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Monday, 17 July 2017

THE AMICUS VAULT OF HORRORS DOCUMENTARY: PART ONE

#GETTHECUSHIONSUNDAY! IT'S HERE! EXCLUSIVE! 'The Amicus Vault of Horrors Part One'. Donald Fearney is a producer director based in the UK, who over the past twenty five years he has done much to keep the memory of Hammer films alive . He says he is just a fan, but no other fan has managed to co-ordinate and launch not one but three celebratory events at the legendary home of Hammer films Bray Studios, which were attended by over 70 special guest actors, directors and technicians from the studios hey days. Fearney also has produced lavishly illustrated exclusive books on the works of Peter Cushing and Amicus films. His earlier documentary The Legend of Hammer Vampires, produced in 2006 detailed the history of the studio and their link with Warner, Rank and Columbia, long before anyone else thought of the concept.

HOT TICKET! One of the much sort after tickets for the first of many Fearney events held at BRAY STUDIOS home of Hammer films in the 1960's

THE LEGEND OF HAMMER VAMPIRES: DONALD FERANEY'S FIRST DOCUMENTARY : AVAILABLE TO WATCH AT THE PCAS YOUTUBE CHANNEL HERE : HERE!

ANOTHER HAMMER FILM SERIES IS GIVEN THE DOCUMENTARY TREATMENT:

YOU CAN WATCH IT NOW AT OUR PCAS YOUTUBE CHANNEL : HERE!

ANOTHER FEARNEY EVENT: THIS TIME REUNITING THE

'FRANKENSTEIN AND THE MONSTER FROM HELL' CAST

FEARNEY'S DOCUMENTARIES HAVE helped to raise the bar and set the standard of excellence in how extras on Hammer / Amicus dvd's and blu rays should be produced! No skimping on materials and rare images from a Fearney documentary! This standard has prompted several distribution company to approach only him when planning a extras-documentary on a Hammer / Amicus release. In the last few years, he has added much extra production value to the releases of The Brides of Dracula, Captain Clegg, Phantom of the Opera and The Evil of Frankenstein, Final Cut blu ray releases.

'THE AMICUS VAULT OF HORRORS' documentary took three years to produce, much of the time collecting rare photographic and archival materials. Along with editor Jim Groom, Donald Fearney has produced the definitive history of Amicus Films. The Amicus Vault of Horrors documentary covers ALL of the Amicus output, in this 2 hour 30 minute documentary. It will be uploaded here at PCAS in 4 weekly parts. I think you'll enjoy it and I would love to read any thoughts and comments you may have on this, part one! ENJOY 🙂 - Marcus

DONALD FEARNEY IS CURRENTLY WORKING ON THE ABOVE DOCUMENTARY: PETER CUSHING : THE MAN WHO CREATED FRANKENSTEIN. WATCH THIS SPACE!

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

Sunday, 16 July 2017

#GETHECUSHIONSUNDAY! WHO IS THAT?????

#GETHECUSHIONSUNDAY! WELL...there's a shocker! Actress Jodie Whittaker has been named as the latest regeneration of DOCTOR WHO! Ok.... What do you think????

MY TWO-PENCE WORTH: ...for what it is worth.....THE WONDER FACTOR: The 'Wonder Woman' movie this year made a lot of the studios sit up and think, it was a big surprise that it was so popular and made so much at the box office. Doctor Who is no longer a nice little tv show made in the UK for just 'the fans'...it's a show with an international audience, that sells overseas. The BBC and their programmes even though financed by the license fee, MUST make a profit, and move the tastes and predicted and unpredictable favor of the viewing public, both in UK, Europe and further afield. This casting is in line, with all of those things, despite what fans, supporters, long time viewers may think, it's a business... - Marcus

#GETTTHECUSHIONSUNDAY! THE 1999 RELEASE OF A CAMP CLASSIC! REALLY?

#GETTHECUSHIONSUNDAY! THE BOX SAYS... 'Recently discovered CAMP CLASSIC! UNRELEASED for 25 YEARS!' ..Yeah, there was a reason for that delay 🙂 I wonder how much those critics were paid, or how much they drank before the screening??? ..It's a classic alright 😉 Anyone else have this release? This is one of those rare times where the box and packaging is more exciting and impressive that the contents!

