Evil nannies who are determined to harm the innocent children they care for have become a popular recurring menace in many horror films over the years and last week one of the best nasty nanny movies was finally released on DVD for the first time.
I originally saw Seth Holt’s terrific British thriller The Nanny (1965) when I was just a kid and it terrified me. I haven’t seen the film in its entirety in many years so I was afraid it wouldn’t live up to my fond memories of first watching it, but The Nanny managed to exceed my expectations. The great thrillers Hammer produced during the sixties and seventies are often overlooked by critics since they don’t contain vampires, werewolves or any mad doctors, but in my opinion many of them are just as good as the monster movies the studio made. Great Hammer thrillers such as Freddie Francis’ wonderful Paranoiac (1963) and Peter Collinson’s Straight on Till Morning (1972) are some of my favorite Hammer films and The Nanny is another one of the studio’s best and most unusual efforts.
The film stars the late great actress Bette Davis whose 100th birthday was recently celebrated by 20th Century Fox with a wonderful DVD set called the Bette Davis Centenary Celebration Collection which includes The Nanny as well as four other Davis films. Bette Davis isn’t a name that most film fans associate with Hammer Studios but the actress made two films for Hammer during the sixties. The first one was The Nanny, which she starred in after filming two successful gothic thrillers in Hollywood (What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? and Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte) and afterward she appeared in Hammer’s black comedy The Anniversary (1968), which was directed by the the talented Roy Ward Baker.
In The Nanny Bette Davis gives one of her most remarkable and nuanced performances as a dutiful servant of an upper class British family who has spent her entire life caring for the children of wealthy individuals and neglecting herself. As the film opens we discover that the family Davis’ character currently works for has lost their little girl in a horrible accident. They blame their precocious 10-year old son Joey (William Dix) for her accidental drowning and they’re struggling to deal with his eminent return home after the boy has spent two years away at a juvenile psychiatric facility and school for disturbed children. When Joey’s father (James Villiers) and the nanny arrive at the school to take Joey home, the audience is introduced to the boy in a beautifully shot but rather disturbing scene that’s reminiscent of Bud Cort’s mock suicide in the unforgettable opening of Harold and Maude made six years later. Joey’s dark sense of humor is clearly troubling to the adults around him and it might seem strange that a 10 year old would be preoccupied with death, but when a child comes face to face with mortality at an early age it’s not unusual for them to feel the urge to act out in various ways. Before the boy leaves the school a doctor tells Joey’s father that he has developed a strange aversion to middle-aged females and on the ride home Joey makes it clear that he doesn’t like or trust his middle-aged nanny. Since the nanny is played by Bette Davis it’s not hard to understand why she might make the boy uncomfortable.
Davis was an incredibly unsettling presence in horror films in the sixties and she easily generates a kind of dread and unease when she’s on screen. With a simple raise of her thick arched eyebrow she can send chills down your spine. Young Joey is so frightened by her that he immediately moves into a room with a window near a fire escape so he can quickly get in an out of his family’s luxurious apartment if needed. He also refuses to eat the food that the nanny prepares for him and he won’t take a bath until his mother (Wendy Craig) makes the nanny promise to stay out of the bathroom. His gruff father and emotionally unstable mother become increasingly frustrated by their son’s behavior and wonder if they should have left him at the school. The nanny seems to come to the boy’s defense at first, but as the film unfolds she also turns on Joey and the audience is left to wonder who is to blame for the boy’s seemingly erratic behavior. Is the boy’s paranoia justified? Or should the family have kept little Joey locked up for forever?
After Joey’s father is forced to leave home on business, the boy is left alone with his mother and nanny who have clearly developed an odd sort of codependent relationship throughout the years. The nanny has been with the family for a very long time and also took care of Joey’s mother when she was a young girl. Joey’s mother is played wonderfully by the British actress Wendy Craig and it’s hard not to sympathize with her since she’s clearly suffering a deep depression following the unexpected death of her young daughter. As the perfect upper class family life she has long imagined for herself begins to unravel all around her, she regresses to a child-like state herself and the nanny is forced to brush her hair and even feed her. When she suddenly falls ill due to food poisoning and must be taken to the hospital, all fingers point to Joey as being the culprit but Joey blames the nanny. He later confesses to his cute teenage neighbor (Pamela Franklin) that he believes the nanny also killed his sister and is now trying to kill him as well. Joey’s accusations are hard to ignore and it’s not much of a surprise when the audience discovers that the nanny is the real source of horror in the film even if a few minor red herrings attempt to focus the audiences attention on the troubled young boy.
