Hammer Horror - The Golden Era (1956-1967)

Each year along with the approach of Halloween comes the bombardment of Hammer Horror films on television. Blood, gore, and buxom babes are splattered onscreen in brilliant Eastmancolor, while sanguinary counts and grimly ghoulish characters lurk stealthily in dark corners of seedy districts intent on carrying out nefarious deeds on their unsuspecting prey.

And we…sweet, kind, gentle, innocent viewers…sit by with pizza in hand, eyes-a-goggled and heart-a-pounding as we stare transfixed at our screens while these deliciously diabolical scenes are being carried out.

Prior to the British Hammer film, there really was no such thing as a “gory” film. There were lords of tiny European hamlets suffering from lycanthropy, mad scientists making pastiches out of gently worn body parts, secluded islands inhabited by horrific animal creatures, misguided poor souls continually making themselves disappear, and of course the all-too-common haunted house filled with frustrated spirits (and the occasional runaway gorilla)……but alas, no gore. Hammer Studios had found a niche and filled it capitally.

Just what would Halloween be without Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing entertaining us?  

Hammer Productions was formed in 1934 by William Hinds, a comedian and businessman who once went by the name of Will Hammer on stage. His films were low-budget and simply made but, even with his own distribution company, he wasn’t able to find a market for them and filed for bankruptcy in 1937.

A year later, his son, along with producer James Carreras, resurrected the production company and began work on a series of BBC radio adaptions such as Dick Barton Special Agent, and The Adventures of PC 49. Many films were made during the 1940s and early 50s but nothing of noteworthy attention, until, that is…1955. This was the year Hammer Studios released The Quatermass Xperiment, a wonderfully chilling adaption of the popular BBC television series of the same name. 

Quatermass, also known as The Creeping Unknown, was about a missile sent into space with three astronauts on board. Only one of the men return to Earth and with him, brings an alien infestation which turns him into an ‘orrible blood-sucking monster. Professor Bernard Quatermass (played by American actor Brian Donlevy) becomes the first of many, many scholarly extraterrestrial/mythical/vampyr hunters to be featured in Hammer film….Van Helsing being the most famous of these.

The film became the first to ever receive an X rating certificate from the British Film Board and was so successful that similarly themed pictures were quickly put into production and released.

X- The Unknown (1956) 

Radiation tests done by the British Army in a remote Scottish village unearth an unknown radioactive “blob” that leaves only the bodies of its burnt victims behind. Dr. Royston sets out to stop the beast before it grows bigger and bigger and feeds off of them all! Dean Jagger, Leo McKern, Edward Chapman, Anthony Newley.

Quatermass II: Enemy from Space (1957) 

Professor Quatermass explores a deadly gas that is originating from a hidden factory in rural England. Unusual creatures just may be planning something deadly for planet Earth and, once again, Quatermass is the man to stop them. Brian Donlevy, John Longden, Sidney James, Brian Forbes.

But it was when The Curse of Frankenstein came out in 1957 that the studio earned its infamous title as a House of Horror. This was, officially, the start of Hammer Horror.

The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) Using the hands of a pianist and the brains of a renowned scholar, Doctor Frankenstein sticks together a "human" from leftover bodies and finds that it didn’t quite turn out to be the success he had planned. Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Hazel Court.

Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, heretofore relatively unknown company players, quickly earned worldwide recognition for their roles as Dr. Frankenstein and his Monster and for the next ten years basked in the sunshine – or rather moonlight – of success.

The Abominable Snowman (1958) High in the snow-covered Himalayan mountains, an English botanist and a burly American scientist lead an expedition to discover the legendary Yeti creature. Peter Cushing, Forrest Tucker, Maureen Connell.

Universal Studios was the American distributor of the Hammer horror series and since they earned such great returns off of them, they let them have access to their stock house of scripts. Numerous retellings of their horror classics were plotted out, and the studio focused all its efforts and funds on the making of these colorful adaptions.

The Horror of Dracula (1958) After a man attacks Dracula in his castle (yes, bold man he be!), Dracula travels to a nearby village to seek revenge on his family and his fiancée. They turn to Professor Van Helsing, a fellow student of vampires, for help in destroying him. Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Michael Gough, Melissa Stribling.

