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  

JOAN COLLINS DISCOVERS SANTA HAS ARRIVED !

#GETTHECUSHIONITSCUSHING: This week's classic clip is from 'And All Through the House' segment from Amicus's Tales From The Crypt (1972)

After Joanne Clayton (Joan Collins) kills her husband (Martin Boddey) on Christmas Eve, she prepares to hide his body but hears a radio announcement stating that a homicidal maniac (Oliver MacGreevy) is on the loose. She sees the killer (who is dressed in a Santa Claus costume) outside her house but cannot call the police without exposing her own crimes.

A WONDERFULLY SUSPENSEFUL story with Joan Collins really going all out with her performance and stylishly directed by Freddie Francis. The story was remade in 1989 as an episode of the TV series Tales From The Crypt (1988-96) directed by Robert Zemeckis.

How do you think the two versions compare?

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GIFS FROM FEAR IN THE NIGHT : GEESON AND CUSHING

#toocooltuesday Hammer films, Fear in the Night is probably the best of the bunch in which Peter Cushing'as role in screen-time is really little more than a guest spot with Cushing working a mere four day's filming for a £1,000 in 1971.

Cushing is worth every penny, Judy Geeson is great, Ralph Bates is terrifying...and Joan Collins does what she does best...you can fill in the gap here! It's a tight little thriller that has all of it's tiny budget of £114,000 up on the screen...

FULL REVIEW AND GREAT PHOTO GALLERY HERE

CLASSIC AMICUS COMES TO BLU RAY IN UK : TALES FROM THE CRYPT FROM FINAL CUT ENTERTAINMENT

UK based FINAL CUT have announced the release of their blu ray of TALES FROM THE CRYPT for 19th October 2015. Starring Peter Cushing in his superb 'Poetic Justice' story as Arthur Grimsdyke, Joan Collins and Ralph Richardson.. the extra feature on this FIRST TIME RELEASE IN UK ON BLU RAY package includes, a new 36-minute documentary featuring Reece Shearsmith, Jonathan Rigby, Steve Chibnall and others.

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WIN PETER CUSHING AMICUS FILM TALES FROM THE CRYPT : TEN DVDS MUST BE WON!

THE PRIZES:

Thanks to our sponsors Cinema Cult and Screenpop.... we have TEN DVD copies of Amicus Films 'TALES FROM THE CRYPT' starring Peter Cushing up for grabs as prizes in todays competition.

HOW TO ENTER:

All YOU have to do is study the two photographs below, taken of Peter Cushing from Tales From The Crypt.....and tell us the FIVE DIFFERENCES between PHOTOGRAPH ONE and PHOTOGRAPH TWO...it's as simple as that!

HOW TO SEND US YOUR ENTRY:
Once you think you have spotted all FIVE, send us your answers by EMAIL to theblackboxclub@gmail.com

PLEASE DO NOT post your answers on this thread. Any entries posted onto the thread will be deleted and not counted as an entry.

This competition is open until SUNDAY 21st JUNE 2015 mid day GMT. TEN correct winning entries will be drawn out of a hat and the winners names will posted here two hours later.

SIMPLE as that!

Should you have questions or queries about the competition, please message us, Do not post your questions onto this thread.

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FEAR OLD SCHOOL: 'FEAR IN THE NIGHT' WITH FULL REVIEW AND PCASUK GALLEY

In the 1960s, screenwriter Jimmy Sangster made a jump from Gothic horror to the realm of sting-in-the-tail suspense.  It was a move the writer craved, as the Gothic was never a milieu that much appealed to him.  He drew inspiration, instead, from the classic French thriller Les Diaboliques (1955), directed by Henri Georges Clouzot.  Clouzot’s reputation rivaled that of Alfred Hitchcock in his native France , though his name never became quite as prominent on an international level.

Hitchcock had reportedly attempted to buy the rights to the novel upon which the film was based himself, and when Clouzot beat him to the punch, he persuaded the authors, Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac, to write him a fresh piece of material; he would use this material as the backbone for his masterpiece Vertigo (1958).  Les Diaboliques may not seem as fresh and vital today, but this is easily explained by the fact that it was ripped off many times – and nobody drew more inspiration from it than Sangster himself.

