Sunday 20 September 2020

'THE EAMONN ANDREWS SHOW' WITH PETER CUSHING : VINTAGE BRIT TV!

AS PART OF A PCASUK SERIES of selected rare vintage interviews from television and radio featuring Peter Cushing, here is our latest 'golden nugget' at the . 'The Eamonn Andrews Show' was the UK equivalent, in a most basic format only, of the US 'Johnny Carson Show' and at the time of this BBC broadcast on December 10th 1967, it was a very popular 45 minute mix of chat from guests and live music. Listed often as a 'TALK show', long before the telly-short-hand-term 'Chat' would ever be considered valid or a decent term for printing in the sacred 'Radio Times' publication, the Andrews style often permitted him to rattle off quite weird questions, catching nervous guests off guard, when hoping to generate a bit of spark, from one who was hoped to be an interesting character, was sadly sometimes just a car crash of a snooze, with the dullest of duffers. This show jollied along from 1964 until 1969.  Like chat shows today, guests would be there pushing a book, a current release of their film or impending broadcast of THEIR tv show. Andrews was 'johnny-on-the-spot' for a who range of light entertainment in 50's,60's and 70's UK. But will probably be remembered for bringing 'THIS IS YOUR LIFE' concept and show from the US to Brit shores, from 1955 until 1964, and then from 1969 until his death in 1987. It's sad that little of The Eamonn Andrews show, now exist . . 

CUSHING IS THERE drumming up business for Corruption. Not of the John Poulson and Reginald Maudling, variety of the time, but the 1967 film, starring both he and Sue Lloyd. This audio recording is now LIVE at the FACEBOOK PCASUK FAN PAGE  HERE and is certainly worth an ear-full of your attention. Cushing is brisk, entertaining and quite a dab-hand in delivering spins on what was often predictable, dull questions, from lazy tv and radio presenters. December 1967 was just a few short years away, from the quite catastrophic event of Helen, his closest of companions and wife, sadly dying from a long illness with emphysema, on January 14th 1971. In three years time, much of this wonderful and witty energy would be gone in any interviews, for at least the next ten years. Five years previous to this interview, pressures had also taken their toll, resulting in a full 12 months from work, while he puled himself back together following two breakdowns.... Just like his most often fiction team partner, of four movies, Count Dracula . .  Cushing took many blows to both his mental and physical constitution, but like The Count, you just couldn't keep a good guy downπŸ˜πŸ˜‰

PLEASE COME JOIN US at the FACEBOOK PCASUK FAN PAGE! With posts every day, rare images and photographs, features ad prize competitions.. all celebrating the LIFE and CAREER of Peter Cushing OBE!

IT'S #CAT-URDAY! WHERE #CHRISTOPHERLEE POSES WITH PUSS AND #PETERCUSHING'S CAT IS A MOGGIE THAT RULES!

IT'S CAT-TURDAY! 😊and #ChristopherLee- CAT-turday at that! Two men, two moggies. Christopher Lee with his cat and #PeterCushing, with his ?? Both of these guys have played characters in movies, that had 'dealings with moggies' ... but they still love them enough to have had them at home. Over at the Facebook PCASUK Fan Page we are asking for suggestions, for names for these gentleman's moggies please πŸ˜ Have fun, stay safe... meeeeooow!😺😺 - Marcus

ABOVE: Can you come up with a name for Cushing's cat? Peter is obviously having a lot of fun with this moggie .. who isn't at ALL impressed being in the company, of such a fine gentπŸ˜‚πŸ˜† COME share your name suggestion at the Facebook PCASUK Fan Page post!

THE PCASUK REVIEW ; of Peter Cushing FELINE FLICK, 'THE UNCANNY' BLU RAY from Severin, with gallery of rare on set stills and more! RIGHT HERE!


ABOVE:
Part ONE of a HUGE Gallery feature with tons of on set and beind-the scenes photographs taken during the making of Amicus films 'I MONSTER' ... Oh,there's a cat too! 😏 RIGHT HERE!

PLEASE COME JOIN US at the FACEBOOK PCASUK FAN PAGE! With posts every day, rare images and photographs, features ad prize competitions.. all celebrating the LIFE and CAREER of Peter Cushing OBE!

Friday 18 September 2020

PETER CUSHING AND THE AMAZING WORLD OF KRESKIN PLUS YOUR WEAPON OF CHOICE : DVD BLU RAY OR STREAMING?


