Hammer Films

  • Terence Fisher – The Brides of Dracula (1960)

    1951-1960Hammer FilmsHorrorTerence FisherUnited Kingdom
    The Brides of Dracula (1960)
    The Brides of Dracula (1960)

    Quote:
    The Brides of Dracula is a 1960 British horror film made by Hammer Film Productions. Directed by Terence Fisher, the film stars Peter Cushing, David Peel, Freda Jackson, Yvonne Monlaur, Andrée Melly, and Martita Hunt.

    The film is a sequel to Hammer’s original Dracula (US: Horror of Dracula) (1958), though the vampires possess abilities denied to vampires in the previous film, much like those in the original novel. Alternative working titles were Dracula 2 and Disciple Of Dracula. Dracula does not appear in the film (Christopher Lee would reprise his role in the 1966 film Dracula: Prince of Darkness) and is mentioned only twice, once in the prologue, once by Van Helsing.

    Shooting began for The Brides of Dracula on 16 January 1960 at Bray Studios. It premièred at the Odeon, Marble Arch on 6 July 1960. The film was distributed theatrically in 1960 on a double bill with The Leech Woman.Read More »

  • Peter Collinson – Straight on Till Morning (1972)

    1971-1980CultHammer FilmsPeter CollinsonThrillerUnited Kingdom

    Quote:
    Shy Brenda Thompson writes naive children’s stories to amuse herself. Stifled and desperate for a man of her own, she leaves Liverpool, telling her mom she’s pregnant, and gets a job in a boutique in London. She moves in with the promiscuous but good-hearted Caroline but the mod set shuns her for her plain looks. Then she kidnaps a strange young man’s dog, so as to perhaps get to know him while returning it. The young man turns out to be Peter, a psychopath with a predilection for killing beautiful things. He renames Brenda Wendy, and they start a hopeful, if strange, relationship. It might have a chance, if it weren’t for Peter’s murderous secrets.Read More »

  • Seth Holt – The Nanny (1965)

    1961-1970Hammer FilmsMysterySeth HoltThrillerUnited Kingdom

    Synopsis:
    Bette Davis is an English nanny whose charge is a rude 10-year-old Joey, just discharged from a disturbed children’s home where he’d spent two years undergoing treatment for drowning his little sister in the bath. He returns to an unloving father, fragile mother, and doting nanny — whom he hates. Suspicion arises again when his mother is poisoned, and Joey continues to insist Nanny is responsible. Joey contends the nanny was responsible for his little sister’s death, and only the upstairs neighbour girl believes him.Read More »

  • Daniel Birt – Third Party Risk (1954)

    Daniel BirtFilm NoirHammer FilmsMysteryUnited Kingdom

    Quote:
    Vacationing at a resort hotel in Spain, a man discovers he is the only one not mixed up one way or another in murder, drugs and microfilm smuggling. But, the police are after him!Read More »

  • Terence Fisher – The Last Page (1952)

    Terence Fisher1951-1960CrimeFilm NoirHammer FilmsUnited Kingdom

    Quote:
    The Last Page was the original British title for the 1952 murder meller Man Bait. Hollywood’s George Brent plays a married bookstore owner who is blackmailed by scheming Diana Dors. The subsequent chain reaction of events leads to the death of Brent’s invalid wife. It gets worse when Dors is killed by her partner-in-crime Peter Reynolds, and Brent is accused of the crime. The bookseller’s faithful secretary Marguerite Chapman comes to the rescue. As with many British programmers of the 1950s which starred American actors, The Last Page was distributed in the U.S. by Lippert Productions. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie GuideRead More »

  • Ken Hughes – The House Across the Lake (1954)

    Ken Hughes1951-1960DramaFilm NoirHammer FilmsUSA

    Quote:
    Written and directed by Ken Hughes (the 1967 Casino Royale), Heat Wave employs the regular film noir convention of a man who has run out of rope confessing his story to an unseen presence (the audience). Novelist Mark Kendrick (the film’s requisite American, Alex Nicol, also known for Jacques Tourneur’s Great Day in the Morning) is found by a mysterious figure at the bar where he is drowning his sorrows, and Mark’s ready to spill them out. Cut to Mark wrestling with his typewriter at his lakeside home, looking across the water at an opulent house and the fancy lights on its dock (how Great Gatsby!). Carol Forrest (Hillary Brooke, Abbott and Costello Meet Captain Kidd), a rich and glamorous blonde, phones him and asks him to ferry her friends across the lake, and of course, he ends up ferrying himself to his own doom.Read More »

  • Montgomery Tully – Five Days (1954)

    1951-1960CrimeFilm NoirHammer FilmsMontgomery TullyUSA

    Quote:
    A failed business deal forces James Nevill to blackmail his weak-willed friend into murdering him so that his wife can collect his insurance, but circumstances suddenly change.Read More »

  • Cyril Frankel – Never Take Sweets from a Stranger (1960)

    1951-1960Cyril FrankelDramaHammer FilmsThrillerUnited Kingdom

    Peter Carter, his wife Sally and their young daughter Jean move to a sleepy Canadian village, where Peter has been hired as a school principal. Their idyll is shattered when it’s discovered that Jean has been the victim of the pedophile patriarch of the town’s most powerful family, and their cries for help are met with resistance from their new friends and neighbours.Read More »

  • Don Chaffey – One Million Years B.C. (1966)

    1961-1970AdventureDon ChaffeyFantasyHammer FilmsUnited Kingdom

    Synopsis:
    Caveman Tumak is banished from the Rock tribe and joins the Shell Tribe until he is banished from them as well. One of their women, Loana leaves with him as they face the harsh prehistoric world.Read More »

Back to top button