Showing posts with label britt ekland. Show all posts
Showing posts with label britt ekland. Show all posts

Friday 3 January 2020

CUSHING CHRISTMAS PCAS COMPETITION WINNER NUMBER TWO REVEALED HERE!


Congratulations ALLEN! A Happy New Year to you!
 

THE ANSWER we were looking for was c) THREE DAYS! Amicus were FAST workers, for sure! MANY thanks to everyone who entered this and our last competition and to our very generous sponsor SECOND SIGHT FILMS. You can order YOUR copy of this release from January 5th 2020 DIRECTLY HERE! 


ABOVE: OUR FINAL CHRISTMAS CUSHING COMPETITION IS STILL LIVE until January 12th 2020. YOU CAN ENTER HERE at the FACEBOOK PCASUK FAN PAGE!

Monday 16 December 2019

AMICUS FILMS 'ASYLUM' WELL DRESSED AND REVIEWED AS SECOND SIGHT FILMS SCREAMINGLY GOOD LIMITED EDITION BLU RAY

 
FOLLOWING THE SUCCESS of SECOND SIGHT FILMS LIMITED EDITION BOXED BLU RAY release of Amicus films, 1972 'ASYLUM' just a few weeks ago, they have now released a standard BLU RAY package of the film, available NOW for PRE-ORDER and will be released on JANUARY 6th 2020.  Their LIMITED EDITION BLU RAY PACKAGE of Amicus films, 'The House That Dripped Blood' is also available as a standard release on January 6th 2020 and can be PRE-ORDERED NOW too!


THE VISUAL QUALITY:
SECOND SIGHT HAVE transferred ASYLUM, to a neat dual-layered blu-ray, with a pretty much maxed out bitrate. I have read some reviews that claim that this 'master transfer' is the same master as used a while ago by Severin, in their box set, that included ASYLUM. Having watched both, I see no similarities at all!  We reviewed the Severin release at the time of its release, and it seemed that it wasn't just the characters in the 'madhouse' were way off it, the print we watched was far from 'all there', as they say. The first thing some of you may notice, who have previous releases of this film is, the framing is just a little different. Just a snip off the bottom and top, but nothing that drastically changes or challenges your viewing. I found the colours, clarity and sharpness of the film through out, to be very good, what i hoped for as a marked improvement on other releases I own. So soft have been those previous releases, little details of light and exposure are different here, but you can see now, are intended! You will no doubt notice your visuals on this release are sharper, contrast sitting just right, even in darker shots and scenes. What you'll see complements, the excellent score and effects . .  






HOW DOES IT SOUND? THE AUDIO SPEC: 
IF YOU KNOW THIS FILM WELL, from your previous releases, you'll know JUST how it sounds and that the SCORE and MUSIC here makes up a rating on its own! If you are new to ASYLUM, you are in for a treat. Regulars,will notice it's the transfer is the film's familiar audio, using its original mono via an uncompressed 24-bit 1.0 channel linear PCM tack. All the assorted unsettling sound effects, are here and  sound clearer on Second Sights chosen mono track. An improvement then on the previous up converted 5.1 attempts on other releases of late. Douglas Gamley's score is probably the best of all Amicus films title sequences, with his Mussorgsky 'Night On Bald Mountain' clanking it up, even before we get past the titles. The musical accompaniment to Robert Powell's climb up the stairs of the Asylum, while glazing at the framed portraits and drawings of the Mentally Ill and Bewilderd, put a frightening and crueller twist on even Hogarth's etchings of 'Gin Lane and Beer Street' of the 1700's. It's all scary stuff and Gamley, does it so well . .   




THIS SECOND SIGHT FILMS RELEASE not only presents us with a very neat and much improved print of the film, which stars some of the not only past Amicus casts, but a neat crew in 'post production' and behind the camera too. The film has a pretty tight story and each of the four tales of terror skip along, just pausing for breath under Peter Tanner's editing. Tanner had a very good understanding of the pace needed for Brit Fantasy and strange stories, having edited some of the best of the TV series 'The Avengers' in nine episodes during 65 and 66. Tanner worked in a few Amicus films and was very much in demand until 1998, sadly passing at the grand age of 88 in 2002.


They have more than made a VERY good effort  and a lot of thought has gone into design and the actual extras content.




