VINCENT, KATY, EDDIE AND PETER ARE SHOCKED! GIFS! GIFS!

#SILENTBUTDEADLY! Here's #VINCENTPRICE as 'Sinister Man' in probably one of his sharpest put-downs on film in 'Blood Bath At The House Of Death' (1984), an interesting little black comedy staring Kenny Everett . . he is SHOCKED, and the line he delivers, is sadly unrepeatable here . .  our silent disposition serves us well!  I thought his jibbing before the delivery, was well worth posting . . .

#SILENTBUTDEADLYWEDNESDAY!: KATY WILD IS SHOCKED! But sadly her character, BEGGER GIRL, is MUTE! Hey, thought Anthony Hinds, she can't speak, she doesn't NEED a name! But Cushing gets it. There's nothing like a 7foot tall ex wrestling champion, in mashed-up make up, wearing diving boots and a mean look . . . carrying a wrought iron spear, to sharpen the senses. This leads into one of those scenes, that you can see, Cushing REALLY enjoyed. A right royal scuffle, with crushing grips, heroics, floppy fringe flying and Cushing's Baron comes out looking hair ruffled, but still sharp and smart! It's a pity the girls didn't get to play though... I just love the way, Cushing flings our poor 'Begger Girl' out...of..frame....! 'The Evil of Frankenstein' (1964), certainly is from the good ol days, when monsters were mean and big, and girls screamed, until a CHAP stepped in...!

#SILENTBUTDEADLY!: In #STARTREK lore, there's a there's a theory. If a cast member in the 1960's tv series was wear a red top as part of their uniform, they were for the chop. After they had set down on the planet, while checking out the sandy desert terrain, you could count the seconds before a scream went up, and the red top guy, had bought it! Dead. Not so the case with the 1966 Cushing film, 'Island of Terror'. Actor Eddie Byrne was the go to guy in the late 50's early 60's, if you wanted a strong, straight talking, serious detective, police office or doctor. Here he plays Dr. Reginald Landers, strong, straight talking, serious and tentacled silicate, tea time snack! You can see the shock in his eyes. Who could have known? In Hammer films, 1959 The Mummy, Bryne had played the SSS Detective Inspector Mulrooney. For him it was double added value, playing to his strengths Police AND IRISH! He played it very well, feeding Cushing's British archaeologist all the right questions, that lead us through a complicated flash back story about how, Christopher Lee's High Priest Kharis had ended up minus his tongue and wrapped in enough bandage, to stretch to Tut's tomb and back! So, that he should die, for me was a surprise and sad. I am not one of these cinema goers who spends their time wasting my ten bucks, trying to find the clues to end of the film, when I have paid good lolly, for them to tell me. I also happen to be a fan of Eddie's work. so, for him to leave film three quarters in, was a downer. Still, he died well. Convincing audiences you are being SUCKED to death, could be a tall order for some actors. Not Eddie. He's a strong, straight talking, serious doctor here. He was never going to suck in this role.....

#SILENTBUTDEADLY! 'Corruption' (1968) is a motion picture that is full of SHOCKS, and that's even without the CENSORED shock shots! Here Cushing shockingly bites the dust. It's interesting, despite how carefully director Robert Hartford Davies set up this clever shot, so that we get the full impact of the Laser Zap on PC, my dear ol Mum, when she saw this many years ago was distracted. 'Hasn't Peter Cushing got really BLUE eyes!', she exclaimed. And yes, he DOES. The weird thing is, if you look at at Cushing's death pose as Gustav Weil in Hammer films, 'Twins of Evil' (1971) and the last death shot of Cushing's Sir John Rowan . . .they are uncannily similar!

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 . . 

GOODBYE TO ROY DOTRICE OBE 1923 -2017

VERY SAD TO READ that actor ROY DOTRICE passed a few days ago. Dotrice has one of those acting CV's that crosses all genre's, generations, trends and all arts disciplines, all of which he excelled in . . . he has a tenuous connection to Peter Cushing in that he was in the cast of Amicus films, 'Tales from the Crypt' (1972) in the 'Wish You Were Here' story, with Richard Greene and Barbara Murray. But I want to mention his passing here as more of a note to myself, and maybe you too, that Roy like Christopher Lee before him, is one of the last of our actors who stood for something special. In most cases their work, as they got older, should have come with a 'Quality Reassurance' stamp!

