IF YOU ARE A REGULAR visitor over at the FACEBOOK PCASUK FAN PAGE the last few days, you'll have seen, I've been trying to 'do my bit' in providing a little something to entertain and occupy every one who is at home right now. Clips, TV appearances and some of our post popular video posts from the last nine years, to maybe fill in the gap, when vacuuming and cooking need to stop and some time relaxing in the evening is needed for a while 😉 Here are some of the thumbs from the FAN PAGE, of what has been served up over the last three days! Watch comment and please take care . . and #STAY-IN!
AND THERE IS MORE TO COME, over the next few weeks. So DO come and join us, RIGHT HERE you are most welcome!
ANOTHER ADDITIONto our 'PCAS Cushing Things To Take You Away, For An Hour!'😊😀 You can watch or even maybe do the ironing, dusting or washing the dog while listening!😊
The excellent 1989 Tyburn films documentary 'One Way Ticket To
Hollywood' on the life and career of Peter Cushing! It's full of gems,
clips, stories, Peter's wonderful summing up of his good friend,
Christopher Lee, his life with his late wife Helen and a few surprises!
Hosted by Dick Vosburgh, who knows how to get the best from Peter here! 😉Enjoy! Please look after yourselves. Stay safe everyone 😊 More tomorrow! - Marcus
Copyright disclaimer: I do NOT own this video nor the image featured in
the video. All rights belong to it's rightful owner/owner's. No
copyright infringement intended.
CATCH UP READ the PCASUK review of the LATEST Peter Cushing film now RELEASED on BLU RAY: INDICATOR's 'THE REVENGE OF FRANKENSTEIN' HERE! Feature includes : Photographs : Screen Captures and a FULL breakdown of extras PLUS full Audio and Visual standards of the release
IF YOU WOULD LIKE to be part of the team and write YOUR reviews of the latest releases, just drop us a line at our FACEBOOK PCASUK FAN PAGE HERE!
THIS YEARS MARKS the 80TH year of the release of Laurel and Hardy's feature film, 'A Chump At Oxford' . . a great anniversary for Stan and Olly . . but also quite an amazing quirk of fortune for Peter Cushing back then. If ever Peter Cushing comes up in conversation, pop this little nugget of info into your chat...and people wont believe you! 😃I find it strange also that this film features a comedy fright scene with a 'ghost'! Ironic or what?? 😉
ABOVE IS A SHOT of Peter Cushing and the other scoundrel students of 'Oxford' getting their just deserves in the garden lake. He is one of the students singing 'Fee Fie Fo Fum' and appears in a couple of other scenes too. He was just 26 years old when this was made. When often asked about his time with Stan and Olly, Peter would fondly recall his experience as an extra on this film and said his outstanding memory was of how concerned Oliver Hardy was about the welfare of the extras in the film and demanded that the producers arrange for towels and fresh clothes be supplied for the extras who got soaked in the pond scene and personally brought in a large tray of doughnuts for the extras to enjoy during filming . .
THIS IS THE FIRST PART of a series of features, focusing on THE MAKING OF THE LEGEND OF THE WEREWOLF. This is quite a different series, compared to our usual theme of features on the work of PETER CUSHING. Each of our six parts will not just be looking at Cushing, the cast and a critque of the finished film, but we will also spend time hearing from the production crew, lighting, set design and the diector and producer. TYBURN FILMS were quite an unusual production company. At the time studios and companies were struggling to finance and make features, Tyburn approached the problem with a different concept, which makes this series all the more interesting. Peter Cushing appeared in four productions with Tyburn over the years. Three films, THE GHOUL (1975) THE LEGEND OF THE WEREWOLF and THE MASKS OF DEATH, also a biographical tv programme called ONE WAY TICKET TO HOLLYWOOD. Tyburn's CEO Kevin Francis, first met Peter Cushing when he was working and finding his feet, for Hammer films. Both he and Cushing became friends, as Francis was such a fan of his work and Hammer films. The friendship helped too when Francis was looking for a top name, when casting his first Tyburn productions, it was a friendship that would grow even closer during and after Cushing's last few years.
ACTING UP!
OBVIOUSLY,
film acting has never been just a simply 'act' of learning your lines
and saying them with as much conviction as you can! There are various
technical things to think about, like keeping in frame, leaving seconds
at the beginning of takes, so the editor can get in, and keeping enegies
the same in the master shot, close ups and cut aways. The script for
THE LEGEND OF THE WEREWOLF was like many scripts that director FREDDIE
FRANCIS worked with for another film production company to, AMICUS
FILMS. LEGEND had a script where actors were given a certain amount of
freedom in interpreting the script! Peter Cushing played the role of Paul Cataflanque, a skilled forensic surgeon. Here he explains his methods of performance for camera, and preparing for a role.
