Sunday 9 June 2019

REVIEW OF SEVERIN'S THE UNCANNY BLU RAY AND THE POTTED SAGA OF MILTON AND MAX


THE PROGUE
THE UNCANNY, has a title that is weirdly appropriate and fits not only the whole weird set up of the film, and by that I don't just mean, the film's characters and the script! If when following the story, you have a feeling of 'deja vu', it's perfectly justified.  Severin Films has recently released  their long awaited blu ray of this bizarre British / Canadian feature film. Anyone worth their mustard and standing as a 'Fantasy flicks' fan will be familiar with the films of Amicus Productions and it's producers, a successful partnership of Milton Subotsky and Max Rosenberg. Milton based in the UK, soul provider of books and script properties to fashion into worthy productions and other Max, a hard nosed deal-man who rustled up the lolly and funding for these films and projects. It all worked splendidly for decades. A wielding of two men, dedicated to the product who started and founded their company with no legal document, only a 'gentlemans' hand-shake. Such was the trust they had in each other and their belief in their skill set! Together they formed said company 'Amicus' (roughly translates as 'Friend' in Hindi) and proceeded to make some of the best British horror / fantasy films that generated some impressive box office through the mid 1960's until the early 1970's.


THE LATE Max Rosenberg called Amicus "a studio without walls". He was a New Yorker, a law graduate with a successful distribution company who when he first heard about the Eady plan, a British subsidy set up to funnel government money into movie production and encourage filming in the UK., knew he had found the 'golden hen' for their at the time, tin pan plans. Milton Subotsky was a shy science-fiction film freak, also from New York, whose parents considered the movie industry disreputable. Nevertheless, he still managed to squeeze into the feature film business, producing 'Rock, Rock, Rock' with Rosenberg in 1956, before he moved to England in 1960. 


IN 1964,, the pair made that 'shake' and with that, the founding of Amicus, to take advantage of the Eady plan and put their plan into action.  There was no capital structure, so films got made through a combination of some private investment, funding from the 'Eady Plan', all not poured but rather, dripped into some  extremely low budgets. Their first portmanteau and 'proper' production, arrived in the 1965 'Dr Terror's House of Horrors'. It was made for less than £100,000, yet starred the two horror giants of the time,  Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. It was directed by Freddie Francis, who by then was already a highly acclaimed cinematographer. Rosenberg's technique for attracting high-profile talent was simple formula: he hired them on a competitive day rate, but only for a few days, so shooting schedules were brisk. Very brisk. The box office popular 1971 'The House That Dripped Blood' was filmed over a just four weeks.



IF WALLS COULD TALK! Part THREE of the AMICUS FILMS of PETER CUSHING, includes gallery and behind the scenes story on the making of 'The House That Dripped Blood' CLICK HERE!



THE MEAT
AMICUS may have, for some fashioned what could have be seen as quite way off horror hokum, but their most popular Peter Cushing portmanteau movie, 'Tales From The Crypt' was second only to The Godfather at the US box office in 1972, and also spawned a follow-up, The Vault of Horror! All of this came into being through hard-nosed opportunism and Subotsky's love of simple, well told tales, though many adapted with an ink and mind set, darker than most and writer called, Robert Bloch, which equaled Bloch-Office-receipts at the cinema. 



AMICUS IS SEEN by many to have been the only direct competitor to Hammer films, that other British production company, who also hit gold with Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee just eight years before, Amicus dig in their flag. Where Hammer based their movies in far off European countries like Transylvania, where Counts are vampires and Baron's keep not wine and antiques in their dungeons and cellars, but body parts and heads, Amicus set their plots in contemporary suburban England, a staple funds saving choice, as all sets were usually cast off's from other films, still standing at Shepperton studios! The often leafy lane and cottage needed for a tale, were always a conveniently mere three miles from the studio gate! 


WE MAY TITTER, but it worked and worked extremely well. The Amicus films were typically quite brooding and claustrophobic; they were in some ways far darker without the Gothic, these horror stories could have been taking place in our homes, basements, garden sheds or kitchens! Many of the scripts tended to reflect some of Subotsky's obsessions. 'I, Monster', the weird Amicus Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde adaptation, is stuffed with Freudian theories. It's no secret that Subotsky's wife happened to be studying psychology at the time . . .!


