NEWS: WITH THE RELEASE of the TWILIGHT TIME blu ray of Hammer films,
'SWORD OF SHERWOOD FOREST ' it's great to be able to announce the launch
of ANOTHER Cushing / Hammer films competition, during NOVEMBER 3rd and
4th 2018. We have FIVE copies of the Twilight Time LIMITED EDITION blu
ray to give away as prizes. So keep your eyes peeled for more news on
the competiton and YOU TOO could be a WINNER. MANY MANY thanks to the guys at Twilight Time for support ANOTHER PCASUK Competition, with a very generous sponsorship of prizes!
TODAY WE REMEMBERthe wonderful, VINCENT PRICE who we sadly lost
on this day in 1993. Over at the FACBOOK PCAS FAN PAGE many are sharing their memories and stories plus their favourites from the extensive career that VINCENT PRICE shared with us! HERE are just a few of the films that have been mentioned. CAN YOU NAME THE FILMS THAT ARE FEATURED IN OUR GIFS?? Feel free to join in at the FACEBOOK FAN PAGE.
NEWS: TWILIGHT TIME has announced the release date of OCTOBER 25TH 2018
for their limited edition of only 3,000 copies of Hammer Films’ 'Sword of
Sherwood Forest' (1960) Probably the best of the Hammer Robin Hood
series, this ofcourse is a big-screen adaptation of the popular
television series, The Adventures of Robin Hood (1955-59); and stars the
same dashing actor, Richard (Tales from the Crypt 1972) Greene, as the
aristo man of the people. The film is directed by Terence Fisher,
a Hammer favorite to many Hammer fans, who also helmed many of the
series episodes too. TWILIGHT TIME has a very sound reputation for releasing high quality blu rays and dvd's, managed by harden fans and enthusiasts of cinema, these guys KNOW what lovers of film want and expect. With several other Cushing releases they have worked hard to maintain that reputation, from the technical quality of the disc right through to interesting and original concept art work on their covers and case designs. Sword of Sherwood Forest, is another that ticks all those boxes.
AS IN SO MANY ADAPTIONS of the classic tale, we
have the villainous Sheriff of Nottingham, played by a superb Peter
Cushing, the lovely Maid Marian (a plush Sarah Branch), and a handful of
terrific actors: Niall (Curse of the Demon) MacGinnis, Richard (The
Gorgon) Pasco, Jack (Jason and the Argonauts) Gwillim, Nigel (The Skull)
Green, and even – in a tiny role – Oliver (Night Creatures) Reed.
Visuals :1080p High Definition / 2.35:1 / Color, Audio: English 1.0
DTS-HD MA, duration 80 mins. Region FREE. Special Features: Isolated
Music & Effects Track / Original Theatrical Trailer. COMPETITION:
LOOK OUT for your chance to bag a FREE copy of this Limited Edition in
our PCASUK Competition shortly. MEANWHILE, place your ORDER HERE!
REMEMBERING:
Born today, Simon Ward. If you take a look at the raft of obituaries
for Simon Ward who sadly passed away in 2012, it's a common fault that
they state that his career was kick started when he was 'plucked from
obscurity' and appeared in Richard Richard Attenborough’s 'Young
Winston' in 1972. Maybe that is how the press and publicity agents
remember it....but for Ward, it was not so . .
BRAIN SURGERY! CUSHING AND SIMON WARD MAKING 'THE POINT' IN HAMMER FILMS 'FRANKENSTEIN MUST BE DESTROYED' (1969)
SIMON WARD AS ARTHUR HOLMWOOD IN THE DAN CURTIS PRODUCTION OF 'DRACULA' STARRING JACK PALANCE IN 1974
WARD ACKNOWLEDGED Hammer films 'Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed' made in 1969
as the film 'that started it all' and the generous help and assistance
from his co star Peter Cushing, that made anything afterwards
possible... In a interview with pcasuk in 1979, Ward acknowledges his
debt to Cushing, who he said, '..had time and patience with me. I knew
nothing of the technique needed for working with a camera or about the
studio floor. Peter was extremely kind, taking time to explain the
simple but very important rules of pace and nuance, so the editor can
get in there. This and try to not fall over the cables. He did so much
for me. Quite extraordinary. I mean, no one has the time to do that,
everyone is busy. But he did it for me, many times through out the film.