CUSHING AND THE LEGEND OF THE WEREWOLF SCRIPT : CHANGES
PETER CUSHING:'I DO THE SAME THING on all film scripts. A play that's written for the
theatre, it's altered sometimes but it's done in a very different way. A
film script is such a technical thing, it's altered so much during the
original writing that sometimes the dialogue does get a little out of
hand. They've been concentrating on something else so much that in the
end they can't see the wood for the trees, but when an actor sees the
script for the first time he is able to see these little problems . Then
there are also certain ways of making exactely the same sense but
saying the line in a way that is better for the character. But one never
alters the gist of what is being said because obviously if you alter
that you alter the whole script. And then, a script is over written,
becauseit's much better to cut out, if you are over time, than to try
and add on if you are under, because it's when you add on, that begins
gto show a little, unless you have given it great thought to it. So
scripts are usually overwritten to about ten minutes so that you can cut
ten minutes offand come down to the required hour or hour and a half,
or whatever you want'.
CUSHING'S METHOD AND PREPARATION
PETER CUSHING:'I ALWAYS DO a tremendous amount of this, it's purely my way of working,
particularly in films, which is my favourite medium, But the actors get
very little rehearsal time, you see, so you must do your homework. I
naturally always ask the director, but the director has many things to
think of, not just me or the other actors, he got technical things,
lighting and so on, and what he's doing next week or next month. So
whatever you can do to help is good for everyone concerned. And
instinctively he knows immediately : it's marvelous and we'll add to it
or no, because I always do a little sketch of the clothes I want,
costume, because I think that is important. It helps with the character
to know, what you are goping to wear. This again is purely my 'method',
if you want to call it that. I think the more preparation you do the
better. I don't like the phrase 'technique of acting' because I don;t
think there is such a thing, but film making is very technical in as
much as you have to remember your 'marks', remember your 'key lights'
all sorts of things like that, and at the same time, you have to make it
all look as though, it's all just happening, when the camera films it.
"I DO A LOT OF WORK long before I start in the production and the shooting
begins. i know the whole script, because you never know what scene they
are going to do some days. They might suddenly change their minds, like
yesterday when we were a day and a half ahead of schedule. Well, had I
not known the scene, I couldn't have done that. But you see, when I get
home after a da's shooting there's not really time. I just check
through, and look at all my notes. By the time you get home it's seven
or eight o'clock and by the time you've had a meal and written a couple
of letters it's time to get to bed for half past five in the morning. So
that's why it's important to me at any rate, to do a great deal of work
before shooting starts".
WORKING WITH DIRECTOR FREDDIE FRANCIS:
PETER CUSHING : "EVERYBODY IS DIFFERENT, though I must say, I have been exceptionally lucky, with
all the directors I have worked for. Freddie has his way of doing
things. What I admire apart from his tremendous knowledge of the
buisness is Freddie's wonderful insight and instinct for how to treat
every indivdual on the studio floor. He knows those ones to lark with,
those not to lark with, he giot great kindness and yet absolutely the
correct kind of authority. The behaviour of everyone, obviously in
almost every industry, does stem from the top and go right the way down
through. If you get someone who's not very nice at the top it does tend
to inflitrate through the unit".
THE ROLE OF PAUL CATAFANQUE
PETER CUSHING : "HE IS A PATHOLOGIST,except that they weren't called pathologists in those
days, they were called judicial surgeons. But there's quite a lot of
humour this time, which is nice and makes a lovely balance to the mayhem
that goes on. But with any role you play your personality must come
across. From that you try to make something of the character, the author
has written into the part. This script was written by John Elder, he
was one of the directors at Hammer films. He wrote many of their early
ones and for eighteen years these Hammer films have been popular and the
mass of people who go to them, it's rather like those people who buy
their favourite chocolates; they know when they open the box, they'll
find the coconut cream and the truffles and that sort of thing, and they
know when they see this kind of film, they'll get what they are kooking
for. And so, they're catered for, by the scriptwriters".
