'A PARTNERSHIP IN DEADLY DEEDS' A TALENT TO TERRIFY PART TWO

The tide would change in 1957, with the release of The Curse of Frankenstein.  Hammer’s producer, Anthony Hinds, sought to secure Cushing to star because of his reputation as Britain’s first bona fide TV star.  The producer realized that an actor of his popularity would help the picture and was also keen to get away from the policy – previously adhered to by Hammer and other low budget UK companies – of importing fading American name actors to secure US distribution.  Curse was to be a British horror film, through and through, and Cushing was key to this mission.  The actor accepted the role on the strength of remembering how impressed he had been with James Whale’s 1931 version of Frankenstein.

Cushing certainly wasn’t overly impressed by the screenplay by Jimmy Sangster, as Lee would later recall.  The story goes that Lee was going on one day about not having any lines; Cushing would reply, “You’re fortunate.  I’ve read the script.”  Lee won the role of the creature – buried underneath Phil Leakey’s makeup and deprived of any dialogue – after Hinds elected to pass on the similarly tall and lanky Bernard Bresslaw.  It was Lee’s imposing height – up until that time, his greatest handicap – that enabled him to net the role that would put him on the road to international stardom; it was an irony not lost on the actor, who determined to lend as much pathos to the role as he could muster.

Cushing’s portrayal of the icy and amoral Baron Victor Frankenstein is a thing of beauty, of course, but it would be a mistake to underestimate what Lee brings to the role of the creature.  He plays the character like a nightmarish marionette figure whose strings have been cut.  His body refuses obey and his soulful eyes convey suffering when the script doesn’t require him to lash out with violence.  The two actors share very little screen time together, setting a pattern for future collaborations, but they would bond on the set.  It’s unknown if the two even discussed their mutual experiences working for Olivier and Huston, but they certainly found much to laugh about as they discussed their love for cartoons.  The film would become a surprise smash at the box office, and Hammer wasn’t about to not capitalize on their obvious chemistry and audience appeal.

If The Curse of Frankenstein was Cushing’s star vehicle, then Dracula (1958) would be Lee’s.  Jimmy Sangster’s pared-down adaptation of the Bram Stoker novel would give Lee the showcase he had been dreaming for, but stardom came with a price: the role would become his signature, much as it had been for Bela Lugosi, but he was determined not to allow it to control his career as it has Lugosi’s.  It was to be an uphill battle, but it can be argued that he did eventually outlive the character’s shelf life, finding popularity in various other characterizations, even if his tendency to bristle at even discussing the role in recent years has alienated some of his fans.  Truth be told, his irritation with the mantle of Dracula is understandable – after all, he has made hundreds of films and only a few of them involve the character, and truly, how many times can one be expected to answer the same questions over and over again?

Regardless, in 1958, the character was still new and fresh – and his take on it would help to make the film a box office triumph.  Lee has often spoken of the film’s US premiere, with various tipsy industry big wigs tittering with laughter at the opening titles with its melodramatic, booming James Bernard soundtrack.  Lee, sensitive to criticism at the best of times, was rightfully panic-stricken: this was his ticket to the big time, and they were laughing at it.  He turned to Cushing, telling him that they were dead in the water and that he was going to leave.  “We have to say this through,” Cushing assured him.  Then came the big moment: Dracula’s introduction, in silhouette, at the top of the stairs – an effect underlined by Bernard’s signature three-note “Dra-cu-la” theme.  The audience roared.  Lee sank into his seat, thoroughly defeated.  But then something happened… as Lee briskly descended the stairs and walked into close up, speaking his lines in a clipped British accent, and looking every inch the handsome European noble gentleman – the audience went silent...

While Sangster’s script had called for Dracula to be wearing a top hat and to have fangs jutting conspicuously over his bottom lip, Lee and director Terence Fisher sensibly decided to make the character as realistic as possible.  It was a judicious move, one which played off in spades for Lee.  From that moment, the audience was hooked.  The film won the preview audience over, and they went from jeering and cat calling to reacting in shock and surprise.  Cushing may have claimed over-the-title billing, but this was Lee’s shining moment – from that point on, he would be a name actor.

