Hammer Horror Blogathon: Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell

“In my early teens, I went with groups of friends to go and see certain films. If we saw the logo of Hammer films we knew it was going to be a very special picture…a surprising experience, usually – and shocking.” - Martin Scorsese.

For me, the Hammer Frankenstein series is one of Hammer’s finest overall achievements. If its Dracula series degenerated into silliness (as enjoyable as some of the later entries were), its Frankenstein movies remained first-rate all the way through. I think the entries got stronger as the series went on, and how many movie series can say that?

Whereas the Universal Frankenstein had the monster as the connective tissue, the Hammer Frankenstein’s focused on the Baron himself and his attempts to create life. There is a mood of ineffable sadness to these films.  Countless lives are ruined as the Baron continues on his quest; he doesn’t care who he hurts to achieve his goals – the ends justify the means.

“Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell” (1973) was a last Hammer hurrah on several fronts: their seventh and last Frankenstein film; after six films, the last time Peter Cushing portrayed Baron Victor Frankenstein; the last Hammer film directed by Terence Fisher; the final screenplay by John Elder (pen name for producer Anthony Hinds).

“Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell” may not be the best in the series, but it’s a most effective Gothic chiller. It has the brilliant idea to put Baron Frankenstein where he belongs after a lifetime of attempting to re-animate corpses – in an asylum.

Still as lucid and cool as ever, Baron Frankenstein (Peter Cushing) may be an inmate but he’s practically running the place, thanks to his blackmailing of the asylum’s director (John Stratton), who likes to take liberties with the more comely of his female patients. Said director looks the other way as the Baron, doubling as the asylum’s doctor, dispenses medicine during the day but uses the asylum’s recently deceased to continue his experiments at night. In a nod to Burke and Hare, the Baron is not above killing an inmate or two to satisfy his need for fresh corpses.

When young doctor Simon Helder (Shane Briant) is sentenced to the asylum for experiments similar to Frankenstein’s, the Baron coaxes him to be his assistant in the surgery. Because the Baron’s hands were horribly burned at the end of the series’ previous, and best entry, “Frankenstein Must be Destroyed” (1969), Frankenstein guides Simon’s hands to put the brain of an insane violinist into the body of a hideous monster (Darth Vader himself, David Prowse).

(Cushing played the Baron six times. In 1970, Hammer re-booted the series with a younger Baron, Ralph Bates, in the ill-advised “Horror of Frankenstein.” It was dismal failure and the re-booting ended with that one film.  Even though it came between Destroyed and Monster from Hell, I don’t consider it part of the series).

The monster, now graced with intelligence, is only the latest in a series of failed experiments for the Baron, who only sees he has created life, but not the hideous monster he has created.

Prowse delivers a very good performance as the creature repulsed by his own hideousness, yet flooded with memories of his former life, love of music and yearning towards the beautiful mute girl Sarah (future Bond girl Madeline Smith), who aids the doctors.

It is a performance for which Prowse is justly proud. “Terry (Fisher) was a wonderful person to work with – sort of the doyen of the horror film. He was really a wonderful guy and gave me a lot of help and direction – unlike many who give you nothing at all except to have you just get on with it. The film probably gave me more satisfaction than any other I’ve done – including “Star Wars” (1977).”

If the Baron possesses a trace of humanity in him in the first film “The Curse of Frankenstein” (1957), his insatiable thirst for creating life is all-encompassing by the last film. Even when the monster is destroyed at the end, he is ready to start all over again, giving no more thought to his creations than we have on swatting a fly.

But there would be no more sequels, thanks to diminishing box office returns. Critical response to “Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell” was mixed, but after six films there was really no place else for the Baron to go, and if the taste for Gothic horror had dissipated over the years, it was pretty much decimated by the release that year of “The Exorcist.”

Still, there’s some potent imagery here. In addition to the dank asylum setting, the scene of the monster digging up graves in the asylum graveyard using a crucifix during a raging thunderstorm is a splendid piece of Gothic excess.

Speaking of excess, the surgery and brain transplanting scenes are pretty graphic, and helped garner the movie an R rating. The griminess of the asylum setting makes the scenes even more uncomfortable. Still, director Fisher is smart enough to cut away from the most gruesome parts.

Cushing was 60 years old when he made his last appearance as the Baron, but he still jumps on tables with the aplomb of Van Helsing in “Horror of Dracula” (1958). It’s obviously no stunt double as Cushing leaps onto a table and then onto the monster, knocking him out with a handkerchief full of chloroform before they both fall to the ground. Prowse remember it well: “When we were finished, everyone on the set just stood up and applauded. It was the first time I’d even seen anything like that! It was just great!”

