Hammer Thrown

Hang the garlic - horror from beyond the ‘tome’ is heading your way…

Dracula's hand look a bit weird? Well, yes, my own was the model, dislocated pinky and all...

On the 30th September, 2016, I sent out a poorly-written and probably very naive book proposal to a number of publishers around the world.

Despite my lack of experience, Telos Publishing in Britain expressed some interest a few days later. And looking back, I see that they actually responded on my mother’s birthday, which is surprisingly appropriate.
Mum passed away in 2009, but more than anyone encouraged my young interest in science fiction, fantasy and horror - and the films of Hammer.

A month short of two years in the making, Infogothic: An Unauthorised Graphic Guide to Hammer Horror is now finished. A celebrity introduction from a busy and much-loved actress was a long time in coming, but once it arrived (and the wait was well worth it) things began moving very quickly indeed.

I’ve written about the book’s long gestation here:
http://fasmatodea.blogspot.com/2017/03/getting-hammered.html

http://fasmatodea.blogspot.com/2017/08/getting-hammered-pt-2.html

and felt it appropriate to round off with this conclusion. A 'Karnstein trilogy', if you like.

Infogothic is due for release this Halloween (set back a full year after the lengthy fact-checking and proofing found us with no time left in 2017), but is available for pre-order now.

Some wonderful friends have even signed up already - and I am busy gratefully building shrines to them now.
Forgive me if you’ve already seen me 'pimping' my book everywhere, after so much work I can’t sit back just yet.

Like a shonky Hammer bat, my unholy progeny has just flapped shakily out of the castle window, and is now unleashed upon the world. I hope it finds happy roosts in other Hammer fans bookshelves.

https://telos.co.uk/shop/film/infogothic-hammer-horror/

"More than sixty years ago, Hammer Horror first exploded onto screens in a splash of vivid colour. Over the following two decades, the studio redefined horror cinema and crafted an often-interconnected world of gothic fantasy. The many graphics, diagrams, illustrations and maps within these pages will take you on a journey through the ‘Hammer-verse’ (most likely by horse-drawn coach). Pursue Count Dracula through the centuries, reconcile the many versions of the careers of Frankenstein and Quatermass, translate the curses of ancient Egypt and explore ‘Hammer time’ from doe-skinned prehistory to plastic-clad future.

Everything you ever wanted to know about Hammer’s horror films is contained in this incredible graphic guide. Charts, templates, diagrams and illustration take you through all the facts and figures. From the relative heights of Frankenstein’s Monster, to the actors to have played Dracula … no stone is left unturned in this compelling and fascinating look at the films which redefined ‘Horror’ for a generation.

“Truly original and wonderfully illustrated” – from the Introduction by Caroline Munro

96pp. 11 x 8 paperback book in full colour.
ISBN: 978-1-84583-124-0
Published 31 October 2018"

Count Down - Part Ten: Transylvania Jones and the Temple of Doom

The concept of Halloween becoming the ‘Geek Christmas’ was reinforced this year with a very special gift from BBC Radio 4.

Finally returning to this blog has been an interesting experience. Last time I got to revisit, correct and publish something I first posted in 2015, and now I’m returning to a series of posts from the blog’s earliest days, which I had assumed long over.

Count Down was my nine-part look at the Hammer Dracula films, and revisiting them first kindled the spark which led to my upcoming book about that film company (whose release is now postponed until Halloween next year - more on this later)

Given the Count’s unfailing ability to rise from the grave again and again in these films, we shouldn’t have been too surprised when the script for an unmade production was brought to life this Halloween.

The Unquenchable Thirst of Dracula has a long and interesting history. Intended as a follow-up to 1970’s Scars of Dracula, it was written by Anthony Hinds to take advantage of frozen assets which Hammer’s then-finance partner and distributor, Warner Bros, had in India at that time.

According to Hammer historian Marcus Hearn, the story was first titled Dracula High Priest of Vampires, before being dropped in favour of Don Houghton’s script Kali Devil Bride of Dracula in 1974, (to co-star Peter Cushing if the poster artwork is to be believed). Hind’s original script was then returned to 1977, shifted to the 1930s and given the name we know it as today.

Apparently it eventually transpired that Warner’s Indian assets were unavailable after all, the story was never filmed,  was and this was all no doubt yet another nail in the Hammer coffin at the close of the 1970s.

