REMEMBERING TERENCE FISHER TODAY 😊 If you enjoy any of the better Hammer films of the 1950's and 60's . . this is the point, you doff your cap 😉 There can be few directors who worked for Hammer films, who did so much to develop that Hammer-in-house style. Terence Fisher, WAS Hammer. Along with Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee and the players who helped under pin the rich vision of fairy-tale come Gothic nightmare style. Even when the 'monsters' were 'shaky' the script, with more holes than a Swiss cheese... the look, pace and world beautifully styled by Fisher, just sat so well. The Curse of Frankenstein in 1957 was the first, it also lit the rocket that would spin Peter Cushing into a new and long lasting career within the fantasy genre and Christopher Lee, on scraping off the make up and anonymity as 'the monster', would soon don a cloak and a feral shocking performance as Dracula, that set him on path, for more Fisher, Cushing Hammer classics to come. The Mummy, The Gorgon, and The Hound of the Baskervilles, still stand, as maybe the best of Terence Fisher and Hammer.
TERENCE FISHER was one of the most prominent horror directors of the second half of the 20th century. He was the first to bring gothic horror alive in full colour, and the sexual overtones and explicit horror in his films, while mild by modern standards, were unprecedented in his day. Fisher although aware of the terrifying elements of his Hammer films, would only smile when questioned about their shock factor, and answer...'I make wicked fairy tales...!' Fisher also along with Lee and Cushing, had a wicked sense of humor, hints of which can often been seen on the screen. Given their subject matter and lurid approach, Fisher's films, though commercially successful, were largely dismissed by critics during his career. It is only in recent years that Fisher has become recognised as an auteur in his own right . . .
'BACK IN MARCH 1980, I was just 19, living in Kent and scuffling back and forth to London, jobbing in very basic model and extra work, desperately earning my actors 'Equity Card'. With PCAS has my hobby, I was living in digs, that belonged to a family who were organizing a fantasy convention in London just a few weeks away. They were very kind people and good friends of Terence Fisher's, who had now retired, and was sadly, not in very good health. But he had agreed to attend the convention. While sitting in the kitchen one evening, I was star struck to hear, they were chatting with Fisher on the telephone. I had spent the last two days laughingly trying to get myself an agent in London, the shambolic details they shared with Fisher. Laughing into my coffee I shouted across the room, 'Ask him if he knows any charitable, kind and helpful agents!'. There was a pause and a howl of laughter. I asked, what was his answer? 'Oh, you'll never find one of them!' was his reply . . and he is still laughing down the phone!' 🤣🤣 Sadly, Fisher passed in June. I did get my Equity card, thanks to sponsors, actor Michael Ripper and Make up artist, Roy Ashton... who strangely enough, held a membership of the Equity Union, for many years! So, I sadly never got to meet Terence Fisher... but I did get to make him laugh 😀😊' Marcus Brooks
PETER CUSHING AND THE DIRECTORS: PART ONE OF FOUR: HERE!
VERY SAD TO HEAR ROY SKEGGS, one of the very few left of the Hammer
films 'home guard' sadly passed away on the weekend. Roy was a producer
for Hammer Films and began his connection with the company way back at
Bray studios in 1963 as production accountant. Roy was then promoted
to 'company accountant' and secretary. He became production supervisor
in 1970 and (with Brian Lawrence) took over the reins of the company
when it fell into receivership in 1979. Was latterly chairman of Hammer films, based in Elstree.
ROY WAS BORN in 1934. He was a very capable and respected producer and
production manager, and probably best known for his work with Hammer
films. He was responsible for Peter Cushing's last return to the company
with the tv series, Hammer House of Horrpr' in 1980. The series
expanded into 'Hammer House of Mystery and Suspense' in 1984, and became
a winner overseas and the US. He worked alongside Peter on
'Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell' (1974), Dracula AD 1972 and The
Satanic Rites of Dracula.
