MATTHEW CONIAM ASKS: WHERE IN HEAVEN'S NAME IS 'THE GHOUL' ? FEATURE AND GALLERY

Every year I spend a week at an inn just inland of Land's End and most mornings I get up at 5 and enjoy the lonely cliff walk to England's most southerly point as dawn rises. It is eerily quiet, the whistling wind the only sound, and dozens upon dozens of rabbits the only living things in sight.

I’d like to say I spend most of my time on these walks pondering the deep mysteries of existence and the universe, and it’s true, when the first rays of the sun hit those timeless rocks, standing now just as they have through the whole history of human life in this most primitive and inspiring of lands, I do have my moments. But by and large, I’ll be honest, I’m thinking about The Ghoul.

I really can’t decide if it’s that I can’t leave this film alone, or that it can’t leave me alone, but I seem to have written more about it, and more often, than any other movie. A review of the mid-nineties video release was my first ever professionally published piece of writing. (Where did those two decades go?) And I still watch it several times a year, with undimmed pleasure.

Why the obsession? On the one hand, I am one of those people who tend toward the less well-travelled byways of the British horror film. I love the Hammer classics as much as anyone, but apart from the footnotes, that work’s been done. I prefer to scratch beneath the surface of the more obscure or underrated branches of the family tree. I’ve always thought the Tyburn story, for instance, should be of interest to anyone interested in Hammer or British horror, regardless of whether they think the films themselves were great, okay or terrible, yet it remains curiously overlooked.

That said, there’s also the very simple fact that The Ghoul really is my favourite British horror movie of them all. And ever since the opening scene scared the life out of me and sent me scampering out of the room as a little boy, it has seemed to me the quintessential British horror movie, so crammed with things to love.

I’ve never really got to grips with why so many seem to have at best little regard for it, and often a belligerent dislike. But while hardly anyone in print seems to have a good word to spare, I know from experience that it has a huge following among fans, who clamour for a DVD or BluRay release, and love its unique mixture of old-fashioned shivers and forward-looking mayhem. Why the published authorities fall so squarely in one half of the love/hate divide is a question worth considering, but what is in no doubt is that they are certainly misrepresenting their constituency.

I have already done my best to make a case for the film elsewhere on this site, (as well as detailed my thwarted attempts as an undergraduate to get Kevin Francis to discuss it with me in detail). This time I want to do something different, and take you back to those Cornish cliffs, not to attempt to persuade the undecided as to its merits, but to elaborate on a few of the questions the film throws out to those of us who already love the movie.

Most of them would never occur to the casual or first-time viewer, but they nag incessantly if you’re a devotee. The central mythos itself is incredibly vague: we know that some unholy sect ‘corrupted’ Cushing’s son Simon, and that he is now the Ghoul as a result, but we don’t know if this was achieved by supernatural means, or disease, or merely moral corruption. We don’t even know if the Ghoul is compelled to eat human flesh by necessity or choice.
 

Our first instinct, I would guess, is to assume that it is by necessity, but the more you ponder that the harder it becomes to square with the events of the film. Does the household rely purely on stranded travellers to provide him with food? (There seems to be a reasonably large collection of undergarments under Tom’s pillow, after all.) Would that really be a frequent enough occurrence, and wouldn’t suspicion soon fall upon them? Would his system really know the difference if they brought him pork chops? And does he eat only women – if not, why leave the body of Billy in his crashed car?

One must conclude that, as the Ayah forbids meat in other circumstances, his cannibal feasts are purely ceremonial and occasional, and it cannot be the case that he needs human flesh to survive, like a post-Romero zombie. This then raises the question of why Lawrence is so spineless in his handling of the problem…

Of course, for many fans, the real mystery of The Ghoul is why it’s so damned hard to see these days. Mired in copyright hell, the entire Tyburn back catalogue is officially out of bounds, with audiences having to rely on poor quality imported dupes, old tapes or off-air recordings. That mid-nineties VHS release marked the last time it was ever made officially available to the home market, and while it was a late-night horror staple in my television childhood (and even on one occasion made the cover of the Radio Times) it has not been seen on British TV since 2007.
 

