A frustrated pianist himself, music journalist Myles Clarkson is thrilled to interview virtuoso Duncan Ely. Duncan, however, is terminally ill and not much interested in Myles until noticing that Myles' hands are ideally suited for piano. Suddenly, he can't get enough of his new friend, and Myles' wife, Paula, becomes suspicious of Duncan's intentions. Her suspicions grow when Duncan dies and Myles mysteriously becomes a virtuoso overnight.
The Mephisto Waltz is a 1971 American supernatural horror film directed by Paul Wendkos and starring Alan Alda, Jacqueline Bisset, Barbara Parkins, Bradford Dillman, and Curt Jürgens. Its plot follows a dying Satanist who attempts to have his soul transferred into the body of a young concert pianist. The name of the film is taken from the piano work of the same title by Franz Liszt. The performance of this work heard in the film is by Jakob Gimpel, although the piece did not appear on the soundtrack album when it was released in 1997. Ben Maddow adapted his screenplay from the novel of the same title by Fred Mustard Stewart. The film was the only big-screen work of veteran television producer Quinn Martin.
