Seven Footprints to Satan

Seven Footprints to Satan is a sound part-talkie 1929 American mystery film directed by Danish filmmaker Benjamin Christensen. Based on the 1928 story of the same name by Abraham Merritt, it stars Thelma Todd, Creighton Hale, William V. Mong and Sheldon Lewis. In addition to sequences with audible dialogue or talking sequences, the film features a synchronized musical score and sound effects along with English intertitles. The film survives at the Cineteca Italiana in an alternate sound version known as an International Sound Version. The sound disks for this foreign sound version are apparently not extant.

Plot
Jim and his fiancee Eve, a young society couple, are kidnapped on the eve of Jim's departure for Africa and brought to a mansion that is home to a strange and glamorous cult with a hooded leader called "Satan." Jim is put through a number of strange adventures in the old house and tries to maintain his courage. During the course of the film, Jim encounters an old witch, a dwarf, a gorilla and a strange shaggy creature called "The Spider". In the end, he is confronted by Satan himself who puts him to a final test.

It is revealed to be a hoax played on Jim by his uncle Joe, Eve, and his uncle's employees to convince Jim to forget his adventure plans, stay at home, work for his uncle, and settle down with Eve.

Production
Seven Footprints to Satan was adapted from the 1928 novel 7 Footprints to Satan by Abraham Merritt. The screenplay was written by director Benjamin Christensen under the name Richard Bee. Initially overjoyed that his story would be adapted into a film, Merritt later spoke about the film in a 1933 interview, stating that he "sat through the picture and wept. The only similarity between the book and the picture was the title. The picture likewise killed the booksale [...] for people who saw the picture felt no impulse thereafter to read the book."

Christensen cast actor Creighton Hale in the role of Jim in an attempt to capitalize on Hale's having starred in The Cat and the Canary, an earlier similar "old dark house" film.

Release
The film was released on February 17, 1929. An International Sound Version was made for export to non-English speaking audiences by edited the talking sequences and inserting intertitles in them. The rest of the film was left intact. This version survives in an Italian archive (Cineteca Italiana) and although the title card declares it to be a synchronized film ("il film sonoro") the print is mute. It is not known if the soundtrack discs for the foreign version survives. The Vitaphone soundtrack for the domestic version however will synchronize with the film in the non-dialogue scenes as these were left intact.

The original running time of Seven Footprints to Satan is in question. In his book Thrills Untapped: Neglected Horror, Science Fiction and Fantasy Films, 1928-1936, Michael R. Pitts noted that most contemporary reviews stated the film had a 60 minute running time seemingly referring to the domestic sound version of the film. A silent version for theatres not yet wired for sound was produced but is no longer extant. The silent release is listed as 5,267 feet, 168 feet shorter than the sound release of 5,405 feet.

Pitts described the film as a "box office flop", with a gross of $129,950.

Pitts ignored the title card in extant print from Cineteca Italiana which clearly states "il film sonoro" which translated that that the film is synchronized with sound. Arguing from an erroneous premise that the extant film is a silent version, he proposes that the film was originally shot at supposed "silent" speed, 18fps, and ran 75 minutes when projected at that speed; if shown at 24fps, however, the film runs only 60 minutes and the audio was created to accompany the film shown at 24fps. However, by 1929 almost all American silent films were produced to be projected at 24 fps, and the silent versions of sound films distributed to "unwired" theatres not yet equipped for sound films were often shorter than their sound counterparts, sometimes drastically so (as in the case of Warner Bros. The Terror, in which the original all-dialogue sound version of 7,774 feet was also issued in a silent format of 5,443 feet).

The 2022 Serial Squadron Blu-Ray restoration, also under the premise that the extant print is a silent version, presented their version at the "silent" speed of 18fps thereby extending the runtime to 75 minutes.

Critical response
Pitts described that contemporary critics were overall "not impressed" with Seven Footprints to Satan. A review in Film Daily described the film as a "has of weird and wild doings in a mysterious house with a lot of phony thrills." Movie Age opined that "Maybe we haven't seen all the so-called mystery-drama-thrillers so far released, but of those what we have seen, this Seven Footprints to Satan is one of the poorest. There is not a convincing situation in it, and the explanation of it all at the end takes the cake...no rhyme or reason." A review in Variety similarly called the film "all hokum", noting "another of those fright producers, wholly baffling from start to finish. An utterly moronic sound film appealing to all the passions." One reviewer in Photoplay stated that they loved the title of the film but found it "just a hodgepodge mystery story"

A review in Harrison's Reports commented that "People will no doubt enjoy this picture provided they don't take it seriously. It is one of the wildest mystery trapdoor melodramas that has been produced in many a moon."