Decades passed until the Mayhem Film Festival mounted a full-cast-live reading of Unquenchable in Nottingham in 2015. Complete with a live sitar player, it was widely praised and lead to the Festival giving another unfilled Hammer script the same treatment this year: Zeppelin v. Pterodactyls. (Presumably without a sitar this time)

And then a few months ago it was announced that celebrity Hammer fan Mark Gatiss was going to adapt it as a radio production. Directed by Gatiss from Hind’s original screenplay, The Unquenchable Thirst of Dracula debuted on BBC Radio 4 at Halloween. Fortunately for those of us in other parts of the world the BBC iplayer did allow us access, and thank goodness, because this is an absolutely brilliant production.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09bx9fn

Set in Northwest India in 1934, the indigenous characters are all authentically cast, including Jekyll’s Meera Syal in two superb roles. Michael Sheen really brings the gravitas and atmosphere with his narration, and Lewis MacLeod, if not actually impersonating Christopher Lee, at least effectively channels his most famous performance, as Dracula.

But the true, unexpected delight is the story. I’ve half-seriously suggested that this is like listening to ‘Hammer meets Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom’, but this production actually improves on the 1984 Spieberg film in its cultural depiction. Unquenchable may have the requisite light nudity and sadism you’d expect from Hammer, but also none of the racism and sexism that the second Indiana Jones film provided.

We follow a very capable female protagonist, Penny Woods, who drives the action. Although assisted by an Indian father figure and love interest, neither are given time to ‘man-splain’ or patronise as they have their hands full just keeping up with her.

The originality of the setting and story structure achieves what Hammer never really succeeded in doing - injecting new life into their Dracula series. Unquenchable is fresh, exciting and never predictable. I was wrong-footed every time I tried to guess ahead, and that was a treat for someone so steeped in the ways of the house of horror.

However, I can confidently predict that everyone who listens will wish it had been made. More realistically, it’s my wish that Mr Gatiss turns his talents to the many more un-filmed Hammer scripts for Halloweens to come.

Ghoul Assembly: Part five - Spent Penny

You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone…

We watched the last ever episode of Penny Dreadful this week - a wholly unique series which falls perfectly into this series of posts about 'monster mash-ups'. Dracula, Frankenstein’s monster and his intended Bride, a Wolf Man or two, Dorian Gray, Doctor Jekyll and various witches and demons all collided over the three years which this series lasted.

Not all of these people are quite human.  Hardly any, actually...

But none of these figures were mere archetypes, they were all as complex and nuanced as any of the programme’s human characters. To say this was The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen done right is to pay disservice to both works - Penny Dreadful was like nothing else on television, stately in it’s pacing, utterly unpredictable and sometimes infuriating in it’s determination to avoid convention. 

 Oh how I gnashed my teeth in frustration when they introduced the very great David Warner as Van Helsing, no less, only to kill him off in the following episode!

Ethan's real last name is Talbot and he has an affinity with wolves.
Nope, nothing sinister here...

But above all, this was one of the most beautifully shot period drama TV I’ve ever seen - absolutely suited to a huge cinema screen - particularly the wild west vistas of this last season. Pause any frame from any moment of this series and you could frame it to hang it on your wall.

Victorian factories on the Thames - it's like being there

Eva Green’s Vanessa Ives was arguably the central character, initially drawn into events through there friendship with a certain Mina Murray. Mina doesn’t survive her encounter with a particular Transylvanian Count in this story, but her father Sir Malcolm (played impeccably by a grizzled but formidable Timothy Dalton) does. He becomes Vanessa’s protector and they gather an extraordinary league about them, all with their own secrets and dark pasts.

Dark events always centre on Vanessa - she's a spook magnet

To try and précis the dark and spiralling twists the series took is a fool’s errand, but moments stand out above the others. The first appearance of the Frankenstein creature and Greys portrait are unforgettable but for me Billie Piper’s Lily has the most startling scene. In the process of leaving her cringing creator Victor Frankenstein after terrorising him into submission, she suddenly turns and retrieves a bouquet of flowers he had naively offered. Her arm darts out like a striking snake, attention utterly focussed on this one action as if he no longer even exists, and then she’s gone. Something about this explosion of animalistic intensity in a harmless, even endearing, act is very unsettling.

Billie Piper as Lily Frankenstein - she's nobody's Bride.

It hasn’t been a flawless ride. Season two took a swerve from the Dracula story to involve us in what seemed to be a very long encounter with a coven of demonic sorceresses. It had it’s moments, but seemed to lose momentum and meander a little, concluding unsatisfactorily in one of those hallucinatory ‘confronting your own guilty past’ sequences.

https://vimeo.com/173809812

(A 4:43 effects reel for Penny Dreadful season 3 - well worth a look.)