Hammer, for their part, continued to give Cushing the starring assignments, but they weren’t about to not use Lee, as well.  They would reteam later in 1958 for a new version of The Hound of the Baskervilles.  This retelling of the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle classic cast Cushing in what would become one of his signature roles: Sherlock Holmes.  On the face of it, Lee would have been decent casting in the role as well – indeed he would go on to play the character in 1962, in a rather disappointing film directed in Germany by Terence Fisher called Sherlock Holmes and the Deadly Necklace, before donning the deer stalker again in 1991 in two indifferent mini-series, Sherlock Holmes and the Leading Lady and Sherlock Holmes and the Incident at Victoria Falls.  While Lee’s portrayal in the German film is hard to assess fairly (he would be dubbed into English by another actor), his turn in the mini-series would prove to be rather disappointing: listless and a bit stiff.

 

With this in mind, Cushing’s dynamic performance is to be savored all the more. He does overdo his mannerisms a little bit here and there, resulting in a few moments that can be viewed as hammy, but this also serves to underline the character’s somewhat theatrical disposition.Cushing’s take anticipates Jeremy Brett’s celebrated turn for Granada TV in the 1980s and 90s, but he stops short of becoming as over the top as that. Cushing invested himself in the role with enthusiasm and had hoped to play the character in further adventures, but the film’s disappointing box office put paid to that idea. If Lee felt the least bit slighted by not being cast as Doyle’s sleuth, he relished the chance of playing the film’s romantic leading man, Sir Henry Baskerville. Lee’s brash and imposing presence adds color to what could have been a dull character and he has a few moments which allow him to register stark fear and terror; his account of being terrified by a real tarantula during one scene may well be nonsense (if you look at how the scene was shot, it’s clear that the hairy critter was never in the same shot with him) but it makes for a nice anecdote, and besides, he really does look terrified in his close ups during the scene in question.

The two actors were nearly reunited under similar circumstances – with Cushing as the dynamic protagonist and Lee as the somewhat colorless “hero” – in The Man Who Could Cheat Death, but Cushing, citing exhaustion, incited the wrath of Hammer’s managing director, Sir James Carreras, by begging off at the last second.  German actor Anton Diffring (who would perfect his “mad medic” persona in the following year’s Circus of Horrors for Anglo Amalgamated) would inherit the role of the lovelorn medic who finds the secret to eternal youth and life, while Lee would don a waxy mustache and have very little to do as the hero, Dr. Gerard.

Their next teaming would occur in 1959, with The Mummy.  Jimmy Sangster would pretty much ignore Karl Freund’s 1932 original with Boris Karloff, drawing more inspiration from the series of “B” sequels that Universal churned out in the 1940s.  Cushing would again claim top billing, though Lee played the title character.  Lee again demonstrated an uncanny ability to convey emotion and pathos underneath tons of makeup, while Cushing would add depth to the theoretically boring character of the intrepid archaeologist who becomes the victim of an ancient curse.

Director Terence Fisher and cinematographer Jack Asher would make this into one of Hammer’s most enjoyable and stylish offerings and Lee’s athletic portrayal of the mummy, Kharis, would add some real life and menace into a creature whose shambling in earlier ventures could sometimes come off as unintentionally humorous.  A flashback scene would at least allow Lee some dialogue and “face time,” but if he was growing weary of wearing elaborate make ups, he had yet to vocalize it.  The Mummy would prove to be another hit with audiences (it not critics) and Lee would soon begin branching out into European films – partly to better establish himself with an international audience, and partly to escape the bane of his existence: the British taxation system.  Cushing, ever the homebody, would begin to find himself confined more and more to horror films.

As part of Lee’s “European campaign,” he would take part in a couple of the then-popular Edgar Wallace “krimis” produced in Germany.  The first of these, The Devil’s Daffodil, was to be shot in two versions: one in German, one in English.  The latter would utilized some different actors, with William Lucas stepping in for Joachim Fuchsberger, who starred in the German version.  Multi-lingual Lee would play the role of the Chinese detective Ling Chu in both versions; a truly incongruous effect in the German version in particular, it has to be noted.  Given that the film was shot in London, it had no trouble in initially attracting the participation of Cushing as well – but for whatever reason, he would bow out before filming any scenes.  For Lee, the film is best remembered as being the reason why he couldn’t have a honeymoon right after marrying his wife, Gitte; the production commenced on a Monday following their weekend wedding ceremony.  Oh well, over 50 years later, they remain happily married, so no harm, no foul.

