In the dying days of the Second World War the inmates in a Japanese prisoner of war camp learn that Japan has lost the war. This news is not a cause for jubilation, however, since the commander of the camp, certain to be executed for war crimes if Japan loses, will kill every prisoner, man, woman and child should he find out.
The strengths of Val Guest's The Camp on Blood Island (1958) are much the same as those of his other war is hell in the pacific entry Yesterday's Enemy (1959).
The director's quasi-documentary style is a positive, even if not as well realised as its successor due to an increasing focus upon action film elements later on.
So too, without reservation, are the sweaty atmosphere and tension that he conjures up, and the performances he elicits from a talented cast that includes Hammer stalwarts such as Andre Morell and Richard Wordsworth.
The writing nicely explores the ethical dilemmas facing those in command, both military and civilian, without didacticism or reducing these characters to mouthpieces.
This, however, also leads to one of the negatives, that the rank and file are again given less characterisation and attention – when six men are executed in reprisals for an escape all they are is a number, devoid of names and of individual identities.
Another flaw, at least for some, is likely to be the casting of actors of other ethnicities, such as the Anglo-English Marne Maitland and the white British Michael Ripper, as Japanese soldiers.
Here, however, I'd say it is important to consider the film as a product of its time and place and to recognise that, much like its companion piece, there is considerable thought-provoking ambiguity throughout.
So, for instance, Ripper's cameo role is one of a man in the wrong place at the wrong time, fated to die through no fault of his own.
Similarly, if the female prisoner who consorts with one of the soldiers is played by an East Asian actor, it is not that her character is set against the others by race, given that their numbers including other non-whites, rather by her placing of self above collective.
(As an aside, the film made me think about present-day debates around casting? Does being an actor and thus by definition playing people other than oneself render them irrelevant? Is the main issue an imbalance of power between majorities and minorities in who can play who? Is there a difference when the character being played is an actual historical figure or a religious one believed to be real?)
Showing posts with label hammer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hammer. Show all posts
Thursday, 15 October 2015
Friday, 2 January 2015
Hammer's Film Legacy
This 408 page book by Wayne Kinsey covers every Hammer production made between The Quatermass Xperiment in 1955 and To the Devil a Daughter in 1976 (including the is-it-or-isn’t-it Hammer The Shadow of the Cat) in chronological sequence.
There’s thus next to nothing on Exclusive/Hammer in the periods immediately before and after the Second World War, nor on the likes of Terence Fisher’s Three Sided Triangle and Stolen Face from the early 1950s, nor on the present-day Hammer revival.
Each of the 106 films included is approached in the same way: An image of its title card; listings of the crew and cast; distribution details; discussions of pre-production; casting; production; post-production and release.
For the most part Hammer’s Gothic Horrors are given the longest and most detailed write-ups, their television sitcom adaptations the least.
Besides reflecting the likely interests of the assumed reader, this is often a consequence of the back-and-forth between the studio and the British Board of Film Censors over script content at the pre-production stage. Mindful of costs, Hammer’s management could see no point in shooting material deemed too horrific or otherwise censorable.
Discussions of these negotiations were also one of the major strengths of the author’s previous volumes on Hammer’s Bray and Elstree periods. This, in turn, raises the question of how necessary Hammer’s Film Legacy is for those who already own the two now out-of-print collections. Similarly, some of the details of the contributions of those behind the camera and behind the scenes may overlap with Kinsey’s more recent book on Hammer’s Unsung Heroes.
For those owning neither of the Bray and Elstree volumes this is undoubtedly a worthwhile purchase considering the information it contains and the prices its predecessors now fetch. For those with them I would also argue that it is a worthwhile purchase, whether as an investment (as I write this the limited hardback edition of 500 must be nearly gone, mine being #412), for the material that hasn’t hitherto appeared elsewhere, or just to keep Kinsey and his publishers doing more of this stuff.
In case my comments appear too gushing I’ll finish with a negative. There are some places where I wondered if what the author wrote was what he meant. Early on, for example, he characterises the purchase and establishment of Bray Studios as a “false economy”. While Bray was certainly an economic decision I don’t believe it was a false one, i.e. a decision that cost more than it returned. Similarly a reference to “sort solace” rather than “sought solace” seems a malapropism.
Overall, however, well worth getting.
There’s thus next to nothing on Exclusive/Hammer in the periods immediately before and after the Second World War, nor on the likes of Terence Fisher’s Three Sided Triangle and Stolen Face from the early 1950s, nor on the present-day Hammer revival.
Each of the 106 films included is approached in the same way: An image of its title card; listings of the crew and cast; distribution details; discussions of pre-production; casting; production; post-production and release.
For the most part Hammer’s Gothic Horrors are given the longest and most detailed write-ups, their television sitcom adaptations the least.
Besides reflecting the likely interests of the assumed reader, this is often a consequence of the back-and-forth between the studio and the British Board of Film Censors over script content at the pre-production stage. Mindful of costs, Hammer’s management could see no point in shooting material deemed too horrific or otherwise censorable.
Discussions of these negotiations were also one of the major strengths of the author’s previous volumes on Hammer’s Bray and Elstree periods. This, in turn, raises the question of how necessary Hammer’s Film Legacy is for those who already own the two now out-of-print collections. Similarly, some of the details of the contributions of those behind the camera and behind the scenes may overlap with Kinsey’s more recent book on Hammer’s Unsung Heroes.
For those owning neither of the Bray and Elstree volumes this is undoubtedly a worthwhile purchase considering the information it contains and the prices its predecessors now fetch. For those with them I would also argue that it is a worthwhile purchase, whether as an investment (as I write this the limited hardback edition of 500 must be nearly gone, mine being #412), for the material that hasn’t hitherto appeared elsewhere, or just to keep Kinsey and his publishers doing more of this stuff.
In case my comments appear too gushing I’ll finish with a negative. There are some places where I wondered if what the author wrote was what he meant. Early on, for example, he characterises the purchase and establishment of Bray Studios as a “false economy”. While Bray was certainly an economic decision I don’t believe it was a false one, i.e. a decision that cost more than it returned. Similarly a reference to “sort solace” rather than “sought solace” seems a malapropism.
Overall, however, well worth getting.
Saturday, 20 September 2014
The Amicus Anthology
Compared to some of the subjects of author Bruce Hallenbeck's previous books, most notably The Hammer Vampire and The Hammer Frankenstein, The Amicus Anthology likely provided a greater challenge -- one that he thankfully rises to.
For the Hammer Frankenstein films, excepting the one-off spoof/parody Horror of Frankenstein, are unified by the constant presence of Peter Cushing in the title role and, barring The Evil of Frankenstein, Terence Fisher as director/auteur. The Amicus anthology films, by contrast, were directed by Freddie Francis and Roy Ward Baker in approximately equal numbers and had no recurring characters.
The history of Amicus is intrinsically linked to that of its rival. Milton Subotsky presented Hammer with a script for a Frankenstein film. Hammer's bosses didn't like it, but learned that Mary Shelley's characters were out of copyright and thus made their own treatment. This became the epochal Curse of Frankenstein.
