PETER CUSHING: HAMMER HOUSE OF HORROR 'THE SILENT SCREAM' REVIEW PRESS CUTTINGS STILLS

It's an episode of Hammer House of Horror, starring Peter Cushing! These are magical words.

Happily it's also pretty good, not to mention original. It's not supernatural and it's not a pastiche of any of the usual horror sub-genres, but instead its own twisted thing. Brian Cox (yes, him) is an ex-safebreaker who's just got out of prison, Elaine Donnelly is the pretty wife who'd been waiting for him and Peter Cushing is the elderly gentleman who'd been visiting Cox in jail and giving him money for no apparent reason. Cox visits him to offer his thanks, whereupon Cushing makes yet another generous gesture. If Cox will look after Cushing's pet shop and babysit the animals for a few days while he's away, Cushing will pay him lots of money and write him a reference that he can show to potential employers.

The catch is that Cushing's shop has a cellar full of wild animals, most of whom would kill you as soon as look at you, which he's using for electroshock experiments. He's also trained them to be afraid to do anything he doesn't want them to do, even if he leaves their cage doors open.

Clearly this isn't going to end well. In fact it's so obviously brimming with wrongness that to my surprise, I found the episode creepy. I wouldn't go so far as to call it frightening, but you'd have to be insane to go within a thousand miles of Cushing and his freaky set-up, even if the man himself is his usual charming self. It's not overt. He seems like a nice guy and his techniques seem to work. It's just that... no. I wouldn't volunteer to let Christopher Lee hang swords above my head, either. It's uncomfortable seeing Cox just setting foot in the place, but of course that's a golden offer for an ex-con and he can't afford to turn it down. His reservations about Cushing don't enter into the matter. "Because he's a nutcase."

The cast is rather extraordinary, though, given that this is TV. Obviously I worship at the temple of Peter Cushing, but Brian Cox is just as noteworthy a name. These days he's an Emmy Award-winning actor and an international movie star, with a career dating back to 1965. He was cinema's first Hannibal Lecter and he played Stryker in X-Men 2. He's good. He strikes the right balance with his protagonist, making you believe that he's sincere in wanting to go straight and yet also not immune to temptation. He keeps you on his side even after some highly dubious decisions, e.g. not running a mile from Peter Cushing. He's the right physical type, but he keeps his potential thuggishness on a short leash. I liked him. Meanwhile his wife, Elaine Donnelly, clearly isn't a star like the other two, but she's a perfectly respectable TV-level actor with a decent CV that by now covers more than forty years.

Cushing's not quite his usual self, by the way. He's less gentlemanly as usual. Compared with his usual beautiful manners, there's something slightly base about him this time. He thus ends up being disturbing in a new way, which isn't entirely pleasant to watch. (I mean that in a good way.) He's also wearing tinted glasses that make him look like a Nazi war criminal. I was making bad jokes to myself about Cushing at one point, only for the episode to anticipate me and really go there.

I should probably be reviewing this series en bloc rather than episode by episode, but what the hell. I'm enjoying them. This one's excellent, albeit in an unflashy TV way that's not bothering to make its characters too likeable. They're okay, though. They get away with that one. There's also animal violence, which is something that's always going to jolt an audience. No, the episode's only real problem is the finale and an implausibly convenient "hoist on his own petard", but even that they partially redeem a few minutes later by mining it for another level of sadistic irony. It's better than the first episode of this series I watched and even that one I thought was pretty good.

Peter Cushing only did one episode of Hammer House of Horror and this is it. Enjoy.

Review: Finn Clark

Images: Marcus Brooks

PETER CUSHING AND THE TUDOR TEA ROOMS VIDEO CLIP

THE TUDOR TEA ROOMS:



A QUICK LOOK AROUND THE TUDOR TEA ROOMS, WHITSTABLE. IN THE LAST FIFTEEN YEARS OF PETER'S LIFE MOST DAYS HE WOULD TAKE THE SHORT WALK TO HIS FAVOURITE HAUNT FOR HIS LUNCH.

