The ten Hammer films I’m most ashamed never to have seen (not including “Straight On Till Morning”)

In preparation for a forthcoming post on my blog The Dennis Wheatley Project, I watched The Lost Continent for the first time the other night.
I’d owned a copy of it for ages, but I’d been saving it until after I’d read Uncharted Seas, the Dennis Wheatley novel it’s based on. (I’m reading all Wheatley’s novels in order. Don’t ask. It’s a long story.)
As usual when I catch up with a Hammer film I’ve never seen before, I enjoyed every second of it, and was struck again by the fact that there’s just something... some weird, indefinable alchemical something... about Hammer films - all Hammer films - that perfectly suits my cinematic metabolism.

I can see that their best films are their best films, but even the ones that inspire nothing but complete disdain from even sympathetic reviewers – like this one – invariably give me nothing but pleasure.
From the first time I saw Lust For a Vampire I knew that it was a film I would be periodically watching again and again for the rest of my life. Dracula AD 1972 gets better every time I see it. I got The Vengeance of She as part of a box set and didn’t get round to it for over a year, so persuaded was I by its reputation as perhaps the worst of all the major Hammer movies - and when I finally gave it a chance I loved it from the first frame to the last. My most recent viewing was my fourth and it won’t be the last.

The vast majority of the Hammer films I’ve seen, and all the most famous and important ones, I saw between the ages of ten and eighteen, in a lucky, happy time when they seemed hardly ever absent from British tv, on BBC2 on Saturday nights, and ITV in the week.
Heady days they were, and I was able to indulge so regularly and with such repeated pleasure that it’s only comparatively recently that its occurred to me that there are gaps still to plug here. In the last couple of years I've tracked down - and adored - those last few major stragglers, like Captain Clegg, most of those black and white Jimmy Sangsters, and, best of all, The Mummy's Shroud. (Even the fact that those fabulous stills of the mummy looming up behind a négligée-clad Maggie Kimberly turned out to be another case of the Susan Denbergs didn't spoil it for me.)

There remain, however, just a few significant chapters in the Hammer saga that still remain just titles and stills to me.
Here are ten of the most notable – accompanied by my pledge to catch up with all of them over the next year.
Anyone got a copy of The Old Dark House?

1. X- The Unknown
2. The Abominable Snowman
I’ve seen the two black and white Quatermasses, but never did get round to these remaining black and white proto-Hammer horrors, the first written by Sangster in Nigel Kneale mode, the second by Kneale himself and with Peter Cushing in the cast. No excuse, no excuse. I always thought it would have been interesting if Hammer had retained Nigel Kneale as a regular screenwriter and just let him do whatever he wanted: his obviously more cerebral approach would have made for an interesting counterpoint to Sangster and Hinds. I can't see Sir James giving him a free hand, though. Incidentally, my former day job brought me into contact with Judith Kerr, Kneale’s widow, last year, and necessitated me visiting her at their daughter's house - which has the largest tank of tropical fish I’ve ever seen. It all seemed very Quatermass, somehow.

3. Shadow of the Cat
Bit of an interloper this. Nowadays, the is-it-or-isn’t-it-a-true-Hammer-Horror battle is over, and the verdict is yes. But I got into Hammer at a time when nobody had even heard of it, and I lived through those bitter years when the pro- and anti- forces besieged each other. I sided instinctively with the nays, for some reason, despite my love of Barbara and André, and I’ve never really accepted it into the family, certainly not in the blasé way in which it now turns up in all the lists, without even a comment to indicate its mongrel status. But still, there’s no excuse for not ever having seen it.

4. The Damned
I’m beginning to notice a running theme so far: I’ve missed most of the black and white ones.
I’m sure it’s a coincidence (and in any event we’re switching to colour from this point on) but it’s certainly true that colour is, to me, one of the defining features of Hammer. Another is a certain traditional kind of ambiance, even in modern-setting productions. This, I’ll wager lacks the latter every bit as much as the former, and in truth I’m really not in any great hurry to catch up with this. For my money Joseph Losey, like Alan Parker, is one of those names that practically guarantees an infuriating time.

