JUST WHO IS BEHIND THAT EAGLE COMIC?

I LOVE this figure of Peter Cushing as Dr Who from his first Dalek movie in 1965, 'Dr Who and the Daleks' 🙂 It's playful and I think captures the intention of Cushing and the film producer Milton Subotsky all those years ago. This is the fabulous work of sculpture Robert Price, who we have featured here before. These photo's don't belong to me, neither does the figure, as much as I wish it did, it's one of Robert's many private commissions.

ROBERT SAYS AT HIS TUMBLR ACCOUNT, 'A great challenge to make and certainly one of the more intricate and fiddly pieces I’ve ever made. Never made a comfy chair before!t was very interesting working with different media- if you count paper as a different media. The Eagle comic came together beautifully. Many frustrations and dark-nights of the soul- fretting it would never be finished or good enough when it was complete. I’m very happy with it now and will be sad to let it go!'

WELL, YOU ARE A VERY TALENTED ARTIST and very well done, Robert! I certainly look forward to see and sharing more of your work in the future here! MORE please 😉😊 - Marcus 

THE BEST OF THE BEST AND A WEBSITE SHUFFLE!

WHICH PETER CUSHING Blu Ray release has presented the BEST items in it's EXTRAS and BONUS features and what were those personal stand out items for you?

OVER AT THE FACEBOOK PCASUK FAN PAGE followers are weighing up the best and most disappointing of DVD and BLU RAY EXTRA features of the last ten years of Peter Cushing releases. For many, that added attraction of also having interviews, short documentaries or galleries can sometimes be the make or break factor in IF they would purchase the release, often when perhaps they already own a copy of a film. These days it's not always given that a blu ray will contain any extras features. Some of the best remastered blu rays, seem to have maybe blown their budgets in making the remaster possible, that little if any lolly is left for a short documentary or interview. The finding of material and making of documentaries can be a costly buisiness. As the 'vaults' seem to have been well and truly emptied of free material, the making and presenting of new resources is sometimes well out of the reach of some distributors, it's always a very welcomed plus, to find new unseen features and  faces on documentaries and bonuses. The ground is getting thin though. The kick off period of crammed extra menu's for Hammer, Amicus and Cushing films, maybe now over. However, we have been treated to some excellent goodies in the past . . .  

R.WARREN: 'UK Blu-ray release of Dr Who and the Daleks has some lovely, behind the scenes, black and white footage, showing a small clip of Cushing and Roy Castle joking around on set, sadly it has no sound but still lovely.'

F.SAINSBURY: 'Mine has to be The Curse of Frankenstein bonus extras are superb especially and documentary called Life with Sir which is about Peter Cushing's secretary she takes about the death of Peter's wife and how he coped with his wife's death and working with Peter she talks about Peter's death its truly emotional.'

I GULYAS: 'Well I don't have the Bluray of house that dripped blood, but the DVD has a nice discussion of amicus and making of.'

AND IN CHATTING  about EXTRAS on dvd and blu rays... here is a heads up to a re-shuffle and layout to come this week at our website! For those of you who enjoyed or missed the huge selection of Peter Cushing reviews and features by Callum McKelvie here and at the website, we are making the library and galleries easier to find, by providing a great menu of all of Callum's features, including the rare stills and extras! Meanwhile, Here are links to TWO features that Callum wrote on the contentious issue of Cushing and Dr Who. HERE and HERE!  The 'Who' films on both DVD and Blu Ray, contained one of the best examples of EXTRA features on a release and still for some, takes some beating!

BERNARD CRIBBINS HITS 90 YEARS OF AGE AND WE REMEMBER THE QUEEN OF CREEPY WOMEN TODAY!

IT'S A VERY HAPPY 90TH BIRTHDAY to BERNARD CRIBBINS TODAY! Born in 1928, Cribbins started his acting career at the tender age of 14! An actor since the age of 14 and was a major star on the London stage by his mid-20s. It would be another ten years before he became a national star with success in film comedies, with likes of Peter Sellers and a string of hit records, the most popular probably being, 'A Hole In The Ground' and 'Right Said Fred'. He appeared in several of the "Carry On" series, and also achieved a great degree of success doing voice-overs for cartoons and TV commercials. One of his biggest successes being the 1970's children's animated puppet series, 'The Wombles'.

