TERRY O'NEILL , the photographer who chronicled London’s 1960s culture
by capturing the celebrities and public figures who defined the era,
has died aged 81.
O'NEILL, who was awarded a CBE last month for services to photography and was known for his work with the likes of #FrankSinatra, #DavidBowie and Elizabeth Taylor and #EltonJohn died at home on Saturday night after a long illness, his agency said. He had prostate cancer.
MANY#PeterCushing#ChristopherLee, #VincentPrice and #JohnCarradine
Fans, will know Terry's work from the outstanding promotional
photograph he created of all four movie icons for the 1983 film, 'House
of the Long Shadows'. The film brought all four actors together for the
first time, but it was O'Neill who captured it in an amazing photograph!
“IT IS WITH a heavy heart
that Iconic Images announces the passing of Terence ‘Terry’ O’Neill,
CBE,” a spokeswoman for the agency said. “As one of the most iconic
photographers of the last 60 years, his legendary pictures will for ever
remain imprinted in our memories, as well as in our hearts and minds
TODAY IS INTERNATIONAL BEST FRIENDS DAY! Although, maybe the characters
that Cushing, Christopher Lee, Vincent Price and John Carradine played
in The House Of Long Shadows, were not the best of buddies.....OR were
they?.... you can certainly say, off set .. three of them, were almost
BLOOD brothers...! Which is quite conveniently marked and shown, on the
latest clips from Lee and Cushing's THE LAST MEETING series, we have
just added to our 're-vamped' PCAS YouTube Channel! Here is one of them,
which I am sure you'll enjoy! (ELEVEN PARTS HERE!) Happy Best Friends Day!
BROTHER'S (LIONEL) (Price) and Sebastian (Cushing) with Father (Lord Elijah
Grisbane) and Corrigan (Lee) pose for a killer pic! The House of The
Long Shadows (1983) All good buddies really...aren't they??
PLEASE COME VISIT OUR REVAMPED PCAS YOUTUBE CHANNEL! SUBSCRIBE AND DON'T MISS A THING! JUST CLICKCLICK HERE!
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Throughout his film career, Cushing played Nazis a surprising number of times. From Rudolph Hess in a 1953 episode of You Are There, to Heinrich Haussner in Son Of Hitler (1977) and Martin Blueck in the Hammer House Of Horror series, missing several in between and after. Of course tht's not even including close cousins such as Major Heinrich Benedek in Scream And Scream Again or Grand Moff Tarkin in Star Wars (1977). And can anyone forget that striking poster for the unmade The Savage Jackboot, featuring an image of Peter dressed as an SS officer and brandishing a whip?
Perhaps the most obvious Cushing Nazi role is that of the unnamed 'SS Commander' in Shock Waves...... despite him having very little screen time. Shock Waves has certainly build something of a reputation for itself, in spite of being incredibly low budget and essentially utilizing a tired slasher format. Of course what Shock Waves is most remembered for re-introducing the concept of Nazi Zombie popular in the 1940's and doing successfully. It doesn't really need to stated, that excluding some excellent offerings post 2000 (Dead Snow I'm looking at you) the Nazi Zombie film sub-gene is primarily made up of some pretty awful films, euro-horrors Zombie Lake and Oasis Of The Zombies (both 1981) spring to mind. ShockWaves is often thought of as the best of these, avoiding a straight up Romero rip-off in that it's Zombies are calculated, trained killers that never stop rather than flesh eating
monsters.
The film tells the story of a The film tells the story of a group of tourists cruising on a small boat skippered by genre favourite John Carradine. After encountering a strange orange haze and a possible Ghost boat, the ship begins to take on water and the group find themselves evacuating to a nearby island. The island is deserted aside from an aged SS Commander (Cushing), who lives in self-exile in a deserted hotel. Cushing tells the group the story of the Death Corps, a group of undead super soldiers developed towards the end of the war, who unable to die have lain in the hold of the sinking ship, until the tourists crashing into it released them. One by one the group are laid to siege by the unstoppable killers.
