PCAS COMES TO INSTAGRAM AND THE TUESDAY TOUGHY CONNECTIONS!

COMING TO THE END of this '27 tests to see if anybody listening?' #PCAS series...THIS WEEKS Cushing Tuesday Toughy, shouldn't be too tough for some of you! Feel free to post your comment / suggestion / answer in thread at the FACEBOOK PCAS FAN PAGE, where you will also find the #ANSWER to last weeks puzzler 😉 Cleaners huh?

SNAP! Requested and relaunched today . . and waiting for you! Your #PeterCushing Appreciation Society is now on #INSTAGRAM. Come help put PC on the INSTA MAP! Regular postings often featuring #extras exclusive to the account! Come say hi and join us HERE!

LOST IN THE FOG! MOMENT OF TERROR MONDAY : PETER CUSHING

#MOMENTOFTERROR MONDAY! ONE OUR MOST POPULAR uploads on our PCAS YOU TUBE CHANNEL is any uploads from the Peter Cushing Tyburn film 'THE GHOUL' considering how unpopular the film appears to have been for so many years, I find it typical of how FACEBOOK works and well this website and YOUTUBE works. So often, over the many years of managing the PCAS FACEBOOK FAN PAGE, an often vague and really quite unsupported opinion was posted by a member of the public AGAINST a certain Hammer film or indeed CUSHING film. Within a few hours, that opinion would influence so many other posts and comments, that if challenged would go very quiet. Happily, the once negative Facebook tide about this film slowly started to change direction too in the last two years, before we parted ways with Facebook last month.

PERSONALLY, I'VE FOUND if you look down the 92 films in Peter Cushing's filmography, and look for roles the like of Dr Lawrence in THE GHOUL you won't find many. . . Cushing played many evil characters, whose reputation was either formed by other appearances in past productions like Frankenstein. The likes of roles like Sir John Rowan in 'Corruption' and Dr Nararoff in 'The Gorgon' too . . were motivated by the progress of medicine. The Ghoul's Dr Lawrence is different. In this scene, where we first meet Lawrence, we see a man who is cautious, with good reason, and helpful . . with intentions. What makes his performance so interesting and entertaining also is, for the first time, Cushing also brought in emotional factors from his own personal life. It presents us with a much more credible character. Crushed by grief and driven by a most horrendous secret. 

WHAT HELPS here too is, every cast member is very good too. John Hurt's Tom Rawling's is every females nightmare. Creepy, lusty and dangerous. The despite Rawling's totally unattractive and frightening drive, the fatal physical horror and terror will be cranked up and is really yet to come. Here in this five minute clip . . we see the traps set, the lies shared and what appears to be the charity of a new friend... become many moments of terror . . .

#CALLUMMCKELVIE SUNDAY! THERES NO DRACULA BUT BRIDES STILL HAS A LOT OF BITE!

COUNTINUING MY TRIPS down memory lane, I’m going back a little earlier than my l piece as week on HORROR EXPRESS (1973). As I said previously.  When I came across Horror Express, I was already well acquainted with the work of Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee and the gothic horror movement of the late 50’s- 1970’s. The subject of today’s piece, The Brides of Dracula, was one of the first films I encountered on my journey into this world and the first that really made me take notice of Cushing as an actor. 

MY INTEREST IN THE GENRE went something like this; finding Quatermass and the Pit (1967) through references in Dr Who magazines and then researching its background. From there I saw Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb (1964), chosen due to my interest in Egyptology (and the fact that it was the easiest Hammer-Mummy film to get on region 2 at the time) and the other Quatermass films. Then, I started to dip my toes into Hammers other franchises, Amicus films and the work of contemporaries like Roger Corman. I would do this by heading along to the UK HMV store and picking a random title or two, fortunately for me Halloween usually involved a sale on the horror section and two for £10. 
 

I BELIEVE IT WAS HALLOWEEN 2008 when, in the very early days of my hammer collecting, I grabbed both The Devil Rides Out (1968) and Brides of Dracula. I’d been after Devil for some time, but Brides I knew very little about and indeed only chose it to see an example of Hammer’s Dracula series. Rushing home with my two purchases, I had a habit at this age of turning any film I really wanted to see into something of an ‘event’, buying snacks and leaving it until late evening. The film I gave that honour too was The Devil Rides Out, but deciding I wanted to watch something however, I popped the disc of Brides into the player.

