William Peter Blatty, author of THE EXORCIST, proved a workmanlike producer/director for 1979's THE NINTH CONFIGURATION. Army psychiatrist Col. Kane (Stacy Keach) (teetering on the sanity brink himself) tries to minister to the patients in a military mental hospital. The fact that the hospital is located in a brooding old castle is hardly conducive to speedy recoveries. Nor does the mid-film barroom brawl indicate that Kane's approach to mental health is all that workable. Blatty adapted the screenplay for THE NINTH CONFIGURATION from his own novel TWINKLE, TWINKLE, 'Killer' Kane (which also served as the film's title during one of it's many releases). there a God or an afterlife? the result is a film that is by turns hilarious yet suspenseful and moving.