THE BONE
Even though at heart, Subotsky was a dreamer, he could when needed also be a shrewd businessman. "Hammer was a business set-up," the late, legendary horror director Freddie Francis once said in 1995. "Had it dealt in garbage disposal, it would have been just as successful. Milton Subotsky from Amicus, on the other hand, was a real horror buff." Only Subotsky could 'rent' a star name for a day on a flat rate to include them as part of the cast and add value to the cast list rota on the cinema poster! Such was the amazing chemistry of how, Amicus worked, before Subotsky and Rosenberg had a huge spat and it all went south. Rosenberg though carried on producing a few films under the Amicus name and then became a distributor called Dynamite, who ironically and horribly, reedited and repackaged two Hammer films, 'Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires' and 'The Satanic Rites of Dracula' both with Peter Cushing, for distribution in the US on VHS and DVD. And Subotsky? Well . . . 




THE SCRAPS
IN 1975 AMICUS made its final bow with 'At The Earth's Core'. On viewing it at a local cinema with his son, Milton was appalled. When PCASUK interviewed Subotsky in a rare video interview in the early 80's, he found it hard to cover his disappointment at the film and contempt for Rosenberg's and director Kevin Connor's handling of the film, in his absence. 'I went to the trouble to invent and devise a complete language for the Pellucidarians in the film. But that was just ignored. When Peter speaks to them and they talk back in fluid English I nearly fell off my seat! And the climax in my screenplay was entirely different. A film that ends with fire works and explosions just shows lack of imagination!' 



AND SO with the final death throes of Amicus, Subotsky set up camp elsewhere. He formed "Sword & Sorcery Productions, Ltd.", tried to get funding for several projects like the 'Thongor' stories, even a film with Stan Lee's 'The Hulk' but to no success. But all was not lost, Subotsky produced the film  'Dominique' with Simon Ward, Jenny Agutter, Ron Moody, Judy Geeson... all actors who had worked with Peter Cushing... and Jean Simmons! In 1980, he co-produced the TV series The Martian Chronicles, adapted from the short story collection by Ray Bradbury. But in between there, he joined forces with Cinevideo, Rank and several other piggy banks in Canada, to make one other film, and this is where we started . .





THE UNCANNY
Wilbur Gray (Peter Cushing) visits Frank Richards (Ray Milland ) so he can get his book published. This book Gray has written are about cats. Cats watching everyone and controlling everything. He mentions the stories in the book are all true, and gives three examples. The first involves the murder of a cat-loving old woman (Joan Greenwood, Susan Penhaligon and Simon Williams ) who gives her entire fortune in her will to her cats. Not everyone is happy about the wills, but would have to get past the cats to get the the will. The second story is a tale of black magic between two girls (Chloe Franks and Katrina Holden Bronson) and the third story is a tale of murderous revenge (Donald Pleasence, Samantha Eggar and Catherine Bégin) ... by a cat.






SEVERIN 'THE UNCANNY' BLU RAY
I FIRST SAW this film, back in 2006 on a Network DVD release. I sadly missed any chance of catching it on the big screen, as it received such a poor reception theatrically back in 1977, no local flea pit would take it. So a chance to see the film, that for many years had been given the rough treatment in Fantasy magazines and fanzines, who seemed more caught up on the idea that this could only be a feral version of anything Subotsky had to offer, since Amicus was now dead and buried! On viewing, I was much surprised! It's not Amicus, but it is entertaining. The bleak and black sense of humor that often peeped out from the traditional Amicus suburbian alcoves and curtains, is now given the full room, which is quite a change for Subotsky, who stages the stories across London 1912, Quebec Province 1975 and Hollywood 1936! Despite Subotsky's well known dislike of unpleasant graphic scenes of blood and sex in his productions, he does pull out the stops in a few scenes. Remember, cats have claws and love to chew and bite! 


THE CAST is more than capable of holding these three tales together, Joan Greenwood is deliciously unpleasant, creepy and taster than cat nip, Susan Penhaligon, does 'hungry' very well and left me peckish to want to see more of her. Chloe Franks and Katrina Holden Bronson carry their lead roles in their tale as brat and victim to the hilt, while Donald Pleasence, Samantha Eggar and Catherine Bégin, are given the full nine yards in a camp and funny, saga of silent era Hollywood. Pleasence really does go for it, right up until the macabre climax. Meee-OUCH! This isn't 'Tales from the Crypt' or 'Torture Garden' it's Subotsky having fun. Personally, or me, it's the Cats Whiskers . .😉😚