It’s an incredibly simple film and as I stated before works using the format of a slasher film above anything else. Characters are introduced. Threat is introduced. Characters are picked off by threat one by one until only one/two survive. That’s it. However that’s not to say Shock Waves is bad. Far from it. Where it succeeds is atmosphere and heaps of it. The island setting is incredibly evocative and the hotel where director Ken Wierderhorn filmed is particularly creepy (apparently he payed $250 to rent the entire building, it’s now a luxury hotel which charges significantly more than that per room per night).
The Nazi zombies themselves look INCREDIBLE, the simple design giving them a sleek appearance that makes their stalking scenes particularly effective. The shots of them underwater are one of the highlights of the film and are genuinely chilling.
And what of Cushing? Well as ever he attempts to imbue his character with some pathos but there really is far too little of him on-screen to even really comment on his performance. His monologue is one of the most chilling sequences in the film and easily the highlight and he does manage to at least deliver a menacing presence for the 5+ minutes we actually see him.
It’s also interesting to see him acting in what is clearly a film that fits more comfortably into the ‘Horror New Wave’ style of the 1970’s than it does into any of the more classically based horror that he usually appears in. It’s a pity he had no scenes with Carradine however, though just as with every other horror star from the 50’s/60’s/70s you can always catch them together in 1983’s House of the Long Shadows.
However if your intending to watch Shock Waves for Cushing alone, maybe give it a miss. I recommend Shock Waves. It’s no genre classic and certainly slogs considerably once the nature of the Zombies is revealed and it turns into standard slasher fare. That said however, its ninety minutes of genuinely well-shot atmosphere. If you enjoy that indie 70’s grunge horror, then give it a watch. For genuinely excellent Nazi Zombie horror- watch Dead Snow .
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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 .
TODAY WE REMEMBER British character actress SHELIA KEITH, whose career spanned nearly 40 Years. She made a number of appearances in British TV programmes during the
60's and 70's. However, she is perhaps best known for her frequent
collaborations with horror director, Pete Walker who she worked with in
FIVE FILMS!
IN HER OBITUARY, The Times described her as an "Actress of film, stage
and television who became a ‘British horror icon’"...... It was with her
portrayal of sinister, sadistic and deranged women in the horror movies of the director Pete Walker, that she acquired her most devoted following"
KEITH CO STARRED with Peter Cushing in 'The House Of The Long Shadows '
(1983) as Victoria Grisbane, daughter to John Carradine's, Lord Elijah
Grisbane sister to Vincent Price and Peter Cushing. She was Pete Walker's first choice when veteran, Elsa Lanchester was thought too frail to travel to the UK and work in the film.
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.
MICHAEL ARMSTRONG'S disappointment at the cuts in the final cut of The House Of The Long Shadows
was matched by the reaction of the stars of the film. Vincent Price, in
particular, was so upset that his role had been reduced by the cuts-
especially in the music room scene- that he denounced the film openly
and refused to aid in it's promotion or have anything more to do with
the film.
Michael Armstrong recalls: ' I got a call from Cannon just before the
film was due to open in the UK, telling me about Vinnie's reaction and
asking me if I could try and change his mind. Apparently, he had refused
to speak to anyone at the Cannon offices. He was staying in London at
the time, because his wife Coral Brown was at that time receiving
specialist treatment for cancer here. I called him and tried to persuade
him to talk to Cannon, but he was adamant. He was so angry and so very
upset because he'd loved doing the film and thought it was some of his
best comedy work and then to see so much of his performance cut...but
what could I say?'
Armstrong, continued 'I was totally in agreement with him and, as I pointed
out- the cuts to his dialogue were equally the cuts to my dialogue. We
were on the phone over an hour and a half. By the end, we were
commiserating with each other. He never did speak to anyone at Cannon,
although he and I continued to stay in touch right up to his death.'
