Coming Attractions - Hands of the Ripper (1971) / Twins of Evil (1971)

Hands of the Ripper (1971)

Dir: PETER SASDY

Country: UNITED KINGDOM

For me the most intriguing and interesting period in Hammer Film Productions’ long history is from 1970-76. By this stage Hammer were no longer the despised whipping boys of the critical cognoscenti but were establishment figures. In a remarkable about turn from the late 1950’s they were now the acceptable face of the horror genre in British film culture. But some things are more important than critical acceptance, and one of those things is commercial success. At the turn of the decade Hammer found themselves out of step and out of time, thanks in no small part to the cynical nihilism of hard hitting horror productions such as Witchfinder General (1968) and Night of the Living Dead (1968), and the subtle and nuanced terrors of rigorously modern films like Rosemary’s Baby (1968). The release of controversial films such as Straw Dogs (1971), A Clockwork Orange (1971), The Devils (1971), and later horror titles such as The Exorcist (1973) and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) would only further dilute Hammer’s horrifying visions. Hammer had little choice but to turn to nudity, increased violence, and scenes of softcore lesbianism, in a series of films which had little to differentiate them from the sexploitation product distributed with seemingly unending regularity in mainland Europe.

Press Book Collection - Scream and Scream Again (1970)

 

Reflections of Murder (1974) - TV Movie

Dir: JOHN BADHAM

Country: USA

Original Transmission Date: 24/11/1974

The detective novel Celle qui n’était plus by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac has proved itself to be a very durable and influential work for cinema. The first screen adaptation came in 1955 with the peerless French production Les Diaboliques, which was expertly and stylishly directed by the brilliant Henri-Georges Clouzot. This in turn was a major influence on Alfred Hitchcock who turned to the work of Boileau-Narcejac for his 1958 production Vertigo, and who also incorporated some of their narrative strategies in Psycho (1960). In Britain a whole slew of monochrome psychological thrillers were produced by Hammer, who were inspired by the resounding commercial success of Psycho, but sought their inspiration from Les Diaboliques. This is most keenly felt in Taste of Fear (1962 – US title Scream of Fear) which is replete with a swimming pool, and a fragile female protagonist. A rather drab and forgettable TV movie remake of Les Diaboliques appeared in 1993 under the title House of Secrets, airing on NBC it starred Bruce Boxleitner as the abusive spouse, Melissa Gilbert as the weak hearted wife, and Kate Vernon as the mistress. A $45 million remake followed in 1996 under the title Diabolique, and though it was intriguingly cast with Sharon Stone and Isabella Adjani, it failed to reach a sizeable audience and was universally panned by critics. Where these two films failed ABC’s movie-of-the-week Reflections of Murder, which aired on 24^th November 1974, manages to succeed, and emerges as the second best screen adaptation of Boileau and Narcejac’s important novel.

Celluloid Sounds - Street Law (1974)

The 1974 ‘Euro-crime’ film Street Law is one of my personal favourites of the cycle. I took a risk on it when I imported Blue Underground’s DVD release of the film back in 2006. But I’ve always found that particular distributor to be very reliable in terms of quality and interest. The film was my entry point into the violent, exciting, reactionary, and uncompromising world of the Italian ‘Euro-crime’ cycle and for this I owe the film a debt of gratitude. The director of the film was Enzo G. Castellari who was no stranger to the various cycles that constituted popular cinema in Italy in the 1960’s and 1970’s. Castellari’s early westerns were rather drab and predictable affairs, singularly unmemorable, and offered little promise of the films to come. The first hint of Castellari’s capabilities came in the war film Eagles over London (1969). He followed this with the dour and lacklustre giallo Cold Eyes of Fear (1971), which unsurprisingly remained his only entry in this cycle.  For the next few years Castellari concentrated on crime pictures, creating an impressive and consistent body of work which included High Crime (1973), The Big Racket (1976), The Heroin Busters (1977), and Day of the Cobra (1980).

Blueblood (1973)

Dir: ANDREW SINCLAIR

Country: UK-CANADA

1973 was a very busy and productive year for English actor Oliver Reed.  He began it in the Italian/French co-production Dirty Weekend, a crime/comedy directed by Dino Risi, which paired him up with Marcello Mastroianni.  He followed this with the historical drama Frenzy, an Italian/UK co-production exploring the class divides in pre-revolutionary Russia, in which he played Palizyn opposite Claudia Cardinale’s Anya. He continued his association with Italian cinema in his following film Revolver (US title Blood on the Streets) an excellent crime thriller directed by Sergio Sollima, which saw Reed and Fabio Testi make unlikely allies as they uncover a far reaching political conspiracy. Reed’s biggest success of 1973 was his following film, playing Athos in Richard Lester’s spirited and entertaining screen version of The Three Musketeers. Reed’s fifth and final screen credit of 1973 was in the obscure British film Blueblood, based on Alexander Thynne’s novel The Carry Cot. There are those who classify Blueblood as a horror film, but it is more of a class drama in the mould of the Pinter/Losey production The Servant (1962). The motivations of the respective butler’s in each film are pretty much the same, but their methodology differs. In Blueblood Tom, played with the hulking brutishness and barely suppressed rage that became Reed’s stock in trade, utilises witchcraft to secure his aims.

