Tony Tenser: RIP?

[rustywhite]

Writer MJ Simpson posted on another board that a reliable source had informed him the British producer Tony Tenser passed away on Dec. 5.

As a die-hard horror movie fan I will always be endebted to Mr. Tenser for his contributions to so many great films.

[Steve Crook]

Originally Posted by rustywhite Writer MJ Simpson posted on another board that a reliable source had informed him the British producer Tony Tenser passed away on Dec. 5. As a die-hard horror movie fan I will always be endebted to Mr. Tenser for his contributions to so many great films.

Whenever I see something like that I ask the person that posted it where they heard it. Rumours abound on the internet even more so than elsewhere.

In this case I don't see any obits in The Times, The Telegraph or The Guardian and I'd have thought that he would have made one of those if he has died. Maybe not for a few days afterwards but it's nearly a week now.

So I don't say it's not true, but I do doubt it

Steve

[francesgumm]

If you go to kamera.blogspot.com it confirms it.

[Steve Crook]

Originally Posted by francesgumm If you go to kamera.blogspot.com it confirms it.

I wouldn't exactly call that confirmation, but it does make it more possible

Steve

[rustywhite]

Mr. Simpson posted it on the Classic Horror Movie Film Boards at Monsterkid.com. The board is habited by a number of well-known film journalists and authors. I thought that Mr. Simpson, being a respected British film journalist himself might know something, so I passed the tip on to others. I also put a question mark on the thred so as to not say this was 100% true, but just likely.

[Dave Rattigan]

If it's true, I am surprised it has not appeared in the news yet. As well as being a major figure in British horror, wasn't he quite influential on the sixties pop scene, too? Not something I know much about.

[rustywhite]

http://www.fangoria.com/news_article.php?id=5600



Producer Tony Tenser, who died last Wednesday, December 5 at age 87, wrote in a note at the front of FAB Press’ superb account of his life and work, BEASTS IN THE CELLAR by John Hamilton (pictured with Tenser): “I was always happy in the background and I never for one moment considered I was making films for anything other than profit, certainly not for posterity.”
This dapper figure with his smart suit and, to the end of his life, a neatly trimmed mustache certainly never courted publicity the way that, say, Roger Corman did, nor was he as overtly cynical as many of his contemporaries. Film historians may have overlooked his work in favor of those more obvious British horror icons—Hammer and Amicus—yet in his own quiet way, Tenser helped to define the genre in the 1960s.
Tenser produced about 30 features between the early ’60s and the mid-’70s, just over half of them horror pictures of one sort or another, but he started out with that other perennial exploitation favorite: sex. He combined his experience as a film publicist with that of strip club owner Michael Klinger, and the two men set up their own cinema club in London and swiftly moved into making “nudie” films to show there. The largely forgettable THE BLACK TORMENT was the duo’s first venture into the Gothic horror field Hammer had created, but it was their next two films that really made an impact.
REPULSION and CUL-DE-SAC were Roman Polanski’s first English-language pictures, and it is to Tenser’s immeasurable credit that he gave the wunderkind director artistic freedom—even letting him go over budget, confident that Polanski knew what he was doing and that the resulting films would make money. The results speak for themselves.
It was this knack for spotting rising stars—directors whose artistic vision could be employed within a blatantly commercial business model—which resulted in a string of films through Tenser’s Compton and Tigon companies that were hits at the time and have only accrued further critical respectability as the years have passed. Probably the brightest star, and certainly the one that burned fastest, was Michael Reeves, who made THE SORCERERS and WITCHFINDER GENERAL (a.k.a. THE CONQUEROR WORM) for Tenser before his untimely death.
WITCHFINDER has long been considered among the finest-ever British horror movies, but it is only relatively recently that another Tenser film, the Piers Haggard-directed BLOOD ON SATAN’S CLAW, has been elevated to a comparable status. Though one is strictly historical and the other supernatural, both evoke—through magnificent photography, art direction and music—a beautiful yet terrifying England of superstition and fear, where life really could be nasty, brutish and short.
But the fate of the exploitation producer is so often to mix hits with misses, and alongside these films, Tenser was also responsible for such embarrassing misfires as THE BLOOD BEAST TERROR (a.k.a. THE VAMPIRE BEAST CRAVES BLOOD, with Peter Cushing vs. a giant moth) and the terrible sci-fi spoof ZETA ONE. Other horror titles included CURSE OF THE CRIMSON ALTAR, which teamed Christopher Lee, Boris Karloff and Barbara Steele; Michael Armstrong’s THE HAUNTED HOUSE OF HORROR (a.k.a. HORROR HOUSE, starring Frankie Avalon!); the television spinoff DOOMWATCH; and the Freddie Francis-directed Lee/Cushing team-up THE CREEPING FLESH. Mixed in with these were such oddities as the comedy anthology THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN DEADLY SINS, the Raquel Welch-starring British western HANNIE CAULDER and a version of boy-and-his-horse children’s classic BLACK BEAUTY.
By 1974, the British film industry was in terminal decline, and Tenser opted to pack it all in after producing Pete Walker’s FRIGHTMARE. He moved away from London, turned his business interests to property development and forgot all about his movies—until he was invited to attend screenings by Manchester’s Society of Fantastic Films nearly 20 years later.
Tenser returned to Manchester in 2005 after the publication of BEASTS IN THE CELLAR. Though clearly frail, he was as spruce as ever, and delighted to sign copies of the book and talk about the old days. It was very obvious that he was proud of his work and of the way that films he had helped create, though intended as purely commercial product, were being genuinely appreciated years later. That apparent dichotomy of commerce and art truly typified Tenser himself, a true gentleman who managed to be at one and the same time a keen and successful businessman and a genuinely warm and engaging human being. —M.J. Simpson