PCASUK PREMIER 😲 Some of you may remember we did a 'Tuesday-Toughy' on this long thought 'lost' guest appearance of Peter Cushing on the ITV show, The Amazing World of Kreskin' back in 1973? Well here today, we have that episode, for you to enjoy! It's fun with a great interview first, and then Kreskin does his 'magic'. Peter seems to have a lot of fun. After so long remembering Peter appearing on this show, it's amazing to finally see it again πŸ˜ HERE is the LINK to the the Facebook PCASUK Fan Page, where you can WATCH it too HERE! I hope you enjoy 😊



HOW DO YOU WATCH and which format? Every time a new #PeterCushing film is released on blu ray in my home, it's party time. I have really embraced the format.. and if the extras are a REAL bonus, it's even better. I watch and in it goes with the others πŸ˜ BUT over at the Facebook PCASUK Fan Page, we're asking . .'which format are watching on?' Some of you I know, still pick up dvd's and even VHS copies of the films. Do watch #blurays? Are you streaming the films too? I would love to know πŸ˜‰ So, tell me which format works best for you, a) which format do you regularly now purchase? b) what is your all time FAV Cushing #Hammerfilm or others that you own.. c) and what are the TOP THREE films in your collection, which includes another Peter Cushing movie πŸ˜ I'm not nosey, this info helps when organising UKPCAS competitions 😊

PLEASE COME AND JOIN US at the FACEBOOK PCASUK FAN PAGE! With posts every day, rare images and photographs, features and prize competitions! All celebrating the LIFE and CAREER of Peter Cushing OBE

CUSHING CONTACT SHEETS AND HOW THE CUSHING DR WHO MOVIES CHANGED EVERYTHING : RADIO TIMES

HERE ARE TWO contact sheets of candid photographs of #PeterCushing and Director #TerenceFisher TOGETHER attending the #Paris International Festival of Fantasy film, back in 1974... where they both walked away with awards and much love from critics, films fans and the press...... it looks like they had a really food time.

JUST ARRIVED on the #RADIOTIMES website... If you ever needed the whole of the #Cushing #DrWho #Dalek theme explained, THIS could be for you. It's just 20 mins, full of all matter of the history of BOTH Cushing Dr Who movies and interestingly, what the films gave to the BBC tv series too! 

CUSHING'S PORTRAYAL of a 'Dr Who' and the ever popular #Daleks, are still the ONLY time subtle identities of both have made made it theatrically onto the BIG SCREEN! . . THE SHORT PODCAST FEATURE IS HERE!!!

YOU ARE MOST WELCOME TO JOIN US at the FACEBOOK PCASUK FAN PAGE! With posts every day, rare images and photographs, features and prize competitions.. all celebrating the LIFE and CAREER of Peter Cushing OBE

Sunday 13 September 2020

THE BATTLE FOR BRAY STUDIOS : HAMMER VAMPIRES AND ANOTHER DIP INTO THE 'SAVE BRAY SNAPS'

ANOTHER DIP into the press photographs taken on the Aug 9th 1990 at the 'Save Bray Studios' which Peter Cushing attended to support the cause... judging his expression here, I think he already was feeling the outcome....But the FIGHT still goes on. News in January of more plans and companies ready to use the studios facilities was released in a contract to use Bray in a GLOBAL TV series, 'that could be the biggest TV series in world' IF planning permission was granted. A temporary planing permission to reinstate the studio was granted for two years! Temporary buildings, structures, which will include sound stages and workshops, car parks and rehearsal areas, means Bray's Day's are FAR from over! It's been a long hard struggle from 1990, when Peter flew in by helicopter, to make the case for an old friend, who now thankfully looks to be around and functioning for some time to come!

