Wheeler Winston Dixon
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- February 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781911325345
- eISBN:
- 9781800342279
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781911325345.003.0005
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter cites The Curse of Frankenstein, which was a ground-breaking film that was brought together for the first time by the key members of the Hammer horror team. It recounts how Terrence ...
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This chapter cites The Curse of Frankenstein, which was a ground-breaking film that was brought together for the first time by the key members of the Hammer horror team. It recounts how Terrence Fisher paired for the first time Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee in The Curse of Frankenstein, which would become the most famous team of horror stars since Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi in the 1930s. It also describes Fisher's enormous benefit of having an excellent screenplay by Jimmy Sangster, superb camerawork by Jack Asher, James Bernard's melancholy and evocative music, Bernard Robinson's effortlessly realistic production design, and Philip Leakey's startlingly revisionist work for the makeup of the Frankenstein monster itself. The chapter points out how The Curse of Frankenstein established the careers of nearly everyone involved in its production. It mentions Val Guest's The Quatermass Xperiment, as the film that started Hammer on its horror cycle.Less
This chapter cites The Curse of Frankenstein, which was a ground-breaking film that was brought together for the first time by the key members of the Hammer horror team. It recounts how Terrence Fisher paired for the first time Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee in The Curse of Frankenstein, which would become the most famous team of horror stars since Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi in the 1930s. It also describes Fisher's enormous benefit of having an excellent screenplay by Jimmy Sangster, superb camerawork by Jack Asher, James Bernard's melancholy and evocative music, Bernard Robinson's effortlessly realistic production design, and Philip Leakey's startlingly revisionist work for the makeup of the Frankenstein monster itself. The chapter points out how The Curse of Frankenstein established the careers of nearly everyone involved in its production. It mentions Val Guest's The Quatermass Xperiment, as the film that started Hammer on its horror cycle.
Marcus K. Harmes
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- February 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781906733858
- eISBN:
- 9781800342170
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781906733858.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
Critics abhorred it, audiences loved it, and Hammer executives were thrilled with the box office returns: The Curse of Frankenstein was big business. The 1957 film is the first to bring together in a ...
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Critics abhorred it, audiences loved it, and Hammer executives were thrilled with the box office returns: The Curse of Frankenstein was big business. The 1957 film is the first to bring together in a horror movie the 'unholy two', Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, together with the Hammer company, and director Terence Fisher, combinations now legendary among horror fans. This book goes back to where the Hammer horror production started, looking at the film from a variety of perspectives: as a loose literary adaptation of Mary Shelley's novel; as a film that had, for legal reasons, to avoid adapting from James Whale's 1931 film for Universal Pictures; and as one which found immediate sources of inspiration in the Gainsborough bodice rippers of the 1940s and the poverty row horrors of the 1950s. Later Hammer horrors may have consolidated the reputation of the company and the stars, but these works had their starting point in the creative and commercial choices made by the team behind The Curse of Frankenstein. In the film sparks fly, new life is created and horrors unleashed, but the film itself was a jolt to 1950s cinemagoing that has never been entirely surpassed.Less
Critics abhorred it, audiences loved it, and Hammer executives were thrilled with the box office returns: The Curse of Frankenstein was big business. The 1957 film is the first to bring together in a horror movie the 'unholy two', Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, together with the Hammer company, and director Terence Fisher, combinations now legendary among horror fans. This book goes back to where the Hammer horror production started, looking at the film from a variety of perspectives: as a loose literary adaptation of Mary Shelley's novel; as a film that had, for legal reasons, to avoid adapting from James Whale's 1931 film for Universal Pictures; and as one which found immediate sources of inspiration in the Gainsborough bodice rippers of the 1940s and the poverty row horrors of the 1950s. Later Hammer horrors may have consolidated the reputation of the company and the stars, but these works had their starting point in the creative and commercial choices made by the team behind The Curse of Frankenstein. In the film sparks fly, new life is created and horrors unleashed, but the film itself was a jolt to 1950s cinemagoing that has never been entirely surpassed.
Victoria Walden
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- February 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781906733322
- eISBN:
- 9781800342569
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781906733322.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
When Hammer Productions was formed in the 1920s, no one foresaw the impact this small, independent studio would have on the international film market. Christopher Lee's mesmerizing, animalistic, yet ...
