THE AMICUS FILMS OF PETER CUSHING: PART TWO BY TROY HOWARTH

In 1965 Milton Subotsky next snatched up Peter Cushing’s services for a proposed series of films based on the popular TV series Dr. Who.  The show made its debut on BBC 1 in 1963 and was developed by the team of Sydney Newman, C.E. Webber and Donald Wilson.  It told of a so-called “time lord” named Dr. Who, who is able to travel back and forth through time.  The character as written was an alien, but when the time came for Subotsky to try and bring the character to the screen, it underwent some heavy alterations.

Cushing was hired to play the role as something of an eccentric old duffer and the films they devised for him—Dr Who and the Daleks (1965) and Daleks: Invasion Earth 2150 AD (1966)—were hardly a feather in anybody’s cap. In order to secure the necessary financing, Amicus had to reach out to another company, AARU, who agreed to provide the money on the condition that they alone were credited as the production company.  And so it came to be that these films became the first “unofficial” Amicus Productions.  In any event, they have their fans, even if Cushing’s portrayal of the character (to say nothing of his “legitimacy” in the canon of Who portrayals) remains hotly contested among the fans.

In 1967, Amicus got back on terra firma with Torture Garden. The second of their series of anthology horror films, it was the first to be written by the American genre legend Robert Bloch.  Bloch devised a clever variation on the formula established in Dr Terror's House Of Horrors, as a group of strangers are gathered together at a fair ground side show and have their fortunes told to them by a huckster (or is he?) known as Dr. Diablo.  Amicus turned to Columbia Pictures for financing and this time they were allowed to keep their name on the credits. Columbia’s chief request was to include a couple of American stars in the roster, to better help the film’s chances at the box office.

Thus, the original plan to reunite Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee fell by the wayside, as the role earmarked for Lee was given to future Oscar-winner Jack Palance. The film offered up four segments of varying quality, again in keeping with the general trend in anthology films.

The first story stars Michael Bryant as a young man who murders his eccentric uncle (Maurice Denham) and finds himself under the malefic influence of a black cat with strange powers; the second told of an ambitious starlet (Beverly Adams) who gets more than she bargained for when she tries to force her way to the top; a young woman (Barbara Ewing) vies with a dead mother’s influence when trying to win the affection of a pianist (John Standing); and Edgar Allen Poe fanatics (Palance and Cushing) compete with each other to become the world’s biggest fan of their late idol.

Freddie Francis was again brought on board to direct and it would mark one of the last times that he really went out of his way to deliver a stylish movie. Working with cinematographer Norman Warwick, Francis gives each segment its own style and tone: the first segment is pure gothic, the second is slick, the third is stately and the fourth goes for an intense air of claustrophobia.

After the gripping first story, the film falls down rather badly during the next two segments, but things end on a high note with the Poe segment. Cushing and Palance play off each other beautifully: Cushing’s propensity for latching on to his character’s neuroses is muted here, which is just as well as there’s only room for one bundle of tics in this segment and Palance fits the bill beautifully.  Their contrasting acting styles is part of the joy of the piece and one can only regret that they never shared the screen again.

It proved to be another success for the studio, but they would abandon the anthology format for the next several years—and Cushing would find himself alternating between one cheapskate outfit after the other as he embarked on a series of some of his least impressive films.

Things took a turn for the better—for both Amicus and Cushing—when they joined forces again in 1969. Scream and Scream Again marked the first coproduction between Amicus and American International Pictures.  The project originated when Subotsky secured the rights to Peter Saxon’s pulp sci-fi novel The Disoriented Man and concocted a screenplay the hewed fairly close to it.  When American International came on board, however, the project took on another life.  The union of the two studios allowed for the first-ever union of the major horror icons of the period: Vincent Price, Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing.  (Boris Karloff had died early in the year.)

Unfortunately, the project wasn’t really conceived as a vehicle for the three of them, so the casting wasn’t properly thought through.  On top of this, American International’s choice as a director, Gordon Hessler, read Subotsky’s script and made no bones of it: he hated it.  Given that Hessler had helped in bringing in AIP’s troubled “epic” De Sade (1969) and had done a good job by The Oblong Box (1969), which he was originally scheduled to produce, with Michael Reeves directing (this changed when Reeves’ deteriorating mental state had him removed from the picture, thus necessitating for Hessler to step up to the plate and direct it himself), the studio was inclined to give him the leeway he wanted in making the picture. Hessler hired Christopher Wicking, a bold and original young talent with a genuine passion for the horror genre, to completely overhaul the script.