The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959) Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous Sherlock Holmes novel gets a colorful retelling here, as the ace detective and his doctor friend come to the aid of a nobleman who is being threatened by supernatural hounds on the moors of his estate. Peter Cushing, Andre Morell, Christopher Lee, Marla Landi

The Hound of the Baskervilles was one of the less successful films in the series though Peter Cushing made an admirable Holmes, as did Andre Morell as Dr. Watson. During 1951 – 1967, Hammer Studios' home was in Bray, near Windsor, Buckinghamshire. A house (Down Place), a large backlot, and several smaller studios were on this property. The house was included in many of the films (it added a lot to that “Hammer atmosphere”) and the backlot was turned into a European village which was used again and again in different films. First in The Brides of Dracula, then as a Spanish village in The Curse of the Werewolf, as London in The Phantom of the Opera, and then as a Russian palace in Rasputin, the Mad Monk.

From 1960 on, Hammer consigned themselves to raising their monsters from their graves in sequels or rehashings of their previous successes…with the exception of The Phantom of the Opera, Curse of the Werewolf (another misfire), and The Gorgon…which were new characters to the series.

The Brides of Dracula (1960) A schoolteacher unknowingly sets free a young man ( of the undead variety ) in Transylvania, and worse yet, finds that he’s after her students at her school for girls. Peter Cushing, Martita Hunt, Yvonne Monlaur, David Peel

The Curse of the Werewolf (1961) A young Spanish boy on a hunting trip gets bitten by a wolf, and years later moonlights as a first-class howler in this retelling of the classic Universal The Wolf Man. Clifford Evans, Oliver Reed, Yvonne Romain

The Phantom of the Opera (1962) In Victorian London, a poor musical professor finds that his life work has been stolen by a corrupt lord and, with his fire-burnt disfigured face, he hides out in an Opera house as a “phantom” waiting for his moment of revenge. Herbert Lom, Edward de Souza, Michael Gough, Heather Sears

Kiss of the Vampire (1963) A young honeymooning couple gets stranded in a southern European village and are “helped” by an aristocratic family…who have a taste for newlywed blood. Clifford Evans, Edward de Souza.

Evil of Frankenstein (1964) – Penniless Baron Frankenstein, returns to his family castle to renew his work on his beloved Monster, only to find that an evil aid, Zoltan has been using his monster for his dirty work. Peter Cushing, Peter Woodthorpe, Duncan LaMont

The Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb (1964) An Egyptian mummy is delivered to London, where it begins a rampage while under the control of a man with murderous intentions. Terence Morgan, Ronald Howard, Fred Clark

The Gorgon (1964)  In pre-WWII Germany, a small village is being plagued by a snake-haired gorgon who turns those who bear their eyes upon her to stone…only during full moons though. Professor Meister and Dr.Namaroff come to the aid of the townsfolk. Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Richard Pasco, Michael Goodliffe, Barbara Shelley

All of these Hammer Horror pictures really weren’t that scary (especially compared to today’s standards) but, in 1965, gore, as in bottles of oozy gooey goopy red ketchup, entered the picture. EEeeek!!

This was the year that the content of the Hammer films became more….ahem, mature…with the eyes of our blood-sucking fiendish friends glaring more fiercely, the bodices of their voluptuous prey creeping lower and lower, and pools of blood squirting to and fro, making Van Helsing’s appearance – along with his cross of Christ – all the more anticipated so we can see our anemic villains writhe in terror at their impending doom.

Dracula, Prince of Darkness (1966) Four unwary tourists take refuge in Count Dracula’s castle for the night (!). Within a few hours one of them is drained of his blood and his wife ( Shelley ) gets transformed into a vampire so the gruesome twosome can pursue the remaining two “guests”. Some hospitality. Christopher Lee, Barbara Shelley, Charles Tingwell

Island of Terror (1966) A group of doctors head to a remote island off the coast of Ireland to investigate a series of medical mysteries and discover a deadly lifeform unleashed. Peter Cushing, Edward Judd, Carole Gray, Keith Bell. 

