Thursday 11 August 2016

TWENTY TWO YEARS ON : REMEMBERING PETER CUSHING


#‎throwbackthursday‬ . . TODAY, AUGUST 11th.... this year marks the 22nd year of Peter Cushing passing in 1994. I guess over the years while posting on this page and our website, our preoccupation, is the business of nostalgia, we are remembering not only Peter Cushing...but also his friends and associates. So, we mark many anniversaries of people sadly no longer with us....and we try and do that with a large measure of reflection, appreciation, while being very careful not to become maudlin.





AND THAT TOO, is probably the way Peter would want to be remembered today, without 'the black arms bands and wailing! We spend every day here, CELEBRATING his life and career... and even though it seems like yesterday that he died, it's a true mark of 22 years later, how much an impression Peter made on the minds and lives of people while he was here, that we STILL remember him... So today, we post and comment, and do as we do every day.. 'We Keep The Memory Alive'.


SO, HERE'S TO YOU Peter Cushing, gentleman and friend to all, professional to his finger tips, in life as in work.. WE REMEMBER YOU!


OVER AT OUR Peter Cushing Appreciation Society Facebook Fan Page we are asking our friends and followers to leave LIKES, post any images they would like share, comments, memories...whatever everyone would like to say or do. It's EVERYONE'S page. We do this, as always... TOGETHER!

Wednesday 10 August 2016

FIRST GIF WEDNESDAY REQUESTS AND MORE CAKE FROM CHRISTOPHER LEE!


FOLLOWING ON from yesterdays post on Christopher Lee and his 'KNIFE AND BIRTHDAY CAKE GAG' this could be where it all started maybe. The year, 1958. The place, Universal Pictures headquarters. Both Cushing and Lee along with chairman of Hammer films, James Carreras and producer Anthony Hinds were invited to a pre-opening night luncheon with the reps and executives. It was Christopher Lee's birthday, the day after Peter Cushing's. At mid-night, the 'The Horror of Dracula' was screened...and the rest, as they say, is history!

#PeterCushing and #ChristopherLee: THE LAST MEETING: Lee and Cushing chat about going to NEW YORK and the DRACULA premier.





THE BRITS HAVE LANDED! Lee, Cushing, Carrreras, and Hinds on the tarmac of the airport having just arrived in New York to attend the Hammer Dracula premier. They would go on from here to meet Alfred (Al) Daff, and hear first hand from him and the Universal executives on how HORROR OF DRACULA had saved the company from bankruptcy...

GIFS REQUESTED BY: Niamh T from N. Ireland, M. Nash UK and S Martin.



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Tuesday 9 August 2016

#TOOCOOLTUESDAY : CHRISTOPHER LEE ALI DAGGER AND CAKE TIMES TWO!


#toocooltuesday HERE IS CHRISTOPHER LEE on his birthday, running the same gag... knife and cake! The first snap is from behind the scenes during the making of Hammer films, 'Dracula Has Risen From The Grave', with director Freddie Francis and co star Veronica Carlson...and with the late Mohammed Ali. Now, that's too cool!


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#TOOCOOLTUESDAY : HAMMER FILMS JULIE EGE SINGS TOUCH ME / STOP IT I LIKE IT AND THEN STOPS!


#TOOCOOLTUESDAY Over at our FACEBOOK FAN PAGE we posed the question, 'Can you name the Cushing / Hammer films co-star who had a fleeting recording career?' Who would have thought that the answer was glamorous actress and co star of Hammer films, 'Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires', JULIE EGE was the answer we were looking for?


JULIE EGE'S RECORDING CARRER started in 1971, with the release of the single, Love written by John Lennon, with a 'b-side' of 'In One Of Your Weaker Moments' (CBS 5431) It is believed the single came with this  naked 'talent shot' below.




NOT ANOTHER NOTE was heard from Ege until 1977, when she released, Touch Me / Stop It I Like It (Starbox SX 1158)... certainly not the kinda happy sing-a-long ditty, you would want to plop onto the turn table, at your grandma's 80th birthday party, family get together! Ege was approached by a recording company with a contract to record some further songs, and release a whole album! But, wisely Ege realised she probably was not the best of singers (!) and her short singing career ended there.


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Monday 8 August 2016

#MONSTERMONDAY: CHRISTINA KLEVE : MONSTER OR VICTIM?


#‎MonsterMonday‬: WHO AM I??? The question asked by this week's monstermonday candidate, Christian Kleve...through out Cushing's FOURTH ‪#‎Frankenstein‬ feature for ‪#‎hammerfilms‬. So, was Christina, played by actress Susan Denberg, really a MONSTER? It's not a simple one this one. Beauty reborn from disfigurement, souls, murder, executions, wrongly accused victims, lust and finally revenge....that poor Christina, witnessed and was involved in… A victim of circumstance or MONSTER, you decide....

Sunday 7 August 2016

DRACS BACK ON BBC TWO AT 2AM SUNDAY!


HEADS UP! Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Michael Gough and Melissa Stribling star in the classic 1958 Hammer film, 'DRACULA' BBC TWO at 2.10 AM SUNDAY AUGUST 7TH. The last time Dracula was broadcast on BBC TWO was Friday December 27th 2013, before that Friday February 7th 1987, and before that.... Friday December 27th 1984... now he's back!



