DB7

After watching Taste of Fear recently (originally rejected by Hammer until the success of Psycho) I got to thinking about their selection of scripts during the final years (countless takes on the Dracula legend) and novels/stories that may blossomed under Hammer's gothic touch.

Two that I'm surprised they neglected were any of M.R. James Victorian stories; in fact Hammer rarely delved into the supernatural, and the creaky old tale of Sweeney Todd that had been adapted before and after.

Sadly I can't help but feel the stories reliance on reinventing earlier films like Dracula and Frankenstein who ever more elaborate spins may have been to their detriment and ultimate closure.

noglea

M.R. James does seem to have been served a lot better by British televison rather than cinema. I'm suprised that he was not only ignored by them but also by Amicus. With their love of compendium films you would think that they could have filmed three or four of his tales for one feature film.

I wonder what it would have been like if they had filmed one of James Herbert's films. They have been often criticized for failing to adapt to the times. 'The Rats' was published in 1974 and so if they had filmed it a year or two later it could have made a very interesting film. It certainly can't have been worse than the film that was eventually made of it. They could have made a film of 'The Fog' years before John Carpenter's unrelated film of the same name and I also think that 'The Spear' would have been made a very good film.

Ramsey Campbell seems to have been overlooked by British Cinema.

smudge

The repetitive formula films from Hammer were probably down to the complex series of distribution deals they had in place, particularly in their later period. Everybody wanted a success and some easy box office, so it was simplest to fall back on Lee, Cushing, Dracula and Frankenstein - all of whom guaranteed a certain level of ticket sales.

I've just started reading Wayne Kinsey's 'HAMMER FILMS : The Elstree Years' and have had my eyes opened as to just how influential these distributor politics were. Up to now I always thought that it was a clean break from Bray in 1966, but am surprised to find that a number of Bray 'classics' from 1965 were in fact a 'concession' from Warners.

Warners Bros-Seven Arts owned a considerable stake in Associated British at Elstree (at least 45%) and as a condition of guaranteed funding and distribution, actively encouraged Hammer to make the move to their Shenley Road studios. After their first Elstree film, THE NANNY, they were meant to make the move sooner rather than later, but Warners conceded to let them make the back-to-back classics at Bray (REPTILE, DRACULA PRINCE OF DARKNESS, PLAGUE OF THE ZOMBIES, RASPUTIN) and a few other films before they finally vacated the Thames-side lot in 1966.

So, after that little digression, I'd say again that Hammer were very much in the hands of their distributors. You have to remember that Hammer were really after projects with a track record and quick successes, from their radio adaptations days onwards.

With the Gothics I suppose it was the old adage, "If it isn't broke, don't fix it..." and yes, this was very much to their detriment eventually.

Smudge

Welcome to my house. Enter freely, and of your own will...

dylan

M.R. James' fans would have torn their hair and turned purple if Hammer had filmed any of his stories. They hated Miller's Whistle And I'll Come To You which they saw as a Freudian critique of James and his work.

ChristineCB

I think the lazy choice was sticking with Draculas and Frankensteins. Easy. Lazy. But it also let the audience begin viewing Hammer as a lazy, uncreative studio that relied on the same two story-lines, over and over.

Hammer may have never been viewed as avant-garde, but it's reputation for a broad range of film types was reduced to period Gothics to Frankenstein/Dracula. Finding these Hammer Noirs and having so much fun watching them, I have to wonder, "Where did these creative people go? What happened - Nurse Ratched found ALL of them?!!"

smudge

Easy. Lazy.

To these you can add sloppy - but I don't think that any of these kicked in for a good while at Hammer in respect of their monsters series. For the majority of this time, to an extent, Hammer were simply giving not only the distributors, but the fans also more of what they wanted. Yes, that was pretty much more of the same in these core subjects.

But you also have to respect the fact that these films had a damned good run. In my opinion it didn't really begin to sour until around 1970, the period of SCARS OF DRACULA/HORROR OF FRANKENSTEIN, with the latter being far too tongue-in-cheek for it's own good.

Then you had the mis-timed 'trendy' DRACULA A.D. 1972 and the completely off the wall SATANIC RITES OF DRACULA. Add to this films like LUST FOR A VAMPIRE and it's obvious that Hammer were getting more than a little sloppy and, to some degree, disrespectful to their key audience. Not a great boon to survival, that attitude...

As for the ladies and gentlemen who created the noirs, one can only assume that they didn't appreciate the burgeoning 'House of Hammer' style and simply moved on.

Smudge

Welcome to my house. Enter freely, and of your own will...

Sgt Dudfoot

That strikes me as being more than a little unfair. Both the original story and the teleplay manage to tingle the spine which is what they are supposed to do, and they both do it well. The Freudian element mentioned I decry because in essence it is virtually meaninglesss. You would have to be au fait with Freud and his ideals for this to seep through. It may have been Miller's wish to do it this way, but I doubt if that would have been picked up by his general audience. The Miller film still stands today as one of the most haunting celluloid pieces in existence. That said, I'm glad Hammer didn't do it, it didn't need a 'popular take'.

Why the lack of Springheel Jack films though? Great story, based on "fact" and we only have Tod Slaughter version. Surely that's a great British story/legend needing brought to the publics eye again. A good idea for the re-emergence of Hammer methinks.

DB7

True enough, and the Slaughter version is pretty lamentable. He was far too old and overweight to be 'spring-heeled.' Would probably make a good action/adventure today in the Robin Hood mould.

ChristineCB

Smudge, yes, when I see their '50s and '60s output, I've been pleased and even excited by many of those films. But once 1970 hit, their 'interesting to Christine' film output for any year never comes close to any of the '60s 'year in film' catalog.

The distributors - not the fans - are the ones that make guesses about what to order, what to 'demand', etc. "Oh, for the past 4 years, our fans love the Dracula movies, so that's all we want."

They seemed to disregard the obvious 'too much of a good thing' concept. If the '70s films ever grossed more, it was probably due to monetary exchanges and inflation - not more interest, I'll bet.

Yes, lazy, easy AND sloppy. Oh well, at least Christopher Lee got to wear bell bottoms, and Peter Cushing was still doing costume roles! I enjoyed their post-Hammer work so much, and I guess that's why I still love seeing even these awful '70s Hammer films. But their '60s stuff is even more fun.

D Cairns

I actually like the 70s DRACULAs better than their predecessors. I like the original Lee DRACULA best of all, then we have mostly uninspired sequels, and then everything goes nuts with AD 1972 and SATANIC RITES, which is at least entertaining. As Douglas Sirk said, trash plus craziness is closer to art than straight trash can ever be.
As to the Miller WHISTLE, it's creepy and intriguing, and so what if not everybody would get the Freudian side (I don't, and I probably wouldn't be impressed by it if I did, I hate Freud)? Not everything in a film has to be crystal clear to everybody in the audience, if it did we'd have some pretty dumb films. Oh wait, we do.
I think Hammer, with their enthusiastic, thick-eared, sledgehammer approach, would have been all wrong for MR James. James Herbert would have made some sense though. There was a kind of patriarchal, conservative ethos and it was just totally out of step with what was happening in horror elsewhere in the seventies: Cronenberg and Romero weren't making films about society defeating the threat of difference: young audiences didn't want to see that!
Plus they had Michael Carreras writing movies, a man with aboslutley no concept of story.