THE BARON REBOOTED: THE EVIL OF FRANKENSTEIN : HAMMER FILMS 1964

CAST:

Peter Cushing (Baron Frankenstein), Peter Woodthorpe (Zoltan), Sandor Eles (Hans), Kiwi Kingston (The Monster), Katy Wild (Rena)

PRODUCTION:

Director – Freddie Francis, Screenplay – John Elder [Anthony Hinds], Producer – Anthony Hinds, Photography – John Wilcox, Music – Don Banks, Special Effects – Les Bowie, Makeup – Roy Ashton, Art Direction – Don Mingaye. Production Company – Hammer.

SYNOPSIS:

Forced to leave town because of their experiments, Frankenstein and Hans return to Frankenstein’s hometown Karlstad and set up laboratory in the abandoned Frankenstein chateau. Frankenstein then finds his original creation frozen inside a glacier and restores it to life. Only it will not respond to his commands. And so Frankenstein comes up with the idea of obtaining the services of Zoltan, a disreputable carnival hypnotist, to hypnotize the monster into obeying him. Zoltan is successful but has less than scientific interests at heart. With the monster responding only to his commands, Zoltan uses it to rob and take revenge upon the town authorities.

COMMENTARY:

General opinion holds The Evil of Frankenstein, the third of Hammer’s Frankenstein films, to be one of the duds of the series. One is at a loss to understand why. I, to the contrary, hold The Evil of Frankenstein to be one of the best of the series. With the preceding two entries, The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) and The Revenge of Frankenstein (1958), Hammer had kept the same essential creative team – director Terence Fisher, screenwriter Jimmy Sangster and star Peter Cushing – in place. For The Evil of Frankenstein, Hammer producer Anthony Hinds replaced Sangster on script, while Freddie Francis inherited the director’s chair. Freddie Francis was an up and coming director who had worked as an award-winning cinematographer in the previous decade, had made his genre debut with Vengeance/The Brain (1962), followed with a couple of Hammer’s psycho-thrillers, Paranoiac (1962) and Nightmare (1963), and then attained some success with the first of Hammer rival Amicus’s anthology films Dr Terror’s House of Horrors (1964) just prior to this. Francis, whose output to the Anglo-horror cycle has been underrated, would go on to become its next most prolific director to Fisher. (See below for Freddie Francis’s other films).

It is not clear why The Evil of Frankenstein is almost universally regarded as such a dog in the Hammer pantheon. Just look at the opening scenes that hit one with the fervid intensity of something out of a Hieronymous Bosch nightmare brought to life – a little girl sees a body being stolen from a hut in the forest in the middle of the night and calls a priest. The body is taken to Frankenstein who removes the heart before the paling body snatcher, dismissing his queasiness with a curt, “He won’t need it anymore,” before the priest bursts in, cursing Frankenstein’s abominable experiments and smashing the lab equipment. It’s a sequence lit with such a feverishly eerie intensity that it attains a genuinely nightmare atmosphere of dread chill. Nothing else in the film quite manages to match it. Certainly, there are a number of images littered throughout that have a lingering memorability – the deaf-mute beggar girl and her strange relationship with the monster; the monster found buried in the side of the glacier; and one especially memorable scene where the monster gets up and begins to agonizingly shuffle around the lab while Frankenstein looks on, coldly clinically taking notes.

The Evil of Frankenstein presents some confusion to the continuity of the Hammer Frankenstein series. For some reason, Freddie Francis conducts a flashback that offers a potted retelling all the essentials of The Curse of Frankenstein anew. However, this makes changes to continuity – Frankenstein now appears to have merely been driven out of town, not executed. Where the events of The Revenge of Frankenstein fit in becomes somewhat confusing – the Hans character is carried over from Revenge, but Frankenstein’s new body and his escape from the gallows is forgotten about. It’s a puzzle as to why the film creates the flashback – some of this is to set up plot points for later on – although without much rewriting this could all have been made to carry over from Revenge. What tended to lose many people was the addition of the Zoltan character, which takes the story considerably away from the Frankenstein mythos. Indeed, you could almost see this as Hammer’s attempt to craft their own variant on The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (1919).