Subotsky and other Amicus mainman Max Rosenberg responded to Hammer by employing Christopher Lee for the atmospheric City of the Dead. While not an official Amicus film its present-day setting would emerge as something differentiating Amicus and Hammer horror on aggregate.
There are, in my opinion, three key reasons why The Amicus Anthology works.
First, Hallenbeck provides historical context to the horror compendium film in his opening and closing chapters, which reference the likes of Waxworks, Dead of Night, and Creepshow.
Second, he contextualises Amicus's anthologies in relation to their single-story horrors, such as The Skull, and their non-horror films, such as the Amicus in all but name Dr Who adaptations with Cushing as (a) Who. (This Amicus/Who nexus is worth noting, with third and fourth Who's Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker both appearing in Amicus anthology horrors.)
Finally, Hallenbeck makes you think: Do you prefer to see Amicus's guest stars or Hammer's character actors? Do you prefer segments or wholes? Do you prefer humour as punchline or intermittently? Does a great segment outweigh a good film?
For the Hammer Frankenstein films, excepting the one-off spoof/parody Horror of Frankenstein, are unified by the constant presence of Peter Cushing in the title role and, barring The Evil of Frankenstein, Terence Fisher as director/auteur. The Amicus anthology films, by contrast, were directed by Freddie Francis and Roy Ward Baker in approximately equal numbers and had no recurring characters.
The history of Amicus is intrinsically linked to that of its rival. Milton Subotsky presented Hammer with a script for a Frankenstein film. Hammer's bosses didn't like it, but learned that Mary Shelley's characters were out of copyright and thus made their own treatment. This became the epochal Curse of Frankenstein.
Subotsky and other Amicus mainman Max Rosenberg responded to Hammer by employing Christopher Lee for the atmospheric City of the Dead. While not an official Amicus film its present-day setting would emerge as something differentiating Amicus and Hammer horror on aggregate.
There are, in my opinion, three key reasons why The Amicus Anthology works.
First, Hallenbeck provides historical context to the horror compendium film in his opening and closing chapters, which reference the likes of Waxworks, Dead of Night, and Creepshow.
Second, he contextualises Amicus's anthologies in relation to their single-story horrors, such as The Skull, and their non-horror films, such as the Amicus in all but name Dr Who adaptations with Cushing as (a) Who. (This Amicus/Who nexus is worth noting, with third and fourth Who's Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker both appearing in Amicus anthology horrors.)
Finally, Hallenbeck makes you think: Do you prefer to see Amicus's guest stars or Hammer's character actors? Do you prefer segments or wholes? Do you prefer humour as punchline or intermittently? Does a great segment outweigh a good film?
Saturday, 25 May 2013
The Hammer Frankenstein
This new book from Bruce Hallenbeck, published by the UK’s Hemlock, follows on from the same author’s The Hammer Vampire.
If the chronology and complexity of producing works on the two foremost Hammer franchises seems a bit back-to-front, given that the studio’s first vampire film followed its first Frankenstein film, and more challenging, in that there was greater variation amongst the vampire films, it perhaps made commercial sense as vampire films were more popular at the time and, if Underworld and Twilight are considered, more popular today.
The Hammer Frankenstein begins with a brief foreword by Veronica Carlson, who is distinguished by being the only female lead to appear in two of the studio’s Frankenstein productions – Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed (1969) and The Horror of Frankenstein (1970).
Following this Hammer scholar Denis Meikle provides a general introduction to the Gothic as a literary genre and the place of Mary Shelley’s source novel within it.
The remaining chapters are all by Hallenbeck and take a chronological approach, with one chapter on each of Hammer’s seven Frankenstein films – The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), The Revenge of Frankenstein (1958), The Evil of Frankenstein (1964), the aforementioned Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed and Horror of Frankenstein (the odd one out in that it a re-imagining of the first film rather than continuing on from its predecessor) and Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell (1973).
Prior to discussing Hammer’s Frankenstein, however, Hallenbeck first of all devotes a chapter to the story’s pre-Hammer film history, from the Edison Company’s 1910 short through to the Monster Rallies and inevitable encounter with Abbott and Costello in the 1940s. Here, as the author indicates, the Whale/Karloff films are the most important, establishing the definitive look of the monster and that he, rather than his creator, was given primacy. (Subsequently the author does the same with a chapter on the post-Hammer Frankenstein film.)
Both these points were to prove crucial when it came to The Curse of Frankenstein. For, as is well-known from more general histories of the studio, Hammer found themselves with a basic source that was now out of copyright alongside certain aspects which were Universal’s intellectual property, most notably the look of the monster. Hammer’s response, of course, was to both give the monster a new look and to shift the focus from the creation to his creation.
It is through this chapter that the strengths and, to a far lesser extent, the weaknesses of Hallenbeck’s approach come through. Taking the positives first he expertly draws together and selects from the existing and ever-expanding literature (the aforementioned Meikle, Richard Klemensen’s long-running Little Shoppe of Horrors fanzine, Dr Wayne Kinsey’s Bray and Elstree Years volumes, Marcus Hearn’s various ‘official’ studies; Jimmy Sangster’s autobiography, etc., etc.). Hallenbeck also skilfully addresses various facets of the film’s production, distribution, reception, and influence, placing each in their specific and general contexts. In so doing he also crucially manages to give his own critical perspective upon the film. I would argue that it is this that is so vital when dealing with something as well known as the Hammer Frankensteins. This in turn relates to the main failing of the book, if it can be called a failing, namely the extreme difficulty of bringing something new to bear without spending ever greater and less productive amounts of time in the archives or lazily invoking and applying capital-T type Theory.
Against the former – “Do I contradict myself? / Very well then I contradict myself, / (I am large, I contain multitudes.)” to cite Walt Whitman – it should also be considered that the various reproductions of (often annotated or crossed out) key pages from scripts are a delight.
Hallenbeck’s next chapter, on the abortive US television series attempted in between Curse of Frankenstein and its sequel, is perhaps more interesting for the Hammer aficionado. This is partly because its subject is less familiar, partly because ideas first mooted here would be Frankensteined and given new life in some of the later films.
The third and fourth chapters, on The Revenge of Frankenstein and The Evil of Frankenstein, prove similarly strong. Hallenbeck adjudges Revenge superior to its predecessor as a sequel and steers a course between the Scylla and Charibdis of the US/pro-Universal and UK/pro-Hammer camps with regard to the latter, the only entry in the main cycle to be directed by someone other than Terence Fisher.
Turning to Frankenstein Created Woman, Hallenbeck usefully brings out how Fisher’s return was combined with stylistic and thematic innovations, in the director’s modish use of the hand held-camera and the hitherto scientific-materialist Frankenstein now experimenting with the transplantation of the soul. He also notes how the lab sets were less impressive than those of the preceding film, nicely illustrating how low-budget filmmaking is always a creative compromise.