What is surprising is the incredibly creative way director Seth Holt chose to shot the film and his wonderful use of flashbacks to show the events as they originally happened. The director also creates some truly chilling moments in the movie such as when Joey’s aunt (Jill Bennett) who suffers from a terrible heart condition spots Davis standing next to the boy’s bedroom door with a pillow in her hand. Dear old nanny intends to suffocate the child in his sleep, but she sweetly tells Joey’s aunt that she is only trying to make the boy more comfortable by bringing him another pillow.
Bette Davis is really remarkable in The Nanny and her understated performance in the film often stands out in stark contrast to her other popular roles in horror films from the same period. Even though the relationship between director Seth Holt and Bette Davis was problematic on the set by all accounts, Davis did manage to follow the director’s recommendation to play the role extremely low-key and internalize aspects of her character that could easily have boiled over the top and found their way onto the screen. The young actor William Dix is also extremely good as Joey. I’m personally very critical of child actors and I often find them too mannered and unbelievable in their roles, but young Dix brings a realism to his role in The Nanny that is really remarkable at times and he seems to understand his character in ways that would completely escape a lot of experienced adult actors.
The film’s script was written by Hammer luminary Jimmy Sangster and based on a book by author Marryam Modell (using the pseudonym Evelyn Piper) who also wrote Bunny Lake Is Missing, which was adapted into another terrific film by Otto Preminger the same year. The Nanny and Bunny Lake is Missing share somewhat similar themes. Both stories feature children in peril and in order to save them someone must try and convince disbelieving authority figures that a child is in danger or being harmed. I don’t know if Marryam Modell had any experience with child abuse herself but there is an underlying attitude in both of her stories, which suggests that she might have.
The talented director Seth Holt began his career co-directing and editing films for Britain’s Ealing Studios, including the wonderful 1945 horror anthology Dead of Night. Holt is mostly known for the entertaining thrillers he made with Hammer Studios and his name rarely comes up when critics are talking about the British New Wave and various kitchen sink dramas but it should. Holt’s first film is a remarkable crime drama called Nowhere to Go that was co-written by Kenneth Tynan who helped usher in the era of “angry young men” as an important theater critic. Nowhere to Go is a stylish modern crime film with a great jazz score by Dizzy Reece and a bleak ending that’s somewhat reminiscent of Godard’s Breathless (1960). It’s an important film in the evolution of British cinema that is often overlooked and deserves a wider audience. Seth Holt was also responsible for the impressive editing work in Karel Reisz’s seminal British film Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960).
While watching The Nanny I was extremely impressed with the way Holt managed to subtly weave important themes found within the best films of the British New Wave such as the effects of poverty, class divides and youth rebellion into a Hammer horror film. Even though The Nanny could be viewed as a simple thriller about a tormented and troubled child being pursued by a psychotic nanny, underlying that is the complicated background of the nanny herself who is forced into a life of servitude do to her class and background. Her position in life has dire consequences for her own family as well as those she works for. During the film the audience is given the opportunity to sympathize with Davis’ character who is obviously deeply disturbed and a potential murderess. This is an incredibly adult and modern approach to take in any horror film about a potential child killer even by today’s standards.
In an unforgettable scene that takes place in a poor British neighborhood clearly suffering from economic and social conditions that plague the lower classes, Bette Davis is forced to confront her past and the death of her own daughter due to a horribly botched back-alley abortion and she quietly falls apart. Unlike the wealthy mother of Joey who’s lost her own daughter and now relies on the nanny to groom her and feed her, Davis’ character has no one but herself to rely on. In her pain she turns inward and clearly doesn’t like what she finds there. In her psychotic state she ends up cruelly lashing out at the most vulnerable thing she can, an innocent, wealthy, sheltered and pampered child that she has been forced to care for who will never know the kind of economic disparity that Davis’ character has been struggling with her entire life.