With The Curse of Frankenstein, Hammer did not have the copyright to use the Jack Pierce designs for the Boris Karloff monster makeup from Frankenstein (1931) and so Phil Leakey came up with his own original designs. Apparently Universal has relaxed their copyright restrictions by the time of The Evil of Frankenstein and the makeup on Kiwi Kingston’s monster is closely modelled on the Pierce designs, the only time the Hammer Frankenstein’s came close to resembling the Universal originals. Production designer Don Mingaye and special effects man Les Bowie collaborate to come up with not one but two of the series very best creation sequences, with lightning bolts and generator coils crashing in the best Kenneth Strickfaden tradition. And on the whole, The Evil of Frankenstein is a Hammer Frankenstein entry that is well worth re-evaluation. 

The other Hammer Frankenstein films are:– The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), The Revenge of Frankenstein (1958), Frankenstein Created Woman (1967), Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed (1969), The Horror of Frankenstein (1970) and Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell (1973).

Freddie Francis’s other genre films are:- Vengeance/The Brain (1962), Paranoiac (1962), Nightmare (1963), Dr Terror’s House of Horrors (1964), Hysteria (1965), The Skull (1965), The Psychopath (1966), The Deadly Bees (1967), They Came from Beyond Space (1967), Torture Garden (1967), Dracula Has Risen from the Grave (1968), Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny and Girly (1969), Trog (1970), The Vampire Happening (1971), Tales from the Crypt (1972), Tales That Witness Madness (1972), Craze (1973), The Creeping Flesh (1973), Legend of the Werewolf (1974), Son of Dracula (1974), The Ghoul (1975), The Doctor and the Devils (1985) and Dark Tower (1987).

Review: Richard Scheib

Images: Marcus Brooks
http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/The-Evil-of-Frankenstein-Blu-ray/69370/ 

TROY HOWARTH REVIEWS: THE BOSCOMBE VALLEY MYSTERY: PETER CUSHING BBC SHERLOCK HOLMES

A farmer by the name of McCarthy is brutally slain.  Problem is, he wasn’t very well liked, and the list of suspects is lengthy… It’s up to Sherlock Holmes to get to the bottom of the matter…

The Boscombe Valley Mystery, published in 1891, isn’t one of the more popularly referenced Sherlock Holmes adventures, though it has been adapted on several occasions.  In 1922, it became part of a series of Holmes adventures starring Ellie Norwood as the great detective.  Prior to Arthur Wotner and Basil Rathbone, Norwood was arguably the screen’s premier interpreter of Holmes; sadly, many of his films are now believed to be lost – including this one.  The story would get a reprieve until 1968, when it was adapted for this installment of the BBC’s Sherlock Holmes series.  It would not be adapted again until Granada included it in its series The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes, which would emerge as the final series to feature an ailing Jeremy Brett in his signature role as Holmes.

This adaptation remains the more satisfying of the two extant versions, largely because Cushing in his prime is so much more enthralling in the role of Doyle’s master detective.  While Brett’s performance is rightly championed in many circles, his later performances tend to mix the melodramatic with the lethargic, a reflection, no doubt, of his disintegrating mental and physical condition.  Cushing, by contrast, is at the top of his game here.  He knows when to work in one of his signature flourishes – cue that extended index finger! – and when to rely on quiet understatement.  He also has great chemistry with Nigel Stock’s Dr. Watson.  Stock is seldom mentioned among the screen’s most notable portrayers of Watson, and this is a pity – he manages to combine the blustery humor of Nigel Bruce and the intellectual efficiency of Andre Morell, and his performance matches Cushing’s every step of the way.  

The supporting roles are ably portrayed as well, with the cadaverous Peter Madden making a good impression in his small role as the ill-fated (and quite disagreeable) McCarthy; Hammer fans will remember him as the sympathetic innkeeper in Kiss of the Vampire (1962) or as the pompous police inspector volleying insults with Cushing’s Baron Frankenstein in Frankenstein Created Woman (1966).  Hammer alum Victor Brooks (Brides of Dracula) and Michael Godfrey (Rasputin – The Mad Monk) also put in appearances.

