Hammer Films Biography

By 1967 censorship had relaxed considerably and a full-blooded version of Dennis Wheatley's The Devil Rides Out now seemed viable, especially given the author's continued success in the world market. Similarly, given their own success with the horror genre, there seemed no one better qualified to bring the novel to the screen than Hammer. Christopher Lee - who had met Wheatley at a lecture in the mid-fifties and read all his books - suggested to Hammer that they approach the author about filming one of his works. Terence Fisher was signed to direct it and Arthur Grant to photograph it, while to adapt Wheatley's rambling narrative, Richard Matheson was brought in, the result of his efforts being ready to film at Elstree and on location in Hertfordshire in August 1967. Set in the mid-1920s, the film is a classic struggle of good against evil and follows the attempts by The Duc de Richeleau (Christopher Lee) and his friend Rex Van Ryn (Leon Greene) to rescue their protege Simon Aaron (Patrick Mower), who has fallen in with a group Satanists, led by a charismatic and powerful figure simply known as Mocata.

Hammer's first release in 1969 seemed to be pretty much a safe bet though, for not only did Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed revive the Baron for the fifth time, it remains one of the best entries in the series.

Something of a mixed year for Hammer, 1970 produced a few mild attempts to broaden the horizons of their horror output, as well as further variations on their established money-makers. Taste The Blood of Dracula, their fourth Dracula movie, curiously fell between these two stools. Like the previous two Dracula's, however, Christopher Lee is again given too little to do as the Count, except to lurk in the shadows and advance the action with an occasional bloody deed, leaving it to the children of the three corrupt gentlemen to carry the story. But Taste the Blood of Dracula was not the only Dracula film to be released by Hammer in 1970. Scars of Dracula followed later in the year, performing badly at the box office, perhaps because audiences had by now had their fill of the Count.

1971 began with the full-time return of Michael Carreras to the Hammer company as its managing director. Sir James Carreras had in fact been looking to retire since around 1968, but only now got around to doing so (though for several years he continued to advise Hammer and bring them the occasional project). Then, in 1972, when a company called Studio Film Labs attempted to buy Hammer and rid it of Michael Carreras in the process, Sir James sold all of his stock to his son, which gave Michael a controlling interest, thus keeping the company in the family as it had always been. But the almost complete withdrawal of American financing from the British film industry, followed by its virtual collapse, meant that Hammer had some hard times ahead. This, combined with some very poor film choices, seemed to doom the company. In the meantime, though, their release schedule was as busy as ever, and for the time being at least things still looked reasonably rosy.

Though it is easy to chart Hammer's fall from box office grace with hindsight, in the early seventies it seemed that they were merely going through another slump of the kind they had outridden before. Unfortunately, the dearth of funding and the paucity of new ideas gradually took their toll on the company. Ironically, 1972 and 1973 proved to be their most prolific years with regard to output. Sadly, little of what they produced struck it big, and many of these films saw only limited release in America. Some didn't get released Stateside at all. Thus, with just the domestic market to rely on for their income, Hammer's days were truly numbered.

After the high productivity of the early seventies, Hammer's 1975 schedule contained just one release, yet another sit-com feature. This time it was the turn of Man About The House to get the big-screen treatment.