Showing posts with label joss ackland. Show all posts
Showing posts with label joss ackland. Show all posts

Monday 10 October 2016

RATE THE CLIP: #GETTHECUSHIONITSCUSHING : NIGHTMARE IN THE WAX WORKS



#GRABTHECUSHIONITSCUSHING... OK here is the first of our SUNDAY posts under our new theme looking at some of the most frightening and effect Peter Cushing Fright Scenes.... This week it's a clip Don't forget to click HD) from that iconic NIGHTMARE scene from Amicus's The House That Dripped Blood (1971)...we'll be taking a closer look at the scene and direction in our next post coming up...DOES THIS scene rate in your FAV CUSHING terror scenes??? #grabthecushingitscushing


THE 1971 AMICUS FILM, 'THE HOUSE THAT DRIPPED BLOOD' came at a difficult time for Peter Cushing... it couldn't have came at a worse time! The production started shooting from June 29th at a studio knew very well, Shepperton. At this time, Cushing's wife Helen was experiencing a deterioration in her health, because of this Cushing had tried to get the suits at Amicus, to release him from the contract and schedule from 'House'. While Hammer films had been sympathetic, and released him from his contract and appearance in their latest installment  of their Karnstein trilogy , 'Lust For A Vampire' . Cushing Had appeared in the  first part, 'THE VAMPIRE LOVERS'  and the last, 'TWINS OF EVIL' But, sadly Amicus dig in their heels, with Cushing having no choice but to for-fill his contractual obligations. 'House' followed, what was the resurrection of of a format that had severed Amicus very well in their 1965 film, 'Dr Terrors House of Horrors'. What took them so long to revist the portmanteau set up, with only ONE multiple story film after 'Dr Terrors' - Torture Garden (1967), with almost everything in that gap of eight years being a box office dud, one can only guess.


CUSHING SEGMENT IN 'HOUSE', centered around a WAX WORKS, in a story with the same name. Cushing played a retired stockbrooker named Phillip Grayson who along with Neville Rogers, played Joss Ackland.. becomes obsessed with the wax figure of biblical nightmare, SALOME! Yes, she who demanded the head of one, John The Baptist, on a plate . . . so you can see where this is going!


THE ACTUAL NIGHTMARE sequence in Cushing's tale, for me the the high point of the film. If you forgive the corny mishmash of music accompanying the scene, full of clanging death bells and Swanee whistles, and some quite tatty wax figures... it is really quiet effective. I know the museum is supposed to look like it had hit on hard times, but the last time I saw figures as bad as that, was as a child, in the wax museum at Weston-Super-Mare! The scene builds up the tension and in real time,  from Cushing's exit OUT of the front door, of his newly acquired property, the titular, House That Dripped Blood, and into the interior of the waxworks he has recently visited. The camera, sets about through a series of dutch tilts, slow motion and back tracking, purposely in front of Cushing, to take in all his looks of bewilderment and horror.....
 



AND WE KNOW FOLLOW CUSHING, past the figures, and to an curtained exhibit at the rear of the wax works. What makes this scene so chilling is Cushing's character's longing to reach the point of attraction...and its that fact that provides the 'grab the cushion moment'! We REALLY don't want him to get there, and reveal what is BEHIND those curtains. It's a NIGHTMARE, and is the stuff of OUR nightmares too, all accuratarely replicated in a scene that gets the the pay off it style. Yes, it's pretty tame by today's standards, but I can remember hiding behind that cushion, and being truly spooked. Spooked enough to not go into a wax works, until well into my adult years!



THERE IS ANOTHER REASON WHY this clip has earned this title of 'A NIGHTMARE IN THE WORKS'  . . .  as I have shared, even before Cushing commenced work on this film, the signs were not good, and the clouds of sadness not only loomed in Cushing's life away from the spotlight, but it also hung heavy over the story he was appearing in. As David Miller recalls in his book, 'A LIFE IN FILM: Peter Cushing', 'The most affecting part of The House That Dripped Blood' are the shots of Cushing, standing on a riverbank, lost in the grief for his lost love. It is difficult not to think that he was in some way anticipating the unendurable - Helen's death.'

For Peter Cushing, it would be a true and lasting nightmare . . . 



OUR FULL FEATURE AND GALLERY ON 'The House That Dripped Blood' in PART THREE of our AMICUS SERIES can be found at our website : RIGHT HERE
 


COME AND JOIN OUR PETER CUSHING APPRECIATION SOCIETY FACEBOOK 
FAN PAGE! WITH ALMOST 26,000 FOLLOWERS, IT'S A BUSY AND FRIENDLY
PLACE. UPDATED SEVERAL TIMES A DAY! JUST CLICK : HERE

Thursday 29 September 2016

#THROWBACKTHURSDAY : AMICUS LOOSES THEIR HEADS AND AN ACTORS LIFE FOR ME


#THROWBACKTHURSDAY: For this post we go back to a time when, unlike today, special effects and the make up department where often the poorer cousins of all the other departments, at the studio. And during the budget allocation, they were often allocated the smallest amount of the budget, and more often then not, the least amount of time to prepare and deliver on the studio floor.....



