CHRISTOPHER LEE AND THE BAND ON THE RUN : EXPLAINED!

#CHRISTOPHERLEE #SATURDAY! AS A WEE LAD... way back in 1973, I remember getting the Wings 'Band On The Run' album for Christmas, it was released in November and already knowing all about Lee and Cushing . . I loved the album BUT was more impressed and super curious about Lee appearing on the cover! Only in the last few years, have I finally found out HOW and WHY it all happened... what a sport he was! 

NOTHING BUT THE NIGHT : THE HUMAN FACTOR : #WATCHWITHCUSHING! PCASUK 2020

ANOTHER TWO PCASUK GREAT #PETERCUSHING TREATS at the FACEBOOK PCASUK FAN PAGE  to maybe entertain you! FIRST a 1970's Peter Cushing and #ChristopherLee film, directed by Peter Sasdy that almost got away from everyone, the strange but very interesting 'NOTHING HUT THE NIGHT' (1973), Sadly, this was the only movie produced by Charlemagne Films, which was created by Christopher Lee and Hammer film producer, Anthony Nelson Keys. UK distributors Fox and Rank made a real botched and half hearted job of promoting this film, even at one point offering some 'cash prizes' for letters from readers of the Sunday Mercury newspaper, describing their real-life experiences with terror and the supernatural! A very dated publicity device that went out of fashion in the 1950's! 

IT SADLY MADE LITTLE BOX OFFICE in the UK though did fair a little better with a different publicity campaign with title change and snazzy poster design for it's US release.'THE RESURRECTION SYNDICATE, title probably gives away more, than is helpful. BUT if you haven't seen this film before, I think you'll find much to your liking. 

THERE IS ALSO a supporting cast including Fulton Mackay (from Cushing's 'Return of the Cybernauts' : The Avengers tv episode) a young Michael Gambon ( who starred with Cushing in Amicus films, 'The Beast Must Die) and a quite a few of vivid  and interesting female characters for a change! The quite stylish Georgia Brown as the dogged newspaper reporter, who has some good scenes with Cushing a nice surprise of Diana Dors, playing one of her 'dressed down, nasty wig and tarty ol scrote roles, which she did a few of in the 70's and 80's. Kathleen Byron, who appeared as Cushing's Gustav Weil's long suffering wife, in Hammer films 'Twins of Evil' wife get just about enough to do, but she is wasted really.. What an amazing and quite beautiful actress. wasted as usual. Even as a Nun, Sister Ruth in the 1947 classic 'Black Narcissus', I thought she looked quite stunning and a fine actress that really captured the imagination. 

SO AN USUAL CAST, a plot that in it's climax leans towards  towards another Christopher Lee film, that also suffered in the beginning from a more than limp release, BUT picked up when Home Cinema VHS / Beta Calvary, came to the rescue! ENJOY and please let me know what you make of it? 

ANOTHER INTERVIEW GEM from quite a few programmes and hour length features Peter Cushing did after he retired in 1987. On June 1st that year, the UK TODAY newspaper quietly announced, Peter was hanging up his coat, for a well deserved rest. 'After making some of the world's best known horror films during  his 50 year career, Peter Cushing has decided that he will never make another film. He's just finished filming two television advertisements and he says the experience is enough to make him realise enough is enough. 'I did them because I had been offered two film parts and didn't know if I would be up for the work' he admits, ' I didn't want to let anyone down, so I thought I thought I would 'cut my teeth' on these two commercials. But having spent four days shooting, I've decided  not to do any more films These adverts will be my swan song. It's too much for me.'

BUT 1990, NOW TAKING THINGS in his stride #PeterCushing gave an interview to 'The Human Factor' a  UK #TV programme made by TVS, where he talked about his love for his wife, his belief in an afterlife, his suicide attempt, his cancer, and the key moments from his childhood and his long and successful acting career. He covers many of these themes and more in the two volumes of his autobiography, but this is the first time I'd seen him talking very openly about them. It's a revelation. Never before had Peter appeared so genuine and profound in his answers. It's an inspiring and revealing piece indeed. This too is now UP as a #WATCHWITHCUSHING! post for the viewing at the FACEBOOK PCASUK FAN PAGE,  where many of you have commented on the frankness of Peter's answers during the interview. There were quite a few stories and facts I had not heard before. There will be MORE posts tomorrow too! This up load along with many of the other 'Watch With Cushing' post have proved to be very popular, with many watching through out the day . . I hope you enjoy some of the posts too!? - Marcus

