HAPPY BIRTHDAY MICHAEL GOUGH

The 1958 Hammer films, Dracula , Phantom of the Opera, Dr Terrors House of Horrors and..KONGA! Today marks the birthday of Michael Gough! Gough had quite an interesting film career, some hits and some misses, but all entertaining. Two films which starred Peter Cushing and packed career on stage and screen. Do YOU have a favourite Michael Gough film? Happy Birthday Michael Gough, you are remembered!

#TOOCOOLTUESDAY: PICTUREGOER GARDENING AND HOUDINI!

#TOOCOOLTUESDAY: Peter and Helen Cushing's Garden at Seaway Cottage Whitstable. This walled garden was situated behind Peter and Helen's cottage. It was built on a piece of waste ground that was owned by PC's neighbour. The Cushing's purchased it and transformed it into a beautiful English garden. All stone work, including the wall was built using Kentish Rag stone. The garden, it's layout planned by Helen included, tress, a waterfall, a garage with a thatched roof, roses, shrubs and plants... Pictured here: Helen and Peter Cushing doing a spot of pruning! and Peter with his gardener, Fred Searle.

#TOOCOOLTUESDAY: A lovely wink to the fact that Peter Cushing wore carpet slippers during the shooting of his role as Tarkn in Star Wars in 1977 and a very cool portrait of Peter Cushing from artist Tom Hayburn

#TOOCOOLTUESDAY: SUCH A TERRIBLE SHAME... Judi Moyens just got that ONE chance to shine. Being chased off onto the moors, the mud  . . . and then being murdered by the evil Sir Hugo Baskerville, she probably thought wasn't her finest moment, but I disagree... Judi's performance kicked off one the most popular cinema adaptions of the Sherlock Holmes stories, and she also made it to the much coveted front cover of what was then, the UK's most popular cinema magazine, Picturegoer!

#TOOCOOLTUESDAY: A PAGE from Peter Cushing's contract from the 1976 film, THE GREAT HOUDINI, where Cushing played a guest star role as, ironically Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Of course, Cushing bore no resemblance to Doyle at all, but I can see what they were thinking . . .  

#TOOCOOLTUESDAY: A great tie in to yesterday's #MONSTERMONDAY post, from 'Fear In The Night'  . . .  Here is a pretty cool publicity shot from that film, featuring Peter dinning in the 'school canteen'  . . . with a beautiful painting of Michael Carmichael looking over him. It's a very fine portrate, I often wonder what actually happened to it after the production wrapped?

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#MONSTERMONDAY: A KNOTTY PROBLEM!

#MONSTERMONDAY: 'I have always taken a special interest in knots, i find them not only excellent therapy but most rewarding in the study of character formation" . . . As a conversation opener, it takes some beating!! Peter Cushing's Michael Carmichael, is a strange one... and he keeps us, and Judy Geeson's character in Fear In The Night, on edge... he's one of my favourite Cushing roles. Again, Cushing does so much with just a few lines... BUT Carmichael...Victim or Monster? What do YOU think?

 FULL REVIEW AND PICS AT OUR FEATURE : HERE

TOMORROW JOIN US FOR #TOOCOOLTUESDAY 

PETER CUSHING APPRECIATION SOCIETY ON FACEBOOK HERE 

#HAMMERSATURDAY : BEACHAM'S BOULDERS AND HAYDEN'S SPADE

#HAMMERFILMSATURDAY: Despite having looked at, edited, posted and actually cleaned this rare transparency from behind the scenes on #DRACULA AD 1972. It has that typical workman like attitude, that many associate with plumbers, bricklayers and carpenters in the UK, a little 'heavy handed'. How-else can you justify the dropping of two great dirty rocks onto a silk design dress, to make it stay in place for a photograph??

#HAMMERFILMSSATURDAY:  Linda Hayden really puts her all, into this rare contact sheet shot from 'Taste the Blood of Dracula' with Geoffrey Keen . . . I really do hope that WAS a rubber spade!

#FRANKENSTEINFRIDAY: CONCEPT ART MONSTER FROM HELL AND GOLDEN VAMPIRES

#FRANKENSTEINFRIDAY : An unused rough (sketch) for Hammer films’ Frankenstein and the Monster From Hell' cinema poster by Vic Fair, 1973. The final British poster cinema poster was painted and designed artist by Bill Wiggins (below).

HERE ARE A FEW WORDS from VIC FAIR himself, about his time working for Hammer films.  Fair designed two iconic cinema posters for the company, Vampire Circus and  Countess Dracula.

Did you enjoy working on posters for Hammer?
'Yeah, I really did.  Other artists and designers often frowned upon horror poster work but I really enjoyed it, especially since I was almost always given complete freedom to come up with my own ideas. Hammer were good at giving us the initial brief and then trusting us to come up with our own take on it. I remember I actually went too far with a few of the concepts and the studio would often request for them to be toned down quite a bit so they’d get past the Advertising Standards Committee'.

