Definitely not the type of movie I expected from Tony Curtis. It is a good one though. This film is based in the occult world of the American Indian medicine man. A white woman is infected, possessed, what have you, by a powerful 400 year old Indian medicine man who just happens to not like the white man very much (can't really blame him huh?). The bad medicine man is reborn from the back of the woman Michael Ansara is hired to stop the reincarnation of this malevolent person. He draws a circle around the bed to contain the spirit reborn and with some chanting the moment. This old guy then summons an ancient Indian god, spirit, I couldn't figure it out. This entity bites the hand of the doctor who tried to perform the original operation on the woman. Taking him for treatment Tony tries to return by the elevator and ends up in a frozen tabloid caused by the bad guy since he has broken the magic circle. So the old medicine man ends up trying to call in the great evil, Satan, Beelzebub, take your pick. Tony comes up with the idea to turn on all the electronics in the hospital and focus the energy on the bad guys. Michael tries to use the manitous from the machines to combat the evil spirit but is unsuccessful because he is Indian and not white. tony steps in and succeeds in destroying the evil medicine man and manages to save the girl as well. Not a bad film all in all.

The Manitou was Tony Curtis's last starring role, henceforth after this Curtis would be a character actor for the rest of his career. He's quite a character in The Manitou.What can I say but that the Manitou is an American Indian version of The Exorcist. Just as Linda Blair was possessed by a demon spirit in that film, in The Manitou here Susan Strasberg is naturally disturbed by the sudden appearance of a growth on her back. It's getting quite exponentially large and doctor determine it's a fetus of some kind. And operating on it causes some horrific casualties.Here's when Tony Curtis calls in a consult. Curtis is a spiritualist of sorts and has quite the act, but for the real deal when he hears one of his clients Lurene Tuttle start babbling in Indian tongues he calls on Michael Ansara who is a medicine man. It is Ansara who determines that this is a great spirit from the past looking to be reborn.So Ansara with Curtis's help essentially performs an exorcism Indian style. And if you've seen The Exorcist you know what happens.When I started to watch The Manitou I saw that Tony was playing it a bit tongue in cheek. When we first meet him he's giving Jeanette Nolan a fleecing. He was very good and I thought the whole film might be tongue in cheek, but it got good and serious after that.Maybe if it had stayed in a satiric vein, it might have rated higher for me. And ironically I think it could have been played that way.

Based on the novel by Graham Masterton, "The Manitou" is another of those absolutely wacky movies that one simply has to see to believe. It's bizarre, it's fanciful, it's often very (intentionally?) funny, and it features an amazing ensemble of veteran talent that plays everything with incredible sincerity. It marked the filmmaking swan song for the late, great B movie director William Girdler, who'd given us such classics as "Grizzly" and "Day of the Animals", who died in a helicopter crash while scouting locations for a follow-up flick. Girdler really outdoes himself here what with the level of cheese and sleaze. An engaging Tony Curtis plays phony psychic Harry Erskine, whose good friend Karen Tandy (Susan Strasberg) is suffering through one hell of a problem: a hump growing (and growing) on her back is not a tumor as doctors initially believe but an honest to God fetus, the reincarnation of a 400 year old, all powerful Indian medicine man named Misquamacus. The doctors, faced with the knowledge that their attempts to operate on Karen have met with disaster, are forced to acknowledge that things out of their field of expertise are going on. So a determined medicine man named John Singing Rock (Michael Ansara) is called in. In addition to the aforementioned actors, Stella Stevens, Ann Sothern, and Burgess Meredith turn up, and while some film lovers may be dismayed to see so many fine actors slumming away, the truth is these performers play this material for all that it's worth. Also appearing are Paul Mantee, Jeanette Nolan, Girdler regular Charles Kissinger, and Felix Silla. Co-written by Girdler and co-star Jon Cedar (who plays one of the doctors) with Thomas Pope, this production treats us to scenes such as an old lady (Lurene Tuttle) levitating, the appearance of a lizard like demon, the floor of a hospital turning into a walk in freezer, and a priceless, amazing finale featuring a topless Strasberg and lots of irresistible "special" effects. This is certainly slick looking stuff, with good widescreen cinematography by Michel Hugo, and thunderous music by Lalo Schifrin. Basically, everything *and* the kitchen sink are thrown into this mix for the sake of an entertaining show, and fans of the actors and the genre are sure to be endlessly amused. Movies like this don't come along that often, so we have to appreciate them when they do turn up. Eight out of 10.

When I watched this on television years ago it simply screamed made for television movie to me. The quality of the film, the incredibly cheesy story that tries in vain to be serious and the stable of actors one expects to see in a made for television movie. However, it was apparently a film that got a film release and that is kind of sad considering how weak the film is as a horror movie. You would expect more blood, more frightening scenes, this one just does not have it at all. It seems almost like a lifetime channel movie of today in its production values and plot. The plot is simple enough to explain, seems a demon like creature called the manitou is growing on Tony Curtis' wife and he must try to stop this evil entity before it is to late. I also recall it being some sort of Indian legend and there may have been an Indian in the movie to help out, but do not quote me on that one. In the end a very light and frothy horror movie that does not contain really all that much to justify that R rating.