German lobby cards for SCARS OF DRACULA (1970)

This is one of the few Hammer Draculas I hadn't watched multiple times. I remember not taking to it first time round, found it tacky and that those early 1970s hair styles were jarring and had turned me off the movie. 

And jar they do indeed and yet, despite this, some dodgy bats and having both one of the lamest resurrection and destruction scenes, as a whole this film was actually a lot of fun and giving Lee (in whiter, sicker looking make-up than usual) considerably more lines than in any of the previous productions outside the very first one. 

It also had more gore than normally associated with Hammer until then and some wonderful performances. I particularly enjoyed Anouska Hempel's impatient "Love me!" seduction spiel. 

Directed by Roy Ward Baker, shooting took place in Elstree from May 07 - June 23. The film then premiered on November 08 on a double bill with Horror of Frankenstein. 

 For appearing in this film Lee would receive £10.000 plus a 10% share of the profits. Unfortunately this production would prove to become the least successful of all Hammer Draculas. Lee himself considers it to be “the weakest and most unconvincing of the DRACULA stories”. 

Jenny Hanley remembers that his singing had drowned out the music from Bread, the rock band she was listening to at the time. When requested to turn down his voice a bit, he asked to be introduced to what she listened to and promised to sing this instead. 

 Lee suffered from back problems during the production and had to rely on stunt double Eddie Powell for some of the heavy lifting required when carrying Hanley to her bed room.

The Traitor (1957)

I watched this movie for Christopher Lee and stayed for the sheer abundance of Hammer actors. 

 This film gives Lee yet another opportunity to sport a fake German accent and act opposite a number of future Hammer Horror colleagues such as Anton Diffring (The Man Who Could Cheat Death), Oscar Quitak (The Revenge of Frankenstein) and John Van Eyssen (Dracula) as well as Robert Bray of Lassie fame. 

 It was the first production to be filmed in the New Elstree Studios, a place that Christopher Lee does not appear to have been too enamoured with. In his autobiography, he remembers that he introduced co-star Donald Wolfit to Tolkien’s The Hobbit there “as a much-needed distraction from the water pouring down the cement walls, the duck boards between the stages traversing a sea of mud, the lights that didn’t work, the absence of windows in the dressing-rooms and the economies made on paint”. 

 The film focuses on a group of German Ex-Resistance fighters who meet annually at a mansion in England at the anniversary of their former leader’s death who had been executed by the Nazis. During this meeting, it becomes apparent that one of the friends must have betrayed him. Before the identity of the traitor can be revealed, however, they are also faced with some other murders in the midst. 

 This is a wonderfully old fashioned chamber piece in the tradition of Agatha Christie that lives by its superb cast and betrays nothing of the challenges associated with the new studio. A specially commissioned piano piece, Prelude Without A Name, plays an important role and the effectiveness of the movie is only somewhat marred by a gimmicky denouement that is out of step with the prior plot developments. 

 I watched the UK release which is probably the preferred one, even though the shorter US version also contains additional scenes not in the UK cut as per this review. 

The Alfred Hitchcock Hour: The Sign of Satan (08/May/1964)

Just discovered this episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour from May 08, 1964 with Christopher Lee on YouTube. Not sure how long this will be on but it can also be viewed on DailyMotion.

The Sign of Satan was filmed at Universal Studios and is from the second season of the hour long program. This show was effectively a continuation of the previous half an hour long “Alfred Hitchcock Presents”.

The episode was based on Robert Bloch’s short story Return to the Sabbath, first published in “Weird Tales” (July 1938) when Bloch was just 21. Other stories published that month in the magazine contained Henry Kuttner’s Spawn of Dagon, Seabury Quinn’s Fortune’s Fools and Clark Ashton Smith’s Mother of Toads as well as a poem each by H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard.

