In 1959, Georges Franju’s Eyes Without a Face made
a tremendous impact on audiences. The film offered an odd mixture of
the up market and the down market, with a poetic sensibility mixed with
instances of graphic gore. Indeed, the film pushed the envelope further
than anything Hammer Films had done at that time, yet Franju’s
credentials with the art house crowd ensured that it was taken in a more
serious manner. It also set the template for a series of “surgical”
horror films, many of which borrowed the basic concept of a surgeon
driven to madness by love. Spanish filmmaker hit pay dirt with his own
variation on the formula, The Awful Dr. Orlof (1961), establishing
himself – and Swiss-American character actor Howard Vernon – as a
fixture in the horror genre. The British came to the party a
bit late, but when they did so, via Corruption (1967), they managed to
outdo the competition in terms of sheer sleaze and gratuitous violence.
The film came at an awkward period in Peter
Cushing’s career. Cushing had established himself as a household name in
the UK due to top lining a number of celebrated live TV productions,
and he parlayed this into big screen infamy by aligning himself with
Hammer Film Productions. The double-punch of The Curse of Frankenstein
(1957) and Dracula (1958) showed him to be an actor of tremendous
versatility, equally at home in roles that were villainous and heroic,
and he was soon inextricably linked with the horror genre. It was a role
Cushing accepted with some reluctance, knowing full well that it would
deprive him of more mainstream recognition – but it provided a steady
income, and this was something that he and his beloved wife Helen were
desperately in need of. Helen’s health had always been problematic, and
by the time the mid-60s rolled around, her emphysema had deteriorated to
a noticeable degree. Cushing was panic-stricken by the
notion of possibly losing her, and the costly treatments she required
insured that he was able to bank very little of the money he was making
in his film work. Thus, he accepted virtually every role he could cram
into his schedule – and though he took the work very seriously, he was
only too aware that he was sometimes accepting projects with a
less-than-distinguished pedigree. The actor had appeared in quite a few
indifferent pictures through the years, but never in his career would he
be faced with a project quite so sleazy and down market at Corruption.
The story deals with a distinguished surgeon, Sir
John Rowan (Cushing), who succumbs to madness when he accidentally
causes his lover, Lynn (Sue Lloyd), to become hideously disfigured in a
freak accident. In an effort to restore her lost beauty, via a series of
unsuccessful skin grafting operations, he turns to murder…
Say what you will about the film itself, it still
offers one of Cushing’s most intense and deeply felt performances. The
actor was deeply uncomfortable appearing in some of the scenes that were
required of him, but this does not manifest itself in a negative manner
on screen. True, the scene of Cushing lost amid a sea of hippies at a
very 60s “flower power” party is jarring – but it is sensibly played for
laughs, with Cushing conveying a sense of being a fish out of water,
desperately trying to appease his younger love interest. After the
accident which destroys Lynn ’s face, Cushing becomes determined to
correct his inadvertent actions, and in the process he loses control and
succumbs to his worst impulses. There’s a particularly strong scene
wherein Rowan, trying to keep his mounting frustration and rage under
control, finally snaps at his young assistant (Kate O’Mara). Cushing
plays the sequence for all the punch and pathos it
is worth – it doesn’t even feel so much like acting as a moment of
cathartic release, as if his own personal demons and anxieties were
spilling over into the character.
Cushing would later decry the film for
its excesses, but he recognized that it had the germ of a worthy
dramatic concept. It’s possible that he entered into the film hoping
that it would explore the dynamics of the relationship between Rowan and
Lyn, but any such idealism surely faded soon into the production. When
the time came to film a sequence wherein Rowan murders a prostitute, it
surely must have felt like a very bleak day. The scene was filmed twice,
once in a more conventional manner befitting the censorship mores of
the UK and the US marketplace, and then in a more risqué manner, which
depicts the “gentleman of horror” forcing a topless actress (played by
Marianne Morris; she is substituted by a clothed Jan Waters in the more
commonly available edit of the film) to
the ground, slashing her with a knife, smearing blood over her naked
breasts, and then beheading her. It’s a very intense set piece, though
director Robert Hartford-Davis’ concept of how to best capture the
insanity of the moment was to go wild with the fish-eye lens effects.
Clubfooted direction to one side, it’s Cushing who gives the scene its
impact - partially because it seems so very out of character, and
partially because he conveys a sense of going over the edge that is
almost unique in his body of work.
Sadly, the film isn’t worthy of Cushing’s efforts.
As noted above, Hartford-Davis’ direction is flat and functional at
best. He would go on to direct Cushing in an even more unfortunate
project - Incense for the Damned, aka Bloodsuckers (1970), an incomplete
hodgepodge of vampirism and flower power mysticism that was largely
filmed on location in Greece - but his most interesting and accomplished
picture remains The Fiend (1971), a demented slice of religious mania
featuring typically intense performances from Tony Beckley (When a
Stranger Calls) and Patrick Magee (A Clockwork Orange). His emphasis is
squarely on the sensational in this context, however, which creates a
dramatic vacuum where a far greater sense of emotional investment would
have been appreciated. Nowhere is this more evident than in the
depiction of the character of Lynn, played by Sue Lloyd. Lloyd is a
capable and photogenic actress, but her portrayal is
unsympathetic - and this is very much as she appears to have been
written. Lloyd doesn’t manage to invest any real pathos into the
character, regardless, thus making Cushing’s obsession with her seem
bizarre and misplaced. It’s truly as if the two actors were making two
different films - Lloyd picking up a paycheck for playing a bitchy femme
fatale, and Cushing trying to capture a far greater sense of heartfelt
sorrow and heartache. The remainder of the cast is similarly
uninspired, with even the normally reliable character actor David Lodge
(something of an unofficial member of the Peter Sellers “rep company,”
having appeared in many of the great comic’s films, including A Shot in
the Dark and I’m All Right Jack) coming off quite poorly as a goon who
roughs up Cushing’s character at one point; the actor was miscast and
likely knew it, and he resorts to broad overacting to compensate. Add
in one of the most truly horrific music
scores to be found in British horror (“courtesy” of Bill McGuffie, who
really oughtn’t have bothered) and the end result is as offputting as it
is poorly made.
Even so, Cushing fans are still encouraged to give
it a try - the “full strength” edition isn’t so easy to find, but
certainly the tamer US/UK edit is easy enough to come by. If ever there
was proof of Cushing’s utter commitment and professionalism in even the
most unsavory of projects, Corruption most certainly fulfills that
function.
