#ONSETSATURDAY : MEANWHILE..... YIKES!... on a film set at Bray studios in 1968, Les Bowie Hammer films effects wizard is busy with his team, shooting THIS gory scene scene, not that hard to recognise it really. A mixture of Kensington Gore, liquid soap, animal fat and cornflour slowly slides down a rock...nasty!
LEXI CONROY commented at our FACEBOOK FAN PAGE : I
am proud to say that after taking a London hop on hop off bus tour I
finally get the joke that Kensington Gore is a real place ;). Incidentally, does the formula for producing KG still survive anywhere?
WE REPLIED: *Name
Drop Alert!!* I'll have to look it up...but from my understanding,
Hammer make up artist, Roy Ashton told me it happened, just at the time
colour film was first being used in the UK. A make up artist, working
on location...in 'KENSINGTON'; with a
film crew, shooting on colour film discovered, that the usual bottle of
'whatever they used 'in black and white' films wouldn't register true
on colour film, so legged it to a local chemist in KENSINGTON, who mixed
up a compound that would do the trick OR I presume...that same make up
chap, to his horror found he had misplaced or forgot to pack his bottle
of blood while on location in KENSINGTON and went to a local
chemist...so as the cosmetic blood having been made by a chemist in
Kensington, the formula was christened after the town it was made
in..etc...
I have no idea, if the formula still exists, Lexi. I would guess most buy it in, prepared...though from
experience I know some of the movie blood DOES leave a purple-pinky
stain on clothing and skin, there are some types you can purchase that
does wash out, but more expensive...but that recipe from long ago, I
think has long gone with that chemist maybe???
Once when Roy was showing me the contents of one of three
make up cases he took to work ( '..one is for beautifying, the other for
the other jobs' Roy's words!) ...He giggled when he showed me a tube of
German made make up blood called, I think... 'Flix-Blut'. I have no
idea why he found this funny?? I still don't...am I missing something?
LEXI HELPFULLY REPLIED: Well,
knowing German to a reasonable degree, I can tell you that "Blut" is
"blood"...as for "Flix," perhaps that is a corruption of "flicks," i.e.,
movies, making it "Movie Blood?" The joke escapes me as well...
#ONSETSATURDAY TOD MORTEN has written in to ask, 'Did Peter Cushing ever work with Boris Karloff?' Hello Todd and Welcome... no, it's a great shame that Peter never got the opportunity to work with Boris Karloff, Christopher Lee, yes...Peter sadly no. Here is a photograph of Lee and Karloff on set during the making of The Curse of the Crimson Altar', one of two films that Lee made with Karloff, the other being Corridors of Blood in 1958. Interestingly, Curse of the Crimson Altar was directed by Vernon Sewell who in the same year, 1968, also directed Peter Cushing in the 'Blood Beast Terror'.
#ONSETSATURDAY I think the one thing. above all else that I always noticed with Christopher Lee's performance as Dracula was ...his grace. Considering, HE considered himself, clumsy with props, having two left feet ...( Alice Lopes!! ) and very, very tall.. he was most impressive in his long black cloak...gliding through the sets at Bray, Elstree and Pinewood. The only other actors I think that had the same poise and elegance when playing Dracula were Jeremy Brett and Frank Langella... you agree??
AND FINALLY, Peter Cushing as General von Spielsdorf and Douglas Wilmer, wait for it . . . as Baron Joachim von Hartog, great name that...on the set of 'THE VAMPIRE LOVERS' at Elstree film studios, during it's production run from 19th January 1970 until 4th March 1970.
