Running Scared - Insider Tales From The House Of Hammer

Running ‘til
They’re Hammered

Running Scared -
Insider Tales From
The House Of Hammer
by Phil Campbell with Brian Reynolds
Peveril Publishing
No visible ISBN

Subtitled Insider Tales From The House Of Hammer, Philip Campbell and Brian Reynolds’ tome Running Scared is a lovely, short but refreshing read about a time period roughly between 1969 and 1972, where these two both worked as runners for the illustrious British film company Hammer.... both in their Wardour Street office in London (I always look for the preserved Hammer House fronting when I am up there to this day) and in the various studios and on location, where they were sometimes assisting in production to one degree or another. Before I dig in though, an apology is in order, on the odd chance either of the writers ever stumble on this review...

I bought this 2015 book from the two writers in that same year, from a stall run by them at the Camden Film Fair. I remember chatting with them for a bit and telling them about this blog, dropping them a card and telling them to wait a few months and then, after that, they should find a review of this book on here. Well, what can I say? There’s always a shinier, newer book around the corner and, although this book didn’t stray too far from the top of the pile, a seven year wait for me to read and review was not my intention (nor a two year blog publication date after that, for that matter). So my apologies to Phil and Brian for not getting my act together quicker. It’s only me working this blog and I’m doing my best, honest.

Okay, that out of the way... I bought this book knowing nothing about it other than when I discovered the writers on a stall at the fair. But I had a hunch that, if anyone was going to turn up the stories you don’t officially get on various accounts of the Hammer films in various authorised editions, then it’s going to be the non-star ‘little people’ who were hovering in the background. It’s always the same in any company... it always seems to be the average man in the office who is fully aware of what’s really going on and what to do about things, while management go about creating their own problems for themselves and it seems it’s true of film companies too. In fact, I’ve noticed over the past couple of years that this is also true of the people running the country... the people in power demonstrate a lack of common sense and an unbelievable lack of awareness of things going on and, yeah, the people in the street are the ones having to deal with their folly. So it is, in some ways, although certainly only very politely touched upon here, in various film studios too.

The book is breezily written by Phil, who is the main focus although several of Brian’s accounts of his experiences with various personnel and iconic stars also find thier way into the tome. Phil writes with a lot of humour and, as I’d suspected, it’s packed with information that you won’t necessarily find in other, more high profile accounts of the days of Hammer. Basically, as runners, the guys would do a variety of jobs which could be considered a bit ‘run of the mill’ (while also being quite essential to the smooth running of a production, actually) including things like buying biscuits, transporting film cans, photocopying various documents and call sheets and distributing them, running errands for cast and crew... stuff like that. So, as you can probably guess, people like these two can certainly have some stories to tell.

And what stories! If you want to find out about many things such as giving Ingrid Pitt a piggy back ride to keep her costume out of the mud and being asked to deposit her weekly pay down her ample cleavage because her hands were full, then you’ve got the right book. Or that time Jenny Hanley got a fly in her eye and nearly killed herself and Phil because she was giving him a lift in her car and they nearly ran a red light. Or some interesting times with my favourite Lady Of Hammer, the lovely Caroline Munro, who Phil saw in action on both her Hammer movies, Dracula AD 1972 (reviewed here) and Captain Kronos, Vampire Hunter.

There are also his observations about the times when tragedy struck... for example, during the making of one of my favourite Hammer Horrors, Blood From The Mummy’s Tomb (reviewed by me here), he tells of how Peter Cushing had to leave on his first and last day of filming one of the main roles when his wife died, how his replacement Andrew Keir managed to damage his leg and had to go to hospital on his first day and how the director died half way through filming.

And, yeah, it’s all in here. Encounters with the likes of Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Caroline Munro, Ingrid Pitt, Kate O’ Mara and a whole host of others too numerous to mention here, not to mention actors from neighbouring sets such as Vincent Price when he was filming his second Dr. Phibes movie.

I won’t go on as this is only a quickie but I would like to conclude by heartily recommending Running Scared - Insider Tales From The House Of Hammer, not because it by any means replaces any of the more exhaustive or academic works on the studio but, more because it’s got stories and photos (many of them) which are quite unique to this book and the memories of Phil Campbell and Brian Reynolds... you won’t see too many of these anywhere else folks. Also, of course, because it’s entertainingly written and I had an absolute blast with it. A quirky, fun and very informative book, for sure.

The House That Dripped Blood

Dwelling Point

The House That Dripped Blood
UK 1971 Directed by Peter Duffell
Amicus/Second Sight Blu Ray Zone B

The House That Dripped Blood is the third of the famous Amicus portmanteau style horror films, following on from Dr. Terror’s House Of Horrors (reviewed here) and Torture Garden (reviewed here). There had been a bit of a longer gap between this and the previous film but the format is more or less the same, we just don’t have Freddie Francis in the director’s chair. Instead, we have Peter Duffell working from a script by Robert (Psycho) Bloch, who had also written Torture Garden (for better or worse).