The episode was directed by Latvia-born Viktors Ritelis, whose most significant genre credit remains the suspenseful Michael Gough vehicle Crucible of Horror (1969), also known as The Corpse.  Ritelis employs some of the flashy editing techniques also evident in that film and he manages to pace the episode smoothly.  The murder scene includes some surprisingly bloody insert shots, which surely caused a little bit of concern at the BBC at the time.

For Cushing fans, The Boscombe Valley Mystery – like the other entries in the series – is an undiluted pleasure.  Holmes remains one of his most indelible characterizations, and it’s easy to see why – he manages to walk the tightrope between the florid and the understated, and he remains one of the most authentic interpreters of the character on screen.

WEEKEND AT PCASUK FACEBOOK FAN PAGE : GRAB THOSE GOODIES!

COMING UP THIS WEEKEND ON THE PCASUK FACEBOOK FAN PAGE: Over the weekend we'll be celebrating the blu ray release Hammer Films THE EVIL OF FRANKENSTEIN from Final Cut Entertainment, posting a selection of large hi res scans of RARE photographs from the film and launching a competition where you can a bag a free copy of the blu ray. We'll be giving details of our Grindhouse 'CORRUPTION' blu ray competition, there's also a chance for you to win copies of Reel Solutions 'Peter Cushing Centenary Monograph' AND we'll be announcing the WINNERS NAMES to our HAMMER SOCKS(!!) competition from last weekend. We look forward to your company

 

PEDRO DE QUEIROZ ASKS 'CORRUPTION' SLEAZE OR QUALITY?

CORRUPTION - SLEAZE OR QUALITY? Clichéd, sensational, and drab-looking. It’s hard to deny this 1967 Peter Cushing vehicle directed by exploitation expert Robert Hartford-Davis deserves such adjectives. It’s equally hard to deny it’s a unique and forceful experience, even for those who hate its power. Why? 

Here’s the plot – Sir John Rowan (Cushing), a brilliant surgeon, has to recurrently kill people in order to make a serum to restore his beautiful fiancée’s scarred face – a stock subject matter for a horror film ( “The Corpse Vanishes”, a 1942 Monogram programmer for Bela Lugosi comes to mind ) executed with the same graphic surgical emphasis shortly before seen in George Franju’s respected “The Eyes without a Face” (1959) and Jesus Franco’s not-so-respected rip-off, “The Awful Dr. Orloff” (1962). Sir John then goes about carrying a Jack-the-Ripper-type case of medical tools and murdering women. After an explosive ending, the movie, apparently for want of somewhere else to go, tacks on an epilog borrowed from another classic, Ealing Studio’s “Dead of Night” (1945). From this derivative platform, the script by Donald and Derek Ford (who had previously used the Jack the Ripper motif in the fine “A Study in Terror” where the infamous Victorian killer meets Sherlock Holmes) departs to focus on its own interests. First, characterisation and psychological nuance. Sir John is a case study in the pathology of perfeccionism.
 

Before the opening credits are over we see him working tirelessly on the operating table, commenting that “the more successes, the more one fears failure”, and napping in a dimly lit, crammed library dominated by a dignified bust – of himself? – with a book still open on his lap. Many have said it’s uncongruous for him to be infatuated with vain, unpleasant Lynn Nolan (Sue Lloyd from “The Baron” teleseries ...). Well, assuming this uptight, middle-aged bachelor hasn’t got where he is without a fair amount of renounce the love of a beautiful model much younger than himself would be enough to make him infatuated – “obsessed”, as his colleague Dr. Harris (Noel Trevarthen) rightly points out – with her. Not only is he making up for the lost years, she is also another trophy, another “success” in his career. When he finds himself guilty of the accident that horribly burns her face, there are literally no lengths he wouldn’t go to to rescue her. He doesn’t need to kill desirable girls. He chooses them. One could argue they’re easier to handle than a strong male target. But when the prospective victim is a younger girl whose life isn’t “lost”, he resists. “I have sworn to preserve life, not to take it”, he says, his face lit up by a table lamp. The assumption is that a life of contention has groomed aggressivity toward sexually arousing women.