It features Lee as Karl Jorla, an Austrian Devil Worshipper who features in a recording of a Black Mass. When that recording gets released, his acolytes suspect that he was behind this and threaten to hunt and kill him. A film studio hires him as an actor for a similar role, not knowing that what they had seen in the initial production was not a work of fiction.

During the satanic ritual Lee is heard speaking German and truth be told his German is better than the German accent he puts on when speaking English. He also appears to be wearing a head piece as well as some crazy bushy eye brows and some of the scenes evoke his Dracula, no doubt one of the reasons he was hired for the job.

All the occult references are very moody and must have appealed to Lee as an aficionado in that area. Though the premise of this episode is preposterous - no studio would have hired a No Name and put up with all those exorbitant requests and strange behaviour - the fact that this is one of those productions that show him amongst Satanists and Devil Worshippers with hints of Horror Hotel (1960) as well as future Dennis Wheatley adaptations makes this well worth checking out.

Lee mentions in his autobiography that he was anxious to leave his 12-week old daughter Christina behind which places his arrival around the February 15 mark. This was Lee’s first invite to Hollywood. Rather than being placed in a grandiose hotel as he had hoped for, he is put up in an unfinished motel, but has Marlon Brando’s dressing room.

Filming lasts two weeks and while there, he also meets one of his idols, Groucho Marx, as well as Ray Bradbury who had wanted him to play Mr. Dark in an adaptation of Something Wicked This Way Comes.

Prior to filming he was seemingly convinced he’d be directed by Alfred Hitchcock directly and only became aware that this was not the case when meeting Bob Douglas, the actual director. He only ended up briefly seeing Hitch from a distance and also lost eight of Ray Milland’s golf balls in a match against him in Bel Air.

The Skull (1965)

“Christopher Maitland sat back in his chair before the fireplace and fondled the binding of an old book. His thin face, modelled by the flickering firelight, bore a characteristic expression of scholarly preoccupation. 

Maitland’s intellectual curiosity was focussed on the volume in his hands. Briefly, he was wondering if the human skin binding this book came from a man, a woman, or a child. 

(…) It was nice to have a book bound in a woman’s skin. It was nice to have a crux ansata fashioned from a thigh-bone; a collection of Dyack heads; a shrivelled hand of Glory stolen from a graveyard in Mainz. Maitland owned all these items, and many more. For he was a collector of the unusual.” 

The Skull is one Amicus’ first horror films. Coming hot on the heals of their first portmanteau flick, Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors, this is actually a feature length movie though ironically based on a short story, The Skull of the Marquis de Sade, by Robert Bloch, i.e. the kind of material that they would later typically use for the anthology productions.

Horror films about obsessive collectors are a fascinating sub-genre that have very rarely been explored outside of Amicus where Robert Bloch appears to have been the driving force behind that niche (see also “The Man Who Collected Poe” segment of Torture Garden).

For The Skull Milton Subotsky co-adapted Bloch’s screenplay about an esoteric collector (Peter Cushing) who starts a descent into murder and madness when he is being offered the genuine skull of the Marquis De Sade.

Though the movie by and large follows the general plot of the short story to the point where certain lines of dialogue are even lifted verbatim, given the requirements of a feature length production there are added sections that are virtually dialogue free in which the film truly shines.

For these scenes director Freddie Francis managed to create some memorable bravura images that clearly demonstrate the cinematographic skill that would ultimately lead to him winning an Oscar. (Official Director of Photography here was John Wilcox.)

A Gothic pre-credits scene is bathed in a very Bavaesque light and depictures a silent, moody grave robbing. At one stage everything is filmed from the point-of-view of the corpse. It appears as if the corpse was lying in a glass tomb and could look through it to see the dirt removed from the coffin.

The film has lots of those strange angles and we often get to see everything from the perspective of the skull, a type of imagery that Alfred Vohrer was also very fond of in German Edgar Wallace Krimis at the time.

Long periods without sound or talk other than musical cues and purely visual imagery dominate this production that is also chock-a-block with little unnerving details such as somewhat distorted mirror reflections or bizarre camera angles.