And it's something I've always remembered, and not come across since...
a very kind, gentle, gracious man. He really did save my skin'. SIMON WARD sadly left us in 2012
SIMON WARD WITH CUSHING, GIVING USUAL 'ALL' TO THE FIGHT SCENE IN 'FRANKENSTEIN MUST BE DESTROYED' (1969)
NEWS : IT'S A GOOD TIME for any Peter Cushing and Hammer film fan
looking to update their dvd collection some BLU RAY gems! Twilight Time
has just revealed details of their new release of SWORD OF SHERWOOD
FOREST (1960) Personally, my fav of the Hammer Robin Hood films, with
Peter Cushing as The Sheriff of Nottingham, Richard Greene THE Robin
Hood, Nigel Green as Little John and Oliver Reed As Lord Melton! Niall
MacGinnis plays the best Friar Tuck, Richard Pascoas Edward Earl of Newark and Sarah Branch as Maid Marion. Directed by Terence Fisher, it makes for excellent Sunday afternoon viewing 🙂Special Features include Alun Hoddinott's isolated Music track plus
an effects Track too and the Original Theatrical Trailer!
IT WILL BE INTERESTING to see if this print too will be like all the
others, where Oliver Reed's voice is not heard; he's dubbed throughout
by another (anonymous) actor attempting to sound like Reed's normal
voice. Reed's own voice is heard in the film's trailer, where he adopts a
very camp lisping French accent!
HAMMER FILMS producer Michael Carareas and #PeterCushing on set during the making of 'The Sword Of Sherwood Forest' (1960)
ONE SUSPECTS as with most Twilight Time releases, this will be a REGION FREE release
which comes out on OCTOBER 16th, 2018 🙂 Another one for your shopping list 😉
HERE IS THIS WEEK'S TUESDAY TOUGHY plus the answer the to LAST WEEK'S TOUGHY, which appeared to be a little hard on the FACEBOOK PCASUK UK FAN PAGE! Maybe this week's may be a little kinder? The ANSWER will appear here and at our FACEBOOK FAN PAGE on FRIDAY!
BELOW IS THE ANSWER TO LAST WEEKS TUESDAY TOUGHY!
ANSWER:THE STUDIO IN THE PHOTOGRAPH was BRAY STUDIOS, THE FILM Terence Fisher was working on was THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES for Hammer Films. The TRICYCLE was the CLUE. It is the TRICYCLE that actor MILES MALLESON rides when playing BISHOP FRANKLAND in the film . .
EVERY POST YOU SEE HERE, is also posted at the FACEBOOK PCASUK FAN PAGE . THERE you can feel free to comment, debate and join in the chat! OVER THIRTY TWO THOUSAND followers are part of the PCASUK crowd on FACEBOOK. Come join us and be part of the OLDEST CUSHING FAN CLUB still working to keep the memory of PETER CUSHING alive ...and for free!
#CHRISTOPHERLEESATURDAY!
Here is a rare and neat photograph taken during the making of Hammer
films, 'Dracula Has Risen From The Grave' . .. with co stars Veronica
Carlson and Barbara Ewing. Often when shooting, Lee was known not to
hang around on set during the Hammer Dracula films... similar to Peter
Cushing. So that makes this pic all the more interesting . . and NOT in
costume either!
YOU CAN FIND PART ONE OF THAT ABOVE FEATURE :HERE!
SOMEONE WHO HAD quite a few connections with CHRISTOPHER LEE and would have been 105th TODAY is actor THORLEY WALTERS. THORLEY was known for often playing eccentric characters in a
variety of different films, and a fair share with both PETER CUSHING and CHRISTOPHER LEE!
DIRECTOR TERENCE FISHER WITH CUSHING AND THORLEY WALTERS HAVING A CHILL AND A GIGGLE WHILE MAKING 'FRANKENSTEIN CREATED WOMAN FOR HAMMER FILMS AT BRAY STUDIOS
HE MADE A NUMBER of appearances
in Hammer films, The Phantom of the Opera (1962), Dracula, Prince of
Darkness (1966), with Christopher Lee, Frankenstein Created Woman
(1967), Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed (1969) with Peter Cushing and
Vampire Circus (1972).
ABOVE:THORLEY WALTERS AS MR PRINCE IN LITTLE GEM OF A CUSHING FILM CALLED 'SUSPECT' OR 'THE RISK' . . .
THORLEY ALSO PLAYED Dr Watson to Christopher
Lee's Holmes in Sherlock Holmes and the Deadly Necklace (1962) and co
starred with Peter Cushing in a non hammer film Suspect (1960)
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 reach all lovers of Peter Cushing's work AND Help Keep The Memory Alive!
AND SO, HERE WE ARE with another Saturday, which for THIS website, means something CHRISTOPHER LEE connected, to meet your #ChristopherLeeSaturday shopping list!! LAST WEEK we started our short season of CHRISTOPHER LEE: THE HAMMER DRACULA FLICKS: THE MOMENTS WE LOVE, and dipped into 'Dracula Has Risen From The Grave' and 'Scars Of Dracula', and very popular they were too! Thank you! This week, we have PART TWO and another two Hammer Dracula films.
WHY ARE WE DOING THIS?