A PERIOD OF ILLNESS took Roy away from his
love of Hammer films in the 1990's... but in the last few years,
although always having been a very shy man, he stepped out to one or two
conventions and signing days .. and was surprised not only how much he
enjoyed the attention...but how fans and the public remembered him and
his work with Hammer films. A hard worker, very good at 'math' and was
responsible for bringing Hammer back to the small screen and Cushing's
final bow as Frankenstein. Thank you Roy
#CHRISTOPHERLEESATURDAY!
Here is a rare and neat photograph taken during the making of Hammer
films, 'Dracula Has Risen From The Grave' . .. with co stars Veronica
Carlson and Barbara Ewing. Often when shooting, Lee was known not to
hang around on set during the Hammer Dracula films... similar to Peter
Cushing. So that makes this pic all the more interesting . . and NOT in
costume either!
YOU CAN FIND PART ONE OF THAT ABOVE FEATURE :HERE!
SOMEONE WHO HAD quite a few connections with CHRISTOPHER LEE and would have been 105th TODAY is actor THORLEY WALTERS. THORLEY was known for often playing eccentric characters in a
variety of different films, and a fair share with both PETER CUSHING and CHRISTOPHER LEE!
DIRECTOR TERENCE FISHER WITH CUSHING AND THORLEY WALTERS HAVING A CHILL AND A GIGGLE WHILE MAKING 'FRANKENSTEIN CREATED WOMAN FOR HAMMER FILMS AT BRAY STUDIOS
HE MADE A NUMBER of appearances
in Hammer films, The Phantom of the Opera (1962), Dracula, Prince of
Darkness (1966), with Christopher Lee, Frankenstein Created Woman
(1967), Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed (1969) with Peter Cushing and
Vampire Circus (1972).
ABOVE:THORLEY WALTERS AS MR PRINCE IN LITTLE GEM OF A CUSHING FILM CALLED 'SUSPECT' OR 'THE RISK' . . .
THORLEY ALSO PLAYED Dr Watson to Christopher
Lee's Holmes in Sherlock Holmes and the Deadly Necklace (1962) and co
starred with Peter Cushing in a non hammer film Suspect (1960)
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 all lovers of Peter Cushing's work AND Help Keep The Memory Alive!
AND SO, HERE WE ARE with another Saturday, which for THIS website, means something CHRISTOPHER LEE connected, to meet your #ChristopherLeeSaturday shopping list!! LAST WEEK we started our short season of CHRISTOPHER LEE: THE HAMMER DRACULA FLICKS: THE MOMENTS WE LOVE, and dipped into 'Dracula Has Risen From The Grave' and 'Scars Of Dracula', and very popular they were too! Thank you! This week, we have PART TWO and another two Hammer Dracula films.
WHY ARE WE DOING THIS?
Last week, I also received a few emails asking, why is a Peter Cushing Appreciation Society website, giving so much space to films that AIN'T really anything to do with Mr C? Well, even before Lee passed, we were already making regular space and time, to covering Lee's career, and why? The Official Christopher Lee Fan Club, sort of folded and with that so did any regular official internet presence. Good Lee photographs can be rare and expensive, so no 'official fan' was going to be posting and sharing their goodies. Lee of course made twenty two great films with Peter Cushing, plus he and Peter were very close and long time friends. So, I tested with the posting of Lee material at our now, closed PCAS Facebook Fan Page, and the results were good. On posting the series of rare clips called, THE LAST MEETING where Cushing and Lee worked and met for the last time, it proved there was much interest and many many people who came to PCAS, who wanted to see more from THE LAST MEETING and basically ANYTHING that connected to Christopher Lee.So, as always I give you, what you ask for. AND here it is! This week we are looking at the BITS WE LIKE from another two GREAT Christopher Lee Hammer Dracula films. I hope you like this week's contents!