SO HERE IS THE LIST OF THE EXTRA VALUE OF EXTRAS!
Audio Commentary with Director Roy Ward Baker and Camera Operator Neil Binney
 
Two’s a Company: 1972 On-set BBC report featuring interviews with Producer Milton Subotsky, Director Roy Ward Baker, Actors Charlotte Rampling, James Villiers, Megs Jenkins, Art Director Tony Curtis and Production Manager Teresa Bolland Screenwriter David J. Schow on Writer Robert Bloch Fiona Subotsky Remembers Milton Subotsky
 
Inside The Fear Factory: Featurette with Directors Roy Ward Baker, Freddie Francis and Producer Max J. Rosenberg
 
Theatrical Trailer
Reversible sleeve featuring new artwork by Graham Humphreys and original artwork
Limited Edition Contents

Rigid Slipcase Featuring New Artwork by Graham Humphreys
40 page booklet with new essays by Allan Bryce, Jon Towlson and Kat Ellinger
Reversible poster featuring new and original artwork
 
 
 
YOU CAN WIN YOUR COPY of SECOND SIGHTS FILMS REMASTERED BLU RAY of Amicus films 'ASYLUM ' in one of our many CHRISTMAS PCAS COMPETITIONS this CHRISTMAS! Look out for a whole SACK LOAD of PRIZES AND COMPETITIONS over the next TWO WEEKS! You can ALSO place YOUR PRE-ORDER direct with Second Sight Films RIGHT HERE!  
 
 
READ AND SEE MORE on the making of AMICUS FILMS 'ASYLUM' in the above PCASUK feature and gallery with DIRECTOR ROY WARD BAKER : HERE!
 

Wednesday 31 July 2019

WHAT WERE YOUR FIRST AND EARLIEST PURCHASES OR FINDS??


OVER AT THE FACEBOOK PCASUK FAN PAGE THIS POST is gaining a fair bit of attention! REMEMBER WHEN??? 😉 Here's a great question from follower Dan Barrett which he posted to us a few days ago! Here Dan's QUESTION: What are your earliest Peter Cushing discoveries? One childhood memory I have is of heading into my local Woolworths and finding this absolute gem in a bargain bin of vhs tapes: The Uncanny. Despite the 18 rating and being substantially under age, I managed to buy it unchallenged. I think I watched it, practically, until I wore the tape out. Cushing is brilliant as the terrified and fidgety eccentric author Wilbur Gray and there's a cracking performance from the wonderful Joan Greenwood. Wilfred Josephs' score is brilliant too (he composed music for The Prisoner and, although his theme tune was rejected in favour of Ron Grainer's, lots of his quirky score is used throughout the series). The Uncanny kicked off my love of Peter Cushing and portmanteau horror movies. IF YOU would like to join in the chat, just click that BLUE LINK at the top of this text!
 

ABOVE A FACEBOOK UPDATE ON OUR LAST PCASUK COMPETITION! We will be posting a FULL REVIEW along with SCREEN CAPS on the TWO SECIOND SIGHT FILMS AMICUS BLU RAYS featured here as prizes, ASYLUM and THE HOUSE THAT DRIPPED BLOOD' VERY SOON!



Sunday 30 June 2019

SECOND SIGHT FILMS : PCASUK COMPETITION WINNERS ANNOUNCED : ASYLUM LIMITED EDITION BLU RAYS PRIZES!


CONGRATULATIONS James Pearcy, Vivienne Dunston, David Little and Carl Beach! You are ALL Winners and have all bagged yourself a copy of the Second Sight Films Limited Edition Blu Ray release of Amicus films 'ASYLUM'..... Well Done! You will need to message us please 😉 MANY thanks to Second Sight Films for sponsoring your competitions over the last two weeks! They are VERY good releases, prints and extras! Look out for our PCAS review of BOTH Second sight Film releases 'House that Dripped Blood' and 'Asylum' this week. For everyone who entered and didn't win, thanks for taking part and your support . Make sure YOU are around on FRIDAY 😉 - Marcus



THE COMPETITION ANSWER : MR SMITH 😉


#SECONDSIGHTFILMS Limited Edition BLU RAYS of BOTH 'ASYLUM'  and 'THE HOUSE THAT DRIPPED BLOOD' are available NOW for PRE-ORDER HERE!

Sunday 23 June 2019

COMPETITION: WIN FOUR COPIES! LIMITED EDITION AMICUS BLU RAY 'ASYLUM'


HERE WE GO EVERYONE! Many thanks to Second Sight Films for their sponsoring of this and our last AMICUS CUSHING COMPETITION!... Asylum is one of my all time favorite Amicus / Peter Cushing films, and I think this release is going to go quite crackers and sell out very quickly on its release day 29th July2019. You CAN PREORDER NOW RIGHT HERE! THIS COMPETITION is now LIVE at the FACEBOOK PCAS FAN PAGE. IF you feel like giving yourself a go!? The last PCAS competition to win FOUR COPIES of SECOND SIGHT FILMS LIMITED EDITION OF ' 'THE HOUSE THAT DRIPPED BLOOD' was very popular and already it looks like THIS comp will make and hit some new numbers for our entries again!


