HAZEL COURT ON PETER CUSHING: 'AURA OF MYSTERY'

THE COLLINSON TWINS PUT THE BITE INTO HAMMER FILMS 'TWINS OF EVIL' REVIEW AND GALLERY

Twin sisters Maria and Frieda (Mary and Madeleine Collinson) are sent to live with their stern Uncle Gustav (Peter Cushing), who also happens to be the head of a strict religious sect which is devoted to persecuting witches and other minions of the devil.  When Frieda becomes infatuated with the debauched Count Karnstein (Damien Thomas), she incurs her uncle’s wrath… but there are worse horrors still in store…

Carmilla, written by the Irish author Sheridan LeFanu, was first published in serial form from 1871 to 1872.  It told the story of a beautiful young girl who turns out to be a vampire; she is eventually dispatched, but not before she claims several victims.  The story contained undercurrents of lesbianism, and indeed its subtle reference to this has caused some readers to miss this aspect of Carmilla’s character altogether.  The story was first brought to the screen, albeit obliquely, in Carl Theodor Dreyer’s dreamlike “art” horror film, Vampyr (1930).  With its deliberately off kilter imagery and sparse use of dialogue and sound effects, Dreyer’s film failed to find much of an audience, but has since become embraced as one of the few truly successful attempts at rendering a dream state on screen.  In 1960, French director Roger Vadim brought the story to the screen again, with his French-Italian production Blood and Roses.  The film sought to explore the lesbian subtext of LeFanu’s novella, but its delicate approach and slow pacing made it something of a disappointment for many horror fans of the period.

In Italy, director Camillo Mastrocinque and screenwriter Ernesto Gastaldi collaborated on another version, Crypt of the Vampire (1964), which cast Christopher Lee in the sympathetic role of Count Ludwig Karnstein.  This version also contained hints of lesbianism, but it failed to capture the lyricism and intensity of the best Italian horror films of the period. In Britain, the series Mystery and Imagination added LeFanu’s story to their roster of chillers in 1966, with an adaptation starring Jane Merrow in the title role.  Sadly, this is one of the early episodes of the series which has failed to survive into the new millennium, leaving one to speculate how Merrow (who would go on to play a plum supporting role in Terence Fisher’s Night of the Big Heat, 1967, starring Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing) fared in the role.

Hammer Films inevitably caught up with the story, putting The Vampire Lovers (co-produced with their American “rival,” AIP) into production in 1969.  Hammer and AIP sought to capitalize on the loosening censorship standards of the period by introducing a great deal of graphic sex and nudity, though director Roy Ward Baker (who always insisted that LeFanu’s story contained nary a whiff of lesbianism) sought to down peddle this.  The final result was uneasily couched between Gothic drawing room melodrama and brassiere ripping exploitation, but it was a financial success, prompting Hammer to further explore the potential of LeFanu’s characters.  The ill-fated Lust for a Vampire followed in 1970, while Twins of Evil would emerge in 1971 (or 1972, if you lived in the US).

Twins of Evil is almost certainly the best of the so-called Karnstein trilogy.  Much of this can be attributed to director John Hough, making his first of several noteworthy horror and fantasy pictures.  Hough was only 30 years old, a very youthful age for a Hammer director, and he brought a renewed sense of vigor and experimentation to the proceedings.  Unlike Baker and most of Hammer’s other directors, he also had genuine enthusiasm for the genre and was determined to make the best picture possible.  Despite a few clumsy moments here and there (think no further than the guffaw-inducing scene wherein the Count’s mute lackey basically plays charades to convey that his master is in imminent danger), Hough delivered a sure footed film with rich gothic flavor.  He also proved to be no prude when it came to the erotic component, resulting in some of the more overtly blatant moments of sexuality in Hammer’s oeuvre.

The film is also well served by a fine cast.  Hammer was well known for employing stunt casting to help promote their pictures, and Twins was certainly no exception – the titular characters were played by Playboy’s first-ever twin centerfolds, the Maltese-born Collinson twins.  While the young women had very little experience in the thesping department, they certainly looked right – and the use of post synching helped to cover up their presumably hard to decipher accents and any difficulties they may have had with the dialogue.  Neither actress is really required to do a lot beyond look ravishing, so their contribution can be written up as successful where it counts.  To help compensate for this potential void at the center of the picture, Hough enlisted some top notch actors to help keep things credible.  Peter Cushing, of course, was almost a staple in the trilogy – “almost” only because he was forced to bow out of Lust for a Vampire when his wife became ill (his replacement, Ralph Bates, looks suitably ill at ease in a role intended for a much older man).  Indeed, Twins would mark Cushing’s return to the screen following his beloved Helen’s death in early 1971.  The change in the man is noticeable right away.  While Cushing had always been a thin man, here he appears positively gaunt – and he looks a good deal older, grayer and more severe, to boot.  Gustav Weil provides the actor with one of his least sympathetic characterizations.  He is a sadist and a hypocrite, hiding behind the word of God as a means of enacting his own special brand of “justice” on the young women who have offended him.

