James Carreras
Born Jan. 30th 1910 – Died June 9th, 1990

James Carreras was the son of Enriqué Carreras, who along with William Hinds, would form the company that would later evolve into Hammer Films. First starting just as a distribution company, they figured instead of buying other films to distribute, they could make their own films and distribute them, cutting out the middle man. Then Hammer Films was born. James Carreras would be the head of that division until he retired.

The great thing about Carreras was that he knew little about the actual making of films. He left that up to the people who knew what they were doing. But he did how to sell the movies. In fact, he was known for selling a movie before a script was even written! They would come up with a title, create a poster, and sell the movie on that alone. Then it was up to the screenwriter to whip up a story and go from there. And it worked. A lot.

Carreras’ policy was about as simple as you could get: make films that are guaranteed to make a profit. In those days, with these smaller film companies, sometimes your financing on the next film would rest on how well your last one did at the box office. And this is something that Carreras seemed to excel at. He was always bringing in fresh female faces to appear in their newest films. Starting the trend that would become known as Hammer Glamour. Again, he knew what would sell.

He was the head of the company until 1971, when he gave control over to his son, Michael.