THE SECOND SIGHT FILMS release not only presents us with a very neat and much improved print of the film, which stars some of the best of not only past Amicus casts but a neat crew in 'post production' and behind the camera too. The film has a pretty tight story and each of the four tales of terror skip along, just pausing for breath under Peter Tanner's editing. Tanner has a very good understanding of the pace needed for Brit Fantasy and strange stories, having edited some of the best of the TV series 'The Avengers' in nine episodes during 65 and 66. Tanner worked a few Amicus films and was in demand until 1998, sadly passing at the grand age of 88 in 2002. 



CAMERA OPERATOR NEIL BINNEY, who made a very firm mark of quality on several of Amicus films rival, Hammer films over the years, makes everything appear in the set design of the titled 'Asylum' building, look every inch clinical, but not-quite-in-the-world-of-the-real! Roy Ashton, provides his skilled eye and hand on the make up of everything from quite nasty scars to 'what is trying to break out of that manikin?'  plus Douglas Gamley -  The City Of The Dead (61) , The Road to Hong Kong (62),  A Shot In The Dark (63) The Land Thar Time Forgot (74)- and moves the scrapes, thuds and off time clanks of Elisabeth Lutyens. Gamley thankfully was yet to discover the art of naff 'The Beats Must Die' score and sets a terrific and powerful kick off bringing in his arrangement of Mussorgsky's 'Night On Bald Mountain' and pieces of his own making, to make a film that not only looks frightening but also rips a score, that gets the toes a curling! So much to watch and hear. Along with this we have a VERY nice assortment of goodies in the EXTRA FEATURES department . .  


ABOVE: JUST LIKE AMICUS, the art and timing of the 'good build-up' in how we set the scene, ready for the lauch of this the SECOND AMICUS PCAS and SECOND SIGHT FILMS competition, was about to go live on facebook, shortly . . 


OUR PART FIVE of the FILMS OF PETER CUSHING which includes ASYLUM complete with rare stills gallery : HERE! 


THE EXTRA VALUE OF EXTRAS!
Audio Commentary with Director Roy Ward Baker and Camera Operator Neil Binney
 
Two’s a Company: 1972 On-set BBC report featuring interviews with Producer Milton Subotsky, Director Roy Ward Baker, Actors Charlotte Rampling, James Villiers, Megs Jenkins, Art Director Tony Curtis and Production Manager Teresa Bolland Screenwriter David J. Schow on Writer Robert Bloch Fiona Subotsky Remembers Milton Subotsky
 
Inside The Fear Factory: Featurette with Directors Roy Ward Baker, Freddie Francis and Producer Max J. Rosenberg
 
Theatrical Trailer
Reversible sleeve featuring new artwork by Graham Humphreys and original artwork
Limited Edition Contents

Rigid Slipcase Featuring New Artwork by Graham Humphreys
40 page booklet with new essays by Allan Bryce, Jon Towlson and Kat Ellinger
Reversible poster featuring new and original artwork
 


DID YOU MISS our FIRST AMICUS BLU RAY competition? IF SO, grab your opportunity to catch this one, at the FACEBOOK FAN PAGE of the Peter Cushing Appreciation Society : RIGHT HERE!

Sunday 14 April 2019

NEWS: TWO AMICUS HORRORS COME TO BLU RAY IN UK


NEWS: More good news Amicus's THE HOUSE THAT DRIPPED BLOOD and ASYLUM both starring #PeterCushing and a whole HOST of British Horror amicus stars are AT LAST coming to blu-ray in the UK from Second Sight Films. MORE NEWS when we get it! At the moment, no NEWS on EXTRAS or a RELEASE DATE. STAY TUNE!


OUR PCAS FEATURES AND GALLERY ON THE HOUSE THAT DRIPPED BLOOD HERE!




OUR PCAS GALLERY AND FEATURE ON AMICUS FILMS ASYLUM  along with Cushing's performance and working with old friend actor BARRY MORSE and others CAN BE RIGHT HERE!


