Movie review - "Countess Dracula" (1971) ** (rewatching)

 Great moment where Ingrid Pitt is busted nude having a blood bath. But that's the one memorable scene. This lacks energy and excitement. It should be great - Pitt worried about ageing, killing peop.e Undercast the actor who plays her lover. Nigel Green doesn't have the star power of a Cushing or Lee. Not enough sex, violence, nudity. Needed to be more full throttle.

Movie review - "Kiss of the Vampire" (1963) ***1/2 (rewatching)

 Started slow for me - because I know what's happening I guess. Lacked star power. But second half gets better when more things happen. Looks like a dream.

Movie review - 'The Devil Ship Pirates" (1964) ***1/2 (re-watching)

 Put this on again just because. It looks so great for a low budget film - the ship, the costumes. Classy with its actors. Jimmy Sangster did a solid script - a lost Spanish ship, conning the locals that the Armada won, conflict within the Spanish (they are former pirates), a hero has a dud arm because the Spanish tortured him, the local leader gives in very quickly.

Could have done with another draft to improve the female roles - they are mostly victims; a traitorous woman would've been great. And maybe one to genuinely fall for a Spaniard. 

But it spanks along.

Movie review - "Kiss of the Vampire" (1963) ***1/2 (rewatching)

 Has its own magic. The lovely photography and art design despite the low budget. The Val Lewton shots of wind in the trees. The slow, but deliberate pace. The fact the cast is without stars. Who are these people?

There's a cult, witchcraft, a missing girl. The ingredients were fresher then. This was Hammer at its peak.

Top Ten Hammer Horror Leading Ladies

 1) Ingrid Pitt - fabulous star, can't believe she only did two for the company, should've done a heap more

2) The Collinson Twins - a gimmick yes, not sure there was a second film in these two, but a fabulous gimmick

3) Raquel Welch - suited the world of Hammer better than you'd think - her successors in cave outfits never had the same impact

4) Ursula Andress - wonderful in her film, again should've done more with the company

5) Valerie Leon - bewitching, captivating, helps make her mummy film a classic, deserved another movie

6) Barbara Shelley - perfected the sad eyes, secretly-wants-it look, finally got an actual lead in Blood Island 2 but wasn't done justice - still, probably the woman who did best out of Hammer

7) Martine Beswick - had probably the best role for a woman in Hammer as Sister Hyde and did very well

8) Susan Strasberg - she never became the great actress that she was predicted to become but she was very good and developed a neat line in "woman who is terrified" that was very well used in Taste of Fear 

9) Stephanie Beacham - a bright light from a dim period for Hammer

10) Natassa Kinski- her presence is clearly problematic but she has genuine charisma and is perfectly cast 

Movie review - "The Gorgon" (1964) *** (re-watching)

 Solid Hammer entry - Chris Lee in a silly moustache, Peter Cushing looking intent, a lot of screen time to Richard Pasco (one of those actors whose face you'll know without recalling their name, at least that's how it was for me), a flashy part for Barbara Shelley. Satisfying ending with people dying, the use of Greek mythology is fresh for Hammer and makes one wonder why they didn't do it more.

Movie review - "The Lady Vanishes" (1979) **1/2

 I grew up hearing nothing but bad things about this movie. I think people were just so offended by it. But it has nice locations, stylish widescreen photography.

Some changes are fine, like turning Margaret Lockwood into a Carole Lombard screwball heroine played engagingly by Cybill Shepherd. I like Elliot Gould as a shaggy haired reporter. Their banter, where he talks about her legs and she talks about the men she married, is the most clearly George Axelrod bit of the movie (Axelrod wrote the script).

Other changes were silly. Why not keep someone trying to kill Angela Lansbury only for Shepherd to get a conk on the head? And have that cause her brain injury rather than Cybil doing it drunkenly.

Why not have Cybill Shepherd and Elliot Gould dislike each other at first and banter? Like getting him kicked out of the hotel room. And I missed the Oxford-Cambridge joke. And Shepherd wants to kiss Elliot Gould two thirds of the way through... why not hold off until the end? Did the nun get captured at the end? I wasn't sure.

Still it is a recognisable remake. There's Charters and Caldicott, the adulterous lovers, the nun who works for the baddies but helps them. Herbert Lom is always reliable but too familiar as a baddie - and I think the part would've been better with someone younger and more charming, more of a potential romantic threat to Gould for Shepherd. Angela Lansbury is fine as always but maybe too believable as a spy - dotty, old, tubby Dame Mae Whitty was more fun and unexpected.