Strange, given the interest that would surely greet its reappearance today, to recall the relative lack of excitement when it was last issued on tape, even though to my surprise and delight it turned out to be an extended cut with several minutes of footage not present in the official edit issued to British cinemas and used for all earlier video releases and broadcasts. (How and why the longer cut came to be assembled, and belatedly released, is another question for Kevin Francis when he decides the time is right!) 

For those who may only be familiar with one version, the differences are all in the first half. Several trims have been restored to the party scenes, with the biggest surprise for those who, like me, knew the original version by heart being when the opening prank scene continues for another minute after Alexandra Bastedo’s scream. But the most significant extra portions occur in the scenes with Veronica Carlson’s Daphne after her arrival at Lawrence’s house: it is this version and this only that includes her famous bath scene. (Stills from this sequence were used extensively in promotion and front of house materials, yet it would seem the sequence had never actually been seen by audiences before the mid-nineties.)

To make the fog even thicker, the longer version is itself missing one of the film’s most striking shots (probably accidentally, as it seems to occur at a reel change), in which we cut abruptly to Carlson’s eyes staring through Cushing’s stereoscopic slide viewer, as if locked in some medieval torture device: one of the film’s many charming 1920s touches.

That 20s setting is one reason why I love the film, and not just because it happens to be an era that entrances me anyway; it’s also bafflingly underused as a backdrop to traditional horror, and I’d be interested to know how early in the project’s gestation it was settled on. It’s often stated (including by me in my earlier piece on this site) that it was adopted somewhat arbitrarily, to make use of sets from The Great Gatsby left over at Pinewood, but now I’m not so sure. For one thing, the post-war ‘lost generation’ theme is central to the thematic structure in a way that doesn’t feel at all grafted on, and for another, only the opening scene actually uses roaring twenties settings, and that’s all filmed at Heatherden Hall, a real and permanent building on the grounds of Pinewood. Doubtless spare set dressings and costumes were gratefully received from Gatsby, but surely not deemed valuable enough in themselves to influence something so fundamental to the movie a priori.

Another vexed issue for hopeless obsessives like me is just where the film is set.

Now, some films tell you where they are set and some films don’t: no big deal. But The Ghoul is intriguing because it has two very clear and distinct locations: a fashionable society party and a fog-shrouded moor, neither of them actually named, and one named landmark: Land’s End, the ultimate destination of the car race that lands the four heroes in the Ghoul’s lair. I had always lazily assumed that it was indeed in the vicinity of Land’s End that they meet their fates (and always liked to think that the large, somewhat eerie, strangely melancholy white house I pass on my Land’s End walks, all alone in extensive but featureless grounds, was the abode of Mr Lawrence and his oddball household!) I also assumed, even more lazily as it turns out, that they started from London, and was frankly amazed, when I double-checked, to learn that both assumptions are completely unsupported by anything in the film itself. The only assistance we are given is the observation that Land’s End is “over a hundred miles” from where they begin, immediately corrected to “more like two.” 

So we can have some fun here: Four people in the 1920s are attempting to drive to Land’s End. Let us suppose that they live in a reasonably large town, given their wealth, awareness of fashions in an age of limited media, and the large number of like minds attending their parties. Their destination is between one and two hundred miles from the start point, and somewhere, along the shortest and most reasonable pre-motorway route, they pass through boggy moorland and become stranded. (Since both cars separately end up there, it is reasonable to suppose that neither took a wrong turning.) So where do they end up, and where have they probably started from?

Not London, surely? Land’s End is around 264 miles from London as the crow flies, and at least 300 miles (and five hours) by car, even with modern roads and speeds. Now, if you draw two circles on a map, one representing 100 miles from the radial point of Land’s End and the other two hundred, and assume that the start point must be a large-ish town somewhere within those two circles, the range of possibilities is surprisingly small. The most likely candidates (from a shortlist that also includes Bournemouth, Yeovil and Salisbury) are Southampton, Bristol and Bath. (Since I live there, I prefer to opt for Bath.)