THE AMAZING CAST:Andrew Keir (Father Shandor), Christopher
Lee (Count Dracula), Francis Matthews (Charles Kent), Barbara Shelley
(Helen Kent), Suzan Farmer (Diana Kent), Charles Tingwell (Alan Kent),
Philip Latham (Klove), Thorley Walters (Ludwig)
THE TERRIFIC PRODUCTION CREW:Director – Terence Fisher, Screenplay – John Sansom, Story – John Elder [Anthony Hinds],
Producer – Anthony Nelson-Keys, Photography – Michael Reed, Music –
James Bernard, Music Supervisor – Philip Martell, Special Effects –
Bowie Films Ltd, Makeup – Roy Ashton, Production Design – Bernard
Robinson. Production Company – Hammer/Seven Arts. UK. 1966.
DRACULA, PRINCE OF DARKNESS dramatically opens with the final sequence from Hammer Films 1958 'DRACULA',
showing the spectacular demise of Christopher Lee's Count Dracula at the hands of Peter Cushing's Van
Helsing. This sequence is enclosed in a smoky frame because the earlier
movie was shot in a different aspectic ratio - DRACULA PRINCE OF DARKNESS was one of the few Hammer movie to be shot in 'scope. Little did they know, come the release of the LIONSGATE blu ray of the film, the smokey ratio would cause a few probs, that would how ever be solved.
EVERYONE in this DARKNESS, does a very good job and has their time in the LIGHT!! Maybe the pace of the first half of the film, lays out time, for us to understand the characters and beleive the performances, Something that most Hammer films, hardly ever did, for anyone other than the top layer of performers. CHRISTOPHER LEE as DRACULA, is very good, BUT not quite as feral and rabid as in his first performance.
THE KENT'S trip and their time on the journey finally arriving at CASTLE DRACULA does take a little time . . . it ALL takes time.
DRACULA,PRINCE OF DARKNESS DOES take a little while to get started, but once the the FIRST SPATS of BLOOD start following, director Terence Fisher makes sure the horror pace doesn't stop. Personally, I feel the long fist half of the film without DRACULA, I think was probably caused by several thing, two nothing to do with the script and building tension, more maybe to do with Lee's opinion and resistance to play the Count again for Hammer, and maybe the COST per scene, of actually getting him to do that!
OVERALL IT EMERGES as a fine
sequel to Hammer's first DRACULA / HORROR OF DRACULA. Andrew Keir as Father Sandor makes a
fine character, stepping in as the Vampire Hunter, as Peter Cushing did as Van Helsing, in the previous movie. It's kind of a shame
that Hammer didn't run two series in parallel, one with Dracula against
various savants and one with Van Helsing against various villains, but I
guess Cushing was already quite busy with their FRANKENSTEIN series.
AS FOR MOMENTS WE LIKE . . one of the most remarkable sequence in the film is
the scene where Barbara Shelley is held down on a table, hissing and
writhing, as a stake is hammered into her heart by the dispassionate
priesthood. It is perhaps the most potent image of sexual repression in
all of British horror cinema. Indeed, Dracula - Prince of Darkness,
more than any of the Hammer Draculas, embodies the recurrent image of
sexual repression threatening to emerge to tear Victorian society apart
and its dispassionate elimination by men of reason.
THE TRAVELERS, played by Shelley, Farmer, Matthews and Tingwell are
deliberately set up as representatives of 'English genteel' in order to be
torn apart – the strongest image of this polarity is the turning of the
prim, uptight and anxious Barbara Shelley into a voluptuous vampire,
begging Francis Matthews “Give us a kiss.” The sexual overtones in the
scene where Christopher Lee causes Suzan Farmer to kneel and drink from
the cut he opens with his fingernail in his chest are incredibly vivid.
ANOTHER GREAT MOMENT would have to be Farmers shock and terror, on seeing Lee's Count, unknown to her, standing in the room. Personally, I fond her reaction THE most genuine and terrified reaction I have EVER see. Totally convincing. AND there is of course DRACULA bowing out horribly in the ICY RUNNING WATER . . .
AND WE MUST MENTION Thorley Walters. I have seen some odd comments on blogs and websites, annoyed that Walters doesn't play a very good, RENFIELD. Well, firstly that is because, this isn't the character of Renfield, it's LUDWIG, and second, this is Thorley not Dwight Frye. Take a faff through the flicks featuring vampires, as well as DRACULA and you will often find a suspect individual who isn't called Renfield, BUT does eat FLIES!