LITTLE WONDER THEN, that come the climax of many a Horror film, when it comes to the big payoff, the 'reveal'...it was a bit of a anti-climax. Films walked a very shaky line between getting the desired effect, and a reveal that brought the house down, with embarrassing laughter. The case in point here... Cushing's reaction is wonderful! What could it be to make his character recoil with horror like that??? 


THE ANSWER, a very weird look-a-likey of actor, one Joss Akland! Maybe Milton wanted a AA certificate??? It wasn't a mistake, because two mins later, the film delivers a 'chopped off' noggin, that looks equally, if not worse than this one... maybe we can't blame the make up and props people, did they have the budget, the time, the right model artist?? Who knows..... how ironic this scene takes place in a museum full of badly made wax figures of murders and criminals... this dummy head, really is a crime!!!



COME JOIN US AT OUR FACEBOOK FAN PAGE : RIGHT HERE


Sunday 24 February 2013

COME ON IN : THE HOUSE THAT DRIPPED BLOOD LOBBY CARD GALLERY AND PRESS STILLS





In 1957, Hammer Films struck box office gold with The Curse of Frankenstein. The concept of reviving the classic horror film characters for a new generation, with the addition of color and then-generous helpings of sex and gore, helped to make the studio a world wide phenomenon. They faced some competition in America, in the form of American International Pictures and their series of widescreen, gaudily colored Edgar Allan Poe adaptations, while in the UK several companies put in bids to compete with their ongoing box office success. The company that would arguably offer the stiffest competition was Amicus Films, which was, oddly enough, owned and operated by two Americans: Max J. Rosenberg (1914-2004) and Milton Subotsky (1921-1991). Amicus would import a number of Hammer’s key creative personnel, including directors like Freddie Francis and Roy Ward Baker, composers like James Bernard and Don Banks, and of course, actors like Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, in an effort to offer the same quality. Yet while Hammer specialized in the Gothic, Amicus would turn their attention to more contemporary subjects - and with the success of their film Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors (1964), they hit upon a formula that Hammer never sought to replicate: the anthology film.



Without getting into the history of Amicus too deeply, it’s evident that Subotsky and Rosenberg operated in different ways. The former was strictly in it for the money - he had a flair for marketing and making deals, and he was keen to exploit anything that was hot at the moment. The latter, on the other hand, was a passionate film buff - and a genuine fan of horror, science fiction and fantasy, to boot. Rosenberg never really cared much about horror films, but he knew they were good for business - and together with Subotsky, he would bankroll a series of low budget horror titles with glossy production values and name value casts. Subotsky, for his part, disliked the films Hammer was making - though this may have had as much to do with his resentment over Hammer making a version of Frankenstein without utilizing his screenplay; indeed, an irate Subotsky would later claim that Jimmy Sangster’s script copped some elements from his own treatment, which Hammer’s production chief, Anthony Hinds, deemed weak and amateurish. Even so, Hammer was raking in the dough - and Subotsky and Rosenberg were determined to get their share of pie, too, even if the former felt that they could do better by avoiding the graphic sex and violence that garnered Hammer so much notoriety. Rosenberg was keen on lurid titles with plenty of box office potential, but Subotsky wanted to final product to be as classy as possible; conflicting attitudes, it’s true, but for a period of time, the two men were able to work in harmony.



The House That Dripped Blood is an exemplary example of the Amicus product - it’s, of course, an anthology film, it’s saddled with a crass title, and there’s nary a drop of blood to be seen. It is also, in fact, one of the best films they ever produced. While most of the Amicus anthologies suffered from weak screenplays, often penned by Subotsky himself, this was one of several written by genre scribe Robert Bloch. Bloch would express some dissatisfaction with some of the changes made to his material during production, but he helped to provide the film with a solid structure that was lacking in the majority of the Amicus productions. There are no dud segments, and even the linking device functions well. It also boasts the usual high gloss production values one associates with the company, together with the usual roster of fine acting talent.