#thehousethatdrippedblood #amicusfilms #petercushing #bluray #news #christopherlee #asylum

Tuesday 19 December 2017

REMEMBERING DIRECTOR ROY WARD BAKER


REMEMBERING TODAY.. the birthday of director Roy Ward Baker, whose work with Peter Cushing includes 'Asylum', 'And Now, The Screaming Starts!'. 'The Vampire Lovers' with Amicus films. 'The Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires for Hammer films and 'The Masks of Death' with Peter Cushing for Tyburn films. Starting as a tea boy at the Gainsborough Studios in London in 1934, raising to the role of assistant director with Alfred Hitchcock on 'The Lady Vanishes' by 1939, then onto a career as director in Hollywood, working with Marilyn Munroe...Ward Baker had a very full career that covered just about every genre! Today we remember his birthday and the contribution to not only Peter Cushing's career, but the the world of cinema...




REMEMBER! IF YOU LIKE what you see here at our website, you'll  love our daily themed posts at our PCAS FACEBOOK FAN PAGE.  Just click that blue LINK and click LIKE when you get there, and help us . . Keep The Memory Alive!. The Peter Cushing Appreciation Society website, facebook fan page and youtube channel are managed, edited and written by Marcus Brooks, PCAS coordinator since 1979. PCAS is based in the UK and USA  .

Saturday 2 July 2016

DIRECTOR ROBIN HARDY DIES 1929 - 2016


IT IS WITH GREAT SADNESS we hear that director, ROBIN HARDY has died. He never had the chance to work with Peter Cushing, but he certainly did with the late Sir Christopher Lee, and it is probably for that work, he is best known.... 'The Wicker Man'... In 2010, the UK newspaper The Guardian named The Wicker Man the fourth-best horror film of all time. . .




JOIN US AT OUR FACEBOOK FAN PAGE UPDATED DAILY

Saturday 27 December 2014

WELCOME TO THE ASYLUM : ROY WARD BAKER ON THE AMICUS FILMS CHILLER


Producer, Milton Subotsky in his quiet and unobtrusive way, had made about 30 pictures since he came to England from New York. A dedicated Anglophile, he took British citizenship. He made a number of films of the magazine type, taking four or five short stories and stringing them together, usually enclosed in a suitable envelope. He persuaded strings of star names to appear in them and they were successful. ASYLUM was another one in that style. He had selected five short stories written by Robert Bloch. He sent his plan to bloch, together with a suggested envelope. Not surprisngly, Bloch wrote a cracking good script.


All the characters in these stories were lunatics except one and it was vital that their obsessions and fantasies should be absolutely genuine, NOT people putting on an act. Milton assembled a marvelous cast which was simply a list of first class actors who all responded beautifully. I was in my element and thankful to have such a group around me.


Before we began shooting the was one sad incident. I had asked Arthur Grant to photograph the film. He had read the script and was as enthusiatic as i was, but only ten days before the start he came to me, full of apologies. He was ill, and he felt it would be irresponsible to continue. He saud he knew that he couldn't do the job. I didn't ask any questions. I never knew was he was suffering, but only a few momnths later, he died. A sad loss to us all. He was  so good natured, unpretentious and good at his job. He was an ace at photographing dramatic night sequences: his motto was 'Never mind how dark it's supposed to be - the audience has still got to see what's going on!' And yet it still looked like night.


Dennis Coop was dubious about taking over at short notice but I managed to persuade him. He was a real top rater. He had high standards and you wouldn't find him photographing any old rubbish. We worked well together and I was glad to have him on my next two pictures. After that he became one of the principal members of the team that made Superman fly and you couldn't see the wires because there weren't any!



ASYLUM is one of my favorite films. The shoot was a smooth as silk. Tony Waye being the first assistant: he later spent a lot of time as a line producer on the James Bond films. There ios no pint in describing the stories or in picking out individual performances, they were all excellent, although I must just mention Herbert Lom's piece, which was utterly convincing. It was all shot in one day too, not that that's important. And the joint efforts of Charlotte Rampling and Britt Ekland were really smart. I like the picture because it all fits together so neatly, with terrific pace, too.


Milton Subosky was one of the nicest people i ever worked with. Shy, honest, modest - not the popular image of a film producer. I should have underlined the word 'popular'. Of course all producers are shy, honest, etc! Milton was no good at the publicising himself, never put himself about. He was an innovator. He filmed Harold Pinter's 'The birthday Party' directed by William Friedkin. He was the first to revive the Sword and Sorcery style - and first into insects, with a plague of bees! After Dead of Night, which had no follow ups because it was so good, he revived the magazine format with macabre stories. His productions were in the same field as Hammer but were always somehow different. An admirable man. He loved the stories and he loved film, to him, it wasn't just a business....


Roy Ward Baker: The Directors Cut.
published 2000
Images and Layout
Marcus Brooks


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