THE SCRIPT MUST BE COMPLETE AND FINISHED
PETER CUSHING :"WHEN
I RECEIVE THE SCRIPTit is never a treament or second draft, it's the
final script, nearly always and it is something I have to insist upon,
because I know me, I know my limitations. I must have the script. It's
no good saying will you do it and you'll have the script the day you
arrive, I couln't accept because I know I couldn't do it. That's the
only reason, I am not being troublesome, it's just because I can't
workthe way I do unless I have it well ahead, to study and learn and
make what alterations I want to suggest. As soon as the script arrives, I
go right through it and if needed I make my suggestions which are then
sent through to the director and producer, they amalgamate them, when
they all get together. By the time I arrive to shoot, all the talking's
finished!!"
FOR DAVID RINTOUL 'The Legend of the Werewolf' was something quite different, it was his first film role. Although by this point he had played many theatrical roles, working in film was very much learning while working . . .
DAVID RINTOUL : "FILM IS TOTALLYdifferent! The first couple of weeks I was just trying to sus it all out! I was a bit lost, I think. I'm beginning to get more confident now. The technique is quite different. Hopefully with time you get the technical side of it, so it becomes an instinctive thing and all your concentraition goes on the acting. What I've found so far, is especially at the beginning of the film, was that, I had to concentrate on the tech things and tended to forget about the acting! But it's a question of experience, I guess. The first couple of days I seemed to have a problem hitting my marks, where to stop when walking, not to lean. I missed my walking marks because I was trying to do it without looking down!"
"YOU SEE WHEN a director says, could you move a little bit to the left, often he's talking about an inch or so. Whereas in the theatre when they say move a bit more to the left they mean FOUR FOOT! Even doing telly there's not the same precision of moves, as there is in film. Here lighting is so important. With telly, you do look for the lamps and that sort of thing, but it's not so central".
"WORKING WITH ALLthe werewolf make up, is alright. I have found it helps me. Different actors work differently. I like working off , without the costume or make up, so there's that boost for me when I go into make up. For example, in the theatre I don't like trying on bits of costume, until a day or two before we open the show, though some directors want you to rehearse in costume quite early. I always leave itthe end, because it gives you that extra boost, that extra charge."
"THE ROLE OFEtoile is pretty much an instintive type of part. Some parts you have to think about a lot, and others you say, yes, that' what the role is about. I talked with director Freddie a bit about the script, but it isn't all sacred and you can change it as you go along. I am lucky I haven't had to really change very much, because . . . he doesn't say that much! I've made it a bit more colloquial. It came across, in the reading, as not stilted, but a bit formal. So I changed little things, like 'you will' to 'you'll'. But you have to be mindfull that Freddie doesn't want it too colloquial, because it has to have a nineteenth century feel. It's a delicate balance bewteen the two. Etoile is described as a country lad. I'm not doing a country accent or anything like that, just making it a bit less formal...."
"WHEN CASTING STARTEDfor this film, I was busy auditioning for a theatrical play, I had already done two or three auditions for it, and was just about to go to the last one, when my agent rang and and said, go out to Pinewood studios tomorrow! So I did, nit really knowing much about it at all. I saw Freddie the director, talked for five minutes or so, met Kevin Francis the producer, talked to him for a couple of minutes and then went back to my flat in London not really knowing or having much idea of how I got on. The phone rang a couple of hours later and the agent said, you've got the part, That was that! We started about four weeks later. Though I was here at the studio, about a week before we started shooting, just to try out the Werewolf make up, and that turned out fine. A couple of minor adjustments when we began shooting, and that was that. As I remember there was just one make up test where they actually filmed it."
COMING SOON : PART TWO : JACK SHAMPAN ON SET DESIGN : THE BUDGET AND DIRECTOR FREDDIE FRANCIS INTERVIEW ON LEGEND!
WE
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#SILENTBUTDEADLYGIFS!ON SET during the making of Amicus Films, 'MADHOUSE' it's two leading stars, Peter Cushing and Vincent Price walk through their characters greeting on meeting each other . . . cue laughter and jokes about Price's poor Paul Toombes, having been 'away' at the local Hollywood asylum for the last five years. It was by all accounts a difficult film to produce. Under written characters, bulked out in late night writing session between co star Robert Quarry and Vincent. All things considered, you would never know it, when watching the film . . .
#SILENTBUTDEADLYGIFS! . . . Not so deadly, this one...more charming!
Taken from our collection of video clips of the last time Peter Cushing
and Christopher Lee worked together...well saw each other, while
recording a narration for a Hammer Films
documentary.... still playful, still fun and still very much devoted
friends. You can find all the clips on the The Last Meeting: One Last Time at our PCAS PCAS YOUTUBE CHANNEL, listen and watch what made their friendship so special . . .