Mark the Narc (1975)

Dir: STELVIO MASSI

Country: ITALY

AKA:

Mark il poliziotto

Blood, Sweat and Fear

Mark of the Cop

The big three directors who inhabit the murky, tough, and violent world of the Italian ‘Euro-crime’ cycle are Fernando Di Leo, Umberto Lenzi, and Stelvio Massi. It seems that history has been the kindest to Di Leo, who has selected titles available in high definition and is generally regarded as an important filmmaker in the landscape of popular Italian cinema. Fairing slightly worse is Umberto Lenzi, and this is almost entirely due to his risible cannibal escapades rather than his solid, if unexceptional, entries in the ‘Euro-crime’ and ‘Giallo’ cycles. Due to the vagaries of distribution the filmography of Massi is the least explored of the three, and as a result Massi is not discussed anywhere near as prolifically as the other two men. Although all three filmmakers owe debts of gratitude to the Hollywood films that inspired them, perhaps Massi most of all showed his influences a little too freely. This can be seen most keenly in his 1975 thriller Mark the Narc which is one of the most rigorous pastiches of the first two films to feature Clint Eastwood as San Francisco detective Harry Callaghan. 

Celluloid Snaps - The Child (1977)

Director - ROBERT VOSKANIAN
Country - USA

Press Book Collection - Frogs (1972)

The Stranger Within (1974) - TV Movie

Dir: LEE PHILLIPS
Country: USA

Original Transmission Date - 01/10/1974

Whilst Richard Matheson is still chiefly known for his novel I am Legend (1954) and the ensuing film adaptations of it that followed in 1964, 1971, and 2007, and for his screenwriting work for cinema in the 1960s (highlights include House of Usher [1960], Night of the Eagle [1962], The Raven [1963] and The Devil Rides Out [1968] his work for American network television in the 1970’s remains as equally interesting, in spite of the relative lack of column inches it receives. This lack of attention may be due to the fact that a number of his teleplays were overshadowed by the men who directed and/or produced the movies. Duel (1971) for example is rarely discussed as a Richard Matheson film despite the fact that he wrote the teleplay and the short story it was based on. Film scholarship has chosen to make Steven Spielberg the main man. His teleplays The Night Stalker (1972), The Night Strangler (1973), Scream of the Wolf (1974), Dracula (1974), Trilogy of Terror (1975), and Dead of Night (1977) were all presided over by director/producer Dan Curtis. For some Curtis is an ‘auteur’, and the films previously mentioned are almost always discussed as part of his oeuvre rather than Matheson’s. In my opinion it is Matheson’s world view that informs these productions, and this state of affairs only goes to highlight an institutional and scholarly lack when it comes too appreciating the contribution of the screenwriter.

Press Book Collection - Beware! The Blob (1972)

Celluloid Snaps - The Avenging Eagle (1978)

Director - CHUNG SUN

Country -  HONG KONG

Original Title - LONG XIE SHI SAN YING

Celluloid Snaps - Message from Space (1978)

Director -  KINJI FUKASAKU
Country -  JAPAN

 

A Ghost Story for Christmas - The Stalls of Barchester (1971)

Dir: LAWRENCE GORDON CLARK
Country: UNITED KINGDOM

Original Broadcast Date - 24/12/1971

The chilling short story The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral first appeared in M. R. James’ 1911 collection More Ghost Stories, and was chosen by writer/producer/director Lawrence Gordon Clark as the curtain raiser to what would become eight consecutive ghost stories broadcast by the BBC at Christmas between 1971 and 1978. The path had already been trod to some degree by Jonathan Miller, who had written and directed an adaptation of James’ Whistle and I’ll Come to You, in 1968, for the BBC’s Omnibus. Such is the success of Miller’s effort that it is often erroneously considered a part of the A Ghost Story for Christmas series. Although The Stalls of Barchester does not quite reach the heights of its predecessor (which benefits tremendously from its monochrome palette and the beautifully observed performance of Michael Horden) it does have numerous merits of its own. The muted and purposefully under lit cinematography of John McGlashan for example offers an indication that the filmmakers were thinking with black and white in mind, though the delicate candle lit study of Archdeacon Haynes (Robert Hardy), his bedroom, and the eerie cloisters of Barchester Cathedral generates its own peculiar atmosphere of unease. Clark utilises off screen space particularly well, with the menacing visitations of something supernatural existing at the extreme periphery of the frame, and only emerging in the briefest glimpses of a black cat, and most disturbingly of all, a grey lifeless hand with frighteningly sharp talons.