OUR SECOND DRACULA FEATURE has several fine moments and a great cast. TASTE also has moments where the story and reasons, do drift and stray from what made the previous Hammer DRACULA's so great. The element that makes TASTE fall short, is the fall out from some of the pre production problems that effected the script and stability of the film. Sadly, we don't get to see Christopher Lee as DRACULA, as many times as we should, and when we DO it's those preproduction issues, that make his presence wobble . .
THE CAST: Geoffrey Keen (William Hargood), Linda Hayden (Alice Hargood), Anthony Corlan (Paul Paxton), Christopher Lee (Count Dracula), John Carson (Jonathan Secker), Peter Sallis (Samuel Paxton), Ralph Bates (Lord Courtley), Isla Blair (Lucy Paxton), Martin Jarvis (Jeremy Secker), Gwen Watford (Martha Hargood), Roy Kinnear (Weller), Michael Ripper (Cobb)
ABOVE: A RARE CONTACT SHEET of photographs from TASTE THE BLOOD OF DRACULA taken on set by the production photographer
PRODUCTION CREW: Director: Peter Sasdy, Screenplay: John Elder [Anthony Hinds], Producer: Aida Young, Photography: Arthur Grant, Music: James Bernard, Music Supervisor: Philip Martell, Special Effects: Brian Johncock, Makeup: Gerry Fletcher, Art Direction: Scott MacGregor. Production Company: Hammer.
SYNOPSYS: Three Victorian men who lead upstanding and moralistic lives, sneak out to a brothel on the pretext of conducting charity work. Their pleasure is interrupted by the libertine Lord Courtley who offers to show them far greater pleasures. He takes them to an antique shop where he gets them to purchase Dracula’s cape, signet ring and a vial of his powdered blood. Courtley conducts a ceremony in an abandoned church. But when he asks the men to drink the blood, they are disgusted. Drinking it himself, he collapses. The men kick and beat Courtley to death and then flee the scene. But Courtley’s spilt blood revives Dracula who swears vengeance on the other men for killing his disciple. Dracula then seduces each of the men’s children, making them vampires and turning them against their fathers.
ABOVE ANOTHER RARELYseen never shared, CONTACT SHEET from TASTE THE BLOOD OF DRACULA
TASTE THE BLOOD OF DRACULA
was the fifth of the Hammer Dracula films and by for many fans, it was the last Hammer Dracula worth seeing. It saw the entry of a promising
new director Peter Sasdy. A Hungarian immigrant, Sasdy had come
from noted tv work during the 1960s, including episodes of the sf
anthology series Out of the Unknown (1956-71) and the acclaimed BBC
adaptation of Wuthering Heights (1970). The problem with Taste the Blood of Dracula
is, like many it doesn’t always work – as usual with the Hammer Dracula sequels, the
script has difficulty coming up with worthwhile motivation for Dracula.
The vengeance theme that drives the story, isn't well connected – it does seem overly generous of
Dracula to swear vengeance for Ralph Bates's Courtley’s murder, having not even MET
Courtley!
CONSIDERING that Courtley’s death was necessary for him to
be resurrected it does seem slightly irrational of Dracula to then
swear vengeance on Courtley’s murderers. Further it makes Taste the Blood of Dracula
into a Hammer Dracula, that is something really different from the other Hammer Drac films. It now becomes a film about vengeance rather
than one about vampirism. Throughout the focus is on Dracula corrupting
the children and turning them against their parents and the usual
business of blood-letting hardly even figures at all.
BUT AGAIN, LIKE ALL the Hammer Dracula films that followed the 1958 production, it's MOMENTS and VISUALS that make the films watching. I have selected several of these moments in our GIFS and images, of the moments that worked for me personally. IF you have seen either of these films, MAYBE you would like to send me an email, about your thoughts and opinions..and I will ADD THEM to this feature, as they arrive. I hope you have enjoyed our latest DOUBLE BILL of Hammer Dracula Flicks. We have just one MORE DOUBLE next week... Please JOIN US then!
