Creature Double Feature 6: FRANKENSTEIN CREATED WOMAN (Hammer/20th Century-Fox 1967)/FRANKENSTEIN MUST BE DESTROYED (Hammer/Warner Bros 1969)

Hammer Horrors were a staple of Boston’s late, lamented “Creature Double Feature” (WLVI-TV 56), so today let’s take a look at a demonic duo of Frankenstein fright films starring the immortal Peter Cushing in his signature role as the villainous Baron Frankenstein.

FRANKENSTEIN CREATED WOMAN was the fourth in Hammer’s Frankenstein series, made three years after EVIL OF FRANKENSTEIN. The Baron is back (after having apparently been blown to smithereens last time around), this time tampering with immortal souls rather than mere brain transplants. The movie features some ahead-of-its-time gender-bending as well, with the soul of an unjustly executed man transmogrified into the body of his freshly dead (via suicide) girlfriend, now out for vengeance!

Young Hans (Robert Morris), who watched his father guillotined as a child, grows up to work for muddle-headed alcoholic Dr. Hertz (Thorley Walters , in an amusing performance), who revives the cryogenically frozen Baron Frankenstein. The Baron has changed tactics, and is now interested in trapping souls before they leave the body, to be transplanted in new hosts. Hans is dating the crippled and disfigured Christina (Susan Denberg), daughter of the local innkeeper. A trio of rich, arrogant young pricks harass the pathetic Christina, and Hans defends her honor, until finally restrained by Daddy Innkeeper. The rash Hans demands he be let go, threatening his prospective father-in-law, who isn’t very fond of Hans anyway.

The three jerks break into the inn after hours for some more drinking, and wind up beating the innkeeper to death. Hans is arrested for the murder, but refuses to provide an alibi (he was having a go at Christina at the time). He’s   tried, convicted, and guillotined (like father, like son!), and the distraught Christina kills herself by jumping off a bridge. The Baron takes all this as an opportunity to prove his theories, and transmits Hans’s soul into Christina’s body, then performs surgery to fix her deformities. The now beautiful Christina has no memory of her past life, until the sight of the guillotine triggers her (his?) mind, and she (he?) sets out for revenge on the three young wastrels…

The far-fetched but clever script by John Elder (a pseudonym for Anthony Hinds) is intelligently directed by Hammer’s workhorse Terence Fisher, who began the series with CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN and ended it with 1974’s FRANKENSTEIN AND THE MONSTER FROM HELL. Cushing by now had the imperious, cocky Baron down pat, still retaining his enthusiasm for the part. Susan Denberg impresses as Christina, making a remarkable transformation from the shy, deformed barmaid to cold-blooded killer. The former model, who was a Playboy centerfold in August 1966, had a brief acting career that included the interesting but flawed AN AMERICAN DREAM and an episode of STAR TREK as one of “Mudd’s Women”. FRANKENSTEIN CREATED WOMAN is by far her biggest (and best) role, though her thick Austrian accent was dubbed by Nikki Van der Zyl, who performed the same task for Ursula Andress in DR. NO and Claudine Auger in THUNDERBALL .

Two years later, the Baron was at it again in FRANKENSTEIN MUST BE DESTROYED, a gruesome little tale filled with sex and violence. Fisher again directs and Cushing stars, this time staying at a rooming house run by the fetching Anna (Veronica Carlson ). Anna’s fiancé Karl (a pre-stardom Simon Ward) works as an intern at the local insane asylum. Frankenstein’s former colleague Dr. Brandt is locked up there, and the Baron needs to unlock his mind to discover his secret for freezing brains before death sets in (or something like that). Frankenstein finds out Karl’s been selling the asylum’s drugs on the side to help pay for Anna’s mum’s residence there, and the cagey Baron blackmails the young man into helping him kidnap Brandt (the randy Baron also helps himself to Anna, violently raping her when Karl’s away).

The duo abscond with Brandt, who winds up suffering a heart attack, so Frankenstein and Karl abduct asylum director Prof. Richter (Freddie Jones, FIREFOX) and transplant Brandt’s brain into his body. Brandt’s wife (Maxine Audley, PEEPING TOM ) recognizes Frankenstein on the street, and he takes her to see her husband wrapped in bandages (not realizing he’s in Richter’s body now). Brandt awakens later, discovers what horror he’s been put through, and seeks revenge, resulting in a fiery finale ripped straight from a Corman/Poe film!