Indeed, while many critics would label the thrillers Sangster wrote for Hammer as “mini Hitchcocks,” the screenwriter was always quick to point out that they were truly “mini Clouzots.”  The series got off to a winning start with Taste of Fear (1960), which was directed by the gifted Seth Holt.  The film adopts the Diaboliques formula: an innocent woman is driven to the brink of madness by callous conspirators.

Taste of Fear proved successful with critics and audiences alike, and Sangster would follow up with Paranoiac (1962), Nightmare and Maniac (both 1963), Hysteria (1964), and Crescendo (1969).  The Nanny (1965) and the Richard Matheson-penned Die Die My Darling! (1964) are also often lumped into this series, but the former isn’t really much of a twist-laden shocker, while the latter was done without Sangster’s involvement.

One script that Sangster wrote during this time frame was titled The Claw, and it dealt with a woman being terrorized by a man with a prosthetic arm.  For whatever reason, it never saw the light of day in the 60s, though it would later be dusted off in 1972, when it would emerge as Fear in the Night.

The story is a simple one: psychologically fragile Peggy (Judy Geeson) goes to live with her husband Robert (Ralph Bates) at the boys boarding school where he as just been hired to teach.  While there, she begins seeing and hearing many strange things.  Could the one-armed, reclusive school master, Michael (Peter Cushing), be responsible?

As a thriller, Fear in the Night is pretty much lacking in thrills.  And as a suspense film, it’s also very much lacking in suspense.  The issue is in the casting, though not in the acting.  Everybody is cast much too much to type, thus making it easy to figure out who is trying to get one over on whom.  If Geeson and Joan Collins (cast, something unbelievably, as Cushing’s wife) had swapped roles, for example, the twists and turns of the scenario would have been a little less glaringly obvious.  As it stands, though, Geeson is very much in victim mode throughout, while Collins is her usual bitchy self.  Cushing’s role is very much of the red herring variety, and while it worked well enough with Christopher Lee in Taste of Fear, there’s never very much doubt that the character of Michael is pretty much harmless.  That’s not to say that the actors do a poor job – it’s not exactly a tour de force for anybody involved, of course, but the four principal players (especially Geeson) are in good form.

Much of the blame can be leveled at Sangster, who in addition to writing (with some polish by Michael Dyson), also made another crack at directing with this picture.  The film followed on the heels of Lust for a Vampire and The Horror of Frankenstein (both 1970), neither of which had gone over very well.  To his credit, Sangster displays  a little more flair behind the camera this time around – there are a few nicely staged sequences, and a memorable credits sequence with the camera prowling about the deserted school grounds before settling on the unexpected intrusion of a pair of feet dangling from the air, indicating that something has gone awry.  Indeed, there is enough here to make one wonder if maybe he didn’t have a much better film in him down the road.  As it stands, however, this would mark Sangster’s last outing as a director; he would spend the remainder of his career as a “jobbing” writer and a mercifully pragmatic interview subject.

Fear in the Night failed to ignite much interest, and it would later be released to VHS under the title Dynasty of Fear in an obvious bid to capitalize on Collins’ renewed popularity as Queen Bitch on the popular American soap opera, Dynasty.  It would mark the end of Hammer’s run of psychological thrillers, with the company limping through the next few years attempting to trade on their most popular franchises of yore, principally Dracula and Frankenstein

Written by Troy Howarth
Images and design: Marcus Brooks

FEAR IN THE NIGHT: PETER CUSHING AS HEADMASTER MICHAEL CARMICHAEL

PETER CUSHING AS HEADMASTER MICHAEL CARMICHAEL IN HAMMER FILMS 'FEAR IN THE NIGHT'

TALES FROM THE CRYPT: PETER CUSHING PUBLICITY PHOTOGRAPH: AMICUS (1972)

PETER CUSHING: GRIMSDYKE RETURNS!

Almost at the end of our series of post here and on the Facebook Uk Peter Cushing Appreciation Society featuring Peter Cushing's role in Amicus Film Productions 'TALES FROM THE CRYPT'. Here's a large photograph of Grimsdyke returning form the grave...