FREE HAMMER CONTACT SHEETS : BATES AND LEE TASTE THE BLOOD OF DRACULA AND A BIRTHDAY!

 

#CHRISTOPHERLEESATURDAY! It's a great shame, that Ralph Bates lost his opportunity to play DRACULA. How do you think he would have played it??? #dracula #casting #hammerfilms #pulltheplug #vampires

FREE CONTACT SHEETS FROM HAMMER FILMS : HAMMER FILMS TASTE THE BLOOD OF DRACULA : FEATURING LINDA HAYDEN, ANTHONY HIGGINS  . . . .

'I’VE SEEN THE LIKES TONIGHT that mortal eyes shouldn’t look at!’… say that line of dialogue and any Hammer film fan worth his or her salt, quick as a flash will reply, ‘Michael Ripper, as the poacher in 'The Mummy!’.. And it is Michael Ripper who we remember today on the day his birth, 27th January 1913. Ripper appeared in many productions for Hammer, seven with Peter Cushing, nine with Christopher Lee.  . . .

INN KEEPERS, coachmen, police officers, Ripper an accomplished stage and film actor it could be argued is as much part of the Hammer family as Cushing, Lee, Fisher and Francis. Christopher Lee once announced to a packed convention in Baltimore, with Ripper standing at his side.. 'This man IS Hammer!’ And for many of us, he always will be . . .

IF SOMETHING INTERESTING comes my way, I love to be able to share with you! Such is the case of this rarely seen candid photograph of Christopher Lee and Michael Ripper at a signing. The little I have leaned about this occasion, has come from the owner of this photograph, James Murray. 

JAMES WAS WORKING 'on the door' this day at a book shop in London and remembers it well. It was a book signing, attended by Christopher Lee, signing copies of his book, 'Tall, Dark and Gruesome' the Midnight Marquee edition. Being an admirer of Christopher Lee, he brought along his camera and posed for a pic...and managed to capture Michael too! . . .MORE ON THIS STORY: HERE!

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  

HORRIBLE DEATH WEDNESDAY 2: WITH CALLUM MCKELVIE

SO TODAY is of course our new theme, ‘Horrible Death Wednesday’, where we highlight some of our favourite dispatches for a multitude of memorable characters in Cushing’s film. It’s a pretty good line-up if I say so myself, featuring one film I’ve regularly mentioned as a personal best, another that featured in my ‘Choicest Cushing’ article and one that I haven’t as of yet praised- but will shortly. 

FIRST UP is the aftermath of the titular creature’s death from ‘Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell’. During the final moments, the creature (having of course been on the rampage) is set upon by the inmates of the asylum and quite literally ripped apart. A particularly gruesome moment, it’s one of a number of gory sequences that feel at odds in what is essentially a throwback film. None the less, it feels right in what is an exceptionally dark film (even for the Hammer Frankenstein series) and a fitting end to one of the more sympathetic creatures in the series.

NEXT UP is a sequence from a film I’ve regularly mentioned to be a personal favourite, though haven’t as of yet written anything substantial on it. Christopher Lee’s death in The Skull has long been one of my favourites and I think it’s down to the very subtle elements of black comedy in the scene. Bar one sequence at the opening, Lee and Cushing only ever appear playing Billiards together, so it’s little surprise when Cushing batters Lee over the head with a ball. Unlike the above sequence, there’s very little on-screen gore but it’s the context that makes this particularly gruesome. Subotsky had a particular flare for introducing gruesome elements into his films, but somehow instructing directors to keep the high levels of violence off screen (the ‘Blind Man’ sequence in Tales from the Crypt springs to mind). This is a prime example. 

FINALLY we have a sequence from The Mummy. The Mummy is full of a number of great death sequences, Daddy Banning’s and Mehemet Bay’s spring to mind, but today’s is the death of Cushing’s uncle played by Raymond Huntley. Huntley is a familiar British character actor and he’s such a friendly and likable character that his death, strangled as Lee’s titular walking cadaver crashes through a door, proves to have something of a resonance to it.

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  . 

#MONSTERMONDAY: HORROR EXPRESS CREATURE IN THE CRATE!

#MONSTERMONDAY: ....So, you've decided to go on that much needed holiday / vacation and opt for a long journey to your destination by...train. Two days in, the food is awful, there's always queues for the rest rooms are nasty AND blocked...and then, there's an ape like maniac loose on the train, who is roaming around in the dark, killing everyone. You wouldn't mind so much, but you suspect, he hasn't even bought a TICKET! Wow. What a Monster! To be fair, the 'primitive humanoid creature' at the center of this very popular horror film, was quite happy having nap for 200,000 years, when it was rudely woken, stuffed in a crate, and lobbed into a train wagon ... not even access to the buffet car or a second class ticket! I would be stomping around, fit to murder someone too! The choice is YOURS Monster or Victim?

'HORROR EXPRESS' was made for $300,000 (about £240,570 sterling at today prices) though you would never know it. With a sparkling cast, headed up by Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee and Telly Savalas, the story twists and zips along like Thomas the Tank engine on sherbert meets The Walking Dead. While often cited as being loosely borrowing it's format of 'The Thing from Another World' (1951) . . . this film that has much more going for it, than just that... and there is something for everyone...monster on a train, Cushing, Lee, zombies .. and a very humm-able theme tune, provided by John Cacavas, who also wrote the theme to 'The Satanic Rites of Dracula'.

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