This final year was an absolute return to form. Every character given more depth, and some welcome new ones added, particularly Victorian adventuress Catriona Hartdegen, played by Perdita Weeks with an unusual delivery which makes it appear as if she’s being dubbed.

A lengthy interlude in the United States provides a fascinating Western adventure with added werewolves and Brian Cox, before returning to London, and Vanessa, both now in the sway of Dracula. The silent, fog-shrouded city, abandoned by the living and haunted by rats and ragged clusters on the undead, has all the elements for a worthy sequel to Bram Stoker’s novel.

The final showdown...

But now Penny Dreadful is gone, the usual masterpiece title sequence replaced with the simple caption ‘The End’. Victorian London will never seem so sumptuous, or foreboding, again - and these familiar characters may not be re-interpreted so memorably for a very long time.

Ghoul Assembly: Part two - Stand By Mummy

In 1987, the world was saved from the combined forces of darkness by an elite team who operated from a treehouse...

Monster Squad(s)

Films finding their way to New Zealand in the days before multiplexes could be a very hit-and-miss affair.  Before a collection of yawning big screens under same roof needed their endless appetites fed, there were the video rental shops on almost every street - and video-release only in this country was the way many of us caught up on films.

In fact, in these obviously very pre-internet days , this was sometimes the only way we found that some films existed at all.

I was working for film company, which subscribed to American Cinematographer magazine, and it was here that I found out about The Monster Squad.  I haven’t grown up now, and certainly hadn’t back then, so this film sounded fantastic.

Although the publicity material traded hard on the still-strong reputation of Ghostbusters from three years earlier, The Monster Squad has been more accurately described as’The Little Rascals meet the Universal monsters’, in the middle of the 1980s, of course.  Makeup genius Stan Winston was given the opportunity to update the universal creatures and, despite the film’s modest budget, brought them all into the era of MTV with obvious affection and respect.

The amazing Stan Winston and his Wolf Man

The Wolf Man is apparently modelled on Winston’s own features, while this decades’ possibly only representation of Dracula seems to pay homage to both Lugosi and Lee. American Cinematographer told me that Winston also made the supremely logical decision to make the Mummy look like a walking corpse, rather than an already burly, heavily swaddled stuntman, and cast “The thinnest actor they could find who could still move around”. (this gave me hope for a future horror film career). 

Young Eugene's Dad 'clears all the monsters out of his room',
but doesn't look in the closet

Tom Noonan’s sympathetic and expressive performance as the Frankenstein Monster is facilitated by an expert  makeup job which stays just the right side of copyright infringement on Universals’ original design. But the icing on the cake is a gorgeous piscatorial reworking of the Creature from the Black Lagoon which would hold its own if that film were to be remade today.

The creature walks among us

On the side of the angels we have a collection of kids who are definitely not your saccharine Spielbergian Goonies cast.  Honesty would probably bring you to the conclusion that you were more like these little rascals when you were their age, than Elliot from ET - complete with all the sexism, homophobia and inappropriateness which might make us cringe a little now. It’s ‘not OK’, but is at least an truthful depiction, and for the most part the young actors mainly portray an untarnished belief in doing the right thing, despite spending a good part of the film terrified. 

Main character Sean’s little sister Phoebe is a perfect example of this film’s perfect casting.  She is not the genetically-perfect poppet that you’d find in a children’s clothing catalogue - but her sweet and innocent nature allows her to befriend the towering Frankenstein monster and ultimately save the day.

Phoebe, and her new best friend.

They have help in the form of ‘Scary German Guy’, a reclusive elderly immigrant who subverts the children’s expectations by proving to be the kindest and gentlest of souls. He is crucially also able to translate Van Helsing’s diary despite the fact that I’m sure that character was supposed to be Dutch.  In one of the film’ s many effective shifts of tone from light to dark, our young leads remark that 'SGG' (his name is never given) sure knows a lot about monsters.  “Now that you mention it, I suppose I do.” he remarks, as the camera pans down to the concentration camp tattoo on his wrist.

Scary German guy would also be able to translate this poster -
which really emphasises the Ghostbusters connection with an unsubtle title change.

The performances are key but this film but visually it also delivers in the way that we expect from pre-CGI mid eighties mid-budget adventure films.  The previously-mentioned Stan Winston was an undisputed genius in his field, while Star Wars veteran Richard Edlund headed the visual effects team.  His crackling, ‘blue-lightning’ optical effects enhance the practical creature work in an organic and believable way which modern digital effects work often fails in.

Van Helsing, about to 'blow it'.