5. Terror of the Tongs
This looks like great fun, rather more so I should think than Stranglers of Bombay, a(nother) black and whiter with which it is invariably if mysteriously paired. Christopher Lee in Fu Manchu rehearsal, the docks of Peking recreated at Bray and the famous bone scraping scene... and all I can do is imagine it.
The same goes for The Scarlet Blade, and for The Devil Ship Pirates, and for...

6. Pirates of Blood River
I’m sure I'd love them all, but Pirates just edges ahead in my wish list because of its rare casting of two of my minor Hammer glamour favourites: Baskerville minx Marla Landi, whose uniquely mangled dialogue is a delight in that movie and I'm sure will be again here, and the incredible Marie Devereux, for whom no justifying comment is necessary.

7. She
8. Slave Girls
There are a few reasons why I really should get around to seeing this. It’s a key Hammer movie, of course, along with One Million Years BC (the closest I've got to a Hammer film I couldn't get all the way through) one of the anomalous smash successes among the studio's sandy adventure films that convinced them there was potential in the subgenre. A score of flops later they were still trying. But this one features both Lee and Cushing – which actually is a rarer event than you might have thought at Hammer – and I have, let’s not forget, seen The Vengeance of She four times, so it feels somewhat perverse to have never watched this.
And Slave Girls just looks like good fun, with Martine Beswick in a scandalously rare swaggering lead, the potential of which just pushes the film ahead of The Viking Queen and Creatures the World Forgot in my ten.

9. The Old Dark House
Can this really be as bad as they all say? Surely not.
I doubt it’s a patch on the 1932 original – few films are – but then, it doesn’t sound like it’s all that similar either. The prospect of William Castle working for Hammer is one to savour, and so is this cast: Janette Scott, Fenella Fielding, Peter Bull, Robert Morley, Joyce Grenfell...
I’m willing to bet that this is a little gem in hiding, desperately long overdue sympathetic re-evaluation. I can't even guess what it's really like. But will we ever get the chance to see it?

10. The Anniversary
I like The Nanny; love Bette Davis… So how come I’ve never made the effort to see this? Search me. Anyway, I promised to limit this list to ten, which means, as predicted, there’s no room for Straight On Till Morning.

What are the most glaring gaps in your circle of Hammer film acquaintances?

RIP, Jimmy Sangster: The man who invented Hammer Horror

“I can remember thirty years ago like it was last week.
Last week I can't remember at all.”
Jimmy Sangster, Inside Hammer

From a lifetime of memories...

Jimmy Sangster, 1927 -2011

Fear in the Night

A young couple moves into a new school where the husband (Ralph Bates) has taken up a new position. The wife (Judy Geeson) is slowly driven mad by mysterious but unconfirmed attacks. Can this be the work of the bonkers headmaster (Peter Cushing) and what does his wife (Joan Collins) have to do with it?

Been meaning to watch Hammer's Fear in the Night forever and a day but given the bad rep that this picture has I always managed to push it a bit further down my To-Watch pile and give preference to other pictures instead.

Now I finally caught up with it and – Wow! - surprised how much I enjoyed it.

It's hardly a master piece but it is far better than the dodgy prestige it is currently “enjoying”. Yes, the story may be kind of predicable but the atmosphere is great and the acting superb.

The film is clearly in line with Hammer's other Sangster-penned psycho thrillers but with attacks committed by black gloved one-armed masked strangers this often comes across much more like one of those continental giallos. There is some beautifully haunting imagery in its empty school halls. Watching Peter Cushing have dinner in front of an empty hall of imaginary students or menacingly approach with shattered glasses is bound to put a shiver down anyone's spine.

Money was probably tight so the majority of the plot takes place in the isolation of the school building with only four main actors. A very small number of other speaking parts make a very short appearance but for the most part this is carried by Cushing, Bates, Collins and Geeson. And even then Cushing only ever turns up in scenes with Geeson.

This set up could go badly wrong but is actually saved by the professionalism of the performers and competence of writer/director Jimmy Sangster who successfully focuses on a slightly offbeat mood and regularly throws in tidbits that will keep you on the edge: the image of a strange hanged man at the start of the film that was slightly reminiscent of Fulci's City of the Living Dead; Joan Collins' character mercilessly shooting a rabbit right in front of an adoring Geeson; Collins again making disparaging remarks about Geeson as a child bride when she herself is married to a considerably older man; Cushing's character being named Michael Carmichael; and did I mention those creepy lonely corridors?