The most famous of these scenes is midway through and could have been taken straight out of TV’s AVENGERS series: Maitland appears to get arrested and is brought to a Kafkaesque location, a large but mainly empty room only presided over by a judge surrounded by demonic statuettes who communicates through mute sign language and forces him to play a game of Russian Roulette, probably the most drawn out one prior to Deer Hunter. Maitland afterwards escapes through a maze of red corridors, and is threatened by gas and crushing walls while the skull is seen floating through the air. It’s a wonderfully filmed surreal nightmarish vision that vastly improves on the short story’s equivalent which features a rather more conventional form of torture by Iron Maiden.

The visual opulence of this production is furthermore highlighted by some of the most stunning set designs to be found in a 1960s horror production (courtesy of Scott Slimon and Bill Constable).

The characters all live in individually styled surroundings emphasizing their various collecting interests: Maitland’s library; an opulent billiard room with tribal masks; a phrenologist’s apartment featuring a range of masks and dragons as well as lots of books, crystal balls and skulls; the paintings in the shady dealer’s room.

According to Deborah DelVecchio and Tom Johnson in Peter Cushing: The Gentle Man of Horror and his 91 Films all this was filmed in Shepperton Studios “on one composite set which consisted of five rooms and a hallway”.

The Skull is probably the closest we have to a Cushing/Lee-Team-Up in which Peter Cushing plays a Baddy against Christopher Lee’s Good Guy though Cushing’s character is never inherently evil just involuntarily under an evil influence. (And Lee is not really a Goody, just scared and not-evil.) In actual fact the film ramps up the body-count in comparison to the original short story where there were decidedly less killings and none of which were cause by Maitland. 

The film is a major tour-de-force for Cushing who features in the vast majority of the scenes and often is required to silently act within the confines of a dialogue-free atmospheric scenery.

The only other two actors in this production with any decent screen-time to speak off are Patrick Wymark as a wonderfully sleazy procurator of artefacts and Christopher Lee as a friend and fellow-collector who first of all gets embroiled in a bidding war over some demonic figurines and afterwards wants nothing more to do with them. It’s rare that we ever hear fear in Lee’s voice but this is one of the few occasions where he is made to portray a man at the end of his tethers.

Also watch out for Michael Gough as an auctioneer and Patrick Magee and Nigel Green as a coroner and police officer, all three in tiny blink-or-you-miss-them short appearances that beg the question why so many reasonably well known actors at the time constantly show up in what amount to little more than extra parts at that stage in their careers.

All in all, The Skull is one of Amicus’ best productions if not even THE best. Though the studio is mainly known for their portmanteau movies, it required a feature length adaptation of a short story to help them properly unleash a highly atmospheric feast. Some may consider this to be a bit short on actual horror but for me this is one of the most intriguing visual treats the studio had to offer.

Lee and Cushing after hours

I'm sure you've all seen these before, but they're really good.
This is what the kings of Hammer got up to when they had a minute or two to spare.

Great promo reel for DRACULA A.D. 1972

Pirates of Blood River (German Film Program)

Scans of the Illustrierte Film-Bühne #6165, dedicated to The Pirates of Blood River (aka Piraten vom Todesfluss). This is a 4-page film program providing a lengthy synopsis amid the credits and a collage of crucial scenes. Scan 1 and 4 are effectively the front and back page, 2 and 3 are the interior pages and should ideally be held next to each other. As is, the text is unfortunately disrupted.

Alas, none of the images can even attempt to properly portray the truly awful faux French accents used by most of the actors (including Christopher Lee).

