![]() Post-war fascination with space and the atom had banished supernatural themes almost entirely from popular culture. Following the decline of Hollywood monster movies in the 1940s, and the dominance of science fiction in the 1950s, it appeared by the end of the latter decade that gothic cinema was dead. It had been three decades since the book’s debut and during that time genre cinema had gone through a series of ups and downs. When it was over he introduced himself to Wheatley and asked if he could have the author’s blessing to approach Hammer about adapting his 1937 novel, The Devil Rides Out. Lee, then starring in the first wave of Hammer horror films, was attending the talk as a fan. Although he wrote across many pulp genres-swashbuckling adventure and espionage, historical romance and science fiction-his name became, and indeed remains, synonymous with the occult. ![]() His success was largely built on the popularity of a string of black-magic themed thrillers. ![]() The actor Christopher Lee first met Dennis Wheatley in 1964 at the book department of Harrods where the author was giving a lecture entitled, “Magic and the Supernatural.” Wheatley was, at the time, one of the world’s bestselling novelists. ![]() Wing Commander Dennis Wheatley, author of The Devil Rides Out, photographed in 1974 ![]()
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