Now, where do they end up? The moors on that route are Exmoor or Dartmoor if they don’t even get to Cornwall, Bodmin Moor or Goss Moor if they do, and Bodmin Moor  (substantially larger than Goss Moor and an appropriately misty, marshy and mysterious place steeped in folklore and legend) would I think be the more likely to have a secluded country mansion in the middle of nowhere within it. (Not sure that any of its inhabitants needed to sleep inside mosquito nets, even in the 1920s, but we’ll allow Anthony Hinds that much dramatic license.)

So that was my official guess: Bath to Bodmin, and with the film not telling, I assumed I was safe enough from dissent. But when I presented all this hard-thought reasoning in a blog post last year, a reader reminded me that there is also a novelisation of the film by Guy Smith, and that it has a little more detail on these matters. Having at last obtained my own copy, I took it with me to Land’s End this year. The good news is that it does indeed go into this and other of the film’s enigmas in greater detail: the bad news is that it makes them even more confusing.

First, and despite all of the above, there are several references that suggest the characters are indeed from London. Even though Smith replaces Geoffrey’s mere guess of two hundred miles with Daphne stating it as a certainty, he later has both Daphne and Angela wishing to themselves that they were “back in London”, and includes two dialogue references: Lawrence suggests that Daphne “will be able to journey back to London” after she has rested, and Geoffrey speculates that Angela might “try and walk it back to London out of sheer cussedness.” 

So on the face of it, it’s all looking rather bit bleak for my deductive reasoning! Or are there grounds for thinking that this was Smith’s own invention rather than derived from the original script? After all, hardly any of Smith’s dialogue has no parallel at all in the dialogue of the film, and the greater part of it is verbatim - but it’s a fact that both Lawrence’s and Geoffrey’s spoken references to London occur only in the book. Even more tellingly, a later exchange that does occur in both has been subtly altered by Smith: when Geoffrey is enquiring as to Daphne’s whereabouts, Lawrence tells him that she said “she was going to return to London”, to which Geoffrey replies, “It’s likely.” Smith normally sticks closely to the film, as I said, but in the film Geoffrey asks Lawrence where she had gone and Lawrence replies, with some diffidence, “She did say London.” In other words, far from knowing she would be intending to return there, it is as if he is nervously making a Westcountry recluse’s best and most obvious guess as to where a dazzler like Daphne might have originated from, and hoping he hasn’t given himself away in the process. And rather than “It’s likely”, Geoffrey’s reply is an incredulous “London?” - implying that it is, on the contrary, somewhat unlikely. It seems reasonable to speculate that the pinpointing of London is all Smith’s work, and he has tinkered with this exchange so as to accommodate it.

As to where they end up, again Smith has a surprise in store, though this time he only states it once: “Dawn was breaking as the Vauxhall reached Dartmoor.” But Dartmoor is in Devon, a long way from where they had hoped to arrive, and therefore it seems unlikely that both cars would have ended their journeys there. Once again, with its Hound of the Baskervilles connotations, Dartmoor would be an understandable casual choice for someone who was simply wanting to come up with a likely Westcountry moor: again, it feels more like Smith than Elder.

As well as definite locales, we are additionally given a definite date of 1923 – just a tad early, I’d have thought, for the twenties to be quite as roaring as we see them in the first scenes (especially in the provinces). It also makes Daphne considerably younger than we might have assumed from her conversation about faking her age so as to drive ambulances during the First World War.

So where did Smith get all this inside info? The absence in the book of any of the material in the extended video cut, and in particular the compression of time that follows from the deletion of Daphne’s bath and surrounding sequences, hints that he may even have been working to viewings of the film itself. (A coincidence, otherwise, given that all those scenes were scripted and shot, that both he and the film editors made the same cuts independently.) On the other hand, his omission of Lawrence’s lines about he and his late wife “still being together” (an ill-fitting addition to the scene that is obviously the work of Cushing himself) suggests he is working to the script.