“What Horror Means To Me” by Christopher Lee

I recently came across this amusing little piece in the 1959-60 edition of the Picturegoer Film Annual.
.
Picturegoer was a British film weekly that catered predominantly to the teenaged film fan, with plenty of colour pin-ups of the latest hunks and hotties. A little surprising, therefore, to find dear Christopher in such company, alongside features on The Pin-Up Way To Stardom ("Barbara Lang believes the emphasis should be on curves"), Lana Lives Down Her Past ("In Imitation Life Miss Turner wears many gorgeous gowns") and Can Bardot Cover Up? ("her favourite garments seem to be a towel, a blanket, or the most unsettling underwear").
The most interesting part of his piece, apart from the fact that he is already, in 1959, to be found ruminating on typecasting and the potential pitfalls of a career in horror movies, and explaining why he'd "rather call them films of fantasy", is its rather charming underestimation of their cultural longevity. Though he does, surprisingly perhaps, refer to Dracula as "another Hammer Horror classic" so soon after its savaging by many British reviewers, he sweetly notes in a picture caption that:

And fifty years later, you'll still be receiving them. Probably more, in fact.
. "I can honestly say that, from every angle, horror films have been a considerable asset in my screen career to date. Like may other actors, I started playing a variety of small parts, none of them eventful, but gradually increasing in size. When the chance came to play the Creature in The Curse of Frankenstein, I believed that, although my face would not be recognized, my name would then also become established. Surely enough, it did..."
. "I have never believed horror films to be bad for people's minds. I would prefer to call them films of fantasy, particularly the ones I have made. If a horror film is convincingly directed with good production values and sincere performances, it becomes more in the nature of a fairy story... I have not heard of a harmful affect being suffered by anyone who has seen a horror film in which I have acted."
. "Although these films have established me as something of a specialist in 'horror', I have since made four other films, in which I have played completely different characters, none of them remotely gruesome. I don't feel in any danger of becoming 'typed' if I continue to appear in horror parts such as in The Mummy...

"It is of the greatest importance to me nowadays that I should be known internationally. I am in the process of furthering this aim by working all over Europe. I have just made a film in Germany and hope soon to make one in Yugoslavia... With The Mummy, I seem to be following in the steps of Boris Karloff, of whom I have long been a great admirer. In fact, I recently made a film with him called The Doctor of Seven Dials. If I can have as successful career as this noted 'pioneer' into horror fantasy, I shall be well content."
.(Matthew Coniam)

She (1964)

Peter Cushing was “branded by Nature with the stamp of abnormal ugliness.” Women hated the sight of him. His overall appearance could only be described as “monkey” or “baboon” like.

There! I bet that caught your attention!

What I am talking about is, of course, not Peter Cushing, the man, but the character he played in Hammer’s She, or to be even more precise the way his character was described in H. Rider Haggard’s original novel.

Truth be told, however, not a lot of the original source material made its way into the final film.

Though the basic shell of the plot – Ayesha (“She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed”) discovers the reincarnation of her long lost true love from a few centuries ago and tries to make him an immortal as well– remained the same, there were quite a lot of differences between these two appearances of She.

Born in Norfolk (June 22, 1856), H. Rider Haggard spent a considerable amount of time in South Africa where he was appointed Master and Registrar of the High Court of Justice of the Transvaal and also made a living as an ostrich farmer, before returning back to England to study law. He made a name for himself by writing articles on Africa as well as novels based in the “Dark Continent”. Though already a popular author prior to writing SHE in 1886 (KING SOLOMON’S MINES, ALLAN QUATERMAIN), it was the success of that book that allowed to him to give up legal work altogether.

His most popular books were all based on either his male hero, Allan Quatermain, or his female femme fatale Ayesha. No wonder so that following AYESHA – THE RETURN OF SHE (1905) he even ended up having both of his heroes meet up in SHE AND ALLAN (1921), his last novel. Haggard died on May 14, 1925.

SHE, both the novel as well as the film, is a thoroughly entertaining yarn, one of those stories that’ll “give one hour of joy/to the boy who’s half a man/or the man who’s half a boy”. But where the original novel often thrives on gruesome imagery, the film makes more for a straightforward adventure yarn. Either way, they’re both excellent examples of sheer escapism of the best kind.