The opening sequence in 19th century Castle Dracula is splendidly creepy while the exciting climax satisfies on every emotional and visual level.  Films of this era do have their drawbacks of course, we also get a standard Second Act 'training montage' orchestrated to a forgettable single by Flashdance’s Michael Sembello, while the closing credits crawl embarrassedly under a horrendous rap theme.

I first watched this one with my Mum, and we both loved it. It is inescapably ironic that a film which is essentially comedy succeeds in bringing together cinema’s most beloved monsters in ways that Horror films have failed.  But the last film we looked at, Abbot and Costello meet Frankenstein, also triumphed in this regard and in fact shares many plot points with The Monster Squad.

Like many of the films I enjoy the most, this was a notable failure at the box office but has built a strong cult following in the year’s since.  A cast reunion and re-screenings in 2006 were sold-out, enthusiastically attended by fans from all across the United States, and subsequent DVD releases have disappeared quickly from shelves.

Like Van Helsing in his slightly confusing reappearance at the climax of the film, The Monster Squad gets an enthusiastic thumbs up from me.

How does the dog get into the treehouse?

Ghoul assembly: Part One - Comedy of Horrors

The winter months are drawing in - it’s time to light the fire and spend some quality time with old fiends.

I wish there was time to watch more films.  In these days of wi-fi and remote connections, work can now seep into every aspect of our lives - I know it’s my own fault, but my commute went from leisure time to work some time ago.

In the weekends we’re not madly social but 15 years of living rurally has also taught us that you have to work at it - a large property needs to be constantly maintained, but we wouldn’t still be here if we didn’t enjoy it.

But now the days are shorter, nights longer and weather less clement - all opportunities for catching up on more films.  As another summer of superheroes fades into history - marked by one unqualified triumph, one middling entry in a venerable series, and one insulting disaster - the darker months make me want to cosy up with some monsters.

I’m a Hammer guy and always will be, but it’s high time I looked further back,  to the source of some of Hammer’s early inspiration, and heyday of figures who will lurk forever in the pantheon of screen Horror’s greatest - Lugosi, Karloff and Chaney.

Having said this, I love the actors and their work, but starting with the original Universal Dracula and Frankenstein does feel a little like a chore at this stage.  The lead actors are magnificent, but those productions somewhat less so.  I feel I might appreciate them better after I’ve seen some subsequent entries in the original horror cycle.

So I decided to start at the very end, with a film which should have been a final indignity for these classic creatures, but instead impossibly manages to be both amusing, and a fitting send-off for each character: Abbot and Costello meet Frankenstein (1948).

It’s long lamented that Universal used and then abused their classic monsters.  Received wisdom states that when box office takings began to level out, they first corralled them together in low budget team-ups, and then finally threw their misshapen children to Bud Abbot and Lou Costello as victims of ridicule.

But for this film at least, Dracula, Frankenstein’s Monster and the Wolf Man inexplicably emerge with dignity definitely intact, while fans of Abbot and Costello are still given plenty of what they enjoy. It’s a fusion of comedy and horror which actually works.

I am biased, but I believe this is down to excellent performances from our monsters.  Bela Lugosi and Lon Chaney Jnr were very much fighting personal demons of their own at this time.  Lugosi, criminally mistreated by the studio, was battling a drug addition which he eventually overcame. And Chaney had his own battle with the bottle, physically ageing considerably since his last performance.

I feel certain Chaney wasn't really wearing a green 'onesy',
despite what the lobby card colourist thought.

His haunted demeanour works perfectly for the tormented Larry Talbot, a good man wracked with guilt over the carnage his unwilling transformations bring.  In my opinion he informs every interpretation of Marvel’s Bruce Banner which has followed.

Some of the film's funnier moments feature Lou Costello's
 inept impersonation of Lugosi's signature gesture.

Lugosi, meanwhile, is now into his sixties but gives a performance of immense dignity and urbanity - with a charm which makes his nefarious character irresistibly likeable.  It is only his second and final performance as the vampire count, but he amply demonstrates why even 80 years later he is still the definitive Dracula to many.

Rounding out the menagerie, Glenn Strange may be no Karloff, but he impressively carries the mantle of a character who had gained enough popularity to be the subject of this film’s title.

Frankenstein crated a monster?

The plot is perfunctory and your mileage will vary depending upon how much you enjoy slapstick, but somehow Abbot and Costello director Charles Barton manages to deliver a film which visually stands shoulder-to-shoulder with the Universal horrors classics.

