Okay Hammer Dracula fans, start saving those pennies, because there will be a book coming out this summer that you’re going to want to add to your library. Thanks to the wonderful (and incredibly talented book publishers) people at Peveril Publishing, they will continue to put out amazing looking volumes dedicated to the Studio that Dripped Blood, and that we all love.
Richard Wordsworth
Born Jan. 19th, 1915 – Died Nov. 21st, 1993
There are a few actors that can have such an impact on screen…without ever uttering a single word. One of those was Richard Wordsworth when he played doomed astronaut Victor Caroon in Hammer’s breakout film The Quatermass Xperiment (1955). Playing the only ‘survivor’ from a rocket flight into space, he comes back less of a man, but more of something else. Just by facial expressions, he shows the audience the internal hell he is going through as he slowly transforms into something we’ve never seen before. Hammer scholar Wayne Kinsey says his performance ‘steals the show’, while authors Tom Johnson and Deborah Del Vecchio state his performance is a ‘Karloff level performance’.
He only made two other horror films, both for Hammer. The next one was a small role as a worker in a hospital for the poor, run by Peter Cushing’s Dr. Frankenstein. Once again, even though his role his small, it is very memorable. But it his last role for Hammer, that of a poor and simple beggar, that once again pulls at our hearts, in Curse of the Werewolf. Thrown to the dungeon and forgotten, turning into a beast over the years, he attacks and rapes the beautiful Yvonne Romain who was locked in the jail with him.
He was the great-great-grandson of the famous poet Williams Wordsworth, and would later tour the states in a one man play based on his life and works. He almost followed his father into the clergy, but was later drawn to the stage, enrolling in the Embassy School of Acting in London. He would work with many of the greats of the English stage, such as Alec Guinness and John Gielgud, before appearing in a trilogy of Hammer Horrors. And while he only appeared in three titles, we are able to see the incredible talent pouring out from this man….sometimes even without a single word.
Tom Chantrell
Born Dec. 20th – Died July 15th, 2001
It’s a very old story how Hammer CEO would take a poster art of a new film to the distributors and sell the picture, only to then give the poster to the screen writer and tell them to write the movie! One of men responsible for those posters was Tom Chantrell, who turned out over 7000 designs in his career, averaging about 3 posters a week! If you’re a fan of Hammer films then you are well aware of his work, even if you didn’t know it. His designs highlighted the selling points of what Hammer was trying to do…sell tickets! Just try doing a Google image search of his name and see the hundreds of works of art that this man did in his career.
His first film poster was for the 1938 film The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse, and he continued to work well into the late ’70s. When the ’80s came, that style of poster art seemed to be replaced by cheap computer Photoshop works of “art”. He did work a bit designing video covers, but it just wasn’t the same.
But at least that before his death, he was able to learn and realize that his artwork, as well as many other great poster art, was now being regarded as great works of art and had become highly collectable. Never one to give himself the credit he deserved, Chantrell was very modest, calling a good poster a “ripsnorter”.
Maybe one day this style of poster art will come back. We can always hope.
For a great interview with Chantrell, along with some great examples of his work, as well as many other Hammer posters and celebrities, head over to Hammer Horror Posters.
The Dead That Walk
By Leslie Halliwell
Published by Continuum Publishing Company, 1986. 262 Pages.
Most people know Caroline Munro as either a Bond Girl or the work she did with Hammer Studios. But Caroline has worked all over the world, with many great and talented people. So while we briefly asked her about Hammer, we tried to venture more into the other countries where she worked. This interview was conducted at that Cinema Wasteland show, in April of 2007. We especially want to thank Caroline for taking the time to talk to us.
Jack Asher
Born Mar. 29th, 1916 – Died Apr. 1991
One of thing that Hammer films are most known for are the way they look, especially their early Gothic horror titles that really catapulted them into popularity. While the talents on the screen of Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, and the rest of the stellar actors used, and even the talented directors and writers, one of the reasons these pictures looked like they did was because of the cameraman, Jack Asher.
He started in the film business as something as simple as the guy who was to open and close the door while filming was being done. Eventually, he was asked to join the camera crew by Roy Kallino, at the bottom, learning the basics like loading the film into the magazines and working his way up, to eventually becoming a camera operator himself. He worked on some of Hammer’s early color films and is definitely party of the reasons those films look like they did. He worked on CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN, HORROR OF Dracula, Revenge of Frankenstein, The Man Who Could Cheat Death, Brides of Dracula, The Mummy, as well as a few of their non-horror titles.
He worked for Hammer for less than 10 years before basically being let go because Hammer deemed him too slow for their fast-paced shooting schedules. Damn shame if you ask me.
Greasepaint and Gore: The Hammer Monsters of Roy Ashton
Bruce Sachs and Russell Wall
Published by Tomahawk Press, 167 pages.
Hammer Films: An Exhaustive Filmography
By Tom Johnson & Deborah Del Vecchio
Published by McFarland & Company, Inc., 1996. 410 pages.
Hammer Films: The Unsung Heroes – The Team Behind the Legend
By Wayne Kinsey
Published by Tomahawk Press, 2010. 484 pages
Can there ever bee TOO many books on Hammer Films? I think not. Especially when they are like this one. So many books have been written about the films that Hammer made or on a few of their stars. But what about all the little people, as they say?We all know that film making is a huge collaboration of many different people to make the final output look like it does. Usually that attention goes to the stars, and maybe the writers and directors, or even the special effects people. But there are other names out there that worked just as hard that usually get very little, if any, credit. All the people behind the scenes, whether it was an assistant director, in the wardrobe department, or even the ones working in continuity. These people are all part of the reason that these films are what they are. When it comes to Hammer Films, Wayne Kinsey is trying to change all of that with this book.
Inside Hammer
By Jimmy Sangster
Published by Reynolds & Hearn, 2001. 160 pages.
Sangster had already written autobiography, Do You Want It Good Or Tuesday?, which was very interesting, but he felt that he didn’t cover enough about Hammer that his fans probably wanted. With this new title, Sangster sticks to really what he’s famous for, and that is working with the Studio that Dripped Blood! Sangster covers every film that he worked on with the famous studio; from his first film Dick Barton Strikes Back as a lowly assistant to his last film Fear in the Night as writer, producer and director. Here are some my favorite parts of the book:
kitleyskrypt.com 