The movie isn’t mysoginistic, the protagonist is. As for Lynn, neither the script nor the actress overplays her femme fatale function as with, say, Hazel Court in the Roger Corman Poe adaptations. We believe in her physical and emotional pain (“People turning away as they see me!...” She’s a model! The dialogue has the intelligence of using the characters’ biographic and professional backgrounds to tighten the screw) and she sounds truthful when she says she’s chosen Sir John for “the man” rather than the money or title. And Steve Harris is a find. As the nominal hero, he’s clever enough to figure John’s actions and motives, but his Jiminy Cricket interventions are tiring and ineffectual, and when he finally acts in the climax, he does so in such a misjudged and clumsy way he just precipitates disaster. In one blow the filmmakers make up a credible character, subvert a pivotal cliché, and slap censorship and moralism in the face.

The film also sheds a new light on the old hat story by firmly setting it in the kitchen sink places and realities of swinging London, with the main result of providing a contrast between the old world represented by Sir John and the emerging landscape of the 60’s. The final act when the house is invaded by beatniks (a less conspicuous borrowing, this from John Huston’s “Treasure of Sierra Madre”, but totally filtered and legitimated) is remarkable in that each party is freaked by the other. The demented Groper (David Lodge of “Carry On” fame), wearing a black Sgt Pepper uniform is a sturdier, diabolical mirror image for John Lennon, pointing out the destructive side of on the road lifestyle. The film preceded the Mansion murders by a year. Interestingly, Corman’s “A Bucket of Blood” had also anticipated the phenomenon in a different way. A film so concerned with the eruption of beastly instincts in diverse contexts couldn’t have been softly staged. Its aggressive style is an asset, as are the seedy and commonplace settings.

Hartford-Davis gets as close as possible to Expressionistic principles within these limits in the grotesque wide-angle shots distorting the countenance and the surroundings of the protagonist; the opening credits with masked doctors and equipment blended into a single mechanism; or the last – and lasting – close-up of Cushing’s stern eyes accompanied by the soundtrack of women’s screams. This final sequence serves more to reiterate Sir John’s potential instability than to surprise us with some unexpected plot point. Equal care has been taken in considering the symbolic connotations of places and objects – the laser, the seaside, the noisy flying gulls, and so on. Last but not least – “Corruption” is very entertaining – its intellectual ventures remain almost always in the subtext and never interfere with its effectiveness as a genre piece – and VERY professional. Its deliberate drabness should never be confused with amateurism. It is purposefully achieved through the efforts of an excellent crew including cinematographer Peter Newbrook (later to photograph “The Asphyx”, 1970), composer Bill McGuffie (his jazzy score, ranging from soothing to frenzied, is the film’s voice, no less), and practically the whole cast. Peter at his creepiest, Lloyd, Lodge, the iconic and beautiful Kate O’Mara as the heroine, and perhaps especially worthy of mention , because never acknowledged, Valerie Van Ost as the victim on the train. The lady would make an even more notable appearance in another Cushing film - “The Satanic Rites of Dracula” (1973) – where she displayed enormous versatily and ease as the squeamish secretary turned wickedly anticipating victim and savagely sensuous vampiress.

PEDRO DE QUEIROZ PERGUNTA: 'A FACE DA CORRUPCAO' BAIXARIA OU QUALIDADE?

“A FACE DA CORRUPÇÃO” – BAIXARIA OU QUALIDADE?

Chavões, sensacionalismo, visual banal. Não dá pra negar que este veículo para Peter Cushing dirigido pelo especialista em apelação Robert Hartford-Davis em 1967 tem isso tudo. Também não dá pra negar que o filme é uma experiência única e poderosa, nem por aqueles que detestam sua força. Por que?