Last week, I also received a few emails asking, why is a Peter Cushing Appreciation Society website, giving so much space to films that AIN'T really anything to do with Mr C? Well, even before Lee passed, we were already making regular space and time, to covering Lee's career, and why? The Official Christopher Lee Fan Club, sort of folded and with that so did any regular official internet presence. Good Lee photographs can be rare and expensive, so no 'official fan' was going to be posting and sharing their goodies. Lee of course made twenty two great films with Peter Cushing, plus he and Peter were very close and long time friends. So, I tested with the posting of Lee material at our now, closed PCAS Facebook Fan Page, and the results were good. On posting the series of rare clips called, THE LAST MEETING where Cushing and Lee worked and met for the last time, it proved there was much interest and many many people who came to PCAS, who wanted to see more from THE LAST MEETING and basically ANYTHING that connected to Christopher Lee.So, as always I give you, what you ask for. AND here it is! This week we are looking at the BITS WE LIKE from another two GREAT Christopher Lee Hammer Dracula films. I hope you like this week's contents!
THE AMAZING CAST:Andrew Keir (Father Shandor), Christopher
Lee (Count Dracula), Francis Matthews (Charles Kent), Barbara Shelley
(Helen Kent), Suzan Farmer (Diana Kent), Charles Tingwell (Alan Kent),
Philip Latham (Klove), Thorley Walters (Ludwig)
THE TERRIFIC PRODUCTION CREW:Director – Terence Fisher, Screenplay – John Sansom, Story – John Elder [Anthony Hinds],
Producer – Anthony Nelson-Keys, Photography – Michael Reed, Music –
James Bernard, Music Supervisor – Philip Martell, Special Effects –
Bowie Films Ltd, Makeup – Roy Ashton, Production Design – Bernard
Robinson. Production Company – Hammer/Seven Arts. UK. 1966.
DRACULA, PRINCE OF DARKNESS dramatically opens with the final sequence from Hammer Films 1958 'DRACULA',
showing the spectacular demise of Christopher Lee's Count Dracula at the hands of Peter Cushing's Van
Helsing. This sequence is enclosed in a smoky frame because the earlier
movie was shot in a different aspectic ratio - DRACULA PRINCE OF DARKNESS was one of the few Hammer movie to be shot in 'scope. Little did they know, come the release of the LIONSGATE blu ray of the film, the smokey ratio would cause a few probs, that would how ever be solved.
EVERYONE in this DARKNESS, does a very good job and has their time in the LIGHT!! Maybe the pace of the first half of the film, lays out time, for us to understand the characters and beleive the performances, Something that most Hammer films, hardly ever did, for anyone other than the top layer of performers. CHRISTOPHER LEE as DRACULA, is very good, BUT not quite as feral and rabid as in his first performance.
THE KENT'S trip and their time on the journey finally arriving at CASTLE DRACULA does take a little time . . . it ALL takes time.
DRACULA,PRINCE OF DARKNESS DOES take a little while to get started, but once the the FIRST SPATS of BLOOD start following, director Terence Fisher makes sure the horror pace doesn't stop. Personally, I feel the long fist half of the film without DRACULA, I think was probably caused by several thing, two nothing to do with the script and building tension, more maybe to do with Lee's opinion and resistance to play the Count again for Hammer, and maybe the COST per scene, of actually getting him to do that!
OVERALL IT EMERGES as a fine
sequel to Hammer's first DRACULA / HORROR OF DRACULA. Andrew Keir as Father Sandor makes a
fine character, stepping in as the Vampire Hunter, as Peter Cushing did as Van Helsing, in the previous movie. It's kind of a shame
that Hammer didn't run two series in parallel, one with Dracula against
various savants and one with Van Helsing against various villains, but I
guess Cushing was already quite busy with their FRANKENSTEIN series.
AS FOR MOMENTS WE LIKE . . one of the most remarkable sequence in the film is
the scene where Barbara Shelley is held down on a table, hissing and
writhing, as a stake is hammered into her heart by the dispassionate
priesthood. It is perhaps the most potent image of sexual repression in
all of British horror cinema. Indeed, Dracula - Prince of Darkness,
more than any of the Hammer Draculas, embodies the recurrent image of
sexual repression threatening to emerge to tear Victorian society apart
and its dispassionate elimination by men of reason.
THE TRAVELERS, played by Shelley, Farmer, Matthews and Tingwell are
deliberately set up as representatives of 'English genteel' in order to be
torn apart – the strongest image of this polarity is the turning of the
prim, uptight and anxious Barbara Shelley into a voluptuous vampire,
begging Francis Matthews “Give us a kiss.” The sexual overtones in the
scene where Christopher Lee causes Suzan Farmer to kneel and drink from
the cut he opens with his fingernail in his chest are incredibly vivid.
