One of the more enduring and endearing Hammer Queen legends Veronica Carlson was a talented art student who gained some popularity as a model after a few small film roles. She appeared here and there in the British tabloids with a few lines of gossip under a pin up style picture that usually focused on her legs. Hammer head James Carreras saw one such picture of Veronica and decided to cast in Dracula Has Risen from the Grave with Christopher Lee, to be directed by Freddie Frances, more renowned for his cinematography, especially his b/w work. This has become one of my all time favorite Hammer Films, if not my favorite. She also did Frankenstein Must be Destroyed with a thoroughly menacing Peter Cushing as a Dr Frankenstein who will let nothing or no one stand in the way of his goals, including hapless little Veronica. She and director Terrence Fisher were upset over a rape scene included in the film at the behest of the American distributor. I must say that the scene of Peter Cushing assaulting her is one of my lest favorite and unnecessary scenes in the Hammer catalog. It is totally incongruous with the way Frankenstein is portrayed in other Hammer films and not consistent with Pushing usual on screen personas.

She came into the Hammer scene towards the end of its glory days and when the American distributors were seizing more control over the British studio resulting in the more exploitive period of the studio before its demise. This is the period where Hammer’s output tended to resemble the Euro-Sleaze work going on across the channel. She made one last substantial last film with her by now good friend Freddie Francis called the Ghoul before going into film retirement and moving to Florida to paint fulltime. While she seems to remembered as a long legged pin up model, I simply adore her innocent face and thick blonde hair. A short film career but she is still remembered fondly.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 19th, 2008 at 10:37 pm and is filed under British and Eurohorror, Hammer Horror, Pin Up Girls-Cheese Cake-Femme Fatales . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.