DIRECTOR HOUGH CREATES A HAMMER LIKE NO OTHER WITH TERROR TWINS!

BACK IN THE EARLY 1970's mankind made some very interesting and surprising break throughs, technical and domestic... In 1972, interactive games with vastly more primitive graphics only existed in laboratories, until the invention of PONG! Remember that? 1970 brought pocket calculators to students, engineers, and scientists the world over! 1971 brought us something that was huge in terms of its impact, the Intel 4004 Microprocessor! 1973 gave us the first cell phone, the XEROX ALTO, also TCP, Ethernet and fibre optics!

ALL THIS . . but for some reason Hammer films just couldn't NAIL a new and entertaining idea, that worked on the big screen. My opinion, but something I never understood! But that was until... John Hough's 'Twins of Evil' which cast not only Peter Cushing in a new spin on the Vampire Killer, but also someone who wasn't even trying to copy or replace Christopher Lee as a the head and evil 'toothful-one', Damien Thomas made a great Count Karnstein. Denis Price added some casting clout briefly and two sweet, though not innocent Maltese actresses / models Mary and Madeleine Collinson shapely slipped into the shoes of the title twins with ease. It was director John Hough, who brought the whole lot together in a very refreshing way. With Tudor Gates twist on some Sheridan Le Fanu influences, Harry Robertson's outstanding music score and Dick Bush and his beautiful cinematography, Hammer had an original tale that looked great, sounded wonderful and still impresses.

YOUR UNDERRATED FILMS OF PETER CUSHING!

OVER AT THE FACEBOOK PCASUK FAN PAGE today, we've asked a simple question, and have received a skip load of answers, some quite surprising! You may want to add your opinion too? Below are just a few of the many suggestions you have suggested, in some of our past features and galleries . . 

OUR 'CASH ON DEMAND FEATURE and gallery : HERE!

ON THE SET during the making of 'CASH ON DEMAND' gallery : HERE! 

 ONE OF OUR features on the DR WHO films of Peter Cushing : HERE!

AND ALSO HERE!

OUR FEATURE AND GALLERY on DR PHIBES RISES AGAIN!

OUR FEATURE AND GALLERY ON  Peter Cushing and Hammer films 'SHE' : HERE!

BEHIND THE SCENES of Amicus Productions : 'I MONSTER' Gallery Part Two: HERE!

CUSHING'S 'NIGHT OF THE BIG HEAT' and 'ISLAND OF TERROR' Feature and Gallery : HERE!

BREAKING NEWS: ORSON WELLES GREAT MYSTERIES : WITH CUSHING LA GRANDE BRETECHE: COMES TO DVD!

BREAKING NEWS: Network has just announced the TV series Orson Welles Great Mysteries is coming to DVD for the first time. Volume 1 will contain the first 13 episodes . . which includes Peter Cushing and Susannah York in the very cool drama, La Grande Breteche!

DETAILS:

Orson Welles Great Mysteries: Volume 1

The legendary Orson Welles hosts thirteen mysterious tales from this much sought-after anthology series.

SHOWCASING a haunting theme by John Barry, these macabre – often supernatural – dramas feature an astonishing array of talent, including Rupert Davies, Eli Wallach, Michael Kitchen, Patrick Magee, Donald Pleasence, Peter Cushing, Susannah York, Michael Gambon, Julie Dawn Cole, Kenneth Haigh, Harry Andrews, Dinsdale Landen, Christopher Lee, Jane Seymour and Ian Holm.

THE EPISODES  featured on this set – including classic tales from Wilkie Collins, W.W. Jacobs, Honoré de Balzac, Charles Dickens and Arthur Conan Doyle : A Terribly Strange Bed, Compliments of the Season, The Ingenious Reporter, The Monkey's Paw,Captain Rogers, For Sale - Silence, La Grande Breteche staring Peter Cushing, An Affair of Honour, In the Confessional, The Furnished Room, Under Suspicion, The Leather Funnel, Trial for Murder

SUSANNAH YORK AND PETER CUSHING : ORSON WELLES GREAT MYSTERIES SEPTEMBER 1973

A QUICK PROMO SNAP AND A RARE ONE: Here is Peter Cushing and Susannah York during the shooting of am episode of a very popular television series in the 1970's, ORSON WELLES GREAT MYSTERIES. The episode was entitled, ' LA GRANDE BRETECHE' and also starred Michael Elphick. The series was an anthology of different tales. Each episode was introduced by Orson Welles, in big hat and opera cloak! He topped and tailed each story, though never appeared in them. The episode, 'La Grande Breteche' was broadcast, just once in the UK on Saturday 22nd September 1973. It starred Peter Cushing as the Count Gerard De Merret and Susannah York as his wife, Countess Josephine. What Cushing gives us, is a quite terrifying performance. As with all the stories in this series, they were chosen for their punch, sting or twist at the end. Needless to say, Cushing doesn't disappoint!

