#FEMMEFATALE! YVONNE MONLAUR REMEMBERED : A HAPPY BIRTHDAY WITH LOVE!

#CUSHINGSFEMMEFATALESFRIDAY! It's been my personal opinion, for as long as I can remember, but I consider this young lady, to have been THE most beautiful and talented of all the actresses that Peter Cushing worked with.... Earlier today we asked our friends at the PCASUK FACEBOOK FAN PAGE if they could name her. name her? It wasn't too difficult, because even at this young age, she was already displaying that, radiance that lit up the big screen, when ever she appeared on it. Yvonne Monlaur would have been celebrating her 78th birthday today. How I wish she was here to do that.  As it's #FEMMEFATALEFRIDAY today, I thought, it was an opportunity too good too miss, that we should celebrate her birthday, but also mark it with a feature here at the website. So, later today we'll  be publishing a whole FEMMEFATLE feature on Yvonne, lots of rare stills, gifs and much more, not only as a tribute but also a thank you to one very unique actress and beautiful lady . . . .Ahhh, 'be still my beating heart' . .sigh . . .

Yvonne Monlaur starred in the 1958 Italian film Three Strangers in Rome which was amongst Claudia Cardinale's earliest films and in 1960 in the horror film 'Circus of Horrors' alongside prominent actors in British film such as Anton Diffring and Donald Pleasence. In 1960, she also starred in the Hammer horror film 'The Brides of Dracula'  alongside other noted British actors of the day Peter Cushing and Freda Jackson and in 'The Terror of the Tongs' (1961) with Christopher Lee.

FULL FEATURE WITH GALLERY HERE! 

FULL FEATURE WITH VINTAGE STILLS GALLERY: HERE! 

Monlaur screen tested for the role of Domino Derval in the 1965 James Bond film Thunderball. The role eventually went to another French actress, Claudine Auger. After a string of German and Italian films, Monlaur left films to return to Paris. She continued to live the there until her passing in April 18, 2017, aged 77

FULL FEATURE WITH RARE VINTAGE STILLS CAN BE FOUND HERE! 

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  .

ANOTHER TARKIN SENIOR MOMENT AND PROMOTION HAMMER DRACULA POSTER ART!

#THROWBACKTHURSDAY! There are several artists on the net that I follow regularly, especially if they are in the habit of producing a Cushing or Fantasy genre actor or character now and then. These TWO amazing poster portraits of Cushing and Lee from their last two Hammer Dracula's, are very good indeed. It seems a simple thing to do, take a great publicity photograph from a popular film, and put a spin on the image, add some subtle and stylish text and fonts... FAB... a contemporary presentation, that would look great on any fans wall! I know next to nothing about this artist, except their, I guessing their name...FRANKLYN. There is a gallery of fine examples of Franklyn's work on ebay. Some great Lee, Cushing and Hammer film LIMITED EDITION PRINTS and reasonably priced too.😉 Go on spoil yourself, for Christmas . . . EBAY LINK HERE! I suspect they are going fast 😉 - Marcus

#THROWBACKTHURSDAY!! With the arrival of the latest installment of the STAR WARS series now at cinemas . . . here's a reminder of a where it all began . . . now, if Tarkin could just remember, what he's going to do with that battle station Ha! 🙂 - Marcus

 

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  .

WAXWORKS DR DEATH DOCUMENTARY AND DEATH BY WEDDING CAKE!

#HORRIBLEDEATHWEDNESDAYS: Philip Grayson (Peter Cushing) meeting his end at the hands of the Waxworks Proprietor (Wolfe Morris) ..... This is a wonderful example of Peter's talent of expressing terror . . .

PART THREE OF OUR The AMICUS FILMS of PETER CUSHING features, WAXWORKS Peter Cushing's story in THE HOUSED THAT DRIPPED BLOOD, with GALLERY RIGHT HERE!

 

FUN FACT: Wolfe Morris co-starred with Peter Cushing in an Hammer film years earlier do you know the TITLE of that film and the NAME OF THE ROLE part Wolfe Morris played?
ANSWER LATER

#HORRIBLEDEATHWEDNESDAY! From the moment DR DEATH's face appears, between those elevator doors...you just know, this ain't going to end well.... A nice touch though! I just love how in Amicus films, MADHOUSE, the good doctor pops up anywhere and everywhere... just like, here! When the film does reveal just WHO is behind that mask, it makes Dr DEATH's actions, all the more interesting, I thought. Mind you, I might be on my own here...but I NEVER guessed who was behind that mask, until the reveal....

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ABOVE: PETER CUSHING and VINCENT PRICE in AMICUS FILMS 'MADHOUSE' is covered in detail in Donald Fearney's 'THE AMICUS VAULT OF HORRORS' documentary PART FOUR, which you'll find above! ALL FOUR other PARTS CAN BE FOUND at our PCAS YOUTUBE CHANNEL HERE!

#HORRORIBLEDEATHWEDNESDAY!  Death By Wedding Cake, must be one of the oddest of demises in the Amicus films canon. Well, I know it was the knife, and the strange hex that was placed on Ian Bannen's lying Christopher Lowe in this weird little tale 'An Act of Kindness' in 'From Beyond the Grave' (1974). 

A FILM THAT is certainly in the top three of many a Cushing Fan's listings. This death seems all the more sad, when you consider that all Lowe wanted was reputation, respect and a loving wife. Poor guy must have blinkers on, the day Donald and his 'mad as a tea pot' daughter, stepped into his life...Cake, anyone?