If so, is the most substantial chunk of new material in the book – a grim sequence detailing the removal and dismembering of Daphne’s body after her murder, to be found in no extant version of the movie – Smith’s own invention, or a discarded fragment of an earlier script? It reads like Smith consciously upping the gore quotient a little, but Elder was surprisingly fond of such outré flourishes, and often had to be held in check by censors both internal and external.

The only thing to do was check with Guy N. Smith himself, so I got in touch with the venerable horror author – whose tales of deadly crabs were as familiar a component of the locker rooms of my school days as unwashed PE kits and packets of Monster Munch – to put these matters to him.
 

“I was approached by Sphere Books and Pinewood Studios,” he recalled; “I went to Pinewood where a showing of the film was arranged and was given a film script. I wrote it in three weeks, delivered the finished manuscript to Kevin Francis and that was that.”

And while, with forty years distance between him and the project, he could sadly no longer confirm if the locations were settled by him or not, he was adamant that there was no room for him to have any major narrative input: “I was not free to add elements of my own: the novel had to follow the film throughout, so the (dismemberment) sequence you mention would have been supplied.”

If Smith is really not to be credited with any improvisation at all, then the book very usefully sheds light on some of those questions of plot and logic I mentioned earlier.

For instance, the impression I got from the film was that the main instigator was Cushing’s Lawrence, bound by an oath to his late wife, reluctantly but nonetheless actively enticing victims to the house. The Ayah, though the one tasked with the job of preparing the carcasses and feeding the Ghoul, seems devoted principally to Lawrence, and both appear to be acting only under compulsion.
 

In the book, however, there is a much stronger sense that it is the Ayah who is in control of the weak-willed Lawrence, and that she engineers the deaths willingly and even with pleasure. She is a much more sinister figure than in Gwen Watford’s portrayal, with an expression of “utter malevolence” and “fingers like talons”. (Unlike the film, which ends with the Ayah impotently crying, as much for Cushing as the Ghoul we might assume, the novel ends with her committing suicide in the hope of being reunited with Simon: was this also derived from the original script?)

True, there is one line in the film where she says that is her prayers that brought Daphne and Angela to the house, but it is much clearer in the book that she really does mean this, and even more strikingly, there is the clear implication that Lawrence is to some extent left in the dark as to exactly what goes on, and would react more forcefully in opposition were it otherwise:

Every so often she stopped and listened. Each time she breathed a long sigh of relief as she heard the violin music in the study. Mr Lawrence would not tolerate her rites. Her prayers would be interrupted, and, today of all days, that must not happen.

There is of course that one moment in the film where Lawrence makes a big show of disrupting her ritual, but the clear implication of that, surely, is that he is putting on an act for Geoffrey, to imply that it has nothing to do with him. The book, by contrast, seems to want us to think his anger and surprise were genuine. But how could they be?

There seems to be a suggestion that he succumbs periodically to the power of the Ayah’s prayers, and is unable to stop himself acting as she wishes while under their influence, as when his playing of a Bach sonata gradually mutates into something else while she is chanting:

It was an Oriental theme, so much in keeping with her own mood, almost as though she was in telepathic contact with her master. The gods were on her side. They were exerting their powers over Lawrence. Surely now he understood what had to be done. He would not stand in her way.

A couple of minutes later she peered cautiously round the kitchen door into the hall. It was deserted. It was necessary to move with even greater stealth now that a new day had dawned. The study door was open. She glanced in, and then drew back swiftly as she saw Lawrence. Her heart pounded madly. If he should come into the hall, and catch her with this in her hands…

So what does he think happens to the people he knowingly brings into harm’s way, and conspires with both Tom and the Ayah to prevent from leaving? Unless my reading of it is an extremely idiosyncratic one, none of this comes across in the movie at all. His behaviour never seems controlled externally; though tormented he seems nonetheless plainly devious and culpable.

So is all this a clearer reflection of Elder’s original idea or a spin on it by Smith?
Just another mystery for us to ponder!

(Thanks to Guy N. Smith for indulging me.)