This is also the case when it comes to the final Hammer Frankenstein, where the enclosed spaces of the insane asylum in which Frankenstein now lives and works help connote the sense of diminishing returns that, ironically, echoed the studio’s fortunes (or, rather, lack thereof) at the time.
Overall, a worthy addition to anyone’s Hammer library.
Monday, 17 January 2011
Stop, Look, Listen!
The PIF (Public Information Film) is one of my favourite types of paracinema. These were films made in the UK between the 1940s and the present, whose purpose is to inform and educate the public, or specific sections of it, on what to do and not do. Many PIF’s were made by the Central Office of Information (COI) although others were made by industrial and other bodies. They would be shown in classrooms, workplaces and on television. The approach was basically do what you are told or you will suffer and/or die.
This BFI collection focuses on safety-based COI productions. It includes some of the longer versions of the form, running to around 25-30 minutes, as well as some shorter examples in the 40 second or minute long range. What it lacks in numerical quantity compared to the two Charley Says volumes it thereby gains in focus. On balance the quality of the PIFs presented is probably higher as well. Certainly the quality of the presentations is an improvement, with the films having been extensively restored. It could also be said, however, that this might not reflect the way in which many will have experienced these films in the classroom, with a scratchy, beat-up 16mm print.
Besides their kitsch, camp and nostalgia values for those of a certain age – you know who you are – the films are of interest for the talent involved and, of course, as sources of socio-cultural insight into the past.
Three of the filmmakers stand out: John Mackenzie, Robert Young and John Krish. Interestingly they came at the PIF from opposite directions. Mackenzie and Young were fiction filmmakers in the first instance. Mackenzie, most famous for The Long Good Friday, had shot various television dramas, while Young helmed Vampire Circus. (A British-horror connection is also present on Never Go with Strangers, with Elizabeth Luytens scoring and Philip Martell conducting; whether coincidentally or otherwise Luytens also scored the similarly themed Hammer production Never Take Sweets from a Stranger) Krish, by contrast, was a veteran documentarian.
Mackenzie’s contribution is Apaches, a notorious 1977 entry about the dangers of playing on a farm. Six children play at being Apaches and die off one by one in an And Then There Were None crossed with the Gashleycrumb Tinies sort of way: One falls under the wheels of a tractor, another drowns in a slurry pit, a third unwisely drinks poison and so on. After the last child – the narrator – has died, the credits give a roll-call of real children who had died down on the farm in the past year – a device that is also used in another of the featured PIF’s, Building Sites Bite.
Horror film dynamics in Apaches
Sadly, however, the compilation doesn’t include Mackenzie’s early 1980s stranger danger PIF Say No to Strangers.
Young is represented via 20 Times More Likely, whose title comes from the fact that motorcyclists are 20 times more likely to be killed in an accident than a car driver. Aimed at young learner motorcyclists, the film features Gillian “Eastenders” Tayforth (she had earlier appeared in another PIF about the dangers of messing about with fireworks) and a with-it punk soundtrack.
Krish contributes another road safety entry with Drive Safely Darling, featuring a young Colin “Sixth Dr Who” Baker and a suitably disturbing ending that plays a bit like HAL’s death in 2001 (“Brain to eyes... brain to eyes!”) and the fire safety Searching, in which the camera disturbingly prowls through the remnants of a burnt-out house.
Krish’s masterpiece The Finishing Line is, however, not included, on account of its being a British Transport Films rather than COI production.
Other high points include the Spirit of Dark and Lonely Water, in which Donald Pleasance provides the voice of the titular spirit who drowns unaware and foolish children, and the self-explanatory and aforementioned and equally nightmare-inducing Never Go with Strangers.
Shock animation to convey some nonce-sense to children in Never Go with Strangers
Highly recommended
This BFI collection focuses on safety-based COI productions. It includes some of the longer versions of the form, running to around 25-30 minutes, as well as some shorter examples in the 40 second or minute long range. What it lacks in numerical quantity compared to the two Charley Says volumes it thereby gains in focus. On balance the quality of the PIFs presented is probably higher as well. Certainly the quality of the presentations is an improvement, with the films having been extensively restored. It could also be said, however, that this might not reflect the way in which many will have experienced these films in the classroom, with a scratchy, beat-up 16mm print.
Besides their kitsch, camp and nostalgia values for those of a certain age – you know who you are – the films are of interest for the talent involved and, of course, as sources of socio-cultural insight into the past.
Three of the filmmakers stand out: John Mackenzie, Robert Young and John Krish. Interestingly they came at the PIF from opposite directions. Mackenzie and Young were fiction filmmakers in the first instance. Mackenzie, most famous for The Long Good Friday, had shot various television dramas, while Young helmed Vampire Circus. (A British-horror connection is also present on Never Go with Strangers, with Elizabeth Luytens scoring and Philip Martell conducting; whether coincidentally or otherwise Luytens also scored the similarly themed Hammer production Never Take Sweets from a Stranger) Krish, by contrast, was a veteran documentarian.
Mackenzie’s contribution is Apaches, a notorious 1977 entry about the dangers of playing on a farm. Six children play at being Apaches and die off one by one in an And Then There Were None crossed with the Gashleycrumb Tinies sort of way: One falls under the wheels of a tractor, another drowns in a slurry pit, a third unwisely drinks poison and so on. After the last child – the narrator – has died, the credits give a roll-call of real children who had died down on the farm in the past year – a device that is also used in another of the featured PIF’s, Building Sites Bite.
Horror film dynamics in Apaches
Sadly, however, the compilation doesn’t include Mackenzie’s early 1980s stranger danger PIF Say No to Strangers.
Young is represented via 20 Times More Likely, whose title comes from the fact that motorcyclists are 20 times more likely to be killed in an accident than a car driver. Aimed at young learner motorcyclists, the film features Gillian “Eastenders” Tayforth (she had earlier appeared in another PIF about the dangers of messing about with fireworks) and a with-it punk soundtrack.
Krish contributes another road safety entry with Drive Safely Darling, featuring a young Colin “Sixth Dr Who” Baker and a suitably disturbing ending that plays a bit like HAL’s death in 2001 (“Brain to eyes... brain to eyes!”) and the fire safety Searching, in which the camera disturbingly prowls through the remnants of a burnt-out house.
Krish’s masterpiece The Finishing Line is, however, not included, on account of its being a British Transport Films rather than COI production.
Other high points include the Spirit of Dark and Lonely Water, in which Donald Pleasance provides the voice of the titular spirit who drowns unaware and foolish children, and the self-explanatory and aforementioned and equally nightmare-inducing Never Go with Strangers.
Shock animation to convey some nonce-sense to children in Never Go with Strangers
Highly recommended
Friday, 14 January 2011
Love Thy Neighbour
If you ever want to annoy a Hammer fan, one of the surest ways to do so is draw attention to their comedy product from the early 1970s and the fact that it was these films, more than the better known Gothics, which sustained the company for a few more years thanks to their box office success.
The horror, the horror...
This, moreover, was despite attracting absolutely no positive critical attention and an inherently smaller market due to UK television sitcom spin-offs having absolutely no prospect of US distribution.