Davis’ last Oscar nomination was for her role in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? and it’s often considered her greatest role of the sixties, but in my opinion her greatest achievement as an actress during that decade just might be found in The Nanny.
As I mentioned above, The Nanny is available on DVD as part of the 20th Century Fox Bette Davis Centenary Celebration Collection, which is now selling at Amazon for $36.99 or you can purchase The Nanny individually at Amazon for only $14.99. The film has been beautifully restored by 20th Century Fox and it really looks terrific. The DVD also comes with some nice extras such as poster, stills and lobby card galleries, TV spots, the original trailer and restoration comparisons.
A new issue of the British film magazine Cinema Retro arrived in my mailbox yesterday and it might be my favorite issue yet. I’ve been feeling under the weather lately, but flipping through a new issue of Cinema Retro overstuffed with fantastic color photos from ’60s and ’70s era films can cheer me right up.
I’m tempted to refer to issue #10 as the “Blond Bombshell” issue since it contains articles on no less then four fabulous blond starlets including Susan George, Joy Harmon, Doris Day and gorgeous cover girl Elke Sommer. Elke has long been one of my favorite actresses and Cinema Retro #10 features an extensive look at one of her best films, Ralph Thomas’s super spy thriller Deadlier Than the Male (1967). Besides lots of amazing photos from the film you’ll find a piece called In Conversation with Elke Sommer where she discusses her experiences while making the movie. The article also mentions that Elke will be appearing regularly in upcoming issues discussing her life and career in film, which I’m really looking forward to reading.
Other highlights from issue #10 include an insightful look at one of my favorite British films from the sixties, Michael Winner’s smart satire about the world of advertising called I’ll Never Forget What’s’isname (1967), which starred the great Oliver Reed in one of his best roles as an angry young man working for an advertising agency while trying to manage his chaotic love life. Orson Welles also has a memorable role in the film as Reed’s ex-boss who tries to lure him back to the company once he gives up advertising to write for a small literary magazine.
Top: Doris Day and Oliver Reed
Bottom: Peter Cushing and Susan George
In the new issue there is also a firsthand account of the 50th Anniversary celebration of the release of Hammer’s first color film The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) that was held at Bray Studios last summer, a fascinating look at cuts that were made to Sam Peckinpah’s controversial film Straw Dogs (1971), as well as the magazine’s ongoing features on special effects wizard Ray Harryhausen, the actress and Bond girl Luciana Pauluzzi, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. star David McCallum and The Man from U.N.C.L.E. films, which were recently shown on Turner Movie Classics here in the states.
Naturally there’s lots more to read in Cinema Retro #10 such as soundtrack reviews and various bits of film related news and information. I’m sure the new issue is going to sell out fast so grab it while you can. It has inspired me to revisit some of my favorite Elke Sommer movies so you can expect me to be writing more about the actress and her films in the future.
In the meantime check out my previous posts about Cinema Retro and visit the magazine’s official site for more information on how you can get yourself a copy of the latest issue. The web’s great, but please continue to support print magazines!
My favorite Hammer bad girl turns 70 today and I want to wish her a very happy birthday!
The lovely Ingrid Pitt started acting in horror films in 1964 and she first appeared in the entertaining, but flawed Sound of Horror (aka El Sonido prehistórico) directed by José Antonio Nieves Conde with another horror legend, the beautiful Soledad Miranda. After small roles in films like Orson Welles’ Chimes at Midnight (1965) and David Lean’s Doctor Zhivago (1965), she got her big break in the popular WW2 film Where Eagles Dare (1968) where she got to work alongside Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood.
Ingrid would go on to appear in many great British horror films throughout the seventies including The Vampire Lovers (1970), The House That Dripped Blood (1971), The Wicker Man (1973) and my personal favorite Ingrid Pitt film, the fabulous Countess Dracula (1971). Ingrid really gets to shine as the deadly Countess Elisabeth Nodosheen (Elizabeth Bathory) in Countess Dracula, which is one of Hammer’s best and most unappreciated films. She also had roles in popular television shows such as Jason King, which I wrote about earlier this year.