Written by:Matthew Coniam
Images: Marcus Brooks 

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GRINDHOUSE 'CORRUPTION' BLU RAY RELEASE PRINT QUALITY TO DIE FOR

Very obviously inspired by Georges Franju’s classic Eyes Without A Face, Robert Hartford-Davis’ 1968 film Corruption (also known as Carnage) stars Peter Cushing as a surgeon named Sir John Rowan. When the movie begins, he and his fiancé, a model named Lynn Nolan (Sue Lloyd), are attending a party held by a photographer (Anthony Booth) friend of hers. It’s full of swinging sixties style beatniks shaking their rumps to the sounds of the day and it all seems to be going well until the photographer asks Lynn to pose for him. As he encourages her to sex it up a bit, she obliges but Rowan isn’t having any of this and before you know it he’s trying to pull the camera out of the photographer’s hands and in the ensuing skirmish, a flood light falls and lands on Lynn’s face.

Once she gets out of the hospital, she’s obviously got some serious burn wounds. Those flood lights run hot, but thankfully Rowan’s skills as a surgeon just might be able to provide a solution. He’s got access to a special laser that he uses on Lynn and before you know it, her face looks as lovely as ever. To celebrate they head to the coast but upon their return it seems that it didn’t work so well after all. As such, Rowan decides a skin graft is in order and so he sets out into the seedy side of town in search of supply which leads him to the apartment of a pretty blonde prostitute. She tells him he’s her last client of the evening and he cuts her up. After that, he does what he does and Lynn’s face is once again back to normal. Her sister, Val (Kate O’Mara), and her fiancé, a doctor named Harris (Noel Trevarthen), start to wonder just what exactly is going on but Rowan is clever and sneaky until Lynn’s face once again needs new flesh to retain its beauty. When the four of them head to the coast to relax, things go from bad to worse when Lynn once again needs new flesh and a young girl named Terry (Wendy Varnals) shows up just in time…

This one has got a bit of a reputation thanks in no small part to Cushing’s displeasure with the picture. This one, particularly in the seedier version presented here (more on that in a minute), is noticeable stronger than pretty much anything else you’re likely to see Peter Cushing in and the uncut murder of the prostitute finds him in a much nastier situation than he probably initially wanted to be. With that said, the movie is quite well made. Cushing’s performance here is a strong one. He’s classy in that way that he always was and you never get the impression that he’s treating the material as if it were beneath him. He shows genuine concern for his (much younger) ladyfriend when she gets injured and he’s also mature and sophisticated enough that we can completely buy him in the role of an ace surgeon. Sue Lloyd also does fine work here. She’s sexy and confident initially but after her injury it becomes increasingly obvious that more than just her skin was damaged. Her psyche starts to show signs of cracking and this in turn spurns Rowan ever forward in his increasingly grisly attempts to make her happy. This provides an interesting dynamic between our two leads. The supporting cast members are also fine but the movie really does belong to Cushing and Lloyd.

The production values here are quite strong. Through the scenes involving the laser, particularly towards the end, make obvious their low budget origin but the cinematography from Peter Newbrook is never less than excellent. The film makes very good use of some particularly bizarre and even unsettling camera angels during the murder set pieces which really play up his manic disposition in the film and succeed in making him look completely deranged. The score from Bill McGuffie is also pretty solid, helping to ramp up tension in a few key scenes. This one may owe more than a passing nod to Franju’s earlier film, but there’s enough about it that is its own to make it more than worth a look, particularly for fans of British horror and specifically Peter Cushing.

Note (mild spoilers): This disc from Grindhouse Releasing includes the uncut theatrical version of the movie in addition to the international version alternate cut of the film. Although the international version runs a little shorter, it does in fact contain quite a bit more nudity and violence. The most obvious example is the scene in which Rowan kills the prostitute. In the theatrical cut she goes to undress and he knifes her. In the international version she takes off her top and gets down to her stockings after which he thrashes her around on the floor a bit, roughs her up, and then slits her throat, her naked breasts fully exposed and slathered in blood. The murder that happens on the train car is also a bit rougher as is the murder on the rocks at the coast.