Rasputin, The Mad Monk (1966) The story of the mad Russian “monk” Rasputin (aid to the Czars) is exploited in all its gory glory. Christopher Lee, Richard Pasco, Barbara Shelley, Suzan Farmer

Quatermass and the Pit (1967) While digging a subway in London, a construction crew discovers a skeleton and what seems to be a German missile….but in truth it is an alien spaceship. James Donald, Andrew Keir, Barbara Shelley

The Reptile (1966) While investigating his brother's death, a man and his wife move into his former cottage in a small village in England and become embroiled in a reptilian curse. Ray Barrett, Noel William, John Laurie, Jennifer Daniel. 

The Mummy's Shroud (1967) An archeological team discovers the remains of a mummy while on a dig in Egypt in 1920. Returning home to England with their find, the members are killed one by one. Andre Morrell, David Buck, Elizabeth Sellars, Maggie Kimberley.

There were also a number of "Scream Queens" that became associated with Hammer Horror (Hazel Court, Barbara Steele, and, later, Ingrid Pitt) but of them all, no one can top Barbara Shelley, that lovely English lady who somehow got caught in the vortex known as “the horror genre”. In total, she made seven pictures with the studio, sometimes as the victim, but not infrequently as a vampire herself.

Many believe that the golden age of Hammer Horror ended with Dracula: Prince of Darkness and that does indeed have some credibility to it, for the films made after this tend to be repetitious and rather malodorous.

All in all though, Hammer Studios had a long line of successes and it is during this bewitching month that we fans appreciate them the most. We get to sit back, have some popcorn, and enjoy Peter Cushing and those legendary ghouls give us goosebumps….what more fun could you have than that? 

The Quatermass Report - Part Two

In our continuing look at the influential Quatermass series of the mid-century we turn the spotlight onto Nigel Kneale's final serial of the 1950s - Quatermass and the Pit, as well as the final episode, simply entitled Quatermass from 1979. Part One is available to read here. 

QUATERMASS AND THE PIT

Andre Morrell, who had been the original choice for the role of Professor Quatermass when Kneale first conceived of the character in 1953, had finally consented to portray the now-famous bow-tied Brit. This third installment, released in 1958, combined the same elements of the previous series - an alien invasion through human takeover and a time-ticking race on Quatermass' part to stop this - but in a new and completely absorbing way. In fact, Quatermass and the Pit is one of the best of the series. 

"The last adventure, which I called Quatermass and the Pit, went way past the concerns of the time and into an ancient and diabolical race memory," said Kneale in an interview in 1996. "It sought to explain man's savagery and intolerance by way of imagines that had been throbbing away in the human brain since it first developed. Racial unrest, violence and purges were certainly with us in the 1950s, and I tried to speculate on where they first came from."

During routine engineering work at Hobbs' End underground station ( "Hob" is a folk name for Satan ), a group of bones and half complete skeletons of ape men are discovered, apparently drastically predating the era that scientists had established for those creatures. Later, an unusual metal container is unearthed. The authorities, led by the unimaginative Colonel Breen ( Julian Glover ), believe it to be an unexploded bomb left over from WW2, but when Professor Quatermass arrives on the scene, he proves otherwise. The contents inside reveal to him a discovery which shatters the accepted theory of Darwin's evolution and offers a dire warning for the future of mankind. 

Kneale ambitiously attempted to rationalize the nature of both supernatural hauntings and human concepts of the devil and, surprisingly, he translated those ideas into a convincing and plausible, if improbable, script. 

Quatermass and the Pit was broadcast in December 1958 and received much acclaim from television critics, with several reviewers praising Morell for having given the definitive portrayal of Professor Quatermass. Cic Linder, Anthony Bushnell, and John Stratton rounded out the great cast. 

As with the previous two serials, Hammer purchased the film rights to these monumental Pit episodes, however, partly due to the declining box-office receipts of Quatermass 2, Kneale's refusal to tolerate a drunken Donlevy once again, and Columbia disinterest in the series ( Hammer had recently struck a distribution deal with Columbia Pictures ), it was not brought to the big screen until February 16, 1968.

Instead, Hammer plunged into another film adaptation of a Kneale teleplay - this time of "The Creature" ( 1955 ), which they retitled The Abominable Snowman. 

