WHAT MAKES A GREAT SHERLOCK HOLMES : VINTAGE TRAILER : NAME THE MUSCLE MAN!

TWO FILMS and 16 Television Episodes! Over at the Facebook PCASUK Fan Page, I have asked : What Do You Think, Made Peter Cushing such a popular Sherlock Holmes? From 1959 and the Hammer film adaption of 'The Hound of the Baskervilles' the role of probably the world's most famous detective 'Sherlock Holmes', became quite permanently welded to Peter Cushing as one of his most entertaining roles... from a filmography containing over 90 motion pictures! From the many actors who portrayed Holmes, what was it in Cushing's performances that made him so popular?? . . . And as you wouks expect, there are some interesting theories and strong opinions... HERE!

A CHUMP AT OXFORD (1940) was the penultimate Laurel and Hardy film made at the Hal Roach studios. Stan Laurel played Stan / Lord Paddington, Oliver Hardy is Ollie! The film is of particular note to us, because Peter Cushing also featured in the cast.
 

#STANLAUREL was born Arthur Stanley Jefferson on the 16th June 1890, at 3, Argyle Street, Ulverston, Cumbria, England. He travelled to the US with the Karno trope, and after a long period eventually Laurel signed with the Hal Roach studio, so did Oliver Hardy, who was a member of the Hal Roach Studios Comedy All Star players...and the rest is history! If I were to pick anyone from this era of cinema history, Stan and Olly get my vote every time.

IF YOU HAVE NOT seen A Chump At Oxford, I highly recommend it, I have added the the theatrical trailer above! It's not just for an opportunity to see a young Peter Cushing at work, but also the joy of watching the skill and talent of the two 'boys'. It never got better. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Stan, you still remain head and shoulders above the rest!

#RichardBurton and Claire Bloom's 1956 production of 'Alexander the Great' might have been seen as 'not so great' at the box office, but #PeterCushing turned in a very good performance, even with such a damp squid of a script.. it also gave us a fabulous colour image like this this one, just months before Cushing's career would take such a dramatic turn!

ABOVE : HERE IS A GOOD FRIEND friend to Peter Cushing, who played more than one villain alongside him.. a STRONG character too! Over at the Facebook Fan Page, I have posted this and  asked if you name him and the two films in which he appeared with Peter Cushing? It's funny how some have complained that the question is too easy, while quite few.. are miles off and have ID the guy, incorrectly! 😀😉  

THE ONE AND ONLY : #CUSHINGSFEMMEFATALESFRIDAY!

BEST KNOWN  as Hammer Films' most seductive female vampire of the early 1970s, the Polish-born Pitt possessed dark, alluring features and a sexy figure that made her just right for Gothic horror! Ingrid Pitt (born Ingoushka Petrov) survived World War II and became a well-known actress on the East Berlin stage, however, she did not appear on screen until well into her twenties. She appeared in several minor roles in Spanish films in the mid 1960s, mostly uncredited, before landing the supporting role of undercover agent "Heidi", assisting Clint Eastwood and Richard Burton defeat the Third Reich in Where Eagles Dare (1968).

HER EXOTIC looks and eastern European accent came to the notice of Hammer executives who cast Pitt as vampiress "Mircalla" in the sensual horror thriller The Vampire Lovers (1970). The film was a box office success with its blend of horror and sexual overtones, and Pitt was a beautiful, yet ferocious bloodsucker. Next up, Pitt was cast by Amicus Productions as another gorgeous vampire in the episode entitled "The Cloak" in the superb The House That Dripped Blood (1971). This time, Ingrid played an actress appearing in horror films alongside screen vampire Jon Pertwee, but then later reveals herself to be a real vampire keen on recruiting fresh blood.

INGRID DONNED the fangs for her third vampire film in a row, Countess Dracula (1971) which was loosely based around the legend of the 16th century bloodthirsty Countess Elizabeth Bathory. Whilst not as successful, as the two prior outings, Ingrid Pitt had firmly established herself as one of the key ladies of British horror of the 1970s. She then appeared in the underrated The Wicker Man (1973) as an uncooperative civil servant annoying Edward Woodward in his search for a missing child. Further work followed in The Final Option (1982), as "Elvira" in the adaptation of the John le Carré Cold War thriller Smiley's People (1982), Wild Geese II (1985) and The Asylum (2000).

INGRID made regular appearances at horror conventions and fan gatherings, had penned several books on her horror career, and she relished talking to fans about her on screen vampiric exploits. Ingrid's fan club is known as the "Pitt of Horror"! A much loved and genuine cult figure of modern horror cinema, she died on November 23, 2010, just two days after her 73rd birthday.