Cushing is a charmingly chilling Baron in this one, a thoroughly unlikable scoundrel who’s introduced in a pre-credits scene wearing a Michael Myers-looking mask and lopping off a man’s head with a scythe! There are plenty of good frights to be had, including the scene where Brandt’s dead body pops up from the garden when a water main bursts. Thorley Walters once again adds comic relief as an inspector on the wily Baron’s trail. FRANKENSTEIN MUST BE DESTROYED is my personal favorite of the Hammer Frankensteins, but both of these films are worthy for fans of Hammer Horrors. In fact, together they make a perfect Creature Double Feature!

Halloween Havoc!: JUNGLE WOMAN (Universal 1944)

Paula Dupree, the Ape Woman of CAPTIVE WILD WOMAN , returned in a sequel titled JUNGLE WOMAN a year later. While the former film has a kind of goofy charm to it, the sequel is a wretched concoction that’s not worth the time it’ll take me to write this – but I’m gonna do it anyway, so bear with me!

JUNGLE WOMAN is the very definition of a ‘quickie’, and I don’t mean that in a good way. A good chunk of the film is made up of stock footage from the original, including the stock footage that film used from Clyde Beatty’s THE BIG CAGE. Even so, it took three screenwriters to come up with this nonsense! The movie starts out okay, with a female fiend attacking a man, who gives her an injection, shown in shadow. But it quickly bogs down as we’re at a coroner’s inquest, with Dr. Carl Fletcher being held responsible for the death of Paula Dupree. Flashbacks (and that stock footage) tell the tale of what happened the night Cheela the gorilla was shot – but not killed, as we thought! Fletcher nursed the ape back to health, and bought Walters’ old Crestview Sanitarium. Cheela disappears, and Paula shows up, as do Fletcher’s daughter Joan and her fiancé Bob.

The mute Paula finally speaks when she gets a load of Bob – which was a big mistake, since Acquanetta (as Paula) has trouble with even her limited dialog. Bob and Joan take a moonlight canoe ride, and their boat mysteriously capsizes. Joan claims “something” was trying to drown her, and simpleton handyman Willie is suspected. But when Willie is discovered dead, Fletcher realizes The Ape Woman is on the loose…

Acquanetta is pretty bad (and she doesn’t even turn into the monster until the bitter end, when she’s already dead and lying on a morgue slab!), but romantic leads Lois Collier (Joan) and Richard Davis (Bob) are even worse. J. Carrol Naish manages to draw some sympathy for his character Dr. Fletcher, not an easy task, given the ludicrous dialog. Speaking of dialog, Evelyn Ankers gets top billing here, yet speaks less than fifty words (excluding the stock footage) at the inquest – and yes, I counted! Milburn Stone is back as Fred Mason, horror fan favorite Samuel S. Hinds is the coroner, Douglass Dumbrille the DA, and ex-cowboy star/future PLAN 9 participant Tom Keene plays a fingerprint man (under the screen name Richard Powers). Eddie Hyans makes an inauspicious film debut as Willie, who’s obviously patterned after Lenny in OF MICE AND MEN, but reminds me instead of an old Warner Brothers cartoon:

 Bad as JUNGLE WOMAN is (and it’s bad), Universal soon came up with a third chapter in the Paula Dupree/Ape Woman saga. Is it any better than this turkey? Put it this way: it can’t be any worse!

Forever Young: Ingrid Pitt in COUNTESS DRACULA (20th Century Fox/Hammer 1971)

Iconic Ingrid Pitt became a horror fan favorite for her vampire roles in the early 1970’s.  The Polish-born actress, who survived the horrors of a Nazi concentration camp as a child during WWII, played bloodsucking lesbian Carmilla in Hammer’s THE VAMPIRE LOVERS, based on the classic story by J. Sheridan LeFanu, and was a participant in the Amicus anthology THE HOUSE THAT DRIPPED BLOOD opposite Jon Pertwee in that film’s best segment. Finally, Ingrid sunk her teeth into the title role of COUNTESS DRACULA, a juicy part where she’s not really a vampire, but a noblewoman who gets off on bathing in blood, loosely based on the real life events of Hungarian Countess Elizabeth Bathory.