SEVERIN FILMS must be congratulated on bringing the film to blu ray for the first time, given the film's, rocky reputation, this film has had more bootleg and dodgy VHS transfers to DVD, than Peter Cushing's 'dead on arrival' Tendre Dracula! Long before this film's release, we were teased with the news that the blu ray transfer came from . . a source, that has been “scanned from an inter-negative recently discovered in a London vault.”  . . sounds like a thread from one of Subotsky's stories! The surprising thing is sporadically, at the beginning of the film, it seems that this single layer transfer, looks every frame, like it was 'found from said vault'!. Not so bad, that we have a the surface of the bottom of an old and well used cats bowl to look through, but it has that 'no longer a kitten, more an old moggy look about it'



THIS IS A SHAME, as the definition is certainly better than a dvd but the surface of the film and the audio during the first few minutes, has been unnecessarily neglected. Having said that, the transfer is bright, colourful as should be, the audio is presented in English 2.0 mono DTS-HD with optional subtitles in English SDH. The dialogue thankfully is always clear. If you are watching and listening with headphones, it sounds exceptable and I can't say I heard anything distracting or any audio distortion. 


THE EXTRAS on this release are slim. A twelve-minute interview with actress Susan Penhaligon, entitled 'The Cat’s Victim' is the best of a handful, Penhaligon chats about her career and some of the early roles that leads up to her role in The Uncanny. She also spends a little time on working with Peter Cushing and some of the trickiness involved in working with live cats on set during the making of the film. There is also a theatrical trailer


THIS IS NOT A BAD transfer, considering the problems with finally finding a source, but I can't help thinking, the whole thing would have been so much better and deserving of a much awaited blu ray release, had another source been used.. but that sadly, wasn't possible, and there lies another Subotsky like tale, for another time...   


MILTON SUBOTSKY died of heart disease in 1991, at the age of 69. Max Rosenberg died in Los Angeles, California in 2004, he was 89

Friday 7 June 2019

SIR CHRISTOPHER LEE REMEMBERED TODAY : FROM 2O15 FOUR YEARS ON . .


SIR CHRISTOPHER LEE remembered today. Four years on . . . It's still a little strange how there still isn't an official CHRISTOPHER LEE fan site on the net. Before his passing, there was an official site, that had slowed down, then a week after Lee's death, was closed to any updates and carried a banner of, being remodeled to re-appear soon. We are still waiting. Just two weeks ago, during the week of both Lee's and Cushing's birthday anniversaries, we shared the news of Lady Birgit Lee, donating several personal scrapbooks of rare photographs and clippings, from Sir Lee's archive to the British Film Institute.


MORE ON THE CHRISTOPHER LEE SCRAPBOOKS HERE! 

IN THE MEANTIME, I try to share something related, if only by a Cushing post. Plus we do have a Christopher Lee theme EVERY Saturday here! Posts about Christopher Lee here and at our PCAS Facebook Fan Page are always well received and supported. There are always lots of comments and text from followers and members, who still miss his presence and regularly watch the wealth of work, that we can always enjoy . . . in memory of one of the greatest!


ABOVE: The LATEST clip from the PCASUK series 'The Last Meeting of Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee' posted to celebrate and mark the 106th anniversary of Peter Cushing birthday!






WIN SECOND SIGHT AMICUS BLU RAYS : LIMITED EDITION


BRACE YOURSELVES for the release of TWO CLASSIC AMICUS films released on BLU RAY for the first time in the UK and available for ORDER NOW!  and part of our EXCLUSIVE  Peter Cushing Appreciation Society COMPETITION!  LOOK OUT FOR DETAILS at our PCAS Facebook Fan Page, Twitter, Instagram and Twitter!


‘GLEEFULLY POISED on the border between silly and
scary…gripping till the last’
: FILM FOUR

‘DELICIOUSLY far-fetched…fun to watch…demented
camera angles…fast pacing…far more unsettling
than you might imagine.’ BBC ONLINE 


DON'T MISS OUT ON THESE PRIZES! Copies to be won of Second Light Limited Edition Blu Ray of Amicus Films Classic Cushing Chiller ASYLUM! First time on blu ray in the UK! NEW EXTRAS Limited Edition contents too, rigid slip case with art work cover by our very own Graham Humphreys, A 40 page booklet on the film and reversible poster featuring the new and original artwork PLUS 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 PLUS Theatrical Trailer REGION FREE this blu ray is released on JUNE 29th 2019. You can PRE ORDER HERE! LOOK OUT for details on this PCASUK special COMP. MISS it MISS OUT!


THE PLOT THAT LIVES WITHIN FOUR WALLS OF MADNESS!
FROM PSYCHO writer Robert Bloch and directed by Roy Ward Baker (A Night to Remember), iconic 1972 Amicus horror anthology Asylum is set for the Limited Edition Blu-ray treatment from Second Sight AND is also available as our PRIZES in EXCLUSIVE PCAS COMPETITION, coming here VERY soon! 