The novel SHE had previously been filmed several times. The very first adaptation dates back to 1899 (La Colonne de Feu), was directed by none other than cinematic pioneer Georges Méliès and a staggering one minute in length. Five more silent movies followed until the first sound version from 1935 with Broadway Star and future Congresswoman Helen Gahagan in her one and only film role proved to be the last movie based on the classic novel until Hammer’s version came along. Gahagan played opposite Western Star Randolph Scott as Leo Vincey and Nigel Bruce in a pre-Watson performance as Holly.

Following the Hammer film, only Sandahl Bergman made any kind of subsequent impression in the role (1985) in a film that capitalised on her short lived status as Queen of Fantasy Flicks (Conan, Red Sonya). There also appears to be a version from 2001 with Ophélie Winter (yeah, me neither) in the title part that seems to have died a very sudden death at the box office.

Haggard’s novel follows the very popular Victorian concept of presenting the story as an originally unpublished manuscript that fell into the hands of the author who subsequently assumes the role of an editor in the process.

Holly, the narrator of the manuscript, is a fierce ugly, openly misogynistic, but otherwise quite likeable Cambridge lecturer who one night receives a visit from a mortally sick friend who asks him to raise his young son, Leo, like his own and also presents a mysterious iron box, only to be opened upon Leo’s 25th birthday. That box contains ancient sherds and documents that trace back Leo’s ancestry to Kallikrates, a legendary Priest of Isis. It also describes a mysterious African tribe “ruled over by a beautiful white woman (…) who is reported to have power over all things living dead”.

Inspired by these ancient tales they head off to Africa together with their servant Job. Stranded on the Eastern shore of Central Africa they easily get captured by the Amahagger, a cannibalistic, matriarchic tribe who have the awful habit of “hot potting” their enemies, i.e. slowly killing off their victims while still alive by placing red hot pots upon their heads and roasting them alive. Regretfully, none of these gruesome images made it into the Hammer movie.

The three survive with the help of Billali, one of the few wise male leaders of this otherwise female dominated society. Leo gets “married” to Ustane, a local girl. Well, she simply walks over to this vision, hugs him and claims him her own. It’s that easy, y’see.

The Hammer movie in contrast starts by updating the action to 1918, where our three adventurers meet up in Palestine following WW1. Not knowing their future plans (“We survived the war. Let’s hope we survive this place.”) they decide to kill time in a local bar. No longer averse to women we see Cushing’s Holly more than openly lusty after a couple of belly dancers; one of them practically topless if it wasn’t for those enraging nipple cover-ups that ensure that the movie would still get a decent release in 1960s movie theatres. Cushing also gets involved in a bar brawl. As short as the scene lasts, but watching a womanising, bar brawling, hard drinking Cushing does make for some enjoyable viewing.

There is no trace of Leo (John Richardson) being Holly’s step son. They’re just comrades in arms. In actual fact, Cushing’s character is addressed as “Major” and seems to have commanded the other two.

There is also no indication of any prior premonition on the team’s side that Leo may have been related to Kallikrates. Instead Ayesha played by Ursula Andress makes a very early appearance when Lee’s Billali discovers Leo’s uncanny similarity to the ancient priest whose portrait covers a golden medal. Ustane (Rosenda Monteros) makes a dash for Leo and gets him kidnapped and knocked unconscious. When he wakes up, he sees Ayesha – and we get to listen to James Bernard’s beautiful leitmotiv - who promises everything he ever desired (including herself apparently) provided he follows a quest and makes it through the desert to her Kingdom. Not being able to resist that kind of offer our intrepid explorers go on a voyage that they barely survive if it wasn’t for Ustane’s help.