ANOTHER GREAT MOMENT would have to be Farmers shock and terror, on seeing Lee's Count, unknown to her, standing in the room. Personally, I fond her reaction THE most genuine and terrified reaction I have EVER see. Totally convincing. AND there is of course DRACULA bowing out horribly in the ICY RUNNING WATER . . .
AND WE MUST MENTION Thorley Walters. I have seen some odd comments on blogs and websites, annoyed that Walters doesn't play a very good, RENFIELD. Well, firstly that is because, this isn't the character of Renfield, it's LUDWIG, and second, this is Thorley not Dwight Frye. Take a faff through the flicks featuring vampires, as well as DRACULA and you will often find a suspect individual who isn't called Renfield, BUT does eat FLIES!
OUR SECOND DRACULA FEATURE has several fine moments and a great cast. TASTE also has moments where the story and reasons, do drift and stray from what made the previous Hammer DRACULA's so great. The element that makes TASTE fall short, is the fall out from some of the pre production problems that effected the script and stability of the film. Sadly, we don't get to see Christopher Lee as DRACULA, as many times as we should, and when we DO it's those preproduction issues, that make his presence wobble . .
THE CAST: Geoffrey Keen (William Hargood), Linda Hayden (Alice Hargood), Anthony Corlan (Paul Paxton), Christopher Lee (Count Dracula), John Carson (Jonathan Secker), Peter Sallis (Samuel Paxton), Ralph Bates (Lord Courtley), Isla Blair (Lucy Paxton), Martin Jarvis (Jeremy Secker), Gwen Watford (Martha Hargood), Roy Kinnear (Weller), Michael Ripper (Cobb)
ABOVE: A RARE CONTACT SHEET of photographs from TASTE THE BLOOD OF DRACULA taken on set by the production photographer
PRODUCTION CREW: Director: Peter Sasdy, Screenplay: John Elder [Anthony Hinds], Producer: Aida Young, Photography: Arthur Grant, Music: James Bernard, Music Supervisor: Philip Martell, Special Effects: Brian Johncock, Makeup: Gerry Fletcher, Art Direction: Scott MacGregor. Production Company: Hammer.
SYNOPSYS: Three Victorian men who lead upstanding and moralistic lives, sneak out to a brothel on the pretext of conducting charity work. Their pleasure is interrupted by the libertine Lord Courtley who offers to show them far greater pleasures. He takes them to an antique shop where he gets them to purchase Dracula’s cape, signet ring and a vial of his powdered blood. Courtley conducts a ceremony in an abandoned church. But when he asks the men to drink the blood, they are disgusted. Drinking it himself, he collapses. The men kick and beat Courtley to death and then flee the scene. But Courtley’s spilt blood revives Dracula who swears vengeance on the other men for killing his disciple. Dracula then seduces each of the men’s children, making them vampires and turning them against their fathers.
ABOVE ANOTHER RARELYseen never shared, CONTACT SHEET from TASTE THE BLOOD OF DRACULA
TASTE THE BLOOD OF DRACULA
was the fifth of the Hammer Dracula films and by for many fans, it was the last Hammer Dracula worth seeing. It saw the entry of a promising
new director Peter Sasdy. A Hungarian immigrant, Sasdy had come
from noted tv work during the 1960s, including episodes of the sf
anthology series Out of the Unknown (1956-71) and the acclaimed BBC
adaptation of Wuthering Heights (1970). The problem with Taste the Blood of Dracula
is, like many it doesn’t always work – as usual with the Hammer Dracula sequels, the
script has difficulty coming up with worthwhile motivation for Dracula.
The vengeance theme that drives the story, isn't well connected – it does seem overly generous of
Dracula to swear vengeance for Ralph Bates's Courtley’s murder, having not even MET
Courtley!
CONSIDERING that Courtley’s death was necessary for him to
be resurrected it does seem slightly irrational of Dracula to then
swear vengeance on Courtley’s murderers. Further it makes Taste the Blood of Dracula
into a Hammer Dracula, that is something really different from the other Hammer Drac films. It now becomes a film about vengeance rather
than one about vampirism. Throughout the focus is on Dracula corrupting
the children and turning them against their parents and the usual
business of blood-letting hardly even figures at all.
BUT AGAIN, LIKE ALL the Hammer Dracula films that followed the 1958 production, it's MOMENTS and VISUALS that make the films watching. I have selected several of these moments in our GIFS and images, of the moments that worked for me personally. IF you have seen either of these films, MAYBE you would like to send me an email, about your thoughts and opinions..and I will ADD THEM to this feature, as they arrive. I hope you have enjoyed our latest DOUBLE BILL of Hammer Dracula Flicks. We have just one MORE DOUBLE next week... Please JOIN US then!
