Film

The Possession of Joel Delaney (1971)

Director: Waris Hussein

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

MacLaine plays a wealthy New York divorcée who is beastly to her Puerto Rican maid, and gets her comeuppance when her brother (King) - whom she dotes on with more than sisterly warmth - becomes possessed by the spirit of a Puerto Rican sex murderer. 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'. Even as melodrama it's distinctly sluggish.

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