I THINK, IN MANY WAYS Brides of Dracula, is the perfect film in which to fall in love with both Hammer and Cushing. Whilst the script, can at times be a little messy, it is the atmosphere and performances that set this film apart. Visually the film is somewhat different to 1958’s Dracula, the slightly rougher aspects of that film are completely gone, primarily anything shot on location.

IN DRACULA , this was beneficial atmospherically as for the most part that film functions as a thriller in the guise of a horror movie. Think about it, a man hunts down an evil villain and dies in the process, a relative and the man’s accomplice in his mysterious work then embark on a cat and mouse chase with the villain. Of course I am being a little ignorant in this description of the gothic atmosphere and various staking’s etc., etc.

HOWEVER PURELY in terms of its various script beats, Dracula follows a classical thriller mould. Brides on the other hand is a fairy-tale, a dark fable of a girl who enters a strange country and rescues a prince (well Baron) only for him to turn out to be cursed. It is up to a brave hero (Van Helsing) to save the day. Perhaps reacting to this, Terrance Fisher opts to shoot Brides as mostly stage bound with very little obvious location footage. The set design is far more extravagant and what results is an utterly beautiful self-contained gothic world. The blacks and browns used in a lot of the sets in Dracula, are replaced with vibrant purples and reds. As a young horror fan, I fell in love with this gothic fairy-tale landscape.

A HUGE COMPONENT of this is David Peels performance as Baron Meintser, a character who somewhat divides the fans. Honestly, whilst I adore Christopher Lee as Dracula, I think it’s very unfair to compare that performance to this one. What is being exercised in the two movies are two very different portrayals of the ‘Dracula’ type character. 

WHILST CHRISTOPHER LEE gets his brief ‘refined gentleman’ moment in the opening scene of the earlier film, his Dracula is an animalistic, vicious character. The sexuality comes from that, with Lee's Dracula presented as a highly sexualised creature, not in a romantic way but a lustful and primal one. Peel on the other hand, feels as if the Hammer team were going for an entirely different approach, presenting him as a suave and debonair figure. For the most part he spends his time talking and being legitimately charming, as opposed to Lees snarling and hissing. This works within the films ‘fairy-tale mould’, after all the wonderful opening sequence in which the character of Marianne ‘frees’ him, wouldn’t work as well unless the character was a romantic one.

IN MANY WAYS, Peel's performance pre-empts the take that Frank Langella would have on the character many years later. And then of course there’s Cushing himself, giving what is perhaps his best performance as Van Helsing. I remember being utterly captivated by the determination in his performance, most notably the celebrated scene where he is forced to use a branding Iron on his neck to save himself from the curse of Vampirism.

THE SHEER FEAR mixed with determination presented here gives Van Helsing a warmer presence than he had in the earlier film (Teddy-bear coat scenes aside) and his bond with Marianne does hint at a romance between the two. It’s the performance that made me fall in love with the man and I quickly hunted down several of the Frankenstein entries to see more.

RETURNING TO MY little story of how I discovered Brides, whilst I did enjoy The Devil Rides Out, the film that really stole my heart that Halloween was Brides of Dracula. For me, it’s the only film to watch that time of year and I’m always ready to immerse myself in its rich gothic atmosphere again and again. Whilst I of course adore Dracula, in many ways Brides is a superior film and for me is Fishers masterpiece. If you ever want to indoctrinate anyone in the ways of Hammer, this is the one to go for- after all it worked for me!

AND WHAT ABOUT YOURSELVES dear readers? What were the films that really made you fall in love with Cushing? If you have any comments, suggestions or feedback about this or ANY of my features here at PCAS you can contact me HERE at spookycallum58@gmail.com

PART ONE OF OUR Femme Fatale Feature on YVONNE MONLAUR 

star of BRIDES OF DRACULA can be found HERE!

 

CHRISTOPHER LEE SATURDAY: GET YOUR TICKET FOR TOMORROWS TRAIN AND YVONNE MITCHELL REMEMBERED

#CHRISTOPHERLEESATURDAY! THIS WEEKEND much of our time is more than taken making a short journey through the film 'HORROR EXPRESS' from 1972. It was film that both Christopher Lee and Cushing enjoyed making. Even though, as you will read above, Cushing was still much effected by the terrible loss of his wife, Helen, Lee managed to have Peter focus on the production at hand. The result is a film that was appreciated back then on it's release, and even today. Recent DVD and BLU RAY releases have sold well, and gained even more appreciation. The two roles that Lee and Cushing play, come over well. A change from their usual roles of one destroying the other, here we have interesting characters who are in competition, but have to pull together to destroy someone else and all their supporters!

