PETER CUSHING INTERVIEW: BBC RADIO FOUR 1973: PART OF THE 99TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATIONS OF PETER CUSHING'S BIRTH

As part of our celebration today, we present a full transcript of Peter Cushing's interview from 1973 on BBC RADIO FOUR programme 'WOMAN'S HOUR' 

Interview: BBC Copyright

Images: Marcus Brooks

TODAY: MAY 26TH: MARKS THE 99TH ANNIVERSARY OF PETER CUSHING'S BIRTH!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY PETER CUSHING!

PETER CUSHING 99TH BIRTHDAY ANNIVERSARY : TOMORROW MAY 25TH 2012

COME CELEBRATE THE 99TH ANNIVERSARY OF PETER CUSHING'S BIRTH TOMORROW!

PETER CUSHING: EAST GERMANY PRESS: 'THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES' HAMMER FILMS 1959

EAST GERMANY PRESS: THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES: HAMMER FILMS (1959)

DIRECTOR TERENCE FISHER

PETER CUSHING IN PRINT: PETER CUSHING'S CONTRIBUTIONS IN PUBLICATIONS AND BOOKS GALLERY

'GREYFRIARS FOR GROWN UPS' : Quite a rare one. Published in 1980, Peter contributed a piece on his long love of FRANK RICHARD'S 'GREYFRIARS SCHOOL' in the GEM and MAGNET comics of his youth.

'TOUCHDOWN AND OTHER MOVES IN THE GAME': Published in 1972 is a collection of funny and pithy stories from celebrities and sports on  the subject of Rugby Football Union in the UK. Peter was a huge fan of the game all his life and a very skilled player in his youth. Peter's contribution to the book is a very funny piece entitled 'I Must Not Tackle Sir So Roughly!'.... which includes tales of playing the game for Purley Secondary School in his youth and the favourite games he attended with his wife, Helen. 

This first edition of 'EXPLORING CHURCHES IN KENT' was published in 1985 by John E. Vigar. Peter wrote the forward. The book includes extensive photographs and features on some of the beautiful ancient churches in Peter's home county of Kent, England.

MORE TO COME....

   

PETER CUSHING APPRECIATION SOCIETY FACEBOOK FAN PAGE BANNER

If you have a FACEBOOK account why not join our UK Peter Cushing Appreciation Society Fan Page. It's one sure way to keep up with what's going up on the website! You can find us by following this link:

www.facebook.com/petercushingblog

PETER CUSHING: ALAN FRANK ON PETER CUSHING FOR THE UK PETER CUSHING APPRECIATION SOCIETY

Our Thanks to Alan Frank for sharing his memories of Peter and to David Saunderson for carrying out the interview on our behalf!

Images: Marcus Brooks

PETER CUSHING AND CHRISTOPHER LEE: 'DRACULA' (1958) FEATURE AND GALLERY

CAST:

Peter Cushing (Dr Van Helsing), Christopher Lee (Count Dracula), Michael Gough (Arthur Holmwood), John Van Eyssen (Jonathan Harker), Melissa Stribling (Mina Holmwood), Carol Marsh (Lucy Holmwood), Valerie Gaunt (Vampire Woman)

CREW:

Director – Terence Fisher, Screenplay – Jimmy Sangster, Based on the Novel by Bram Stoker, Producer – Anthony Hinds, Photography – Jack Asher, Music – James Bernard, Special Effects – Syd Pearson, Makeup – Phil Leaky, Art Direction – Bernard Robinson. Production Company – Hammer.

SYNOPSIS:

Posing as a librarian, erstwhile vampire hunter Jonathan Harker travels to Castle Dracula where he is welcomed by the courtly Count Dracula. Harker attempts to kill Dracula and eliminate the vampire menace that Dracula spreads but the sun sets before he can do so. Jonathan’s body and diary are found by his friend Dr Van Helsing who stakes him and takes the sad news on to his fiancée Lucy Holmwood. There Van Helsing finds that Lucy has become Dracula’s prey. Joined by her brother Arthur, Van Helsing begins a search for Dracula, to stake and kill him before Lucy is fully claimed as a vampire.

