Sunday 31 January 2021

EYE FOR AN EYE : WHEN #CHRISTOPHERLEE DID SNL : VINTAGE COLLECTABLE CARDS


SINCE THE FIRST #Hammerfilms Frankenstein movie in 1957, then followed by Cushing's appearance as the iconic detective in 1959, in 'The Hound of the Baskervilles', Peter Cushing and a publicity photograph posed with a magnifying glass, held up to his probing eye, has never been far away. More or less any synopsis that carries a scene of investigation be it criminal, scientific, almost always merited PC and the glass, with his LEFT eye magnified to startling proportions! 
 


COME 1984, the shot and pose was so well known and expected, that Cushing's guest appearance in the  Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, and Jerry Zucker spoof spy movie 'Top Secret', kicked off with a shot his book store proprietor, peering into the camera, while reading a book with, a magnifying glass, with of course large right eye! It is only when Cushing moves the glass from his eye, we see the right eye IS huge . . without the magnification!
 



IT WAS A GOOD quick gag and quite unexpected. 
 

#PeterCushing and #BurgessMeredith in #AmicusFilms 'TortureGarden' (1966) .. sadly they didn't share a scene together, but Cushing's scenes with #JackPalance were total magic. What a shame that the opportunity for PC to work with them again, never happened. With a magic wand, which Peter Cushing film, would you have cast BOTH of them with Cushing... if you could? 😊


#ChristopherLee on his time fronting the US 'Saturday Night Live' show in 1978.
 





BACK IN THE LATE 1950's televisions had really become popular, even though we had two television channels to watch, black and white broadcast picture! TV's were still quite expensive, but a live televised event on 2 June, 1953 soon changed that, #QueenElizabethII was crowned and everyone wanted a TV to tube in! Television's were also expensive to get repaired, so a company called Telesurance started up business, where you could pay weekly or monthly to cover costs of blown valves, tubes and amps!
 

THERE WAS ONE ACTOR who was seen more on tv in #BBC dramas and chat shows at this time, more than most. Such was his popularity, he was one of the very much sort after faces in the collectable cards, that the company offered to customers to collect! This one at some point was also signed by #PeterCushing
 
OVER AT THE Facebook PCASUK Fan Page, we've asked if you collect cards which also featured PC? I'd love to see them😊 Joke from UK celebrity and comedian #TommyTrinder in the mid 1950's : 'What sits in your living room corner with buttons on ,and entertains entertains, EVERY night? Answer : Peter Cushing' πŸ˜†
 

YOU ARE MOST WELCOME TO JOIN US and over 34,000 others Peter Cushing followers at the FACEBOOK PCASUK FAN PAGE! With posts every day, rare images and photographs, features ad prize competitions.. all celebrating the LIFE and CAREER of Peter Cushing  OBE 

#DRACULA ARTWORK FROM #DARYLJOYCE : #HAMMERFILMS CLASSICS


FAB PIECES of #Hammerfilms artwork from one of our favourite artists, Daryl Joyce. What do you think? Thanks to Johnny Thunders Martin, who sent these to me this morning πŸ˜Š There are seven prints in this series, I just chose two here but the whole lot are now for sale here : All 7 Hammer Dracula films starring Christopher Lee now available as A4 prints on 250 gsm silk paper. A4 is 210mm x 297mm. Dracula: Prince of Darkness is also available as a A2 print (420mm x 594mm).
 

Purchase the 7 piece set of prints for two freebies of the other Dracula themed hammer horror films - Brides of Dracula and The Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires. (or two alternate options from the back catalogue. Daryl will post worldwide, though PayPal preferred. You can order : HERE! 
 

FROM IMPRESSIVE artwork, to weird!
Do you also find this a puzzling Image? Followers and friends often send me images and stuffs they come across, on the net, in books, magazines . . and all are appreciated and often a lot of fun, but this one... I have no idea, what the combination of these objects are with Lee?
 