Lee and Cushing would finally reunite in 1963, for The Gorgon.  This uncommonly romantic and atmospheric Hammer horror would become one of director Terence Fisher’s personal favorites.  It is also regularly cited as a favorite by many who normally don’t care for Hammer Horror.  The reasons for this are obvious: the film’s lyrical atmosphere sets it apart from the rather more blunt films they were better known for.  The film also inverts typical casting by putting Cushing into the role of the icy and duplicitous Dr. Namaroff, while Lee gets to play the charming and funny “Van Helsing role,” Professor Meister.  Lee is burdened with an Einsteinian mop of hair, a bushy mustache and a not-terribly-convincing “old man” makeup job, but his hunched countenance and blustery demeanor help to sell the character.  It’s one of his best performances for the company, offering proof of his ability to breathe life into characters with a bit more dialogue and screen time than the usual Dracula assignment.

Cushing comes off less convincingly as Namaroff, largely because his inherently likable persona clashes with the character’s cool machinations.  Cushing seems a bit constrained by the role and falls back on his favored mannerisms as a means of trying to give him a little humanity.  It’s not a bad performance, by any means, but it doesn’t rank high on his list of accomplishments, either.  The central romance is beautifully enacted by Barbara Shelley and Richard Pasco, however, and Fisher’s elegiac approach to the material helps to enable one to forgive the less-than-special-effects work involving the gorgon at the end of the picture.  Audiences reacted cooly, however, prompting Hammer to retreat back to their standard Dracula and Frankenstein formulas for a period.

Part THREE ' A TALENT TO TERRIFY' SUNDAY 22ND DECEMBER 2013

A Talent To Terrify Is Written by Troy Howarth
with Images and Artwork by Marcus Brooks

A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL OUR FRIENDS AND FOLLOWERS!

PART TWO: BEHIND THE SCENES: AT BRAY STUDIOS CANDID PHOTOGRAPHS : LEE AND CUSHING

PART TWO: 'The Art of Non Verbal Communication at Hammer Films, Bray Studios !' Behind the scenes with PC during the making of Frankenstein Created Woman with Mr Walters making his point.. and Christopher Lee during the making of Dracula, Prince of Darkness, demanding two sugars in his coffee, next time. As we all know, 'V' stands for victory...!

PART ONE: BEHIND THE SCENES : CUSHING AND LEE CLOWN FOR THE STILLS CAMERA MAN : PART ONE

Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, taking a break from the serious business of making movies...

'A PARTNERSHIP IN DEADLY DEEDS' A TALENT TO TERRIFY: PART TWO BY TROY HOWARTH

 

A HEADS UP! A TALENT TO TERRIFY: PART TWO: 'A PARTNERSHIP IN DEADLY DEEDS' WILL BE POSTED HERE ON WEDNESDAY 18TH DECEMBER 2013

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A TALENT TO TERRIFY: PART ONE: TO START AT THE BEGINNING: BY TROY HOWARTH

For many viewers, the names Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee are inextricably linked.  They would become one of the screen’s great duos – not quite in the same way as Laurel and Hardy or Abbott and Costello, perhaps, but definitely akin to Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi for the Technicolor generation.  Their styles would offer a strong contrast, both in acting technique and in public perception.  If Cushing was perceived as the heroic, kindly, avuncular type, then Lee was icy villainy embodied: cool (if not downright cold), detached and imposing.  Stories of Cushing’s generosity and warmth are many and varied; tales of Lee vary from the admiring to the damning.  You'll find hardly anybody who has a bad word to say about Cushing, either as a person or as an actor, but the same isn’t true of Lee: some critics have dismissed him as wooden and boring on screen, while some fans have found him arrogant and aloof in person.  Both actors would struggle before finally finding success – Cushing would find his initial acclaim on television, while Lee would rise to prominence essaying various monstrous and villainous character for Hammer Films.