Seen today, however, there is an obvious difference between Hammer’s horror output, especially in the Bray Studios period, and their comedy work. For while the best of the horror films manage to be both aesthetic and sociologically interesting, the comedies are only worth looking at symptomatically for what they reveal about British culture and society of the time. They are visually flat and largely devoid of style. As 90 minute films based on 30 minute sitcoms they also tend to be quite weak at the structural and narrative levels.
The themes of gender, class, race, and sexuality are however much the same across the generic divide, although the specifics obviously vary film by film. In this instance race is primary and class secondary with the other two hardly featuring at all.
This is a reflection of the source material. For the situation in Love thy Neighbour is one of two couples, one black and the other white, living next door to one another. While the two women, Barbie and Joan, get on well enough, their respective husbands, Bill and Eddie, are at loggerheads.
What makes things interesting here, however, is the way in which race and class intersect. Bill is more (aspiring to become) middle class and a Conservative supporter, while Eddie is working class and a Labour supporter. From a present-day perspective, however, his politics, as expressed in language – lots of use of racist epithets like Sambo and Nig-Nog – and deeds – including painting racist graffiti on Bill and Barbie’s front door and windows – seem more like the things an extreme right-winger would get up to.
Simultaneously, however, the film also significantly indicates that racial prejudice is not exclusively confined to whites, albeit generally with Bill responding to Eddie rather than initiating things. The film also clearly raises the subject in order to attempt at least some sort of critique, however unsatisfactory it may be to today’s sensibilities. In this regard it’s also worth noting that Eddie clearly has designs on Barbie. Love – or at least lust – see no colour, indeed.
The male gaze #271
Given all of this, the most awkward aspect of Love thy Neighbour is probably one of the incidental details, in the form of a white man in brownface wearing a towel-type turban and affecting an 'Indian' accent.
It ain't half racist mum
Fans of Hammer’s horror output might just about justify a viewing on the basis of a scene in which Bill and some of the other black workers make it look like they are going to cook and eat Eddie.
What's cooking?
The horror, the horror...
This, moreover, was despite attracting absolutely no positive critical attention and an inherently smaller market due to UK television sitcom spin-offs having absolutely no prospect of US distribution.
Seen today, however, there is an obvious difference between Hammer’s horror output, especially in the Bray Studios period, and their comedy work. For while the best of the horror films manage to be both aesthetic and sociologically interesting, the comedies are only worth looking at symptomatically for what they reveal about British culture and society of the time. They are visually flat and largely devoid of style. As 90 minute films based on 30 minute sitcoms they also tend to be quite weak at the structural and narrative levels.
The themes of gender, class, race, and sexuality are however much the same across the generic divide, although the specifics obviously vary film by film. In this instance race is primary and class secondary with the other two hardly featuring at all.
This is a reflection of the source material. For the situation in Love thy Neighbour is one of two couples, one black and the other white, living next door to one another. While the two women, Barbie and Joan, get on well enough, their respective husbands, Bill and Eddie, are at loggerheads.
What makes things interesting here, however, is the way in which race and class intersect. Bill is more (aspiring to become) middle class and a Conservative supporter, while Eddie is working class and a Labour supporter. From a present-day perspective, however, his politics, as expressed in language – lots of use of racist epithets like Sambo and Nig-Nog – and deeds – including painting racist graffiti on Bill and Barbie’s front door and windows – seem more like the things an extreme right-winger would get up to.
Simultaneously, however, the film also significantly indicates that racial prejudice is not exclusively confined to whites, albeit generally with Bill responding to Eddie rather than initiating things. The film also clearly raises the subject in order to attempt at least some sort of critique, however unsatisfactory it may be to today’s sensibilities. In this regard it’s also worth noting that Eddie clearly has designs on Barbie. Love – or at least lust – see no colour, indeed.
The male gaze #271
Given all of this, the most awkward aspect of Love thy Neighbour is probably one of the incidental details, in the form of a white man in brownface wearing a towel-type turban and affecting an 'Indian' accent.
It ain't half racist mum
Fans of Hammer’s horror output might just about justify a viewing on the basis of a scene in which Bill and some of the other black workers make it look like they are going to cook and eat Eddie.
What's cooking?
Sunday, 12 December 2010
Hammer Films: The Unsung Heroes
The volume of publications in recent years on Hammer films is such that you might well wonder whether any more are needed.
Wayne Kinsey has, however, established himself as one of the most talented writers in this crowded field, first with his long-running House that Hammer Built fanzine and latterly Bray and Elstree Studio Years volumes (also published by studio specialists Tomahawk).
As the structuring principle of these indicate, Kinsey’s main strength lies not so much in discussing what is on screen – though this is not to say that he is in any way inadequate as a critic/reviewer – as in looking behind the scenes, at the ins-and-outs of the productions.
This is an approach he has continued here, as he concentrates not upon the films and their main casts, but upon those behind the camera, ranging from the more likes of directors, screenwriters and cinematographers all the way down to the likes of carpenters and props buyers; some appearing on screen, including recurring stuntmen and extras are also profiled.
A number of those featured are not exactly unsung. Indeed, this is attested to by the likes of Kinsey’s conversational-style profile of director Terence Fisher (1904-1980), with its plentiful use of quotations from interviews from the 1960s and 1970s.
Nevertheless, if figures like director Freddie Francis, writer/director Jimmy Sangster, composer James Bernard, and make-up man Roy Ashton (himself subject of another volume from Tomahawk, Greasepaint and Gore) and the information on them, are comparatively familiar to fans of the studio, it is still good for this to all be compiled in one place and placed within a wider context.
Most of those profiled across the span of the book’s near 500 pages are, however, very much unsung. To give a few names at random: Production manager John ‘Pinky’ Green? Art director Ted Marshall? Renee Glynn, responsible for continuity? Effects man Sydney Pearson? Being honest, the only one I could place prior to reading was Glynn.
If you like Hammer – or, indeed, are interested in British cinema from the 1950s to 1970s – you need this book, which not only tells you who did what at Hammer but paints a vivid picture of this time and place in filmmaking more generally.
Wayne Kinsey has, however, established himself as one of the most talented writers in this crowded field, first with his long-running House that Hammer Built fanzine and latterly Bray and Elstree Studio Years volumes (also published by studio specialists Tomahawk).
As the structuring principle of these indicate, Kinsey’s main strength lies not so much in discussing what is on screen – though this is not to say that he is in any way inadequate as a critic/reviewer – as in looking behind the scenes, at the ins-and-outs of the productions.
This is an approach he has continued here, as he concentrates not upon the films and their main casts, but upon those behind the camera, ranging from the more likes of directors, screenwriters and cinematographers all the way down to the likes of carpenters and props buyers; some appearing on screen, including recurring stuntmen and extras are also profiled.
A number of those featured are not exactly unsung. Indeed, this is attested to by the likes of Kinsey’s conversational-style profile of director Terence Fisher (1904-1980), with its plentiful use of quotations from interviews from the 1960s and 1970s.