Video/Audio/Extras:

Corruption is presented on Blu-ray in a fantastic looking AVC encoded 1080p high definition transfer framed at 1.85.1 widescreen. Picture quality is excellent here. Film grain is left intact but it’s never overpowering or distracting and outside of a few minor specks here and there, you won’t see much in the way of print damage at all. Colors are reproduced beautifully, you’ll notice this not only in the opening hippie party/photo shoot scene but also once the action moves to the coast and the characters run across the algae covered rocks where the green hues look perfect. Black levels are good, detail is consistently impressive not only in close up shots but medium and long distance shots as well. There are no obvious compression artifacts nor does there appear to be any edge enhancement or noise reduction at all.

The English language DTS-HD Mono mix is also pretty good. There are no alternate language options, closed captioning or subtitles provided on this release. There are a few spots where the high end gets a little shrill but otherwise the audio is perfectly fine for an older mono mix. Dialogue is perfectly easy to understand and the levels are properly balanced. The score sounds good as do the effects.

Extras start off with an audio commentary by UK horror journalist Jonathan Rigby and Peter Cushing biographer David Miller which is the highlight of this release’s supplemental package. These guys know their stuff and have a lot of respect for the material but manage to offer up both a history and an analysis of the picture without ever coming across as too highbrow or dull and scholarly. We get some interesting insight into Cushing’s life and career up to this point and some welcome information about the other cast and crew members involved with the production. They cover the locations, the material and its sometimes controversial nature, and its release history and generally just give a rock solid overview of the movie and its origins. They also talk about Cushing’s personal feelings on the picture, noting that he found it ‘particularly nasty.’ They provide some interesting historical and social context for the movie, noting that it was a very contemporary and brutal film compared to those being made by his contemporaries, they being Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, around the same time. Well paced, incredibly informative and a lot of fun to listen to, this is everything a great commentary should be.

From there, we move on to the interviews starting with a fourteen minute piece with actor Billy Murray who gives a nice introduction to his career and talks about his experiences on the set. Not surprisingly, he has nothing but kind words to say about Cushing (who he stayed in contact with for the rest of Cushing’s life), though he makes a subtle dig at Hartford-Davis for not crediting him with coming up with the film’s ending. He notes that he’s not really a fan of horror films because they scare him, though he does note that he enjoyed making it. He also notes that he wore his own clothes in the film and that the money he was offered wasn’t bad at all. He also describes the director as a bit of a playboy, and how his character and those who accompany him may have been influenced by the Manson Gang. He also notes that he auditioned for A Clockwork Orange and didn’t get the part.

Up next is actress Jan Waters, who plays the prostitute in the film. She talks for nine minutes about the time she spent on the set for this picture, her interactions with her fellow cast members, her impressions of Peter Cushing (who she describes as kind and courteous but also a rather serious man) and Robert Hartford-Davis and her thoughts on the film itself. She notes that it’s an early role, discussing how she had to go off to the studio to meet the director and read for the part, after which she was scheduled. She talks about how the script was being constantly rewritten and about what happens to her character in the film.

Actress Wendy Varnals is also interviewed and she also reminisces for sixteen minutes about working on the picture and shares some stories from the set. She talks about this being the last film that she ever did, discusses her being stopped on the street while attending Oxford and being cast in a play which lead to her acting career getting a bit of a start. She also talks about other occupations she did, primarily as a writer in the sixties where she wrote about fashion and music. She also talks about how she got typecast and which lead to her becoming disenfranchised over this as she was ‘bored to death’ with it. She too describes Cushing as a nice man and that he was very gentlemanly and generous.

Last but not least, Grindhouse have included an interesting seven minute archival audio interview with Peter Cushing conducted at Pinewood Studios in August of 1974. Here he talks about the differences between what he considers horror films versus those that he considers fantasy films – meaning that they’re entertainment films, rather than pictures based on real world atrocities like war pictures. He talks about his wife, he talks about attending screenings of his pictures and going to the cinema for pleasure and offers up some bits and pieces about his career. Always the consummate gentleman, Cushing comes across as a class act here, sharing his thoughts on sex and nudity in cinema as well as his thoughts on more extreme films, where he cites The Exorcist as an example.

