PEARLS, POISON DARTS AND MURDER: PETER CUSHING AS SHERLOCK HOLMES IN 'THE SIGN OF FOUR'

A murder and stolen treasure pique the interest of Sherlock Holmes…

The Sign of Four, published in 1890, was the second of four Sherlock Holmes novels written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.  Though not quite so popular and oft referenced as, say, The Hound of the Baskervilles or even some of the short stories, it weaves a pleasingly complex, twist filled tale and has been adapted on numerous occasions.  The first known cinematic adaptation emerged in 1913, under the title Sherlock Holmes Solves The Sign of Four; it is now believed to be a lost film.  Another silent adaptation followed in 1923, as part of the Ellie Norwood series filmed in the UK.  The first sound version was released in 1932 and starred Arthur Wotner, who was arguably the preeminent interpreter of the role on screen until Basil Rathbone inherited the deerstalker in 1939.  Rathbone never had a go at The Sign of Four, and indeed it would remain untouched by producers until this 1968 adaptation for the BBC series, Sherlock Holmes. 

Later versions would hail from as far away as the-then USSR (The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson: The Treasures of Agra), and would even include an animated version (1983’s Sherlock Holmes and The Sign of Four, with Peter O’Toole voicing the great detective).  The best versions would later be done for British TV, however – first with Ian Richardson and David Healy as Holmes and Watson (1983), then with Jeremy Brett and Edward Hardwicke essaying the roles (1987).  The 1968 version falls decidedly short of the excellence of those later versions, but is still worth seeing for Peter Cushing’s customarily accomplished portrayal of Holmes.

Of the six surviving episodes of Cushing’s tenure on the program, The Sign of Four is easily the weakest.  Part of this is down to the rather stiff, uninspired direction of William Sterling.  There is also trouble in the casting, with few of the actors measuring up to the standards of Cushing’s performance.  Even Cushing, it has to be noted, seems a bit off his game in a few scenes, lending credence to his own later complaint that the shooting schedule was too rushed to allow to him to do his best work.  Even so, it’s still a joy seeing him in the role, and Nigel Stock again proves to be a solid and dependable Watson.

On the downside, the use of a middle aged actor to play Watson works against the romantic subplot which was so crucial to the story.  Watson becomes smitten with the character of Mary Morstan, and indeed – as readers of the stories will be aware – he would later marry her.  This works perfectly well in Doyle’s story, as Watson is rather younger in Doyle’s conception – but the sight of avuncular Stock lusting after pretty Ann Bell comes off as awkward at best, creepy at worst.  Bell – who also costarred with Cushing in Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors (1964) – does a competent job in the role, but she has zero chemistry with Stock, and it’s just as well that his proposal to her at the end of the story was dropped from the screenplay adaptation.  Supporting actor honors go to John Stratton, another familiar face in the Cushing universe (he would go on to play the comically blustering asylum director in Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell, 1972), who gives a good account of himself as the clueless and supercilious Inspector Jones.  Howard Goorney, a busy character actor whose credits include The Evil of Frankenstein (1964), Blood on Satan’s Claw (1970) and The Offence (1972), also shows up in a small role.

The Sign of Four is by no means an unmitigated disaster, but it definitely comes up a bit short compared to the other surviving episodes – and it looks very poor indeed compared to the earlier episodes starring Douglas Wilmer as Holmes.  It all comes off as a bit rushed and awkward, lurching in an uneven pace from one talky, prolonged set piece to one all too hurried a bit of action and intrigue.  Cushing gives a game attempt, but there are moments wherein he comes off as a little hammy and theatrical, reminding one of what a delicate balancing act it can be to play Holmes properly on screen.  It’s a difficult role, one which has defeated many fine actors, but happily this particular outing is not indicative of Cushing’s interpretation in general.  But even if he comes off a little poorly in a few scenes, Cushing’s inherent presence and charisma as an actor help to redeem this otherwise disappointing adaptation.

Images: Marcus Brooks
Review: Troy Howarth

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FIRST TIME ON BLU RAY: HAMMER FILMS 'THE EVIL OF FRANKENSTEIN' UP PRIZES UP FOR GRABS

Have You Entered Yet? We have a pair of Peter Cushing's THE EVIL OF FRANKENSTEIN Blu Rays + DVDS up for grabs, fresh from the nice guys at Final Cut Entertainment. Available for the first time on blu ray, The Evil of Frankenstein goes on sale Monday 26th August. 

To be in with a chance of winning your very own copy, all you have to do is correctly answer the question below.

COMPETITION QUESTION:
When The Evil of Frankenstein was sold to NBC television in the USA, for screening in a prime time slot, new footage had to be shot to pad out the length of the film from 84 mins to two hours. Who was the director who filmed these extra scenes? Choose from the options below:

a) Ernest G. Moore
b) Irving J. Moore
c) Irwin J. Morgan
d) Edward G. Maughan

Send your answer in an email to our email address: theblackboxlub@gmail.com

The competition closes SUNDAY 25th August, 2013 at 12 MID DAY GMT. Winner names will be drawn and announced two hours later at 2PM GMT at the UK Peter Cushing Appreciation Society Facebook Fan Page and here at this website.

GOOD LUCK! 

OCTOBER RELEASE FOR HAMMER FILMS 'MONSTER FROM HELL' BLU RAY

Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell AND Captain Kronos, Vampire Hunter make their first Blu-ray appearance this October with an initial release in Australia. A UK/US release will follow shortly. More details to follow soon!

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.