Nevertheless, if figures like director Freddie Francis, writer/director Jimmy Sangster, composer James Bernard, and make-up man Roy Ashton (himself subject of another volume from Tomahawk, Greasepaint and Gore) and the information on them, are comparatively familiar to fans of the studio, it is still good for this to all be compiled in one place and placed within a wider context.
Most of those profiled across the span of the book’s near 500 pages are, however, very much unsung. To give a few names at random: Production manager John ‘Pinky’ Green? Art director Ted Marshall? Renee Glynn, responsible for continuity? Effects man Sydney Pearson? Being honest, the only one I could place prior to reading was Glynn.
If you like Hammer – or, indeed, are interested in British cinema from the 1950s to 1970s – you need this book, which not only tells you who did what at Hammer but paints a vivid picture of this time and place in filmmaking more generally.
Last Bus to Bray: The Unfilmed Hammer
These two volumes, the first covering up to 1970 and the second from then to the present, are the classic “Curate’s Egg”: Good in places.
The good is the information they provide.
Basically, if you are a Hammer aficionado then you want these. Order them now and come back and read the rest of the review later.
The not so good is the writing and production.
A degree of leeway can obviously be given to any small press or self-published work. But there also comes a point where the number of typographical, grammatical, spelling and other errors becomes a serious hindrance to reading. Last Bus to Bray comes close to it. [I make no great claims about my own writings here, but then they are free.]
Unfortunately the layout and the poor quality of the reproductions (many rare, albeit sometimes reproduced from earlier publications) push it close to being beyond a pleasurable read, even for the fan.
As one such, I had long been intrigued by the way in which the studio would commission poster art for prospective films, in some cases prior to having a script written or any real pre-production work, as a means of gauging the interest in them and thereby their commercial viability. What remains less clear, however, is how far this was particular to Hammer.
Author Glen Davies does a fine job in going through the archives and sifting out those productions which were real possibilities, as distinct from those, especially in the 1970s and beyond, which were merely figments of over-enthusiasm or self-delusion.
What is lacking is much sense of how the unfilmed Hammer compares to the unfilmed output of other studios, especially genre specialists of the time. Did Tigon and Amicus likewise have all manner of possible projects, particularly in the the early and mid-1970s, a period when the British film industry as a whole was in crisis? Or was there something special about Hammer that meant they tended to attract more interest – or, indeed, be able to attract that bit more interest?
The dominant picture that emerges, reinforcing that of earlier studies, is one of a basic tension at the heart of the studio. Long-term studio head James Carreras was a hard-headed businessman. He felt no particular attraction to horror, but was happy to concentrate the company’s efforts upon the genre, as long as they remained profitable. His son Michael was more artistically inclined. He was keen to diversify the company’s output away from horror – or, in actuality, back to the more varied kind output they had produced prior to the success of The Quatermass Xperiment, The Curse of Frankenstein and Dracula.
With Michael Carreras’s own attempts at non-horror productions generally failing, he was compelled to come back to his father’s studio with his tail between his legs. The rift with his father, however, was perhaps never really to be healed, with James Carreras not handing over the business in a family way but instead almost selling it to an old rival before his son bought him out.
But by this time the Hammer = Horror association was also one which was proving problematic, in that the kind of horror Hammer were associated with was ever more passé.
This tension is one that would remain: On the one hand, the very fact that there can be a publication like this attests to the brand value attached to the name. On the other hand, this brand value remains associated with a particular kind of horror that belongs in the past.
The history of abortive Hammer revivals in the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s proves telling in this regard.
So, indeed, does the discourse around the recent remake of Let the Right One In. Depending on who is asking the question and who is answering its Hammer associations may be played up or not mentioned. Regardless, it seems fair to describe it as a Hammer film in name only – and indeed, only those who care about such things.
The good is the information they provide.
Basically, if you are a Hammer aficionado then you want these. Order them now and come back and read the rest of the review later.
The not so good is the writing and production.
A degree of leeway can obviously be given to any small press or self-published work. But there also comes a point where the number of typographical, grammatical, spelling and other errors becomes a serious hindrance to reading. Last Bus to Bray comes close to it. [I make no great claims about my own writings here, but then they are free.]
Unfortunately the layout and the poor quality of the reproductions (many rare, albeit sometimes reproduced from earlier publications) push it close to being beyond a pleasurable read, even for the fan.
As one such, I had long been intrigued by the way in which the studio would commission poster art for prospective films, in some cases prior to having a script written or any real pre-production work, as a means of gauging the interest in them and thereby their commercial viability. What remains less clear, however, is how far this was particular to Hammer.
Author Glen Davies does a fine job in going through the archives and sifting out those productions which were real possibilities, as distinct from those, especially in the 1970s and beyond, which were merely figments of over-enthusiasm or self-delusion.
What is lacking is much sense of how the unfilmed Hammer compares to the unfilmed output of other studios, especially genre specialists of the time. Did Tigon and Amicus likewise have all manner of possible projects, particularly in the the early and mid-1970s, a period when the British film industry as a whole was in crisis? Or was there something special about Hammer that meant they tended to attract more interest – or, indeed, be able to attract that bit more interest?
The dominant picture that emerges, reinforcing that of earlier studies, is one of a basic tension at the heart of the studio. Long-term studio head James Carreras was a hard-headed businessman. He felt no particular attraction to horror, but was happy to concentrate the company’s efforts upon the genre, as long as they remained profitable. His son Michael was more artistically inclined. He was keen to diversify the company’s output away from horror – or, in actuality, back to the more varied kind output they had produced prior to the success of The Quatermass Xperiment, The Curse of Frankenstein and Dracula.
With Michael Carreras’s own attempts at non-horror productions generally failing, he was compelled to come back to his father’s studio with his tail between his legs. The rift with his father, however, was perhaps never really to be healed, with James Carreras not handing over the business in a family way but instead almost selling it to an old rival before his son bought him out.
But by this time the Hammer = Horror association was also one which was proving problematic, in that the kind of horror Hammer were associated with was ever more passé.
This tension is one that would remain: On the one hand, the very fact that there can be a publication like this attests to the brand value attached to the name. On the other hand, this brand value remains associated with a particular kind of horror that belongs in the past.
The history of abortive Hammer revivals in the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s proves telling in this regard.
So, indeed, does the discourse around the recent remake of Let the Right One In. Depending on who is asking the question and who is answering its Hammer associations may be played up or not mentioned. Regardless, it seems fair to describe it as a Hammer film in name only – and indeed, only those who care about such things.
Friday, 26 November 2010
The Hammer Vampire
Written by Bruce Hallenbeck and released as part of Hemlock’s ongoing Hemlock Film series, this 2010 publication analyses the Hammer vampire in its various manifestations from 1958’s Dracula through to 1974’s The Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires.
The films are discussed chronologically and thematically across six main chapters, with a prologue and epilogue bookending things by outlining the pre-Hammer situation and post-Hammer developments respectively.