In that studio’s first monster team-up, Frankenstein meets the Wolf Man,  Chaney’s lycanthrope faced off against Lugosi as the Frankenstein monster.  In Abbot and Costello meet Frankenstein  he throws down with Lugosi once more, as the film’s final act sees a prolonged confrontation between vampire and werewolf.  They literally fall in and out of scenes, the retreating Count employing a wooden chair and potted plants as projectiles, while our two human stars are left to evade the unstoppable, scenery-smashing Monster.  This might be comedy, but no-one could complain about a lack of creature action.

Horror films often showcase a spectacular demise for their creatures and the climax of this battle is no exception. Such memorable ‘death-scene’s are fortunate as it really is their end - these actors would never portray their famous characters again in a Universal film, and nor would anyone else for many decades.

I was left feeling a little flat by Universal’s House of Dracula and House of Frankenstein team-up films, ’serious’ productions which I will need to revisit as part of this ‘Ghoul assembly’ series because I remember very little of them.  But this silly film works ways these two didn’t in bringing these iconic monsters together.

Woody Woodpecker creator Walter Lantz produced the wonderful animated film titles.

In fact, it has inspired me to revisit more of the memorable monster team-ups, most, but not all, from Universal.

Next is going to be a film from the 1980s which parallels this one in many ways, comedic but made with a palpable love for these characters.  It features a whole squad of monsters…

Assembly line: Cutaway - The Drac Pack

What does the sinister aristocracy of Hammer Film's two most enduring film characters have to do with the glitzy celebrity of Jerry Lewis and Sammy Davis jnr?

Poster by Mad magazine maestro Jack Davis.

In 1969 Sammy Davis Jn and Peter Lawford filmed a sequel to their 1968 collaboration Salt and Pepper, called One More Time. Marking the directorial debut of fellow Rat Packer Jerry Lewis, this unremarkable film was written by non other than Jon Pertwee's brother, playwrite and screenwriter Michael Pertwee.

In a brief interlude from the knockabout plot involving  Lawford inheriting an English castle when his titled twin brother is murdered, Sammy Davis jnr discovers a hidden passageway behind a bookcase. Following it to the castle dungeon he is shocked to encounter Peter Cushing's Baron Frankenstein and Christopher Lee's Count Dracula.

"Aha, we have a visitor."

"Won't you join our little party?"
Hammer's Baron Frankenstein and Count Dracula, directed by, umm, Jerry Lewis

His character Charles Salt might flee in terror, but Davis jnr himself would have been in heaven.  He was a passionate fan of Hammer Films and adored the two iconic actors who gave these brief, uncredited appearances.  Peter Cushing takes up the story in his autobiography, Past Forgetting:

"The indefatiguable and extraordinarily talented Sammy Davis Junior, asked me if I would do him a favour by appearing for a few seconds in his 1969 production of One More Time, which would only involve a morning's work. He had already shown such kindness and hospitality to Helen and me: first night tickets for his shows at the Paladium, dinner afterwards at the White Elephant club, and endless appreciation for the enjoyment my performances had given him.  I happily agreed, and he took us both out to lunch when my stint was finished.  A fortnight later, twelve bottles of the finest champagne and a colour television set were delivered to our house in Whitstable, with a note of thanks from Sammy, and his director Jerry Lewis.
Moreover, when Helen was so ill, he sent her a large bouquet of flowers, with a little message: 'get well soon, love Sammy'."

The Candy Man Fan 

In The Christopher Lee filmography, by Tom Johnson, Mark A. Miller, Lee recalled: 

"Sammy was a tremendous fan of Hammer films. He'd seen every one of them and knew every part I had played. We became pretty close friends; and when he did One More Time he did ask me and Peter if we would do this as a favour for him, just for the fun of it and we did. Sammy was one of the great personalities of show business, and one of the most talented ... I always got the impression that Jerry Lewis really thought that this [cameo] was gilding the lily a bit...  but he gave in because Sammy said , 'This is what I want, and I am insisting."

"Marvelous actors and real gentlemen. It was a pleasure to work with those fine men."
Jerry Lewis

Sammy Davis jnr employed Lee a few years later to play Lucifer (who else) in a 1973 television pilot called Poor Devil. The 'Candy Man' himself played a lowly demon charged with winning the soul of Jack Klugman. 

Adam West also appeared. 

No, I'm not making any of this post up. How could anyone claim that Hammer Films, The Rat Pack, Doctor Who and Batman were ever connected unless it was actually true?

As for One More Time itself, I haven't seen it and am yet to even find a remotely positive review. Fortunately, almost the entirety of Cushing and Lee's appearances can be seen at the beginning of this trailer, so I won't ever need to.