Okay one note that in the script... Corso was getting some heat from the cops. That is one reason that The Girl stopped him from whacking Balkan on the head with the candlestick while he strangled the Telfer woman.
Here's the deleted scene from the script where The Girl stops Corso:
Quote:
BALKAN: As for you, Liana de Saint-Damien, you’re even guiltier than the rest of this pathetic rabble. You have at least some idea of what this book can do in the right hands, yet you lend yourself to these farcical proceedings, these orgies of ageing flesh conducted in the Master’s name. You’re a charlatan!
LIANA tries to grab the book, but BALKAN holds it above his head.
LIANA claws his cheeks in desperation. BALKAN clasps his face, dropping the book.
LIANA makes a dive for it, but BALKAN pounces on her. They roll over in a clinch, struggling fiercely.
BALKAN grabs LIANA by the throat. She tries to break his grip, but he redoubles it. Halfway down the dais steps with BALKAN on top of her, she fights for breath. Her suffocated, agonized face is turned toward the hall.
The GUESTS shrink back in horror, some of them dropping their candles. Hysterical screams rend the air.
CORSO comes to life. Hampered by his robe, he makes for dais as fast as he can, scattering frightened GUESTS in the process. He takes hold of BALKAN’s shoulders and tries to haul him off LIANA.
BALKAN, still throttling her, turns to look. He glares at CORSO through his heavy hornrims, his features contorted with rage and stupefaction. Then, removing one hand from LIANA’s throat, he deals CORSO a backhanded blow that sends him reeling.
LIANA seizes the chance to break free. She crawls away and almost regains her fact, but BALKAN is too quick for her: grabbing her pentacle chain from behind, he proceeds to garrotte her with it.
LIANA, now on her knees, scrabbles unavailingly at the chain that is biting into her neck. Her face turns purple, her tongue begins to protrude.
CORSO looks around wildly for a weapon. He seizes one of the three-foot candlesticks and raises it over his head. Suddenly:
THE GIRL (O.S.): Don’t, Corso!
Startled, he lowers the candlestick and looks up: THE GIRL is perched on the gallery balustrade just above him.
Too preoccupied with Balkan and Liana to wonder what her game is, CORSO raises the candlestick once more.
THE GIRL lands on top of CORSO, bearing him to the ground, and immobilizes him with a hammerlock.
CORSO: Get off me! He’ll kill her!
THE GIRL: Leave them.
BALKAN completes his grisly work: LIANA’s purple face is all too reminiscent of Baroness Kessler’s. With a final tug at the chain, he plants one foot in the small of LIANA’s back and sends her limp body sprawling across the floor of the hall.
Screams and cries of horror go up from the GUESTS, who have recoiled still further.
BALKAN straightens up, a somewhat dishevelled but still imposing figure despite the scratches on his cheeks. Even his hornrims are still in place. He leans fonward, eyes narrowed in a mock menacing way, and stamps his foot.
BALKAN (in a voice like thunder): Boooh!
With more hysterical screams and cries of dismay, the GUESTS turn tall and flee the hall like a herd of panic-stricken cattle, jostling each other in their eagerness to get out the door.
Calmly, without so much as a glance at THE GIRL, CORSO, or LIANA’s corpse, BALKAN smooths his hair down, picks up ‘The Nine Gates’, and strides majestically after them.
Silence falls. THE GIRL releases her grip on CORSO’s arm, gets off him and rises to her knees. He sits up, nursing his elbow and staring at her with blank incomprehension.
CORSO: Why did you do it?
THE GIRL: Some things are meant to happen. That was one of them.
CORSO: Don’t give me that crap again! You were working for him all along!
THE GIRL: Funny, I thought you were.
CORSO: You played me for a sucker, the two of you. I don’t intend to take the rap for that maniac.
THE GIRL: He just murdered someone with a roomful of witnesses. That lets you off the hook for the other killings. You should be grateful.
CORSO: I’m ecstatic.
He gets to his feet. We hear the sound of cars starting up and driving off in a hurry.
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He was trying to save someone's life who incidentally just tried to murder him (and The Girl) is a contradictory act. I don't think it's evil though. Perhaps, it's trying to say that doing the right thing -i.e. trying to stop a murder... isn't always in your best interests.
Yes, evil is very seductive.
And OMG. I just rewatched the scene where Corso confronts the two book dealers. One of the brother corrects the other when he says
"If this is a forgery, or a copy with pages restored, it’s the work of a master".... the brother corrects him with "master
s"...
Note that this isn't in the screenplay...