HE ALWAYS SAT AT HIS RESERVED TABLE, WHERE TODAY A FRAMED PHOTOGRAPH AND PLAQUE BEARING THE INSCRIPTION: 'IN LOVING MEMORY OF OUR DEAR PETER CUSHING. A SADLY MISSED FAMILY FRIEND'

OUR FIRST WINNER! HAMMER FRANKENSTEIN FRIDAYS COMPETITIONS EVERY FORTNIGHT!

OUR FIRST WINNER! Here's a snap of our first winner in our fortnightly Horror Unlimited / Hammer Frankenstein Fridays Competitions! Colin Beardmore poses proudly here with his prize. A terrific still from Hammer Films 'Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell'.

 

'Having been the lucky winner and recipient of the competition at The UK Peter Cushing Appreciation, a few words to endorse what a... lovely surprise and what a fantastic photograph of Shane Briant and Peter Cushing from Frankenstein And The Monster From Hell . It is remarkably reproduced and I seen nothing like this before . Clear imagery which looks like 3 D! Especially the plate of brains in the photograph . Thank you to Marcus for a wonderful gift and for the opportunity to own it . Greatly appreciated!'  Colin Beardmore.

 

We be announcing the WINNER TONIGHT of LAST WEEKS COMPETITION here at petercushing.org.uk. theblackboxclub.com and theukpetercushingappreciationsociety FACEBOOK PAGE.

PETER CUSHING: 'TORTURE GARDEN' SOWING THE SEEDS! PROMOTION GIMMICKS!

THE TRAILER FOR AMICUS FILM PRODUCTIONS 'TORTURE GARDEN' IN 1967. A TIME WHEN CINEMA WAS FUN AND GIMMICKS TO PUT 'BOTTOMS ON SEATS' WAS PART OF THE GAME. HERE THE PAYING PUBLIC WERE PROMISED A PACKET OF 'SEEDS' TO GROW THEIR OWN 'TORTURE GARDEN'!

PETER CUSHING JACK PALANCE: 'TORTURE GARDEN' REVIEW AND GALLERY

PRODUCTION TEAM:

Director: Freddie Francis. Screenplay: Robert Bloch, Based on his Short Stories. Producers: Max J. Rosenberg & Milton Subotsky. Photography: Norman Warwick.  Music: Don Banks & James Bernard. Makeup: Jill Carpenter. Art Direction: Don Mingaye & Scott Simon. Production Company: Amicus film Productions. 

CAST:

Burgess Meredith : Dr Diablo. Enoch:- Michael Bryant: Colin Williams. Maurice Denham: Uncle Roger. Terror Over Hollywood:- Beverly Adams: Carla Hayes. Robert Hutton: Bruce Benton. John Phillips: Eddie Storm. David Bauer: Mike Charles.  Bernard Kay: Dr Helm. Mr Steinway:- Barbara Ewing: Dorothy Endicott.  John Standing: Leo.  The Man Who Collected Poe:- Jack Palance: Ronald Wyatt.  Peter Cushing: Lancelot Canning.

THE PLOT:

At a carnival exhibit, Dr Diablo takes five customers to a back room where he offers them glimpses of their futures. Enoch:- Colin Williams goes to stay with his uncle, determined to get hold of his fortune. He withholds his uncle’s medicine to force him to tell him where the money is, but instead the uncle dies. Afterwards, Colin meets a cat Balthazar that talks to him and demands that he conduct other killings in return for which it will show him where the fortune is. Terror Over Hollywood:- Aspiring actress Carla Hayes determinedly pursues a part in a film. Cast, she soon finds herself falling for her leading man, the enduring star Bruce Benton. But then she finds the secret of movie stars youthful longevity – that they are being replaced by robot doubles. Mr Steinway:- Journalist Dorothy Endicott goes to interview the introverted concert pianist Leo. They become romantically involved but when she tries to draw Leo away from his beloved grand piano Utopie, it becomes jealous. The Man Who Collected Poe:- Ronald Wyatt, a dedicated Edgar Allan Poe collector, goes to visit Lancelot Canning, one of the foremost Poe collectors in the world. Getting drunk, Canning shows him his secret collection of unpublished Poe works. Wyatt then makes the shocking discovery that Canning has brought Poe back to life to write new stories.