COMMENTARY:

Dracula – usually better known under its American retitling, The Horror of Dracula – is the cornerstone of the Hammer Films legend. Although The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) the year before was beginning of Hammer’s success, The Horror of Dracula was the one that set Hammer on the map and marked the beginning of Hammer’s domination over the horror scene for the next fifteen years. The Horror of Dracula’s status, certainly in Anglo-horror fandom, is sacrosanct and its importance near mythic. The essence of what the Hammer film was all about is here – the darkly magnetic presence and aristocratic haughtiness of Christopher Lee; the commanding, straight-arrow rationalism of Peter Cushing; the florid shock hand of director Terence Fisher; the essential British repressions of sexuality and convention that Anglo-horror would pierce a stake right through; and the laughably dated shocked critical outcry.

Where then to view The Horror of Dracula today? Hammer films, particularly the early ones, have not dated well. Today their pace seems slow; the shocks that caused such a critical outcry (and then quickly transformed into the expected mainstay of this particular genre) seem absurdly mannered, even laughable. The rich and floridly colourful sets seem flat and stagebound and James Bernard’s celebrated scores loud and unsubtle. Yet The Horror of Dracula holds undeniable effect. One must understand exactly what it represented to audiences back then. To an audience raised on the Bela Lugosi Dracula (1931) and the cardboard, melodramatic figure that Dracula became among the Universal monsters line-up in the 1940s, The Horror of Dracula must have had an incredible shock value. For one, it was in colour – which meant that one could see the blood in its rich, overripe scarlet detail – and that alone made it an immediately different film to the Bela Lugosi version. For another, it was not as stagebound as the Lugosi version – Terence Fisher’s camera is kinetic and alive, always on the move.

As an attempt at adapting Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897), The Horror of Dracula is never any better or worse than any other version. Screenwriter Jimmy Sangster liberally sacrifices parts here and there for the economy of plot and budget – out go Renfield and the asylum (although these later appeared in Hammer’s Dracula – Prince of Darkness [1966]). Gone too is the magnificently ambient opening journey to Castle Dracula, the pursuit climax and set-pieces like the crashing of the Demeter. Gone too is Dracula as a supernatural being – “It is a common fallacy,” says Van Helsing, “that vampires can change into bats and wolves,” which conveniently does away with having to create costly effects sequences. (Although said fallacy seemed to have been disproven by the time of later sequels). Despite the liberties he takes with Bram Stoker, Jimmy Sangster nevertheless preserves the essence of the book.

(One of the irksome parts of film is its geographic hodgepodge – Dracula’s castle is located near Klausenberg (Cluj) in Rumania, which is near Transylvania. Yet according to the film, Rumania is supposed to border a country that contains both Karlstat (a town in Sweden) and Inglostadt (a town in Germany). In the real world, Germany and Rumania are separated by at least Hungary and either Austria or Czechoslovakia/Czech Republic; while Rumania and Sweden are separated by the Baltic Sea and either Russia or Poland).

The remarkable sexual element present in the Bram Stoker book (wherein Dracula essentially became a sexual predator, plundering the prim, virginal heroines and turning them into sexually aggressive and irresistible creatures), which was only fleetingly touched on in the Lugosi Dracula, is clearly brought out here – Mina sits up in bed in a V-neck nightgown that does a remarkable job of holding in more than one would ever think possible with her window open waiting for Dracula, and at other points the women invitingly tilt their necks up in anticipation. “It is established victims consciously resent being dominated by vampirism but are unable to resist the practice,” Van Helsing states. The Bela Lugosi version bled the film and its women dry of any sexual vitality but here Dracula had well and truly emerged from the Victorian closet. Part of the shock value that The Horror of Dracula had was its very wantonness in this regard.