CRIBBINS also took PETER CUSHING snorkelling in the Gulf of Aqaba! The pair were in Israel filming the Hammer films 'She', and Bernard recalls: “We did a couple of films together and that particular one was out in the Negev desert and we used to have a little swim at lunchtime. Peter was a very athletic gentleman. He played rugby, he told me, ‘I used to love to tackle people’ and you can’t imagine that ostensibly gentle man knocking people over! He was a good swimmer but he’d never been snorkelling, diving down and having a look at things, and he kept talking to me underwater, sounding like Bill and Ben the Flowerpot Men which had me in hysterics!"

BACK IN 1974 Cribbins was interviewed for the role of DOCTOR WHO in 1974, as the BBC prepared for Jon Pertwee, leaving the role. 'I didn't actually audition. But when Jon Pertwee was leaving, the producer Barry Letts - who died quite recently - interviewed a lot of actors, one of whom was me. I went along and sat down and he said 'now then what can you do?' I said 'I'm a very good swimmer, I was a paratrooper, I could fight' - and he said 'Oh no, no fighting no, the Doctor is never seen fighting at all!' So Tom Baker became the next Doctor, and one of the first things I remember him doing was knocking somebody out.'

BERNARD also appeared in many tv drama programes as a guest star throughout the 1960's and 70's including the popular 'The Avengers' in TWO episodes. 'The Girl From Auntie' and the weird, 'Look, Stop Me If You've Heard This One, But There Are These Two Fella's'! Of all his movie roles, Cribbins has a fondness for 'The Railway Children' directed by Lionel Jeffries in 1970, where he played Albert Perks. Cribbins has a longstanding association with the science-fiction series Doctor Who (1963). 

ABOVE: Cribbins as Arkwright in The Girl from Auntie (1966) ... his first role in the UK television series, 'THE AVENGERS'

ABOVE Cribbins as Bradley Marler, with comedian Jimmy Jewel in "Look - (Stop Me If You've Heard This One) But There Were These Two Fellers..." his second appearnce in The Avengers in 1966. 

NOT ONLY DID HE play a companion in the second Peter Cushing film, 'Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 A.D.' (1966), which was 40 years before his regular role as a companion, Wilfred Mott, in the Russell T. Davies version of Doctor Who (2005). It certainly has been a very active and sucessful 90 years for sure. Please let us know what your favorite Cribbin's films, roles and shows so far . ..over at the FACEBOOK PCAS FAN PAGE. I think he is far from over yet! HAPPY 90th BIRTHDAY BERNARD and have a wonderful day😀

TODAY WE ARE ALSO REMEMBERING and marking the BIRTHDAY of actress . .  FREDA JACKSON who was born today. 29th December in 1907. Was there ever a more frightening actresses in a Peter Cushing Hammer film? Here we see her as the 'hair-raising' Greta in 'The Brides of Dracula' (1960) starring Peter Cushing, Yvonne Monlaur and David Peel. I have always thought it was a great shame that Hammer didn't cast her in any of their other films. She does appear in that 'is it a Hammer film or isn't it?'... 'Shadow of the Cat' (1961) as Clara the maid. But what a waste! Freda's performance as Greta in 'Brides' is as powerful now, as it was when the film was released all those years ago. What an actress! Happy Birthday, Freda!

FRED JACKSON'S GRETA, was also one of the very few feamle roles in Hammer's films, that also featured Cushing, that could give his character Van Helsing a fair fight on screen!!! 😮😉

A VERY HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO JENNIE LINDEN AND STILL TIME TO BAG YOUR ROBIN HOOD BLU RAY!

TODAY IT'S A VERY HAPPY BIRTHDAY to actress JENNIE LINDEN who fought the good fight against the Daleks with Peter Cushing as Dr Who in 'Dr Who and the Daleks' in 1965.. Jennie had a VERY full and quite accomplished carear where she appeared in several notable feature films and television series. One feature 'Women In Love' directed by Ken Russell in  1969 with its  infamous fireplace scene of two men wrestling naked, was in its day one of the most controversial films ever made in Britain! Audiences flocked to cinemas to be shocked and scandalised.  