We also get a collection of three alternate scenes, the first of which is from the first prostitute murder. This material was shot to allow the distributor to ‘spice up’ the film for international markets and it’s gory, bloody and chock full of boobs. In addition to that we get a very brief additional shot that takes place on the train and an even shorter additional shot from the murder on the rocks that takes place towards the finale.

Rounding out the extras are a few (surprisingly extensive) still galleries featuring all sorts of promotional material gathered up from all over the world, a pair of trailers for the feature, five different TV spots and a pair of radio spots as well. And of course, this wouldn’t be a Grindhouse Releasing disc without a score of trailers for other releases either already available (An American Hippie In Israel) or coming soon. The extras also include the original annotated director's shooting script and production notes which you can skim through on the disc, which is kind of unique and not something that you see included in bonus features too often.

There’s also an Isolated music and effects track that can be selected from the audio set up menu. Menus and chapter stops are included and as this is a combo pack release, the clear Blu-ray case also houses a DVD version of the movie as well. Inside the case is a booklet of liner notes and on the flip side a poster version of the cover art by Rick Melton.

The Final Word:

Corruption is a solid thriller/horror picture that takes a familiar concept and gives it an interesting spin. Though it is very much a product of its time, those with an interest in the swingin’ side of British cinema will get a kick out of all the period detail but the real reason to want to watch this one is for Cushing’s completely unhinged performance. Grindhouse Releasing offers up both versions of the movie in beautiful shape and with a great selection of extra features as well. A ridiculously strong release overall.

Review by rockshop.com: HERE

MASTER BUILDER: ANTHONY HINDS : THE ARCHITECT OF THE HOUSE OF HAMMER

Hammer Film fans across the globe were saddened yesterday by the news that Anthony Hinds had passed away at the grand age of 91.  Hinds is seldom discussed as much as Peter Cushing.  Or Christopher Lee.  Or Terence Fisher.  Or Jimmy Sangster.  Or Jack Asher.  Or Bernard Robinson. But the fact remains, it was Hinds who assembled these gifted men, thus creating “Hammer Horror.”

Hinds was born in Middlesex, England, on September 19^th, 1922.  After a stint in the Royal Air Force, he accepted an invitation from his father, Will Hammer, to come and join the ranks at Exclusive Films.  In 1948, he produced his first picture, a modest potboiler named Who Killed Van Loon?.  Hinds displayed an ability to bring his films in on time and on budget and also showed a genuine concern for quality, which was something of a rare quality for men in his position in the lower echelons of British film production.  In 1954, Hinds produced The Quatermass Xperiment – in essence the first of Hammer (as the studio had by then been rechristened) Films’ major commercial successes.  A tight, well-paced adaptation of a hit TV serial by Nigel Kneale, the film disappointed its original writer, but proved to be a hit with audiences.  The film’s success prompted Hinds to push his friends and coworkers at the studio to develop an idea for a follow-up in a similar style.  Production manager Jimmy Sangster won the friendly competition by suggesting a story of radioactive mud which has undesirable effects on those who come into contact with it, and Sangster was then catapulted into a new career as a writer; Sangster always remembered Hinds for having the faith in him to allow him to write his first screenplay.  The success of these early black and white sci-fi/horror hybrids eventually lead Hammer, and Anthony Hinds, into a new direction…

American writer/producer Milton Subotsky approached Hinds with the idea of remaking James Whale’s Frankenstein (1931), but Hinds wasn’t exactly wild about the idea.  After considering his options, however, Hinds decided that a brand new approach to the Mary Shelley novel might prove rewarding – and he proceeded to assemble an ace team of artisans and technicians to make the picture.  It was Hinds who also decided to push for filming in color – a costly addition, in a sense, but one which the producer wisely realized would pay off in dividends.  The end result, The Curse of Frankenstein, would prove to be a watershed “event” in the evolution of the horror genre.  With its deceptively rich production values and then-scandalous dashes of blood and gore, the film would go on to become a box office triumph, revitalizing the popularity of Gothic horror films at the box office and putting Hammer on the map as a major player in the UK film production scene.  Hinds decided to reassemble the same team – director Terence Fisher, screenwriter Jimmy Sangster, cinematographer Jack Asher, production designer Bernard Robinson, composer James Bernard, and stars Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee – for Dracula (1958), and the resulting film was met with critical consternation and tremendous box office numbers.  From this point on, Hammer was, as the saying goes, a force to be reckoned with.