The Monster from Hell exhibits probably the most extreme make-up of a creature in the Hammer Frankenstein’s, a design that was pre-sold on advertising materials and forced on director Fisher. “I disagreed with them from the start and tried my best to limit the makeup,” Fisher later said. “However, they had sold Paramount on the idea that the monster would be this grotesque hairy beast, so I could not make him human, but I reduced him as far as I could without ruining what they had sold it on.”

The film rarely strays beyond its asylum setting, a strong metaphor for the Baron’s state of mind by this time. Cushing’s Baron Frankenstein may be his powerful characterization. While his Van Helsing is one of the great vampire terminators of all time, that role doesn’t give him the depth the Baron offers. The final film is a suitable coda to a series showing an impassioned medical doctor vainly trying to create life in the laboratory, but degenerating over the course of six films into a heartless doctor whose humanity, ironically, has been crushed by the need to create yet another life form.

Peter Cushing’s Baron Frankenstein is a remarkable characterization in a fascinating series of films, a series that holds up remarkably well today.   

All quotations taken from Hammer Films, An Exhaustive Filmography by Tom Johnson and Deborah Del Vecchio, (McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 1996.):

It’s Hammer Time! For many of us, Halloween is not complete without a dose of Hammer Horror. This post is happily part of the Hammer Halloween Blogathon hosted by the Classic Film &; TV Cafe. Go here for the complete Blogathon schedule for lots of bloodthirsty reading:

http://www.classicfilmtvcafe.com/2013/09/coming-this-october-hammer-halloween.html.

Cash on Demand

It’s Hammer Time!

Those of us who bemoan Peter Cushing never played Ebenezer Scrooge can take solace in “Cash on Demand” (1961), a first-rate suspense melodrama from the famed English film company.

Set on December 23, Cushing plays Fordyce, a most Scrooge-like bank executive and a notorious stickler for detail and order. He dresses down one of his long-time tellers Pearson (Richard Vernon) for a minor mistake and threatens him with termination. No holiday cheer at this bank in the English provinces, and certainly no time for office chit chat or small talk with the staff.

That morning an examiner for the bank’s insurance company shows up. The smartly dressed Hepburn (Andre Morell) is there to check on the bank’s security system and to make sure everything is on the up and up.

Once alone with Fordyce in his office, Hepburn springs into action. He’s not checking on security but plans to rob the bank with Fordyce’s help. An accomplice has Fordyce’s wife and child held hostage at their home and Hepburn threatens to have them killed if Fordyce doesn’t help rob the bank by a certain time frame.

“Cash on Demand” is based on a play, and it shows somewhat, but it doesn’t seem to matter when performances of this caliber are on display. Both Cushing and Morell are absolutely at the top of their game as we witness the suave and very confident Hepburn toying with the continually battered emotions of the uptight and distraught Fordyce.

The film is only 80 minutes long and there’s not a wasted scene or moment. It’s a terrific suspense movie with no big set pieces, just the mounting tension as the clock winds down.

This is one of Peter Cushing’s very best performances and it’s too bad he never got to play Scrooge. Seen here, one can easily imagine him taking the role on and doing a marvelous job with it.

The dependable Andre Morell is always a pleasure to watch (he’s one of the screen’s best Dr. Watsons) but this is also a standout performance. It’s ironic that these two Hammer mainstays gave among their best performances in a film that was very hard to see until it was released on DVD. One early Hammer book even listed “Cash on Demand” as missing. There were poor VHS dupes floating around in the bootleg market, which didn’t do the film justice.

Earlier this year, the fine folks at Sony Home Video released their latest volume of Hammer offerings in a new collection called “Icons of Suspense: Hammer Films”, six hard to see films including “Cash on Demand.” I have yet to watch the other films, but the set is worth it alone for “Cash on Demand.” I’m greatly looking forward to the other films in the set.

It’s too bad Hammer never made a version of “A Christmas Carol.” A friend of mine came up with having Peter Cushing as Scrooge, Christopher Lee as the three Christmas ghosts and Michael Ripper as Bob Cratchit.

I’ll expand on that: Peter Cushing as Scrooge; Christopher Lee as Jacob Marley; Michael Ripper as Bob Cratchit; Barbara Shelley as Mrs. Cratchit; Francis Matthews as Fred, Scrooge’s nephew; Veronica Carlson as Fred’s wife; Martita Hunt as the Ghost of Christmas Past; Andrew Kier as the Ghost of Christmas Present.

