long Island, while Erika promises to help Joel. The next morning, after returning from a walk on the beach, Norah finds Erika's severed head in the kitchen, and Joel standing nearby with his switchblade. Now uniformly possessed by Tonio, Joel torments and taunts Norah and the children. He orders Peter to strip naked, and forces Carrie to eat dog food before superficially cutting her on her neck. Ted, along with police, arrive outside the home in the midst of this. Norah observes them and attempts to stop Joel, who responds by giving her a passionate kiss. The children flee outside. Joel pursues them, only to be shot in the chest by one of the officers. Norah rushes to her brother, who dies in her arms. After a pause, Norah picks up Joel's switchblade, and menacingly holds it up toward the policeman, indicating the spirit of Tonio has now resided within her.

In his book Hearths of Darkness: The Family in the American Horror Film (2014), film scholar Tony Williams writes that The Possession of Joel Delaney is thematically preoccupied with the same "racial, economic, and class characteristics of I Walked With a Zombie (1943)," despite its depiction Puerto Rican Americans as "superstitious voodoo devotees."^[9] Williams notes that the film's opening sequence at an upperclass party affirms this thematic exploration, observing that "intercut shots juxtapose affluent white guests with primitive voodoo masks placed in the demeaning position of trendy artifacts. A black man [in the scene] stands alone. His face exhibits ethnic alienation."^[9]

Williams notes a similar social-racial suggestiveness through the film's cinematography, particularly "subtle, non-rhetorical camera movements" that occur during sequences between Norah and her maid, Veronica, which reveal the "oppressive nature of white power."^[9] Film writer Charles Derry notes: "Even if The Possession of Joel Delaney grinds its ax rather obviously, the film works well both as a horror film and an allegory of modern class conflict."^[10]

Familial trauma and incestual desire have been a points of discussion regarding the film, particularly between the lead characters of Norah and her brother, Joel.^[11] Throughout the film, several peripheral characters observe that Norah and Joel have an unusual brother-sister relationship, with some commenting that the two appear to be a couple.^[12] Williams attests that Norah's sexual desire for Joel is represented in the film's opening sequence, in which she appears visibly jealous when she witnesses Joel speaking with his ex-girlfriend.^[12] According to Williams, Norah, who partly raised Joel, has an agenda to keep him in a "state of childish dependence," and suggests that the film's title has a double meaning, alluding to both the supernatural spirit possession of Joel, as well as the emotional possession of him by Norah.^[13]

Williams believes that the film "handles family motifs far more successfully than the more publicized film from the following year, The Exorcist...  it achieves an effective balance between supernatural motifs and material causes by never allowing the former to overwhelm the latter."^[9]

Following a bidding war between major studios over the rights to Ramona Stewart's novel The Possession of Joel Delaney (1970),^[14] the rights were sold to producer Martin Poll and his studio, Haworth Productions, who arranged to produce the film.^[5]

Screen tests for The Possession of Joel Delaney began in December 1970.^[15] Principal photography commenced on January 2, 1971, in New York City.^[5] While exteriors were shot in New York, the bulk of the interior sequences were filmed in London.^[5] Principal photography was completed in March 1971.^[5]

Shortly after principal photography began, producer Martin Poll left the project due to creative disputes with actress Shirley MacLaine.^[5] Following Poll's exit, British media proprietor Lew Grade and his company, ITC Entertainment, took over the production; MacLaine had recently made Desperate Characters (1971) and the short-lived series Shirley's World under Grade's supervision.^[16] As a result, Poll had his name removed from the credits as producer.^[1] Philip Rosenberg served as the film's production designer.^[1]

The film opened theatrically in the United States on May 24, 1972, in New York City and Los Angeles.^[5] In addition to its standard cut, which consists primarily of spoken English with some Spanish, an exclusively Spanish-language version of the film was released concurrently in New York.^[5] It was subsequently screened at the Berlin International Film Festival the week of June 23, 1972.^[5] It was released in the United Kingdom approximately two months later, opening in London on August 18, 1972.^[17]

The film's ending is highly controversial due to its questionable depiction of children.^[18] Eleven-year-old actor David Elliott was made to strip and dance naked on a table during a sequence in which his character is humiliated by the possessed Joel Delaney. Actor David Elliott, in an interview with the YouTube channel 'Let's talk jaws!' in 2020 said that he had to go through years of therapy to recover from the life-long trauma it caused. He said that the scene was not part of the original script when he accepted the role, but was added by Hussein during the final two weeks of its filming in a remote location in fire island. He states that the scene in which Joel drags him while holding a knife was done without proper safety measures. He had to face mental torture for the crying scenes. Based on these claims, the film can be considered as a product of child exploitation to the full extent. Noted film critic Roger Ebert wrote:

[The] final scenes in the beach house are in nauseatingly bad taste. Filmmakers should have enough imagination and enterprise to scare us without resulting to cheap tricks. Hitchcock can, and does. But Warris Hussein, who directed this film, is so bankrupt of imagination that he actually descends to a scene where the little boy is forced to disrobe and eat dog food. This is all because of the evil spirit in Joel's body, of course, but I don't care. Scenes of this nature are rotten and bankrupt, and you feel unclean just watching them.^[19]

In the United Kingdom, the film was truncated from its original 105-minute runtime to 101 minutes.^[20]

In the March 5, 2004 issue of Entertainment Weekly, Stephen King wrote about the film and that particular scene, claiming that today it would earn the film an NC-17 rating. It was claimed that the VHS had the scene uncut, while the DVD was altered. In reality, the VHS transfer is "open matte," revealing top and bottom picture information usually cropped in theatrical showings; in this case, it made the scenes with the boy more revealing. In contrast, the DVD is matted widescreen, reflecting the theatrical intent of being more restrained about the boy's nudity.

Paramount Home Entertainment released The Possession of Joel Delaney on VHS in 1991.^[21] The film remained unreleased in other formats until June 2008, when Paramount issued it for the first time on DVD in conjunction with Legend Films.^[22] In August 2021, the Australian company Via Vision Entertainment announced they would be releasing the film for the first time on Blu-ray through their Imprint films series on November 24, 2021.^[23] In January 2025, Vinegar Syndrome announced a 4K UHD Blu-ray edition of the film, scheduled for release on February 25, 2025.^[24]

In her biography of Shirley MacLaine, writer Patricia Erens noted that The Possession of Joel Delaney was a box-office disappointment for Paramount Pictures.^[25]

The Possession of Joel Delaney received mixed reviews from film critics, with many noting its social commentary on class issues and MacLaine's performance as strengths, though some felt it portrayed negative stereotypes of Puerto Rican Americans.^[26] Candice Russell of the Miami Herald felt the screenplay was underdeveloped, despite the film's "keen performances, Hussein's crisp direction, and clean, often-eerie photography. The fault here lies with the screenplay, and not with its execution."^[27] Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times awarded the film two out of four stars, describing it as "badly put together, with little feeling for suspense, and the final scenes in the beach house are in nauseatingly bad taste."^[19]

Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times gave the film a favorable review, praising director Hussein's use of film locations and "perceptive and subtle" cultural observations, summarizing it as "a unique and provocative film, harrowing and at times grisly, that demands a great deal of the viewer's imagination."^[28] Wanda Hale of The New York Daily News praised the acting in the film, noting that MacLaine's role "tests [her] dramatic ability, and she gives a remarkably fine performance," and also commented favorably on the film's depiction of class disparity among New York residents.^[29] Variety also praised MacLaine's performance as "riveting."^[30]

British film critic Derek Malcolm compared the film's gratuitousness to that of Sam Peckinpah's Straw Dogs (1971), in that it "sits up and begs for trouble. It treats of violence and ultimately rubs our noses in it. I've no doubt at all that many will think it meretricious garbage. I've also no doubt at all that it is the most powerful piece of filmmaking Hussein has yet shown us."^[31] Malcolm wrote favorably of the film's social commentary, which noted as "chillingly achieved in [its] better moments...  [The film] deserves to be noticed in a different context to that in which it will undoubtedly be advertised."^[31]

A review published by the Time Out Film Guide was critical of the film, noting: "There is some slick racial moralising (rich white New Yorkers shouldn't be beastly to their less privileged neighbours). But stir in some mumbo-jumbo in which shrieking Puerto Ricans try to exorcise the devil, and a climax in which MacLaine and her children are tortured at knife-point by the spirit of racial vengeance, and what you come away with is an alarmist message saying 'Keep New York White'."^[32] TV Guide also gave the film an unfavorable review, deeming it "bad taste, overwrought, and claptrap."^[33]

• List of American films of 1972

• The Possession of Joel Delaney at IMDb
• The Possession of Joel Delaney at Rotten Tomatoes