A decade or so later Hammer would use those closed sets and smaller ensembles for their TV shows but not a single one of those episodes has ever gripped me as memorably as their last cinematic psychothriller.

Deadlier Than the Male (UK, 1966)

Bulldog Dummond was a hardboiled British detective character who appeared in scores of books by his creator H.C. McNeile alias “Sapper” and - following his death – Gerard Fairlie. At the height of his popularity his adventures were also frequently adapted for movies and radio.

Deadlier Than The Male is a curious adaptation in that it was made at a time when the character was hardly as popular as in his heyday and in actual fact if anything this film resembles more a James Bond adaptation rather than a proper Bulldog Drummond movie. Throughout the movie the character is never really addressed as “Bulldog” and nothing much was made of it either in the promotional material. If anything it appears as if everyone was anxious to avoid any reference to the character’s literary origins.

Hammer scribe Jimmy Sangster was asked to provide an original script based on the character and also helped out on the production side. As a result he claims that this was the only film for which he still occasionally receives royalties for his producer status. Hammer’s accountants apparently were pretty efficient in constantly proving that their films never made money.

Deadlier Than The Male is always compared with the Bond movies of the time. I did it, too, and it is quite obviously a production that swims on the popular wave of 1960s spy films. I would, however, go one step further and say that this film is even better than your average Bond movie! If Bond films concentrate first and foremost on Bond, then the baddies and last but not least on the girls, Deadlier Than The Male turns the format around and puts its emphasis first on the girls – and what kinda gals! -, then on the baddy and at last on the spy, pardon: insurance investigator. (Never thought that profession was that glamourous!)

Drummond is called to investigate a mysterious series of murders that appear aimed at destabilising the oil industry. The killings are committed by Elke Sommer and Sylva Koscina who are both drop dead gorgeous and delightfully sadistic. They seem to relish in the idea of off-ing their victims in ever more ingenious ways and appear quite apt at handling exploding cigars and poison rings. The most iconic scene - a wonder Tarantino hasn’t copied it yet – involves them coming out of the sea bikini clad and shooting their next victim with a harpoon.

Sylva Koscina is a special delight: Her character likes to play with her victims beforehand and just can’t keep her paws off other people’s possessions. Little wonder that the German version of the film was called Heisse Katzen (Hot Cats).

Sommer’s best moment is when she tries to turn Drummond into a male whore by promising him freedom if only he succumbs to her charms. And he nearly appears to fall for it! Bond never was so pussy whacked.

Between Koscina and Sommer there is a very flirtatious and rivalrous relationship and they share some of the best lines of the film together. When a character falls from a balcony in a fake suicide we have them say: “I’ve had men fall for me before, but never like this!” And need I say that I thoroughly fell for their European accents?

Suzanna Leigh is one of Petersen’s girls, but changes sides the moment she meets Drummond. Leigh is forced to wear the most ridiculous looking hair cuts and wigs. Later on in the movie we actually discover a dramatical reason for those, however, one can’t help but suspect that her more brunette/mousy coloured tones in the film were forced on her as not to clash too dramatically with Elke Sommer’s blonde hair do and make sure that the limelight is not taken off Blonde #1.

At one stage Leigh is made to strip and thrown off a yacht into the sea, but don’t bother with the freeze frame like I did, lads, as she does end up wearing some flesh coloured little nothings on her way down.

Nigel Green as Carl Petersen, the film’s megalomaniac baddy, has surrounded himself with a veritable harem of girls from every corner of the world. The only guy amongst them is Hammer stalwart and ex-wrestler Milton Reid who does his usual best as a stoic, silent and vicious henchman. The showdown between Petersen and Drummond is on the board of a gigantic chessgame, the figures of which threaten to smash the combatants. A scene that you just have to watch at least once in your life.

Drummond is played by Richard Johnson who comes across very non-chalant and debonair. It is at times hard to recognise him from his later movies such as Lucio Fulci’s Zombi 2 or Sergio Martino’s Island of the Fishmen. In the movie he lives with his nephew (Steve Carlson) who also has his uncle’s eyes for the ladies and brings home Virginia North. North has become a bit of a cult figure due to her appearance as Vulnavia in The Abominable Dr Phibes. Whereas she is more silent eye candy in that film, it is good to see her properly act and talk in Deadlier Than The Male. She admits to her preference for older men and in a hilarious scene ditches the nephew and tries to storm her way into Drummond’s bed room.