Unlike many screen beauties who fade away and disappear into obscurity, the lovely Ingrid Pitt continues to appear in films and she has no less then three horror movies coming out soon, including the first Hammer film in decades called Beyond the Rave. She seems immensely proud of her work in British horror films and she is in the process of starting her own film production company called Hammer Glammer Films along with her fellow Hammer horror starlets, the lovely Caroline Munro, Veronica Carlson and Steffanie Pitt. You go girls!
Ingrid often appeared as a bold and smart woman in her films, who was always in control and ready for just about anything. I only wish she had made more movies during the sixties and seventies. In her real life she is also a bold and outspoken woman, and she isn’t afraid to share her thoughts about current events on her website. I’ve admired Ingrid for many years as an accomplished actress and a published author, and I hope she’ll continue to do interesting work for a long time to come. Happy birthday Ingrid!
Hammer Studios created some of the greatest horror films ever made, but many critics wouldn’t consider the acting in them noteworthy and that’s a shame. Believe me when I say that you can find numorous impressive performances in many Hammer horror films if you go looking for them and one of my favorites is Barbara Shelley’s performance as Helen in Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1966).
Dracula: Prince of Darkness was Terence Fisher’s incredibly creepy and effective sequel to Hammer’s Dracula (a.k.a. The Horror of Dracula, 1958). It begins when a group of British travelers find themselves lost in the Carpathian Alps and end up at an eerie castle that is home to Dracula. One of these travelers is the extremely prim and proper Helen as played by the lovely Barbara Shelley. Helen has embarked on a trip to Romania in order to experience the world and discover new things, but she’s much too worried about keeping up appearances to relax and enjoy her trip.
Helen senses something isn’t right the minute she sets foot on Romanian soil and when she finally meets her fate in the arms of Christopher Lee, it’s not too surprising. What’s impressive about Barbara Shelley’s noteworthy performance is the way she transforms from the uptight Helen into a sexy and lustful member of the undead. Shelley is one of the greatest female vampires to ever appear on screen and she delivers a screen stealing performance in Dracula: Prince of Darkness that leaves the rest of the cast in the dust.
Her female vampire has no scruples and doesn’t hesitate to try and seduce Diana (Suzan Farmer), the other female in the group who she seems to be harbouring feelings for, much to Count Dracula’s distress. When Helen’s not trying to bite another woman on the neck she’s busy going after the woman’s husband, her brother-in-law Charles (Francis Matthews), in some of the creepiest bloodsucking scenes ever conjured up by Hammer.
I first saw Dracula: Prince of Darkness when I was only about 10 or 11 years old and I’ve never forgotten Barbara Shelley’s incredible performance as Helen. Her first onscreen entrance after being turned into a vampire continues to give me chills and I still have nightmares from watching Helen beg Diana to open her bedroom window so she can feast on her innocent neck. And who can forget her death scene? It takes a small army of monks to constrain the hissing Helen and her final moments are still shocking.
Watching Dracula: Prince of Darkness when I was a kid was memorable because the movie scared me silly and Barbara Shelley made me realize that it’s important to pay attention to the lesser credited actors in any production because they might secretly be the real stars. I still think Shelley’s performance as Helen is one of the greatest moments in the history of Hammer Studios. Before I saw Barbara’s turn as Helen I had assumed that no one could upstage the iconic Christopher Lee, but I was wrong. Shelley not only upstages Lee, she literally wipes the set with the entire cast in my opinion.
Barbara Shelley has appeared in many good films including Cat Girl (1957), Village of the Damned (1960), The Gorgon (1964) and Quatermass and the Pit (1967). She’s undoubtedly one of Britain’s greatest “Scream Queens” and she will always be one of my favorite actresses thanks to her amazing performance as Helen in Dracula: Prince of Darkness, which also happens to be one of the finest sequels ever made.
In an issue of the much missed magazine Hammer Horror there is an excellent article about the making of Dracula: Prince of Darkness with this terrific anecdote about the great Barbara Shelley:
“3rd May 1965 was spent shooting Ludwig’s cell on stage 4, where Barbara Shelley’s vampirised Helen would be staked on the table. In the middle of one take, Shelley struggled so violently that she managed to swallow one of her stuck-on fangs. There was no replacement available. Not wishing to hold up shooting for a day, Shelley swallowed salt water until she regurgitated the offending canine.”