I do think they would've been better off, if they wanted to remake it, updating it to the present day and setting it behind the Iron Curtain. I mean, they still had trains then.

The big issue I think is the direction from Anthony Page. He's not bad - perfectly servicable. But there's none of Hitchcock's atmosphere - the menace underneath at the beginning, the sense of Englishmen abroad, the paranoia of the main girl, the light by play.

It occurred to me at the end when Gould and Shepherd sing the tune Lansbury gives them that they were meant to co star in At Long Last Love - both can sing. Lansbury too. Not too late for a musical!

British Box Office 1960

The big hits of the year - Doctor in Love (they don't need Dirk Bogarde!), Sink the Bismark (Kenneth More draws them in) and Carry On Constable.

All three films very "British". Two of them "franchises".

Other British money makers:

* Battle of the Sexes

* Brides of Dracula

* Conspiracy of Hearts

* Dentist in the Chair (what is that film?)

* Expresso Bongo

* Follow a Star

* A French Mistress

*Kidnapped

*The League of Gentlemen

*Light Up the Sky

*Make Mine Mink

*The Millionairess

*Our Man in Havana

*Please Turn Over

*Sands of the Desert

*The Savage Innocents

*School for Scoundrels

*Sons and Lovers

* A Touch of Larceny

*the Trials of Oscar Wilde

*Two Way Stretch

*Village of the Damned

*Watch Your Stern

So what can be learned?

The British public still liked a good war movie (Bismark, Conspiracy of Hearts) and loved a star vehicle for Peter Sellers (Battle of Sexes, Millionairess, Two Way Stretch), Terry Thomas (School for Scoundrels, Make Mine Mink), Norman Wisdom (Follow a Star) and the Carry On gang (Watch Your Stern). Alec Guiness still worked in a comedy (Havana). They liked random comedies with stars from other mediums (Dentist in the Chair with Bob Monkhouse,  Please Turn Over with Ted Ray, Sands of the Desert with Charlie Drake, Boutling comedies (A French Mistress), heist comedies  (League of Gentlemen), war comedies (Light Up the Sky). Expresso Bongo was a musical. Kidnapped a classic novel adaptation.

Horror was a new earner (Brides of Dracula, Village of the Damned). Some heavy drama got through eg Sons and Lovers, Trials of Oscar Wilde.

But 26 British films...  over half were comedies.
 

Movie review - "The House Across the River" (1954) **1/2

 Entertaining Ken Hughes film based on his novel which seems like a rip off of The Postman Always Rings Twice but that's not necessarily a criticism. I wasn't familiar with American Alex Nicol but he's not a bad lead as a writer drawn into an attempt by Hilary Brooke to kill husband Sid James. James has quite a big part - as a tycoon.

Susan Stephens is on hand as the good girl, again. Did she get sick of that?

Good old sordid sexy fun.

Movie review - "The Saint's Return" (1953) ** (re-watching)

 Louis Hayward came back to the franchise in this attempt to revive it. It didn't work, but it's nice to see him - even if he's no George Sanders. I watched a copy of this - it was gloomy and dark, which may be the print but I did miss the lightness of Sanders.

The tone of this seems uncertain. Too serious. After a while I got used to tougher Hayward as the Saint but he still had a bumbling assistant.

Diana Dors livens things up with one scene. Why not give her a bigger part? She's got more charisma than the female lead. So frustrating. The lower budget doesn't help.

Movie review - "Life with the Lyons" (1954) **

 Hammer studios specialised in adaptations of stories that were hit in other media first - Dick Barton, this Dracula, On the Buses. This was based on a TV sitcom and radio show - American entertainers Bob Lyon and wife Bebe Daniels and their two kids played themselves in a meta conccept.

I wasn't familiar with the show - this left me cold. Val Guest keeps the pace fast but these characters meant nothing to me. There was a lot of running around, everyone tries to entertain.

The plot concerns the Lyons moving in to a house - the daughter gets engaged.

Belinda Lee has quite a large part as the daughter of an author  (Hugh Morton)- she mugs it up, really goes broad. It's actually fun to see her even if it she is muppet acting.

It's frantic, and tiring.

