All of film genres it are horror and sci fi which seem to inspire the greatest devotion. Heck, I should know, I’m among them – so there are always books about Bela Lugosi and Boris, George Pal, Star Trek, Universal horrors, Roger Corman, etc. England’s leading contributor to this are the Hammer horrors of the 50s and 70s. Meikle’s book is one of a number of works on the subject, but it is probably the best. Excellently researched, well written, with a genuine fondness for the films (though he does criticise them, and the people who made them) and an understanding of how they are made.
The success of Hammer horror had some interesting correlations with most popular cycles - Bonds, Universals, Cormans, Poes, etc – a series of happy accidents. Economic factors combined with the right people at the right time leading to a terrifically successful series of pictures.
Hammer was a small company with off-and-on beginnings which go back to the 30s. It was basically created by two families, Carreras and Hinds, with father-son combos involved. The company was involved in distribution and production and didn’t really get going until after World War Two, when they thrived producing cheapie double features for the British quota market. Some of these had minor American stars eg Lloyd Bridges, and many were adapted from British radio. Both these things were present in The Quartermass Experiment, taken from the BBC radio serial and starring Brian Donlevy. This was a big success and encouraged Hammer to move further into the sci fi/horror genre.
Television started eroding their bread and better B picture market so they rolled the dice with colour and struck gold with Curse of Frankenstein. This film featured a fortuitous group of talent who would form the core of Hammer’s subsequent success – Peter Cushing, Jimmy Sangster, Chris Lee, Terence Fisher, Bernard Robinson (sets), Jack Asher (DOP), etc. (Just like the Bond films it was wonderfully lucky alchemy that Richard Maibaum, Sean Connery, Terence Young, Ken Adams, Maurice Binder, Broccoli and Salztmann all came together on Dr No – and ditto the group that gathered for AIP’s Poe cycle: Corman, Matheson, Price, Crosby, Haller, Baxter).
In hindsight, and only in hindsight, there were many reasons for Hammer’s success – just the right amount of violence and sex at just the right time, the Britishness gave the films a feeling of class many low budgeters lacked, the star performances of Lee and Cushing. Dracula and a second Frankenstein confirmed it, along with Camp on Blood Island (apparently a hit at the time although people don’t seem to talk about it much nowadays).
Hammer tried to expand their range. An attempt to break into US TV failed. Hound of the Baskervilles was a so-so Doyle adaptation. A more mainstream picture, Ten Seconds in Hell, flopped – Michael Carreras blamed Robert Aldrich for taking over and being a pain (although how big a hit was a film starring Jeff Chandler and Jack Palance going to be? Also it was about bomb disposal – those films are always tricky to make exciting eg Blown Away, Small Black Room, Juggernaut). The ambitious Two Faces of Dr Jekyll underperformed, throwing out the ambitions of Michael Carreras (including a plan to adapt The Picture of Dorian Gray). Meikle argues for a reappraisal of Bride of Dracula, says Peter Cushing gave his greatest performance in Captain Clegg, and claims that Losey’s The Damned was the best film ever made by Hammer.
The early 60s were an odd time for Hammer. Films which should have been sure-fire hits like Curse of the Werewolf and Phantom of the Opera actually flopped (Hammer hoped to get Cary Grant for Phantom – it wasn’t a lunatic fancy, Grant expressed interest in being in a Hammer film for a bit – but why then give the role to Herbert Lom over Christopher Lee, who badly wanted to play the role? Ok yes they were irritated Lee didn’t then want to play Dracula again – but surely they could have used the role to bribe him.) But they would have hits with sub-cycle films, like Pirates of Blood River, and psycho thrillers (eg Taste of Fear), and perhaps their most well-known non-horror genre, Hammer Glamour – adventure tales starring shapely women (She, One Million Years BC). They also kept turning out Dracula and Frankenstein sequels as well as other horrors (Meikle is a fan of Plague of Zombies). These films plus American investment saw Hammer get its second wind in the mid 60s, it’s own contribution to the booming English film scene of the time.
One Million Years BC was Hammer’s biggest financial success but attempts to duplicate it (Lost Continent, Slave Girls) didn’t not work as well. Despite respectability with the Queens Industry Award for Exports and the occasional later film of quality – Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed, The Devil Rides Out – the tide had started to run out. The Dracula films got steadily worse, Tony Hinds left the company, they lost their American partners. Lesbian vampires brought in some money and a new star (Ingrid Pitt) but the films just got worse and worse.
James Carreras sold what was left of the company, which wasn’t much (the name, really, and a few properties – the co-producers had most of the back catalogue) to his son Michael, who tried to keep things going, but couldn’t due to a combination of the hostile filmmaking environment and his own shortcomings (he lacked his dad’s salesmanship and connections, and for all his understandings of the nuts and bolts of filmmaking didn’t seem to be that good at creative stuff. Just look at the scoreboard, especially his non-Hammer words).
Hammer ended with To the Devil a Daughter and – irony – the unloved remake of The Lady Vanishes. This last bit makes depressing reading – father and son separated; Dad wound up with cash, lots of mates and a mistress but dissatisfied, as a lot of once-powerful men do when they hit retirement. Michael Carreras seems to have lost all his dough. Depressing ending to an enthralling book.
NB I can’t weep for Hammer’s unrealised 70s projects (including a big budget co-production with Toho, Nessie). But one potential classic that got away – Richard Matheson adapted I am Legend, to be made by Hammer as a follow up to Curse of Frankenstein… but the British censors nixed it!! (Hammer sold the script to Robert Lippert who turned it into the unremarkable Last Man on Earth. But imagine it with those Hammer production values).
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