HOW CAN A FILM, that gives us great images like the one above, get it so wrong??? I have said here many times, it almost seems that the budget and imagination needed for the creation of the film, was diverted into the publicity. The press and lobby photographs, were printed on hi quality colour paper, the photographer who took them, knew what he was doing.

THERE ARE SOME EXCELLENT photographs, the press kit was pretty lush-deluxe too! In 1976, I was at a meeting where a short promo reel was screened... it was made up entirely of the 'My grand father was a grave digger' scene. Cushing (MacGregor) was playing his character's grandfather, a young boy, actor Robert Edwards, played Cushing in a wonderfully atmospheric scene. Horse drawn hearse, the black feather plumes, wind howling... 'It took 40 years to bury my grandfather! For a grave digger that is tragic!....' The tragedy is the premise of Cushing playing a retired Horror film actor, holed up in a creepy castle, playing the 'I could really be a vampire' card, was a good idea. The props department even used actual press photographs of Peter from his own films, to add back story evidence of MacGregor's career on the screen.

THIS FILM PROBABLY gets more interest here at PCAS than it rightly deserves, and that is probably because, we don't know WHY Cushing signed on the line. There have been well documented instances in the past, where Cushing, questioned details in script, The Brides of Dracula and The Mummy for example, I would think he would have almost certainly declined to be involved with a film like this in his earlier years. And, I don't think we can lay the blame at the director shooting extra scenes in PC's absence or an editor putting a spin on the footage. I have never seen a full shooting script for Tender / Tendre Dracula.. but I am pretty sure the scene of PC's dashing out some buttock slapping (!!) to cast member Miou -Miou, was down in black and white, even if it was on a yellow or pink rewrite page !

WE ASKED YOU AT OUR FACEBOOK FAN PAGE what YOUR opinion and thoughts on the film were. Here are some of your comments from the post at the page:

S. ALEXANDER: 'A venture that Peter would have declined to be involved with in his earlier years. Remember his initial objections and reluctance over 'The Brides of Dracula'? Obvioulsly the finished cut differed from the scripted scenes too.'

R.JOYCE: 'I to have confess...it's the only Cushing movie I can't sit through. Beautiful box art. But it's a disjointed, pseudo erotic flick. Er, not even that erotic, actually'.

J.PLAYER: 'I watched it there last year...everytime I thought that I couldn't believe I was watching that crap and was ready tonight it down, something would happen that made me want to keep going to see how it would end up!'

R.SMITH: I have a fondness for films like this that are so bad they're not even funny, just jaw dropping exercises in disbelief! Similar to the Bond knock-offs of Lindsay Shonteff (you have to see these to believe their creative ineptitude) I do feel there's a real need to see TENDER DRACULA on Blu-ray someday. The version I have on VHS is pretty shabby.

G.GRANT: I watched this on YouTube a few years ago😱It was really bad. I mean it had novelty value, because Mr Cushing was in it. But just awful

T.TUTTLE: I got 20 minutes into it and had to stop! My pain threshold wasn't high enough to make it!

OUR FULL FEATURE AND GALLERY ON TENDRE DRACULA

CAN BE FOUND BY CLICKING : HERE

Saturday, 15 July 2017

#CHRISTOPHERLEESATURDAY!: THE AMICUS VAULT OF HORRORS!

#CHRISTOPHERLEESATURDAY! EXCLUSIVE! Starting TOMORROW Donald Fearney's definitive documentary 'THE AMICUS VAULT OF HORRORS' HERE!. From the early beginnings, City of the Dead, through all the classic portmanteau Amicus Horrors, Dr Terror's House of Horrors, Tales From the Crypt, Asylum, From Beyond the Grave, The Skull and Many Many more... Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Vincent Price Donald Pleasence, Ingrid Pitt...Interviews, on set behind the scenes, rare images... and it ALL STARTS HERE TOMORROW! Exclusive to PCAS. Please JOIN US!