Movie review - "Rasputin the Mad Monk" (1966) **1/2 (re-watching)

This starts so well - Chris Lee is wonderful, it's easily one of his best performances, eyes blazing, long beard, mystical, magnetic, clearly good in bed, up for a dance. Barbara Shelley is good too.

The film gets less good as it goes on - it seems to lack vision and focus. It has Hammer pleasures - the colour and sets - but doesn't feel cohesive. Francis Matthews is introduced too late to the story.

Lee seducing Shelley is great but we don't get a proper Shelley story - she has no death scene. Richard Pasco  is a Renfield style doctor.

It's definitely of interest because of Lee's performance but watching it I kept being frustrated because it is had been done better it could have launched a whole bunch of racy Hammer biopics eg Caligula, Cleopatra. There's no reason why you couldn't do a really fun Hammer style biopic full of cleavage and so on - this just didn't do it well.

Movie review - "Blood from the Mummy's Tomb" (1971) **1/2 (re-watching)

I've seen this a few times and it never makes sense even though surely the basic story is simple. Christopher Wicking never did like writing uncomplicated screenplays and Seth Holt's death during filming wouldn't have helped. Some of it is silly such as the convincing flashbacks to ye olde Egypt and there's little chemistry between Andrew Keir and Valerie Leon - Cushing (the original choice) would've been far better.

And yet... the film has as certain magic about it. The circumstances of its production of course, but also the bewitching Valerie Leon, all curves and flashing eyelashes - Hammer should have given her another lead, like Ingrid Pitt she was a star. Keir is professional and actors like James Villiers and George Colouris are excellent. It's fun seeing an Aussie bearded Mark Evans as Leon's love interest, called "Tod Browning". There's neat severed hands and fun costumes. It's very patchy but is its own thing.

Movie review - "Man Bait" (1952) **1/2 aka The Last Page (warning: spoilers)

This was a B movie, made in a small studio for little money but in hindsight the credits impress - the studios were Hammer and Robert Lipper, the director was Terence Fisher, the first of several movies he'd do for Hammer, the writer was Frederick Knott, the original play by James Hadley Chase, the female lead was Diana Dors.

Ironically the best know people at the time were George Brent and Marguerite Chapman, who for me are the weak links. Brent had a colourful love life but came across less colourful on screen - I guess his "aging" factor helps. The subplot about his crippled wife feels random - she seems healthy enough in the one scene we see her, then she's dead from getting a letter...? Did I get that right? It's like the baddy needed to do something.

Chapman is fairly bland. It's not much of a role but compare with what Diana Dors would have done - Dors could convey emotion better with her face, the longing, etc. It's also a little creepy the way once Brent's wife is dead Chapman practically rips off his pants.

It's a great performance from Dors - lonely, put about, hungry for love, insecure. Gosh she was good. I can't believe she didn't work more with Lippert and/or Hammer. Hammer especially - imagine her in those horrors, she would've been fabulous. The film loses momentum when she's killed. I wish she hadn't been - she didn't deserve to die, it's depressing. It may have worked better story wise even if Chapman had died... she was in love with Brent... so that looks bad, etc etc.

Fisher uses a lot of long takes to get through his short schedule. This would be less noticeable in the horrors as the art direction was better.

It's set in a book store and there's some fun like bits where a character goes "over near the Enid Blytons".

Movie review - "The Devil Ship Pirates" (1964) ***1/2 (re-watching)

I've always loved the cleverness of this movie's concept - a Spanish ship is wrecked off the coast of England during the Spanish Armada of 1588; they've lost the war but the locals don't know that, so they try to pull off a con.

It's one of those movies that force you with the baddies and the plan is so bold at times you hope they'll pull it off.

There are plenty of other strong ideas - most of the ship's crew were former pirates keen to go back to their old life, there's a goody-goody noble on board (Barry Warren) to provide conflict with the captain (Christopher Lee), the British town includes a quisling type as well as an injured young man.

The cast is well above average - its a good chance for Christopher Lee who does well, and Andrew Keir is in there as well as Michael Ripper (in dark make up).

The filmmakers put ship action up the top to try and cover the fact that there's no ship action until the end. There are some sword fights.

It doesn't quite get there as a classic - I felt it could with another draft. Maybe there are too many characters to service. Or not enough emotional relationships. Perhaps we needed a love triangle involving Warren, lee and a girl - the female characters feel very undercooked. A local lady who falls for Lee/Warren could have made the difference. Maybe a more villainous/treacherous local?