WHEN DOCTOR MARTIN (Robert Powell – The Italian Job, The Thirty Nine Steps) arrives for a job interview at a secluded asylum for the incurably insane, he must prove himself by listening to the macabre tales of four inmates to determine which is the former head of the asylum who experienced a breakdown. We join him on the investigation with these hair-raising horrors…Frozen Fear stars Barbara Parkins (Valley of the Dolls, Peyton Place) as Bonnie, who recounts her plot to murder her lover’s wife, whose talent for voodoo results in horrific repercussions after her dead body is dismembered. Legend of horror Peter Cushing (The Horror of Dracula, Star Wars) features as a client of The Weird Tailor, who requests a suit to be made of a mysterious scintillating fabric in order to reanimate his dead son. Charlotte Rampling (Never Let Me Go, Broadchurch) and Britt Ekland (The Man with the Golden Gun, Wicker Man) star in Lucy Comes to Stay as the ebullient Barbara, a frequent Asylum patient, and her mischievous friend Lucy whose visit upsets the fragile equilibrium in her mind. It all comes to a head in Mannikins of Horror as Dr Byron (Herbert Lom – The Phantom of the Opera,Spartacus) transfers his soul into an automaton and is determined to kill Dr Rutherford (Patrick Magee – A Clockwork Orange, Chariots of Fire)…but who is really in danger? The stories build towards a “tightly constructed and well-conceived climax” (Oh The Horror) that will keep you guessing until the very end. Experience the chilling and thrilling compendium of terror Asylum in this Limited Edition Blu-ray box set.


THIS HUGELY anticipated release starring a stellar cast will be presented in stunning rigid slipcase packaging featuring new artwork by Graham Humphreys, and a 40-page booklet with new essays by Allan Bryce, Jon Towlson and Kat Ellinger, not to mention a whole host of special features including director commentaries and featurettes, THIS LIMITED EDITION is available from 29th July 2019 and is available for PRE-ORDER HERE NOW!.


'ONE OF THE BEST AMICUS ANTHOLOGY FILMS, this is an enjoyable affair full of affectionate horror homage! : EMPIRE MAGAZINE 

‘ROBERT BLOCH'S superior scripting abilities to fashion a chilling atmosphere of terror that has dated extremely well.’ FILM 4

'A MARVELOUS MOOD PIECE of chilling intensity…vigorous Grand Guignol fun!' TIME OUT

SEMINAL AMICUS horror 'The House that Dripped Blood', from Peter Duffell in his directorial debut and written by renowned screenwriter Robert Bloch (Psycho), is set for one of Second Sight’s renowned must-have Limited Edition Blu-ray releases this Summer. This star-studded anthology is presented in a stunning box set featuring original artwork from Graham Humphreys alongside a whole host of fantastic new special features including new essays from horror aficionados and a 40-page booklet and is available from 29th July 2019.


 
THE PLOT!
Scotland Yard’s Inspector Holloway (John Bennett – Watership Down, The Fifth Element) investigates a mysterious mansion with a ghoulish history and a chilling fate for its occupants in these four tales of terror… Method for Murder stars Denholm Elliott (Indiana Jones, A Room with a View) as a hack horror writer haunted by visions of the murderous, psychopathic central character of his latest novel. Peter Cushing (The Horror of Dracula, Star Wars) and Joss Ackland (The Hunt for Red October, Lethal Weapon 2) feature in Waxworks as a pair of friends fixated with a macabre museum that appears to contain a model of a woman they both knew. Horror icon Christopher Lee (The Wicker Man, Lord of the Rings) appears as a severe widower who appears to mistreat his young daughter in Sweets to the Sweet. But when a well-meaning teacher intervenes, will she realise her mistake in time? Jon Pertwee (Doctor Who, Carry on Cleo) plays a temperamental horror film actor in The Cloak. When he buys a cloak for his vampire costume from a mysterious local vendor, his co-star (Ingrid Pitt – The Vampire Lovers, Countess Dracula) soon notices its strange powers.


TERROR AWAITS you in every room of The House That Dripped Blood… Enter if you dare.


BOTH COMPETITIONS WILL BE launched soon on ALL PCASUK social media platforms. Just ONE question, ONE correct ANSWER and you could be a WINNER! You can also place YOUR PRE ORDER for BOTH films release on JULY 29TH  
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