Wednesday 6 July 2016

UNIVERSAL FILMS ANNOUNCE EIGHT FILM BLU RAY BOX SET


UNIVERSAL STUDIOS HOME ENTERTAINMENT have announced  the release of their EIGHT HAMMER FILMS BLU RAY BOX SET for SEPTEMBER 13th 2016. The prints in this box set were what made Universal's THE FRANCHISE COLLECTION 'THE HAMMER HORROR SERIES' DVD BOX SET in 2005 the front runner for a long time in the US. Many UK Hammer fans bought the DVD set as an import and upgraded to a dual or non region DVD player in order to get these titles in their collection!



THE ARRIVAL OF THIS BOX SET now getting the BLU RAY treatment is good for US Hammer fans who over the past four years missed out on the release of many of these titles when they were released on BLU RAY in Europe. One hopes that ALL the titles in this set are going to be UPGRADED PRINTS, which brings us to one film in particular in the collection. At the time of the original release of this collection on DVD, 'The Brides of Dracula' print was by far the best print of the lot. THAT particular print we understand was was lost in a fire at SONY back in 2011, sadly affecting all subsequent releases of the film after that time. We have seen several BLU RAY releases though out Europe of this classic Cushing Hammer title on BLU RAY, but not one, was a mark up on the 2005 DVD release. So, maybe the benchmark of quality of all the other titles in this box set will be, as we have seen over the past five years in Europe, and sadly that will mean a below par print of 'BRIDES' too. I guess time will tell . . . 


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Tuesday 5 July 2016

ATROPOS GODDESS OF DESTINY : WHO IS THAT GIRL?


CONTINUING THE THREAD from yesterday's #MONSTERMONDAY post. Here is  ATROPOS, GODDESS OF DESTINY; in the left hand, the skein of life, in the right, the shears of fate. Each coloured thread represents a human life, and the shears have the power to cut it short.”...but who is the actress that played her in Amicus films, 'Torture Garden' (1967). We'll have the ANSWER HERE tomorrow..



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ANDREW RAY AND CUSHING : BBC ' THE BROWNING VERSION' TOO COOL TUESDAY


HERE'S A RARE photograph of Peter Cushing and a young Andrew Ray during the rehearsing of the BBC production of Terence Rattigan's 'The Browning Version' broadcast on July 12th 1955. Cushing played school teacher, Andrew Crocker-Harris, Ray - John Taplow.


CUSHING WAS ALSO joined by Michael Gwynn who would play the 'horror interest' in Hammer films, 'The Revenge of Frankenstein' in 1958. Actor George Curzon also appeared in this BBC production... Curzon was best known for the films 'Jamaica Inn' and 'The Man Who Knew Too Much' with Peter Lorre. I wonder if anyone out there knows if George Curzon was related to Cushing's co star in 'Daleks Invasion Earth 2150 AD ' Jill Curzon?.Now wouldn't that be too cool too?


TRIVIA: All In The Family: Andrew Ray was son of UK comedian Ted Ray, his brother was actor and writer, Robin Ray...and he was brother in law to Susan Stranks...she of ITV children's programme of the 1970's, 'Magpie'. Andrew Ray died on August 20, 2003.


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Monday 4 July 2016

A VERY HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY : TO ALL OUR FRIENDS AND FOLLOWERS


TO ALL OUR MANY, MANY FRIENDS AND FOLLOWERS ACROSS THE WATER, HAVE A FUN FILLED FOURTH OF JULY!


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DR DIABOLO REVEALS ALL FOR A FIVER IN OUR MONSTERMONDAY FEATURE


#‎monstermonday‬ Roll Up! Roll Up! Dr Diabolo will reveal all, unveil your fates and fortune for a fiver! What a classic turn Burgess Meredith gave us as 'Beelzebub', 'Lucifer'. the 'Serpent of old' ..the DEVIL, in the guise of Dr Diabolo...under the cover of a sideshow attraction! Peter Cushing and Jack Palance appeared in one of Amicus film BEST little stories in 'Torture Garden', 'The Man Who Collected Poe'.... a truly creepy story..and with Burgess as the strand that ties it all together, it was a recipe for success!