A trama: Sir John Rowan, um cirurgião brilhante, tem que matar pessoas periodicamente para extrair delas um soro capaz de restaurar o rosto desfigurado de sua noiva – um clichê de filme de horror (“Raptor de Noivas”, 1942, um filme B da Monogram com Bela Lugosi, é um exemplo) executado com a mesma ênfase em cirurgia explícita vista pouco antes no respeitado  “Os Olhos sem Rosto”(1959) de Georges Franju, e já imitado no não-tão-respeitado “O Terrível Dr. Orloff” (1962), de Jesus Franco. Sir John sai por aí carregando uma maletinha de instrumentos médicos a la Jack, o Estripador e matando mulheres. Depois de um final explosivo, o filme, aparentemente por falta de solução melhor, plagia o epílogo de outro clássico, “Na Solidão da Noite” (1945), da Ealing.

Partindo dessa plataforma surrada, o roteiro de Donald e Derek Ford – que já tinham abordado Jack, o Estripador no ótimo “Névoas do Terror” (1965), em que o famigerado assassino vitoriano encontra Sherlock Holmes – se concentra em seus próprios interesses. Pra começar, caracterização e nuances psicológicas. Sir John é um caso clínico de perfeccionismo patológico. Antes dos créditos iniciais terminarem, nós o vemos suando na mesa de operações, comentando que “quanto mais sucessos, mais se temem as falhas” e cochilando numa biblioteca abarrotada dominada por um busto imponente – dele? -  à meia-luz, com um livro ainda aberto em seu colo.

Muitos reclamam que não faz sentido ele se apaixonar pela vaidosa e desagradável Lynn Nolan (Sue Lloyd, da série de TV “The Baron”). Vem cá, admitindo que esse solteirão travado de meia-idade não chegou aonde está sem uma bela dose de renúncia pessoal, o amor de uma linda modelo muito mais jovem que ele bastaria pra deixá-lo bobo (“obcecado” por ela, diz seu colega Dr. Harris, com razão). Não só ele está indo atrás do tempo perdido, mas ela é um troféu, outro “sucesso” em sua carreira. Quando o rosto dela é queimado num acidente por culpa dele, não há do que não seja capaz para resgatá-la.

Ele não precisa matar mulheres desejáveis. É escolha. Pode-se argumentar que são mais fáceis de dominar que um homem, mas quando a vítima em questão é uma garota mais jovem cuja vida ainda não é “perdida”, ele resiste. “Jurei preservar a vida, não tirá-la”, ele diz, o rosto subitamente iluminado por um abajur. Presume-se que uma vida inteira de contenção alimentou uma agressividade contra mulheres sexualmente excitantes. O filme não é misógino, o protagonista sim.

Quanto a Lynn, nem o roteiro nem a atriz força a mão em seu papel de mulher fatal como, digamos, Hazel Court nas adaptações de Poe feitas por Roger Corman. Acreditamos em seu tormento físico e emocional (“Gente virando o rosto quando me vê...” Ela é modelo! Os diálogos têm a inteligência de aproveitar a experiência profissional e de vida dos personagens para intensificar o drama) e ela parece sincera quando diz que escolheu John pelo “homem”, não o título ou o dinheiro. Steve Harris é um achado. Herói nominal do filme, ele é bastante esperto para descobrir as ações e entender os motivos de John, mas sua impertinência de Grilo Falante é ineficaz, e quando ele finalmente age no clímax, faz de modo tão equivocado e desastrado que precipita a catástrofe. De uma tacada, os realizadores criam um personagem verossímil, subvertem um clichê básico e fazem um desaforo aos moralistas e censores.

O filme dá novo sentido à história velha ancorando-a firmemente na realidade e ambientes prosaicos da “swinging London”, resultando principalmente num contraste entre o velho mundo representado por Sir John e o panorama emergente nos anos 60. O último ato, quando a casa é invadida por “beatniks” (uma apropriação menos evidente, esta de “O Tesouro de Sierra Madre”, de John Huston, mas totalmente filtrada e legitimada) é notável por mostrar cada grupo horrorizado com o outro. O loucão Groper (David Lodge, conhecido pela série cinematográfica “Carry On”) é uma paródia diabólica e corpulenta de John Lennon usando um uniforme de Sgt. Pepper, só que preto, sugerindo o lado destrutivo da vida pé na estrada. Curiosamente, Corman tinha feito o mesmo de forma diferente em “O Segredo Negro” (1959).