Cushing would embrace his role as a genre icon, though he approached this with some reluctance and trepidation in the beginning; Lee would relish the opportunity to establish a name for himself, only to spend much of his later years trying to put some distance between himself and his initial successes.  Truth be told, it’s easy to appreciate the rationale behind both mentalities.  Cushing had established himself as actor of range and sensitivity, adept at the classics and in more contemporary subjects – to burden himself with the “baggage” of being a horror star would surely tarnish his reputation somewhat, but, as he rightly reasoned, it would provide stability and a cash flow which would enable him to support his ailing wife in the style he felt she deserved.

For Lee, finding success in this venue at a comparatively youthful age meant being eternally limited – it was easy enough to say “yes” to yet another Dracula picture, but as he rightly recognized, the part didn’t stretch his abilities and, worse still, would prevent him from achieving the types of roles in the types of films he openly craved.  Even so, the two men would cross paths at different points in their careers before finally becoming known as something of a “double act.”  Once they became linked, they would remain so for the remainder of their lives – fortunately, the two men were genuinely fond of each other and could make each other laugh in ways that would have seemed foreign to Karloff and Lugosi.



The first of their many collaborations would occur in 1948, courtesy of Laurence Olivier’s film of Hamlet.  Cushing had already impressed Olivier by a display of professional honesty: while undergoing a lean period of no work and grim prospects, Cushing had the chance to play a role in one of Olivier’s stage productions; sadly, the role required an actor capable of performing a convincing American accent.  Cushing told Olivier that he would let the play down rather badly on that front, and Olivier responded by telling the struggling actor that he would remember this display of honesty.  Cushing figured it was a nice way of saying “don’t call us, we’ll call you,” but lo and behold, Olivier remained true to his word.  In addition to giving Cushing a number of plum roles in his theatrical ventures, the actor-director also awarded Cushing with the supporting role of Osric in Hamlet.

The part would require Cushing to play it fey and broad and he responds with a larger than life performance; one can virtually smell the perfume emanating from the screen whenever he appears. Truth be told, this sort of broad comedy was never the actor’s strong suit and Hamlet is no exception. It’s interesting to see him in this context, but it’s not one of his more persuasive pieces of acting.

And what of Lee?  What, indeed… Lee, who was at the very start of his acting career, has long maintained that he snuck on set, donned a uniform for one of the heavily armored spear carriers and soaked in all he could of Olivier at work.  Mind you, this is the same Lee who also claims to have refused to speak the lines in Dracula Prince of Darkness (there never were any). That said, in a few long shots involving this characters lingering in the background, there is an admittedly tall extra in evidence.  Is it Lee or is it just wishful thinking?  Hard to say, but his contribution – if legitimate – would of course go unnoticed and unbilled.  The film itself would become a major box office hit, netting Olivier Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Actor.  Cushing’s performance attracted some good notices and would help him in pursuing more theatrical and film work into the 1950s, before the burgeoning medium of television claimed him for its own – for a time.  For Lee, it was nothing more than anecdote to be told and retold, and he would spend the better part of a decade losing out on various acting jobs because he was “too tall” or “too foreign looking.”

In 1952, Cushing and Lee would find themselves in the same vehicle once again, when producer/director/all-around-maverick John Huston relocated to the UK to make Moulin Rouge.  This colorful and melodramatic account of the artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (played by José Ferrer, in an Oscar-nominated performance) would also find favor at the box office and with critics.  It marked a change of pace for the normally action-oriented Huston and demonstrated that his abilities could extend to costume fare, as well.  Cushing, by virtue of his rising star power, would claim billing in the finished film despite having a minor role that is rather indifferently covered by Huston – indifferently in the sense that it doesn’t even grant him a close up, not that the role really called for one, anyway.

