CHRISTMAS EVE :CHRISTOPHER LEE A GHOST STORY FOR CHRISTMAS

CHRISTMAS EVE IS HERE, at last! And maybe for some of you, the shopping, the cooking, the preparation is now over. I DO hope so! If not, put this little post in your bookmark, for later. Preferably a time, when it's quiet. Switch off the lights, settle in and prepare yourself, for that OTHER great Christmas tradition . ..  The Christmas Ghost Story. I've especially picked this one from the BBC television series, that Christopher Lee appeared in 2000. The episode I've selected is in my humble opinion, the best of the series, also forgive my indulgence, it's my favorite Ghost Story. Maybe because I first hear it, in another BBC televised drama of the story, starring ROBERT HARDY, way back in 1971, when I was but a terrified little chap, hiding behind my grandmother's sofa! Christopher Lee really does a fabulous reading, that I am sure you'll enjoy. You'll probably need to get that mulled wine on the boil, as this is a real Christmas Chiller! Merry Christmas! Enjoy!

 

REMEMBER! IF YOU LIKE what you see here at our website, you'll  love our daily themed posts at our PCAS FACEBOOK FAN PAGE.  Just click that blue LINK and click LIKE when you get there, and help us . . Keep The Memory Alive!. The Peter Cushing Appreciation Society website, facebook fan page and youtube channel are managed, edited and written by Marcus Brooks, PCAS coordinator since 1979. PCAS is based in the UK and USA

CHRISTOPHER LEE SATURDAY! MORE TEA?

WE'VE DISCUSSED Peter Cushing's love of tea, many times here. He loved a cup of Earl Grey in the morning. He took his tea with just splash of milk, and three sugars . . . but no cubes or lumps. One of the reasons why he loved the Tudor Tea Rooms in Whitstable town, was the fact they had loose sugar, in bowls on the tables. He would not dream of using sugar cubes! 

HE HATED BUTTER presented in those little plastic pods or individual little slabs wrapped in foil. But, tea he loved . . .and would drink many many cups in a day, and would quickly drain the tea pot. Talking of draining... who is that getting to the bottom of that tea cup???

 

IF LOOKING AT CUSHING, Lee and Hammer films stars drinking tea is your thing, there's WHOLE illustrated PCAS feature on that very thing, here at our PCAS website, just CLICK HERE!

JUST A REMINDER, in-case you may have missed our post yesterday. Great PRIZES and competitions on CHRISTMAS EVE and NEW YEARS EVE here and at our PCASUK FACEBOOK FAN PAGE 

ORDER TORTURE GARDEN HERE! AND ORDER HAMMER FILMS BOX SET HERE!

REMEMBER! IF YOU LIKE what you see here at our website, you'll  love our daily themed posts at our PCAS FACEBOOK FAN PAGE.  Just click that blue LINK and click LIKE when you get there, and help us . . Keep The Memory Alive!. The Peter Cushing Appreciation Society website, facebook fan page and youtube channel are managed, edited and written by Marcus Brooks, PCAS coordinator since 1979. PCAS is based in the UK and USA

CHRISTMAS COMPETITIONS AND REMEMBERING FREDDIE!

CHRISTMAS COMPETITIONS AND PRIZES TO SLEIGH YOU! Christmas Eve and New Years Eve PCASUK Competitions! Can't wait? You can ORDER your copies of these two EXCELLENT prizes HERE!  ORDER TORTURE GARDEN HERE! AND ORDER HAMMER FILMS BOX SET HERE!

TODAY ALSO we remember the wonderfully talented director and cinematographer Freddie Francis, who worked for both Hammer and Amicus, directing such films as THE EVIL OF FRANKENSTEIN and DR TERROR'S HOUSE OF HORRORS and many more …

Jack Palence with Peter Cushing in 'THE SKULL' directed

by Freddie Francis in 1965

REMEMBER! IF YOU LIKE what you see here at our website, you'll  love our daily themed posts at our PCAS FACEBOOK FAN PAGE.  Just click that blue LINK and click LIKE when you get there, and help us . . Keep The Memory Alive!. The Peter Cushing Appreciation Society website, facebook fan page and youtube channel are managed, edited and written by Marcus Brooks, PCAS coordinator since 1979. PCAS is based in the UK and USA

DIRECTOR PETER DUFFELL DIES AGED 95

VERY SAD to hear that director Peter Duffell has died. Duffell worked with Peter Cushing on amicus films, 'The House That Dripped Blood' (1971) it was a title Duffell hated, because there is no blood in the movie! 

In 2011, he published his entertaining autobiography, Playing Piano in a Brothel: Memoirs of a Film Director, in the preface of which Christopher Lee described him as “the most underrated director we have had in Britain for a very long time”.

Duffell proved that he was a dab hand at the horror genre, brilliantly using all the elements of the macabre – creepy sound, striking camera angles, a skillful buildup of tension, black humour and performances just the right side of ham by a cast that included Ingrid Pitt, Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Denholm Elliott and Jon Pertwee. Peter Duffell was born 10th December 1922, he was 95.

Director Peter Duffell and Peter Cushing on location during the shooting of 'The House That Dripped Blood' (1971)

 

MORE ON Peter Duffell and 'THE HOUSE THAT DRIPPED BLOOD' HERE!  

AND IN THIS FEATURE ABOVE : HERE! 

REMEMBER! IF YOU LIKE what you see here at our website, you'll  love our daily themed posts at our PCAS FACEBOOK FAN PAGE.  Just click that blue LINK and click LIKE when you get there, and help us . . Keep The Memory Alive!. The Peter Cushing Appreciation Society website, facebook fan page and youtube channel are managed, edited and written by Marcus Brooks, PCAS coordinator since 1979. PCAS is based in the UK and USA

AGREE WITH OUR SCORING? HORRIBLE DEATHS WEDNESDAY! GIFS!

