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Thursday 15 February 2018

FREE COLOUR HAMMER FILMS DRACULA CONTACT SHEET : HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY AND COLLECTORS WEDNESDAY

WELL THERE COULD only be one face here today, for certain! Have a Happy Valentine, Everyone - Peter Cushing as Arthur Grimsdyke, resurrected in Tales From The Crypt (1972) in the VALENTINE story, Poetic Justice. Peter Cushing was awarded The Licorne d’Or Award at the French Convention of Fantasy Cinema, for his role of Arthur Grimsdyke . .

THE RARE COLOUR contact sheet BELOW features FOUR images that were never used in publicity for the film, and probably not published as a contact sheet before today, on the net. Even though these are posted here at as hiigh a resolution as blogger will handle, these images are still very LARGE and taken to a print shop, after a little cleaning with picasa . . . .or photoshop, if you are really particular . . they would print of as great 10 x 8 stills or even large full colour posters! Have FUN! - Marcus.

NEXT WEEKS CUSHING COLLECTORS POST: PETER CUSHING

CHRISTOPHRE LEE WRITES: "Unfortunately, I am also to be opened up--on June 7th I have open heart surgery that day (no lilies, please) to replace a mitral valve. At least it will prove that I do have a heart--and if anything goes wrong, nobody will believe it. Peter [Cushing] has very kindly offered to act as consultant; I have slight reservations on this one, having once been the result of his genius . . . . I think this all started on HOUSE OF THE LONG SHADOWS. What with my heart, John [Carradine]'s hands, Peter's [unreadable] and your legs, we should be able to put together some sort of composite immortal which would keep Landis, Cronenberg and Carpenter in funds for many years."

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

Tuesday 13 February 2018

#TOOCOOLTUESDAY: TWO HAMMER ICON BIRTHDAYS AND THE TUESDAY TOUGHIE

TODAY WE REMEMBER Robert Oliver Reed, born today February 13th 1938. The 'Cushing Connection' spreads over three films, 'Captain Clegg /Night Creatures' in 1962, 'Sword of Sherwood Forest' in 60, both for Hammer films and a car crash of a film entitled 'A Touch of the Sun' in 1979... a film produced in Africa, and never found a distributor outside of it! A larger than life character both on and off the screen..who was always happy to acknowledge his 'Hammer film roots.... 'The Curse of the Werewolf in 1961 and 'These Are The Damned' in 1963. Happy Birthday Oliver!

ABOVE: OLIVER REED DURING SHOOTING OF 'PARANOIAC' (1963) WITH DIRECTOR, FREDDIE FRANCIS AND MAURICE DENHAM.

ABOVE : SHOOTING NIGHT CREATURES WITH PETER CUSHING AND YVONNE ROMAIN (1962) AND BELOW A PUBLICITY STILL FOR 'CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF (1961)

PLEASE JOIN US in wishing actress BARBARA SHELLEY a HAPPY BIRTHDAY today . . Shelley was kept pretty busy by Hammer films back in the 1960's. Dracula Prince of Darkness, Rasputin, Camp on Blood Island, Quatermass and the Pit and The Gorgon with Peter Cushing, Shadow of the Cat too . ..well maybe. The jury is still out on that one. WHICH is your favorite Barbara Shelley film??

RALPH BATES REMEMBERED : BORN TODAY 1940

REMEMBERING: Born today in 1940, RALPH BATES. Sadly, no longer with us. A talented actor and a truly gentle and kind man.

RALPH BATES WAS THE GREAT, GREAT nephew of the renowned French scientist Louis Pasteur developed into a strangely handsome dark haired, pale complexioned English actor. Ralph Bates was born in 1940 in Bristol, England and attended the University of Dublin and studied at the Yale Drama School. His dramatic talents first came to audiences attention playing the evil Emperor Caligula in the well received BBC TV series The Caesars (1968). However, the Hammer studios resurrection of the horror genre was then in full stride, and Bates was soon engulfed in the swirling cloak of Hammer's success as he appeared in several horror films in quick succession.