Lee, still unknown at this stage, would go without billing – but he gets the better part, playing the painter Georges Seurat, discussing life and art with Lautrec in a Paris café.  Lee would be awestruck by Huston, while Cushing never made much mention of the experience.  For the former, it was a feather in the cap – a film for one of the great Hollywood filmmakers, allowing him to share screen time with an Oscar winning actor – while for the latter it was a minor paycheck gig at a time when he was getting more and more accustomed to playing larger leading roles.  Little did either man realize just how dramatically things would change in a mere five years…


Part Two: A Partnership In Deadly Deeds! Look out for updates!

A Talent To Terrify: is written by Troy Howarth
with images and artwork by Marcus Brooks

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ON THIS DAY: CAMERA TURNED ON FIRST DAY OF PRODUCTION OF A VAMPIRE CLASSIC

Today, fifty six years ago, the camera turned on the first day of production of Hammer Films 'DRACULA' (US: HORROR OF DRACULA) at BRAY STUDIOS.

CAST:

Peter Cushing (Dr Van Helsing), Christopher Lee (Count Dracula), Michael Gough (Arthur Holmwood), John Van Eyssen (Jonathan Harker), Melissa Stribling (Mina Holmwood), Carol Marsh (Lucy Holmwood), Valerie Gaunt (Vampire Woman)

PRODUCTION:

Director – Terence Fisher, Screenplay – Jimmy Sangster, Based on the Novel by Bram Stoker, Producer – Anthony Hinds, Photography – Jack Asher, Music – James Bernard, Special Effects – Syd Pearson, Makeup – Phil Leaky, Art Direction – Bernard Robinson. Production Company – Hammer Films

SYNOPSIS:

Posing as a librarian, erstwhile vampire hunter Jonathan Harker travels to Castle Dracula where he is welcomed by the courtly Count Dracula. Harker attempts to kill Dracula and eliminate the vampire menace that Dracula spreads but the sun sets before he can do so. Jonathan’s body and diary are found by his friend Dr Van Helsing who stakes him and takes the sad news on to his fiancée Lucy Holmwood. There Van Helsing finds that Lucy has become Dracula’s prey. Joined by her brother Arthur, Van Helsing begins a search for Dracula, to stake and kill him before Lucy is fully claimed as a vampire.

COMMENTARY:

Dracula – usually better known under its American retitling, The Horror of Dracula – is the cornerstone of the Hammer Films legend. Although The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) the year before was beginning of Hammer’s success, The Horror of Dracula was the one that set Hammer on the map and marked the beginning of Hammer’s domination over the horror scene for the next fifteen years. The Horror of Dracula’s status, certainly in Anglo-horror fandom, is sacrosanct and its importance near mythic. The essence of what the Hammer film was all about is here – the darkly magnetic presence and aristocratic haughtiness of Christopher Lee; the commanding, straight-arrow rationalism of Peter Cushing; the florid shock hand of director Terence Fisher; the essential British repressions of sexuality and convention that Anglo-horror would pierce a stake right through; and the laughably dated shocked critical outcry.

Where then to view The Horror of Dracula today? Hammer films, particularly the early ones, have not dated well. Today their pace seems slow; the shocks that caused such a critical outcry (and then quickly transformed into the expected mainstay of this particular genre) seem absurdly mannered, even laughable. The rich and floridly colourful sets seem flat and stagebound and James Bernard’s celebrated scores loud and unsubtle. Yet The Horror of Dracula holds undeniable effect. One must understand exactly what it represented to audiences back then. To an audience raised on the Bela Lugosi Dracula (1931) and the cardboard, melodramatic figure that Dracula became among the Universal monsters line-up in the 1940s, The Horror of Dracula must have had an incredible shock value. For one, it was in colour – which meant that one could see the blood in its rich, overripe scarlet detail – and that alone made it an immediately different film to the Bela Lugosi version. For another, it was not as stagebound as the Lugosi version – Terence Fisher’s camera is kinetic and alive, always on the move.