COMMENTARY:

Amicus Films had had great success with the portmanteau anthology Dr Terror’s House of Horrors (1964). They returned with Torture Garden, reuniting director Freddie Francis and star Peter Cushing. Burgess Meredith, in an appallingly fake-looking beard, is clearly cast in the same mold as Peter Cushing’s Dr Schreck in Dr Terror, as a sinister figure introducing the segments on the pretext of showing people their future. On script, Amicus imported American horror author Robert Bloch who was then in the public eye as a result of Alfred Hitchcock’s wildly successful adaptation of his novel Psycho (1960). For Torture Garden, Robert Bloch adapted several of his own short stories published in the 1950s into a script. Bloch later went on to become a mainstay of Amicus, contributing to several other anthologies such as The House That Dripped Blood (1970) and Asylum (1972) and original films like The Skull (1965), The Psychopath (1966) and The Deadly Bees (1967).

Torture Garden is one of the lesser among Amicus’s mostly worthwhile anthologies. The first two stories are flat, Terror Over Hollywood being the especially weak link in the chain. But the next two are sharp and original – compare them to Dr Terror’s humdrum revamping of standard B-movie themes and it becomes clear just what Bloch manages to bring to the party. Freddie Francis brings his customary stylism and sharp pictorial contrasts between fore– and background. Memorable images abound such as Barbara Ewing being chased about the house by a grand piano. The Edgar Allan Poe segment works the best where Jack Palance and Peter Cushing are clearly enjoying themselves. The linking segment is slight. One might also note that, despite the title, the film features no torture, nor any gardens. For that matter, despite the title Terror Over Hollywood, the segment is actually set in an English studio. Much better anthologies would emerge from Amicus – see Tales from the Crypt (1972), From Beyond the Grave (1973) and the aforementioned Bloch titles.

Amicus’s subsequent anthology films include The House That Dripped Blood (1970), Asylum (1972), Tales from the Crypt (1972), The Vault of Horror (1973), From Beyond the Grave (1973), while following the breakup of Amicus, Milton Subotsky on his own made The Monster Club (1980).

Freddie Francis’s other genre films are:- Vengeance/The Brain (1962), Paranoiac (1962), Nightmare (1963), Dr Terror’s House of Horrors (1964), The Evil of Frankenstein (1964), Hysteria (1965), The Skull (1965), The Psychopath (1966), The Deadly Bees (1967), They Came from Beyond Space (1967), Dracula Has Risen from the Grave (1968), Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny and Girly (1969), Trog (1970), The Vampire Happening (1971), Tales from the Crypt (1972), Tales That Witness Madness (1972), Craze (1973), The Creeping Flesh (1973), Legend of the Werewolf (1974), Son of Dracula (1974), The Ghoul (1975), The Doctor and the Devils (1985) and Dark Tower (1987).

Review: Richard Scheib

HERE

Images: Marcus Brooks

PETER CUSHING: 'OH, THE IGNOMINY!' LAP THREE OF PAUL MCNAMEE'S PETER CUSHING MOVIE MARATHON.

The reason I agreed to do this cinematic trek in the first place is because I love Peter Cushing and by extension pretty much every film I've seen him in, speaking as they often do about his choice of roles. That said, I knew there'd be rough going along the way and no more so than with this trio of terrible terrors. Talent and taste are rarely exclusive and despite Cushing's calibre his filmography is not without its flaws, as I learned this past week.