ABOVE: DONALD FEARNEY'S DOCUMENTARY, 'LEGEND OF HAMMER VAMPIRES' WHICH FEATURES BRAY STUDIOS and the classics from 1950's -60's era

MORE ON BRAY STUDIOS AND THE FIGHT TO SAVE IT, can be found HERE in our PCASUK feature from AUGUST 2020



YOU ARE MOST WELCOME TO JOIN US at the FACEBOOK PCASUK FAN PAGE! With posts every day, rare images and photographs, features and prize competitions.. all celebrating the LIFE and CAREER of Peter Cushing OBE

Saturday 12 September 2020

REMEMBERING ACTOR FREDDIE JONES AND VERSATILITY WITH SIR CHRISTOPHER LEE

#CHRISTOPHERLEE SATURDAY! This text is taken from part if an interview Christopher Lee did on the BBC tv show 'Wogan' back in 1985. It must have been terribly frustrating for him to, always have to retread this whole spiel about HIS versatilely and volume of work, that had little or nothing in connection with the fantasy genre .. Over at the FACEBOOK PCASUK FAN PAGE wer'e asking, HOW versatile do you think Christopher Lee was on screen? What's your fav non-fantasy Christopher Lee role???


QUITE EARLY ON in my tv and film watching habits, I learnt that the actor, Freddie Jones, was always worth watching. Even if it was a new tv drama, a film or even a radio play at my grans, whatever I was up to, while passing through the room, THAT voice would immediately capture my ear.

YOU COULDN'T WALK AWAY. My Mum and Gran were huge fans too, 'It's Freddie JUNUCE!' she would say. My mother was brought up in the South Wales valleys and had a habit of pronouncing certain words, names, as a somewhat strange 'Hilda Baker' wrapped and tongue twisting, weird mangled malapropisms...'Jun....uce!' 'Yes!' I would smile and agree .'With a surname like that, he's obviously Welsh!', she would gleam with pride. He wasn't, but I wouldn't dream of breaking the spell for her.


WE HAD ALL SEEN JONES, in an ITV play version of 'Sweeney Todd' back in 1970. We were terrified. But something I noticed, far more than the tension or the murders..was his delivery. His words, his prosody! Next time I saw him was in Cushing's 'Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed' . . again there it was. The pauses, the rhythm. It was tense and it and he pulled you in with each pause.


WHAT WAS HE GOING TO SAY NEXT? I don't think Freddie Jones actually was capable of being dull. Listen and watch his performance as Prof Professor Julian Keeley, with Peter Cushing in Christopher Lee's last Hammer Dracula film, 'The Satanic Rites of Dracula'. It's a master-class in 'How to terrify an audience, with no props, masks or make-up and yet a full tool kit of quivers, nuances and dialogue super charged with, suggestion!



FIND YOURSELF, five films or tv shows.. and you'll see, when he speaks, everyone is listening. I watched 'Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed' in a midnight double bill cinema, packed to the gills, with drunks, dribbling into free fall and slopping into back row seats just after closing time. Del Boy's with dates and 'men with dirty-macs'. Nearly all were diving into candy's, crisps, cans, scraping and trawling the bottoms of slimy twin ice cream tubs while sucking to collapse, their cardboard cartons of Kiora. It was annoying and noisy...except when Freddie was on the screen. Then, it went quiet and everyone tuned in . .


MORE ON FREDDIE JONES and 'The Satanic Rites of Dracula' in our
 PCASUK GALLERY and REVIEWHERE!
 

WE COULD POUR over the many, many gold star roles and others that do more than just twinkle, when the rest of the cast and film, were not even sparkles, in Jones' beady-eye😚 ! I wish I had seen Jones in Ronald Harwood’s affectionate near-portrait of Sir Donald Wolfit in 'The Dresser' (1980), an old ham called “Sir” who faces disaster in the mirror while preparing to play King Lear. It was a huge success. You can see how he filled that role, that theatre. It is said, 'After his 1980 run, no following actor, in The Dresser – Albert Finney in the 1983 film, Anthony Hopkins on television in 2015, nor Ken Stott in the West End in 2016 – matched the rumbling thunder of Jones in Manchester and subsequently at the Queen’s in London!' Sadly, I didn't see it and we have to make do with snippets and a radio version on YouTube.

BETTER THAN NOTHING.πŸ˜•πŸ˜ He was certainly better than most gave him credit for. But there's gems to find, for sure! Quality, if not quantity. And for that we say thank you, with bended knee.

Happy Birthday, Freddie Jones. He once said, ' “My life springs from my wife, my family, my work and my whisky.” . . Well, in remembering, we'll celebrate and certainly toast to that - Marcus Brooks

YOU ARE MOST WELCOME TO JOIN US at the FACEBOOK PCASUK FAN PAGE! With posts every day, rare images and photographs, features and prize competitions.. all celebrating the LIFE and CAREER of Peter Cushing OBE

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