HAMMER'S LAST DRACULA AND VAN HELSING STAND OFF : MOMENTS OF TERROR MONDAY!

#MOMENTOFTERROR MONDAY! Hammer films 'Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires' is another one of Cushing's Hammer appearances, where despite HE going all out, something within the production values, fall short of the feature. . . If you ever get the chance to read the actual script, it ALL sounds amazing and what could have been a imaginative and impressive departure, from the standard set up, if only by location! 

THERE ARE MANY THINGS, that are seen as not up to that Hammer standard... but you have to remember, even as far as John Forbes Robertson's 'make up' as Dracula, that were produced in the STYLE of the values of fantasy film in the country in which Hammer had joined forces with Hong Kong's SHAW BROTHERS.... Take a look at many of the 'fairy-tale-ghost-stories' produced there, and everything clicks and matches for that culture and audience. Maybe it's not what is expected by the audience in the high street Odeon in Bradford UK, but in Hong Kong, certainly. It probably helped and went someway to pulling in quite a box office smash within that culture. Sadly, missing the Kung Fu craze in the rest of the world, Seven Golden Vampires arrived a little too late.

 

 

 

BUT WATCHING IT TODAY, there is much to appreciate. A cast that includes Chinese actor David Chiang, very popular with fans of other Sahw Bros karate fighting movies. Two UK TV popular's in Julie Ege, Robin Steward and the reputation of one of Hammer's leading actors, Peter Cushing, who plays Van Helsing for the fifth and last time, despite production problems felt by director Roy Ward Baker, the film is full of action, all 'horror visuals' have to be viewed with the understanding, this is really a film produced with supernatural and vampire antics, coming from a DIFFERENT culture. 

MONEY DOES look tight, but then at this time, productions filmed in Hong Kong by the Shaw's ALL looked like this. Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires was another brave attempt by Hammer's manager Michael Carreras, to try another and different angle. Personally, I am glad he tried. What do you think?

CALLUM MCKELVIE SUNDAY NEW SERIES: HORROR EXPRESS

WE START A NEW SERIES this week and it’s time for me to get all nostalgic- at least personally so. Each week I try and do something different with my little post for PCAS, not actually an easy thing when writing weekly about the films of one actor! Of course I’m not suggesting that Peter Cushing’s life and rich filmography doesn’t provide ample room for creativity within my column, but more along the lines of how I structure my post it can be difficult to come up with some new and exciting.  

ALWAYS HOWEVER I TRY to make it as personal as possible. I’m following in the footsteps of many a great contributor to the site and lest I repeat what someone else has already said (and probably in words far grander than I could ever conjure) I like to let my personal opinion come through as much as possible. Usually then, I tend to follow a review or a ‘list’ format, be that a simple discussion of a film or ‘my top ten…etc. etc.’, but for the next new weeks I’ll be trying something completely different. Beginning with this discussion on Horror Express I’m going to randomly select films from Cushing’s filmography that I have something of a personal history with and, if you’ll allow me dear readers, tell you about it.

ABOVE: YOUR OPPORTUNITY TO WATCH THE WHOLE FILM! 

JUST PRESS PLAY!

BY THE TIME I came into contact with Horror Express, I would have been around age thirteen or fourteen. I’d already encountered a healthy number of Hammer and Amicus pictures by this point along with the odd Cushing feature made by neither studio. I can’t remember how I first became aware of the title (most likely by browsing Amazon or a HMV store) but I do remember when my attention was attracted enough for me to scour You-Tube for clips. You see, the scene with the guard when the creature attacks him, turning his eyes white and causing him to bleed from them, was the first scene in a Cushing picture that actively scared me.

IT'S AN ODD THING fear and truth be told the attraction when watching Horror from this period for me was never the possibility of being scared, but mostly the rich gothic atmosphere which these films were soaked in. Of course there was the odd title that really did get to me, the sequence in House of Wax where Price’s wax face is smashed away springs to mind along with more obvious ones such as The Innocents (1960). Cushing films though? Not really.