BUT BEFORE ALL THIS DRAMA and promise of super-stardom, back in 1965 Jennie played Barbara, niece to Peter Cushing's Dr Who in the first of AARU's big screen adaptions of the BBC television series Dr Who. The programme and it's most popular aliens. THE DALEKS were taking the country by storm, and DALEKMANIA had started. Sadly, when the producers decided to make another Dr Who Dalek film, Jenny's role was taken by another actress, Jill Curzon . . . Jennie also appeared opposite Lee Remick and Ian Holm in the film version of Iris Murdoch's novel 'A Severed Head' (1970). Her later film appearances included 'Vampira' (1974), 'Hedda' (1975), 'Valentino' (1977), and 'Charlie Muffin' (1979). Happy Birthday Jennie!

JENNIE WITH Veronica Carlson in VAMPIRA in 1977

JENNIE LINDEN is ALSO one of our FEATURED actresses in our FEMME FATALE series. You can find out more about Jennie's carear and her work with Peter Cushing HERE! This feature also has an extended gallery of images featuring Jennie in several productions and TV shows . . .

THE HOURS ARE TICKING but there is still time to ENTER our PCASUK COMPETITION and win yourself a copy of Peter Cushing's SWORD OF SHERWOOD FOREST remastered LIMITED edition BLU RAY from TWILIGHT TIME!  There are SEVEN copies to win and just ONE question! Go to OUR COMPETITION  HERE!

GIFS WEDNESDAY REMEMBER MILLAND AND THE DOCTOR PAYS A VISIT TOMORROW!

IT'S ENOUGH TO PUT you off chest freezers for life! What a wicked way to go though? Here is MICHAEL TODD, matinee idol of the 40's and 50's. appearing in AMICUS FILM 'ASYLUM' (1972) As ever, Milton Subotsky, pulled together a fine cast, with then likes of Peter Cushing, Barry Morse, Sylvia Syms, Charlotte Rampling, Patrick Magee, Herbert Lom, James Villiers, Geoffrey Bayldon and Britt Ekland. All fine actors with long careers and experience behind them . . part of the secret that made the Hammer films and Amicus movies so entertaining were the actors, who knew their trade, not only gave value in the billing, to get bottoms on seats, but were very good at their jobs! Amicus may have low budgets, and were often seen as a bit low brow . . .but how often did a mainstream entertainment film carry a cast like this one??

POOR OL ROBERT HELLER, his plan appeared to be going like clock-work in Hammer films 'FEAR IN THE NIGHT' (1972), the last thing he expected under that sheep was MOLLY! Me too. I have mentioned this before, but I must be one of the few, certainly in my group of friends, who watches a movie, I mean WATCHES the movie. I get so pulled in by the story, I am not distracted by trying to work out, what happens next. So, this film was very enjoyable for me! When we met and interviewed RALPH BATES and JUDY GEESON back in the early 1980's, the memory of making this film and working with Peter, was still very fresh in the minds. They LOVED it. But, I don't think Joany, did though.....! Pity.  

PROBABLY THE ONE FILM we get request for GIFS from, than any other from Peter Cushing's long career! This chase taken from Hammer films, 'DRACULA' (Horror of Dracula) is one of Hammer's most iconic scenes, it never git better. Fisher repeated a chase through the castle (below) in Hammer's next Van Helsing film, good as it was, it didn't reach the drama that this one created. Peter Cushing was a very athletic man and actor . . .he swam in the sea ever morning, at his beach-side home in Whistable!! Christopher Lee, not so much. In fact, I have spent some time while posting these gifs, thinking of I have ever seen Christopher RUN in any other films? I can't think of any. Cushing was graceful, Lee despite highly skilled at mime which he studied was, by his own admission quite a clumsy man! But, with the help of some technical twiddling, dubbing OUT Dracula footsteps, during this chase, he whips along like a hunted gazelle! 

PETER CUSHING AS VAN HELSING chases Baron Meinster, though the chateau in Hammer films, 'THE BRIDES OF DRACULA' (1960). Again, like the 1958 DRACULA, this scene was shot at Hammer's home studio at Bray. A small studio, with not very big stages at this time. But, if you look carefully, you can spot many props and furniture, that Van Helsing would have past, during his early chase scene with DRACULA in 1958!

WE CAN'T LET TODAY go by with remembering this chap! The much loved and  very talented actor Ray Milland, whose screen career lasted from the 30's all the way into the 80's… and covered multiple genres with his most notable films being The Lost Weekend (1945) (for which he won an Oscar) , Dial M For Murder (1954) and the horror classic's The Premature Burial (1962) X The Man with the X-ray eyes (1963) both for Roger Corman. He starred with Peter Cushing in The Uncanny (1977) and The Masks Of Death (1985) ….. Do you have a favorite Milland film?