DOTRICE PLAYED so many good roles, very well during his long career, that's it's almost impossible to make a choice of the best... but stand outs would be Leopold Mozart in 'Amadeus' (1984), John Aubrey in Patrick Garland's 'Brief Lives', a one-man show that saw Dotrice on stage for more than two-and-a-half hours. 

A WEALTH BRIT TALENT: Rehearsing for a show at the Roundhouse, Chalk Farm is Foreground Barbara Windsor, and Max wall, a bearded Roy Dotrice, George Baker, Liza Goddard, Fenella Fielding, Amanda Barry, Anna Quayle, Melvyn Hayes, Bob Todd and Miriam Karlin! 

INTERVIEW: Roy Dotrice discuses recording the audio book of George R.R. Martin's A DANCE WITH DRAGONS

DOTRICE ALSO DID a terrific job of playing the title role in the television mini-series 'Dickens of London' in 1976. Followers of the 1980s American TV series 'Beauty and the Beast' will know him as the adopt-father of Ron Pearlman's character.

AMAZINGLY HE EARNED a place in the Guinness World Records in 2004 for the highest number of character voices by a single actor for the first book in the series of, 'A Game of Thrones' (in which he voiced a total of 224 characters). He also narrated many storybook adaptations for Disney Records, including 'The Little Mermaid', for which he was nominated for a Grammy award. In 2000 Dotrice won much acclaim for his Tony Award-winning Broadway performance in the revival of 'A Moon for the Misbegotten' and in 2008 was appointed to the Order of the British Empire for services to the world of theatre and drama.

BACK A FEW YEARS ago, I had the opportunity to spend an afternoon with Roy at the BBC rehearsal rooms in Acton, London. He was relaxed, unpretentious, extremely friendly..and blessed with that same grace, manner and composure that Mr Lee and Mr Cushing also lived by... a gentleman, an outstanding talent and presence in his profession. Roy Dotrice OBE 1923 - 2017.

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 . .

#TOOCOOLTUESDAY: HAMMER HORROR SCRIPTS AND GUY HENRY BIRTHDAY!

#TOOCOOLTUESDAY! #NEWS: To celebrate the long-awaited arrival of Hammer House of Horror in High Definition Network have announced they are giving away a facsimile of an original script with each Blu-ray set ordered only direct from them.These specially printed reproductions contain the original Hammer shooting scripts together with the additional pink amendment pages introduced during production, all courtesy of the Hammer archive at de Montfort University, ITV and Hammer Film Productions.

THE ARE JUST 500 copies available of each of Children of the Full Moon, The Silent Scream, The Mark of Satan and The Two Faces of Evil and these will be dispatched separately to your Blu-ray before the end of November. Your Blu-ray will be dispatched on or before the release date.

#TOOCOOLTUESDAY! What a great way to start our themed TUESDAY, marking the birthday, that just two years ago, was an actor busily working in a UK soap drama... and then last December was thrust into the spotlight, following huge anticipation for the arrival of the STAR WARS movie, #ROGUEONE. Henry wasn't just playing any character though, it was a role that would split the opinion of Cushing fans, movie goers and Star Wars Followers, the world over.... A Job Well done, Mr Henry 😉 A VERY Happy Birthday to you, have a great day!  

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 . . 

 

WHAT A BOUNDER! CHEAT AND CAD! MONSTER MONDAY : PAUL KEMPT

#MONSTERMONDAY! If I may borrow from the late, Terry-Thomas, What A Bounder! Paul Kempt, assistant to Cushing's Baron in Hammer films, #thecurseoffrankenstein. At the Baron's hour of need, just minutes away from the guillotine, he begs for his friends help.... Cushing pulls out the stops in his emotional pleading . It's a cracking scene, made all the more powerful by Paul's cold stand off behavior. Should he have helped the his friend, Frankenstein?? What a monster! You DECIDE . . .