Quite apart from being savvy enough to assemble the people who made these films so special, Hinds was also a rare producer who had genuine passion for film.  He took pride in his work, and expected others to do the same.  Hinds was by all accounts a humble, laid back individual – not exactly the kind of cigar chomping “mover and groover” one normally associates with producers.  His thoughtful disposition prompted him to push his collaborators to take their work seriously.  He knew the value of a pound, and saw to it that the films he produced were executed with a glossy veneer which hid their humble origins.  It was an attitude that he did his best to implement on every picture he ever produced.

In time, Hinds branched out yet again, this time becoming a screenwriter.  The story goes that Hammer’s planned historical epic, The Rape of Sabena, fell afoul of the British Board of Film Censors (BBFC), thus leaving Hinds in a bit of a predicament.  He had already authorized Bernard Robinson to build some imposing “Spanish” sets, and now that this particular property was dead in the water, he had to find a way to utilize these sets.  Hinds turned his attention to Guy Endore’s novel The Werewolf of Paris – realizing that Hammer had yet to make their own werewolf film, he decided to change the setting from Paris to Spain, thus enabling the studio to make use of these troublesome sets.  Looking to save a buck, Hinds elected to write the script himself – and he found that he preferred the process of creating scenarios to dealing with the bureaucratic nightmares associated with producing.  Hinds would continue to produce throughout the better part of the 1960s, but when he found himself working “under” American producer Joan Harrison on Hammer’s ill-fated venture into anthology television, Journey into the Unknown, he decided to call it a day.  Hinds would later recall working with Harrison (or as often was the case, being at loggerheads with her) on this problematic production to be a dispiriting affair which he was in no great hurry to relive.  And thus it came to be that producer/writer Anthony Hinds became “plain old” writer Anthony Hinds… or John Elder, as the self-effacing scribe decided that having his name plastered all over the credits might look a bit conceited.  As a writer, Hinds’ credits include Kiss of the Vampire (1962), Phantom of the Opera (1962), The Reptile (1966), Frankenstein Created Woman (1966), Taste the Blood of Dracula (1969), and Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell (1972).  He eventually left Hammer for a time, going to work for rival company Tyburn Productions.  For them, he scripted The Ghoul and Legend of the Werewolf in 1974.  His final credits would include an episode of Hammer House of Horror, titled Visitor from the Grave, and a “story by” credit on Tyburn’s made for TV Sherlock Holmes adventure, The Masks of Death (1984), starring Peter Cushing and John Mills.

Hinds went into retirement in the 80s, granting the occasional interview, but basically content to enjoy his “golden years” on his own terms.  A quiet, humble and unpretentious individual, he reacted with genuine surprise (and pride) when his many classic Hammer productions were dredged up and celebrated as classics of their kind.  True to form, Hinds never seemed to take himself too seriously – but his passion for the work itself was obvious.  With his passing on September 30th (a mere 11 days after his birthday), the key architect of Hammer horror passed to the great beyond.  Indeed, of the key creative personnel who created this world that we fans know and revere so much, only one remains standing: Christopher Lee, himself a mere four months Hinds’ senior.  Hinds’ passing may not signal the end of an era, but it does put one in a reflective mood as we look back and celebrate the many wonderful achievements of one of the British film industry’s unsung treasures.

Troy Howarth

ANTHONY HINDS DIES AGED 91

We are very sad to hear of the passing of Anthony Hinds yesterday.. A writer and producer, who was not only the backbone Hammer Films, but was the driving force behind the building of Bray Studios. How painfully ironic then, that the bulldozers start their work on the Bray Studios lot tomorrow...