IT APPEARS to be an intended obituary notice banner to #ChristopherLee, (??) a poem in French.. the images of a very grand dress with oriental dragon pattern, a pair of crystal high heels shoes and a matching hand/clutch bag, with some blue flowers... all have in common??? Many thanks to Colleen Crouch who sent this along to the Facebook PCASUK Fan Page... looking for an answer too! ANY ideas?
 

YOU ARE MOST WELCOME TO JOIN US and over 34,000 others Peter Cushing followers at the FACEBOOK PCASUK FAN PAGE! With posts every day, rare images and photographs, features ad prize competitions.. all celebrating the LIFE and CAREER of Peter Cushing  OBE  

Thursday 21 January 2021

NETWORK RELEASES CUSHING BOULTING BROTHERS GEM ON BLU RAY FOR FIRST TIME!


NETWORK is such a clever and very good distributor, no really! They have released some VERY cool #PeterCushing lesser known gems over the years. They were the first to release Cushing's 'The Uncanny' years ago, with some terrific and quite different extras on dvd. Now, they've done it again with a little known British film that Cushing made back in 1960. Like Hammer's 'Cash On Demand' it was produced on a weenie budget and REALLY was produced as a bet, making the most of an over lap of time, already booked on a set at Shepperton film studios. It has along with Cushing a superb line up in it's cast of a who's who on Brit TV and cinema at the time. . #SpikeMilligan, Sam Kidd, Thorley Waters, #DonaldPleasence, Ian Bannen, Virginia Maskell, Tony Britton, Raymond Huntley and more are on board in this tight #BoultingBrothers thriller. 
 




SUSPECT was released in the US under the title of 'THE RISK' ... but you won't be risking anything, when you get to see this one! SUSPECT is featured here as a brand-new High Definition transfer from original film elements in its original theatrical aspect ratio. ... 
 




SPEC AND CAST OF 'SUSPECT' 1960:
UK / 78 minutes / bw / Charter, British Lion Dir & Pr: Roy Boulting, John Boulting Scr: Nigel Balchin, Jeffrey Dell, Roy Boulting Story: A Sort of Traitors (1949) by Nigel Balchin Cine: Max Greene Cast: Tony Britton, Virginia Maskell, Peter Cushing, Ian Bannen, Raymond Huntley, Thorley Walters, Donald Pleasence, Spike Milligan, Kenneth Griffith, Robert Bruce, Anthony Booth, Basil Dignam, Brian Oulton, Sam Kydd, Bruce Wightman, Ian Wilson, Murray Melvin, Geoffrey Bayldon, Andre Charise.


SUSPECT IS RELEASED ON
1st March 2021 and the BLU RAY is available for PRE-ORDER from NETWORK : RIGHT HERE NOW! 
 


YOU ARE MOST WELCOME TO JOIN US and over 34,000 others Peter Cushing followers at the FACEBOOK PCASUK FAN PAGE! With posts every day, rare images and photographs, features ad prize competitions.. all celebrating the LIFE and CAREER of Peter Cushing  OBE

Wednesday 20 January 2021

#WATCHPARTY! 'THE UNCANNY' #PETERCUSHING : DONALD PLEASENCE : RAY MILLAND : FELINE TERROR TALE!


#WATCHPARTY!
#MEOW! Over at the Facebook PCASUK Fan Page, not all moggies are good moggies... and #PeterCushing's Wilbur Gray is ON to them! As good as a treat of '#CatNip' ... I have shared something to maybe, entertain you this evening!#TheUncanny! Let me know what you think of the movie?  Enjoy! Stay safe, look after yourselves and each other πŸ˜‰ - Marcus 
 


IF THE UNCANNY, was to be seen as an AMICUS film how fitting that Peter Cushing leaves the productions of producer Milton Subotsky, in a similar fashion to how he entered! Back in 1965, in his first film for Amicus and Subotsky, Cushing played the portmanteau 'link' character Dr Shreck in 'Dr Terror's House of Horrors' and in 1977, he bows out as the link in his last multiple story Subotsky film, 'The Uncanny'. Cushing is noted as saying that come the mid 1970's, finding the right scripts and roles was difficult. 
 