Um filme tão focado na erupção de instintos violentos em contextos diversos não poderia ser encenado de forma suave. Sua agressividade tem razão de ser, assim como os ambientes derrubados e ordinários. Hartford-Davis se aproxima tanto quanto possível dos princípios expressionistas sem fugir desses limites na grotesca distorção do semblante e do entorno do protagonista pela lente grande-angular; na sequência de abertura com os médicos mascarados e os equipamentos se fundindo num único mecanismo; e na imagem final - o perturbador close dos olhos de Peter com os gritos das mulheres como trilha sonora. A última sequência funciona menos para nos pegar com um final-surpresa que para realçar o desequilíbrio potencial de John.O mesmo cuidado foi tomado com as conotações simbólicas dos objetos e locais – o laser, a beira-mar, as gaivotas voando ruidosamente...

Por fim e não menos importante, “A Face da Corrupção” é grande entretenimento – e MUITO profissional. Seu prosaísmo intencional não deve ser jamais confundido com amadorismo. É, sim, um resultado deliberadamente atingido pelo trabalho de uma equipe de alto nível, que inclui o cinegrafista Peter Newbrook (“The Asphyx”, 1970), o compositor Bill McGuffie (cuja trilha de jazz, indo do mais relaxante ao mais frenético é nada menos que a voz do filme) e praticamente todo o elenco: Peter, Sue, Lodge, a emblemática e bela Kate O’Mara no papel da heroína e, talvez especialmente, porque nunca reconhecida, Valerie Van Ost como a vítima no trem. A moça daria uma interpretação ainda mais notável em outro filme de Peter – “Os Ritos Satânicos de Drácula” (1973) – passando com enorme versatilidade e facilidade de secretária introvertida a vítima sacaninha e vampira selvagemente sensual .

FINAL CUT ENTERTAINMENT RELEASES 'EVIL OF FRANKENSTEIN' BLU RAY PCASUK CELEBRATES!

Worth taking a look in on the UK Peter Cushing Appreciation Society Facebook Fan Page this weekend. Leading up to the FINAL CUT ENTERTAINMENT blu ray / DVD combo release on the 26th of this month of Hammer Films 'THE EVIL OF FRANKENSTEIN' starring Peter Cushing, PCASUK are promising a batch of goodies, rare stills and competitions including copies of the Final Cut release. PCASUK are following this  with another treat the following weekend, when FINAL CUT releases the blu ray / DVD combo of  Hammer Films, 'THE BRIDES OF DRACULA' also starring Peter Cushing.

IT'S ALL GREEK! 'THE DEVIL'S MEN' 'LAND OF THE MINOTAUR' FEATURE AND PHOTO GALLERY

When a number of young people go missing on a sleepy Greek island, Father Roache (Donald Pleasence) fears that the devil is at work…

The horror genre was in a state of flux in the late 1970s.  Hollywood had proved it possible to make quality genre films on a big budget with the likes of Rosemary’s Baby (1968) and The Exorcist (1973), while independent filmmakers like George A. Romero (Night of the Living Dead, 1968) and Tobe Hooper (The Texas Chain Saw Massacre) demonstrated that talent and ingenuity could make up for a lack of resources, and in the process helped to drag the genre away from the gothic into something much more immediate and “in your face.”  Budget conscious producers around the globe attempted to keep abreast of the changes in audience tastes, and many of the actors associated with the more “old fashioned” thrills of yesteryear found it necessary to branch out in search of steady employment.  With the virtual demise of Hammer and Amicus looming during this time frame, Peter Cushing – who had spent the bulk of his career working in his beloved England – was occasionally obliged to accept work on minor films shot in comparatively “exotic” locales.  The Devil’s Men (aka, Land of the Minotaur) was one such assignment.