Roy Ward Baker undertook the directorial responsibilities when Quatermass and the Pit was put into production in February 1967. Baker had directed a number of fine films during the 1950s, notably The October Man and A Night to Remember, but several recent failures made him turn to television, directing episodes of such popular crime-fighting series like The Saint and The Avengers. 

Kenneth More was Baker's original choice for the part of Quatermass, but eventually he selected Andrew Keir to replace Morell, who had turned down the chance to play the role again. This was a stroke of good fortune, for Keir brought an excellent steely determination to his characterization of the professor as well as injecting a very human fragility and vulnerability. 

James Donald adds great support to Keir, and Barbara Shelley, one of Hammer's most popular and prolific leading ladies, is excellent as fellow scientist, Barbara Judd. Quatermass and the Pit ( also known as Five Million Years to Earth ) was her final film for the studio. There are a swarm of delectable British character actors to enjoy as well, including Peter Copley, Bryan Marshall and Edwin Richfield.

Hammer's home base, the Associated British Studios in Elstree, Borehamwood did not allow for enough space to film and so the project was relocated to the MGM Borehamwood studios where no other film was being shot at the time, giving the crew - and especially the production designers - ample space to work with, which they utilized in creating the enormous Underground station and excavation settings. 

QUATERMASS 1979 

After Quatermass and the Pit, Hammer approached Kneale about the possibility of writing another script for a film follow-up but that idea never came to fruitation. Instead, Professor Quatermass made his final television appearance in the four-part 1979 Thames Television serial release, simply entitled Quatermass. Alas, it was a serial that should not have been made. In the mid 1960s, Nigel Kneale had written a dreary and depressing tale of the future state of London - and much of the world - where young people have formed violent gangs and attack bystanders without provocation while bands of hippies worship the ancient energies and dance around archaic stone monuments waiting to be transported by aliens into a faraway world. 

Quatermass was not put into production until late 1978, when these peace, love and hate incidents seemed oddly irrelevant.  What's worse, Professor Quatermass is no longer an optimistic man of science, but has warped into a bitter and discouraged old man. He has long been retired, living in retreat in the Scottish Highlands. His sole purpose in coming to London is to search for his missing teenage granddaughter. After a recent space mission goes horribly wrong, right before the public's eyes on live television, a young astronomer ( Simon MacCorkindale ) and Quatermass search to find the answers to this occurrence and other unusual happenings.

The series, and even the 100-minute feature film release The Quatermass Conclusion, progress along cumbersomely and convey a bleak dystopian setting, a far cry from the 1950s post-war Britain of the previous serials.

Whereas Kneale's original series were genre-defining and ground-breaking, this Quatermass lacks energy and quite frankly, fizzles out before it has a chance to begin. Not even John Mills' superb acting ability could inject new life into the character. 

THE QUATERMASS EXPERIMENT 2005

BBC Four attempted to revive Professor Quatermass for the younger generation 

in 2005, when they mounted a remake of the original Quatermass Experiment, this time with a much more youthful Jason Flemyng portraying the now tie-less Professor. More recently, Simon Oakes, the current CEO of Hammer Films has announced plans to dip into the archives and remake several of Hammer's post popular films, including the inimitable Quatermass.

The BBC Quatermass serials of yor did not rely on special effects but rather on interesting characters, good dialogue and an intelligent story, elements seen far too rarely in modern science fiction films, which hopefully will be remedied if a remake is undertaken. 

To this day Nigel Kneale's creation of Quatermass, and the serials that showcased this character, remain one of the BBC's finest achievements and influenced numerous science-fiction series including Doctor Who and Sapphire and Steele. 

Be sure to check out the Quatermass films available on DVD, as well as The Quatermass Film Music Collection. 

The Quatermass Report - Part One

A BIRD'S EYE VIEW

Before The Invaders and other television series such as The X-Files popularized investigations of alien invasions there was Professor Quatermass, a pioneer in the field of experimental science who often encountered bizarre extraterrestrial happenings in and around London.