ABOVE: A few fated coincidences here with these two chaps that appeared in 'The Caesars' tv series . . .Ralph Bates and Freddie Jones

FIRSTLY IN A SUPPORT ROLE as demonic Lord Courtley in Taste the Blood of Dracula (1970), followed as the lead character Baron Frankenstein in The Horror of Frankenstein (1970), then as Giles Barton in the sexy Lust for a Vampire (1971) and as the well meaning Dr. Jekyll in an unusual spin on the Robert Louis Stevenson story in Dr Jekyll & Sister Hyde (1971) and 'Fear in the Night' with Peter Cushing in 1972. Bates brought a new zest to Hammer and with his stylish dialogue delivery and film acting methods, he quickly won himself quite a few fans in both critics and regular film goers!

UNFORTUNATELY, by the early 1970s there had been a downturn in Hammer studios fortunes, and Bates then found himself turning to more traditional character work in other production houses and he appeared in several films before snaring other superb villainous role as George Warleggan in the 18th century period piece Poldark (1975).

ABOVE: RALPH BATES and JUDY GEESON : HAMMER FILMS

FEAR IN THE NIGHT (1972)

AFTER POLDARK, Bates himself kept busy in TV shows and television film roles which did not really do justice to his remarkable talents. In the late 1980s his health rapidly deteriorated, and he sadly passed away from cancer aged only 51 on 27th March 1991.

Sunday 11 February 2018

THE CUSHING DOUBLE BILLS NUMBER 2 : THE SKULL AND THE CREEPING FLESH : CALLUM MCKELVIE ON SUNDAY

BEGINNING LAST WEEK, I started a series examining three pairs of films that I felt would make ideal ‘Cushing Double-Bills’, concentrating primarily on thematic links. Last time, I looked at Hammer's The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) and its first sequel The Revenge of Frankenstein (1958). We continue this week with a pair of films slightly less obvious than our previous selection, 1965’s The Skull and 1972’s The Creeping Flesh. Ostensibly two unrelated films (excluding the fact that both feature Cushing and Christopher Lee and are directed by Freddie Francis) our discussion this week concerns the dark thematic subtext that links both.

MADE IN 1965, The Skull is often cited as one of Cushing’s very best whilst The Creeping Flesh (despite getting a great deal of attention from fans and this page in particular) is still sadly something of an undiscovered gem. The Skull is one of Amicus’s non-portmanteau features and is based on the short story The Skull of the Marquis De Sade by Robert Bloch. A masterpiece of atmosphere, The Skull has a powerful dreamlike quality that manages to be supremely unsettling. The Creeping Flesh, on the other hand, is one of Tony Tenser’s Tigon productions and is far more visceral in its execution, with some genuinely disturbing scenes..

SO WHAT THEN IS IT, that causes me to group these two films in particular? Well to begin with both demonstrate British horror studios attempting to do something different with the Hammer mould and are incredibly experimental in nature. The Skull, as well as being a modern day piece it’s far less explicit in exactly what its threat is than Hammer tend to be, preferring a slower, subtler build-up. Visually The Skull is particularly arresting, be it the haunting shots from the Skull’s perspective or the Kafka-esque dream sequence. Similarly the film embraces a darkness to an extent that Hammer rarely did, from the depressing ending to the character of Maitland himself.

ABOVE AND BELOW: THE KAFKA-ESQUE POV SHOTS APPEAR IN

BOTH 'THE SKULL' AND 'THE CREEPING FLESH'

MAITLAND, whilst not unlikeable, is hardly a charmer and as an audience we are invited to look upon his morbid hobby with a critical eye. We care about him and wish him no ills but the obsessiveness that permeates his character causes us to question his gruesome pastime. 'The Creeping Flesh' on the other hand is from, arguably, the most radical British horror studio in business from the mid 60’s to mid-70’s.