As an attempt at adapting Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897), The Horror of Dracula is never any better or worse than any other version. Screenwriter Jimmy Sangster liberally sacrifices parts here and there for the economy of plot and budget – out go Renfield and the asylum (although these later appeared in Hammer’s Dracula – Prince of Darkness [1966]). Gone too is the magnificently ambient opening journey to Castle Dracula, the pursuit climax and set-pieces like the crashing of the Demeter. Gone too is Dracula as a supernatural being – “It is a common fallacy,” says Van Helsing, “that vampires can change into bats and wolves,” which conveniently does away with having to create costly effects sequences. (Although said fallacy seemed to have been disproven by the time of later sequels). Despite the liberties he takes with Bram Stoker, Jimmy Sangster nevertheless preserves the essence of the book.

The remarkable sexual element present in the Bram Stoker book (wherein Dracula essentially became a sexual predator, plundering the prim, virginal heroines and turning them into sexually aggressive and irresistible creatures), which was only fleetingly touched on in the Lugosi Dracula, is clearly brought out here – Mina sits up in bed in a V-neck nightgown that does a remarkable job of holding in more than one would ever think possible with her window open waiting for Dracula, and at other points the women invitingly tilt their necks up in anticipation. “It is established victims consciously resent being dominated by vampirism but are unable to resist the practice,” Van Helsing states. The Bela Lugosi version bled the film and its women dry of any sexual vitality but here Dracula had well and truly emerged from the Victorian closet. Part of the shock value that The Horror of Dracula had was its very wantonness in this regard.

In person, Dracula was 6’5” Christopher Lee. Christopher Lee incarnated Dracula as a haughty, imposing nobleman (in real life Lee traces his ancestry back to the Emperor Charlemagne). Bela Lugosi was a puffed-up ham, all stuffed-shirt menace; Christopher Lee, going back to the Stoker book, is introduced as a perfect gentleman who with shock rapidity turns into a ravening animal. When this Dracula is enraged, he is an animal, hissing, his eyes turning scarlet red. Not even Bram Stoker managed to show Dracula with this kind of raw lasciviousness. On the side of good was Peter Cushing who makes the definitive Van Helsing. Thankfully gone is the Dutch accent that Stoker gave Van Helsing and Peter Cushing is able to bring his customary genteel and commanding authority to the role. There is no greater sense in cinematic vampire mythology of Van Helsing as a man of reason who sits astride both science and religion with equal ease, holding society safe against primal forces than there is in Peter Cushing’s performance.

Most of all, The Horror of Dracula belongs to Terence Fisher who subsequently became Hammer’s most prominent director and developed a considerable critical cult within genre fandom. Fisher has no time for Bram Stoker’s Romantic imagery (or even subtlety) and heads straight for shock effect with all guns blazing. There is a shock scene where Valerie Gaunt tries to sink her teeth into Jonathan’s neck as he comforts her, only to be interrupted as Christopher Lee bursts in through a door – in this moment, Terence Fisher shock-cuts to a closeup of Lee’s face, eyes wide-open, blazing blood red and two trails of blood dripping from his fangs, and then has him leap across a table to throw both of them aside. The climax offers a stunning battle between the forces of light and darkness and is an indelible image in horror film – Van Helsing pursues Dracula into the library and leaps across a table to rip the curtains open, exposing an area of sunlight, then jumps on a table and grabs two candelabra to form a cross, which he uses to drive Dracula into the beam of sunlight, causing him to crumble into dust that is then blown away by a mysterious gust of wind as the end credits roll. It is a set-piece that even outstrips the climax in the book.

Hammer’s other Dracula films are:– The Brides of Dracula (1960), Dracula – Prince of Darkness (1966), Dracula Has Risen from the Grave (1968), Taste the Blood of Dracula (1970), Scars of Dracula (1971), Dracula A.D. 1972 (1972), The Satanic Rites of Dracula/Count Dracula and His Vampire Bride (1973) and The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires/The Seven Brothers Meet Dracula (1974). Christopher Lee appears in all except Brides of Dracula and Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires. Peter Cushing plays Van Helsing again in Brides of Dracula, Dracula A.D. 1972, Satanic Rites of Dracula and Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires. Countess Dracula (1970) is a Hammer film but not a Dracula film and in fact tells the legend of Countess Elizabeth Bathory.