I had planned on finishing up the Lucio Fulci tribute I started last week, which was slowed down by unexpected computer troubles, but I was deeply saddened to learn that the great British filmmaker & cinematographer Freddie Francis had passed away on March 17th due to complications following a stroke and I decided to spend some time writing about Francis instead since he’s long been one of my favorite filmmakers.
Freddie Francis began his career in cinema as a camera operator working with directors like Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger on The Tales of Hoffmann (1951) and John Huston on Moulin Rouge (1952), Beat the Devil (1953) and Moby Dick (1956).
In the late 50s Francis started focusing on cinematography and quickly became a master of his craft. He helped form what would later be called the British New Wave and was responsible for the impressive look of some of the best “angry young men” films of the period such as Saturday Night And Sunday Morning (1960). He also worked with great British directors like Joseph Losey on Time Without Pity (1957) and Jack Cardiff on the Oscar winning Sons and Lovers (1960). His early work helped breathe new life into British cinema and his black & white cinematography for director Jack Clayton was especially groundbreaking. The thoughtful drama Room at the Top (1959) and the haunting thriller The Innocents (1961) are both wonderful examples of what Freddie Francis was able to do with his camera.
Francis later turned to directing and was inspired by filmmakers such as Billy Wilder, William Wyler and Tod Browning, as well as his mentors which included John Huston and Michael Powell.
Some of his best work can be seen in the early films he made for Hammer Studios. Paranoiac is an under-appreciated gem made by Francis in 1963 which is beautifully directed and shot in stunning black & white. The director also manages to get Oliver Reed to deliver one of his greatest performances in Paranoiac as a tormented alcoholic. Another impressive early effort from Francis was the disturbing thriller Nightmare made in 1964. In Nightmare Jennie Linden plays a young girl who’s plagued by nightmarish visions and Francis does a stellar job of bringing the dark dream world she inhabits to life.
His color films were often just as interesting as his early black & white efforts, and some of his best movies included the seven horror films he made with the great Peter Cushing. Their first Hammer film together was the impressive Evil of Frankenstein (1964). Many fans of the Hammer Frankenstein films shun The Evil of Frankenstein because it takes a much different approach to the the character of the Doctor compared to how he’s usually portrayed in Hammer films. Instead of making Doctor Frankenstein a crazy & nasty man who’s out to do harm by making a monster, Freddie Francis turned him into a sympathetic character who’s horrified by his creation. I personally think the film is a great homage to the classic Universal Frankenstein movies of the 1930s & 40s, and the “birth of the monster” is especially well executed.
Following The Evil of Frankenstein, Freddie Francis made my favorite British horror anthology, Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors (1965) which has some extremely effective moments and is creatively shot. It also has a terrific cast that includes Christopher Lee, Donald Sutherland and Peter Cushing as the mysterious fortune teller Dr. Sandor Schreck. Francis had the ability to weave shorter films into a wonderful whole. They didn’t always work, but more often than not they did and in Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors he was once again able to coax his cast of actors into giving some memorable performances as the tormented victims of Dr. Sandor Schreck’s prophecies.
Freddie Francis would later on go to direct many other great horror anthologies including Torture Garden (1967) and Tales of the Crypt (1972). Tales of the Crypt is based on the EC Comic series of the same name and it was the first film Peter Cushing made after the sad death of his wife Helen. I’ve always been touched by the way Freddie Francis and Peter Cushing worked together on Tales of the Crypt. Both men decided to come up with a way to pay their respects to the woman Peter had deeply loved and lost, so they changed the name of Cushing’s deceased wife in the film to Helen and brought actual pictures of her onto the set. Many people assume that Peter Cushing was distraught at the time, but Freddie Francis has always said that it was a choice that he and Peter made together to honor her memory. I’m sure that working on the film probably helped Peter Cushing work through his grief, because he delivered a terrific and sympathetic performance in Tales of the Crypt as the eccentric Mr. Grimsdyke.