The first chapter, entitled The Terrifying Lover, looks at Dracula and The Brides of Dracula. The second, The Nature of the Beast, encompasses Kiss of the Vampire and Dracula: Prince of Darkness. The third, The Vampire as Antichrist, examines Taste the Blood of Dracula, Dracula has Risen from the Grave and The Scars of Dracula. The fourth, Sin, Sex and Sadism, focuses on The Vampire Lovers, Lust for a Vampire and Twins of Evil. The fifth, The Vampire in Society, discusses Dracula AD 1972 and The Satanic Rites of Dracula. The final chapter, Variations on a Theme, looks at Countess Dracula, Vampire Circus, Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter and Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires.
I didn’t always find these groupings convincing on account of the overlaps and interconnections between films in some of them – the reworking of Brides of Dracula’s planned climax for Kiss of the Vampire; the way in which Dracula’s resurrection in Prince of Darkness (and, indeed, that subtitle) already position the character as antichrist; or the vague Karnstein references that were in Captain Kronos’s script at one point.
I was however convinced by Hallenbeck’s overall thesis. This is that over the course of 15 or so years Hammer’s films went from radical to reactionary in their treatments of the vampire myth. This is conveyed not only through a consideration of the pre- and post-Hammer vampire films but also those films whose releases run parallel to them.
Simply put something like 1970’s The Loves of Count Iorga Vampire would not have been possible without Hammer, whilst at the same time they themselves were struggling to come to terms with the new more sexually (and, on occasion, politically) explicit films they had given rise to.
He is also particularly good at challenging some of Christopher Lee’s more exaggerated and self-defensive claims as cases he protesteth too much: It appears not so much to have been that Lee refused to say anything in Dracula: Prince of Darkness as that Jimmy Sangster had not written any lines for Dracula. Similarly, Lee’s constant protests to Hammer about his remuneration seems as much a negotiating strategy or ritual as anything else.
In the end, I think the value of Hallenbeck’s book will depend on where you fit as a Hammer fan: If you are a completist, like me, then you obviously need it. If you are a selective completist or on a limited budget, then you might find that too much of the material overlaps with what you already have by the likes of Wayne Kinsey. If you are neither of these then it is weighing up the volume’s more detailed discussion of its subject against the absence of other subjects. Of course, the Hammer = Horror association also likely means that you are not aware of many of these selfsame subjects.
This itself actually leads to a question: Can we ever expect to see an in-depth study of Hammer’s non-horror films, either as a whole or by genre in the same way? Will Hemlock do 'British Cult Cinema: The Hammer Comedy' at some point in the future?
Whatever the answer, Hallenbeck’s book is well-written, informative and does what it sets out to.
The films are discussed chronologically and thematically across six main chapters, with a prologue and epilogue bookending things by outlining the pre-Hammer situation and post-Hammer developments respectively.
The first chapter, entitled The Terrifying Lover, looks at Dracula and The Brides of Dracula. The second, The Nature of the Beast, encompasses Kiss of the Vampire and Dracula: Prince of Darkness. The third, The Vampire as Antichrist, examines Taste the Blood of Dracula, Dracula has Risen from the Grave and The Scars of Dracula. The fourth, Sin, Sex and Sadism, focuses on The Vampire Lovers, Lust for a Vampire and Twins of Evil. The fifth, The Vampire in Society, discusses Dracula AD 1972 and The Satanic Rites of Dracula. The final chapter, Variations on a Theme, looks at Countess Dracula, Vampire Circus, Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter and Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires.
I didn’t always find these groupings convincing on account of the overlaps and interconnections between films in some of them – the reworking of Brides of Dracula’s planned climax for Kiss of the Vampire; the way in which Dracula’s resurrection in Prince of Darkness (and, indeed, that subtitle) already position the character as antichrist; or the vague Karnstein references that were in Captain Kronos’s script at one point.
I was however convinced by Hallenbeck’s overall thesis. This is that over the course of 15 or so years Hammer’s films went from radical to reactionary in their treatments of the vampire myth. This is conveyed not only through a consideration of the pre- and post-Hammer vampire films but also those films whose releases run parallel to them.
Simply put something like 1970’s The Loves of Count Iorga Vampire would not have been possible without Hammer, whilst at the same time they themselves were struggling to come to terms with the new more sexually (and, on occasion, politically) explicit films they had given rise to.
He is also particularly good at challenging some of Christopher Lee’s more exaggerated and self-defensive claims as cases he protesteth too much: It appears not so much to have been that Lee refused to say anything in Dracula: Prince of Darkness as that Jimmy Sangster had not written any lines for Dracula. Similarly, Lee’s constant protests to Hammer about his remuneration seems as much a negotiating strategy or ritual as anything else.
In the end, I think the value of Hallenbeck’s book will depend on where you fit as a Hammer fan: If you are a completist, like me, then you obviously need it. If you are a selective completist or on a limited budget, then you might find that too much of the material overlaps with what you already have by the likes of Wayne Kinsey. If you are neither of these then it is weighing up the volume’s more detailed discussion of its subject against the absence of other subjects. Of course, the Hammer = Horror association also likely means that you are not aware of many of these selfsame subjects.
This itself actually leads to a question: Can we ever expect to see an in-depth study of Hammer’s non-horror films, either as a whole or by genre in the same way? Will Hemlock do 'British Cult Cinema: The Hammer Comedy' at some point in the future?
Whatever the answer, Hallenbeck’s book is well-written, informative and does what it sets out to.
Tuesday, 23 November 2010
Farewell Ingrid
Another of the Hammer greats becomes one of the late greats :-(
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-11823418
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-11823418
Monday, 25 October 2010
The Art of Hammer
This new book from Titan presents a lavishly illustrated guide to the art of Hammer film posters from the days of Exclusive in the early 1950s – examples of work from the 1930s are understandably hardest to come by – through to the company’s last theatrical release at the time of printing, 1979’s The Lady Vanishes.
All told more than 300 posters are reproduced, with the designs on display drawn from the UK, US and various other places around the world. France, Belgium and Italy are particularly well represented, though there are also a number of posters from Poland, Japan and Australia as well.
Though primarily something to browse through and admire, an introductory essay usefully identifies some of the main names amongst the company’s British artists. These include the likes of Bill Wiggins, who worked on the founding trinity of The Curse of Frankenstein, Dracula and The Mummy in the late 1950s, and Tom Chantrell, responsible for many of the company’s most iconic UK posters of the 1960s. (The prolific Chantrell is probably most famous for doing the UK Star Wars poster, which as author Marcus Hearn notes, was the only one to feature Peter Cushing.)
The descriptions accompanying individual posters also highlight points of wider interest, like the increasing use of DayGlo inks in the mid-1960s; the controversy over the original UK The Camp on Blood Island poster with its monstrous looking Japanese soldier and “Jap War Crimes Exposed” strapline; the Warhol inspired pop-art leanings of certain US artists; and the existence of folded and rolled versions of the UK Dracula Has Risen from the Grave poster, with the latter being given away to fans and thus more readily available and presumably carrying a lower price premium.