Other adaptations of Dracula are:– the silent classic Nosferatu (1922); Dracula (1931); Count Dracula (1970) a continental production that also featured Christopher Lee; Dracula (1974), a tv movie starring Jack Palance; Count Dracula (1977), a BBC tv mini-series featuring Louis Jourdan; Dracula (1979), a lush remake starring Frank Langella; Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979) with Klaus Kinski; Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992), featuring Gary Oldman; the Italian-German modernized adaptation Dracula (2002) starring Patrick Bergin; Guy Maddin’s silent ballet adaptation Dracula: Pages from a Virgin’s Diary (2002); Dracula (2006), the BBC tv adaptation starring Marc Warren; the low-budget modernised Dracula (2009); and Dario Argento’s Dracula (2012) with Thomas Kretschmann as Dracula.

Terence Fisher’s other genre films are:– the sf films The Four-Sided Triangle (1953) and Spaceways (1953), The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), The Revenge of Frankenstein (1958), The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959), The Man Who Could Cheat Death (1959), The Mummy (1959), The Stranglers of Bombay (1959), The Brides of Dracula (1960), The Two Faces of Dr Jekyll (1960), The Curse of the Werewolf (1961), The Phantom of the Opera (1962), The Gorgon (1964), Dracula – Prince of Darkness (1966), Frankenstein Created Woman (1967), The Devil Rides Out/The Devil’s Bride (1968), Frankenstein Must be Destroyed (1969) and Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell (1973), all for Hammer. Outside of Hammer, Fisher has made the Old Dark House comedy The Horror of It All (1964) and the alien invasion films The Earth Dies Screaming (1964), Island of Terror (1966) and Night of the Big Heat (1967).

Jimmy Sangster’s other genre scripts are:– X the Unknown (1956), The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), The Revenge of Frankenstein (1958), The Man Who Could Cheat Death (1959), The Mummy (1959), The Brides of Dracula (1960), the psycho-thrillers A Taste of Fear/Scream of Fear (1961), Paranoiac (1962), Maniac (1963), Nightmare (1963), Hysteria (1965) The Nanny (1965) and Crescendo (1970), and Dracula – Prince of Darkness (1966), all for Hammer. Sangster’s non-Hammer scripts are the medical vampire film Blood of the Vampire (1958), the alien invasion film The Trollenberg Terror/The Crawling Eye (1958), Jack the Ripper (1959), the Grand Guignol psycho-thriller Who Slew Auntie Roo? (1971), the tv movie psycho-thrillers A Taste of Evil (1971) and Scream, Pretty Peggy (1973), the occult tv movie Good Against Evil (1977), the occult film The Legacy (1979), the spy tv movies Billion Dollar Threat (1979) and Once Upon a Spy (1980), the psycho-thriller Phobia (1980) and the story for Disney’s The Devil and Max Devlin (1981). As director, Sangster made three films:– The Horror of Frankenstein (1970), the lesbian vampire film Lust for a Vampire (1971) and the psycho-thriller Fear in the Night (1972), all at Hammer 

Written By Richard Scheib

Images and Banner: Marcus Brooks 

FIFTY SIX YEARS AGO THIS WEEK: HAMMER FILMS 'DRACULA'

FIFTY SIX years ago this week, on 11th November Hammer Films started production on 'DRACULA/ HORROR OF DRACULA' at Bray Studios, starring Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Michael Gough, Melissa Stribling and Valerie Gaunt... After 58 years is it still our favourite Hammer Dracula film?

THIS WEEK we start a new series of features 'A TALENT TO TERRIFY: THE 22 FILMS OF PETER CUSHING AND CHRISTOPHER LEE' Look out for promos posts.

THE ABOMINABLE SNOWMAN : HAMMER FILMS ANNOUNCE REMAKE : REVIEW AND GALLERY OF THE CUSHING CLASSIC

In 1953, Nigel Kneale changed the face of television with his serial The Quatermass Experiment.  The play, broadcast live on British television, was a huge hit with the public, establishing Kneale as a force to be reckoned with in the science fiction and fantasy genres.  He would hit a nerve in 1954 with his adaptation of George Orwell's political allegory, 1984.