DRACULA AD 1972 (1972)

Also known as Dracula A.D. '73 and Dracula Chases The Mini-Girls (yes really), it's one of Hammer's last to feature Sir Christopher Lee as the titular tall one, and not really one of the best but it's worth a watch for a giggle as it's actually quite unbelievable that it exists. Remarkably, by setting the film in the then-present, Hammer dated it more than their older Victorian efforts. Sample dialogue: "You can buy that sort of stuff in almost any shady bookshop in Soho, I think it's all kinky, weird, man, way out...", says Stephanie Beacham to grandaddy Peter Cushing (this time playing Lorrimer Van Helsing, descendant of Lawrence). Also, she's informed by a vampire boyfriend who sneaks her into the backdoor of a closed-anyway club that the front entrance is "full of geeks and newspaper men".

There's a pointlessly drawn-out scene at the beginning of the movie where 'rockgroup' Stoneground plays two FULL songs while some hip teens (played by 20 and 30-somethings) dance around. The highlight of such fun is William Ellis as Joe, an Eric Idlealike vagabond in a monk's tunic. He steals any scenes he's in ("if we do get to summon up the big daddy with the horns and the tail, he gets to bring his own liquor, his own bird and his own pot") and then appears in no other films ever. Christopher Lee doesn't show up for ages and we're forced to make to with Christopher 'Mrs Frisby and the rats of ' Neame in poncy idiot worshipper mode as 'Johnny Alucard'. Feel free to reverse his surname, puzzle fans: Cushing does. When he does appear, he has very few scenes but makes a great impression, because he's Christopher Lee, and he eats about ten women and has a kip in his grave. Also, for a while I think he owns a nightclub.

The best two bits in the film I've screencapped below:

Are you serious? "The Legend Of Dracula The Vampire"?! "DRACULA THE VAMPIRE"??? Apparently Lawrence Van Helsing wrote the yellow-bound tome when he was six years old. Also, remember earlier when I mentioned Cushing's figuring out of Alucard's surname? See below just how he did it:

Come on! No-one's that stupid, especially someone played by Peter Cushing! Look at how bad his writing is! Notice also the copy of "The Legend Of Dracula The Vampire" in the top right hand corner of the frame. Indispensable.

The movie also has an inordinate amount of cleavage and a trippy score with that fuzzy guitar distortion like at the start of John Barry's "On Her Majesty's Secret Service". I really like it at times and I'm finding it  hard not to recommend, but it's best to watch it a good distance from the other Hammer Draculas, because they're worlds apart in context and quality.

Its immediate sequel, on the other hand, is not worthy of any such half-hearted pseudo-praise and is arguably the barometer by which all future Cushenings shall be judged.

THE SATANIC RITES OF DRACULA (1973)

Dear God. Please gang, never, as part of any course on Sir Pete, horror movies, films of the 1970s or in celebrance (don’t you think that should be a word?) of actual knight Sir Christopher Lee, watch The Satanic Rites Of Dracula. I’m going to keep it brief because THINKING about it numbs me, but you can easily get away with watching ALL other Hammer Drac films (even Scars Of Dracula, in which Dracula stabs people to death and is revived by a giant blood-chundering rubber bat, fergoodnessakes!) and ignoring this one without ever feeling guilty. It is truly one of the worst things ever to have happened to me.

In fact, ‘twixt that last paragraph and this, I made a list of the worst things ever to happen to me, and it ranks just above standing on a rusted nail and letting my Tamagotchi die, and only just under breaking my arm and accidentally drinking a bee. Have you ever drunk a bee? It sucks, sucks worse than The Satanic Rites Of Dracula. But only just...

Within seconds, we’re hit with what sounds a LOT like the theme from Bride Of Frankenstein, and you’ll notice that there’s a sort of silhouette of Dracula in the corner that gets progressively bigger as the credits advance. It’s really, really funny, but it’s certainly not supposed to be and effectively undermines the entire film and just about the entire Hammer catalogue.