Professor Bernard Quatermass, head of the British Experimental Rocket Group, was the brainchild of screenwriter Nigel Kneale. Kneale had won the prestigious Somerset Maugham Award in 1950 for his book, Tomato Cain and Other Stories and had joined the BBC staff of writers shortly after that. The professor's unusual surname was plucked from a London telephone book and his christian name was dubbed in honor of astronomer Bernard Lovell, who in the 1950s was making news experimenting with his telescope at Jodrell Bank observatory. 

Unlike scientists today who rely heavily on computer-generated data, Professor Quatermass did not need any technology to help him in his quest to explore the unknown. A few rubber gloves, a microscope and some crude radar equipment would suffice for him. Afterall, Britain was still recuperating from the destruction and chaos of WWII and it was make-do-and-mend men like Quatermass that were getting the nation firmly back on its feet again. Besides, Quatermass did not fight two-headed green-skinned aliens of mortal substance, but rather had to battle the most maddening of foes: the shifting, shapeless, unknown variety. Cardboard instruments would do quite well for that task.

Quatermass had an unlimited supply of confidence and resilience. He knew his duty lay in saving England from beastly intruders, wherever they came from, and when approached with bureaucratic setbacks he busted through the red tape like a juggernaut. 

Professor Quatermass was introduced to the public on July 18, 1953 in the first of six half-hour BBC episodes collectively entitled The Quatermass Experiment and it was this program that laid the foundation for what would become one of Britain's most memorable sci-fi franchises. 

THE QUATERMASS EXPERIMENT

When The Quatermass Experiment crackled onto teles all across Britain in the summer of 1953, the viewing public, two million Brits to be exact ( in a rough sort of way ), had not seen anything like it before. Television serials were a common programming feature but no show prior to this had been so engrossing and so plum absorbing to watch. At least, for adults. When majority of the sci-fi programming on television in the early 1950s was geared towards little tykes, Quatermass was meaty entertainment for adults. Nigel Kneale cheerfully admitted, "we didn't get the kids". The Quatermass Experiment reached out to the audience to ask the ultimate mind-engaging question, "What if?"....and it gave these viewers an entire week to ponder the answer before they found out what happened.

What exactly was the "if" question all about? An experimental B.E.R.G rocket, manned by three astronauts, crashes in the remote countryside of England after having been broken off orbit some time earlier. There is one surviving crew member. The other two men have been completing annihilated  Nothing remains but the empty suits they once wore....nothing except a gooey blob of sticky substance that is. Professor Quatermass attempts to discover what caused the rocket to break off of orbit and what creature - or alien presence - has entered the ship during flight and destroyed the two men. 

Andre Morrell was originally approached to portray the tired, desperate Professor Quatermass for this television serial but declined the part and so director Rudolph Cartier offered it to Reginald Tate, whom he had previously worked with for the teleplay It is Midnight, Dr. Schweitzer. Tate brought authenticity to the character which compelled audience members to tune in to their sets every Saturday night for the next five weeks to see how the brilliant prof could save mankind from the dreadful state it was in. Tate had had much experience on stage and this was fortuitous since most of television productions were broadcast live. 

Today, only one episode - the first - remains intact since video was a rather expensive film medium and many programs were taped over to cut costs. Although the sets were quite flaky, the lighting bad, and the "scientific procedures" alarmingly simple ( how does one test to see if a rocket's shell has cooled sufficiently? Pat it with your hands )...the story touched on the imagination of its viewers. In fact these primitive production techniques only helped to enhance the feeling of the impending chaos that Britain would find itself in had aliens attacked. 

In 1954, Hammer Film Productions, one of Britain's fledgling film studios, purchased the screen rights to the serial, shrewdly sensing a golden film property. Hammer Productions had yet to gain their reputation as one of the leading horror film factories, but their adaptation of The Quatermass Xperiment would be a key project in helping them reach that status. 

The Quatermass Xperiment, released in the US as The Creeping Unknown became Hammer's highest-grossing film to date and still remains one of the most memorable of the British sci-fi classics. Brian Donlevy starred as Professor Bernard Quatermass and was woefully miscast, portraying the professor more as a ruthless businessman than an inquisitive man of science. 