LARGE PHOTOGRAPH SCAN: Here's a wonderful behind the scenes shot from Dalek Invasion Earth 2150 AD, one of many . . . . plus a few unseen pics from the film... I'll be sharing here tomorrow, for #Throwbackthursday. In the film, this scene really does look like an exterior location. Lighting camera men really knew there jobs back then, and the crews worked hard to archive great results like this one. LOOK carefully and you can spot one, way up in the lighting gantry, just over RAY BROOKS, who is standing on the set demolished building . . MORE TOMORROW! SEE BELOW!

THE FIRST of a TWO PART GALLERY featuring behind the scene rare images and photographs from BOTH Peter Cushing DOCTOR WHO DALEK movies from the 60s! PART ONE ARRIVES HERE TOMRROW #THROWBACKTHURSDAY!

REMEMBER! 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 . . Keep The Memory Alive!. The Peter Cushing Appreciation Society website, facebook fan page and youtube channel are managed, edited and written by Marcus Brooks, PCAS coordinator since 1979. PCAS is based in the UK and USA  

#SILENTBUTDEADLY: ITS ALL IN THE FINGERS! #GIFS

#SILENTBUTDEADLYWEDNESDAY!: As you probably know, Wednesday is our THEME DAY when we post #GIFS as requested by YOU during the past week. This week the Theme at the website is 'FINGERS!' and this one was requested by Tomas Wentry from the UK. It's a clip from one of the last annual Christmas messages that Lee shared on the net.... that little gesture at the end there, ensured the clip went viral!

#SILENTBUTDEADLYWEDNESDAY! Here we have a surprising example of the dexterity of a DALEK claw! Who would have thought that a mechanical claw, could be so dainty?  This clip from Cushing's 'non-canon' Dr Who outing 'Dr Who and the Daleks' (1965) proves one thing, the pepper-pots may not be able to 'do' stairs, but if you want someone to your needle-point on the planet Scaro, these are your go to guys! Thanks to Milla  Sandosos, for the request and pointing this little factoid out!

Not EVERYONE enjoys Doctor Who OR the Daleks. Here's our REVIEW FEATURE and STILLS GALLERY at the website: CLICK HERE!

#SILENTBUTDEADLYWEDNESDAY!: Until I watched this film quite recently, not listening closely enough, I thought PC was handling a 'TOOTH!', so please allow me license, for the sake of our theme today?   Peter Cushing was famous for his use for props in films with him often having different items in his pocket even if they never appeared on screen. Getting the nickname 'Props Cushing.' RECALLING how the cast and crew on 'The Abominable Snowman' were entertained by Cushing's improvisation with props, director Val Guest said, "One Scene he gets give a tooth, we went for the take and then surprise, Peter brought out a small nail file, then a measuring tool! We got in the first take we'd never last another one!" Requested by Dina Meddows.

OUR ABOMINABLE SNOWMAN FEATURE AND RARE STILLS GALLERY HERE!

#SILENTBUTDEADLYWEDNESDAY! THAT FINGER sure caused poor Peter Cushing's Emmanuel Hildern, a LOT of trouble. IF that petrified skeleton had come with a piece of paper, like those SEA MONKEYS from your childhood, 'JUST ADD WATER' . . for chaos, it would have saved him, from such a cruel and sad fate. 'The Creeping Flesh' (1973) is a film that often gets discussed on our FACEBOOK FAN PAGE. It seems everyone who watches the film, has their own theory on what is actually happening on screen. Multi layered it certainly is, or you can enjoy it as a simple tale of revenge and misfortune. Either way it is sadly, one that slipped through the net back in the day. Tigon, a very small production outfit, unfortunately didn't have budgets that stretched to the kind of publicity that their competitors had. Fortunately, thanks to  home viewing, dvd's and blu rays, the film is finally getting the exposure it so richly deserves. Try and catch it  . . Thanks to Shelly Nightingale for this requested #GIF.

OUR FEATURE AND RARE STILLS GALLERY 'THE CREEPING FLESH' HERE! 

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 . . Keep The Memory Alive!. The Peter Cushing Appreciation Society website, facebook fan page and youtube channel are managed, edited and written by Marcus Brooks, PCAS coordinator since 1979. PCAS is based in the UK and USA