The opening shots of London remind us that the film was penned under the working title Dracula Is Alive And Well And Living In London (famously described by Lee as “fatuous”), and they look all the sillier in light of the new title (which is barely relevant) and the setting of a good deal of the action in a rural setting. John Cacavas did great work on the Lee/ Cushing vehicle Horror Express (recently released on Blu-Ray, shopaholics...), and his rock-orchestra score fits this film insomuch as NOTHING fits this film, and everything comes together in a bilious, recursive mess of poor filmmaking.

The costumes are pretty neat (really, whatever happened to the ubiquity of sleeveless sheepskin vests?) and there’s a really neat stunt on a bike, but ultimately the impression I got from this film was that Hammer was producing a totally unrelated spy "thriller” and shoehorned one last Dracula picture onto it in the ugliest manner possible. Kudos to its stars who cooperated no doubt out of loyalty and so as not to cost so many prospective jobs, but there’s really nothing more to say about this wretched bad thing of a thing, so I’ll move on sharpish.

A CHUMP AT OXFORD  (1940)

What better way to top off a mini-marathon of 70s Dracula films than with a Laurel and Hardy movie from the 1940s? Well, in hindsight, there are a great number of better ways among which watching another 70s Dracula film ranks high, but to be honest I wanted to go for something I thought I wouldn’t enjoy (let’s make it three for three, I masochistically figured) and so A Chump At Oxford was shortly ticked off the bucket list.

The first thing that hit me about this (horribly colorized version) film is Stan Laurel’s face. He has a great face, easily in the top two faces seen in the opening shot of him and Oliver Hardy sitting in a car. The colorization process (as you may have noticed in Marcus’ lobby cards for most of the films I’ve reviewed) creates a bizarre sort of pastel look in a lot of films and A Chump At Oxford looks like no reality I’ve ever recognized. There’s a shot about five minutes in where the pair leave an employment agency and walk into a completely monochrome exterior that’s really quite nightmarish in a way. Looks we have a horror after all. There’s even a chap dressed as a ghost...

There’s no energy  to the film. From what I’ve seen from films from this era their success relies on careful choreography and the ability to knock a gag out before you’ve come to terms with the one before it. A Chump At Oxford seems to delight in giving you enough time not only to appreciate a joke, but to see it coming a mile off, too.

As for Sir Pete, when he does show up, he’s pretty much the only one who genuinely sounds English, whereas the others all sound like that sort of bizarre Colin Clive English that only exists in Hollywood films from 70 years ago. He also plays the sort of snooty college brat you’d more readily expect to see in a frat house in the 1980s. He’s not given a lot to do really and it’s really quite strange seeing his talents put to such waste.

So, is it a Peter Cushing film? No. Absolutely not. He has a total of 66 audible words of dialogue, one indecipherable noise and a few instances of participation in general rabble rousing. I’d not recommend it to my trusty Cushettes, no sooner than I’d recommend it to a person seeking a reasonable way to kill an hour of their life that they’ll never ever get back. Worth seeing as confirmation that even our greatest export was once a jobbing thesp, but an exercise in redundancy through and through.

Next week: GOOD films! I promise...

Reviews: Paul McNamee

Images: Marcus Brooks

PETER CUSHING: THE UK PETER CUSHING APPRECIATION SOCIETY: OPEN TO ALL!

PETER CUSHING AND THE RETURN OF THE CYBERNAUTS: THE AVENGERS TV SERIES

50 years ago the very first episode of The Avengers was transmitted. Hot Snow, shown on the 7 December 1961 and introducing Ian Hendry as Dr. Keel and Patrick Macnee as John Steed, doesn't really give much of an indication as to how The Avengers would become the ultimate expression of Sixties pop culture and a global television phenomenon.