Can you recall working on the quad for Countess Dracula?
'Yes, I might have got a bit carried away with the two-faced thing but I think it worked quite well overall. I was lucky with that one in a way as it was one of the others where they just printed my first rough. I guess they must have liked the style of my sketch'.

ABOVE: The original concept rough (sketch) for Hammer films’ Vampire Circus by Vic Fair, 1972. You’ll notice that the rough is surrounded by pencil annotations and one to the bottom left simply reads ‘More tit’, indicating that the client, or someone in the agency, suggested they could get away with showing more of the lady on the bottom left.

 

'I enjoyed working on the quad I designed for Vampire Circus. I’d wanted to design something that might have been used to advertise an actual circus. The animals on there were pretty much copied directly from a children’s book, as I really didn’t have that much time to work on it. I thought they looked quite amusing, since they’re not exactly anatomically correct portraits of tigers and lions! I also had fun sneaking in the hidden male members, which was really just meant as a bit of a tease towards certain people behind the scenes. I can’t believe I got away with it really.'

 

ABOVE: A concept rough (sketch) for the British poster for Hammer’s The Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires by Vic Fair, 1974. The final quad was illustrated by the Italian artist Arnaldo Putzu. This rough has yellowed with age somewhat but the concept is very clear.

 

#FRANKENSTEINFRIDAY: A FISTFUL OF GIFS!

A FABULOUS SELECTION OF #FRANKENSTEINFRIDAY GIFS from Peter Cushing SECOND #FRANKENSTEIN film for #Hammerfilms, 'THE REVENGE OF FRANKENSTEIN'. For me personally, this is the one Hammer/Frankenstein that looks so handsome. Set design and art direction is once again is taken care of by Bernard Robinson, the man who along with Scott MacGregor, made that 'Hammer Look'. Most of the interiors seen in 'Revenge' are recycled props and sets used in Hammer's 1958 'Dracula' / 'Horror of Dracula'. It all has that stamp of quality, and Jack Asher's cinematography frames it all so well. Hammer had a crew of craftsmen, many of whom were never credited, or even graced that credit role during the films closing titles...SO with an eye to just some of the people, who were responsible for that special Hammer style in 'Revenge', that we now enjoy in these GIFS, here are those UNCREDITED technicians :  ART DEPARTMENT: Arthur Banks : Master Plasterer. Charles Davis : Master Carpenter. Eric Hillier : Props Buyer. Mick Lyons : Construction Manager. Don Mingaye : Assistant Art Direction. Tom Money : Property Master. Lawrence Wren : Master Painter. SOUND DEPARTMENT: Alex Carver-Hill: Assistant Boom Operator. Alfred Cox : Sound Editor. Jim Perry : Boom Operator. CAMERA and ELECTRICAL DEPARTMENT: Albert Cowlar : Camera Grip. Jack Curtis : Chief Electrician. Tom Edwards : Still Photographer. Harry Oakes : Focus Puller. Anthony Powell : Clapper Loader.

Thank YOU!

"Come unto Me and rest; Lay down, thou weary one, lay down, Thy head upon My breast."! Here's one of the good doctor's more needy clients, who manages to get his attention with a false 'pitter-patter' of her 'be still my beating heart'! ..is that enough quotes for ya?? Peter Cushing and actress Anna Walmsley as Vera Barscynska in a gif requested by Moonloo (??) from 'The Revenge of Frankenstein' a classic from Hammer films...

 FULL FEATURE WITH VINTAGE PHOTOGRAPHS FOLLOW THIS HERE

 

 

 

 

#TBT: HELEN AND PETER CUSHING STUDY THE DEADLINES!

#THROWBACKTHURSDAY: It seems these days, almost every other day, television announces some kind of 'event' . . the trailer voice-overs tells us so! Back in 1954, the BBC's live broadcast of Orwell's '1984' certainly rattled the viewing public, forbidden love, Big Brother, rats and Cushing's Winston Smith's melt-down . . neither British television or Peter Cushing would ever be the same again . . .

 

JOIN US TOMORROW : #FRANKENSTEINFRIDAY : EVERY FRIDAY

#THROWBACKTHURSDAY: LEGEND OF HAMMER DOCUMENTARY

#THROWBACKTHURSDAY: HERE'S A #TBT TREAT! A REPOST of one of the great documentaries on #HAMMERFILMS, Donald Fearney's 'LEGEND OF HAMMER', this was his first in the series, and deals with Hammer's #VAMPIRE classics! Here is whole documentary in THREE parts, which has also been uploaded at our PCASUK YOUTUBE CHANNEL where you'll find a whole archive of rare and vintage material!