TORTURE GARDEN

1967/Director: Freddie Francis/Writer: Robert Bloch

Cast: Jack Palance, Burgess Meredith, Beverly Adams, Peter Cushing, Maurice Denham, Barbara Ewing, Robert Hutton, Michael Ripper

I remember the first Amicus film I ever saw was Tales from the Crypt on late night TV. I had always been intrigued by the film’s poster art which I saw on one of the issues of Famous Monsters of Filmland. That film and Vault of Horror typify the Amicus approach to many of their pictures as they were patterned after the EC comics of the same name. There are usually four or maybe five stories linked together in some fashion and sometimes featuring a host. In the case of Torture Garden the host is the sinister sideshow carny Dr. Diablo played to the hilt by Burgess Meredith. This sort of story telling –called portmanteau- was certainly not invented by Amicus and probably goes back to the 1945 film Dead of Night. Of course there is the classic Black Sabbath from 1963 by Mario Bava, one of my all-time favorite films, with three supernatural yarns woven together by host Boris Karloff. But the format would become practically synonymous with Amicus though they did produce feature length films as well. Some of their excellent feature films included the atmospheric City of the Dead, The Beast Must Die and At the Earth’s Core. It can be easy to think that you’re watching a Hammer film when watching an Amicus production. The style is often visually similar –though the Amicus stories and settings are less Gothic than Hammer’s– and often the cast and crew included many Hammer notables. Like Hammer Amicus was a British production company though it was founded and ran by two Americans, producer Milton Subotsky and screenwriter Max Rosenberg. Torture Garden lacked Christopher Lee –a decision made by the American producers who felt he did not have box-office power and replaced him with Jack Palance– but was capably directed by Oscarwinning cinematographer and Hammer director Freddie Francis. Francis also directed the first Amicus portmanteau Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors as well as Taled from the Crypt. Hammer institution Michael Ripper has a small but vital role and the film’s final and best story features Peter Cushing. And if you read the credits –like I do looking for some familiar name  in the music or make-up department- you will see that the film’s score was composed by James Bernard who did some of the best Hammer soundtracks. In fact during the 60’s it is hard to find a good Hammer film that Bernard did not score.

MORE AMICUS HORROR IN TORTURE GARDEN HERE >>

FRANKENSTEIN CREATED WOMAN

1967/Director: Terence Fisher/Writer: Anthony Hinds

Cast: Peter Cushing, Susan Denberg, Thorley Walters, Robert Morris, Duncan Lamont

Frankenstein Created Woman is the fourth of the Hammer Frankenstein films and sees the return of Terence fisher as director after a brief absence from the helm while Freddie Francis directed The Evil of Frankenstein. Anthony Hinds is back as script writer under the familiar pseudonym John Elder. We will get to The Evil of Frankenstein another day as I will eventually get all the Hammer Frankenstein efforts reviewed then move on to the Dracula films. But I did want to clear something up that puzzled me for a while regarding the film Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell. In that film I made the error of stating in my review of that film that Baron Frankenstein shows the damage he received at the end of Frankenstein Must Be destroyed. I was recalling that from memory and I am far from an expert on the films but it would seem that in Frankenstein Created Woman Frankenstein already shows some damage to his hands. We may infer from this that the injuries were received at the end of 1964’s The Evil of Frankenstein when the castle burns down and then explodes (like in the James Whale version) though it not shown or explained. Anyway, I always wondered about his hands in that film and need to go back and rewatch Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed, a fine Terence fisher film as well, and see if his hands are gloved in that one.

MORE FRANKENSTEIN CREATED WOMAN HERE >>

THE HOUSE OF HAMMER

The House of Hammer was a British movie magazine put out in the mid 70′s when Hammer as a film company was grinding down to a near stand still. But at the time the magazine was the best selling movie magazine in Britain. The publication tried to combine what Warren magazines was doing with Famous Monsters of Film Land and its black and white comic magazines. The artists that contributed to the magazine were also frequent Warren contributors and they may have jumped at the chance to illustrate some of the classic Hammer films in narrative form. The magazine however did not only focus on Hammer films or exclusively on British cinema but contained articles on classic American horror as well.  I included an illustrated version of one of the better latter day Hammer films Vampire Circus drawn by the fantastic Brian Bolland. I have all the issues on my hard drive and look forward to posting some more samples from this curious magazine including some comic strip hosted by an illustrated Peter Cushing as Abraham Van Helsing. For now enjoy Vampire Circus and a couple page samples.