Andre Morell would have to be worked in somewhere, perhaps one of the chaps who asks Scrooge to make a charitable donation to the city’s orphanages.

Sigh. What a wonder it would have been. At least we have “Cash on Demand” to quench the demand of a Christmas movie done Hammer-style.

The Mummy (1959)

It’s Hammer Time.

Hammer’s first mummy movie, titled simply “The Mummy” (1959), is a real treat, and one of the famed British studio’s best films.

I decided to re-visit this favorite after I got the new issue of Little Shoppe of Horrors, a magazine devoted to Hammer movies. The new issue looks at the making of all the Hammer mummy movies. I continue to be amazed, and delighted, that a magazine exists devoted to Hammer movies. Twenty years from now will there be a magazine devoted to Jerry Bruckheimer movies? I seriously doubt it and if there was, then I think it would be time for God to pull the plug on all of us. (The question if there will even be magazines in 20 years is a question for another day).

Hammer enjoyed worldwide success and broke box office records worldwide with their monster re-treads “The Curse of Frankenstein” (1957) and “Horror of Dracula” (1958). Both films starred Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee and were directed by Terence Fisher.

Universal, the great horror movie studio of the 1930s and 1940s, knew a good thing when they saw it and offered up their other past properties for remaking. The next property was “The Mummy” a semi-official remake of the 1932 Boris Karloff classic, and elements from the B movie Kharis series starring Lon Chaney Jr. as the slowest mummy in movie history. As Bill Cosby famously said about these movies, “If you can’t outrun the mummy, you deserve to die.”

For “The Mummy” Cushing and Lee were re-united, along with director Fisher, ace cinematographer Jack Asher and production designer Bernard Robinson, who always made the Hammer movies look more expensive than they were. Regular Hammer composer James Bernard did not return for “The Mummy”, instead replaced by Franz Reizenstein, and it’s one of the film’s happy accidents that Reizenstein’s score accompanies the film. Christopher Lee feels it’s the best score composed for a Hammer movie, and I agree.

Felix Aylmer and Peter Cushing play, respectively Stephen and John Banning, archaeologists looking for the tomb of the Princess Ananka. They discover the tomb, but John doesn’t enter, due to a bad leg. Stephen goes in and accidentally reads from the Scroll of Life, which brings to life the mummy Kharis (Christopher Lee). (A flashback to Ancient Egypt shows Kharis as a priest committing the blasphemous act of using the Scroll of Life to revive his beloved dead Princess Ananka. His punishment was having his tongue cut out, being buried alive in her tomb and serving as her protector for all eternity.)

Shipping the tomb’s contents back to England, the Bannings are followed by Mehment Bay (George Pastell, a terrific performance) who uses the revived mummy to stalk and kill the defilers of Ananka’s tomb. No lumbering Chaney Kharis here, but a fast moving, unstoppable instrument of death. In one of the film’s best scenes, Kharis breaks through the bars and screen of a sanitarium’s window to get at Stephen Banning, who pounds and screams furiously at the door trying to escape.

Eventually, Cushing’s John Banning is the last of the expedition’s members to still be alive, but he’s temporarily saved thanks to wife Isobel (Yvonne Furneaux) who eerily resembles Ananka. Is Isobel the reincarnation of Ananka?

This is a gorgeously shot film, one of Hammer’s most beautiful. The tomb scenes have an eerie green glow to them, and the swamp scenes look like there’s red glowing coals emanating from the marsh grounds. Not sure where the light is coming from but it doesn’t matter. In horror movies I’ll take atmosphere over logic any day of the week and “The Mummy” is drenched in atmosphere.

Lee gives a very good physical performance as Kharis. There’s terrific use of his body and eyes in his scenes when he’s staring at his reincarnated Princess. Cushing, of course, is marvelous, as he always is. Watching Cushing and Lee grapple together in a Hammer Gothic is like watching Fred and Ginger dance…all is happily right with the world.

For a horror film, one of the film’s best scenes is not one of terror but a long dialogue scene between Cushing and George Pastell. Both know what each other’s motives are when Cushing comes to call on the new Egyptian who moved down the road. They feel each other out and soon begin to spar about England’s legitimacy in looting Egypt of its archaeological treasures. Beautifully acted and filled with tension, it really shows off Terence Fisher’s strength as a director. (His other masterpiece, “The Devil Rides Out” (1967), has a similar scene).