Portrait of the real Elizabeth Bathory

Bathory (1560-1614) was the most infamous female serial killer in history, officially found guilty of 80 murders, yet a diary allegedly found puts the count as high as 650! Bathory was a sadistic woman who delighted in torturing young women, through beatings, burning, freezing, and cannibalism. She was found guilty of her atrocities and imprisoned until her death. Local gossips claimed she delighted in bathing in her victim’s blood, but there is no proof. The film uses that part of the legend as it’s starting point, and Bathory’s story  becomes just another Hammer Gothic horror tale.

Elderly Countess Elizabeth Nadasdy (Bathory’s real married name), shortly after her husband’s death, accidentally discovers bathing in the blood of virgins restores her youth and beauty. With the aid of her long-time lover Captain Dobi and nurse Julie, she procures young women to kill and keep her young, going so far as to have daughter Ilona kidnapped so she can impersonate her. The Countess has designs on young Lt. Imre Toth, and must maintain her bloody ritual in order to have him fall in lover with her. Castle historian Fabio becomes suspicious, and discovers the truth, but is hanged by Dobi before he can alert Toth. Ilona escapes, and Elizabeth is willing to kill her to obtain that precious virginal blood and stay young… .

The movie was a bit disappointing to me. The horror quotient is low, with more bare boobs than bloody murders (not that there’s anything wrong with that!). Pitt is good as always (though her heavily accented voice was dubbed) in a part where she’s more a Jekyll & Hyde character than vampiric countess. Her old age makeup hides her beauty, which is revealed whenever she takes her blood baths (with a giant loofa!). Other cast members include Nigel Green as Captain Dobi, Lesley-Anne Down as Ilona, Sandor Eles (EVIL OF FRANKENSTEIN) as Lt. Toth, and Peter Jeffrey as the local inspector.

Director Peter Sasdy came from the ranks of British TV, and among his horror credits are TASTE THE BLOOD OF DRACULA, HANDS OF THE RIPPER , DOOMWATCH, and NOTHING BUT THE NIGHT. His COUNTESS DRACULA isn’t one of his better efforts, it moves too slow and doesn’t have enough horror to keep an enthusiast like me interested. The only thing that truly held my interest was Ingrid Pitt’s performance, and if you’re a Pitt person, you’ll want to watch this one. Otherwise, go find a copy of THE VAMPIRE LOVERS.

Halloween TV Havoc!: Boris Karloff in “The Crystal Ball” (from THE VEIL TV Series, 1958)

You all remember Boris Karloff’s pre-THRILLER supernatural anthology series THE VEIL, right? Of course you don’t!! That’s because it never aired! It was being filmed at Hal Roach Studios when they went belly up, and only 10 episodes were filmed. Karloff had a role in most of the episodes, including this spooky oddity entitled “The Crystal Ball”, presented here for your Halloween enjoyment. (The series itself is available through Something Weird Video for all you Karloff Kollectors!):

Halloween Havoc!: FRANKENHOOKER (SGE 1990)

Wanna have a good time? Got any money? Then go pick up FRANKENHOOKER, Frank Henenlotter’s tacky tale of terror that sets Mary Shelley’s classic novel on its severed head and features an explosive (literally)  combination of the goofy and the gruesome, with plenty of black comedy  strewn among the body parts.

Jeffrey Franken’s fiancé Elizabeth Shelley is killed when the remote control lawnmower he invents runs her down, turning her into “one big jigsaw puzzle”. Saving Elizabeth’s head, Jeffrey vows to rebuild, probably after watching too many reruns of THE SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN. Seems our boy, who’s a med school dropout now working for New Jersey Gas & Electric, likes to tinker around with mad science, as evidenced by the floating brain with one eyeball he keeps in a fish tank. His grand scheme involves rounding up hookers and getting them loaded on his latest invention, a deadly lethal form of “super crack”!