Most people remember this film because of Jack Warner's striking portrayal of the sole surviving member of the doomed experimental rocket ship. Without speaking one word, he conveyed the anguish he was feeling internally through the blank helpless look on his face. This character, with hardly any makeup, is one of Hammer's most frightening.

The British Board of Censors issued an X certificate for the film upon its release and in order to emphasize this the studio changed the title from The Quatermass Experiment to "X"periment. 

Hammer Productions were anxious to quickly create a sequel to follow-up on the wake of the success of The Quatermass Xperiment, and so they hired Jimmy Sangster to pen another oh-so-mysterioso science fiction tale. They entitled their film X-The Unknown but much to their dismay Kneale refused them the rights to use the name of Quatermass in that production, a decision made in part because of his disappointment with the studio casting Donlevy as Quatermass in the first adaptation. This film, however, did not feature Donlevy, but rather Dean Jagger in the role of the resolute professor. 

QUATERMASS II

The success of The Quatermass Experiment, and the launching of ITV network ( which ended BBC's broadcasting monopoly ) empowered the studio's programmers to develop more competitive programs, and the first thing they undertook was to commission Nigel Kneale to write a sequel to The Quatermass Experiment. 

Inspired by the news reports about the UK Ministry of Defense's secret research establishments and the fears they were creating to the reading public, Kneale devised a story around Quatermass doing top-secret research work for the Defense.

In this next series, originally aired in the autumn of 1955, Quatermass is asked to investigate unusual meteor showers. He discovers that aliens are conspiring to infiltrate mankind, targeting mainly the highest members of British government. 

Quatermass II has the distinction of being the earliest surviving complete British sci-fi television production. Like the original series, it was quite compelling and this time featured John Robinson as the renowned professor. The lead change came about for a very simple reason: Reginald Tate had passed away suddenly, at the age of 58, just one month prior to when filming was scheduled to begin. Robinson did an adequate job filling his shoes but had difficulty in learning some of the technical dialogue and his delivery of the lines has often been criticized. 

Hugh Griffith, the ebullient Welsh actor, portrayed Dr. Leo Pugh, Quatermass' chief assistant. Monica Grey ( as Quatermass' daughter Paula ), John Stone, and Roger Delgado ( Doctor Who ) also starred. 

Hammer Productions once again was anxious to receive the film rights for this second serial, and did so, this time with Kneale joining the staff of screenwriters to ensure that his characterization of Quatermass remained intact. 

Brian Donlevy returned in the role of Quatermass, inspite of Kneale's arguments to the contrary, and Quatermass II ( issued as Quatermass 2 in the states ), released in 1957, was once again a smashing success. The film featured John Longden, Sid James and Brian Forbes in supporting roles. Donlevy's portrayal of Quatermass mellowed a bit this time around but he still managed to succeed in looking frightfully out of place. 

James Bernard, who went to write the wonderfully eerie scores to so many Hammer films, concocted a beautiful medley of percussion and strings for Quatermass II. This was also production designer Bernard Robinson's first picture for Hammer, later he went on to create many of the beautiful sets for the studio's gothic films, such as The Phantom of the Opera and The Gorgon. 

To be continued....

Hammer Films' The Gorgon ( 1964 )

"It has been said that every legend and myth known to mankind is not entirely without some truth..." 

In the sleepy hamlet of Vandorf, a legendary 2,000 year old creature has reawakened and its spirit taken possession of one of the villagers. Seven gorgonizing deaths have taken place on foggy moonlight nights in the past five years; each one of the victims turned to stone. 

Paul Heitz ( Richard Pasco ), whose father and brother were the most recent victims, travels to Vandorf and, with the aid of Professor Meister ( Christopher Lee ), attempts to undercover the mystery behind these deaths. Alas, he finds himself confronted by a conspiracy of silence led by Dr. Namaroff ( Peter Cushing ) who, along with his associate, Carla Hoffman ( Barbara Shelley ), is protecting some sinister dark secret.

Peter Cushing, who often portrays the hero in such Hammer Film classics as The Mummy, The Curse of Frankenstein and The Horror of Dracula, this time reverses roles and plays our villain and a welcome change it is too. He brings a sympathetic appeal to the character of Namaroff despite his stoic and calculating nature. 