Cushing tries to bring a bit of pathos to the character late in the day (“I have tried… always… to be a good man.”) but it doesn’t ring entirely true – it could be that this was the actor’s attempt to convey some sense of decency in a character that was written to be totally, well, vile – but it’s a touch that does little to dispel memories of the cruelty he has engaged in through much of the picture.  Former matinee idol Dennis Price (Kind Hearts and Coronets, 1949) is on hand to play the Count’s slimy retainer, Dietrich, but he doesn’t have much in the way of screen time.  Price was a brilliant actor whose career was self-sabotaged due to alcoholism and an inability to come to grips with his own sexuality, but even at this stage of the game, doing quickie cameos in low budget horror and exploitation items for a paycheck, he brought a sense of droll humor to many of his characterizations.  Dietrich doesn’t provide him with any of the memorable bits of business which he was able to bring to his chatty grave robber in Jimmy Sangster’s Horror of Frankenstein (1970), but it’s still nice to have him on board.  Damien Thomas is terrific as the jaded Count Karnstein, who gives his soul to the devil and becomes a vampire in his pursuit of the ultimate thrill.  Some have carped that he is cowardly where he should be imposing, but this is precisely the point – even as a vampire, he’s very much the spineless sociopath, always looking for a new high but not willing to put his life on the line in the process.  Kathleen Byron, previously so memorable as the deranged Sister Ruth in Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s masterpiece Black Narcissus (1947), fares much the same as Price – an actor stuck in a role well beneath their talents, but still adding color and class to the proceedings.

Future Italian horror stalwart David Warbeck (Lucio Fulci’s The Beyond, 1981) gives a good account of himself as the usual colorless heroic figure, while Harvey Hall (the only actor who DID appear in all three of these Karnstein films), Alex Scott and Isobel Black all add to the air of cozy familiarity.

 

Unlike Lust for a Vampire, which had the misfortune of being part of a slate of lower-budgeted-than-usual Hammer titles filmed at Associated British Studios, Twins of Evil benefits from the larger resources available at Pinewood.  The sets are impressive, and cinematographer Dick Bush (who would go on to film Dracula AD 1972, before becoming Ken Russell’s DP of choice for a period of time) provides some striking images.  Composer Harry Robinson was also able to indulge his wish to score a western by providing a soundtrack which sometimes evokes the work of the great Ennio Morricone.  The combination of these inspired contributions help to make Twins of Evil a highlight in the later period of Hammer horror – and indeed, it is one of the ones which best evokes the style and flair of their classic period.

FREDDIE FRANCIS ON PETER CUSHING: THE EVIL OF FRANKENSTEIN PHOTOGRAPH.

COMING UP TODAY: TROY HOWARTH REVIEWS HAMMER FILMS 'TWINS OF EVIL'

URSULA ANDRESS: TROY HOWARTH REVIEWS HAMMER FILMS 'SHE' WITH COLOUR TRANSPARENCY GALLERY

Intrepid adventurers Major Holly (Peter Cushing), Leo (John Richardson) and Job (Bernard Cribbins) are lead to the forbidden city, while is ruled over by the beautiful and eternal Ayesha (Ursula Andress)....

She: A History of Adventure was published in serial form between late 1886 and early 1887.  It was written by the prolific fantasy and adventure novelist H. Rider Haggard and, along with his Alan Quartermain adventures, it remains his most popular and oft-adapted book.  It has the distinction of influencing one of the earliest motion pictures, Georges Melies' La Colonne de feu (The Pillar of Fire), which was made in 1899.  Subsequent adaptations cropped up in 1911, 1916, and 1917 - and in 1925, Haggard himself worked on an adaptation which starred silent film star Betty Blythe in the title role.  The most lavish version emerged in 1935, courtesy of producer Merian C. Cooper.

Cooper had already unleashed King Kong (1933) on a thrill-hungry depression-era audience, and he spared no expense in mounting this particular adaptation.  Helen Gahagan made for an appropriately glamorous Ayesha, with stolid Randolph Scott providing beefcake as Leo.  Future big screen Dr. Watson Nigel Bruce was cast as Major Holly in this version, which was co-directed by sometimes-character-actor Irving Pichel, whom horror buffs will remember as the creepy Sandor in Universal's Dracula's Daughter (1936).  The story would then go on something of a moratorium for a period of time, until Hammer Films unleashed their own version in 1964.  After that, the story would be overhauled as a trashy, post apocalyptic piece starring Sandhal Bergman in 1982.  The most recent film version came in 2001, as a direct to video release.