The film was produced in Greece under the auspices of producer Frixos Constantine.  Constantine had some hopes of turning Greece into a new “player” in the international filmmaking scene, but his hopes would, for all intents and purposes, go unfulfilled.  Looking at The Devil’s Men, it’s easy to see why.  Constantine was on the right track when it came to importing Donald Pleasence and Peter Cushing to give the film some name value, but his selection of the screenplay and the director proved far less inspired.  The end result was met with resounding indifference in most quarters, and Constantine’s career as an independent producer came to an ignominious end.  He would later have a hand in Michael Powell’s swansong, Return to the Edge of the World (1978), but his credits since then have been limited to short subjects of an educational bent.

The story is as hackneyed as it is predictable.  A bunch of obnoxious horny teens go missing.  A concerned priest calls in a pal-turned-New York-flatfoot to help investigate, since the local authorities are incompetent and unconcerned.  The pal is concerned, but not terribly competent – he spends a good deal of time wanting to get information out of a local woman, for reasons that are never made terribly clear, and basically exercises bad judgment at every turn.  Ultimately, it is revealed that an exiled nobleman (Peter Cushing at his most chilly) appears to be the mastermind behind the plot.

In many respects, The Devil’s Men is an amateurish mess.  And yet, for some reason, it has a certain wonky charm.  Despite the best attempts of director Costa Carayiannis, whose basic MO appears to be to lock down the camera and zoom in and out a great deal, there’s some atmospheric sequences.  The Greek locales are photogenic.  Brian Eno contributes an eerie score.  And the climax gives the ending of Robert Fuest’s The Devil’s Rain (1975) a run in terms of sheer lunacy.

There’s also the performances of Pleasence and Cushing to consider.  Neither actor really gives one of their more memorable performances here, but they look very good indeed compared to the likes of Costa Skouras, whose New York cop emerges as one of the most obnoxious clowns ever to “grace” a horror film.  Pleasence looks properly bemused, while Cushing turns off his usual grandfatherly charm to play a downright nasty villain.  The script doesn’t give him a great deal to do, but Cushing seizes the few opportunities that come his way, and the film certainly springs to life during his too-few appearances.

It will never be mistaken for great (or even good) art, but The Devil’s Men is still worth a look for its various positive attributes; fans of Cushing will also be interested to see him playing a completely unsympathetic role for once, while Pleasence gets to rehearse his later appearance in John Carpenter’s vastly superior Prince of Darkness (1987).

fEATURE: TROY HOWARTH
IMAGES: MARCUS BROOKS

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TEMPTATIONS LTD PETER CUSHING: FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE (1974)

CAST:

Linking Story: Peter Cushing (Antique Store Proprietor). 1: David Warner (Edward Jeffries). 2: Ian Bannen (Christopher Lowe), Donald Pleasence (Jim), Angela Pleasence (Emily), Diana Dors (Mabel Lowe). 3: Ian Carmichael (Richard), Margaret Leighton (Madame Orlov), Nyree Dawn Porter (Suzanne). 4: Ian Ogilvy (Williams), Lesley Anne Down (Rosemary Williams) 

PRODUCTION:

Director – Kevin Connor, Screenplay – Raymond Christodolou & Robin Clarke, Based on Short Stories by Ronald Chetwynd-Hayes, Producers – Max J. Rosenberg & Milton Subotsky, Photography – Alan Hume, Music – Douglas Gamley, Special Effects – Alan Bryce, Production Design – Maurice Carter. Production Company – Amicus. 

SYNOPSIS:

An antique store proprietor promises a little ‘something extra’ with everything he sells. 1:- Edward Jeffries buys a mirror for his apartment. One evening, he has the urge to hold a seance. There he is possessed by a man in the mirror who uses Jeffries to lure girls to the apartment and sacrifice them so that he might gain physical form again. 2:- Hen-pecked husband Christopher Lowe befriends a street peddler and begin an affair with the man’s strange daughter. The daughter shows him how he can use a voodoo doll to get rid of his nagging wife. 3:- A man encounters the batty old Madame Orlov on a train who tells him he has an elemental spirit on his shoulder. When he finds himself strangling his wife, he is forced to call upon Madame Orlov’s services to exorcise the spirit. 4 A man buys an antique door and finds that it opens back into the era of Charles I.