But Jeffrey’s rock candy causes the ho’s to explode all over the room, so he gathers up the goods in a garbage bag, bringing them to his secret lab, located in his mother’s suburban garage. A fierce electrical storm is brewing, and Jeffrey quickly cobbles together the sexiest parts to revive his lady-love. Elizabeth returns from the dead, but carries memories of the deceased whores, becoming a freakish Frankenhooker. She shambles back to her old stomping grounds of Times Square, with Jeffrey in hot pursuit. Little does he know Zorro, the ho’s pimp, is on the prowl, and wants his hookers back…

FRANKENHOOKER is off-the-wall exploitation fun, with cult director Henenlotter in top form. The man behind such oddities as BASKET CASE and BRAIN DAMAGE, Henenlotter’s bizarre Grindhouse-inspired film is loaded with gore, nudity, and a warped sense of humor sure to please even the most jaded of horror fans. His script, co-written with former FANGORIA editor Robert Martin, is chock full of lunatic bits like the aforementioned floating brain and Jeffrey’s penchant for drilling holes in his frontal lobe to calm himself down.

James Lorinz spends a lot of screen time alone, and delivers a fine performance as the cracked weirdo Jeffrey. Former Penthouse Pet of the Year Patty Mullen channels Elsa Lanchester’s mannerisms as Elizabeth/Frankenhooker. There are cameos from cult icons ranging from TV horror host Zacherley (as a ghoulish TV weatherman) to Shirley Stoler (THE HONEYMOON KILLERS) to MARY HARTMAN’s Louise Lasser as Jeffrey’s mom. The hookers are all straight from the pages of PLAYBOY and PENTHOUSE magazines, and are appropriately slutty. FRANKENHOOKER makes for outrageously fun viewing this Halloween season… just be sure you put the kiddos to bed before watching!

Halloween Havoc!: DIE! DIE! MY DARLING! (Columbia/Hammer 1965)

Miss Tallulah Bankhead  jumped on the “Older Women Do Horror” bandwagon with 1965’s DIE! DIE! MY DARLING!, a deliciously dark piece of British horror from the good folks at Hammer. It was Tallulah’s first screen appearance since 1953’s MAIN STREET TO BROADWAY, and the veteran actress is a ball of fire and brimstone playing the mad Mrs. Trefoile, a feisty religious fanatic who locks up her late son’s former fiancé in an attic room in order to save her mortal soul.

Things start out innocently enough, as American Patricia Carroll (Stefanie Powers) travels to England to be with her new fiancé Alan Glentower (Maurice Kaufman). She’s received a letter from her deceased ex’s mother and agrees to pay her a visit, despite Alan’s protestations. Driving to Mrs. Trefoile’s ramshackle old farmhouse, Pat discovers the old woman’s more than a bit odd, holding daily church service for her servants, dressing all in black, and eschewing any food with flavor. Mrs. Trefoile freaks out when Pat wears a crimson outfit to dinner, insisting she change to a more conservative color immediately. Pat soon finds out Mrs. Trefoile considers Pat her daughter-in-law now – for life! Not only that, she locks Pat in an attic room and piles on the psychological and physical torture to convert Pat from her evil, secular ways. A deadly game of cat and mouse ensues as Pat desperately tries to escape from the gun-toting, Bible-spouting madwoman and her flock.

Tallulah has a field day as Mrs. Trefoile, performing sans makeup and her hair pulled severly back. It’s a bold change of pace for the glamourous actress, and Tallulah pulls it off in her own inimitable style. Mrs. Trefoile is the very model of sexual repression, and her devotion to her late son’s memory is illustrated as she talks to him and sleeps with his childhood teddy bear. A lesser actress would have gone over the top, but Tallulah manages to play things totally straight and creates one of the genre’s scariest psycho-biddies. She’s cast against type as the pious fanatic, as her sexual and hard-partying exploits were well documented by the press. Tallulah Bankhead made less than two dozen pictures, spending most of her career on the stage, but shows she was a master of movie acting with this juicy part.

Stefanie Powers is more than up to the task of acting opposite Tallulah as Patricia. DIE! DIE! MY DARLING! was made a year before Stefanie starred as TV’s THE GIRL FROM UNCLE, and is her best movie role. Later she teamed with Robert Wagner and veteran Lionel Stander for another hit series HART TO HART (1979-1984). Mrs. Trefoile’s servants include Peter Vaughn (GAME OF THRONES) as the lustful Harry, Yootha Joyce (HAVING A WILD WEEKEND ) as his powerful wife Anna, and a young Canadian named Donald Sutherland as the simple-minded Joseph. Wonder whatever happened to him?