AROUND THE 48 SECOND MARK, Cushing applies quite a clever technique... for just a second, he looks at the camera, deliberately. He breaks, THE FOURTH WALL, in order to connect with the viewer. It's pretty neat, and something I had not noticed before today, while looking at the clip. If you take a look at a similar scene at the end of his performance as Winston Smith in the BBC 1984 (1954), he does it there too, to brilliant effect. 

(THE FOURTH WALL is a theatrical term for the imaginary “wall” that exists between actors on stage and the audience. ... The same effect often occurs in movies, only the fourth wall in that instance is a camera lens.)

#petercushing #frankenstein #hammerfilms #wow! #didntknowthat #bounder

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 . . 

CALLUM MCKELVIE ASKS : DOCTOR WHO AND DR WHO JUST WHO IS WHO?

IN ROUGHLY two-month’ time, the science-fiction programme Doctor Who, will see the thirteenth official ‘Doctor’ take on the role and the first female to do so. In its now over fifty year run-time, the programme has been through varying incarnations, from the political thrillers of the early 70’s period of the shower, to the gothic horror explored a mere five years later. Perhaps it is this versatile nature that allows it to be one of the most popular British television programmes of all time. 

THAT SAID, the two Dalek movies from the early 60’s are somewhat…controversial. Many people detest them, often citing the childish atmosphere and complete abandonment of the continuity of the television programme. Well I must confess that I hold a very different view and here I intend to defend a pair of often lambasted movies. This first post will tackle 1965’s Dr Who and the Daleks, whilst I will return soon to take on the sequel, Daleks: Invasion Earth 2150 A.D (1966).

TO BEGIN, in the interest of full disclosure I must confess that:
A) I am a massive Doctor Who fan, to the point that I regularly attend conventions, listen to the audios, buy the magazines etc., etc. B) that is primarily due to these two films.

PICTURE IF YOU WILL, a four/five year-old northern lad who is already becoming something of a science-fiction aficionado. By this point I’d seen and enjoyed Forbidden Planet (1956), The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) and War of the Worlds (1953). So naturally when I caught the final five minutes of Dr Who and the Daleks, I was hooked, managing to catch the entirety of the sequel a week later. From there I spun off into the television series, before eventually finding my way back to classic Sf/Horror cinema. So there you have it, this is the perspective of not only a Doctor Who super-fan, but one whose entire love for this subject is probably the result of these two movies.

SO WHERE TO BEGIN, my defence then? Well the Doctor Who movies usually receive criticism for three main points. The differences to the TV version, the child-like atmosphere and (amongst some fans) Cushing’s portrayal of the role. Starting with the first point, the television character is an alien, having fled his home planet and now roams time and space in his stolen Tardis, referring to himself only as; The Doctor (played on television by William Hartnell). He lands on the planet Skaro, with his granddaughter Susan and two school teachers, Ian and Barbara. Here he meets the Daleks, survivors of a nuclear war against another species, the Thals. The Daleks have mutated hideously and have locked themselves in travel machines in order to survive. Consumed with race hatred, they wish to eliminate the now peaceful Thals.

CUSHING AND SUBOTSKY'S version is a human being called ‘Dr. Who’ a somewhat dithering Grandfather who built the Tardis in his back garden. His granddaughter is no longer a teenager, but a small girl (Roberta Tovey) and the school teachers are changed for his beautiful niece (Jennie Linden) and her comic-relief lover (Roy Castle). This lack of continuity with the television series often causes upsets. 

ABOVE: Until quite recently in the TV series, the question of what actually IS inside the DALEK armor, was never really touched on and certainly not see, making this shot, a NO NO!

ABOVE: The SLAP-STICK SLICK, of Roy Castle is from 'another time'. The  now serious business of WHO time travel, losses it's drama punch, with clown shoes throwing a pie into the face of today's Doctor Who . . . 

THOUGH ONE WONDERS how much this is effected by what has come since. At this stage decidedly little was known about the title character. Several points which the film states as absolute (his name being Dr. Who and the possibility that he built the Tardis) were at this point, possibilities. In the 1965 television serial The Chase, the first doctor stated that he had built the Tardis whilst the Daleks would refer to him as ‘Human’. Other details from this time that would forgotten included a line that indicated the Doctor had only one heart and the Daleks stating that although he was human, this was not his ‘true form’ (The Daleks Masterplan 1965).