Also worth noting are the frequent differences in the translated titles, graphic elements and emphases of the posters prepared by national distributors and those of Hammer for the domestic market. For instance, the Danish Brides of Dracula poster came from actor David Peel’s personal collection and was apparently the only one to give him higher billing than Peter Cushing, whilst in Italy Hands of the Ripper was distributed as Barbara: The Monster of London.
Such examples also highlight the rarity value of many of the posters reproduced, even for the Hammer fan such as myself: While trawls on Ebay have certainly made many of those present more familiar than they would have been even ten years ago, I had never seen the likes of the Polish One Million Years BC or the Romanian The Hound of the Baskervilles posters, and doubt that many outwith these territories would have done so until now.
Recommended for fans of the studio, though those fixated solely on its horror output should note that just as much weight is given – correctly in my opinion – to showcasing the diversity of its releases, and anyone with an interest in cinema ephemera.
All told more than 300 posters are reproduced, with the designs on display drawn from the UK, US and various other places around the world. France, Belgium and Italy are particularly well represented, though there are also a number of posters from Poland, Japan and Australia as well.
Though primarily something to browse through and admire, an introductory essay usefully identifies some of the main names amongst the company’s British artists. These include the likes of Bill Wiggins, who worked on the founding trinity of The Curse of Frankenstein, Dracula and The Mummy in the late 1950s, and Tom Chantrell, responsible for many of the company’s most iconic UK posters of the 1960s. (The prolific Chantrell is probably most famous for doing the UK Star Wars poster, which as author Marcus Hearn notes, was the only one to feature Peter Cushing.)
The descriptions accompanying individual posters also highlight points of wider interest, like the increasing use of DayGlo inks in the mid-1960s; the controversy over the original UK The Camp on Blood Island poster with its monstrous looking Japanese soldier and “Jap War Crimes Exposed” strapline; the Warhol inspired pop-art leanings of certain US artists; and the existence of folded and rolled versions of the UK Dracula Has Risen from the Grave poster, with the latter being given away to fans and thus more readily available and presumably carrying a lower price premium.
Also worth noting are the frequent differences in the translated titles, graphic elements and emphases of the posters prepared by national distributors and those of Hammer for the domestic market. For instance, the Danish Brides of Dracula poster came from actor David Peel’s personal collection and was apparently the only one to give him higher billing than Peter Cushing, whilst in Italy Hands of the Ripper was distributed as Barbara: The Monster of London.
Such examples also highlight the rarity value of many of the posters reproduced, even for the Hammer fan such as myself: While trawls on Ebay have certainly made many of those present more familiar than they would have been even ten years ago, I had never seen the likes of the Polish One Million Years BC or the Romanian The Hound of the Baskervilles posters, and doubt that many outwith these territories would have done so until now.
Recommended for fans of the studio, though those fixated solely on its horror output should note that just as much weight is given – correctly in my opinion – to showcasing the diversity of its releases, and anyone with an interest in cinema ephemera.
Friday, 22 October 2010
The Quatermass Experiment
Or [pedant]it is The Quatermass Xperiment[/pedant] if we are talking about the film, as this is.
As in these things matter, especially in 'cult'; in this case, that Hammer put the emphasis on the X certificate through their alternative spelling, that this was not something the audiences of the time were going to get on BBC television.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b007y4fk/The_Quatermass_Experiment/
As in these things matter, especially in 'cult'; in this case, that Hammer put the emphasis on the X certificate through their alternative spelling, that this was not something the audiences of the time were going to get on BBC television.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b007y4fk/The_Quatermass_Experiment/
Friday, 8 October 2010
RIP Roy Ward Baker
A sad farewell to British film director Roy Ward Baker, director of A Night to Remember and numerous Hammer and Amicus films, including Quatermass and the Pit, The Anniversary, Moon Zero Two, The Vampire Lovers, Asylum, And Now the Screaming Starts..., Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires and Dr Jekyll and Sister Hyde.
One of those no-nonsense professionals that rarely get the respect they deserve.
One of those no-nonsense professionals that rarely get the respect they deserve.
Tuesday, 20 July 2010
Save Bray Studios
Bray Studios, Hammer's home studio for The Curse of Frankenstein, Dracula, The Mummy and many others, is under threat of being demolished:
http://braystudios.blogspot.com/
http://braystudios.blogspot.com/
Sunday, 18 July 2010
Saturday, 26 June 2010
Programming a rare Hammer season
If you were programming a six-film season of rare, non-horror Hammer intended to showcase the diversity of the studio's output, what would you show?
The films need to be of decent quality able to appeal to a general audience, so the 1970s sitcom adaptations are out, though something like Up the Creek or Further up the Creek may not be.
I'm currently thinking of six from this lot, probably the starred ones:
Yesterday’s Enemy*
Hell is a City*
Taste of Fear
The Damned*
Never Take Candy from a Stranger*
Cash on Demand*
Night Creatures*
The Nanny
The Lost Continent
Moon Zero Two
Straight on Till Morning
The films need to be of decent quality able to appeal to a general audience, so the 1970s sitcom adaptations are out, though something like Up the Creek or Further up the Creek may not be.
I'm currently thinking of six from this lot, probably the starred ones:
Yesterday’s Enemy*
Hell is a City*
Taste of Fear
The Damned*
Never Take Candy from a Stranger*
Cash on Demand*
Night Creatures*
The Nanny
The Lost Continent
Moon Zero Two
Straight on Till Morning
Monday, 27 July 2009
Dr Blood's Coffin
Or another film this month to link to Konga.
The first, and most obvious, point of connection is that we have yet another arrogant mad, bad and dangerous to know scientist meddling in things really best left alone, in this case the unfortunately named Dr Blood (Kieran Moore).
The second, and less obvious, is that the other monster – or the monster-as-victim rather than the real monster – in each film is played by Paul Stockman, who filled the ape suit there and is here buried beneath a layer of zombie-type.
The story begins with Dr Peter Blood getting thrown out of the prestigious Vienna medical school after he caught carrying out some organ transplantation experiments, of the sort that definitely wouldn’t pass an ethics board by his mentor, Professor Luckman (Paul Hardtmuth).
Returning home to the sleepy Cornish village of Port Carron, where his father, Dr Ian Blood, is the local GP, Dr Blood junior secretly sets up a laboratory in some abandoned mines nearby and starts looking for new experimental subjects and material amongst the local populace; in Peter’s eyes anyone inferior to himself and other geniuses is fair game.
He also finds time to start romancing the pretty and recently widowed Nurse Linda Parker (Hazel Court), [spoiler alert] who doesn’t realize that Peter has been experimenting with her deceased husband and would like to eventually re-introduce them to one another… [/spoiler alert]
Obviously inspired by Hammer’s The Curse of Frankenstein, in which actors Hardtmuth and Court appeared as brain donor and love interest respectively, Dr Blood’s Coffin is nevertheless distinctive enough in various ways to be of interest for the British horror fan.
Baron Frankenstein is someone whose experiments are usually sound but are compromised by the uncomprehending, traditional 19th century society around him.