Those early episodes are gritty, hard-nosed thrillers and I've already covered Optimum's DVD box set releases of Series Three and Series Four back in 2010 and 2009, charting how this black and white thriller blossomed as the decade moved on, and how, as James Chapman noted in his essay in Windows on the Sixties, "The Avengers both defines and is defined by the 1960s [and reflects] the social changes taking place in Britain during the period" and is a barometer of the "the technological changes that occurred in the television industry moving from 'live' performance to film, and from black-and-white to colour."And with Series 5 we do indeed move into colour, heralded with a caption card 'The Avengers in Color' on each episode as required by the American network ABC who had paid the then-unheard of sum of $2 million for the first 26 episodes and made the series one of the first, if not the first, British series to be aired on prime time U.S. television.

Series 5 takes the fantasy elements prominent in the first Rigg series and exaggerates them with the use of full colour, high-fashion elements (including costumes for Rigg and Macnee designed by Alun Hughes and Pierre Cardin), a bevvy of prominent British character actors playing a wealth of eccentrics and diabolical masterminds and a knowingness about the relationship between the television audience and the programme itself.This knowingness is present both in the number of attempts to break the fourth wall by the leading actors, with asides and direct looks down the lens, to the manipulation of artifice and surface, in set design and narratives that pull apart and glorify the very idea of making films and television programmes. It's very much Clemens and his production team emulating the progress that a director like Federico Fellini was making in his own work in the late 1960s. The Fellinesque qualities of stories such as Epic, Escape in Time and Something Nasty in the Nursery suggest a pop-art style married to increasingly metatextual narratives that comment on the art of storytelling and film-making within the contrived nature of 'Avengersland'.

'Avengersland' is a construction that Fellini would have been proud of and depicts an England of the mind, of the imagination, where increasingly during Series 5 the threats to Steed and Emma become more and more artificially generated. As I discussed in my review of Spirits of the Dead, Fellini's section of that film is about the audience understanding that Terence Stamp's character exists in a knowingly artificial world. Much the same occurs in Brian Clemens concept of The Avengers.

'Avengersland' is therefore postmodernist in nature, and Christopher Sharrett, in commenting on Fellini's work from Spirits of the Dead onwards has called this effect "the sum and substance of postmodernity [where] the piling up of signifiers merely creates new attractions and commodities" and where, by extension, the colour episodes of Avengerland are created "by removing [them] from all social/political/economic context."

This self-evident awareness of its own construction, of the tropes that it uses, marks out the first colour series of The Avengers and is later developed into the Thorson series. Where the previous Rigg series had been 'Britain versus the world' it is worth noting that by 1967 this had shifted to 'Britain is the world' in the colour episodes and was very much in line with London being regarded as the epicentre of the late 1960s explosion of pop, architecture, fashion and design and The Avengers own nostalgia for a non-existent version of England where the troubles of the modern world are eradicated by a desire to recreate Edwardiana via glossy Hollywood pastiche.

Science fiction and fantasy rub shoulders with the series's own comedy of manners and sense of British fair-play, epitomised in everything from the tag sequences, the 'Mrs. Peel We're Needed' introductions and the witty captions that summarise each episode to the gaggle of malcontent British scientists, astronomers, executives, aristocrats, ministers and secret agents who believe they have been treated unfairly in the rush to embrace the 'swinging sixties' modernisation of the nation.

Personally, from Series 5, I would single out:

From Venus With Love - its obsessions about alien invasion from Venus and the deadly threat of laser weapons jostle with a comedy turn from Jon Pertwee and a stylish cameo from Barbara Shelley.

Escape In Time - an utterly surreal story about a man who provides a service to criminals that allows them to escape from the authorities into any part of past history. Superb guest cameo from Peter Bowles and filled with massive chunks of gaudy, dream-like visual/physical comedy that divorces the series entirely from any reality. Looks stunning in its restored format here.

The Winged Avenger - a clever mix of thriller, comic book (the legendary Frank Bellamy supplied the comic strips for the episode) and a tongue in cheek and metatextual nod to the Adam West Batman series in Steed's showdown with the villain where he clouts him over the head with Roy Lichtenstein inspired pop-artwork declaring 'Pow!' 'Blam! and 'Splat!' Another sequence where live action flips back and forth with comic book recreations was way ahead of its time.

