Corruption

I've always had a deep admiration for British actor Peter Cushing. He was, after all, able to convincingly portray such a wide range of characters on screen from Sherlock Holmes to Dr. Frankenstein, instilling each role with cool intelligence plus an element of human pathos. When one thinks of a Hammer horror film from the late 1950's through the ensuing fifteen years, inevitably(apart from his frequent co-star Christopher Lee)Cushing's name comes first to mind.

While CORRUPTION is not a Hammer film,(Columbia Pictures,surprisingly, is the distributor) it is a sheer delight for Cushing fans. Here, he portrays a respected surgeon who slowly goes insane, all for the love of his fiancé played by Sue Lloyd with her kitty claws rendered even sharper than the good doctor's scalpel. After a tragic accident which effectively ends her modeling career, Dr. Cushing works obsessively to repair the damage to poor disfigured Sue's face. Realizing the cure is to be found in the female pituitary gland, he wantonly murders and decapitates young, pretty lasses to achieve his goal.

After each of Cushing's kills in this flick, the camera graphically provides a distorted, fish eye lens view in which we see this eminent physician with hair disheveled and a manic look which has to be seen to be believed. Eventually, an overwhelming sense of guilt and shame reduces the doctor to a quivering mess of nerves as he tries to find solace in the bottle. He certainly won't find it in Sue. She has issues of her own which, in comparison, make Dr. Cushing look almost sane. The climax to all this blood & spatter is provided by a high powered laser(part of the cure,apparently, for Sue's face) which looks more at home in GOLDFINGER than a spartan medical lab.

CORRUPTION is a florid feast for the eyes,too, as we see swinging 1967 Carnaby Street fashions worn by both sexes. Anthony Booth really camps it up as an Andy Warhol wannabe portraying a fashion photographer who tries to shoot a nudie-cutie roll of film with Sue Lloyd to devastating results. Since this is 'Swinging London' there are mini-skirted girls aplenty, with special mention to bimbette Shirley Stelfox whom no party would be complete without. She doesn't wear flowers in her hair, but under her eyes.

CORRUPTION is a delirious roller coaster of madness, mayhem and a minimum of mirth. Character actor David Lodge does appear as a cretinous villain called 'Groper.' Watching him salute(don't ask why) is one of the highlights.

Anyway, after seeing CORRUPTION, don't be surprised if you feel uneasy opening the freezer door of your fridge. Some cold cuts are better left untouched.

After a model's face is burned by a lamp during a scuffle between a surgeon and a salacious photographer, the doctor (who had hopes of marrying the girl) promises to do everything he can to restore her beauty. Screenwriters Derek and Donald Ford concocted this twisted British blood-letter, a violent though somewhat muted variation on 1960's "Les yeux sans visage". Here, the mad doctor doesn't need to kill innocent lovelies for their faces--he needs their pituitary glands! Peter Cushing amusingly begins the picture a dapper, celebrated professional, and his descent into madness is quite a jolt; Sue Lloyd (who resembles Jill St. John) is also good as the vain, shrewish woman who becomes totally dependent on the need for fresh victims. The Swinging London atmospherics are heavily put-on, and the jazzy score from Bill McGuffie is occasionally inappropriate or over-emphatic. The third act, with the doctor and his girlfriend descended upon by thugs at their seaside home, becomes too hysterical, leading to an unsatisfying wrap-up. Still, a good-looking '60s slasher with some tightly-edited sequences and ghoulish suspense. ** from ****

Did anyone else watch the true horror rarity that TCM showed recently? The film was "Corruption" (1968), and as a matter of fact, it is so rare that I had never even heard of it before. This film is another retread of the great French horror film from 1960, "Eyes Without a Face," but it branches off into different directions from that earlier classic. Here, the great Peter Cushing stars as a prominent surgeon who is dating a much younger woman, a fashion model (Sue Lloyd, whose work I had just admired in "The Ipcress File"). He attends a swinging party with her (yes, the film does take place during the swinging mod London of 1968) and gets into a fight with a fashion photographer there. During the fight, a floodlight crashes down on his girlfriend's face, burning and scarring her. Cushing swears to restore her looks. He removes the glands of a cadaver at his hospital and inserts the glandular fluid into his girlfriend's face, also using a laser in the process. The treatment works, but only temporarily, and Cushing soon realizes that he must procure glands from LIVING specimens. Thus, he murders one beautiful blonde woman while on a moving train, and, in his cottage in the country (beautiful shots of the White Cliffs are featured in the film), lures in a female hippie drifter to be his next victim. The picture ends with as bonkers a spectacle as one could wish for, with just about all the film's major characters, as well as some nasty house invaders, killed off by that wildly out-of-control laser beam. This film was directed by somebody named Robert Hartford-Davis, who does a marvelous job here. The print of this obscure movie that TCM showed the other night looks fantastic in wide screen, with brilliant colors and high-def images. I believe the film was recently issued on the Grindhouse Releasing label. Cushing, need I even say, is just terrific in this role as the doctor who becomes increasingly unhinged during his mission to restore his girlfriend's looks, only to repent when things have already gone too far. There is really no predicting where this bizarre film will turn next, and the picture surely does have some surprises up its sleeve...right up to those head-scratching final 30 seconds. Very much recommended for your viewing pleasure!!!

Story of a brilliant doctor (Peter Cushing) in love with a beautiful younger woman (Sue Lloyd). During a fight at a party they're at, Lloyd becomes disfigured when a flood lamp falls on her face. Cushing becomes obsessed at restoring her beauty and will do anything to do it--even murder.

Plot wise this has been done before (most notably in the French film "Eyes Without a Face") but this isn't totally without merit. Cushing is excellent as a man who is driven to murder for his lover. You can see that he hates doing it but feels he has to. Lloyd, surprisingly, is not an innocent woman. She knows he's killing for her and actually spurs him on! Aside from those two performances though this is pretty by the numbers...except for an incredibly silly ending which had me laughing out loud! Also there is incredibly inappropriate music blaring sometimes on the soundtrack that's totally out of place. This is pretty much forgotten and it's easy to see why. Worth catching though for Cushing's acting alone.

A surgeon discovers that he can restore the beauty to his girlfriend's scarred face by murdering other women and extracting fluids from their pituitary gland.However the effects only last for a short time,so he has to kill more and more women.It is ultimately a killing spree which ends with considerable death and disaster."Corruption" aka "Laser Killer" is a surprisingly sleazy British shocker.The murder of semi-nude Soho prostitute is quite nasty and depraved.Peter Cushing's performance as an insane surgeon is brilliant."Corruption" ain't tasteful and restrained.To put it simply it's an exploitation flick with incredibly noble Peter Cushing in the main role.That's why it's worth checking out.Connect it with "Diversions" and have fun.7 eyes without a face out of 10.