THAT WAS UNTIL HORROR EXPRESS of course. When I finally watched it I found that indeed the effect still lingered. The opening sequence with Lee in the cave, the mystery at the station, the creature breaking loose. The opening fifty minutes or so of the film were soaked in an atmosphere so palpable, with the creature shot so wonderfully in almost total darkness, as to genuinely have a frightening edge to them. Then it got WEIRD. To my 13 or 14 year-old self the final half of Horror Express, whilst certainly entertaining, was a total let down. The body swapping alien plot seemed like an entirely different film and any genuine menace was sorely lacking. I put the DVD on my shelf, watched it occasionally and thought nothing more on the matter.

CUT TO SEVERAL YEARS LATER. Me and some friends are having a get together…with some refreshments of course and I’m asked to pick a film that will entertain us. Browsing my collection I go through the usual suspects before landing upon...Horror Express. For a short while my finger hovered over the plastic case, half remembering a few genuinely shocking moments, some genuinely funny moments (intentionally and not), some awful model work and a bizarre alien plot. Realising that there was enough there for even the tamest of drinking games I grabbed it. 

AS WE WATCHED I was surprised by how much the film was enjoyed by the gathering and not just in a ‘laugh-at-it-cos-it’s-bad’ way. There were genuine gasps of shock, a lot of laughs at the dodgy train shots, continuous whistling of the theme and a cheer as the creature is destroyed.

THUS TO ME, Horror Express will forever be Cushing’s perfect midnight movie. Camp, over the top, ridiculous, violent (compared to many of Cushing’s films) but incredibly and undeniably fun. If you’re not a fan of this one, perhaps put off by the mix of ridiculous scenes and genuinely chilling ones, grab yourself some mates, beers and experience it how I did. It may not change your opinion but it does mean you’ll be in a room full of people screaming ‘Monster, we’re British you know!’ and that’s no bad thing.

CHRISTOPHER LEE SATURDAY: GET YOUR TICKET FOR TOMORROWS TRAIN AND YVONNE MITCHELL REMEMBERED

#CHRISTOPHERLEESATURDAY! THIS WEEKEND much of our time is more than taken making a short journey through the film 'HORROR EXPRESS' from 1972. It was film that both Christopher Lee and Cushing enjoyed making. Even though, as you will read above, Cushing was still much effected by the terrible loss of his wife, Helen, Lee managed to have Peter focus on the production at hand. The result is a film that was appreciated back then on it's release, and even today. Recent DVD and BLU RAY releases have sold well, and gained even more appreciation. The two roles that Lee and Cushing play, come over well. A change from their usual roles of one destroying the other, here we have interesting characters who are in competition, but have to pull together to destroy someone else and all their supporters!

BELOW: THIS SUNDAY sees CALLUM MCKELVIE's weekly feature focus on, HORROR EXPRESS TOO. A personal spin on his first memory of watching the feature plus we'll be uploading the ENTIRE film from our PCAS YOUTUBE CHANNEL, with many images and supporting images through out the feature. JOIN US TOMORROW! We will also be posting the FOUR WINNERS of our CINEFICCION  MAGAZINE prizes!

BRITISH ACTRESS YVONNE MITCHELL  was first and foremost a stage actress who began her career quite early as a teen. By the time of her death, she had performed under the theatre lights for over four decades. Her output in films and TV paled in comparison, but the work she put out in those mediums were of unusually high quality with mature themes. The dark-haired actress made her film debut in a key role in The Queen of Spades (1949) and proceeded to become a moving, thoughtful, often anguished presence throughout the 1950s, winning the British Film Award for her touching, sterling performance as the biological mother of a foster child in The Divided Heart (1954). A year before that, she appeared with PETER CUSHING in the BBC production of '1984' as Julia. The broadcast gained much publicity for both her and Cushing, stirring the public in it's two live performances.