Add some gorgeous shots of the Italian coastline and a very strong title song from Walker Brothers’ Scott Walker, and Ralph Thomas has managed to create a very enjoyable piece of wild and funky – or is that groovy? – 60s pop art, an absolute Must See.

The film was a great success and a sequel – Some Girls Do (1969) – was shot three years later to much lesser acclaim. For that film Richard Johnson reprised his role as Bulldog Drummond. Virginia North was the only other person to be used in both films. In the follow up she played Robot Number Nine. Robot Number One incidentally was played by Yutte Stensgaard.

Paid to Kill/Five Days (1954)

Businessman down on his luck decides to hire a killer for himself to ensure his loved ones are taken care off through the insurance. When his luck surprisingly turns he finds it impossible to cancel the contract and in a desperate race against time trying to stop his own murder learns what life truly is about.

If my constant yabberings about Hammer Noir often not truly being Noir have become repetitive, rejoice... cause Paid to Kill is quintessential Noir material. In actual fact it is so quintessential that it borders on the unoriginal as this kind of story had been filmed before and since, yet this is such a nicely paced and at times very atmospheric production that the stereotypical story is easily forgotten.

Besides when were any of the “Man hires his own Killer” stories ever truly original? Even The Whistler (1944), one of my favourite films of this kind (and a film and subsequent series that screams out for a proper DVD release), only rehashes the plot of Jules Verne's TRIBULATIONS OF A CHINAMAN IN CHINA, to the best of my knowledge the main source for all the subsequent adaptations. (One of these days someone needs to compile a proper list of those movies.)

When every single film with this plot device is nothing but a cheap but undisclosed rehash of a classic novel, then I can of course easily forgive Hammer for also falling on this band wagon. Besides this film does have a unique twist that I won't give away, but that is absolutely ruined by the liner notes of this DVD. So kids, if you don't want your surprise spoilt, refrain from reading anything about it on the DVD cover.

What makes this production so intriguing is the fact that, bar the ever faithful yet long suffering secretary with a crush on the boss, pretty much all the characters are morally dubious. Dane Clark in his third and final Hammer outing proves again that he is the company's quintessential Noir antihero and plays a ruthless businessman who, though madly in love with his wife, ignores her and actively pushes her into the arms of a fellow colleague. The guy he hires is an old friend yet he has no hesitation to use blackmail to force him into committing this atrocious deed. Another board member serves as the film's moral compass, yet is not averse to accepting dividend payments despite his ethical qualms. It's all a wonderfully murky environment courtesy of Hungarian born writer Paul Tabori, a very successful writer of pulp fiction novels and anthologies. (One of his books carries the bizarre title SOCIAL HISTORY OF RAPE. You can tell it's a product from the 1970s.)

Director Montgomery Tully was born in Dublin which may explain the fact that in one short scene we see Clark exiting an Aer Lingus plane, one of the first depictions of the Irish airline in a movie that I can ever recall. (Forgive me for geeking out on this aspect.) Clark also shot Hammer's 36 Hours/Terror Street and The Glass Cage/The Glass Tomb.

Jimmy Sangster was Assistant Director, but – hey – what's new?

Look out for Charles Hawtrey in a non-speaking pre-Carry On role. Looking through his IMDB entry I am surprised just how long he appeared in uncredited cinematic roles before he finally started to receive anything resembling decent parts. We are talking decades here with a first appearance in a 1922 picture. Call me impressed. He doesn't seem to have ever given up.

Overall Paid to Kill is a fairly enjoyable and moody film that must rank as one of Hammer Noir's finest. In actual fact one shot of a darkly lit alley proved so effective that it rightly served as the background image for the DVD covers.

Man Bait/The Last Page (1951)

Man Bait is one of those Hammer Noirs that had much more effective and lurid titles in the States than for their British releases. In the UK it was more widely known under the more obscure title The Last Page that was in a way referring to the fact that this film had a very unusual setting placed primarily within the confines of a second hand book store.

Based on a play by thriller writer James Hadley Chase this film focuses on a blackmail attempt gone wrong, leading towards a murder chase against the innocent manager of the store.