Movie review - "Blackout" (1954) aka Murder by Proxy ** (warning spoilers)

Early work from Hammer - when they were just a B picture outfit, though only a few years away from glory. Terence Fisher directed, Michael Carreras produced. Belinda Lee, who would've been great in a Hammer horror, is gorgeous as the femme fetale.

This has an exciting set up - in a nightclub Lee proposes marriage to a drunk Dane Clark who wakes up and discovers Lee's father has been killed and he might be a suspect. But the film doesn't develop it. Too many scenes outside. Too much talk about business and stuff happening off screen.

At first I loved Clark's American ness because it meant he was isolated in London... but it turns out he has a family there including an ethnic momma. Lee is gorgeous and can act and is way too good looking for Clark, who had no business being a leading man.

Fisher didn't have enough time to do a first rate directing job - there's long takes, I assume it's for budget. This start to promisingly. Fantastic opening scene. It slows down and becomes dull.

Movie review - "Secret of Blood Island" (1965) **

Late in the day follow up to The Camp of Blood Island (I don't think it's a sequel) is one of the few Hammer films to have a female protagonist - Barbara Shelley crashes in Malaya in 1944 near a prison. She's got super urgent information about an "invasion of Malaya" that is going to happen soon (that was a long way off in 1944... I wish they'd put in more thought to the Macguffin).

She hides in the camp, so pretends to be a man... which is a silly premise but has potential, and having made the decision to use it Hammer should have committed. You can see the scenes - "take your clothes off", "share a bed", all that stuff. But the movie is very restrained on the sex issue - only one prisoner tries to molest her and he's wounded. She has a quasi flirtation with some guy but that's about it.

The film is weighted too much toward s the men as well - Charles Tingwell as the top British officer, Patrick Wymark. All the acting is very good.

There's no Japanese. Michael Rimmer is in yellowface. Come on Hammer there must have been some Japanese around.

There's a little sadism and torture (and implied rape of Shelley by the Japanese I think) but it's not as full on as Camp.

TASTE OF FEAR and the Big Twist

(Originally written for the Blacklist website)

(Warning: this essay involves spoilers for the 1961 British film TASTE OF FEAR aka SCREAM OF FEAR)

One of the hallmarks of erotic thrillers are Big Twists. The wife and mistress are in cahoots! The wife and boyfriend are in cahoots! It’s an identical twin/imposter! They killed the wrong person! They’re not really dead/gay/crippled/blind! They’re insane/no they’re not/yes they are/well they weren’t but they are now!

Erotic thrillers also throw in Erotic Twists, which tend to mean one thing: They’re Actually Lesbians (TAL). The first really notable TAL was in the French classic LES DIABOBLIQUES (1954), which revolutionized the thriller genre. It took a while for TAL to establish itself in English-speaking films but once the floodgates opened, boy did they open: BASIC INSTINCT (1992), SINS OF DESIRE (1993), BOUND (1996), WILD THINGS (1998) and its sequels, MULHOLLAND DR. (2001), PASSION (2013), THE HANDMAIDEN (2016) are just some TAL movies. Occasionally guys make out with each other but they lag well behind the girls.

In LES DIABOLIQUES the reveal the two female leads were in bed together was a great shock. It retains some of that power today, mostly because the scene defies expectations you instinctively have when watching a film from 1954, even a French one. But TAL has been used so often in recent years it has no power to surprise in a modern day erotic thriller — it’s really there for character or titillation (depending on the quality of the filmmaker).

There is another sort of twist, however, that I think would still retain the capacity to shock. It’s used in the 1961 British film TASTE OF FEAR directed by Seth Holt and written by Jimmy Sangster for Hammer Films. At the time Hammer were enjoying success with their horror movies, many written by Sangster, who was getting sick of them, so he decided to try a thriller. Inspired by LES DIABOLIQUES and PSYCHO (1960), TASTE OF FEAR was a success and led to Hammer making a bunch of follow ups, many written by Sangster –MANIAC (1963), PARANOIAC (1963), NIGHTMARE (1964), HYSTERIA (1965), THE NANNY (1965) (the best of the bunch), CRESCENDO (1970), FEAR IN THE NIGHT (1972), etc.

