HAPPY BIRTHDAY IN REMEMBRANCE OF INGRID PITT . .

#TOOCOOLTUESDAY! Today, had she lived.. would have been Ingrid Pitt's 80th birthday. Any regular visitor here will already know, how highly we valued her friendship to our society, her skill as an actress and as a beautiful person who touched everyone's heart who ever met her. We spent last weekend, celebrating her life and career...today, we mark her birthday and make a little space, to share how much we still miss her . . . Happy Birthday, Ingrid . . .

IN CASE YOU MAY have missed them, here are the links to last weekend's features and galleries on INGRID: HERE  AND 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  . .

SATANIC RITES OF DRACULA MOMENTS OF TERROR RARE BEHIND THE SCENES CONTACT SHEET PHOTOGRAPHS

#MOMENTSOFTERRORMONDAY! 'The Satanic Rites of Dracula' The first of FOUR great fearsome clips for this week's themed post Little did we know when this scene played out on the big screen, that it would be the last time we would see Cushing's Van Helsing destroy Christopher Lee's Dracula for Hammer films . . . some felt a little cheated, by the method and staging of this symbolic scene. Dracula for them it seemed, has been thwarted by getting tangled in a bramble bush and poked by a piece of woodland fencing!!!!

I MAY BE in the minority . ..but I thought it was rather well done, and the pace of the scene, was a master stroke. It's almost graceful. Dracula is captured by his own thirst for revenge on the Van Helsing family. It is his anger and frustration that sees him trapped by the 'holy hawthorn' . ..the more he claws, the harder he pushes to reach Van Helsing, on the other side of the bush...the more the thorns hold him..until finally, he falls. Van Helsing doesn't even hurry to deliver that stake. 

AND THEN what appears to be a Crucifixion...and the pace changes again, what started as snarling and gnashing ...all slowly winds down. As time claws back the years, accompanied by the low musical score , flesh turns to bone, bone to ash...and finally dust. When compared to the blood and thunder action of all the other Hammer Dracula exits... this one is almost like a grotesque ballet. ....and the little nod to the final shot of the first Hammer Dracula in 1958, when only his signet ring remains . . . is a very good touch.

#MOMENTSOFTERRORMONDAY! VAN HELSING'S (Peter Cushing) granddaughter Jessica Van Helsing (Joanna Lumley) while investigating what appears to be a secret base for 'creepy goings-on' stumbles upon a cellar . ..with some unexpected creepies..and we don't mean spiders! Look out for actress Valerie Van Ost, who appeared with Peter Cushing in the pre slasher cult movie, 'Corruption' (1968) . .. Ost went on to leave the acting profession and become a theatrical agent!

#MOMENTSOFTERRORMONDAY!A bit of a shocking experience (sorry...) for one of Dracula's henchmen. In Hammer Dracula films of old school, he usually had one poor soul who did his bidding... one KLOVE played by Patrick Troughton in 'Scars of Dracula' (1970) and by Phillip Latham in the 1966, 'Dracula, Prince of Darkness' . .. now, there is an army of funky waitse-coated motor cycle ridding thugs, to protect him...complete with state of the art, CCTV! Michael Coles Inspector Murray, has a bit of a rough up with one, in this scene. Typical (see tv UK series 'The Sweeney') punch up, but with a very satisfying ending! Take that, villain!

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  . .

THE BRIDES OF DRACULA PREMIER : GOLDEN VAMP GOOF AND BEAST MUST DIE!

#GETHECUSHIONSUNDAY! Peter Cushing and Yvonne Monlaur rolled up at the West End Rank Cinema, London for the premier night of #hammerfilms 'The Brides of Dracula' on July 7th 1960 . . .looks like Yvonne had wondered off for a popcorn or hotdog, leaving Peter at the mercy of these two ladies from the Rank Organisation, in fancy dress..at least I HOPE they are in fancy dress....

PETER CUSHING AND YVONNE MONLAUR together at the #bridesofdracula premier night . . .with the Vampire Girls just...off..camera...

TWO GREAT PUBLICITY shots of Peter Cushing from Hammer films, 'THE BRIDES OF DRACULA' (1960) One in character as #VANHELSING and the other, as himself!

WE HAVE compiled the SIX photographs that were taken exclusively on set of #HAMMERFILMS 'The Brides of Dracula' for the PICTURE SHOW magazine feature, and reassembled them, in this banner, to give some idea of how, they could have looked . . 

#GETTHECUSHIONSUNDAY! CALLUM McKELVIE'S feature this week is on the Amicus Cushing 'WHO-DONE-IT'.... 'The Beast Must Die'! Link below... Many still talk about the WEREWOLF BREAK, an ingenious little gimmick, which gave you a minute to guess the TRUE identity of the werewolf in the cast. Even though I have watched this movie about half a dozen times...I STILL can't ever remember when watching, WHO it turns out to be. DON'T REVEAL PLEASE! Cast your mind back, to when you first saw the film...HONESTLY...DID you SUCCESSFULLY GUESS who the werewolf was??? Here's the link to great memories, photographs and stuff on this most unusual of Amicus Horror films . .

 FEATURE HERE: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  . .

THE ONE AND ONLY : #CUSHINGSFEMMEFATALESFRIDAY!

BEST KNOWN  as Hammer Films' most seductive female vampire of the early 1970s, the Polish-born Pitt possessed dark, alluring features and a sexy figure that made her just right for Gothic horror! Ingrid Pitt (born Ingoushka Petrov) survived World War II and became a well-known actress on the East Berlin stage, however, she did not appear on screen until well into her twenties. She appeared in several minor roles in Spanish films in the mid 1960s, mostly uncredited, before landing the supporting role of undercover agent "Heidi", assisting Clint Eastwood and Richard Burton defeat the Third Reich in Where Eagles Dare (1968).

HER EXOTIC looks and eastern European accent came to the notice of Hammer executives who cast Pitt as vampiress "Mircalla" in the sensual horror thriller The Vampire Lovers (1970). The film was a box office success with its blend of horror and sexual overtones, and Pitt was a beautiful, yet ferocious bloodsucker. Next up, Pitt was cast by Amicus Productions as another gorgeous vampire in the episode entitled "The Cloak" in the superb The House That Dripped Blood (1971). This time, Ingrid played an actress appearing in horror films alongside screen vampire Jon Pertwee, but then later reveals herself to be a real vampire keen on recruiting fresh blood.

INGRID DONNED the fangs for her third vampire film in a row, Countess Dracula (1971) which was loosely based around the legend of the 16th century bloodthirsty Countess Elizabeth Bathory. Whilst not as successful, as the two prior outings, Ingrid Pitt had firmly established herself as one of the key ladies of British horror of the 1970s. She then appeared in the underrated The Wicker Man (1973) as an uncooperative civil servant annoying Edward Woodward in his search for a missing child. Further work followed in The Final Option (1982), as "Elvira" in the adaptation of the John le Carré Cold War thriller Smiley's People (1982), Wild Geese II (1985) and The Asylum (2000).

INGRID made regular appearances at horror conventions and fan gatherings, had penned several books on her horror career, and she relished talking to fans about her on screen vampiric exploits. Ingrid's fan club is known as the "Pitt of Horror"! A much loved and genuine cult figure of modern horror cinema, she died on November 23, 2010, just two days after her 73rd birthday.

PLEASE visit the INGRID PITT FAN CLUB WEBSITE . . .and help keep her memory alive. Just simply CLICK 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  . .