MORE. MUCH MORE On Peter Cushing and 'FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE' in PART FOUR of 'The AMICUS FILMS of PETER CUSHING': HERE!

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  .

HAMMER FILMS ACTRESS SUZANNA LEIGH DIES

SAD NEWS TO REPORT, another one of the Hammer family has passed away, actress Suzanna Leigh who starred in the Hammer Films 'THE LOST CONTINENT' (1968) and 'LUST FOR A VAMPIRE' (1971)

Born Suzanna Smyth, the daughter of an auto engine manufacturer, Suzanna Leigh grew up in Belgrave, England, and in convent schools outside London. She began working in movies while still a pre-teen, appearing as an extra in 1958's Tom Thumb (1958) (film-debuting in the "Dancing Shoes" sequence), 1960's Oscar Wilde (1960) with 'Robert Morley' and other English productions. A few years later, she was the star of the 13-episode French TV series, Trois étoiles en Touraine (1966), which every week featured Leigh, her racing car and a different male lead (the "Three Stars" of the series' translated title).

Planning to attend London's Opera Ball, costumed as "Madame Du Barry", Leigh had a sedan chair made, along with costumes for five footmen who carried it (and her) through the streets of the city. Movie producer Hal B. Wallis saw newspaper photos of Leigh's elaborate stunt and imported the 20-year-old blonde to Hollywood for Boeing, Boeing (1965). Following her brush with major studio stardom, she resumed her English acting career, showing up on movie screens, most regularly in chillers. Her 1998 autobiography is entitled "Paradise, Suzanna Style".

"Elvis Presley's kisses held an intensity that melted my very being. I slipped my arms around his neck and our bodies entwined. This was all madness, but we didn't stop. A person could go to the gallows with such a kiss lingering on their lips, knowing life had been good...." Suzanna Leigh

 

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 VAL GUEST TODAY BORN DECEMBER 1911

HONORING the director Val Guest on today (what would have been his 101st birthday) is a pretty tough thing to do. After all, this is the man who gave us Hammer Horror, without the smash success of The Quatermass Xperiment and its sequels and follows up, we wouldn’t have had The Curse of Frankenstein and the gothic boom that followed. It’s a well-known fact that Quatermass creator Nigel Kneale had his differences with Guest in terms of his interpretations of the story, but the film itself is a masterpiece of British Sci-Fi Horror and perfectly captures a bleak post-war world. During my time at university I wrote a dissertation covering the post-war themes within the Quatermass television series and films and spent a great deal of time defending Guests adaptation. His Quatermass’s strength lies in its difference to the TV version, non-more explicit than it it’s titular hero…or in Guest’s eyes Villain. In his vision, Quatermass becomes an inhuman monster, representing the dangers of science. The world he inhabits is shown to the audience in an almost ‘documentary’ style, infusing it with a gritty realism. The next-two sci-fi horror films Guest did for Hammer, Quatermass II and The Abominable Snowman, were also adapted from Kneale screenplays and have a disturbing realism to them.

QUATERMASS II is, at least in my humble opinion, a massive improvement on its television predecessor, exorcising a somewhat frivolous space-journey at its climax that only served to undo all the tension built up to this point. With a somewhat softer Donlevy and several shocking and disturbing moments (‘they blocked the pipe with human pulp!’) it’s another classic. One of his best and easily my favourite of his science fiction films is his memorable collaboration with Peter Cushing, The Abominable Snowman. Adapted from Nigel Kneale’s The Creature, it’s a mesmerising exercise in a slow building sense of claustrophobic tension. All the more admirable considering the films set in vast snowy plains. Guest gets the best out of his performers and by keeping the Yeti mostly off screen, they become a genuinely frightening presence.

PETER CUSHING'S CO-STAR, EDWARD JUDD FROM ''ISLAND OF TERROR'' STARS IN 'THE DAY THE EARTH CAUGHT FIRE' GREAT GALLERY AND REVIEW:  HERE!

IT SEEMS unfair to just discuss these films though when Guest had a rich and varied career within the British film industry. Of course his most famous film is probably, 'The Day the Earth Caught Fire', another science-fiction film that adopts the same documentary eye as his previous works and tells the story of what happens when the earth begins to overheat. He was one of the directors on the masterpiece of mess that is the 1967 version of 'Casino Royale', and this was by no means his first stab at comedy either, having director both Up the Creek and Further up the Creek. Two of his best however were once again for Hammer, both war pictures and films that manage to be almost the opposite of each other. 

PETER SELLLERS WITH CUSHING'S 'SHE' CO STAR, URSULA ANDRESS, IN VAL GUEST'S 'CASINO ROYALE' (1967) Peter Sellers Facebook Scrapbook page: HERE

BARBARA SHELLEY IN VAL GUEST'S 'THE CAMP ON BLOOD ISLAND' (1958)

'THE CAMP ON BLOOD ISLAND' is a brutal tale of the horrors of a Japanese prisoner of war camp that caused quite a stir on its release in 1958. The following year came Yesterday’s Enemy, a film which Val Guest often said he was most proud. Based on a BBC teleplay it’s still a criminally unknown film, which is a shame as it’s a masterpiece. Featuring stunning performances from Stanley Baker, Guy Rolfe, Leo Mckern and Gordon Jackson, the film features no incidental music for the entirety of its run time. A relentlessly depressing film, it shows the horrors of war as they are and doesn’t shy away from condemning both the British and their enemies. In my opinion it’s Guest’s best and film that, if you have yet to see it, deserves your attention

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  .