Witchfinder General Film full HD movie download free with screenpaly story, dialogue LYRICS and STAR Cast

In 1645, during the English Civil War, Matthew Hopkins (Vincent Price), an opportunist and witchhunter, takes advantage of the breakdown in social order to impose a reign of terror in East Anglia. Hopkins and his assistant, John Stearne (Robert Russell), visit village after village, brutally torturing confessions out of suspected witches. They charge the local magistrates for the work they carry out.

Richard Marshall (Ian Ogilvy) is a young Roundhead. After surviving a brief skirmish and killing his first enemy soldier (and thus saving the life of his Captain), he rides home to Brandeston, Suffolk, to visit his lover Sara (Hilary Dwyer). Sara is the niece of the village priest, John Lowes (Rupert Davies). Lowes gives his permission to Marshall to marry Sara, telling him there is trouble coming to the village and he wants Sara far away before it arrives. Marshall asks Sara why the old man is frightened. She tells him they have been threatened and become outcasts in their own village. Marshall vows to Sara, "rest easy and no-one shall harm you. I put my oath to that." At the end of his army leave, Marshall rides back to join his regiment, and chances upon Hopkins and Stearne on the path. Marshall gives the two men directions to Brandeston then rides on.

In Brandeston, Hopkins and Stearne immediately begin rounding up suspects. Lowes is accused at his home and tortured. He has needles stuck into his back (in an attempt to locate the so-called "Devil's Mark"), and is about to be killed, when Sara stops Hopkins by offering him sexual favours in exchange for her uncle's safety. However, soon Hopkins is called away to another village. Stearne takes advantage of Hopkins' absence by raping Sara. When Hopkins returns and finds out what Stearne has done, Hopkins will have nothing further to do with the young woman. He instructs Stearne to begin torturing Lowes again. Shortly before departing the village, Hopkins and Stearne execute Lowes and two women.

Marshall returns to Brandeston and is horrified by what has happened to Sara. He vows to kill both Hopkins and Stearne. After "marrying" Sara in a ceremony of his own devising and instructing her to flee to Lavenham, he rides off by himself. In the meantime, Hopkins and Stearne have become separated after a Roundhead patrol attempts to commandeer their horses. Marshall locates Stearne, but after a brutal fight, Stearne is able to escape. He reunites with Hopkins and informs him of Marshall's desire for revenge.

Hopkins and Stearne enter the village of Lavenham. Marshall, on a patrol to locate the King, learns they are there and quickly rides to the village with a group of his soldier friends. Hopkins, however, having earlier learned that Sara was in Lavenham, has set a trap to capture Marshall. Hopkins and Stearne frame Marshall and Sara as witches and take them to the castle to be interrogated. Marshall watches as needles are repeatedly jabbed into Sara's back, but he refuses to confess to witchcraft, instead vowing again to kill Hopkins. He breaks free from his bonds and stamps on Stearne's face, at the same time that his army comrades approach the castle dungeon. Marshall grabs an axe and repeatedly strikes Hopkins. The soldiers enter the room and are horrified to see what their friend has done. One of them puts the mutilated but still living Hopkins out of his misery by shooting him dead. Marshall's mind snaps and he shouts, "You took him from me! You took him from me!" Sara, also apparently on the brink of insanity, screams uncontrollably over and over again.

Tigon Productions owned the rights to Ronald Bassett's 1966 novel, Witchfinder General, which was loosely based on the historical Matthew Hopkins, a self-described "witchhunter" who claimed to have been commissioned by Parliament to prosecute and execute witches. Hopkins was in fact never given an official mandate to hunt witches. Tony Tenser, the founder and chief executive of Tigon, had read Bassett's book while it was still in galley form and purchased the rights on impulse before publication. Despite the novel being "tedious low-brow popular history", Tenser felt it "had some scope, had some breadth to it; there was canvas for a film." Tenser offered the film to Michael Reeves, who had just completed Tigon's The Sorcerers (1967), starring Boris Karloff.

Writing

Reeves provided a story outline which met with Tenser's enthusiastic approval. Tenser immediately began putting together a preliminary budget, and requested that Reeves quickly complete a full film script, stressing to Reeves that the production would need to commence by September of that year to avoid shooting during cold weather. Reeves called in his childhood friend Tom Baker (who had co-written The Sorcerers with Reeves) to assist him with the script. Reeves and Baker began drafting a screenplay with Donald Pleasence firmly in mind as the film's star. However, once American International Pictures became involved in the production, they insisted that their contract star, Vincent Price, be given the lead, and Pleasence was dropped from the film. With the abrupt change of star, Reeves and Baker had to rethink their original concept of presenting Hopkins as "ineffective and inadequate … a ridiculous authority figure", which they had believed Pleasence could play to perfection. They knew the tall, imposing Price, with his long history of horror roles, would have to be more of a straightforward villain, and they made changes to their script accordingly.