ABOVE: THE OBSESSIVE MAITLAND OF 'THE SKULL' (1965)

IT MUST BE REMEMBERED that whilst Tigon were behind the gothic pot-boiler The Blood Beast Terror (1967), they were also the studio famed for producing Michael Reeves his magnum opus, Witchfinder General (1968) and his earlier The Sorcerers (1967). Away from Reeves, Tigons output is rich with a ‘radical’ and ‘alternative’ sentiment and whilst not always successful never cease to be interesting. Curse of the Crimson Altar (1968), Neither the Sea nor the Sand (1972), The Flesh and Blood Show (1972), The Beast in the Cellar (1970) and of course Blood on Satan’s Claw (1971) are among the most innovative and experimental British horror films in this period.

ABOVE: BORIS KARLOFF AND IAN OGILVY IN TIGON FILMS 'THE SORCERERS' (1967)

ABOVE: THE EQUALLY OBSESSIVE EMMANUEL HILDER FROM THE CREEPING FLESH (1972)

THUS The Creeping Flesh similarly contains elements that go against the traditional mould. Namely, like The Skull, there are few likeable characters and our main this time, Emmanuel Hildern is equally as obsessive as Maitland. This time it is science and particularly the desire to make a great discovery, rather than collecting that absorbs him. The same can be said of his sadistic brother James (Lee), who covets his brother’s success. The film questions the nature of evil and in particular uses the Victorian scientist to do this. The usual hero of Hammer is here reverted to selfish obsessors whose desire for success and discovery makes them far more horrific, than the devil-creature that appears at the climax.

ABOVE: THE SADISTIC BROTHER JAMES, PLAYED BY CHRISTOPHER LEE IN 'THE CREEPING FLESH' (1972)

AS PERHAPS I’m already beginning to demonstrate, 'The Skull' and 'The Creeping Flesh', are without doubt two of the most sub textually rich and intelligent films that Cushing has been involved with. In both, it’s possible to feel that perhaps more than his other Gothic productions Freddie Francis is able to identify themes and motifs throughout the stories that interest him visually. Building on themes of obsession, madness is a prominent factor in both and indeed can be one of the central elements of fear that emanates from the films. In 'The Skull' we are invited to question whether Maitland is actually going insane and the nature of his haunting is a highly personal one, attacking his mind over his physical body (at least until the films climax).

ABOVE: MAITLAND HIGHLY PERSONAL MADNESS

ONCE AGAIN in The Creeping Flesh we are invited to wonder whether our main character is indeed mad, though far more explicitly. Here the framing structure of the film has Cushing narrating his story, before at the end revealing that he is an inmate in the asylum ran by Lee. A final shot leaves us to wonder whether his story is true or not. However the theme of madness permeates the story far deeper than this, with Cushing living in fear of hereditary madness that leads him to inject his daughter with the serum grown from the remains of the skeleton.

IN SHORT, I think of all the double bills I’ll be discussing, this is easily the most personal. Whilst I love the films of Hammer these two simply blew me away with relentlessly dark tales that made comments on obsession, madness and the nature of evil. Whilst calling them Cushing’s two ‘Artsy’ horrors may sound somewhat insulting, I think it perhaps sums them up best. These films are Freddie Francis’s masterpieces and demonstrate a sub textual and visual storytelling intelligence far above and beyond any of his other horror work. Whilst Dracula has Risen from the Grave is certainly beautiful to look at and contains interesting commentary on religion, it’s not as rich or as subtle as these two films.

IT'S A REAL SHAME that whilst The Skull has r been given a superb Blu-ray treatment, The Creeping Flesh is neglected to a mill-creek triple feature. One lives in hope that boutique label along the lines of Arrow will recognise the merit in the film and surprise us with a brand new HD transfer and a wealth of features. If you’re looking for two of Cushing’s darker, less comfortable films then these make the perfect double bill.