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Saturday 6 August 2016

ANIMAL FAT, KENSINGTON GORE, KARLOFF, LEE AND A CLAPPERBOARD


#ONSETSATURDAY : MEANWHILE..... YIKES!... on a film set at Bray studios in 1968, Les Bowie Hammer films effects wizard is busy with his team, shooting THIS gory scene scene, not that hard to recognise it really. A mixture of Kensington Gore, liquid soap, animal fat and cornflour slowly slides down a rock...nasty!

LEXI CONROY commented at our FACEBOOK FAN PAGE : I am proud to say that after taking a London hop on hop off bus tour I finally get the joke that Kensington Gore is a real place ;). Incidentally, does the formula for producing KG still survive anywhere?

WE REPLIED: *Name Drop Alert!!* I'll have to look it up...but from my understanding, Hammer make up artist, Roy Ashton told me it happened, just at the time colour film was first being used in the UK. A make up artist, working on location...in 'KENSINGTON'; with a film crew, shooting on colour film discovered, that the usual bottle of 'whatever they used 'in black and white' films wouldn't register true on colour film, so legged it to a local chemist in KENSINGTON, who mixed up a compound that would do the trick OR I presume...that same make up chap, to his horror found he had misplaced or forgot to pack his bottle of blood while on location in KENSINGTON and went to a local chemist...so as the cosmetic blood having been made by a chemist in Kensington, the formula was christened after the town it was made in..etc... 

I have no idea, if the formula still exists, Lexi.  I would guess most buy it in, prepared...though from experience I know some of the movie blood DOES leave a purple-pinky stain on clothing and skin, there are some types you can purchase that does wash out, but more expensive...but that recipe from long ago, I think has long gone with that chemist maybe???


Once when Roy was showing me the contents of one of three make up cases he took to work ( '..one is for beautifying, the other for the other jobs' Roy's words!) ...He giggled when he showed me a tube of German made make up blood called, I think... 'Flix-Blut'. I have no idea why he found this funny?? I still don't...am I missing something?

LEXI HELPFULLY REPLIED: Well, knowing German to a reasonable degree, I can tell you that "Blut" is "blood"...as for "Flix," perhaps that is a corruption of "flicks," i.e., movies, making it "Movie Blood?" The joke escapes me as well...

  



#ONSETSATURDAY TOD MORTEN has written in to ask, 'Did Peter Cushing ever work with Boris Karloff?' Hello Todd and Welcome... no, it's a great shame that Peter never got the opportunity to work with Boris Karloff, Christopher Lee, yes...Peter sadly no. Here is a photograph of Lee and Karloff on set during the making of The Curse of the Crimson Altar', one of two films that Lee made with Karloff, the other being Corridors of Blood in 1958. Interestingly, Curse of the Crimson Altar was directed by Vernon Sewell who in the same year, 1968, also directed Peter Cushing in the 'Blood Beast Terror'.




#ONSETSATURDAY I think the one thing. above all else that I always noticed with Christopher Lee's performance as Dracula was ...his grace. Considering, HE considered himself, clumsy with props, having two left feet ...( Alice Lopes!! ) and very, very tall.. he was most impressive in his long black cloak...gliding through the sets at Bray, Elstree and Pinewood. The only other actors I think that had the same poise and elegance when playing Dracula were Jeremy Brett and Frank Langella... you agree??


AND FINALLY, Peter Cushing as General von Spielsdorf and Douglas Wilmer, wait for it . . . as Baron Joachim von Hartog, great name that...on the set of 'THE VAMPIRE LOVERS' at Elstree  film studios, during it's production run from 19th January 1970 until 4th March 1970.


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Friday 5 August 2016

#FRANKENSTEINFRIDAY : PIZZA SAUSAGE MEAT AND PIECES EFFRONTES FEMININE!


#FRANKENSTEINFRIDAY: BEHIND YOOOOU!! Next time you happen to be tucking into your Barbacoa Romana nice and cripsy crust at Whitstable's Pizza Express, take a look at the wall behind you...!

 

#FRANKENSTEINFRIDAY: WHEN MICHAEL GWYNN (above) in Hammer films, 'The Revenge of Frankenstein' (1958) played the disfigured Karl, most of the character's frightening characteristics, the twisting and contorting features, the crooked legs and stance, by contorting his own body. Even though in the original make up tests carried out by Phil Leakey, then plan was for him to have a disfigured nose, a rough wig and .....a right cheek, of what looked like raw sausage meat! After Christopher Lee's appearance in 'The Curse of Frankenstein' which, in Lee's own words, 'looked like a car crash'...with everything bar the kitchen sink thrown in, Gwynn's no nonsense scare scowl was a refreshing and convincing change.

 

AND ON THE SUBJECT of The Revenge of Frankenstein make up, on the left, Peter Cushing in a make up continuity reference photograph, revealing the bruises, cuts and breakages from the Baron's mega duffing from the hospital patients...now, there's gratitude for you! While on the right, even though Eunice Grayson doesn't perhaps receive the same acknowledgement and exposure, as other Hammer Frankenstein actresses, in this rare early publicity. . .  she's not too shy of exposing, some of her 'pieces effrontes feminines'! That surely would have got Frankenstein in a flap!

Marcus Brooks


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