Other memorable films that Francis and Cushing made together include the excellent occult thriller The Skull, the creative werewolf film Legend of the Werewolf (1975), the creepy and entertaining Ghoul (1975) and The Creeping Flesh (1973) which brought Peter Cushing together with Christopher Lee in one of their best parings. I recently watched The Creeping Flesh again and was planning on writing up a review for it so you can expect a longer analysis of the film from me soon.
Oddly enough, one film that Francis and Cushing did not work on together was Dracula Has Risen from the Grave (1968). The film was Francis’ feature entry into Hammer’s Dracula series, but like The Evil of Frankenstein, Francis didn’t necessarily follow Hammer formula in Dracula Has Risen from the Grave and Peter Cushing’s Van Helsing is nowhere to be found. What his Dracula film does include is some breathtaking studio photography and lovely use of color, which makes it’s one of the most visually striking of all the Hammer Dracula movies. It also has some surprisingly gory moments and Lee’s Dracula is smartly presented as a seductive, yet scary creature with animal instincts and a nasty temper.
As the 1970s approached Freddie Francis was becoming increasingly tired of the British horror genre he helped create. He had never intended on making a name for himself in horror cinema, but the dramas and comedies he wanted to direct never materialized. Horror fans greatly admired his skills as a director and cinematographer so studios like Hammer, Tigon and Amicus continued to offer him projects which he reluctantly accepted. I’m thankful that he did, because I think some of his best work can be found in the atmospheric horror films he directed.
Even his failures were interesting such as the The Vampire Happening (1971) which plays like a stylish gothic episode of Benny Hill and the musical horror comedy Son of Dracula (1974) which features an impressive cast of musicians including Ringo Starr, Harry Nilsson, Peter Frampton, Keith Moon and John Bonham.
In the 80s Francis worked as a cinematographer on such films as The Elephant Man (1980, David Lynch), The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1981, Karel Reisz), Dune (1984, David Lynch), Cape Fear (1991, Martin Scorsese) and Glory (1989, Edward Zwick) which won him his second Oscar.
Thankfully he returned to directing for a brief time to make the terrific chiller The Doctor and the Devils (1985). The Doctor and the Devils was a film that Freddie Francis had wanted to make for 10 years and he got the opportunity to direct it when Mel Brooks (who he had met while working on The Elephant Man) agreed to help produce it. The film is based on a script by Dylan Thomas about the infamous Burke & Hare murders, and it features some terrific performances by a great cast that includes Timothy Dalton, Jonathan Pryce, Stephen Rea, Julian Sands, Patrick Stewart and model/pop singer turned actress Twiggy. Unfortunately Francis was upset with the cuts that 20th Century Fox decided to made to the film. His disappointment and frustration with making The Doctor and the Devils lead him to end his career as a director and focus on cinematography exclusively.
There are few cinematographers that can compare to Freddie Francis and he will be greatly missed, but I also think his wonderful career as a filmmaker has few rivals as well. It’s a shame that he didn’t direct more films in his later years, but thankfully he left us with an amazing filmography of work to enjoy. Even though he often regretted the years he spent in the British horror industry, I believe he achieved his greatest success there and we are lucky that his talent was used to advance horror cinema in creative and smart new directions.
If you’re not subscribed to Cinema Retro magazine yet, you should be! This great publication from Britain just released their 5th issue and the cover features a nice shot of the legendary Vincent Price from the terrific 1968 British horror film The Witchfinder General (a.k.a Conqueror Worm). Inside you’ll find an 8 page article on The Witchfinder General as well as exclusive interviews with Tigon’s Tony Tenser, actor Michael York and Playboy’s Hugh Hefner. The new issue also contains article’s on the Australian Stanley Kubrick exhibition, Ken Loach’s Kes, John Guillermin’s El Condor and the 1975 horror film Race with Devil that stars Peter Fonda & Warren Oates, plus much, much more!
This full-color glossy magazine is beautifully put together and contains lots of great information for retro cinema lovers. Each issue is a “limited edition collector’s item” and will not be sold on newsstands. It’s cover price of $11.95 may seem a little steep, but the cost of the magazine is reduced if you subscribe and the high-quality of each issue makes it well worth the cover price in my opinion.