Richard Matheson’s  screenplay takes it’s time building the suspense, slowly ratcheting things tighter and tighter for poor Pat until the final frightening crescendo. Horror fans are well aware of Matheson’s work in novels, short stories, film, and television. This was his only foray into ‘Grand Dame Guignol’ territory, and it’s one of the genre’s best. Director Silvio Narizzano made his feature film debut here; he’s best remembered today for the British hit GEORGY GIRL. Hammer Films’ original title to DIE! DIE! MY DARLING! was FANATIC, but when released in America Columbia changed it to play off Tallulah’s famed catchphrase (she called everyone “dah-ling”). Miss Bankhead was not amused, but by any name, this is a terrifying piece of work that belongs on your Halloween watch list. Bravo, Tallulah!

Oh No SHE Didn’t!! (MGM/Hammer 1965)

…didn’t manage to keep me awake, that is! That’s right, I actually dozed off in the middle of SHE for a good fifteen minutes! This so-called adventure film, a remake of the rousing 1935 Merian C. Cooper production starring Helen Gahagan and Randolph Scott, is based on a novel by H. Rider Haggard, a pretty big-deal adventure novelist back in the day, who also wrote the novels KING SOLOMAN’S MINES and ALLAN QUARTERMAIN. The ’35 version was filled with sumptuous Art Deco sets and a dynamic score by Max Steiner, and proved popular with moviegoers of the day.

But the times, they do a-change, and so do tastes. Hammer Films decided to do this remake thirty years later, with Ursula Andress in the title role. ONE MILLION YEARS B.C. caveman John Richardson plays Leo Vincey, who’s the spitting image of Queen Ayesha’s long-lost love Kallilkrates. Hammer’s top tag-team Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee are in the cast, as is British comic actor Bernard Cribbins. An exciting story, a top-notch cast… what could go wrong?

Well, to put it simply, the whole thing’s boring, with no chemistry at all between sexy Ursula and stiff John. Maybe he’d spent too much time in the stone age, I don’t know, but they just don’t click. Cushing and Lee are good as always, though the sight of Cushing boogieing with belly dancers in the opening scene is unintentionally funny. Lee has his moments as Ursula’s high priest, but they’re few and far between. The film just felt hopelessly outdated, and dragged on and on. Zzzzz…

How boring was it? Well, I woke up in time to catch the final twenty minutes or so, hoping for a rousing finale. It wasn’t… I should’ve stayed asleep! And this was in the middle of the day, mind you, not during some late night movie marathon. Surprisingly to me, SHE was a box office hit, and Hammer actually made a 1968 sequel starring Richardson and the immortal Olga Berova, which tanked (I tried watching it and ended up turning off the TV).  So my recommendation is you watch the older version and skip this comic book nonsense. And not even a good comic book, mind you… I’m talking like Charlton or *gasp* Gold Key!

Halloween Havoc!: Christopher Lee in DRACULA HAS RISEN FROM THE GRAVE (Hammer/Warner Brothers 1968)

“You just can’t keep a good man down” states the  poster’s tagline for 1968’s DRACULA HAS RISEN FROM THE GRAVE, and how right they were! This fourth entry in Hammer’s Dracula series (and third with Christopher Lee as the Count…1960’s BRIDES OF DRACULA had Peter Cushing’s Van Helsing battling a different bloodsucker) takes up where DRACULA- PRINCE OF DARKNESS left off. Dracula’s still buried under the ice, but the villagers are still fearful of living in “the shadow of evil” cast by Castle Dracula. Monsignor Muller (Rupert Davies) rides into town, berating the citizens for not attending church, and their priest (Ewan Hooper) for letting them. The Monsignor and the reluctant priest trek up to Castle Dracula to perform an exorcism of the evil, but the cowardly priest won’t go all the way up. While Monsignor performs the Latin rites, bolting the castle door with a golden cross, the priest (who remains nameless, by the way) tumbles downhill to the frozen water, cracking the ice. Blood dripping from his forehead makes contact with the dead vampire’s lips and…Dracula lives!