THE PUBLIC WERE so upset by Orwell's story and the BBC almost uncensored production that a debate in the government  House of Commons, after the first LIVE show and the planned second live broadcast, debated if the broadcast should go ahead at all. It did. It certainly didn't mar her career, but for Cushing it set the motion of his career forever becoming tilted towards the Horror and Fantasy genre, on both the big screen and tv. Yvonne's  slovenly, cuckolded wife in Woman in a Dressing Gown (1957) won her the Berlin International Film Festival Award. Other important films included Escapade (1955), Sapphire (1959), The Trials of Oscar Wilde (1960) and Johnny Nobody (1961). On the sly, Yvonne was a novelist of both children and adult books and an award-winning playwright. She also penned an enormously successful biography entitled "Colette--A Taste for Life" based on the famed French writer. The wife of film and stage critic Derek Monsey, she wrote her biography in 1957.

YVONNE MITCHELL, changed her name legally in 1946 from Yvonne Frances Joseph to Yvonne Mitchell (Mitchell was her mother's maiden name). She also deducted a decade from her age, which is why many sources have listed 1925 as her birth year. She married author and critic Derek Monsey in 1952, the couple would later divorce, only to be reconciled. They would remarry in late 1978, just months before Monsey died of a heart attack on 13 February 1979, with Mitchell dying of cancer just over a month later.

EXTENDED REQUESTED STAY: #TBT: REMEMBERING MELISSA STRIBLING AND THE SPECKLED BAND

REMEMBERING: Melissa Stribling who was born today November 7th 1927. Stribling appeared in just the one film with Peter Cushing...but boy did she pick the right one! She also got to play in one of Hammer films most iconic scenes in their 1958 'Dracula', where Christopher Lee's Count, in the dead of night, visits her home and..without a word.. seduces her. 

THE SCENE is so super charged with sexual tension, it almost crackles off the screen and as a result got the scissors treatment from the censors at the time. In 2013, in Hammer's restored print the exorcised footage was replaced, giving us the full picture of what Director Terence Fisher, Stribling and Lee had originally intended and created.

 

I'VE READ IN SEVERAL reviews of 'Dracula' both from the time of the films' release in 58 and in more recent times, that Stribling was a curious choice for the role of Mina Holmwood, that compared to the likes of Valerie Gaunt and other Hammer actresses, even though she was only in early 30's when she appeared in Dracula, many thought her slightly ordinary and plain. I totally disagree...but if that was the case, I can't help thinking that, director Fisher's choice in Stribling was intentional. That subtext in the story of Arthur Holmwood's wife being frustrated and bored, suddenly being charmed and seduced by the exotic and erotic Count, Stribling was...the perfect choice.

WATCH TALES OF THE UNEXPECTED : PLUS HORROR GIFS WEDNESDAY!

TALES OF THE UNEXPECTED in 1983. ....it may not ring a bell for many here, as it was a UK Television show, but it was syndicated to the US and most of Europe. Cushing's role, was one of his last performances before the camera. There would only be three more roles for Cushing after this, in 'Helen Keller: The Miracle Continues', 'Masks of Death' as Sherlock Holmes and 'Biggles', his last film performance for cinema.

KARL VON BADEN is a role that Cushing could have played in his sleep just five years previous, that is not to say it's a weak performance, but the script gives him little to do, and it's Cushing who looks weak and frail at this point. It's a story that relies on flashbacks, and much of his screen time is played sitting down. He looks tired, but that helps to bring a poignancy to his role. Cushing shares most of his scenes with another television veteran, John Bailey. Anthony Higgins who plays Cassan in the story, would go on to play Sherlock Holmes in an updated Sherlock series and would also play Moriarty in the film 'Young Sherlock'. Vorpal Blade is a tale set in a sedate rose garden and a castle in Heidelberg... the episode was directed by John Jacobs who produced the other Anglia television series 'Orson Welles Great Mysteries'...in which Cushing also appeared, a wonderful episode entitled, 'La Grande Breteche' in 1973.

NAME THE FILMS THAT the above GIFS were taken from and the PETER CUSHING ROLES in the film plus the YEARS they were produced!