MORE HOUSE OF HAMMER #17 HERE >>

FRANKENSTEIN AND THE MONSTER FROM HELL

1974/Director: Terence Fisher/Writer: Anthony Hinds

Cast: Peter Cushing, Shane Briant, Madeline Smith, David Prowse, John Stratton, Michael Ward, Elsie Wagstaff, Norman Mitchell

This was the last of the Hammer Frankenstein series and it actually takes up where Frankenstein Must be Destroyed left off as the prior film, The Horror of Frankenstein, broke the continuity of the films by going back to when Frankenstein was younger. Horror also suffered a bit by the absences of Terrence Fisher as director and Peter Cushing as Victor Frankenstein, but more on that film another post. Cushing and Fisher are both back for this 1974 film, as are Anthony Hinds (writing as James Elder) and Hammer composer James Bernard. In a couple more years Hammer would see itself all but out of business as the British film company that revived Gothic horror and with Monster from Hell they ended on a pretty good note. The only flaws for me are the title that does not really suit the film’s atmosphere and the rather shoddy monster played by David Prowse (Darth Vader) who also played the creature in Horror of Frankenstein as well. There were understandable budget constraints with the film since Hammer itself was going under. The idea of some sort of Neolithic monster is not in and of itself that bad and certainly the monster here is one of the most unique in the annals of Frankenstein films. I think it could have worked better really with less rubber makeup and poorly applied fake body hair. But it is easily over looked after a while really. Some people have criticized Madeline Smith’s as the mute assistant Angel but I liked it. The close ups of her face are beautiful and the innocent character’s charm may have been soiled by exploiting her ample endowments with a title corset as is known to be the attire of most Hammer queens.

MORE FRANKENSTEIN AND THE MONSTER FROM HELL HERE >>

THE ABOMINABLE SNOWMAN

1957/Director: Val Guest/Writer: Nigel Kneale

Cast: Forrest Tucker, Peter Cushing, Maureen Connell, Richard Wattis, Robert Brown, Michael Brill, Wolfe Morris, Arnold Marlé

The Abominable Snowman was one of Hammer’s ealry films that came out right before Curse of Frankenstein and Dracula. It was written by Nigel Kneale and directed by Val Guest, the pair who earlier had created the two Quartermass films. It stars a young and intense Peter Cushing before he became legendary as the morally ambivalent Victor Frankenstein and the morally unshakable Abraham Van Helsing. I had earlier reviewed X-The Unknown and like that film I will say the same thing about The Abominable Snowman and that is that it is too bad Hammer did not do more films like this after they took off in the early sixties. This is a fine film, well written, directed and acted and I wonder what else this great studio could have produced along these lines had they set their minds to it. Of course Hammer did do other films during the sixties than just their classic retakes of old Universal horror films like Frankenstein, Dracula, The Wolfman and The Mummy. Other than The Hound of the Baskervilles, with Cushing playing Sherlock Holmes, I have not had a chance to get too many of those suspense and crime style films from Hammer but hopefully I will be shortly. But this film, released the same year as but prior to Curse of Frankenstein, was from their very early days when they were just beginning to emerge as a so to be major horror studio and there is a certain quality the film has that their later non-Universal style films, the few I have seen, did not usually have though The Hound of the Baskervilles is a very good film.

MORE ABOMINABLE SHOWMAN HERE >>

THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN

1957/ Director: Terence Fisher/ Writers: Jimmy Sangster (screenplay), Mary Shelley (novel)

Cast: Peter Cushing, Hazel Court, Robert Urquhart, Christopher Lee, Melvyn Hayes, Valerie Gaunt, Paul Hardtmuth

The Curse of Frankenstein is truly a history making movie. Prior to Curse Hammer had had some success as a film studio and with the Quartermass films and X The Unknown found a niche in the horror genre. Curse was their first color film, and what a first it was. The scenes are lush and vibrant as well as chilling and nightmarish. Under the direction of the brilliant Terence Fisher the movie revived the gothic horror film. While it was a return to the classic, atmospheric horror themes established in the 30’s by Universal studios, Hammer would certainly tell the stories with their own style. Hammer screenwriter Jimmy Sangster would turn the focus of the story on the character of Victor Frankenstein rather than the monster. The obsessed doctor and his hideous creation are played by Hammer first timers Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. Lee got the role basically because of his 6’4” height, a feature that almost prevented him from landing the role he would make legendary, that of Count Dracula. However it is Cushing that shines as the driven and insane Dr. Victor Frankenstein. He does frequent himself with hunchbacks as he robs graves but he aligns himself with his brilliant tutor. In later Hammer Frankenstein films the Igor type hunchback is eschewed for career driven young men who fall under Frankenstein’s evil charm. Cushing is dashingly handsome and his face conveys the doctor’s charisma and madness. He is a sociopath really who will let no one stand in the way of his ambitions.

MORE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN HERE >>

I am in the middle of rewatching the Vampire Lovers and felt the need to do a quick post on the queen of sexy lesbo vamps, Ingrid Pitt. There are some mythic elements to the life of Ingrid Pitt that is sometimes conflicting, depending on what source you are reading. There is the fantastic story of how she was born Ingoushka Petrov in 1937, of Polish parents, while her mother was being transported to a concentration camp in Germany during the war. Another source keeps the concentration camp story but gives the date of 1943 for her birth, while yet another source claims Pitt herself lists her birth date as November of 1945, when the war was well over for Germany as well as Japan and the camps were abolished.

MORE INGRID PITT HERE >>