Subotsky’s quaint monster movie was therefore revised into a paranoid political thriller with a jigsaw-like structure designed to keep viewers feeling more than a little disoriented.Subotsky was none-too-pleased to have his script effectively junked and his visits to the set resulted in problems with Hessler: the director wasn’t shy about playing up the sex and the gore and this simply did not sit well with the rather old fashioned producer, who had always attempted to make his films as “clean” as possible.

Hessler tired of having to explain his actions, so he asked for AIP’s line producer Louis M. “Deke” Heyward to intercede.  The end result was that Subotsky was barred from the set and was not permitted to tinker with the film in editing.  Thus, the film bore precious little input from the Amicus end of the deal, and Subotsky would later express amazement that the end product proved as popular as it did at the box office. Scream and Scream Again is a strange film but one that grows in stature with reflection and repeat viewings.

The jumbled structure mixes up various plot strands and is difficult to fully comprehend on first viewing, but repeat viewings reveal that it all links together pretty well. Hessler directs with style and energy and the mixture of sci-fi and government paranoia points to the later phenomenon of The X Files.

As for the casting, Price found himself in his usual mad scientist role, but in fact, the character is less “mad” than usual. Lee is on hand to play a shady government official, while Cushing makes a brief cameo as an authority figure in the fictitious fascist state which plays a role in one of the film’s many subplots.  Fans looking forward to seeing their favorite stars sharing the screen felt cheated (Lee and Price DO appear in one scene together at the very end, but Cushing is on his own in his one scene) but it didn’t stop the film from becoming a big earner for AIP.

Next Time in Part Three: 'The House That Dripped Blood' and 'I, Monster' 

'The Amicus Films of Peter Cushing' is written by Troy Howarth

with artwork and images by Marcus Brooks

RARE PHOTOGRAPHS AND FEATURE : JACK PALANCE PETER CUSHING IN 'THE MAN WHO COLLECTED POE' TORTURE GARDEN' (1967)

Sinister sideshow huckster Dr. Diablo (Burgess Meredith) offers to give a group of strangers a glimpse of their not-so-rosy futures in this anthology from Amicus…

Given the box office success of Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors (1964), it may seem surprising that it took producers Max Rosenberg and Milton Subotsky several years to light upon the idea of delivering another horror film in the same vein. They had explored sci-fi via a pair of juvenile Dr. Who vehicles, and had explored horror in various forms via such Robert Bloch properties as The Skull (1965), The Psychopath (1966) and The Deadly Bees (1966), but somehow they had failed to capitalize upon the box office potential of the anthology format. The tide changed when they enlisted Bloch to pen a new anthology, which was then envisioned as another vehicle for Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. Things changed a bit when Columbia Pictures was enlisted to infuse some much needed financing, but the film’s box office takings persuaded Subotsky and Rosenberg to direct much of their energy to further multi-story offerings for the remainder of their partnership.

Things kick off with a splendid slice of grotesquerie starring Michael Bryant, Maurice Denham and Niall MacGinnis. There are no end titles, and as such there are no official on camera segment titles, but this segment is known as “Enoch,” and it casts Bryant as a ne’er-do-well who seeks to cash in on his uncle’s demise by using the old man’s money to get himself out of debt. Little does Bryant realize that the money carries a witches curse, and the witches familiar - a black cat - has every intention of seeing this legacy fulfilled. Director Freddie Francis slathers on the atmosphere with moody lighting and interesting camera angles; it marks one of his most successfully realized mood pieces, and helps to get the film off on the right foot. Bryant, who had not long prior “finished” filming a lead role for Orson Welles (in a project destined to be uncompleted, unfortunately) and was already established as one of the notable “leading lights” of the British theatre, gives an excellent performance in the lead, and it’s fun to see Maurice Denham and Niall MacGinnis reunited, as it were, from Jacques Tourneur’s magnificent Night of the Demon (1957).

The quality dips sharply in the next two segments, unfortunately. First up is “Terror Over Hollywood,” in which grasping wannabe starlet Beverly Adams unwittingly sells her soul for fame and fortune, and then “Mr. Steinway” tells the tale of how Barbara Ewing (Dracula Has Risen from the Grave) falls victim to - wait for it - a possessed piano. The former is dreadfully dull, done up in a bland, smothering “lite jazz” score by Don Banks, while the latter is simply too silly for words. Kudos to Francis for trying to make the latter halfway credible, but all the gel lighting and canted angles in the world can’t shake the silliness from the basic concept.

In the grand tradition of saving the best for last, the film wraps up with “The Man Who Collected Poe” - it is for this, fellow Cushing fans, that we are here assembled. The segment stars Jack Palance as the most obsessive collector this side of, well, Peter Cushing in The Skull. Determined to avail himself of some of the “treasures” of fellow fanatic Cushing, he decides to play dirty - but may or may not live to pay the price.