The teleplay starred Peter Cushing and it would help to make him into the country's first bona-fide TV star.  A reteaming seemed inevitable, and in 1955 they united for The Creature.  The play told of an expedition which sets out to prove the existence of the so-called Yeti, or abominable snowman, and of the in-fighting and conflicts within the group which lead to their eventual destruction.  It was yet another hit, though sadly the BBC couldn't be bothered to make a recording of it.  Thus, the original version of Kneale's thoughtful sci-fi adventure is lost to the mists of time, along with the performances of Cushing and Stanley Baker, cast in the opposing roles of kindly scientists Dr. Rollason and crassly commercial Tom Friend.

Around this same time, Hammer Films had optioned Kneale's first Quatermass adventure for the cinema - the resulting film, The Quatermass Xperiment (the "X" serving to emphasize the "adult" nature of the material), would become a hit for the company, thus steering them in the direction of sci-fi and horror.  Following the success of The Curse of Frankenstein in 1957, Hammer continued with more Kneale adaptations, bringing their own versions of the 1955 Quatermass 2 and The Creature to the screen; the latter would be rechristened as The Abominable Snowman or The Abominable Snowman of the Himalayas, depending on the print.

Hammer enlisted Kneale to write the screenplay, as the writer had been extremely vocal of his criticism of the changes made by director Val Guest on The Quatermass Xperiment, and also saw fit to retain Cushing as one of the leads.  Sadly, they elected to go the "American name" route in casting Tom Friend, however, thus leaving Stanley Baker out of the picture.  Happily, the actor they cast to replace him proved quite capable: Forest Tucker.  The imposing and very brash character actor may have seemed an odd choice for Hammer Horror territory, but he brings just the right attributes to the role of Friend.  He's loud, he's aggressive, he's patently phony in his desire to help further "science," and he plays beautifully off of Cushing's English reserve and sensitivity.

Despite Kneale's issues with his handling of The Quatermass Xperiment (and Quatermass 2, which Kneale was more closely involved in bringing to the screen), Hammer brought Val Guest in to direct.  Guest broke into films quite by chance after slagging Chandu the Magician (1932) in a print interview and boasting that he could write a better film himself; the film's director took him up on the challenge and Guest took to screenwriting like a duck to water.  He would begin directing unassuming programmers but would go on to direct some eclectic and very interesting pictures.  He was precisely the kind of director Hammer liked: strong and authoritative on set, but capable of bringing in the film on budget without succumbing to hubris and excess.  Guest would later describe The Abominable Snowman as a disappointment, citing Hammer's unwillingness to allow him to film on location, but the end product is very well crafted and continued Kneale's trend towards thoughtful, low-key sci-fi with much emphasis on characterization.

The entire cast does a fine job, notably Arnold Marle as the wizened Dalai Lama figure who seems to hold some key to the mystery of the Yeti, but the emphasis is very much on the clash between Cushing's idealist and Tucker's showman.  The two actors do a magnificent job of playing off one another, with Cushing adding depth and nuance to what could have been another stock character.  Cushing's fondness for improvising with props  led director Guest to dub him "props Peter," while his concern over realism prompted him to question Guest as to whether or not one could actually light a cigarette at such a high altitude; Tucker's reply was along the lines of, "I don't care if you really could or not; I'm smoking anyway, so you may as well, too."  Both actors thus take time to visit flavor country while stressing out over the severity of their situation.

Despite Guest's protestations of penny pinching, the film looks impressive.  Arthur Grant would later become Hammer's DP of choice when Jack Asher's meticulous methods made him too expensive for the company, and his later work tended to be functional but uninspired.  For whatever reason, however, he did splendid work in widescreen and black and white: thus, The Abominable Snowman joins Joseph Losey's These Are the Damned and Freddie Francis' Paranoiac as one of the best-looking films he photographed.  The mood is highlighted by a spare, ominous soundtrack by Humphrey Searle, who did far too little work for Hammer.  It may lack the "star value" of Hammer's better-known monster figures, but The Abominable Snowman is an unappreciated gem in their overall body of work and shows once again why Guest was the company's best director of science fiction properties.

Text: Troy Howarth
Banner and Images: Marcus Brooks