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This chapter addresses how the success of The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) encouraged a succession of Hammer horror productions, the most profitable of which were produced between 1957 and 1966. There is much dispute about what constitutes Hammer's 'classical period'. Some argue that it starts with The Quatermass Xperiment in 1955 and ends with the flop The Phantom of the Opera in 1962. Others believe it ends with the move from Bray in 1966. This latter definition is more inclusive and recognises the diversity of Hammer's film-making during the Bray Studios years, when the majority of the team were regulars and came to define a particular Hammer style, which began to disintegrate as productions moved to Elstree and sex and nudity became more prominent themes. The chapter then presents case-study readings which focus on particular traits of the classic films, including the Gothic doppelgänger, the representation of women, and Hammer's vampire mythology.

This concluding chapter explains that Hammer Films is a true icon of cinema, not only in Britain, but internationally. While the great 'family' studio of the past has gone, Hammer CEO Simon Oakes states that he and his team 'have a family growing here, that's just starting', and there are clearly thematic repetitions across the twenty-first century oeuvre. However, while the old films stuck to very particular conventions, eventually to the point of unoriginality for the sake of profit, Oakes's team have produced a series of individually distinct films, aside from their generic similarity. These new Hammer horrors may not yet have attained the same cult status, and they are clearly products of the contemporary globalised industry, but this certainly does not make them lesser films, and in The Woman in Black (2012) the company scored a bona fide international hit. With much larger budgets, Hammer is now able to indulge in more sophisticated projects.

This chapter describes how Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960) set a new precedent for horror which eventually posed a serious threat to Hammer Films. It was set in modern times and featured a human killer. While a spate of companies created Hammer imitations, fantasy horror was gradually to be replaced by a gritty, modern variation. Hammer tried several strategies to compete with the emerging modern horror style, but sadly failed as they gradually lost American backing. These techniques can be seen in The Devil Rides Out (1968), which gives horror a human face with an occult setting in the 1920s; Dracula A.D. 1972 (1972) set in contemporary London and Hammer's first (and only) film to focus on a group of modern teenagers; and finally The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires, a transnational production which hybridises the then-popular kung fu craze with classic Hammer horror.

Arriving in London desperate for work (and hoodwinked by the producer who paid for his travel and relocation to London), Furie is selected as the director of the low-budget horror film Doctor Blood’s Coffin (1961) through pure happenstance. Pleased with the results of this picture, the producers hire Furie to direct two more features, The Snake Woman (1961) and Three on a Spree (1961), shot in less than ten days each. Producer Kenneth Rive offers Furie the chance to direct his first personal project in England. During One Night (1961), set during World War II, presents a story of male impotency and wounded masculinity that was quite daring for its time. Following this, Furie finally scores his first big-budget production, The Young Ones (1961), starring pop star Cliff Richard. Its success rockets him to directorial stardom. He returns to Kenneth Rive to direct a courtroom drama, The Boys (1962), his first venture into British kitchen sink realism.

This chapter provides an overview of Hammer Films. When Enrique Carreras and Will Hinds (stage name: Will Hammer) formed the distribution company Exclusive Films in 1935, they had no plans to become horror film producers. After a wartime hiatus, in 1947 they re-established their small independent production company Hammer Films, bringing their sons James Carreras and Anthony Hinds on board. In the immediate post-war period, it was inconceivable to consider a slate of horror films. In these early years, Hammer adapted renowned radio plays, mostly crime dramas, for the screen, tapping into pre-established markets. In 1951, Hammer moved into a large Gothic house in Bray, Berkshire, to save on production costs. With the introduction of the new X certificate, and the popularity of their science-fiction films, they soon turned to Gothic literature for inspiration.

This chapter discusses how the production history of Hammer Films is illustrative of the complexities of the British film industry, which has often struggled to compete with Hollywood. Though Hammer had a difficult start, it flourished into an internationally renowned horror brand. However, even the success of Hammer's horrors wore thin eventually. Its demise as a film production house in the 1970s, short-lived shift to television in the 1980s, and rebirth in the 2000s expresses the turbulent nature of British film production. The history of Hammer's production practices also raises interesting questions about what constitutes a 'British film industry', for like many studios its success has relied heavily on American backing and distribution.