NOT ONLY THAT but the television serial upon which this is based (1963’s The Daleks) was cut down from a seven episode serial with each episode running roughly twenty-five minutes, into a ninety minute feature film, losing the more ‘talky’ elements and emphasising the action sequences. 

THIS WAS ALSO the trend at the time, with many adaptations of popular television shows at the time, choosing to adapt one of that particular series most popular or ‘important’ story lines. For example 1970’s House of Dark Shadows adapts Barnabas’s main story from Dark Shadows, ramping up the gore and fear factor for a mainstream audience whilst the UK 1971 Callan theatrical movie, also adapted that show’s first episode, again increasing the thrills for a big screen adventure. 

THE DARKER ELEMENTS  and detail of the script had to be jettisoned and the resultant film (no doubt due to Subotsky’s love for family friendly material) was aimed at younger children. Again this can be somewhat jarring to fans of the television series, but this is not unlike a majority of the science-fiction adventure films of the time. Perhaps a good comparison is the 1964 adaptation of H.G Wells The First Men In the Moon which similarly features an eccentric elderly inventor, a journey to another civilisation and an emphasis on light-hearted comedy, or another Jules Verne adaptation 1959’s Journey to the Centre of the Earth. 

'The First Men In The Moon' (1964) Soft, Cuddly and Kiddie-friendly!

 Our Review and Gallery of 'The First Men In The Moon' can be found: HERE!

AGAIN, whilst this may seem jarring, contextually it seems perfectly normal befitting a film of this nature as made in the mid 1960’s. It had a space journey, scary monsters and an alien world, perfect for the kid’s matinees! A Doctor Who film of the mid-late 1970’s would no doubt of followed some of the cinematic conventions of the time, as indeed the aborted script of Tom Baker’s Doctor Who Meets Scratchman, shows with him borrowing heavily from British horror. Indeed he even wanted Vincent Price to play the Villain!

IT'S HARD TO THINK of another Cushing character which is as divisive as his portrayal of the Doctor, a portrayal that would be massively toned down in the next film. Here he is heavily made up, with shocking white hair and a large bushy moustache. He seems constantly arched over and twitters and jumps excitedly, a mix between a Victorian scientist and the ideal grandfather. Admittedly, at points it can seem a little bit much perhaps not helped by the script (which includes a somewhat cringe inducing joke about ‘soft centred’ chocolates) but Cushing’s whimsical charm fits the very light-hearted tone of the film.

IT ALSO DOESN'T HELP that given the cut down run-time, Cushing has surprisingly little to do as the film goes on. Of course he invents the machine to take our heroes to the planet, deducts various things throughout the film, but when facing off the Daleks, he seems somewhat weak. Cushing’s Doctor (at least in this instalment) isn’t the strong, steadfast hero that we now associate with the character.

IN THE SEQUEL (as we shall see) this is one of the character traits that he changes to suit the darker script and his Doctor is all the better for it. However again we come back to the argument that at this stage the Doctor isn’t the draw. His character is not set in stone and in the colourful, child-like and child-for world of the film he fits right in. 

THE DALEKS themselves are terrifying. In full colour, they are far larger than their television counter-parts and having deeper, more booming voices that echo around the large and equally impressive sets. There are also far more of them, gliding menacingly in the background of various shots. The final battle sequence is superb and is easily the highlight of the film, with large explosions and Daleks spinning and crashing, making the television version pale in comparison.

INDEED WHILST certainly characters and some of the darker sides of Nations script are gone, the action set pieces are increased ten-fold. Dr Who and the Daleks is a brilliant Saturday matinee adventure film. Cushing’s portrayal, whilst certainly controversial, fits the tone and mood of the film perfectly.

WHILST I CAN see why fans of the show may not like this particular version, the television original is still there. You can still watch it and it has in no way had its status or reputation diminished by this version. Dr Who and the Daleks is best viewed not as a ‘Doctor Who’ film but a Dalek orientated children’s film and it is by no means any the worse for that. 

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 . .