That is absolutely wrong, incorrect and back to front.
Mark Of The Devil 1969 is the absolute best witch hunt, historical movie.
"Dated" is the RECENT RUBBISH type "music" used in films between 1985 and 2007 that is a loud, noisy, disturbing rock/metal/punk/hip hop/rap drug garbage sound.
Music used in 60s and 70s films was always pleasant, tuneful and melodic.
The devils with Oliver Reed in 1971 was an abysmal, dull, tedious sleep inducing drama , the worst film that Oliver Reed ever made. Oliver Reed made many excellent, classic films , including Hammer Films but this Devils 1971 is atrocious.
I like Mark of the Devil but I don't think it's the best witch-hunt movie.I'd say that was the 1968 classic Witchfinder General, Vincent Price was never better or more evil than in this movie.Also, Blood on Satan's Claw is another great witch-hunting classic with Patrick Wymark as the witchfinder.
I thought the lush'n'lovely orchestral score worked as a sharply ironic and hence effective contrast to the often appalling on-screen atrocites featured throughout this film.
Nobody does W.C. Fields singing "Mama Told Me Not to Come" better than Paul Frees.
The english director himself didn't liked the score either, and he is not shy about it in the DVD audio comentary.
He said the composer had his own ideas of how the music in the movie should be. Actually, the director is not totally dismissive of the composer's work. When the music is gothic and "horror"-like, the director loved it, and indeed, it is very good in those moments. But in the lighter moments of the movie, it's attrocious and too pop self aware.
This movie shows to me the fallacy that is to try to put the day's or the moment's type tunes to a movie, for they get terribly dated. And this goes for any movie made in the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s or 2000s.
"This are Nice shoes! Couldn't you afford some real Nike?"
In my humble opinion, Michael Holm's score is just beautiful, moody and fits the content and heart of the film very well. The melodic Love Themes as well as the eerie, dark, dissonant strings in the brutal moments. It adds some kind of fairy-tale-like atmosphere at times which I think is just what the love story between Udo Kier and Olivera Vuco is all about.
Btw, I just don't get how one could dismiss Ken Russell's brilliant THE DEVILS so harshly. Have to disagree about nowadays film scores, though.
The jazzy easy listening track during the opening credits and most of the love scenes is totally anachronistic and undermines the realism of the film. Indeed, I think this track is one of things that stop this being a perfect historical film for me.