As Professor Meister, it is evident that Lee thoroughly relished the opportunity the role gave him. He creates a memorable eccentric who, like Van Helsing, seems quite capable of tracking and capturing any beast, creature, or phantom he happens to find... in a scientific way.

" We are men of science. I don't believe in ghosts or evil spirits, and I don't think you do either "

The always lovely Barbara Shelley was quickly becoming one of Hammer's biggest attractions when she starred in The Gorgon. She had leading roles in such horror flicks as Village of the Damned ( 1960 ) and Shadow of the Cat ( 1961 ) and in the next few years would go on to make Dracula: Prince of Darkness ( 1966 ) and Quatermass and the Pit ( 1967 ), justly earning the title of The First Leading Lady of British Horror. In The Gorgon, Shelley provides the romantic interest which becomes the key link behind the mysterious happenings in Vandorf. 

Other roles in the film are played by Michael Goodliffe ( Sink the Bismarck ) , Patrick Troughton ( Doctor Who ), and Jack Watson ( Grand Prix ).

Two of Hammer's most recent productions, The Old Dark House and The Damned, had failed at the box-office. They were desperate to find material that would appeal to the public and so they took a direct approach and placed an ad in "The Daily Cinema": 

"Got an idea you think would make a good film? One with an exciting title to match? ( Hammer was taking no chances ). If you have, contact James Carreras. Because good, compulsive selling ideas with the right titles are what Hammer are looking for right now"

The article brought in a good response from the trade and public alike and one idea generated enough enthusiasm to prompt Hammer to pursue it into production. It was a short story submitted by J. Llewellyn Devine about a legendary character from Greek mythological in a mid-European setting. Screenwriter John Gilling was called in to rework the story into a feasible screenplay. He did this and in place of Medusa, he renamed the gorgon Magaera ( one of the three Furies in mythology ). "The Gorgon" went on to become Hammer's first female monster.

Production began in late 1963 at Bray Studios shortly after The Evil of Frankenstein had completed shooting. Some of the sets were revamped to create the setting of Vandorf and the Castle Borski.

Barbara Shelley had suggested that she portray the gorgon herself and wanted to use a wig that - humanely - contained several live snakes. Producer Anthony Nelson Keys felt that, in order to protect the creature's secret identity, two actresses were needed and that the live snakes were unnecessary. Prudence Hyman, a former ballerina, took on the makeup and costumes of the gorgon. After the completion of the film however, Keys regretted his decision and had wished that real snakes were used. Since the gorgon is seen full-face in several shots, the impact of her petrifying glare was lessened by the use of rubber snakes. As Christopher Lee so aptly put it, "The only thing wrong with The Gorgon is the gorgon."

Makeup man Roy Ashton applied the hideous skin paint to Prudence Hyman while Syd Pearson, a special effects engineer at Hammer, had the task of creating Hyman's moving snake wig. Twelve plastic molds were made from which he cast latex rubber snakes. Twenty-five foots cables were attached to each snake, woven into the wig and run along the back of Hyman's costume which were then rigged to a peg and board contraption. When each peg was turned the tension created the illusion of the snake's moving independently.  Perhaps this was a bit easier to stage than the frame-by-frame technique Ray Harryhausen employed to create the Medusa in Clash of the Titans but the finished result was less than comparable. 

The Gorgon is not gory, nor is it oozing with terrifying moments, and for this reason it often falls short on the list of memorable Hammer classics, yet the film captures a unique Gothic atmosphere full of eerie foreboding and even director Terence Fisher considered it one of his personal favorites. 

Like all of the Hammer Studio films, The Gorgon contains richly detailed settings and beautiful colorful cinematography. James Bernard provides a mysterious score to enhance this mythological tale and implemented an early electronic keyboard, the Novachord, to create the effect of the Gorgon's call. It was most dreamlike and bewitching.

The Gorgon was released on August 21, 1964 and was double-billed with The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb. Critic reviews were quite favorable and these two films put Hammer back on track once again as one of the leading horror studios.

This post is part of the Hammer Halloween Blogathon hosted by the Classic Film and TV Cafe. Go to www.classicfilmtvcafe.com to view the complete blogathon schedule.