Ustane’s father – Andre Morell in a couple of screen minutes and inexplicably dubbed by George Pastell – is the leader of the Amahagger who have a much less prominent part in the film than in the novel where their rituals are described with nearly anthropological preciseness. Instead Ayesha surrounds herself with soldiers in ancient Roman uniforms (possibly left over from a previous film) which makes for a good image even if you’re left wondering where these originally came from.

Morell’s character is more in line with the novel’s Billali than Lee’s character in the film who comes across more of a Machiavellian power hungry second-in-command than the helpful friendly supporter of the original.

Once the three heroes meet up with Ayesha - in the film pronounced as “A-i-sha”, in the novel as “Assha” (the film’s version makes more sense) – in Kor (or Kuma as the city is renamed in the movie) the film’s plot appears much more similar to the novel’s, though it still shows some remarkable differences.

Ayesha reveals her true age and her belief that Leo is the re-incarnation of the true love she had killed all these centuries ago and invites him to join her in a bath in the flames that guarantee immortality. In the film Leo cures himself from a near lethal sickness and therefore passes Ayesha’s last test; in the book he only survived through her intervention. In a rage of jealousy Ayesha kills Ustane: In the novel this is done by magical means. In the film she is killed off-hand by Billali who produces her ashes in front of her father who subsequently starts a revolt that has no equivalent in the book.

I always disliked the attitude of purists who believe that a film should be 100% faithful to a source novel. It may be a pity that some of the original’s characterisations or scenes of cannibalistic terror were not transferred on film, but film and book are different media and as long as the film doesn’t bore me, I couldn’t care less about whether or not it is truly faithful. At times differences from the source can actually even improve the material.

Case in point: In Haggard’s novel Ayesha steps into the flames before Leo who is so enamoured that he has easily forgotten about loyal Ustane. The effect of the flames reverses the original anti-ageing effects (“She’s shrivelling up! She’s turning into a monkey!”). Jobs – a hapless, cowardish fool if ever there was one – dies of shock and fear and only Holly and Leo - who did NOT step into the flames, hence remain mortal - escape.

The film on the other hand makes for a more shocking and tragic ending. Apart from leaving Job (Bernard Cribbins) alive, Leo survives as an immortal and is forced to live throughout eternity now longing for Ayesha just as she had longed for his return. A fate that is far more touching in all its heart breaking implications than Haggard ever imagined.

She was Hammer’s first proper attempt at creating a monumental picture and with a budget of £323,778 their most expensive production ever. For once they left the confines of Deer Park and filmed the location shots near Eilat in Israel. And for once they probably also did not object to the A certificate that they received and that guaranteed that younger movie goers were also allowed to watch the film and that it would also attract a more mainstream audience than their usual fares. Had the film been more faithful in their adaptation of the novel’s more gruesome and violent elements, the company sure would have received objections from the censor and only been allowed an X certificate.

Hammer can’t be praised highly enough for hiring Ursula Andress for the title role: These days it is hard to imagine anyone else playing that part. The world’s most beautiful woman at the time simply had to be playing the world’s most beautiful legendary woman of all time. Though she is certainly not required to hold an Oscar winning performance, she sure leaves an unforgettable impression on the viewer. I’d follow her across the desert for her cute accent alone, though admittedly this was Monica Van Der Syl’s voice who had previously also dubbed her in Dr. No.

Andress was also kind enough to appear nude in the June 1965 issue of Playboy in order to help promote the film.

Michael Carreras had already decided on casting Andress when he saw her in the Bond movie and then patiently waited two years to have her free of other commitments (Fun in Acapulco, 4 For Texas) and ready to take on the title role, her first leading role.

It was up to makeup genius Roy Ashton to transform Andress’ ethereal beauty (I always wanted to write that!) into the hideous, decomposing 3000 year old body. There are more than obvious similarities to Ashton’s and Phil Leakey’s disintegration of Dracula in Hammer’s groundbreaking classic. Of course, it’s one thing seeing Christopher Lee decompose, but quite another to watch a similar scene with a beautiful lady.