Strictly speaking these films are psycho thrillers rather than erotic ones — they usually deal with someone trying to drive someone else insane rather than sex/obsession/desire. But TASTE OF FEAR has one genuine erotic shock in it worth discussing.

The plot is about wheelchair-bound Susan Strasberg (aged 23) returning to the family home after the mysterious disappearance of her father. She clashes with her stepmother Ann Todd (52) and creepy doctor Christopher Lee (39) but is helped by hunky chauffeur Ronald Lewis (33).

Towards the end of the film, Todd arranges for a car to go off a cliff with Strasberg inside. Todd then turns and passionately embraces… Lewis, a man young enough to be her son.

It’s a real jolt, in part because you expect Todd to be in cahoots with Lee and kill Lewis, but also because she’s an older woman making out with a much younger man — and it’s not a polite peck, they go for it, not once, but three separate times.

And while we didn’t see a lot of women in bed together on screens in 1954 but we do now, we didn’t see a lot of 52 year old women making out with 33 year old men in 1961 and we still don’t now — at least not where the younger men are hunks and adults (often guys who go for older women in films are depicted as inexperienced geeks/teenagers e.g. THE GRADUATE, 1967, THE SUMMER OF ’42, 1971, THE READER, 2008.)

We’re often told it’s hard to shock audiences these days because they’ve seen so much and society is so tolerant, but every society has things which aren’t normally seen — and one of them is still a 52 year old woman with wrinkles making out with a handsome 33 year old man on screen.

Erotic thrillers are still capable of erotic shocks — it’s just what you decide is erotic.

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Movie review - "Cry of the Werewolf" (1961) ***

I liked this a lot more on second viewing because I knew going in that Oliver Reed didn't appear until half way through. It remains a mistake... this is half a brilliant film... the second half, with Reed superb as the tormented man who is a werewolf and killer. Clifford Evans isn't very good in the Claude Rains bit as his dad... which is important because we should really feel it when Evans kills Reed at the end.

The first half is fine... it just could've all been conveyed via exposition. Setting up the beggar, then the Marquis, then putting him in prison, then having him attack the mute girl, then having the mute girl escape.

Really they should've started it with Reed as an adult... or, if pushed, with Evans discovering Yvette Romain (Reed's mother). And they should've kept the Marquis (Anthony Dawson) alive as a villain or else not had him at all. It's a mess.

But the film has pleasures: Terence Fisher's direction is excellent, as is the music, the sets, the production design, etc.

NB I went to a talk on this movie at Creature Features in Burbank, LA. Yvonne Romain from the film was there being Q and A'd... and her husband Leslie Bricusse. I had read a lot about "Leslie and Evie" being a couple and didn't realise that she was Evie. It was a lovely Q and A - she basically had nice things to say about everyone though they did have a decent Oliver Reed story or two. Most of the nerds didn't know who Leslie Bricusse was. I went up and chatted to both of them - asked her about Chips Rafferty on Double Trouble (she couldn't remember him) and asked Leslie about Tom Mankiewicz. Nice afternoon.

Movie review - "She" (1965) ***1/2 (re-watching)

Some observations
- it was a mistake I feel to introduce Ayesha so early - having her turn up at an apartment near the town just feels silly... I know why they did it, to get her in sooner (otherwise she doesn't appear til the 45 minute mark) but they didn't do it right... maybe it could've worked as a dream?
- Peter Cushing is very good but wasted as Holly - he should've done more, fell for Ayesha himself
- I was surprised how much screen time John Richardson gets - it's really his film more than Ayesha's... he's okay... he's a funny looking guy with that blonde hair and sun tan and tormented look - not easy to cast, I imagine
- Bernard Cribbins is very good as Job - so too Andre Morrell.
- Ursula Andress is an outstanding Ayesha
- I forgot how many scenes consisted of Andress and Richardson just sitting around talking.

This remains an entertaining, full blooded adventure - location filming in Israel really helps as does the superior cast and score. There's decent action - the brawl at the beginning (I wonder if the shift to 1918 Palestine was inspired by Lawrence of Arabia), the final uprising - and some good set design. The Roman Empire uniforms on Ayesha's guards look silly - presumably Hammer got a deal on them from Cleopatra or something.

Some memorable moments such as Morell being presented with his daughter's ashes and Ursula Andress being transformed into a withered old thing.