In person, Dracula was 6’5” Christopher Lee. Christopher Lee incarnated Dracula as a haughty, imposing nobleman (in real life Lee traces his ancestry back to the Emperor Charlemagne). Bela Lugosi was a puffed-up ham, all stuffed-shirt menace; Christopher Lee, going back to the Stoker book, is introduced as a perfect gentleman who with shock rapidity turns into a ravening animal. When this Dracula is enraged, he is an animal, hissing, his eyes turning scarlet red. Not even Bram Stoker managed to show Dracula with this kind of raw lasciviousness. On the side of good was Peter Cushing who makes the definitive Van Helsing. Thankfully gone is the Dutch accent that Stoker gave Van Helsing and Peter Cushing is able to bring his customary genteel and commanding authority to the role. There is no greater sense in cinematic vampire mythology of Van Helsing as a man of reason who sits astride both science and religion with equal ease, holding society safe against primal forces than there is in Peter Cushing’s performance.

Most of all, The Horror of Dracula belongs to Terence Fisher who subsequently became Hammer’s most prominent director and developed a considerable critical cult within genre fandom. Fisher has no time for Bram Stoker’s Romantic imagery (or even subtlety) and heads straight for shock effect with all guns blazing. There is a shock scene where Valerie Gaunt tries to sink her teeth into Jonathan’s neck as he comforts her, only to be interrupted as Christopher Lee bursts in through a door – in this moment, Terence Fisher shock-cuts to a closeup of Lee’s face, eyes wide-open, blazing blood red and two trails of blood dripping from his fangs, and then has him leap across a table to throw both of them aside. The climax offers a stunning battle between the forces of light and darkness and is an indelible image in horror film – Van Helsing pursues Dracula into the library and leaps across a table to rip the curtains open, exposing an area of sunlight, then jumps on a table and grabs two candelabra to form a cross, which he uses to drive Dracula into the beam of sunlight, causing him to crumble into dust that is then blown away by a mysterious gust of wind as the end credits roll. It is a set-piece that even outstrips the climax in the book.

Hammer’s other Dracula films are:– The Brides of Dracula (1960), Dracula – Prince of Darkness (1966), Dracula Has Risen from the Grave (1968), Taste the Blood of Dracula (1970), Scars of Dracula (1971), Dracula A.D. 1972 (1972), The Satanic Rites of Dracula/Count Dracula and His Vampire Bride (1973) and The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires/The Seven Brothers Meet Dracula (1974). Christopher Lee appears in all except Brides of Dracula and Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires. Peter Cushing plays Van Helsing again in Brides of Dracula, Dracula A.D. 1972, Satanic Rites of Dracula and Legend of the 7 7 Golden Vampires. Countess Dracula (1970) is a Hammer film but not a Dracula film and in fact tells the legend of Countess Elizabeth Bathory.

Other adaptations of Dracula are:– the silent classic Nosferatu (1922); Dracula (1931); Count Dracula (1970) a continental production that also featured Christopher Lee; Dracula (1974), a tv movie starring Jack Palance; Count Dracula (1977), a BBC tv mini-series featuring Louis Jourdan; Dracula (1979), a lush remake starring Frank Langella; Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979) with Klaus Kinski; Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992), featuring Gary Oldman; the Italian-German modernized adaptation Dracula (2002) starring Patrick Bergin; Guy Maddin’s silent ballet adaptation Dracula: Pages from a Virgin’s Diary (2002); Dracula (2006), the BBC tv adaptation starring Marc Warren; and Dario Argento’s upcoming Dracula 3D (2012) with Thomas Kretschmann as Dracula.

Terence Fisher’s other genre films are:– the sf films The Four-Sided Triangle (1953) and Spaceways (1953), The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), The Revenge of Frankenstein (1958), The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959), The Man Who Could Cheat Death (1959), The Mummy (1959), The Stranglers of Bombay (1959), The Brides of Dracula (1960), The Two Faces of Dr Jekyll (1960), The Curse of the Werewolf (1961), The Phantom of the Opera (1962), The Gorgon (1964), Dracula – Prince of Darkness (1966), Frankenstein Created Woman (1967), The Devil Rides Out/The Devil’s Bride (1968), Frankenstein Must be Destroyed (1969) and Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell (1973), all for Hammer. Outside of Hammer, Fisher has made the Old Dark House comedy The Horror of It All (1964) and the alien invasion films The Earth Dies Screaming (1964), Island of Terror (1966) and Night of the Big Heat (1967).