Never, Never Say Die - a pastiche of the Frankenstein story with a great guest performance from Christopher Lee.

Epic - stunningly restored here and a wonderfully surreal blend of Sunset Boulevard and Fellini's 8½, thoroughly divorced from realism and driven by completely glorious performances from the triumvirate of Peter Wyngarde, Kenneth Warren and  Isa Miranda.

Something Nasty in the Nursery - more surreal and nightmarish imagery that twists childhood memories completely out of shape. It's a very knowing episode that allows the audience in on the artificiality of the storytelling.

Who's Who? - great fun in that it allows Macnee and Rigg to stretch and play against their characters and it features an equally sensational double-act in Freddie Jones and Patricia Haynes as the agents they swap bodies with. The ad-breaks are structured to feature a very tongue-in-cheek recap for the audiences as to who is exactly whom as the story continues.

Return of the Cybernauts - Peter Cushing is sublime as the villainous Paul Beresford, and the story is unusual in that he is actually a friend of Steed and Emma's and there are undercurrents of jealousy from Steed when Paul gets very enamoured of Emma.

Dead Man's Treasure - glorious romp combining a treasure hunt, a cross-country car chase that showcases the English countryside at its most beautiful, a deadly racing-car simulator and Laurie Johnson's bouncy incidental music.

The Positive-Negative Man - more surreal, comic strip inspired material successfully blended with an espionage thriller and featuring Ray McAnally at roughly the same time he went on to make the sublime Spindoe for Granada.

The quality of the image here is again very good and with many episodes it is truly sensational, with vibrant and exceptional colour and contrast that show off the gorgeous sets and location shooting and often revealing fine detail in faces and costumes.

These are blemish free digital masters, exquisitely restored but there is a noticeable shift in the quality of cinematography between the earlier and later episodes in the production run. Certainly the contrast and colour fidelity isn't as robust in The Fear Merchants for example but I would put that down to the way it was shot rather than a fault of the restoration.

The restoration is of such good quality that it simply begs for a Blu-Ray release in high definition and I hope that Optimum will be looking to achieve this in the next year as I think these will look particularly stunning in HD.

The highly effective and memorable music from Laurie Johnson is well represented on the soundtrack but alas, there does seem to be a problem with the sound mix. It is obvious that the vocal track is slightly speeded up and is particularly noticeable with male voices, especially Steed's, which are pitched slightly too high. Optimum have already been made aware of this and are offering replacement discs for this set. A real shame that problems like this are not being identified by the company's own quality control department. It's a blemish on an otherwise fantastic DVD set.

The commentary to The Winged Avenger, moderated effectively by Jaz Wiseman, covers writer Richard Harris's contribution to the original black and white series of The Avengers and the comic book influences that went into the creation of his script for the colour Rigg series. The chat is interesting and informative and very much focuses on his career as a writer, including his work on the Hancock scripts for ATV and developing Man in a Suitcase.

Perhaps the stand-out commentary on this set has to be from the legendary Peter Wyngarde on the episode Epic. Wyngarde is clearly not that concerned about remembering the more intricate details of the episode (although he dedicates it to colleagues James Hill, Isa Miranda, Kenneth Warren and Albert Fennell) but goes on to regale us with tons of anecdotes about his theatrical career, working with Ralph Richardson, and breaks off to put in a performance as George Sanders and later recites various songs and poems. A true 'luvvie', bless him.

Stunt artist Cyd Childs and writer/producer Brian Clemens also offer interesting stories and anecdotes on their own commentaries for, respectively, Return of the Cybernauts and Murdersville.