BUT HIS WILBUR GRAY in 'Uncanny' gave the opportunity also of role that played to one of his many strengths, a character in FEAR! The Baron in Hammer's first Frankenstein feature, had some of it's best scenes offering Cushing as a terrified Frankenstein, fighting for his life as he awaits the guillotine. in #Tigonfilms films  1973 'The Creeping Flesh' Cushing's Professor Emmanuel Hildern, is in constant fit of terror and fear for a good two thirds of the film. It's where Peter Cushing began on the small screen back in 1954, scaring the British public TWICE in one week, with a double repeat performance LIVE as Winston Smith in the BBC drama of George Orwell's '1984'. Also how ironic in the tv play's key moment of terror, the key is RATS, in The Uncanny, it's CATS! One thing for sure, whatever the danger, Monsters, supernatural or earthly creatures, when called for, Peter Cushing ALWAYS came up with the goods!    
 


TODAY WE HAVE ALSO
shared our PCASUK REVIEW of SEVERIN'S Remastered BLU RAY of 'The Uncanny' which was released back in 2019. This review not only covers the quality of the blu ray, but also there's a great gallery with rare on set and publicity photographs, GIFS and screen captures! If you haven't caught up on this release or after sampling our #WatchWithCushing Part today you like to add this one to your Cushing / Amicus collection, this feature may whet your appetite! Just CLICK HERE!
 


YOU ARE MOST WELCOME TO JOIN US and over 34,000 others Peter Cushing followers at the FACEBOOK PCASUK FAN PAGE! With posts every day, rare images and photographs, features ad prize competitions.. all celebrating the LIFE and CAREER of Peter Cushing  OBE 

Monday 18 January 2021

#VINCENTPRICE AND #CHRISTOPHERLEE ARTWORK PORTRAITS : CUSHING PHIBES MADHOUSE AND THE MAN WHO HATED SCENES


I HAVE NEVER posted any artwork portrait of #VincentPrice on this Blog or the Facebook PCASUK Fan Page before now... but this simple and very effective, 5" X 7" acrylic sketch on canvas is such a beauty! The artist Doug Stern is very gifted indeed.You can find more of Doug's amazing work HERE!
 

LISTEN TO 'THE MAN WHO HATED SCENES': HERE! 
 

 

 
CALLUM MCKELVIE'S PCASUK REVIEW OF 'DR PHIBES RISES 
AGAIN' HERE! 
  




PETER CUSHING only appeared on screen and co starring with Vincent Price in two films 'Madhouse' (1974) and 'House of the Long Shadows'(1983) . Just two but great movies! They were both cast with Christopher Lee in 'Scream and Scream Again' but only Price and Lee shared screen time together... AND Cushing played the Ship Captain in Price's Phibes sequel 'Dr Phibes Rises Again' in 1972, but again not on screen together. Peter did two radio productions with Vincent, a 'The Price of Fear' episode called 'The Man Who Hated Scenes' in 1973 and"Aliens in the Mind" a radio series written by Doctor Who script-writer Robert Holmes, broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1977.
 

THE ABOVE PORTRAIT of #CHRISTOPHERLEE is also the first artwork of this actor, I have shared on a PCASUK platform too! The reason, I have never really found a painting or drawing of Christopher Lee that I liked! BUT this one, really hits the mark I think! An excellent painting by
Derek Wehrwein.. and almost three hundred LIKES over at the PCASUK Facebook Fan Page say so too! You can see MORE of Derek's work HERE!  
 

 YOU ARE MOST WELCOME TO JOIN US and over 34,000 others Peter Cushing followers at the FACEBOOK PCASUK FAN PAGE! With posts every day, rare images and photographs, features ad prize competitions.. all celebrating the LIFE and CAREER of Peter Cushing  OBE  
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