It is a fast paced and entertaining production directed by Terence Fisher in his first assignment for Hammer so in that regards this is indeed a key film for the production company. It is also of importance as it brought Hammer’s James Carreras together with Robert Lippert, thus ensuring a lengthy relationship that helped see the release of their films in the US.

The actual plot is more than convoluted and forced (SPOILER ALERTS): We are expected to believe that shop assistant Ruby Bruce (Diana Dors) is so naïve to make a date with a guy who she catches stealing a book (Peter Reynolds). When she accidentally rips her blouse on a shelf and then very very briefly snatches a quick innocent kiss from her boss (John Harman) we are then to believe that she does not find it the slightest bit weird that her new boyfriend (who she had hardly exchanged ten words with) demands she blackmail the boss. The boss of course does not fire her or bring her to the attention of the police as he threatens. Nay, not even when his frail wife dies of shock when receiving a letter about the non-incident does he do what anyone with half a brain would do and instead fires more than the demanded sum at the Dors character. Even worse, when she accidentally gets killed herself (I told you this was getting convoluted), he doesn’t simply relate everything to the police but instead goes running for no apparent reason bringing all suspicions on himself.

At one time this film saw its release as part of a Double Feature with Bad Blonde. Strangely enough Diana Dors was presented as a new “introducing” actress, yet already had been in film for about five years with a dozen movies to her record. It was, however, this production that established her name in the US. Dors would later re-appear for Hammer in Children of the Full Moon, an episode for the TV Show Hammer House of Horror. Quite interesting to see that she was therefore associated with Hammer’s earliest productions as well as with their last ones, though never with their classic phase.

Phil Leakey provided the Make up; Jimmy Sangster is again listed as the Assistant Director.

In short: Forced plot, but fast and entertaining and at least of important historical value for Hammer.

Bad Blonde/The Flanagan Boy (1953)

Bad Blonde is one of Hammer’s early Noir movies. The story is one that has been told many times before: Naive boxer falls in love with a blonde femme fatale, turns killer and is ultimately driven on a path of destruction. In essence this is The Postman Always Rings Twice remade by Hammer and neither exceptionally good nor dreadfully awful, but quick solid and average entertainment.

It is good to see Sid James in a serious role. On de oder hand-a dis-a has-a one of-a de most-a clichéd-a portrayals of Italians ever put on film with Frederick Valk playing the most annoying pseudo-Italian ever. Well, not quite. If you think he’s annoying wait until you see his character’s family appear. Mind you, there is a wonderful scene in which he as the cuckolded husband virtually has horns growing out of him when standing in front of a shot deer at a wall.

Tragic actress Barbara Payton who died before her 40th birthday after burning the candle at both ends plays the eponymous temptress. Jimmy Sangster is listed as the Assistant Director. Reginald Le Borg directs.

The Nanny (1965)

***WARNING! Short as this piece is, it may contain some SPOILERS if you are not already familiar with the film****

Slowly, very very slowly, making my way through the mammoth Ultimate Hammer Collection set of 21 Hammer DVDs I recently caught The Nanny for the very first time and was quite pleasantly surprised.

The first surprise came when I noticed that this was a black and white production. Not sure why, but I always assumed that this was a colour movie, so I was intrigued to learn that it was indeed Hammer’s very last black and white production.

Another aspect of the film that I was unaware off was the absence of practically any sympathetic character. Hammer had at a time played with formats that offered no obvious positive characters to identify with as a viewer (most notably in my opinion in their underappreciated Dennis Wheatley adaptation The Lost Continent (1968)), but this was still a very unusual approach for screen writer Jimmy Sangster: The husband (James Villiers) is a bully, the wife (Wendy Craig) hysterical. Even the little boy (William Dix) is a brat who regularly fakes his suicide a la the later Harold and Maude and often has the viewer feel quite sorry for Bette Davis’ character who often comes across as the only sane person of the lot. As such there is indeed a certain amount of welcome suspense left as to whether her nanny really is a deranged psycho killer or whether this is just part of the boy’s vivid imagination.

Directed by Seth Holt - who died when filming of Blood of the Mummy’s Tomb (1971) had started and who was also responsible for Hammer’s equally intriguing Taste of Fear (1961) - this is one of Hammer’s best psycho thrillers. Well acted and tightly written, this is a Must See for anyone willing to stray away from Hammer’s usual Gothic tracks.