COMMENTARY:

From Beyond the Grave was one of the best horror anthologies to come from Amicus. (See below for Amicus’s other anthologies). From Beyond the Grave was the directorial debut of Kevin Connor who would go onto become a modest name in genre cinema. This is in fact one of Kevin Connor’s best films and he demonstrates exceptional directorial style. Particularly good are the seance scenes in the first episode where Connor conducts some inventive 360^o pans with a candle that explodes between a flickering flame and a jet in the foreground. The murders in this segment are vividly staged with Connor creating some marvellously sinister images of David Warner standing about in bloodstained clothes and a wrecked apartment.

The second and third stories go for a much more tongue-in-cheek tone. The second is a veritable EC Comics tale – in fact, is a more successful EC-type story than Amicus’s two actual EC adaptations, Tales from the Crypt (1972) and The Vault of Horror (1973), were. The second episode has a particularly strong cast in weak-willed Ian Bannen; Diana Dors, who is having the time of her life playing it up as the wife; and a decidedly offbeat Donald Pleasence and his very, very weird real-life daughter Angela.

The third episode is played entirely for laughs. The exorcism scenes are a wonderfully over-the-top pyrotechnic show after which it surely seems impossible to watch The Exorcist (1973) with a straight face again. Margaret Leighton’s performance as the batty old exorcist is side-splitting.

Where in most anthologies there usually tends to be some stories that are weaker or stronger than others, this is one occasion where all four stories are equally strong. The only failing is the weak linking story, which has to contrive to introduce antique objects that have no other purpose in the episode other than to wind in the second and third stories. The linking story also contains an awkward performance from the usually great Peter Cushing.

Amicus’s other horror anthologies are:– Dr Terror’s House of Horrors (1964), Torture Garden (1967), The House That Dripped Blood (1970), Asylum (1972), Tales from the Crypt (1972) and The Vault of Horror (1973). Amicus producer Milton Subotsky later adapted more short stories from British writer Ronald Chetwynd-Hayes in his horror anthology The Monster Club (1980).

From Beyond the Grave was the directorial debut of Kevin Connor who later became a genre regular. Connor next directed Amicus’s trilogy of lost world Edgar Rice Burroughs adaptations, The Land That Time Forgot (1974), At the Earth’s Core (1976) and The People That Time Forgot (1977), and one original lost world film Warlords of Atlantis (1978), all starring Doug McClure; the Arabian Nights fantasy Arabian Adventure (1979); the cannibalism black comedy Motel Hell (1980); and the Japanese ghost story The House Where Evil Dwells (1982). These days Connor directs for tv, making such unexceptional true life soap opera fare as Diana: Her True Story (1993), Liz: The Elizabeth Taylor Story (1995), Mother Teresa: In the Name of God’s Poor (1997) and Mary, Mother of Jesus (1999). Among Connor’s genre tv fare is:- Goliath Awaits (1981), an interesting tv mini-series about a society that has survived in a sunken ship; The Return of Sherlock Holmes (1986), which brought the famous sleuth into the present-day; the Indian adventure The Mysteries of the Dark Jungle (1991); the stalker thriller Shadow of Obsession (1994); the Egyptian archaeology adventure The Seventh Scroll (1999); the Christmas fantasies Santa, Jr. (2002), A Boyfriend for Christmas (2004)and Annie Claus is Coming to Town (2011); the Hallmark adaptation of Frankenstein (2004); and Chasing Leprechauns (2012).

 

Images: Marcus Brooks

SOCK IT TO ME SUNDAY! WIN A SET OF HAMMER FILM SOCKS!

Here's a bit of fun for tomorrow @ the UK Peter Cushing Appreciation Society Facebook Fan Page Hammer Socks! Now selling on ebay for silly money, you can bag a set for free! Sock It To Me Sunday! Ten sets to win. Three pairs of socks in a set depicting Christopher Lee as the creature in 'The Curse Of Frankenstein' and Count Dracula in 'Dracula' (1958) and 'Taste The Blood Of Dracula' (1970)