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Bill - I've read two drafts of the script and the demon definitely appears at both the beginning and the end. The finished film corresponds very closely to the shooting script which is very detailed (including various touches such as the distorted shots in the museum and the Hobart farm sometimes attributed to Tourneur). Now, the script is vague as to the description of the demon (just saying is is coalesced of flame) but this is doubtless because at the time the script was written the demon hadn't been designed. The design was however finished before the end of December 1956 because the UK trade magazine Kine Weekly has a photo of Ken Adam with it. If I recall Tourneur doesn't complain that the appearance of the demon is naff, he complains about it being included at all hence this whole myth created that Hal Chester added the monster in post production behind Tourneur's back.

I have even less sympathy with Charles Bennett complaining that his script was "ruined". The finished film is far better than Bennett's original draft in which Holden was competing in a golfing tournament !! Bennett's original draft was more of a Hitchcockian thriller and his producer described it to the BBFC as "a light hearted excursion into what may or many not be the supernatural".

The real credit for this film belongs to the uncredited (re)writer Cyril (Cy) Endfield. As far as I can see Tourneur filmed the script as written. He added nothing of his own but did do a very competent job of filming what was in a very detailed and superior script.

Has anyone ever seen a copy of Bennett's screenplay? I haven't, and I've looked for it. Let us please see the script to confirm if it did/did not have a demon. The one participant I spoke to, Dana Andrews, was adamant that there was NO demon it it, and that "Hal Chester went BACK and added the demon". So, I asked him, how did the script end? And he said he and and the girl were chasing Karswell by car, and a lightning bolt sliced off a branch and crushed Karswell's car, killing him. "THAT was the end of the picture." said Andrews. Andrews was still angry about it in 1975 when I spoke to him, saying it "wasn't a BAD picture" -- and then tapped a picture of the monster, and said " -- except for this." He thought it ruined the movie -- when I said I felt otherwise, he said "It's not a bad movie -- just a VERY BAD demon!" Andrews was Tourneur's best friend, and he said that JT tried to be ameliorative with Chester, so I'm sure he accepted the producer's edict that they had to have a monster. Andrews threatened to walk off the film. By the way, the CHFB folks keep calling the 95m version "the British cut" -- when the British cut was the SAME as the US cut, except for an additional line in the MT narration and and a different MT title

Bill  - there are two drafts of the screenplay in the BFI library in London and they both have the monster in for sure at beginning and end. I've read them. The earliest is dated September 1956. 

The Beating the Devil book contains a summary of the Bennett screenplay and its clear that at least 30% -40% of the film is Endfields. Including all of the Hobart scenes and those involving the other scientists. The nothing for nothing speech is his as well.

I do have to believe that when Andrews was signed in 7/56 (or earlier), the script still had a Demon that was only suggested. It's just asking too much, asking fans to believe that several different DEMON veterans concocted (together or, even more unbelievably, on their own) a false yarn that there was no Demon in the script when they signed on.

The detail in Beating the Devil is largely taken from the BBFC records. By early September 1956 the demon was definitely in the script at the beginning and the end. When this actually happened is not clear nor is it clear to me exactly when Tourneur and Andrews signed on although they appear to have been sent a draft of the script which was certainly before September as the script would only have gone to the BBFC once the financing etc had been sorted. What draft they looked at is unclear but it would have been after Endfield's major re-write and I guess  pretty close to the September 1956 draft.  The script was re-written quite a lot between September and October 1956 - this was by Endfield according to Denis Meikle who interviewed him - mainly to tone down the dialogue which gave away too much too often.  The September 1956 script had an interesting scene in which Holden arrives at a village looking for the Hobart farm and is eventually given directions by a small boy (its almost as if he's arrived in Agua Caliente). This was then replaced by the scene set at Stonehenge.

Several of the people involved with this film tell some outrageous lies in later interviews. Hal Chester is probably the worse. I also doubt that Jacques Tourneur ever saw the released version of the film. He makes much play about the monster - which I guess he saw in a still - but says nothing about the 15m odd of distributor cuts that eliminated some of the best stuff in the film. As is made clear on page 54 of Beating the Devil, the opening scene of the death of Harrington was filmed with the intention of including the monster at the beginning and this is obvious from watching the film.