The segment allowed Cushing his only chance to share scenes with Hollywood heavyweight Jack Palance, who was then about to enter something of a dry spell with appearances in numerous B and Z grade productions. Even so, he already had an Oscar nomination (for Shane) under his belt, and the Golden God would become his in the future, thanks to his career-rehabilitating turn as Curly in the audience friendly family comedy City Slickers (1992). Palance was as intense as he was imposing - standing a full 6’ 4”, and built like a tank, he had been a boxer and a decorated WWII veteran before turning his sights to acting. Palance had the face of a heavy, and he knew it - far from resenting it, he capitalized on it and turned it in to an advantage. Palance wasn’t afraid of hamming it up, and it seems that on occasion a fondness for the bottle took its toll on his work (witness his turn as the head of a strange religious sect in director Jess Franco’s Justine, 1969, for a truly “bombed” appearance), but more often than not he was able to inject substance and interest into even the least defined of characterizations.

Torture Garden afforded Palance one of his few truly good horror genre roles. The character of Ronald Wyatt is a fanatic extraordinaire - his sheer giddiness and glee at handling the various items in Cushing’s collection of Poe memorabilia may seem over the top to some, but if you ever get a chance to attend, say, a horror film convention, you’ll realize it’s not far from the truth. Palance doesn’t underplay the part, but it’s not a role that calls for understatement, either. Wyatt is something of a functioning junkie, though his addiction is Poe rather than any illicit substance. Palance nails this aspect of the character with ease, and he never seems to be playing down to the audience. 

As one might expect, Cushing’s performance as his “rival” collector, Lancelot Canning, is more reserved. Even so, he also manages to express the character’s almost orgasmic love of his collection - handling the items with tenderness, talking of them as one might of a lost love, and also reveling in the fact that he has the upper hand on his American colleague. The two actors also display a real chemistry, and play off of each other very well. When Palance first visits Cushing’s home, for example, the former is so overcome with excitement that he can barely focus on the formal pleasantries. Ever the gracious host, Cushing offers a choice of drinks - upon saying “whiskey,” Palance blurts out an eager “yes,” and then Cushing proceeds to offer sherry as an alternative, whereupon Palance continues with “yes, thank you!” Wyatt is clearly not even paying attention, and Cushing’s sly double take manages to convey a sense of amusement without milking the scene for laughter. The two men then proceed to virtually worship at a portait of the late author, hanging in Cushing’s salon. Canning offers a pithy analysis of Poe’s genius, while Wyatt silently, somewhat mockingly, sizes him up. It’s clear early on that he realizes that he’s bigger, tougher and more cunning than his “opponent,” and if he doesn’t exactly have murder on his mind, he is nevertheless bound and determined to see the full extent of Canning’s collection. Wyatt plies Canning with alcohol, affording Cushing a rare chance to play “drunk” on screen. Cushing does so without resorting to over the top theatrics, subtly slurring his words but not going for slapstick in the process. The episode basically plays out as something of a bizarre ritual, as the two men, unified in a common obsession, test and tease each other, each itching to come out on top as the ultimate fanatic.

Here, as elsewhere, Francis directs with a keen eye for the visual. He offers a wide variety of interesting camera set ups, ratcheting the tension as Palance’s obsession tilts from barely contained to positively dangerous. He elicits excellent performances from his actors, and the pace is taut, with no longeurs to complain of. This stands in contrast to Subotsky’s allegations that Francis was good with visuals, but lousy with story - thus prompting the producer to perpetuate the myth that he salvaged much of his work in the editing room, a claim which Francis strenuously objected to.

Interestingly, this marked the only time that Amicus hired Hammer’s in house composer James Bernard to pen the soundtrack. Bernard sat out the Terror Over Hollywood segment, allowing Don Banks to deliver a more “modern” sound apropos to the subject matter, but his contributions to “Enoch” and “The Man Who Collected Poe” are strongly felt. Perhaps because of the fact that he didn’t score the film as a whole, it’s a score that doesn’t generate much attention among his fans - but truly, it deserves more appreciation. As in the best of his Hammer scores, Bernard’s music not only complements the mood - it helps to elevate it where needed.

Ultimately, Torture Garden is an uneven picture. Two segments work, two segments don’t - and on this level, it’s hard to give it a full endorsement. Fans of British horror would be remiss to skip those two key segments that do work, however, as they offer all the attributes one associates with the golden age of British horror filmmaking.

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