Dracula demands to know who put the cross upon his unholy castle. The priest, now under the Count’s command, is forced to tell him, and Drac and his new minion head out to Klienenberg, where the monsignor lives with his sister Anna (Marion Mathie) and her beautiful daughter Maria (the beautiful Veronica Carlson). Maria’s boyfriend Paul (Barry Andrews) is an atheist, which doesn’t sit well with the Monsignor.  Dracula originally planned to turn his wrath on Monsignor Muller, but when he discovers there’s a beautiful niece, his vengeance takes a different, more sinister, route.

Freddie Francis directed this outing, taking the reigns from Terence Fisher. Francis was a distinguished cinematographer (ROOM AT THE TOP, THE INNOCENTS) whose horror credits include DR. TERROR’S HOUSE OF HORRORS, THE SKULL, TORTURE GARDEN, the truly twisted GIRLY, and TALES FROM THE CRYPT (he’s also responsible for the abysmal Trog, but hey, let’s cut the guy some slack). Francis’s DP on this film, Arthur Grant, used some special lenses to give the scenes with Dracula a colored spectrum around the edges, adding a nightmarish quality. Francis, who died in 2007, won Academy Awards for his cinematography on SONS AND LOVERS (1960) and 1989’s GLORY.

Hammer Films were getting a bit more randy by this time, with Carlson and Barbara Ewing (barmaid Zena) showing plenty of cleavage. The blood quotient went up, too, especially in the finale with Dracula ending up impaled on that huge golden cross. Christopher Lee was crueler than ever as The Count, snarling out what few lines he had. Lee’s beastial interpretation set the standard for vampires to come, for better or worse. Sporting those bloodshot eyes, imposing his will on the weak, Christopher Lee has a field day in DRACULA HAS RISEN FROM THE GRAVE. Would he return from the dead in yet another sequel? Like the tagline says, “You just can’t keep a good man down”!

Halloween Havoc!: Christopher Lee in DRACULA- PRINCE OF DARKNESS (Hammer/Warner Brothers. 1966)

Christopher Lee returns to the role of the undead Count in this direct sequel to Horror of Dracula. The movie even begins with that film’s climactic battle between Dracula and his arch-nemesis Professor Van Helsing (Peter Cushing, who also played Hammer’s Dr. Frankenstein). DRACULA- PRINCE OF DARKNESS takes place ten years later, and while not as good as the original, it does have some scary moments.

Four English tourists are traveling through the Carpathian Mountains, heading to Carlsbad. Father Sandor (Andrew Keir) warns then to steer clear of “the castle”. Their coach driver refuses to take them any further when darkness begins to fall, leaving them stranded. A riderless horse and carriage appears out of nowhere, and they commandeer it to travel the rest of the way. But the horses instead take them straight to the forbidden castle. The door has been left open, and they find a table for four awaiting them. Helen (Barbara Shelley) has an ominous feeling about the place. She screams when she sees a creepy, gaunt figure enter the room. He states his name is Klove (Phillip Latham) and his  Master has left instructions to serve all weary travelers. When the quartet ask if the Master will be joining them for dinner, Klove intones, “He’s dead….his name was Count Dracula.”

Now the fun really begins, as Helen’s husband Alan (Frances Matthews) snoops around at night, discovering a secret crypt room. Klove murders him and hangs him by his feet, adds ashes to the sepultcher, then slits Alan’s throat. The blood comingles with the ashes, and Count Dracula is reanimated! Klove leads Helen to Alan’s body, where Dracula is waiting. Sporting a pair of blood-shot eyes, he puts the bite on Helen. The other couple, Charles and Diana (no, not THAT Charles and Diana!) manage to escape by brandishing crosses.

Charles and Diana (Charles Tingwell, Suzan Farmer) come across Father Sandor in the woods, who takes them to his monestary. The good Father recounts the legend of Count Dracula to the frightened couple, and introduces then to Ludwig (Thorley Waters), a seemingly harmless former victim of the Count. Ludwig likes to eat flies (shades of Dwight Frye!). Things begin to heat up when Dracula and Klove arrive at the monestary and, with the aid of Ludwig, kidnap Diana. Charles and Father Sandor trek to Castle Dracula to hunt the fiend down, in a unique ending involving “running water” (one of the many ways to stop a vampire, according to legend…in this movie, anyway).