Cinema Retro recently announced that the Hammer glamour queen Caroline Munro will soon become a regular contributor with her very own column in the magazine. Here’s a nice blurb about Caroline from the Cinema Retro website:
“Caroline made her first impression on the public by being proclaimed “Face of the Year” by Britain’s ‘The Evening News’. At the tender age of sixteen, she embarked on a recording career and has worked with such legendary musicians as Eric Clapton, Ginger Baker and Adam Ant. Her appearance on a calendar for Lamb’s Navy Rum caused a sensation in Britain and helped ensure the success of her budding film career. Over the years, she has risen to the top ranks of ‘glamour girls’ of the British cinema with an active fan club and numerous web sites devoted to her career. Her films include Dracula 72 A.D., The Golden Voyage of Sinbad’, At The Earth’s Core’, Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter, The Dr.Phibes films and the 1977 James Bond blockbuster The Spy Who Loved Me. She has co-starred with such acting giants as Christopher Lee, Richard Widmark, Peter Cushing, Vincent Price and Roger Moore. Caroline will relive the making of her films – both the classics and a few she would prefer to forget – in her regular column for Cinema Retro.”
Caroline Munro as Stella Star in Starcash
Caroline has always been one of my favorite Hammer glamour girls and I’m really looking forward to reading her upcoming column in Cinema Retro. It will be interesting to see what she has to say about the films she’s made and the people she has worked with.
In the meantime you can enjoy Caroline in this trailer for Luigi Cozzi’s Starcrash. Starcrash is a fun 1979 Italian Star Wars knock-off starring David Hasselhoff (yes, that David Hasselhoff), Christopher Plummer, Marjoe Gortner and Caroline Munro as the very sexy Stella Star. This might be one of the movies she would like to forget, but I think it’s worth remembering.
The official Hammer Films website has been bustling with activity lately. As a long time lover of Hammer films, it’s been nice to see the site alive and kicking again. You can also find Hammer news at their new Myspace page.
Hammer has recently announced the release of lots of new offical movie related merchandise such as a nice looking t-shirt line available from Razamataz.com as well as upcoming board games, poker chips and playing cards. Besides releasing new merchandise, Hammer has also been busy signing a deal to make Majestic Films (a wholly-owned subsidiary of Icon Entertainment) its exclusive sales agent. What does that mean for Hammer fans? According to the Hammer Films website:
“In recent years Hammer has licensed a package of 20 leading video and DVD titles in a number of major territories. Majestic will continue this work, packaging other titles from the Hammer catalogue and targeting the hitherto unsold territories.”
Christopher Lee and Stephanie Beacham in Dracula A.D. 1972
Hopefully this new deal with Majestic will lead to a lot more Hammer films being released on DVD in the next few years. Late last year Hammer fans in the US were rewarded with the release of the very groovy Dracula A.D. 1972 on DVD and the wonderful Hammer Horror Series DVD Collection which featured some of Hammer’s best films including Brides of Dracula, Curse of the Werewolf, Phantom of the Opera, Paranoiac, Nightmare, Kiss of the Vampire, Night Creatures and The Evil of Frankenstein. While the quality of the Universal DVD release left a lot to be desired and came with no bonus materials, it was still a great treat for Hammer fans since many of the movies in the set had never been officially released on DVD in the US before.
The most recent Hammer DVD has been the nice widescreen release of The Anniversary from Anchor Bay. This unusual black comedy from Hammer stars the great Bette Davis in one of her most interesting roles and comes with some really nice bonus materials such as Audio Commentary with Director Roy Ward Baker, the original Trailer & TV Spot, Poster & Still Gallery and Talent Bios. Hopefully Anchor Bay will continue to release more Hammer films as part of their ongoing Hammer Collection series.
Next week on May 30th, Hammer fans can expect the release of the Hammer Film Noir Collector’s Set, Vol. 1-3. This nice collection from VCI Entertainment contains six rarely seen Hammer crime films made during the 1950s including Bad Blonde, Man Bait, Stolen Face, Blackout, The Gambler and the Lady and Heat Wave. Many of them are directed by the talented Terence Fisher who is most well known as the man behind some of Hammer’s best horror films. It’s nice to see his non-horror work for Hammer getting some attention now.