This one is kind of in between the previous two in terms entertainment value, I believe. It’s not quite as adventurous or intriguing in concept as Dr. Terror’s House Of Horrors but it’s certainly not as dull as the first hour or so of Torture Garden. In the previous films you had linking stories consisting of a train carriage and a wax museum fortune teller respectively... this one has a story about a police inspector who is trying to find out why a big film star has gone missing from his home, the titular dwelling which, despite that title, doesn’t once drip blood and, indeed, was nearly awarded an A certificate from the UK film censors if the film makers hadn’t pleaded for a stronger rating, fearing that the lack of credibility of a movie which such a light rating would harm its chances with horror film fans.

So each story is of somebody telling the inspector about one of the previous inhabitants of the house and the demise which was visited upon them. Actually, the house seems to have absolutely nothing to do with things at all other than at the insistence of a policeman and the estate agent (a Mr. Stoker, if vampire fans are paying attention). I’m guessing that setting the vast majority of the action of each tale there, where the main characters of each segment found themselves back at the house between adventures, was appealing because you didn’t have to go to go out and shoot on other locations quite so much.

The five segments are Method For Murder, Waxworks, Sweets To The Sweet, The Cloak and the framing story... Framework. Here’s a quick run down of the stories as they appear:

In Method For Murder, Denholm Elliot plays a crime/horror writer who rents the house and moves in with his wife to give him the proper atmosphere to write his next best seller. Early on he devises a new character, Dominik, an escaped strangler from a mental asylum. Alas, not long after he creates him, he starts seeing Dominik around the house and grounds. I have to say, the 'gaslighting' plot is pretty obvious here and the final reveal is thoroughly expected. Perhaps that’s why, after this reveal, something else is piled on which, to be honest, seems a little hasty and somewhat of a clumsy attempt to add an extra bite to the proceedings. Not the best idea but the segment plays along nicely up until then.

The second segment, Waxworks, follows the adventures of Peter Cushing, who moves into the house for his retirement, looking forward to reading, music and gardening his remaining years away pleasantly. However, when he visits a local Wax Horror Museum, he is enthralled by the exhibit of Salome, who startingly resembles a woman he obviously once loved but lost. He is told by the owner of the waxworks that the model is based on his own dead wife, who was a murderess. Joss Ackland, a friend from Cushing's past and an equally unsuccessful rival for the same girl, it transpires, drops by on a visit and also discovers the enchanting Salome. Needless to say, with both gentlemen under the spell of the wax model, something is amiss and there are some violent (but in no way graphic) resolutions in store for certain characters.

Up until now, the stories feature killers rather than anything or anyone that would bring this film into the horror genre but, luckily, the next two segments do stray back into that classification, starting with Sweets To The Sweet, featuring Christopher Lee as a widower who moves into the house with his young daughter, who he won’t let have a normal childhood. Instead, he hires a new 'live-in' tutor played by Nyree Dawn Porter but, although the teacher and the little girl hit it off, the real villain of the piece is not necessarily who you think it might be. Well, okay, it was for me but I’m sure some people will not be expecting the way this one goes.

Finally we have the fourth segment, The Cloak... which dovetails also into the resolution of the framing story. This is the story of a famous star of horror films, played by Jon Pertwee not long after he started playing the lead role in Doctor Who. He moves into the house and is in a new movie with an actress played by the stunning Ingrid Pitt (who also played in Countess Dracula, reviewed here and The Vampire Lovers, reviewed here). The tale tells of the pompous actor who is working on sets that are not good enough for him and with costumes he doesn’t think will do. So he goes to a local shop to buy a decent cloak for his vampire character. And it’s nice that the owner of the shop, who sells Pertwee the cloak, is none other than Catweazle himself, Geoffrey Bayldon. Of course, less than a decade later, the two would be regularly starring opposite each other in Worzel Gummidge, with Pertwee as Worzel and Bayldon as The Crowman. Anyway, Pertwee gets more than he bargained for because, whenever he dons the cape he gets the urge to suck blood, casts no reflection and, in a scene which really pushes the comic nature of this last segment (horror and comedy have always been natural bedfellows), levitating and flying around his room. Pertwee really does a great job here and, as usual, relishes his over-the-top comic performance (which would sometimes come out in his Doctor Who work from time to time too). The end of the segment has a twist reveal and a case of vampirism that is then, more or less, repeated less than ten minutes later in the wrap up to the film, followed by the estate agent breaking the fourth wall and asking if, perhaps, a member of the audience would like to rent the house next.