No wonder Ashton welcomed the new challenge even though he found it slightly unnerving: “Yet despite all my preparatory work it was an unnerving experience to start my day by taking such a young and attractive woman and transforming her as she slept, into an ancient, gibbering crone!” (Greasepaint and Gore: The Hammer Monsters of Roy Ashton, p. 131)

Another problem was that he was only given one day to shoot the entire, complicated scene. If there are any doubts over some of the makeup effects, then the blame must certainly go to Hammer’s rushed schedule as opposed to Ashton’s true talent.

According to Aida Young, Andress – world famous for her beauty - found the transformation process so disturbing that she was reduced to tears after watching the first stage.

From a set design perspective it must be said that the monumental sculptures that greet the viewer when our heroes enter Kuma are easily on par with the best of its kind in other more expensive movies. The scenes where Ayesha looks over the old abandoned city in ruins – obviously miniatures - or where the flames are superimposed on the other hand all too obviously expose the financial limits of the budget.

Director Robert Day started his career as a Clapper Boy and Camera Operator before progressing to director status. He made a couple of Tarzan movies in the 1960s that can be seen as calling cards for this Victorian Pulp classic also based in Africa (Tarzan The Magnificent, Tarzan’s Three Challenges, followed post-She by Tarzan and the Valley of Gold, Tarzan and the Great River and Tarzan and the Jungle Boy) as well as directing Boris Karloff and Christopher Lee in their one outing together, Corridors of Blood. From the 1970s on his work was nearly entirely restricted to TV (episodes for the likes of Kojak, Police Story or Dallas). His last cinematic movie was the enjoyable turkey The Man With Bogart’s Face with cult favourites like Franco Nero, Sybil Danning, Herbert Lom, Yvonne de Carlo, George Raft and Victor Buono as well as Bogart lookalike Robert Sacchi in his one and only leading role. (A bit of a one trick pony that one.)

For She, Day did a tremendous job making this production appear bigger and more monumental than it really was.

Prior to She even the most ardent movie goer would have had trouble recognising John Richardson. He was – if at all - only really known for a part in Mario Bava’s Black Sunday. Following the success of She, Hammer, however, kept casting him again in One Million Years B.C. and The Vengeance of She. He subsequently starred mainly in a bunch of Italian flicks such as Umberto Lenzi’s Eyeball, Riccardo Freda’s Delirium or Michele Soavi’s The Church.

His classic good looks – one may even be forgiven for calling him bland - made for an ideal and convincing counterpart to Ursula Andress’ title character. Nothing more was expected of him than to stand around and look handsome; something he achieved magnificently.

Mexican actress Rosenda Monteros, who played Richardson’s native lover Ustane, was – apart from a part in The Magnificent Seven – virtually unknown outside her home country before shooting She and, despite a convincing performance as John Richardson’s fatefully loyal lover Ustane – and as such gaining the right to call herself a Hammer Glamour Girl - remained an international also-run. Though do look out for her in one of Karloff’s final performances in Mexican schlocker Cauldron of Blood, released after the actor’s death. She also starred in a French TV Series with Pierre Brice (Winnetou ou le Mascalero), in which he reprised his most famous part as Karl May’s hero Winnetou.

Hammer followed the success of She with The Vengance of She in 1968. Though allegedly also based on one of H. Rider Haggard’s novels this has even less to do with the original source and was penned by Peter O’Donnell, otherwise better known as the creator of Modesty Blaise.

To the Devil.... A Daughter (1975)

And speaking of scans.....

Here are some German lobby cards for To the Devil.... A Daughter. The German title Die Braut des Satans translates as "The Devil's Bride". Bride... Daughter... Same Difference.

Incidentally both Rasputin and this film are movies that I am going to (re)watch tonight. No time to write much about them, hence this lazy approach to blogging with my scans.

Hope you like them.

Rasputin - The Mad Monk (1965)

Scans from some of the promotional material for Hammer's Rasputin - The Mad Monk in my collection.