I JUST LOVE that cutaway shot to Cushing, as poor ol stunt man Jock Easton, blindly stumbles around. ON FIRE, before he falls through the skylight window. It's almost as if Cushing's can not believe, what Hammer has managed to get this poor stunt man to do, for his couple of quid! Peter Cushing as the Baron with Christopher Lee, stunt work by Jock Easton in Hammer films, THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1957) Painful and ungraceful way of exiting. 7 out of 10.

I GUESS after CATWEAZLE, CROWMAN and maybe Herbert Lom's psychiatrist in Peter Sellers PINK PANTHER STRIKES AGAIN, the late and lovely GEOFFREY BAYLDON  will always be remembered for that incredibly frightening laugh while  bumping off ROBERT POWELL, in AMICUS films 'ASYLUM'. (1972) I often wonder while watching this scene . . .did Geoffrey, just DO the laugh, for the very first time, when they shot that scene OR had everyone on set, already heard it, before, while rehearsing...and if they didn't have any clue that Bayldon was going to do that. I would have LOVED to have seen their faces, and heard the silence AFTER Roy Ward Baker called, 'CUT'! A TRULY CREEPY 9 out of ten.

#HORRIRBLEDEATHSWEDNESDAY! Jeepers CREEPERS! Peter Cushing's Herbert Flay and friends, bring about his gruesome end in MADHOUSE (1974) When you consider the grief he put Price's PAUL TOOMBES through, it seems  only right that, Flay should deserve such a terrible fate.  There's that very  nasty bit, in the beginning of this shot, just before the dissolve, where one of the spiders, walks across Cushing's MOUTH! Anything for the good of the scene, that was Peter, I am sure. Picture it, 'Yes, Yes . . ' says Peter, 'Let the chap wander, and over my face if nesscessary.....!' Nibbled, and paralyzed by several Arachnids,  in a tank. Good show! EIGHT out of TEN.

DAVID OXLEY as the evil Sir HUGO Baskerville, getting set upon by the Hound of Hell, and there by starting the legend, of the giant canine that roamed the moors, just waiting to snag the next toff from the Baskerville clan. I love the detail, of the dripping blood running from the rock, where the slain servant lies. Yup, he was a violent piece of work, and I hate a guy, who can't handle his booze. He certainly, deserved worse. Mangled like a dog's favorite rubber chewie bone. SIX out of TEN

REMEMBER! IF YOU LIKE what you see here at our website, you'll  love our daily themed posts at our PCAS FACEBOOK FAN PAGE.  Just click that blue LINK and click LIKE when you get there, and help us . . Keep The Memory Alive!. The Peter Cushing Appreciation Society website, facebook fan page and youtube channel are managed, edited and written by Marcus Brooks, PCAS coordinator since 1979. PCAS is based in the UK and USA

REMEMBERING DIRECTOR ROY WARD BAKER

REMEMBERING TODAY.. the birthday of director Roy Ward Baker, whose work with Peter Cushing includes 'Asylum', 'And Now, The Screaming Starts!'. 'The Vampire Lovers' with Amicus films. 'The Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires for Hammer films and 'The Masks of Death' with Peter Cushing for Tyburn films. Starting as a tea boy at the Gainsborough Studios in London in 1934, raising to the role of assistant director with Alfred Hitchcock on 'The Lady Vanishes' by 1939, then onto a career as director in Hollywood, working with Marilyn Munroe...Ward Baker had a very full career that covered just about every genre! Today we remember his birthday and the contribution to not only Peter Cushing's career, but the the world of cinema...

REMEMBER! IF YOU LIKE what you see here at our website, you'll  love our daily themed posts at our PCAS FACEBOOK FAN PAGE.  Just click that blue LINK and click LIKE when you get there, and help us . . Keep The Memory Alive!. The Peter Cushing Appreciation Society website, facebook fan page and youtube channel are managed, edited and written by Marcus Brooks, PCAS coordinator since 1979. PCAS is based in the UK and USA  .

MOMENTS OF TERROR MONDAY: GUSTAV ON THE MARCH AND FACE TO FACE WITH THE COUNT : TWO CLIPS AND GIFS!

#MOMENTSOFTERRORMONDAY! After, 'You may fire, when ready!' and 'Attack the Daleks!' 'The Devil has sent me, Twins of Evil!' is probably one of the most quoted Peter Cushing lines of dialogue. And with good reason. Peter Cushing here playing the tyrannical, Gustav Weil...see what they did there?... squeezes every drop of fear out of that line. If you've seen Hammer films 'Twins of Evil' (1971) you would have witness, one of the tightest performances, after his turn as Baron Frankenstein in Hammer's 'Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed' (1969), Cushing ever committed to film.

TWINS OF EVIL was the first film that Cushing appeared in, after traumatic passing of his wife, Helen. He spent just three months away from work, the man who returned was a great deal leaner, withdrawn and now sadly broken. What we see on the screen is raw. Which makes the viewing of his playing of Weil, all the more sadder and yet, compulsive . .

SPOILER! If there was ever a on the edge of your seat moment in a Hammer film, featuring Peter Cushing, THIS would probably be it. Count Karnstein and Gustav Weil go face to face, in the final moments of Hammer films, 'Twins of Evil' (1971)

REMEMBER! IF YOU LIKE what you see here at our website, you'll  love our daily themed posts at our PCAS FACEBOOK FAN PAGE.  Just click that blue LINK and click LIKE when you get there, and help us . . Keep The Memory Alive!. The Peter Cushing Appreciation Society website, facebook fan page and youtube channel are managed, edited and written by Marcus Brooks, PCAS coordinator since 1979. PCAS is based in the UK and USA  .