PLEASE visit the INGRID PITT FAN CLUB WEBSITE . . .and help keep her memory alive. Just simply CLICK 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  . .

DO YOU REMEMBER PATRICK TROUGHTON IN CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN?

MOST OF US are aware of Peter Cushing's first #FRANKENSTEIN film for Hammer films, 'The Curse Of Frankenstein', that it was made at Bray studios,  directed by Terence Fisher and rocketed Peter Cushing into 'Spooky Stardom' and opened a door to one, Christopher Lee who in a matter of months, would also be tripping the 'Spooky Light Fantastic', with his performance as Count Dracula, in Hammer films 'Dracula / Horror of Dracula' the following year in 1958. We are maybe also familiar with the supporting cast, the aforementioned Cushing as Baron Victor Frankenstein, Lee as the Creature, Robert Urquhart as the Baron's long time friend and assistant, Paul Krempe, Hazel Court as Victor's cousin and fiancée Elizabeth, Valerie Gaunt played the Baron's lover Justine, Melvyn Hayes played a young Victor Frankenstein and finally, Court's own daughter, Sally Walsh played the young Elizabeth. There is also a smattering of very good, UNCREDITED players.

A CLOSER LOOK AT MUCH of the early publicity material, press stills swatches and a copy of the ultra rare British press-book, reveals ANOTHER more surprising name, in the supporting cast, that seems to have bypassed many fans . . . .

ACTOR PATRICK TROUGHTON, he of most impressive acting career ( Doctor Who, The Omen and.. The Black Knight (1954), and...Olivier's 1948 Hamlet, which also starred Peter Cushing as Osric... Troughton appeared in quite a few TV dramas with Cushing too.) was also cast in The Curse Of Frankenstein. But I KNOW what you are thinking, you don't remember seeing him in the film? Don't get it? Stay with me . . . .

FOR WHAT IT'S WORTH, here is our theory, to what may have happened here. Sometime during the editing or the shoot, during that freezing cold November of 1956, it was decided that either, Mr T's footage had a problem, he was double booking at the Charnel House that day, or director Terence Fisher had a hunch, an epiphany and recast a different actor for the role of Kurt, the Charnel House Keeper. Yes, this role even though the actor's face isn't ACTUALLY SEEN, also had a name. How do we know this? BECAUSE it's in the PRESS BOOK, with Patrick Troughton's name along side it! I guess, no one thought to tell the Pres department, that Troughton was no longer in the show?! As it played out, everything came good for Troughton, in a few short years he would land the prize role of television's favorite doctor,  DR WHO when William Hartnell would sadly leave the role. But, WHO IS Kurt, if not Patrick Troughton?....Still with me?

ABOVE: THAT SCENE IN GIF FORM!

STAND UP AND TAKE A BOW JOSEF BEHRMANN! We have a hunch it is Behrmann who can be seen in this scene and was cast replacing Troughton. Those HANDS! Josef Behrmann was born on June 25, 1925 in Ventspils, Latvia. Behrman started his career as a jobbing actor in the early 50's . . having lived and survived through an incredible journey of survival during and immediately after the second World War in Latvia. Between 1941 and 1945 he passed through 14 concentration and work camps, including the infamous Buchenwald, surviving them all by astonishing luck, yet remaining scarred for life by what he had seen.... Read his story here. In an acting career, which also give him many theatre opportunities, under the name of Joscik Barbarossa, he also appeared in over 100 films, The Naked Runner with Frank Sinatra and Edward Fox (subsequently to be a great friend), The Ipcress File with Michael Caine, Gene Wilder's The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes Smarter Brother, 1984 with Richard Burton and Carve Her Name with Pride with Virginia McKenna – in which he played a brutal SS officer. Later he was an advisor for The Odessa File and Schindler’s List.

I SOMEHOW FEEL, this isn't going to end here... but for whatever the reasons were behind the casting in 'Curse', Patrick Troughton's loss was Josef Behrmann's and our gain! And isn't strange how sometimes, stories like these have neat endings?? Speed forward seventeen years later, where Terence Fisher and Peter Cushing are now marking the end of the Hammer Frankenstein cycle with the production of Hammer films, 'FRANKENSTEIN AND THE MONSTER FROM HELL' ...and who should be playing the grave robber, helping a young SHANE BRIANT, to find specimens? Not from the Charnel House this time though, but 'Body Snatcher', from the local spooky cemetery.... it's Patrick Troughton! I wonder if Fisher remembered Troughton, when he was bringing together some of the best of British character actors for this, his last Hammer Frankenstein film with Peter Cushing!  And yes, the press-book did contain Troughton's name.........

 

 

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