The other two big British horror studios of the same era (Amicus & Tigon) will also be well represented at the festival. Some terrific films will be shown from both studios including The Skull (Amicus) and Corruption (Tigon). Both films star the late great horror legend Peter Cushing and have never been released on DVD. I wish I could move to Los Angeles for a month just to attend this incredible event!
Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing in The Gorgon
British horror fans might be able to look forward to future DVD releases of the movies playing at the festival. There are many great Hammer films besides the titles I mentioned above that have still not gotten offical DVD releases yet and that’s a real shame. Many of these movies are made by great British directors like Terence Fisher, Freddie Francis, Joseph Losey and Seth Holt. These films also feature stellar performances from many talented actors such as Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Bette Davis, Oliver Reed, Michael Ripper, Dennis Price and Barbara Shelley. If The Golden Age of British Horror festival is a success it might encourage studios like Sony and Anchor Bay to finally release many of these films. If you’re a local, don’t miss it!
(1973; Robin Hardy)
(1971; Peter Duffell)
(1971; Peter Sasdy)
(1968; Brian G. Hutton)
(1964; José Antonio Nieves Conde)
Hammer Studios created some of the greatest horror films ever made, but many critics wouldn’t consider the acting in them noteworthy and that’s a shame. Believe me when I say that you can find numorous impressive performances in many Hammer horror films if you go looking for them and one of my favorites is Barbara Shelley’s performance as Helen in 
(1966).
I first saw Dracula: Prince of Darkness when I was only about 10 or 11 years old and I’ve never forgotten Barbara Shelley’s incredible performance as Helen. Her first onscreen entrance after being turned into a vampire continues to give me chills and I still have nightmares from watching Helen beg Diana to open her bedroom window so she can feast on her innocent neck. And who can forget her death scene? It takes a small army of monks to constrain the hissing Helen and her final moments are still shocking.
In the late 50s Francis started focusing on cinematography and quickly became a master of his craft. He helped form what would later be called the British New Wave and was responsible for the impressive look of some of the best “angry young men” films of the period such as Saturday Night And Sunday Morning (1960). He also worked with great British directors like Joseph Losey on Time Without Pity (1957) and Jack Cardiff on the Oscar winning Sons and Lovers (1960). His early work helped breathe new life into British cinema and his black & white cinematography for director Jack Clayton was especially groundbreaking. The thoughtful drama Room at the Top (1959) and the haunting thriller The Innocents (1961) are both wonderful examples of what Freddie Francis was able to do with his camera.
Freddie Francis would later on go to direct many other great horror anthologies including Torture Garden (1967) and Tales of the Crypt (1972). Tales of the Crypt is based on the EC Comic series of the same name and it was the first film Peter Cushing made after the sad death of his wife Helen. I’ve always been touched by the way Freddie Francis and Peter Cushing worked together on Tales of the Crypt. Both men decided to come up with a way to pay their respects to the woman Peter had deeply loved and lost, so they changed the name of Cushing’s deceased wife in the film to Helen and brought actual pictures of her onto the set. Many people assume that Peter Cushing was distraught at the time, but Freddie Francis has always said that it was a choice that he and Peter made together to honor her memory. I’m sure that working on the film probably helped Peter Cushing work through his grief, because he delivered a terrific and sympathetic performance in Tales of the Crypt as the eccentric Mr. Grimsdyke.
A Selected Filmography of Recommended Films:
(1985)
(1984) - cinematography
(1983) - cinematography
(1981) - cinematography
(1980) - cinematography
(1975)
(1975)
(1973)
(1973)
(1972)
(1969)
(1968)
(1967)
(1965)
(1965)
(1965)
(1964)
(1964)
(1962)
(1961) - cinematography
(1960) - cinematography
(1959) - cinematography
(1957) - cinematography
. Inside you’ll find an 8 page article on The Witchfinder General as well as exclusive interviews with Tigon’s Tony Tenser, actor Michael York and Playboy’s Hugh Hefner. The new issue also contains article’s on the Australian Stanley Kubrick exhibition, Ken Loach’s Kes, John Guillermin’s El Condor and the 1975 horror film Race with Devil that stars Peter Fonda & Warren Oates, plus much, much more!