Palance fights Cushing for the secret of his Poe Collection....



“Atropos, Goddess of Destiny; in the left hand, the skein of life, in the right, the shears of fate. Each coloured thread represents a human life, and the shears have the power to cut it short.”



 
According to IMDB that five pounds that Dr Diabolo charges his fated costumers to enter the Torture Garden??.. IMDB says quote...'The film obviously takes place in the UK, but the banknotes seen on screen from his customers clearly US currency!'...well take a look at the transparency ABOVE!


A SMILING ATROPOS? On set during the making of 'TORTURE GARDEN' at Shepperton Studios
 
TRIVIA: This was Burgess Meredith's one and only appearance in an Amicus film, and he plays the 'link' between the stories very well.... of ALL the Amicus link characters...is THIS your favourite?


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Saturday 2 July 2016

DIRECTOR ROBIN HARDY DIES 1929 - 2016


IT IS WITH GREAT SADNESS we hear that director, ROBIN HARDY has died. He never had the chance to work with Peter Cushing, but he certainly did with the late Sir Christopher Lee, and it is probably for that work, he is best known.... 'The Wicker Man'... In 2010, the UK newspaper The Guardian named The Wicker Man the fourth-best horror film of all time. . .




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THE HORROR OF FRANKENSTEIN : MINUS CUSHING AND D.O.A.


While not a Peter Cushing  film, the Horror of Frankenstein is included here because it is part of the Hammer films Frankenstein series and while Cushing didn't appear in the film, it's of interest as an example of how Hammer tried to experiment with a winning formula . . .  and failed.
CAST:
Ralph Bates (Victor Frankenstein), Dave Prowse (The Monster), Kate O’Mara (Alys), Veronica Carlson (Elizabeth Heiss), Graham James (Wilhelm Kastner), Dennis Price (Grave Robber), Bernard Archer (Professor Heiss), Jon Finch (Lieutenant Henry Becker)


PRODUCTION: 
Director/Producer – Jimmy Sangster, Screenplay – Jimmy Sangster & Jeremy Burnham, Photography – Moray Grant, Music – Malcolm Williamson, Make up – Tom Smith, Art Direction – Scott MacGregor. Production Company – Hammer/EMI.


SYNOPSIS:
VICTOR FRANKENSTEIN, a cold, arrogant and womanising genius, is angry when his father forbids him to continue his anatomical experiments. He sabotages his father’s shotgun, causing him to be killed. Inheriting the family fortune, Victor uses this to enter med school in Vienna but is forced to return home when he gets the dean’s daughter pregnant. There he sets up laboratory, starting a series of experiments into the revivification of the dead. Eventually, he builds up a composite body from human parts, which he brings to life.



COMMENTARY:
THE HORROR OF FRANKENSTEIN was the fifth film in Hammer’s Frankenstein series. By 1970, Hammer had regurgitated most of their monster themes several times over. The Horror of Frankenstein came at the point Hammer were starting to inject new blood into their product. The influence of the younger generation was making itself felt and Hammer were casting younger stars, recruiting young directors, not to mention placing an open emphasis on sexuality in films.



WITH THE HORROR OF FRANKENSTEIN, screenwriter Jimmy Sangster was brought back to rewrite his script for The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), which started the series and Hammer’s reputation as a horror industry leader off thirteen years before, while he was also allowed to make his début as director. The role of Frankenstein was given a facelift and Peter Cushing was unceremoniously dumped from the role in favour of Ralph Bates whom Hammer were grooming as a new horror star at the time.


PUBLICITY STILLS were shot on the set with Ralph Bates and Peter Cushing shaking hands to announce the change. The future of the Frankenstein series seemed to be heading in a new direction ... only The Horror of Frankenstein was a disaster and the Hammer Frankenstein series failed to go in any new directions.



THE HORROR OF FRANKENSTEIN starts in with a promising sense of black humour. However, the opening tapers off and Jimmy Sangster thereafter seems uncertain whether he is delivering parody or straight melodrama. The effort turns out dismally where all that Sangster ends up doing is weakly echoing The Curse of Frankenstein in a plot that seems more interested in Frankenstein’s sexual dalliances than his medical obsessions. The sets seem flatly lit. Dave Prowse, the bodybuilder who later played Darth Vader in Star Wars (1977) and sequels, turns the monster into a mindless brute. The best thing about the film is Ralph Bates’s cold and arrogant Frankenstein but the rest of the show is dreary and dull.