ABOVE: PETER CUSHING PROMOTES THE HOUSE OF THE LONG SHADOWS ON THE UK BBC BREAKFAST TIME PROGRAMME 1983. CLIP QUALITY FLUCTUATES BUT IT'S WORTH IT!
HOUSE OF THE LONG SHADOWSopened in London in 1983 at the
Carlton Cinema in the Haymarket to mixed reviews and a disastrous box
office. Cannon's decision to sell the film as a straightforward horror
film had only resulted in confusing both the critics and the audiences
who, without having the benefit of knowing beforehand that it was meant
to be a tongue-in-cheek lampoon of Gothic melodrama, mistook all the wit
and pastiche jokes as an attempt at the real thing. Those critics,
however, who did realise the films intent, raved- in particular over the
screenplay and the stars. Similarly the film went on to win prizes for
best film, best screenplay and best actors (jointly for the four stars)
at Avoriaz, Sitges, Paris and other genre festivals around the world.
DISMAYED AT THE London box office results, Armstrong persuaded
Cannon to let him experiment with a different approach for the regions
in the UK and sell the film as the comedy it was, rather than the horror
film that it wasn't. To test this the East Anglia release was launched with a specially
organised gala night audience in Stowmarket being issued with souvenir
programmes quoting those reviews recognising the film as a comedy. The
result was a packed house loving the film, laughing and applauding
throughout. As Armstrong points out, 'It was exactly the same audience
reaction we'd seen at Avoriaz and in Paris where it had won the audience
prize for Best Film at the Paris Film Festival'.
THE BRITISH QUAD CINEMA POSTER FOR 'HOUSE
OF THE LONG SHADOWS' WAS SCALED DOWN FOR THE
CANNON VIDEO RELEASE
DESPITE THIS EVIDENCE of the audience reaction, it was too late to
change anything. Cannon's original marketing plan remained and the film
continued to fail at the UK box office. With a far more tongue-in-cheek
marketing campaign the film fared better upon it's American and
international release, once more mainly garnering good reviews. Its
excellent entry into the video market, however, was cut short by the
collapse of Cannon. as part of the company's product sell off, the film
was included in a package required by MGM and along with so much of the
Cannon product was lost in the archives.
ARMSTRONG SAW THE PROBLEM, 'The problem with parody is that unless you know what is being parodied,
you miss the joke and I think that's where certain people missed out on
the film. It's a pity because The House Of The Long Shadows is
so full of jokes for the movie buff- almost every single line of the
dialogue has a reference point to some movie or another - I defy anyone
to get them all in a single screening. Apart from the movie references,
though, The House Of The Long Shadows exits on several levels,
which is why it really needs more than one viewing to appreciate it
fully. It was also made with a great love for the film it so
affectionately lampoons and as a swan song to the horror careers of the
four. Just take a look at their dialogue to see what I mean. I firmly
believe when it does finally emerge on DVD, it will finally be
recognised, not only as one of Pete Walker's best and most complex
films, but as a fitting tribute and elegy to a bygone era'
BUT IT DIDN'T STOP THERE . . 'The House Of The Long Shadows'until 2013 was still in limbo, regarding a legitimate release. Maybe Peter Cushing Centenary was an opportunity too good to miss? Whatever it was, the powers that be, finally gave us what we had been waiting for. 'The House of the Long Shadows' arrived in not only ONE blu ray package, but quite a few! The region FREE blu ray was followed by a German blu ray, then Spanish...and many more there after. The news is good, seems someone turned on the lights at the home of the Grisbanes, and now, the once foggy, under-lit scenes are presented, just as they should have been, when we spent our hard earned cash for groggy dvd copies. The picture quality is great, audio too! The Horror Channel has screened the movie several times over the past five years too! Seems, just like Roderick in the story, if WAIT long enough...you'll get what you want!