This chapter examines the relationship between Hammer Films and British cinema. The history of British cinema has been characterised by a strong dedication to realism, in its many forms. From the documentaries of the 1930s with a focus on social responsibility to the gritty kitchen sink dramas of the 1960s, and even the naturalistic aesthetic of television police dramas, the British moving-image industries have a strong heritage of realism. If this is the case, Hammer horror, despite its international fame as a specifically British brand of filmmaking, does not seem characteristic of British national cinema at all. On one hand, Hammer's horrors are clearly fantastical; on the other hand, they amalgamate infrequent and abrupt moments of gore with a 'neat unpretentious realism'. Moreover, the films were lambasted in the press for not exhibiting 'good taste' or restraint. The chapter then assesses to what extent Hammer horror can be understood as British.

The chapter details the success of the Hammer Dracula (Terence Fisher, 1958) in late-1950s and early-1960s Italy, and explains why, where, by whom and with which commercial results a series of vampire films were made by Italian companies from 1959 to 1975, with the cooperation of European co-production partners and/or American investors. While revealing the imported and derivative nature of 1956-1975 Italian vampire cinema, the industrial analysis conducted in the chapter shows how local factors such as distribution-fed production, time- and cost-saving shooting practices, state censorship and state aids made the Italian vampire rip-offs into variations on the theme mixing foreign models with distinctively national traits rather than into slavish plagiarisms.

This essay takes readers from the 15th to the 21st century, and shows how midwives, “these educated and trusted, yet non-conforming women were uniquely imperiled by their learnedness and vocation, one critical to the survival, health, and well-being of their communities,” and how this conflation of knowledge, gender, and persecution continues (and is sometimes contested) in contemporary pop culture representations. Midwifes were often the targets of hysterical claims of witchcraft, which some argue has been blown out of proportion. Widows and unmarried women were also targeted. Midwives were often highly trained and skillful medical practitioners.

Peter Collinson's The Penthouse (1967), a key British noir film of the 1960s, followed in the tradition of Joseph Losey's more restrained dramas of claustrophobic domesticity gone horribly wrong in The Servant (1963) and Accident (1967). London in the early 1960s was typically depicted as a zone of carefree abandon in such films as Richard Lester's Help! (1965), A Hard Day's Night (1964), and his sex comedy The Knack...and How to Get It (1965). But beneath the gloss and the electricity of the era, an undercurrent was readily detectable. Pop stardom proved to be utterly transient, and as drugs and disillusion set in, the mood became more somber. Perhaps the most nihilist film of the 1960s British new wave is Michelangelo Antonioni's Blowup. No consideration of film noir in the 1960s would be complete without a few thoughts on Hammer Films, most famous for their color gothic horror films, many directed by Terence Fisher.

This introductory chapter provides an overview of Joseph Losey's sci-fi film The Damned (1963). The film's reputation has undoubtedly risen because of its historical interest, as 1960s culture continues to exert a fascination for cultural writers and consumers. The Damned was made on the cusp of the 1060s, and it exists in a fold between one era and another. In various strands of cinema history, too, The Damned has become a useful case study. This book attempts to set The Damned in context, or in a series of contexts: as a Joseph Losey film, as a Hammer film, as a science fiction film, as a product of the Cold War and the atmosphere of atomic terror that prevailed at the time. It also examines the film's treatment of stock figures such as the scientist, the child, the artist, and the 'yob', and its experiments with imagery and ideas of living and non-living.

This chapter assesses whether The Damned (1963) is first a Hammer film or a Joseph Losey film. It argues that, although the auteur theory is so riddled with problems and contradictions that it cannot really be called a theory at all, certain directors, by dint of personality, distinctive traits, and sheer involvement in the countless elements of the process of film-making, can be considered the guiding creative force behind a film, and therefore an auteur. Losey, by all accounts, fits the bill. Whether The Damned is indeed a Losey film first is debatable; but it is as a Losey film that the chapter considers it first. And since Losey's status as an auteur is of relevance to how The Damned has been seen, the chapter also briefly looks at the auteur question.

This chapter examines Hammer and its history with science fiction. Hammer had become, by 1963, an easy studio to pin down: the broader production slate of the 1950s had been narrowed to mainly produce Gothic horror and modern thriller/slasher films, with little interest in cultural 'respectability'. Since Hammer's first feature-length film, however, its slate of releases covered a multitude of subjects and genres such as mysteries, comedies, crime dramas and noirs, and science fiction. A certain amount of commentary on Joseph Losey's The Damned (1963) has identified it as an anomaly in the Hammer catalogue. There is its frequent description as a kind of hybrid, mixing the biker/delinquent movie with the science fiction genre; but Hammer had previous form in this department. The genre mix in The Damned is more ungainly than most because, rather than running concurrently throughout the film, the genres tend to interrupt each other.