Once again there is a massive amount of supplementary material on the DVD set:

- Archive German TV interview with Patrick Macnee and Diana Rigg

- Episode trims from The Fear Merchants, Escape In Time, From Venus With Love and The See-Through Man

- The Avengers – A Retrospective (documentary produced for the Lumiere VHS releases)

- ATV newsreel footage (Diana Rigg receives TV Award)

- The Avengers – “They’re Back” archive trailer

- Filmed episode intros by Brian Clemens to The Bird Who Knew Too Much, The Living Dead, Epic, The Correct Way To Kill, The Superlative Seven, A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Station, The Joker and Murdersville

- Granada + points for each episode

- Episode Reconstructions for lost Series 1 episodes One For The Mortuary, Death on The Slipway, Tunnel of Fear and Dragonsfield

- 1960s German Titles

- Insert reprint of series 5 promotional brochure

- Stills gallery for featured episodes (literally hundreds of images)

- PDF material including shooting scripts, TV Times and more

An essential purchase but marred by that sound fault so proceed with caution and check that Optimum are still replacing the erroneous discs and replacing stock in stores.

The Avengers

Digitally Restored Special Edition: The Complete Series 5 / 1966-67

Released 25 October 2010 / Optimum Releasing / OPTD1751 / Region 2 / Cert PG / Running time: 1,127 mins / 4:3

Review: Frank Collins

CLICK HERE

Images: Marcus Brooks

VINCENT PRICE AND PETER CUSHING: PRESS BOOK MADHOUSE (1974)

GREAT EXAMPLE OF 'MADHOUSE' PROMOTION BACK IN 1974

SUSAN DENBERG, PETER CUSHING AND OTHER HAMMER FILM FACES BEHIND THE SCENES ON 'FRANKENSTEIN CREATED WOMAN' HAMMER FRANKENSTEIN FRIDAY

SUSAN DENBERG POSES WITH HER CO STAR AND

FRANKENSTEIN'S ASSISTANT THORLEY WALTERS

EVERYONE POSES FOR THE CAMERA! PETER HAS A LAUGH AT

PRODUCER ANTHONY NELSON KEYS, WEARING HIS TOP HAT!



THE TEAM: PETER CUSHING, SUSAN DENBERG, PRODUCER ANTHONY NELSON

KEYS AND DIRECTOR TERENCE FISHER POSE FOR THE CAMERA AT FRENSHAM

PONDS, THE LOCATION FOR THE GUILLOTINE SCENES IN 'FRANKENSTEIN

CREATED WOMAN'

SUSAN DENBERG AND PRODUCER ANTHONY NELSON KEYS SHELTER

UNDER A BROLLY BESIDE A PROP ROAD SIGN BEARING THE NAMES

OF TWO FAMILAUR HAMMER FILM TOWNS :

KARLSBAD AND INNSBAD.

THE BROLLY BECOMES A HANDY PROP AS BOTH PETER AND

SUSAN DENBERG TAKE A STROLL AROUND BRAY STUDIOS, HOME TO

HAMMER FILMS AND SO MANY OF THERE BEST MOTION PICTURES.

MORE POSING FOR THE STILLS MAN

NOTE THE SCRIPT UNDER PETER'S ARM IN THIS SHOT. PENS PENCILS AND

RUBBER BANDS. PETER WAS WELL KNOWN FOR HIS NOTE TAKING AND

SCRIBBLES IN THE MARGINS OF HIS SCRIPTS. POINTERS TO DIALOGUE,

REMINDERS AND ALSO DOODLINGS. PETER LOVED TO DOODLE

WHILST WAITING, SOMETIMES LONG HOURS ON A SET.

AND THE SHOOT WRAPS WITH ONE OF PETER'S SIGNATURE

KISSES TO HIS CO STAR, SUSAN DENBERG

PETER CUSHING: 'FRANKENSTEIN CREATED WOMAN' VINTAGE PRESS CUTTING

FRANKENSTEIN CREATED WOMAN: THE CLASSIC POSE AND ONE OF THE FIRST PLACES IT APPEARED!

FRANKENSTEIN CREATED WOMAN: THE CLASSIC POSE AND ONE

OF THE FIRST PLACES IT APPEARED!