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When Hammer Productions was formed in the 1920s, no one foresaw the impact this small, independent studio would have on the international film market. Christopher Lee's mesmerizing, animalistic, yet gentlemanly performance as Dracula, Frankenstein's Monster, and the Mummy were celebrated worldwide, and the Byronic qualities of Peter Cushing's Dr. Frankenstein, among his many other Hammer characters, proved impossible to forget. Hammer maintained consistent period settings, creating a timeless and enchanting aesthetic. This book treats Hammer as a quintessentially British product and through a study of its work investigates larger conceptions of national horror cinemas. The book examines genre, auteur theory, stardom, and representation within case studies of Curse of Frankenstein (1957), Twins of Evil (1971), and Hammer's latest film, Beyond the Rave (2008). The book weighs Hammer's impact on the British film industry, past and present. Intended for students, fans, and general readers, this book transcends superficial preconceptions of Hammer horror in order to reach the essence of Hammer.Less
When Hammer Productions was formed in the 1920s, no one foresaw the impact this small, independent studio would have on the international film market. Christopher Lee's mesmerizing, animalistic, yet gentlemanly performance as Dracula, Frankenstein's Monster, and the Mummy were celebrated worldwide, and the Byronic qualities of Peter Cushing's Dr. Frankenstein, among his many other Hammer characters, proved impossible to forget. Hammer maintained consistent period settings, creating a timeless and enchanting aesthetic. This book treats Hammer as a quintessentially British product and through a study of its work investigates larger conceptions of national horror cinemas. The book examines genre, auteur theory, stardom, and representation within case studies of Curse of Frankenstein (1957), Twins of Evil (1971), and Hammer's latest film, Beyond the Rave (2008). The book weighs Hammer's impact on the British film industry, past and present. Intended for students, fans, and general readers, this book transcends superficial preconceptions of Hammer horror in order to reach the essence of Hammer.
Brain Taves
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- September 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780813161129
- eISBN:
- 9780813165523
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Kentucky
- DOI:
- 10.5810/kentucky/9780813161129.003.0008
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
If the explosion of science fiction filmmaking in the wake of Star Wars (1977) impacted Verne filmmaking, it was only in a deleterious way. Tackling two novels for the first time—Mystery on Monster ...
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If the explosion of science fiction filmmaking in the wake of Star Wars (1977) impacted Verne filmmaking, it was only in a deleterious way. Tackling two novels for the first time—Mystery on Monster Island and 800 Leagues down the Amazon—would mark the last attempt to look beyond the standard titles, and most of the other products of this period were second-rate remakes. There is little doubt as to the reason for this extended low point; unlike the numerous different Verne titles published in the 1950s and 1960s, many of which were still in print into the 1970s, by the end of that decade and into the 1990s the range of Verne books published was in steady decline. Filmmakers echoed publishers as editions of Around the World in Eighty Days, Journey to the Center of the Earth, and Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Seas were republished again and again. Other eras of Verne filmmaking had always offered a much wider range of newly published books; never before was the pool of offerings so stagnant for such a long time.Less
If the explosion of science fiction filmmaking in the wake of Star Wars (1977) impacted Verne filmmaking, it was only in a deleterious way. Tackling two novels for the first time—Mystery on Monster Island and 800 Leagues down the Amazon—would mark the last attempt to look beyond the standard titles, and most of the other products of this period were second-rate remakes. There is little doubt as to the reason for this extended low point; unlike the numerous different Verne titles published in the 1950s and 1960s, many of which were still in print into the 1970s, by the end of that decade and into the 1990s the range of Verne books published was in steady decline. Filmmakers echoed publishers as editions of Around the World in Eighty Days, Journey to the Center of the Earth, and Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Seas were republished again and again. Other eras of Verne filmmaking had always offered a much wider range of newly published books; never before was the pool of offerings so stagnant for such a long time.
Wheeler Winston Dixon
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- February 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781911325345
- eISBN:
- 9781800342279
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781911325345.003.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter provides a background on Terence Fisher's career that is regarded by most as that of a journeyman director and by French critics that argued that Fisher was a master filmmaker since the ...
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This chapter provides a background on Terence Fisher's career that is regarded by most as that of a journeyman director and by French critics that argued that Fisher was a master filmmaker since the 1950s. It looks at the efforts of David Pirie and others who brought about the first serious critical appraisal of Fisher's work beginning in the late 1960s. It also describes Fisher as the greatest Gothic filmmaker of the second half of the 20th century and British equivalent in terms of style and seriousness of the great American myth-master, John Ford. The chapter mentions The Curse of Frankenstein, in which Fisher creates a real, believable world, and does superb work with Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, and the other members of the cast. It talks about Fisher's admission toward the end of his life about he had very little affection for science fiction.Less
This chapter provides a background on Terence Fisher's career that is regarded by most as that of a journeyman director and by French critics that argued that Fisher was a master filmmaker since the 1950s. It looks at the efforts of David Pirie and others who brought about the first serious critical appraisal of Fisher's work beginning in the late 1960s. It also describes Fisher as the greatest Gothic filmmaker of the second half of the 20th century and British equivalent in terms of style and seriousness of the great American myth-master, John Ford. The chapter mentions The Curse of Frankenstein, in which Fisher creates a real, believable world, and does superb work with Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, and the other members of the cast. It talks about Fisher's admission toward the end of his life about he had very little affection for science fiction.