IF YOU ENJOY our posts here at the PCASUK website and would also like to meet others and chat about the work of Peter Cushing and the posts you have seen, you can catch them all, at our FACEBOOK PCASUK FAN PAGE. COME AND JOIN over 33 thousand other lovers of Cushing's work, in the oldest Peter Cushing Fan Club! You will be most welcome! JUST CLICK HERE  and CLICK LIKE THERE! 

MOMENT OF TERROR MONDAY! LET THEM ALL SEE! TWINS SHOCKER!

#PETERCUSHING Moment of Terror Monday. School teachers have quite a hard job to do these days, but had they been around back in the day, and worked in the school where Gustav Weil's nieces attended, today would seem like working in Disneyland! This weeks Moment of Terror clip, features one of Peter Cushing best villains. 

HE RARELY EVER PLAYED what would be thought of a visual 'monster', fangs or face of fright, but characters like his BARON FRANKENSTEIN were outstanding, and 'UNCLE' Gustav comes very close to passing the Baron's line. Gustav doesn't kill to create, far from it, he murders to SAVE! TWINS OF EVIL is one of Hammer films better films of the 1970's. It ticks the box for so many who would have seen it back in the day, moments of terror, vampires, a head male vamp, the dreaded Hammer Karnstein's, Hammer's trick of providing eye candy for the dirty mac brigade . . they are still with us... and executions! By BURNING THEM! 

 THE PCAS 'TWINS OF EVIL' FEATURE AND GALLERY CAN BE FOUND RIGHT HERE!

LOTS TO LIKE about this films, if you have not seen it. Beautiful cinematography, lighting, musical score, direction, 80% of the performances are very good and Peter Cushing roaringly evil, on a race and crusade to stamp out vampirism, where not even his family are safe! In this clip Gustav provides what could have been the greatest moment in a biology lesson. A bit off key for a music lesson though . .

#MOMENTSOFTERRORMONDAY! SHOCK WAVES : FRIGHTENED CHASED AND A SCAR!!

#MOMENTSOFTERRORMONDAY! OUR usual MONDAY POST, but this week chosen one of the more unusual films that PETER CUSHING starred in during his long career, SHOCK WAVES. Everything about this low budget film is divided within the FAN community. It's a film that people either LOVE passionately, or simply HATE. In someways, you can understand why. It's still a mystery why CUSHING committed to a film, that on a brief paper synopsis, SHOULD have gained the same reaction he and his agent gave to John Carpenter's HALLOWEEN a few years later. BUT for no more really than his travel fair, bed and breakfast, CUSHING gained very little, at the time. 

ABOVE : PETER CUSHING reflected in the MAKE UP mirror, having his facial scar

applied to his look of SCAR in 'SHOCK WAVES' (1975)

LATER AFTER HE RETIRED, CUSHING explained he committed to the film, as he wanted to help, what appeared to be a team of dedicated amateur film makers. Considering CUSHING was a man who had always pushed AGAINST any proposed film work, that took him OUT of the country...MIAMI was a long way to go, when he was no longer a young man, and his health wasn't the best. BUT HE did it. And for those who LOVE this film, that is not their gain, but in later years, just like other characters like Tarkin, Dr Who and Sherlock Holmes...it helped bring him ANOTHER following. 

SHOCK WAVES was shot on 16mm, but later given the full treatment by BLUE UNDERGROUND who remastered the master print, cleared the sound, and presented the quite amazing BLU RAY of the film, to a HUGE SUCCESS. BLUE UNDERGROUND did even more with another, of the radar PETER CUSHING film called CORRUPTION. Remastered, and presented with a HUGE extra features support, BOTH films, are some of the best jobs ever made on a lesser known PETER CUSHING film . .