STEVE CREATED FRANKENSTEIN : ACTOR EDWARD JUDD 'ISLAND OF TERROR' REMEMBERED

STARTING NEXT WEEK we will be returning and rebooting our popular daily themed posts on here our facebook fan page and the official PCASUK website. We'll be dusting off each of the seven themed days with some new additions too! Wednesday will now be offering an opportunity not only for collectors to share images of their Cushing collectable and goodies but, also we are inviting any of you who display at deviant art or otherwise, to share examples of your creations and art work here too 🙂 We are happy to provide links to your galleries and watermark items should you wish 🙂 Here is a sample 🙂 Portrait artist Steve Lilly, shared this with us today and I thought you would love to see his artwork for yourselves! This is a cracking portrait of Peter Cushing as Baron Frankenstein, from maybe one of your favourites too... 'Frankenstein Created Woman' ? Steve has a web presence with many superb examples of his work there too!

HERE IS A LINK to see more of his talent for yourselves! Thank you Steve for sharing! CLICK HERE FOR STEVE LILLY'S WEBSITE AND GALLERY!

REMEMBERING EDWARD JUDD today, who was born on this day 4th October 1932. Judd achieved his biggest successes with a series of science fiction films 'The Day The Earth Caught Fire' (1961) ,'First Men In The Moon' (1964) and co-starring with Peter Cushing in 'Island Of Terror' (1966) fighting the silicates…..

FULL REVIEW ON 'THE DAY THE EARTH CAUGHT FIRE WITH GALLERY:  CLICK HERE!

FULL REVIEW AND GALLERY OF 'ISLAND OF TERROR' JUST CLICK HERE! 

FULL REVIEW AND STILLS GALLERY: CLICK HERE!

REMEMBERING VAL GUEST TODAY BORN DECEMBER 1911

HONORING the director Val Guest on today (what would have been his 101st birthday) is a pretty tough thing to do. After all, this is the man who gave us Hammer Horror, without the smash success of The Quatermass Xperiment and its sequels and follows up, we wouldn’t have had The Curse of Frankenstein and the gothic boom that followed. It’s a well-known fact that Quatermass creator Nigel Kneale had his differences with Guest in terms of his interpretations of the story, but the film itself is a masterpiece of British Sci-Fi Horror and perfectly captures a bleak post-war world. During my time at university I wrote a dissertation covering the post-war themes within the Quatermass television series and films and spent a great deal of time defending Guests adaptation. His Quatermass’s strength lies in its difference to the TV version, non-more explicit than it it’s titular hero…or in Guest’s eyes Villain. In his vision, Quatermass becomes an inhuman monster, representing the dangers of science. The world he inhabits is shown to the audience in an almost ‘documentary’ style, infusing it with a gritty realism. The next-two sci-fi horror films Guest did for Hammer, Quatermass II and The Abominable Snowman, were also adapted from Kneale screenplays and have a disturbing realism to them.

QUATERMASS II is, at least in my humble opinion, a massive improvement on its television predecessor, exorcising a somewhat frivolous space-journey at its climax that only served to undo all the tension built up to this point. With a somewhat softer Donlevy and several shocking and disturbing moments (‘they blocked the pipe with human pulp!’) it’s another classic. One of his best and easily my favourite of his science fiction films is his memorable collaboration with Peter Cushing, The Abominable Snowman. Adapted from Nigel Kneale’s The Creature, it’s a mesmerising exercise in a slow building sense of claustrophobic tension. All the more admirable considering the films set in vast snowy plains. Guest gets the best out of his performers and by keeping the Yeti mostly off screen, they become a genuinely frightening presence.

PETER CUSHING'S CO-STAR, EDWARD JUDD FROM ''ISLAND OF TERROR'' STARS IN 'THE DAY THE EARTH CAUGHT FIRE' GREAT GALLERY AND REVIEW:  HERE!

IT SEEMS unfair to just discuss these films though when Guest had a rich and varied career within the British film industry. Of course his most famous film is probably, 'The Day the Earth Caught Fire', another science-fiction film that adopts the same documentary eye as his previous works and tells the story of what happens when the earth begins to overheat. He was one of the directors on the masterpiece of mess that is the 1967 version of 'Casino Royale', and this was by no means his first stab at comedy either, having director both Up the Creek and Further up the Creek. Two of his best however were once again for Hammer, both war pictures and films that manage to be almost the opposite of each other. 

PETER SELLLERS WITH CUSHING'S 'SHE' CO STAR, URSULA ANDRESS, IN VAL GUEST'S 'CASINO ROYALE' (1967) Peter Sellers Facebook Scrapbook page: HERE

BARBARA SHELLEY IN VAL GUEST'S 'THE CAMP ON BLOOD ISLAND' (1958)

'THE CAMP ON BLOOD ISLAND' is a brutal tale of the horrors of a Japanese prisoner of war camp that caused quite a stir on its release in 1958. The following year came Yesterday’s Enemy, a film which Val Guest often said he was most proud. Based on a BBC teleplay it’s still a criminally unknown film, which is a shame as it’s a masterpiece. Featuring stunning performances from Stanley Baker, Guy Rolfe, Leo Mckern and Gordon Jackson, the film features no incidental music for the entirety of its run time. A relentlessly depressing film, it shows the horrors of war as they are and doesn’t shy away from condemning both the British and their enemies. In my opinion it’s Guest’s best and film that, if you have yet to see it, deserves your attention

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