NEWS: THE HAMMER HOUSE OF HORROR IMMERSIVE AND FRIGHTENINGLY LIVE:

NEWS: THE COMPANY BEHIND so many of Peter Cushing's and Christopher Lee GREATEST SCARES is about to embark on a IMMERSIVE THEATRICAL EXPERIENCE to CHILL YOU to your HALLOWEEN BONES! Something 'ANCIENT and EVIL' is coming to HOXTON HALL, set in deepest JACK THE RIPPER country, the EAST END of LONDON! HOXTON HALL is an ATMOSPHERIC listed VICTORIAN music hall theatre and will be the setting of a HALLOWEEN HAPPENING, Hammer says, 'You'll NEVER forget!'

THE HOUSE OF HAMMER HORROR SHOW LIVE is due to run through out OCTOBER 2017, ending it's run with a SPECIAL EXTRA LATE show on Halloween. Hammer Films CEO SIMON OAKES is promising 'A TENSE and INTIMATE ENCOUNTER' adding 'NO TWO PERFORMANCES WILL BE THE SAME! Anything else, he's keeping nailed down as tight as coffin lid!

IT SOUNDS PROMISING! The HAMMER HOUSE OF HORROR LIVE runs from OCTOBER 3rd 2017 until HALLOWEEN October 31st 2017 . .. . We can't wait!

Friday, 14 July 2017

#FRANKENSTEINFRIDAY: THE MAN WHO WOULD BE FRANKENSTEIN

#FRANKENSTEINFRIDAY: NEXT WEEK, a NEW feature! If you love Cushing's Hammer film Frankenstein series.. you will love this 🙂 After SIX adventures from Cushing's Baron...and a open end to the last film, Frankenstein and the Monster From Hell... how do you think Cushing's Baron would have ended his days???? I'd like your opinion for the feature next week? 😉 BTW...we are hitting the weekend, and it's the return of the PCAS COMPETITIONS. Just wait and see what I have for YOU 😉 Have fun today! - Marcus-pcas

Thursday, 13 July 2017

#THROWBACKTHURSDAY! IT HELPS TO BE MAD!

#THROWBACKTHURSDAY! THREE GIFTED gentlemen who knew the secret! Christopher Lee, Vincent Price and Peter Cushing . . .

INVALID CAST : VINTAGE CORRESPONDENCE: KEEN GUSTAV AND DUBIOUS PRACTICES

#THROWBACKTHURSDAY: 'There is more evil around us here than I have ever encountered before. . ' Certainly a line of dialogue to get the pulse racing. This image is taken from the BBC television series 'Sherlock Holmes' which starred Peter Cushing as Sherlock, the episode is 'The Hound of the Baskervilles' which was broadcast in two parts . . Gary Raymond picture here, stars as Sir Henry Baskerville.

#THROWBACKTHURSDAY! THE WONDERFUL thing about researching and documenting Peter's life and work is, being such a prolific letter writer and note maker, he has left a paper trail, and every now and then, something interesting bobs to the surface!. Here are two good examples. These are genuine letters of correspondence between members of the public who have written to Peter, wishing him well and requesting an autograph or photo. Cushing was very good at sending replies, and 9 out of ten times, also including an autograph on a photograph, even if it wasn't requested.

#THROWBACKTHURSDAY: I THINK if Gustav Weil from Hammer films 'Twins of Evil' was around today, he would certainly be a regular monthly winner of the 'EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH'. He certainly stuck to his job description, and wasn't happy until he and his band of the 'brotherhood' met their monthly quarter!

#THROWBACKTHURSDAY: THE PROGRAMME cast page from the 1951 production of THE GAY INVALID, lots of names that were soon to be house-hold names in the UK, along with Peter Cushing... there are also other performers names who have 'fantasy genre' connections on the big screen too. Can you spot them??

HOUSEKEEPING: If you are wondering were our Competitions have gone...worry not! I have an excellent COMPETITION for you THIS WEEKEND ! Also, for those of you who have spotted a fair ol scattering or typos, errors and mistakes in my jottings over the past three months, my apologies. I haven't lost my marbles, I am taking some elephant strength painkillers, following a wobble in health last year. I do try and check everything I write, but often it's difficult when the words and page are doing a tango and double vision at times, makes it a tricky exercise. I am ok, but please bare with me, normal service will continue very soon!