It is said the reason Lee remains mute during DRACULA- PRINCE OF DARKENESS is because he thought the dialogue sucked (yes, pun intended). I didn’t find the rest of the cast’s dialogue too bad, so I wonder just what the problem was all about. Even mute, Lee is an imposing Count, commanding attention in every scene he’s in. Barbara Shelley (VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED) makes a damned good vampire herself, while Phillpi Latham as Klove is appropriately creepy. The movie’s definitely got atmosphere, but it wasn’t sufficiently gory enough for me. DRACULA- PRINCE OF DARKNESS is a minor entry in the Lee/Hammer canon, but worth a look nevertheless. Especially during this Halloween season!

Gods of the Hammer Films 3: Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, and THE MUMMY (1959)

(third in a series)

The gang’s all here in 1959’s THE MUMMY – Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, director Terence Fisher, writer Jimmy Sangster – but the result is far different than CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN and HORROR OF DRACULA. Based on Universal’s 40s Mummy series, not the 1932 Karloff classic, THE MUMMY is as slow moving as…well, as a mummy! Try as they may, the film suffers from budget constrictions and a poor script. Definitely not one of Hammer’s shining moments.

It’s 1895, and the Banning family (father Steve, son John, uncle Joe) are on an archeological expedition in Egypt when they stumble upon the tomb of Princess Ananka. Father finds the sacred Scroll of Life and, upon reading it, is driven mad by the sight of mummy Kharis (Christopher Lee) returning to life. Mehemet Bey (George Pastell), servant of the great god Karnak, vows vengeance on those who’ve dared to desecrate the tomb.

Three years later, in jolly old England, John (Peter Cushing) visits his dad in the sanitarium. Dad warns him of the curse of Karnak, but the son doesn’t believe him. Bey has ventured to England, and hired a pair of drunkards to transport some “relics” to his new abode. The relics in question contain the mummified remains of Kharis. When they pass by the sanitarium, Dad senses Kharis’ presence, smashing his windows, and the spooked drunks lose their cargo in a swamp. Bey goes to the swamp and using the Scroll of Life (no tanna leaves necessary), revives the mummy and sends him to kill the infidel.

John and Uncle Joe discuss the legend of Ananka and Kharis (in a flashback sequence to 2000 BC). They’re interrupted by Kharis, who throttles Joe. John shoots the monster but bullets don’t affect it. The police inspector (Edd Byrne) doesn’t believe John’s story, and neither does John’s wife Isobel (Yvonne Furneaux), who of course is a dead ringer for dead Ananka. Kharis returns to kill John, but is stopped in its tracks when it gets a load of Isobel.

The inspector does some investigating, and comes around to John’s way of thinking. He warns John not to try anything rash, so naturally John pays a visit to his new Egyptian neighbor. Bey thought John was dead, but plays it cool. The two have an interesting debate abut religious beliefs, with John goading the foreigner about the “third-rate god” Karnak. Later, Bey leads Kharis back to the Banning home, and the mummy chokes John until Isobel interrupts again. Furious Bey commands Kharis to kill Isobel, but the mummy turns on its master, killing Bey and carrying Isobel off to the swamp. John and the police pursue them and the good guys finally win the day.

I can’t really fault the cast and crew for the failure of THE MUMMY. The Universal Mummy saga just isn’t on a par with the source material from previous Hammers (Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker, Arthur Conan Doyle). The “comic relief” drunkards make me long for Wallace Ford (Babe in the originals). Hammer’s Mummy movies, unlike their Frankenstein and Dracula series, were few and far between (1964’s CURSE OF THE MUMMY’S TOMB, 1967’s THE MUMMY’S SHROUD, 1971’s BLOOD FROM THE MUMMY’S TOMB). And also unlike the other series, there’s no continuity from one film to the next. Different movies, different mummies. Hammer did much better with their undead Count and mad Doctor Frankenstein. They should’ve let THE MUMMY stay in its tomb.