Inevitably, it is the Hammer version with which we concern ourselves here.  She was one of producer Michael Carreras' pet projects and offered a fine example of his vision for the company.  Carreras was never overly enamored of the gothic horror genre, and it was he who tried to push Hammer towards making David Lean-style spectaculars.  The problem was, Hammer simply didn't have access to Lean's resources.  As such, his attempts at making bigger, more ambitious films tended to result in pictures which, paradoxically, looked a bit cheaper than the smaller scale gothic fare for which the studio was best known.  In short, a story such a She, with its widescreen vistas and elaborate settings, represented a case of Hammer's reach exceeding its grasp.

The film is problematic on many levels.  First off, Robert Day was perhaps not the ideal director for such a project.  Day had directed Boris Karloff's two best 1950s vehicles - The Haunted Strangler (1957) and Corridors of Blood (1958) - and he also had ample experience directing for the small screen.  She was probably the biggest project of his career, and while he did the best job he could under the circumstances, he fails to capture the story's magic and sense of exotica.  Hammer's ace production designer, Bernard Robinson, was allowed to sit this one out for some reason - and in his place, the capable Robert Jones (who also worked as art director on Roger Corman's masterpiece Masque of the Red Death, 1964, before going on to design Hammer's Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde, 1971) does a professional if uninspired job.  The sets look solid enough, but they lack size and dimension.  For this reason, the production had to rely on a lot of matte work by the great Les Bowie - and while Bowie could sometimes create minor miracles, his matte work here is ill served by the film - it looks exactly like what it is: paintings.

There's also the casting to consider.  Ursula Andress was a hot ticket commodity based on her iconic appearance in the first of EON's James Bond adventures, Dr. No (1962), but the Swedish-born actress was still not comfortable in English and needed to be dubbed.  She was also, quite simply, not the most expressive of actresses.  She looks absolutely ravishing and fulfills the character's irresistible physical presence well enough, but she is unable to tap into the character's deeper nuances, resulting in a performance that is pure surface gloss.  John Richardson (Mario Bava's Black Sunday, 1960) was similarly wooden and superficial - his good looks ensured him a number of acting gigs (and rumor has it that he was at one point considered to play James Bond), but his performances were always flat and uninvolving - and despite being a native English speaker, he was regularly dubbed in his film roles, including this one.
 

 

The fact that these two pretty but vapid performers inhabit the center of what is supposed to be a passionate love story creates a vacuum from which the film simply cannot recover.  On the plus side, Hammer saw fit to enlist their top stars, Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, to play juicy supporting roles. 

Cushing is a joy as the adventure-hungry Major Holly, and the scene wherein he explains the complex emotions inherent in love has a heartbreaking ring of truth to it - it was reportedly a speech the actor wrote himself, and given how truthful it is in a script which is otherwise efficient at best, one may well believe it.  Lee is required to wear a succession of garish and silly looking head gear as the stoic Billali, who helps to protect Ayesha while secretly plotting against her, but he gives a strong performance.  There's a marvelous scene between him and Cushing wherein Lee quietly but powerfully asserts himself that makes a viewing of this film almost mandatory for fans of these two marvelous actors.  Bernard Cribbins (Hitchcock's Frenzy, 1972) is effective as Cushing's comic sidekick/servant, while the wonderful Andre Morell (Hammer's Plague of the Zombies, 1966) is wasted in a nothing role - and to add insult to injury, the powers that be at Hammer clearly decided that his cultured voice wasn't exotic enough for the character he plays, so he was ultimately dubbed by another familiar Hammer veteran, George Pastell.  One wonders why they didn't simply cast Pastell in the first place.

The film also benefits from an achingly beautiful score by James Bernard.  Bernard loved scoring Hammer's blood and thunder horrors, but this gentle natured composer always had a yen to score a great love story - and She, for all its shortcomings, finally gave him that chance.  His central theme is one of the most beautiful and melodic of his career, while the various adventure and action oriented pieces are appropriately rousing.  Cinematographer Harry Waxman (The Wicker Man, 1973) provides some slick cinematography which helps to compensate for some of the film's less impressive production attributes.

Ultimately, one doesn't wish to be too hard on She.  It's not a bad film, and it certainly looks very fine when compared to Hammer's pointless (and quite inept) sequel The Vengeance of She (1967 - with Richardson and Morell being the only cast members to return; Morell got to keep his voice in that one, at least), but it doesn't quite capture the flavor and mystique of its titular character.

Images: Marcus Brooks.

 

ICON / HAMMER PRESS RELEASE 'THE MUMMY' BLU RAY SCREEN CAPS

On 14^th October Hammer’s classic film THE MUMMY will be released for the first time ever in HD on Blu-ray and on DVD double play and presented in its original UK theatrical aspect ratio of 1.66:1. Fans will also be treated to a host of brand new extras never seen before. Starring Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee in their iconic roles in this the 3^rd of Hammer’s original Gothic classics, THE MUMMY (1959) was directed by the legendary Terence Fisher who previously helmed DRACULA and THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN.

 

Release date: Monday, October 14, 2013 Certificate: 12 Running time: 84 minutes Director: Terence Fisher Cast: Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Yvonne Furneaux