'THE MAN WHO HATED SCENES' FROM 1973

HI EVERYONE! 😃 Here and at the FACEBOOK PCASUK FAN PAGE I am going to be changing the style a little of our post this week. Many of you have messaged and asked if we have recordings of Peter reading or radio plays.. anything you can peacefully listen to of an evening of an hour or two, as a break. So, I've been digging to find some of the best in the way of dramas, interviews, documentaries etc, that you might find entertaining. All fun, appropriate and a little distraction from the day😉 Some you may have heard before, but hey, these are so good, they are worth a second or third dip! So here is our first today, it's from BBC radio's 'The Price of Fear' which was a creepy come mystery radio serial, that was produced by BBC during the 1970s. The host and star of the show is the wonderful Vincent Price. This episode also stars #petercushing.

ABOVE: VINCENT PRICE AND PETER CUSHING recording the radio series, 'ALIENS IN THE MIND' broadcast by the BBC back in 1977. I hope to be bringing you episodes of this over the coming few days!

THIS WEEK : A HAUNTING AND A WEREWOLF: LAST WEEK: THE HELEN HAYES WIG AND TOUGHY ANSWERS

HERE IS THIS WEEKS TUESDAY TOUGHY! SUSSEX, PETER CUSHING A HAUNTING A WEREWOLF AND A CASTLE? WHAT IS THE CONNECTION? Here is a clue: All FIVE things point to a past Peter Cushing project.  FIND the title of that past project, and you have nailed it!

ANSWERS to last week's TUESDAY TOUGHY: 1: The film Christopher Lee was helping to promote was 'Funny Man' 2: Peter Cushing is playing Count Gerard De Merret in the TV adaption of Balzac's 'La Grande Breteche', in Orson Welles Great Mysteries in 1973. 3: The country that linked these questions was FRANCE

THE APPEARANCES OF THE WIG! You have to have a keen idea, know the costumes or good memory of press photographs from the films, but here are the THREE appearances of the hair piece that Peter Cushing called, 'The Helen Hayes Wig'. I don't think the cinema going public and those who watched Orson Welles Great Mysteries took too much notice at the time, when the wig appeared, but ceratinly since voices and opinions can be heard on the net, the vote on the wig, is quite negative. It's interest to note that, even though Cushing made a joke about the wig, the choice of using the hair piece was actually Peter's!!

RAISING HAIR PROBLEMS! MORE on DRACULA'S HAIR and MANY OTHERS in our FEATURE at the website : HERE!

MANY OF YOU chose Amicus films, 'And Now, the Screaming Starts' or 'Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell', where Peter wore that same wig! The costume, is the giveaway. Well done to everyone who had a go!  Most got Funny Man, but the wig threw most of you . . 

#TOOCOOLTUESDAY: CAN YOU CHANGE A TWENTY POUND NOTE???

#TOOCOOLTUESDAY: Peter was always honest about the fact that he couldn't hold a note and that he had THREE left feet..all size 12! But, he certainly had a go at trying to put that right. The 'We're Couple of Swells' song and dance routine with Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise in their 1973 BBC show.... Peter's routine was devised in a way that, his steps were sometimes slightly out of time, and copying the moves that Eric and Ernie made....not that you could ever tell . . . 

#TOOCOOLTUESDAY: Peter Cushing appears on the Morecambe and Wise show, on the first of their shows as part of their recent contract with ITV and away from the coziness of the BBC. But...the long running 'Pay Me My Money' sketch follows with them!

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 reach our 30K following total for Peter Cushing BIRTHDAY on MAY 26th 2017 AND Help Keep The Memory Alive!

IT ALL LOOKS SO EASY: PETER CUSHING ON CHRISTOPHER LEE FALL 1973

THE BARON'S SWAN SONG: PETER CUSHING IN FRANKENSTEIN AND THE MONSTER FROM HELL : HAMMER FILMS 1973

PETER CUSHING for the last time as Baron Frankenstein in Hammer Films 'FRANKENSTEIN AND THE MONSTER FROM HELL' It's due for release on Blu Ray in 2013.