Jimmy Sangster’s other genre scripts are:– X the Unknown (1956), The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), The Revenge of Frankenstein (1958), The Man Who Could Cheat Death (1959), The Mummy (1959), The Brides of Dracula (1960), the psycho-thrillers A Scream of Fear/Taste of Fear (1961), Paranoiac (1962), Maniac (1963), Nightmare (1963), Hysteria (1965) The Nanny (1965) and Crescendo (1970), and Dracula – Prince of Darkness (1966), all for Hammer. Sangster’s non-Hammer scripts are the lost medical vampire film Blood of the Vampire (1958), the alien invasion film The Trollenberg Terror/The Crawling Eye (1958), Jack the Ripper (1959), the Grand Guignol psycho-thriller Who Slew Auntie Roo? (1971), the tv movie psycho-thrillers A Taste of Evil (1971) and Scream, Pretty Peggy (1973), the occult tv movie Good Against Evil (1977), the occult film The Legacy (1979), the spy tv movies Billion Dollar Threat (1979) and Once Upon a Spy (1980), the psycho-thriller Phobia (1980) and the story for Disney’s The Devil and Max Devlin (1981). As director, Sangster made three films:– The Horror of Frankenstein (1970), the lesbian vampire film Lust for a Vampire (1971) and the psycho-thriller Fear in the Night (1972), all at Hammer. 


Review: Richard Schieb
Images: Marcus Brooks

PETER CUSHING: 'DR TERROR'S HOUSE OF HORRORS' AMICUS FILMS (1965)

It really is no wonder that Amicus and Hammer Films made so much money overseas with promotional material like this! A superb PHOTOBUSTA from 'DR TERROR'S HOUSE OF HORRORS' Amicus (1965) Dir: Freddie Francis and Produced by the the magical writing and business skills of Milton Subotsky and Max Rosenberg!

PETER CUSHING: 'DRACULA' PHOTOBUSTA CHRISTOPHER LEE HAMMER FILM PRODUCTIONS (1958)

A GREAT VINTAGE PHOTOBUSTA FROM HAMMER FILM PRODUCTIONS 'DRACULA' (1958) STARRING PETER CUSHING CHRISTOPHER LEE  MICHAEL GOUGH AND MELISSA STRIBLING. DIRECTED BY TERENCE FISHER.

PETER CUSHING CHRISTOPHER LEE 'THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN' HAMMER FILMS 1957

SUPERB PHOTOBUSTA OF 'THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN' PETER CUSHING AND CHRISTOPHER LEE (1957) Dir: TERENCE FISHER

PETER CUSHING CAROLINE MUNRO DOUG MCCLURE: AT THE EARTH'S CORE: REVIEW AND GALLERY

CAST:
Doug McClure (David Innes), Peter Cushing (Dr Abner Perry), Caroline Munro (Princess Dia), Cy Grant (Ra), Sean Lynch (Hoojah), Godfrey James (Ghak)

PRODUCTION:
Director – Kevin Connor, Screenplay – Milton Subotsky, Based on the Novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Producer – John Dark, Photography – Alan Hume, Music – Mike Vickers, Process Photography – Charles Staffell, Special Effects Supervisor – Ian Wingrove, Production Design – Maurice Carter. Production Company – Amicus/Lion International.

SYNOPSIS:

Dr Abner Perry, accompanied by his American financer, David Innes, is about to put to the test his latest invention, The Iron Mole, a huge drilling device. However, things don’t go according to plan and instead of safely burrowing out through the side of a Welsh mountain they find themselves in a subterranean world populated by prehistoric beasts and warring tribes, ruled over by the powerful telepathic Mahars. The task soon falls to our intrepid duo of saving the enslaved humans, and returning to dear old Blighty of course!

COMMENTARY:

A co-production between American International Pictures and Amicus, At The Earth’s Core is a cheap and cheerful adaptation of the Edgar Rice Burroughs novel, scripted by Amicus co-founder Milton Subotsky. It retains all the familiar elements of his books; heroic adventurers in a lost world, strange prehistoric beasts, enslaved tribesmen with odd names such as Gak and Ra, and not forgetting an alluring local girl for our hero to romance.