[Steve Crook]

Originally Posted by rustywhite Fangoria - America's Horror Magazine ...

That's the same article (but more directly) that you referred to above.
I still don't see it reported anywhere else, which is odd.

I'm not saying it's not true, just that I'd expect it to be reported in more than one place. And they no longer report it at Monsterkid.com

Steve

[cletus awreetus]

I find it odd as well that it is not reported in the press

[image45]

its become that sad time of year when we loose a lot of good people!

[Dave Rattigan]

Originally Posted by image45 its become that sad time of year when we loose a lot of good people!

Yeah. There always seems to be one on Christmas Day.

[dogstar]

What with Thanksgiving being so close to Xmas we should perhaps refer to the end of the year as turkeygeddon. Or perhaps not.

By the way Cletus, are you a Frank Zappa fan by any chance?

[Steve Crook]

Originally Posted by Dave Rattigan Yeah. There always seems to be one on Christmas Day.

It makes it difficult for the family because they can't think about Christmas without thinking of the person they lost then.

We always toast "Absent friends" at the Christmas feasts

Steve

[John Hamilton]

Tony passed away in his sleep on 5th of December. The was a small private service for family and close friends held yesterday morning in Southport where he had lived since retiring from films in the seventies.

I contacted Gil at the Manchester Fantastic Film site on sunday night and asked him to spread the word which is where MJ picked up the news from. The national press, presumanly feeding off, the net have also been in touch to get some details so 'real' obits will follow.

Tony could be a difficult man he could be awkward but he knew what he wanted and how to get it. And he did so with enormous humour and charm. He was also very modest but I know he would have been pleased with the reaction and kindess that has been shown.

David McGilivray said it best in 1992 when he said, 'the British film industry is gasping its last because there is no-one like Tony Tenser to kick it back to life.' What was true then is still true now and I for one will always regret that Tony isn't around to deliver that kick

[ddock54]

I liked Tony Tenser he was responsible for some of the great British B movie horror films ,which have since been elavated to A list cult films..God Bless