BELOW: THIS SUNDAY sees CALLUM MCKELVIE's weekly feature focus on, HORROR EXPRESS TOO. A personal spin on his first memory of watching the feature plus we'll be uploading the ENTIRE film from our PCAS YOUTUBE CHANNEL, with many images and supporting images through out the feature. JOIN US TOMORROW! We will also be posting the FOUR WINNERS of our CINEFICCION  MAGAZINE prizes!

BRITISH ACTRESS YVONNE MITCHELL  was first and foremost a stage actress who began her career quite early as a teen. By the time of her death, she had performed under the theatre lights for over four decades. Her output in films and TV paled in comparison, but the work she put out in those mediums were of unusually high quality with mature themes. The dark-haired actress made her film debut in a key role in The Queen of Spades (1949) and proceeded to become a moving, thoughtful, often anguished presence throughout the 1950s, winning the British Film Award for her touching, sterling performance as the biological mother of a foster child in The Divided Heart (1954). A year before that, she appeared with PETER CUSHING in the BBC production of '1984' as Julia. The broadcast gained much publicity for both her and Cushing, stirring the public in it's two live performances.

THE PUBLIC WERE so upset by Orwell's story and the BBC almost uncensored production that a debate in the government  House of Commons, after the first LIVE show and the planned second live broadcast, debated if the broadcast should go ahead at all. It did. It certainly didn't mar her career, but for Cushing it set the motion of his career forever becoming tilted towards the Horror and Fantasy genre, on both the big screen and tv. Yvonne's  slovenly, cuckolded wife in Woman in a Dressing Gown (1957) won her the Berlin International Film Festival Award. Other important films included Escapade (1955), Sapphire (1959), The Trials of Oscar Wilde (1960) and Johnny Nobody (1961). On the sly, Yvonne was a novelist of both children and adult books and an award-winning playwright. She also penned an enormously successful biography entitled "Colette--A Taste for Life" based on the famed French writer. The wife of film and stage critic Derek Monsey, she wrote her biography in 1957.

YVONNE MITCHELL, changed her name legally in 1946 from Yvonne Frances Joseph to Yvonne Mitchell (Mitchell was her mother's maiden name). She also deducted a decade from her age, which is why many sources have listed 1925 as her birth year. She married author and critic Derek Monsey in 1952, the couple would later divorce, only to be reconciled. They would remarry in late 1978, just months before Monsey died of a heart attack on 13 February 1979, with Mitchell dying of cancer just over a month later.

#MONSTERMONDAY: CHILL OUT! HE'S NOT A MONSTER REALLY! THE ABOMINABLE SNOWMAN

#‎MONSTERMONDAY‬: THIS WEEK, we are presenting a character from a Cushing film, that doesn't really deserve the hype of the movie poster or the reputation that this 'misunderstood' creature has gained. All I can say is, watch the movie! See for yourself, frightening to look at, yes... but the 'Snowman' is a wise creature...surely more wiser than the name we have given him...snow 'MAN'.

IN HAMMER FILMS 1959, 'The Abominable Snowman' Peter Cushing plays Dr John Rollason. He reprised Rollason having played the good doctor in the BBC drama of the same story, written by Nigel Kneale, entitled 'The Creature' in 1955. At this point in his career, Peter Cushing was best known as a television actor, having starred in the BBC productions of Pride and Prejudice (1952) and Beau Brummell (1954) ....as well as the Kneale production of 'Nineteen Eighty-Four', directed by Rudolph Cartier.

Here's a rare snap of Peter in the BBC drama 'The Creature' from 1955, with Brit actor Stanley Baker in the Tom Friend role, that would be played by Forrest Tucker in the Hammer version. . .

'SNOWMAN' was his second picture for Hammer films productions, the first had been 'The Curse of Frankenstein' directed by Terence Fisher and co starring Christopher Lee in 1957, it was the film that set the mold and would bring him international fame.

RECALLING how the cast and crew on 'Snowman' were entertained by Cushing's improvisation with props, director Val Guest said, “We used to call him 'Props Cushing', because he was forever coming out with props. When he was examining the Yeti tooth, he was pulling these things out totally unrehearsed and we found it very difficult keeping quiet” If you have yet to 'CATCH' The Abominable Snowman, you're in for a treat!

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