No stranger to this sort of thing is Doug McClure, he also appeared in two other Burroughs adaptations, The Land That Time Forgot and The People That Time Forgot – and he brings his usual ‘talents’ to the role of David, in other words a typically wooden hero who gets into scraps with various beasts and falls for the charms of a tribal beauty. He’s not exactly the best actor in the world but there is a likeable everyman quality about him. 

Contrasting with this man of action is Peter Cushing as Dr Abner Perry. Cushing always gave everything to his roles, regardless of the quality of the film, and in At The Earth’s Core he provides another memorable interpretation, investing Dr Perry with an eccentric, slightly pompous air, totally British through & through, always armed with his trusty umbrella. Apart from providing all the plot exposition and saying “David!” a lot he gets the best lines; commenting on the inhabitants of this primeval world, “They’re so excitable. Like all foreigners!”, then when faced with the mesmeric powers of the Mahars he proudly states, “ You can’t hypnotise me, I’m British!” 

Although there is an interesting psychedelic tone created for this lost world with the bright purple sky, funky giant mushrooms and a tribe that look like extras from the cast of Hair the most obvious flaw in this movie is its special fx, or rather lack of them. The intimidating monsters which confront our heroes are nothing more than men in rubber suits, and the whole film does feel like an episode of Doctor Who. As such there are few thrills to be had when, for example, David has to battle against the imposing horror of what appears to be a green rubber hippo, or save the delectable Dia from the wrath of a big plastic fire breathing frog.

The evil Mahars that rule over this strange world look like prehistoric parrots, hardly the most threatening of adversaries. However the film does have one very special effect, in the form of Caroline Munro as tribal princess Dia. Munro was often found in this sort of film and in this sort of role, and little wonder! Here she is in all her heaving bosomed, skimpy costumed glory, looking longingly at McClure who suddenly finds things are looking up in this alien world when he meets her. A commanding presence viewers may find their minds wandering to thoughts of her during the rather flat action scenes which are directed with seeming disinterest by Kevin Connor. He was responsible for McClure’s other adventures in the worlds of Burroughs and went on to direct Warlords Of Atlantis, a similarly themed Victorian sci-fi adventure that is arguably the best of the bunch.

At The Earth’s Core is, despite its cheap cheesy and rather amateur feel, still a mildly enjoyable movie which stays true to its literary pulp adventure roots. Its appeal is more than likely due to nostalgia as many a thirtysomething adult was weaned on such adventures on a wet Sunday afternoon. Modern audiences, brought up on a diet of big budget fx extravaganzas would find the whole thing pretty laughable. Despite its shortcomings the plot is basically sound, Burroughs could really tell a great yarn, even though all his stories were essentially variations on the same theme. Maybe the time is now right for modern filmmakers to plunder his novels and bring to the screen big budget versions of his many adventures.

REVIEW: Jason Cook

IMAGES: Marcus Brooks

SOURCE: HERE

'CAROLINE MUNRO AND CHRISTOPHER NEAME' PETER CUSHING'S CO STARS IN 'DRACULA AD 1972' QUALITY COLOUR PHOTOGRAPH

A BEAUTIFUL colour negative shot from Peter Cushing's 'DRACULA AD 1972' featuring CHRISTOPHER NEAME as Johnny Alucard and CAROLINE MUNRO as Laura Bellows. Can't she much of Caroline though... but if you'd LIKE to see more of her from this film, just click on the link below and see our 'Caroline Munro: 'Dracula AD 1972' Gallery' Some great photographs of one of Peter's most talented and attractive co stars: CLICK HERE!

PETER CUSHING: AMICUS PRESSBOOK: 'TALES FROM THE CRYPT' (1972)

ONE OF THE BETTER AMICUS PRESSBOOKS FROM THE 1970'S: 'TALES FROM THE CRYPT'

WITH AN ALL STAR CAST INCLUDING PETER CUSHING AS ARTHUR GRIMSDYKE IN HIS AWARD WINNING STORY 'POETIC JUSTICE'