#HAMMERFILMSATURDAY: HOW TO STAKE A VAMPIRE OR BY ANY OTHER MEANS!

#HAMMERFILMSATURDAY: Peter Cushing shares his thoughts on playing his Van Helsing for Hammer productions in five films and the character of Dracula . . .

AS HAMMER HAS shown us, it doesn't HAVE to be death by staking. If you haven't got the Vampire Hunter standard issue mallet and stake, you can always use.... sunlight, a shower tap, a spoke from a cartwheel, a bronze cross, hawthorn, a broken piece of wooden fencing, holy water, light through a stain-glass window, a spear, a spade, a pit full of wooden stakes or indeed a WINDMILL...etc....

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#GIMMETHEGIFWEDNESDAY: EYEBALLS VANISHING VAMPS BODY SNATCHERS AND TARKIN!

#Gimmethegifwednesday:(when you send in YOUR requests for clips and GIFS of your favorite Cushing shots or scenes!) FOR TOM PARRY: EYES RIGHT! This is a wonderful shot from Hammer films, The Revenge of Frankenstein (1958) with Peter Cushing returning as the Baron, assisted by Francis Mathews.These eyeballs were created by Les Bowie. Even though Hammer did not have a true resident effects department, Les Bowie was the man who would turn his hand, like make up artist Roy Ashton, to make the most incredible from the most basic every day, 'house-hold' items.

'Dracula ashes from talcum powder, fullers earth and sawdust!', or how about... 'Dracula's last breath supplied by a bicycle inner tube from a Tyre, deflated and inflated by blowing down a rubber tube from a tropical fish tank, hidden under Dracula's costume!' It certainly opens your EYES to what could be achievable, with some imagination and a box of bits and bobs. Bowie went on to establish his own very successful special effects department Bowie Films, which worked in tv and all manner of big blockbuster films through the 1960's and 70s.....

#GIMMETHEGIFWEDNESDAY:Like or not, which ever side you are on regarding the #TARKIN #CGI debate... there are a LOT of supporters, and here at PCAS we still get requests for info about almost everyday..This GIF has been requested by 'Tarkins Puppy' ..whoever that maybe?? . But, here it is, as requested... is a interesting shot of Cushing's CGI creation to ponder over...maybe?

#GIMMETHEGIFWEDNESDAY: Peter Cushing here as Van Helsing, giving the check of the vitals of one poor Bob, boyfriend of Caroline Munro's Laura, in 'just add four decades of watching, and eventually, you WILL like it' #DRACULAAD1972 . The character of BOB, is one of many that appears in a Hammer film, and vanishes or falls foul of a fate, that somehow falls through a plot hole. Bob is discovered in the graveyard of the desecrated St Bartok's church. He's a dead as a dodo, but how he got that way, isn't explained in the plot. But we donned our deerstalker, and not only found how Bob-bobbed-out, but also photographic evidence, how! See our panel below. Royston Harris, THIS is for you!

#GIMMETHEGIFWEDNESDAY: If you compile a list of what you would personally consider to be  five titles from the Peter Cushing filmography, chances are, if you have had the opportunity to see it, FLESH AND THE FIENDS (Mania USA) would be somewhere in that list. It IS a classic. With it's mini budget, produced in a time of many bigger and more expensively promoted movies doing the rounds, this film got passed over by the cinema going public, and slipped quietly away, until television threw it a afterlife-life line, it made regular appearances on late night and afternoon tv slots, and found the audiences that should have seen it back in the day. 

Startlingly dramatic, dark and emotive. The direction of the underappreciated John Gilling, brings out the best in Peter Cushing as Dr Knox, and a quite superb supporting cast of Donald Pleasence and George Rose as Burke and Hare, body-snatchers, Billy Whitelaw and Renne Houston. Even Melvyn Hayes, just three years after appearing in Curse of Frankenstein, manages to play a poor unfortunate, without resorting to scenery-chewing or cliches. Not seen it? It's still out there to purchase, very reasonably. We did try to share it with you at our YT channel, but Youtube threatened to tear our archive down, if we so much as uploaded a flicker of it. We do try. Go see now. THIS GIF was for NICOLAS JACOBS! Fast huh?

That's it for this week. REMEMBER if you would like to request a great Cushing GIF, choose a scene, shot  or moment that doesn't contain dialogue. GIF's by their nature are muted non audio short clips , that play in rotation.

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THE COUNT SESAME STREET HAMMER DRACULA MASH UP

#ONSETSATURDAY: 'The Count from Sesame Street' on the set of Hammer films, 'Dracula / Horror of Dracula' starring Peter Cushing and Christophger Lee. . . . .

 AND LEGO . . . .

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THE STORY BEHIND ONE OF THE MOST ICONIC SCENES IN HORROR FILM HISTORY

Ask any Hammer film fan, what would be their favourite top three scenes above all others in the Hammer catalog, and chances are the closing moments of Hammer's 1958, Dracula / Horror of Dracula. The build up to the scene, with Christopher Lee's Dracula being pursued by Cushing Van Helsing, is topped off with a dramatic 'face to face' battle, with Van Helsing finally cornering the Count and pushing him into the deadly sunlight, with an improvised crucifix, made from two crossed candle sticks. A move that wasn't in the script, but suggested by Peter Cushing. Here in Cushing's own words, is the story behind one the most iconic scenes in horror film history and for the first time, we present the scene that inflenced Cushing and how it looked in the Hammer films classic!

"In the original script Van Helsing was sort of like a salesman for crucifixes. He was pulling them out of every pocket. He was giving them to children to protect themselves, and putting them in coffins and so on. At the end of the film, he pulled out another one, so I asked if we couldn't do something exciting instead."

"I remembered seeing a film years ago called Berkeley Square in which Leslie Howard was thought of as being the Devil by this frightened little man who suddenly grabbed two big candlesticks and made a sign of the cross with them. I remembered that this had impressed me enormously. I suggested the run along the refectory table to jump onto the curtains and hit Dracula square in the face with the sunlight."

The scene From Berkeley Square That
Peter Cushing Remembered!

"He would, of course, be trapped. Then I could come along like a hero, grab the two candlesticks and make the cross with them in his face. They agreed. Originally the candelabra they had were the type with four candles on each base. You could tell what I was doing, but it didn't look like a cross, but they changed to the ones you see in the film. At least it wasn't another crucifix coming out of my pockets!"

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