For the benefit of those who haven’t seen it yet, the film deals with the efforts of a dogged Scotland Yard inspector (John Bennett) to uncover the truth behind the disappearance of horror film star Paul Henderson (Dr. Who’s Jon Pertwee). It would seem that Henderson was last residing in a home with a dodgy reputation, so he approaches the real estate agent (John Bryans) in order to get some background on what has transpired there in the past. He is told of three past tenants, all of whom met with sticky ends: horror novelist Charles Hillyer (Denholm Elliott), who believes that his “fictional” creation, a strangler named Dominick (Tom Addams), has come to life; retired stock broker Philip Grayson (Peter Cushing), who became smitten with the wax statue of Salome in a local waxworks, and paid dearly for doing so; and John Reid (Christopher Lee), whose outwardly chilly attitude towards his young daughter (Chloe Franks) masks a profound terror of her supernatural abilities. The real estate agent then tells him what he believes happened to Henderson, who disappeared in the midst of making a vampire film at Shepperton Studios. It would seem that Henderson’s desire for “authentic” looking props back fired when he purchased a cloak that has the ability to turn whomever is wearing it into a real vampire. The skeptical inspector balks at this tale, and decides to go poking around at the place on his own; he may well regret this stubborn attitude.



The stories all have sting in the tail endings, but they work much better than usual. Much of this can be attributed to director Peter Duffell, making his feature debut after having made some short subjects and a lot of TV episodes. Duffell stresses mood and atmosphere, and is able to build tension beautifully within the short segments. Any one of these segments would have been hopelessly padded at feature length, but the anthology format serves them all beautifully. The different segments all possess a particular flavor, which helps to vary the mood a bit. The first segment is pure suspense, and works largely because Denholm Elliott (Raiders of the Lost Ark) is so good at conveying a mounting sense of horror and dred. The second is more of a mood piece, and for some viewers it is the weak link; for this reviewer, however, it creates a palpable sense of melancholy that matches the quality of Peter Cushing’s sensitive performance. The third is subtly chilling, as it turns the tables on viewer expectations by casting Christopher Lee in another apparent villain role, only to have him turn out to be a terrified victim. And the fourth is a wonderful slice of camp, as Jon Pertwee relishes his role as a ham horror star; not surprisingly, the part was first offered to Vincent Price, who very much wanted to play it - but American International were firm that he could only do horror films for them, thus putting an added strain on his already tempestuous relationship with the company.


The casting is spot on from top to bottom. The pairing of Lee and Cushing was always good for box office, and while they do not get to share any scenes, they both register very strongly. Cushing was going through a torturous period of grief as his wife, Helen, was succumbing to illness, and this sense of grief and despair permeates his segment. Lee clearly relishes the opportunity to use his typecasting to his advantage, initially appearing as cold and unsympathetic, but ultimately being reduced to abject terror. Elliott, of course, was an old hand at twitchy neurotic types, while Pertwee clearly enjoyed himself as he lampooned the genre. In addition to the four leads, there are also good supporting roles for Ingrid Pitt (as Pertwee’s bosomy co-star), John Bennett (whose numerous credits include unbilled appearances in two Hammer films: The Curse of the Werewolf and Pirates of Blood River), Joss Ackland (another Hammer vet, having appeared in Rasputin: The Mad Monk), and Wolfe Morris (who had featured alongside Cushing in Hammer’s The Abominable Snowman). Other Amicus anthologies arguably featured starrier casts, but as ensembles go, this one is pretty hard to beat.


Technical credits are quite good, as well. In addition to Ray Parslow’s moody cinematography and some handsome art direction by Tony Curtis (not the actor, incidentally), there’s a really superb music score by Michael Dress. It’s a marvelous, nerve jangling soundtrack, aptly (but not obnoxiously) underscoring the humor where appropriate, and helping to ratchet up the tension elsewhere. Sadly, Dress’ promising career was cut short when he died at the age of 39 in 1975; he composed only a handful of scores, including one for the Amicus sci-fi vehicle The Mind of Mr. Soames (1970), but House remains his most popular credit. Amicus would later utilize Douglas Gamely for most of their anthology films, but his very 70s style may seem a little dated nowadays; by contrast, Dress’ music for House remains as ageless as the film itself. A soundtrack CD release is most definitely long overdue.


The House That Dripped Blood is a work of style, wit and good taste - despite the title, which director Peter Duffell pleaded with producer Rosenberg to switch to the less gaudy Death and the Maiden (his reasoning being that each story involved death and a woman, and certainly Peter Cushing is seen listening to Schubert’s symphony of the same name in one scene). The title would later be appropriated by play write Ariel Dorfman for his politically charged revenge play, which would be filmed to tremendous effect by Roman Polanski in 1994. One can understand Duffell’s wish to rechristen the film, but the combination of the lurid and the classy was, after all, the Amicus way - and The House That Dripped Blood remains one of the great “subtle” horror films, and one of their most satisfying concoctions.




JOIN US AT OUR FACEBOOK FAN PAGE : HERE 


Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...