Dr Blood is someone who talks a good game, whose experiments failing because of his own inadequacies, with modern society comprehending his experiments and their Nazi heritage all too well.
Related to such distinctions, one of the more unusual aspects of the film is its use of colour. As a number of commentators have argued, British horror films of the late 1950s and early 1960s often exhibited a divide here that could not be explained purely on budgetary or aesthetic grounds.
Contemporary-set films often used black and white whereas their historically set counterparts used colour. It's been argued that the combination of colour and the contemporary was too close to home, or the lived reality of the audience and that this helps explain, for example, the acceptance of Hammer's early psycho thrillers compared to the rejection of Peeping Tom.
While there's probably more to it than this, insofar as this period saw a profound change in the semiotics of colour and black and white film, with the previously established fantasy / spectacle and reality / documentary connotations undergoing something of a reversal, it is a useful starting point for a more developed year-by-year analysis of the contemporary critical responses to individual texts.
Another intertextual point is the setting, with its affinities with the later Hammer Plague of the Zombies. Ironically, however, Peter's use of curare to induce a coma state indistinguisable from death, perhaps comes closer to the origins of the voodoo zombie than the black magic using Squire Hamilton. Both, however, clearly point to a return of the (colonial or foreign) repressed, of bad things being brought back to England from abroad.
Nic Roeg was camera operator, while Hammer men Les Bowie, Scott MacGregor and Philip Martell performed FX, production design and conductor duties respectively; the score itself, by Buxton Orr, is pretty good.
The first, and most obvious, point of connection is that we have yet another arrogant mad, bad and dangerous to know scientist meddling in things really best left alone, in this case the unfortunately named Dr Blood (Kieran Moore).
The second, and less obvious, is that the other monster – or the monster-as-victim rather than the real monster – in each film is played by Paul Stockman, who filled the ape suit there and is here buried beneath a layer of zombie-type.
The story begins with Dr Peter Blood getting thrown out of the prestigious Vienna medical school after he caught carrying out some organ transplantation experiments, of the sort that definitely wouldn’t pass an ethics board by his mentor, Professor Luckman (Paul Hardtmuth).
Returning home to the sleepy Cornish village of Port Carron, where his father, Dr Ian Blood, is the local GP, Dr Blood junior secretly sets up a laboratory in some abandoned mines nearby and starts looking for new experimental subjects and material amongst the local populace; in Peter’s eyes anyone inferior to himself and other geniuses is fair game.
He also finds time to start romancing the pretty and recently widowed Nurse Linda Parker (Hazel Court), [spoiler alert] who doesn’t realize that Peter has been experimenting with her deceased husband and would like to eventually re-introduce them to one another… [/spoiler alert]
Obviously inspired by Hammer’s The Curse of Frankenstein, in which actors Hardtmuth and Court appeared as brain donor and love interest respectively, Dr Blood’s Coffin is nevertheless distinctive enough in various ways to be of interest for the British horror fan.
Baron Frankenstein is someone whose experiments are usually sound but are compromised by the uncomprehending, traditional 19th century society around him.
Dr Blood is someone who talks a good game, whose experiments failing because of his own inadequacies, with modern society comprehending his experiments and their Nazi heritage all too well.
Related to such distinctions, one of the more unusual aspects of the film is its use of colour. As a number of commentators have argued, British horror films of the late 1950s and early 1960s often exhibited a divide here that could not be explained purely on budgetary or aesthetic grounds.
Contemporary-set films often used black and white whereas their historically set counterparts used colour. It's been argued that the combination of colour and the contemporary was too close to home, or the lived reality of the audience and that this helps explain, for example, the acceptance of Hammer's early psycho thrillers compared to the rejection of Peeping Tom.
While there's probably more to it than this, insofar as this period saw a profound change in the semiotics of colour and black and white film, with the previously established fantasy / spectacle and reality / documentary connotations undergoing something of a reversal, it is a useful starting point for a more developed year-by-year analysis of the contemporary critical responses to individual texts.
Another intertextual point is the setting, with its affinities with the later Hammer Plague of the Zombies. Ironically, however, Peter's use of curare to induce a coma state indistinguisable from death, perhaps comes closer to the origins of the voodoo zombie than the black magic using Squire Hamilton. Both, however, clearly point to a return of the (colonial or foreign) repressed, of bad things being brought back to England from abroad.
Nic Roeg was camera operator, while Hammer men Les Bowie, Scott MacGregor and Philip Martell performed FX, production design and conductor duties respectively; the score itself, by Buxton Orr, is pretty good.
Sunday, 19 July 2009
How much?!
Die Die My Darling poster, currently on Ebay with a buy it now price of £1,000,000, though offers for £500,000 would be considered.
Saturday, 2 May 2009
Argento / Hammer
Argento and Luigi Cozzi have sometimes mentioned their idea of collaborating with Hammer on a Nazi-era version of Frankenstein.
Is there anything in the Hammer archives on this - i.e. letters, story treatments etc?
Is there anything in the Hammer archives on this - i.e. letters, story treatments etc?
Friday, 2 January 2009
A couple of new Hammer related books
Description:
Music in film is often dismissed as having little cultural significance. While Hammer Film Productions is famous for such classic films as "Dracula" and "The Curse of Frankenstein", few observers have noted the innovative music that Hammer distinctively incorporated into its horror films.This book tells how Hammer Films commissioned composers at the cutting-edge of European musical modernism to write their movie scores, introducing the avant-garde into popular culture via the enormously successful venue of horror film. Each chapter addresses a specific category of the avant-garde musical movement. According to these categories, chapters elaborate upon the visionary composers who made the horror film soundtrack a melting pot of opposing musical cultures.
Description:
This is a strictly limited edition. Last year, a box of never-seen-before photos of Hammer Films productions was archived by Hammer expert Wayne Kinsey for the British Film Institute. Kinsey and the BFI were so impressed by the collection, that it was agreed the best should be published. Through these rare and mostly previously unseen images, this book tells the visual story of Hammer's output. You will be guided through this wonderful collection of photos by Kinsy himself, the celebrated author of "Hammer Films: The Elstree Studios Years" and "Hammer Films: The Bray Studios Years". The book explores the wider and fascinating side of one of the British film industry's greatest success stories, showing once and for all that Hammer was not just a purveyor of cheap horror pictures.In fact, they made films in a number of different genres such as war thrillers, gritty dramas, comedies and colourful swashbuckling adventures. Some of these were among their best films; 1959 is a case in point which included such classics as "Never Take Sweets from a Stranger", "Hell is a City" and "Yesterday's Enemy", the latter of which earned Hammer BAFTA nominations for best picture, best actor and best supporting actor. Hammer's films also benefited from an expert team of actors and technicians, including big names that on first glance would never have thought to be associated with Hammer including Robert Aldrich, Ken Adam, Joe Losey, Bette Davis, Tallulah Bankhead, Donald Sutherland, Joan Fontaine, Richard Widmark, Ursula Andress and Raquel Welch. This is a limited edition hardcover book that is destined to become a highly sought-after collectors' item.
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