As was required by law for British film productions of that time, the completed first draft of the screenplay was presented by Tenser to the British Board of Film Censors (BBFC) on 4 August to determine if any possible censorship issues could be anticipated. On the same day, a preliminary report was issued by a BBFC examiner, who, noting that Tenser was an "ape", referred to the screenplay as "perfectly beastly" and "ghoulish". The script was returned to Tenser a few days later, with a more detailed report from the same examiner, which described the screenplay as "a study in sadism in which every detail of cruelty and suffering is lovingly dwelt on … a film which followed the script at all closely would run into endless censorship trouble." After a second draft was subsequently written and sent to the BBFC only eleven days after the first draft, the reaction was nearly the same. It was returned to Tenser with an "exhaustive list" of requirements to reduce the film's possible offensiveness.

Reeves and Baker completed a third and final draft that was "substantially toned down" in content from the previous attempts. This version of the screenplay, which was filmed with only a few minor revisions during the production, was missing many of the more explicit moments of violence described in the first submitted drafts: the death spasms of the pre-credits hanging victim, Lowes getting stabbed fifteen times with a steel spike, and a sniper's victim somersaulting through the air and slamming into a tree. A sequence depicting the Battle of Naseby was to be filmed, during which a soldier's head was to be cut off on screen. Most significantly, the film's finale was completely altered. In the original ending, Stearne falls in with a group of gypsies and attempts to rape one of their women, who successfully fights off her attacker by plunging her thumbs into his eyes, blinding him. The gypsies then stake him to death. Marshall arrives and convinces the gypsies to assist him in ambushing Hopkins. Hopkins is viciously beaten by Marshall, who forces a "confession" out of the bloodied man. Marshall partially drowns Hopkins (whose thumbs have been tied to his feet), then finally hangs him. Tenser had previously expressed concerns regarding the scope of the Battle of Naseby sequence as well as the gypsy-ending, noting that these would both require the employment of additional groups of extras. He asked Reeves and Baker to remove the battle sequence and simplify the ending for the final draft.

Cast

• Vincent Price as Matthew Hopkins. Decidedly not Michael Reeves's choice for the part, this was the veteran horror star's 75th film and his 17th for American International Pictures. Some of the performances he provided for his previous AIP movies had certain elements of campy overacting, but in Witchfinder he was subtle and deadly serious. The role was a great challenge for Price, as his frequent clashes with Reeves left him unsure as to what the director wanted (see "Filming" section below). Despite this, Price ultimately felt he delivered "one of the best performances I've ever given."
• Ian Ogilvy as Richard Marshall. Ogilvy had been a friend of Reeves since they were teenagers, and the actor had appeared in many of the director's amateur short films. Ogilvy had also starred in both of Reeves's two previous feature films, Revenge of the Blood Beast and The Sorcerers, and was the natural first choice for the role of Witchfinder's heroic lead. Describing his working relationship with Reeves, Ogilvy noted that "his mastery of the technical aspects was absolute", but added "Mike never directed the actors. He always said he knew nothing about acting, and preferred to leave it up to us." Ogilvy enjoyed working with Price, finding him to be "very funny, in a 'queeny' sort of way."
• Hilary Dwyer as Sara. Witchfinder was Dwyer's debut feature film. With three years of television work behind her, she had been noticed by Tenser and put under contract with Tigon. She felt Reeves was "just wonderful … He was really inspiring to work with. And because it was my first film I didn't know how lucky I was." At 21, she found appearing in the love and rape scenes "stressful". She would go on to make several more horror movies for AIP, most of them co-starring Price, before retiring from acting in the late 1970s.
• Rupert Davies as John Lowes. Appearing as Dwyer's uncle, Witchfinder was only one of several horror films the British character actor found himself in during the later stage of his career. Davies was not pleased when he discovered that the filming of his torture scenes was to be augmented with actual live rats placed on his body. The actor recalled Reeves instructing him, "Don't move, Rupert! Don't move! Wait until one of them starts nibbling your jaw then you might move your head a little."
• Robert Russell as John Stearne. Playing Hopkins's thuggish assistant, Russell certainly looked the part. However, as filming progressed, Reeves found the actor's high-pitched voice unsuitable for such a rough character, and after production was completed he had all of his dialogue dubbed by another actor, Jack Lynn (who also appeared in a small role as an innkeeper).
• Patrick Wymark as Oliver Cromwell. Wymark received prominent billing for a "one-day bit part".
• Other cast: Nicky Henson as Trooper Swallow, Wilfrid Brambell as Master Loach, Tony Selby as Salter, Bernard Kay as Fisherman, Godfrey James as Webb, Michael Beint as Captain Gordon, John Treneman as Harcourt, Bill Maxwell as Gifford, "Morris Jar" (pseudonym for Paul Ferris) as Paul, Maggie Kimberly as Elizabeth, Peter Haigh as Lavenham Magistrate, Hira Talfrey as Hanged Woman, Ann Tirard as Old Woman, Peter Thomas as Farrier, Edward Palmer as Shepherd, David Webb as Jailer, Lee Peters as Sergeant, David Lyel