#SILENTBUTDEADLYGIFS!
I REALLY DID feel sorryfor Christopher Lee's character in this film . . he was
pompous, and opinionated... but what a twisted thing to do...and a
twisted story! Can you name the film, this gif was taken from? Take a
look at the vintage still below, and see if you can
'solve' that question too?
#SILENTBUTDEADLYGIFS
: A NICE touch from Peter Cushing's General von Spielsdorf in 'The
Vampire Lovers' (1970) . . . whenever Peter met a woman, female, lady,
in public either for the first time or anytime, he always greeted them
with a gentle kiss upon the back of the hand. I have read many features
and interviews where the female interviewer or journalist, recounted
this and saw it as a wonderfully gallant and profound act of gentlemanly
manners . . . I am not so sure that, if Peter were around us today, he
would feel safe to make such a gesture either!
#SILENTBUTDEADLYGIFS!IT WAS CHRISTOPHER LEE who one said, when he and Peter Cushing attended the US premier of Hammer films, 'Dracula /Horror of Dracula (1958) that when THIS shot appeared at the end of the opening credits, a roar of laughter and hoots went up, from the attending audience. Lee was ready to leave the cinema right then. Cushing, placed his hand of Lee's arm and told him, to stay with it. A few minutes after, hoots still prevailing, for the first time Lee's Dracula stood at the top of the long stairs inside Castle Dracula, he walked down them to meet Jonathan Harker . As soon as he spoke, the whole cinema, fell silent. It was the first time his Dracula was seen on the screen, and it would be one of the very few times, he would speak . . .through out the ENTIRE SEVEN FILM series!
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 . .
SPOILERS: Here's a little PCAS exclusive, to start our 'Lesser Seen
Peter Cushing Season'. 'SOME MAY LIVE' isn't a film you will see
mentioned in many books on Cushing, if it is it will be a short
synopsis, cast and distributor. It's a title that has out foxed most
researchers, and has sadly been largely forgotten since it's short
release by UK distributors Butchers in August 1967. Unlike many Vietnam
War dramas, 'Some May Live' was produced while the War was still very
much rolling on.
PRODUCED AT A TIME when GB was starting to feel the
economic pinch and studios were looking for cheaper pot-boilers to bring
in much needed work and finance, Foundation Pictures Krasne
Entertainments, were looking for a film that could package Hollywood
actors for the US market and secure a name for the home shores too, they
offered Peter Cushing the leading role of John Meredith, shortly after
he had wrapped work on Hammer films , 'Frankenstein Created Woman' at
Bray studios and 'Night of the Big Heat' both with director Terence
Fisher. Here Cushing is directed by Vernon Sewell, who in a just few
weeks after completing this film, would go on to direct Cushing in
'Tigon films 'The Blood Beast Terror'.
'SOME MAY LIVE' tells the story of Kate Meredith, a decoder for American
intelligence, who is compelled by her foreign correspondent husband, to
give him classified information, which is then passed on to the Viet
Cong. She is plagued with guilt, especially after her activities lead to
an attempted assassination of a U. S. senator. In addition, she becomes
disillusioned by her marriage and has an affair with the assistant to a
high level army intelligence official. She becomes persuaded to relay
false information to her husband even though she knows that it will
likely result in his execution by the Communists.
IT'S A GOOD WATCH, an entertaining film, with Hollywood actors Joseph
Cotten and Martha Hyer adding name value, weight and drama, Cushing
gets to flex some character muscles we don't see that often, which makes
some scenes worth the watch in itself . .. MORE titles to come and
another 'Lesser Seen' Peter Cushing film, next Wednesday...HERE! MANY
thanks to film collector and archivist JEAN LAYETTE for helping us bring
this little gem to your attention..You'll be hearing much about Jean in
the coming weeks! MERCI JEAN!
ABOVE: One of the RARE airings of #SOMEMAYLIVE
on television in 1993
TRIVIA: What is the connection between THS FILM and the BBC tv series, 'MONTY PYTHON'S FLYING CIRCUS'?
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
#TOOCOOLTUESDAY:
! Just uploaded to our PCAS YouTub.e A treat for you today! The
complete documentary of 'Peter Cushing: A One Way ticket To Hollywood'
Lots of anecdotes, tales and a few startling revelations too...
ENJOY!
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