Lobby Card Collection - Barry Lyndon (1975)

 

Wake in Fright (1971)

Dir: TED KOTCHEFF

Country: AUSTRALIA/USA

AKA:

Outback

It is becoming all too rare nowadays to see a film that leaves a genuinely indelible impression. A combination of my own academic education (which pretty much destroyed the magic of the movies) and a gradual desensitisation towards challenging and provocative material means that most films cross my line of sight with barely a blip on my internal Richter scale. But occasionally one can still find that precious diamond buried beneath the tonnes of coal. It doesn’t surprise me in the least that when such a discovery is made the film is quite often a product of the 1970’s. One such recent discovery was an Australian film called Wake in Fright, a nightmarish narrative that left me bewildered and devastated in equal measure. That we can now view Wake in Fright in a pristine high definition transfer is a tremendous privilege. For decades the only print of the film in existence was considered totally insufficient for either VHS or DVD release. But thanks to the dogged efforts of the films editor Anthony Buckley, the negatives were located, and one of the most important restoration processes in modern film history was able to take place. 

Guest Review - Dracula A.D. 1972 (1972)

Dir: ALAN GIBSON

Country: UK

This film desperately needs to be restored and transferred to the digital medium. I have the DVDs which are to my mind in the wrong ratio and the colour is fading. And I completely accept that Christopher Lee had less and less to do as the films went on. All this said; I think that attempting to remake the 1958 Dracula would have been an even greater folly. Aside from an attempt to put the novel on screen, which would have been a great idea, it makes perfect sense to me to keep the Count in the shadows and build up gradually to his appearance. To focus on the other characters and allow the audience to get to know them, to care for them and to allow the audience to get involved. So that when they finally meet their peril it is more disturbing. By the time the final ‘period’ movie of the Dracula series Scars of Dracula was released in 1970 most of the possible scenarios had been played out. A new direction, setting and indeed drive was sought to re-vamp the vamp. And so in the early 70’s Hammer decided to move their Dracula movie cycle from the 19^th Century villages of Europe to the swinging London of the 20^th.

I Drink Your Blood (1970)

Dir: DAVID E. DURSTON
Country: USA

In the years since its release, the hysterically titled I Drink Your Blood (a bit of a misnomer as not a single drop is imbibed) has built a steady and resolute cult following. This is largely due to the fact that the film was the first to receive an X certificate from the MPAA for violence alone, and also due to the legendary double bill that paired it with Del Tenney’s largely forgettable zombie dross I Eat Your Skin (1964). This inspired double feature was the brainwave of exploitation producer/distributor Jerry Gross. A semi-legendary figure whose skill at creating alluring film titles (it should be noted that David E. Durston the director of I Drink Your Blood wanted the film to be called Phobia), eye catching posters, and outrageous promotional campaigns resulted in numerous commercial successes in the Grindhouses and drive ins. By and large the films Gross produced and distributed are exploitation trash, but the man deserves a place of importance in film history for producing one of the most significant films of the 1970’s – Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song (1971). Another reason for I Drink Your Blood’s cult success is the resulting effect of the X certificate. In a desperate move to reap some kind of financial reward from the film, Gross gave permission for exhibitors to cut the film to their own liking. The resulting multitude of cuts meant that for decades what constituted the complete or director’s cut of the film was a matter for debate and conjecture rather than fact.

No One Will Play With Me (1976)

Dir: WERNER HERZOG

Country: WEST GERMANY

This unusual and obscure little film from Werner Herzog emerged in between his two feature films The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (1974) and Heart of Glass (1976). The former is quite rightly lauded as one of Herzog’s finest achievements, and introduced the world to the bizarre talents of the non-professional actor Bruno S. The latter was a challenging fable of prophecy and apocalypse, a highly stylised and visionary film in which the director famously hypnotised the majority of the cast members. It seems odd that Herzog would return to the short film at this stage in his career. His previous short film was made seven years before and was entitled Precautions Against Fanatics (1969), and in that time he had achieved his international breakthrough with feature films like Aguirre: Wrath of God (1972), the aforementioned Kaspar Hauser, and critically acclaimed documentaries such as Land of Silence and Darkness (1971) and The Great Ecstasy of the Woodcarver Steiner (1974), both of which were made for West German television, but achieved wider distribution due to the directors new found fame.

Lobby Card Collection - The Beguiled (1971)