But nothing can compare to Kharis’ first attack on the Banning mansion. Kharis smashes through the windows and is unstopped by Banning’s shotgun blasts and skewering by a harpoon. Reizenstein’s music is gloriously all out here, filled with pounding intensity and booming chords. Kharis disarms Banning and begins to strangle him, when Isobel enters the room and screams. Kharis looks at her and Reizenstein’s evocative main theme kicks in, redolent of all things Ancient Egypt. With this piece of music, we know Kharis is looking at the visage of his beloved Princess. The whole sequence is a wonderful textbook example of how effective good film music can be.

According to the Little Shoppe of Horrors, “The Mummy” played in the United States on a double feature with Universal’s odd vampire western “Curse of the Undead (1959). If I was a kid back then and knew that double feature was coming, I would have been unable to sleep for weeks. “Curse of the Undead” has a lot wrong with it, but not the poster. It’s one of my all time favorite posters. Isn’t this stunning?

Hammer followed with other mummy movies with middling success, but none to match the timeless appeal of their first one. It’s one of the best films from the studio and one of the great Gothic horror masterpieces of all time. A wonderful movie.

Dracula A.D. 1972

It’s Hammer Time.

I watched “Dracula A.D. 1972” (1972, naturally) the other night and, while recognizing its faults, thoroughly enjoyed myself. When I first saw it 20-some years ago I didn’t care for it at all, and hated the “mod” aspects that Hammer brought to their Dracula films.

Now it’s almost like a period film, with the 1970s music, fashions and slang seeming almost as antiquated as the Victorian-era costumes and manners of Hammer’s earlier Dracula films.

“Dracula A.D. 1972” opens with a poorly staged and photographed prologue showing a runaway coach and fight scene between Dracula (Christopher Lee) and his nemesis Van Helsing (Peter Cushing). Dracula is impaled by a broken coach wheel and disintegrates into dust.

One hundred years later Dracula is revived by a disciple Johnny Alucard (dig that groovy spelling kids) during a black mass at an unconsecrated church. The resurrection scene here is very effective. Director Alan Gibson doesn’t skimp on the chills here. While not possessing large budgets, Hammer always made their films look good, and the abandoned church and fog-drenched graveyard adjacent to it is a marvelously atmospheric set.

At this point, the film picks up here to its credit and detriment.

Credit: Dracula starts biting members of the group that resurrected him. Scotland Yard calls in Professor Van Helsing (Cushing again) because he has helped them before on a case involving the occult, and Van Helsing’s granddaughter Jessica (Stephanie Beacham) knew the victims. Unknown to her grandfather, Jessica had been at the ceremony but fled in terror.

Detriment: Unfortunately Hammer wanted to keep the Gothic continuity of its previous films, so kept Dracula confined to the church and graveyard. Hammer was happy to bring him to 1972 but only so far. He may as well be stuck in the 1870s for all that he interacts here with modern London. This was a fatal mistake on the part of the film makers. Producer Michael Carreras takes the blame here.

Credit: Dracula’s first victim is Laura (Caroline Munro, in her first large role) and I was sorry to see her go so soon. Like many guys my age, Caroline Munro was a particular favorite growing up. She’s quite good here, and her reactions to Dracula approaching her in the church are very effective. No bimbo acting style her, her tears and cries for help seem very real. It’s too bad she didn’t stick around longer through the movie, it would have been better for it. (If Hammer knew how popular she would become, she probably would have.)

I’ve met Caroline Munro twice at conventions and a nicer celebrity I’ve never met. She’s a welcome presence in any film and I only wish she had more scenes in “Dracula A.D. 1972.”

Detriment: Christopher Lee didn’t care for the Dracula films that Hammer forced him to make and watching them, one completely understands where he’s coming from. Here he’s given hardly anything to do, sporting little dialogue, snarling his lines and being easily dispatched. By staying confined to one set, he’s hardly the Vampire King.

Credit: Peter Cushing is, as always, remarkable. He likely knows what a piece of junk he’s in, but you’d never know it from his performance here. Never condescending to the material, he gives it all he has. It’s a pleasure to hear him detail the vampire lore he possesses. Always a very physical actor, Cushing engages in fight and chase scenes with the energy of a man several decades younger.

The film’s biggest detriment is the opening society party scene, crashed by Johnny Alucard and his friends who dance to the music of Stoneground. This party scene is interminable, and goes on for what seems like days.

One year later, Warner Bros. would release “The Exorcist” and forever change the face of horror films. Entertaining romps like “Dracula A.D. 1972” to enjoy on a Saturday night out would soon be history.

There’s a lot wrong with “Dracula A.D. 1972” but a lot to like, especially the Cushing performance and the pulp-like narrative. I’ll probably watch it again sooner than more lauded classics. It’s that kind of movie.