THE SADDEST THING about The Horror of Frankenstein is that it comes from Jimmy Sangster who did such a fine job in tuning the script for Hammer’s The Curse of Frankenstein. There is such a gulf between The Curse of Frankenstein and the loose remake here in terms of quality with Sangster seeming to understand so little about what made the original work that the success of Curse can only be placed down to director Terence Fisher.



The other Hammer Frankenstein films are:– The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), The Revenge of Frankenstein (1958), The Evil of Frankenstein (1964), Frankenstein Created Woman (1967), Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed (1969) and Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell (1973).
REVIEW: Richard Scheib
IMAGES: Marcus Brooks




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RALPH BATES AND CUSHING: PASSING ON THE BATTON?

 
PETER CUSHING and Ralph Bates on the set during the making of Hammer's REBOOTING of their Frankenstein franchise. 'THE HORROR OF FRANKENSTEIN' seemed to be the answer the thought, to putting a little 'new blood' in the profitable series. They were wrong. The message came through loud and clear. They had TWICE tried to shoe horn another actor to play their most profitable characters. The 'hoodwinked' the cinema public with 'The Brides of Dracula', with David Peel playing Baron Meinster. The name was on the billboard and the screen...but there was no Dracula, and more to the point, no Christopher Lee. With 'The Horror of Frankenstein' there was no double cross. Hammer even allowed BBC television cameras onto the set of the film,they even went to the trouble of staging a photo-op of Bates shaking hands with Cushing, and had them chatting together on set! But, with 'Horror of..' director, Jimmy Sangster appearing to change track during production and presenting the revamped story of as a kind-of 'Curse of Frankenstein' black comedy... it spectacularly flopped. It was neither a true Frankenstein film nor a comedy.. sadly, it wasn't even a very well produced film.




 FEATURE COMING UP LATER TODAY
 
DURING ONE OF TIMES we met and interviewed Ralph Bates, the subject of 'Horror of Frankenstein came up. Bates had no doubt in his mind about his casting as the Baron. 'I don't think that was ever the real intention. I certainly didn't see it that way. It was a job, one I was happy to take, but to me it was another Hammer film, I didn't honestly think I was stepping into Peter's shoes. I mean, how could you? How could anyone? Peter has been very, very kind and helpful to me . He was extremely kind and went out of his way to help, at I time when I really needed it'. Ralph also had his own opinions about Hammer films, and two production in particular, 'The Horror of Frankenstein' and 'Lust For a Vampire'...but more that, in our next feature . . . 


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Friday 1 July 2016

GENTLE GIANT HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAVE PROWSE





A VERY HAPPY BIRTHDAY to the One and Only, DAVE PROWSE aka DARTH VADER, born today July 1st 1935. For many years, Dave has been a very familiar face on the convention circuits all over the world and friend to millions. Many of us first became aware of Prowse when he played the 'monster' of the title of Hammer films last Frankenstein film with Peter Cushing, 'Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell' in 1974 with Shane Briant and Madeline Smith.



IN 1977 he would be chosen by director, George Lucus to play, a heroic Jedi Knight, Darth Vader in 'Star Wars: A New Hope' but ultimately seduced by the dark side of the Force and became a Sith Lord..... who along with Peter Cushing's, Grand Moff Tarkin would become the films' most fearsome characters.



PROWSE HAS held a whole career of playing roles where his stature has given him the edge, not all baddies, thugs, monsters and heavies... for many thousands of children, he was the face of the UK Children's road Safety campaign
.







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#TBT DO YOU RECOGNISE THIS HOUSE?? ANSWER LATER . . .


#TBT #THROWBACKTHURSDAY: Here's a house you MAY recognise? I'll be posting the answer on THIS THREAD in a few hours. Message me if you KNOW the answer!


#FRANKENSTEIN FRIDAY TOMORROW!
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