And, it’s not brilliant but it is fairly entertaining and, with a cast that strong, a pleasure to watch. There were some nice little touches and references to both film and horror history and, strangely, a bit of unintentional future casting foreshadowing, as there is a scene where Christopher Lee is reading the exact same paperback edition of Lord Of The Rings that my father used to read and revisit again and again in the 1960s and 70s. Who knew at the time that he would, decades later, go on to play one of the main characters in that work.

There’s also some nice camerawork and shot design throughout. This isn’t brightly coloured with primaries like some of the films which it can name as its kin, instead relying on a mostly subdued colour palette throughout, barring a scene or two at the Horror Museum where it strays briefly into Italian giallo/horror territory. However, the director does do some nice things with the camera which offsets the lack of dynamic colour in the film. For instance, a shot of Christopher Lee’s head front and centre of the screen when he answers a phone call is contrasted by the big staircase and landing around the hall, which we can see up and above past Lee’s head as his daughter walks around it. Another really nice moment is where the Inspector is being told about one of the previous owners of the house and he is in extreme foreground with his head on the right of the shot and with his arm coming up from the left of the shot, holding a cigarette. The policeman telling the story is also in deep focus in the middle groove of the shot made by the negative shape of the foreground character and his arm. So, yeah, some great shot ideas here.

The music, by a guy I’d not heard of called Michael Dress, is serviceable and appropriate throughout most of the film, really coming into its own in the framing story whenever anyone goes inside the gloomy house, where he manages to weave a quite creepy and subtle atmosphere into the music. This matches a visual device of the director, who tends to sometimes cut around to sinister objects in the house by way of short breaks from scene to scene to imply a time transition. The composer seems to have died only a few years after this, at the tender age of forty years old, so I guess that’s why I’ve not come across him before.

And I don’t have too much more to say about The House That Dripped Blood, to be honest. I enjoyed this much more than Torture Garden and am really looking forward to watching the next film in this unofficial series of Amicus Portmanteau horrors. That will hopefully be sometime very soon as one of the segments also brings it into the realm of... ‘Christmas movie’.

800th Post - The Ladies Of Hammer

For this, my 800th Blog Post I thought I'd return to territory from what is still my most popular post on here, my 300th Blog - Faces Of Caroline Munro (see here). So, in that spirit, above is my tribute to just a few of those ladies who helped make those wonderful Hammer Horror films of the past so memorable. Click on the image above to "embiggen". ;-)

The Vampire Lovers

The Lady Is A Vamp

The Vampire Lovers

UK 1970 Directed by Roy Ward Baker

Hammer Films/MGM Midnite Movies Region 1

I wonder if, when Sheridan Le Fanu wrote his short vampire story Carmilla back in 1872, the writer had any idea of the influence and shadow his character would have in the years following its publication. Pre-dating Bram Stokers vastly popular character by a good 25 years, it was obviously one (of a few) influences on the novel Dracula and, while spawning nowhere near the number of movie adaptations and explorations as Stoker’s fanged fiend, Le Fanu’s story has had more than its fair share of movie adaptations over the years... starting with Dreyer’s take on the material and other stories which were published in the same collection as Carmilla, right up until the present day.

I’ve seen a few fair of these myself but I’d never seen the Hammer take on Le Fanu’s tale of Carmilla and her... ooh, ancestor Countess Marcilla Karnstein... or is there something more sinister going on here? ;-) Vampires tend to “live” a long time I guess. Certainly the Hammer Karnstein Trilogy comprising The Vampire Lovers, Lust For A Vampire and Twins of Evil (and actually Captain Kronos Vampire Hunter if you really want to get into it) is one of the more high profile versions of this story. So I finally purchased the old MGM Midnite Movies double bill of The Vampire Lovers (backed with Countess Dracula) and put it on not expecting very much either way from it, to be honest.

Now I’ve read some of Le Fanu’s work (thanks to a cost effective Wordsworth Classics Edition collected edition of his stories... check out their website here) which includes Carmilla and I have to say that, having read it, I don’t think it’s a particularly easy story to adapt into another medium and certainly less cinematic than I would expect of something which has been inspirational source material to dozens of directors over the decades. It’s certainly a style of storytelling which is big on atmosphere and low on action and so, as I said in my previous paragraph... I wasn’t expecting much from it either way.

I’m happy to report however, that The Vampire Lovers is a great success as both an artistic experience and an entertainment. It’s certainly one of the best films that I’ve seen riding out of the Hammer stable and I’ve seen a fair few of them,.

There are some obvious attractions for the full, red-blooded male (if such a creature exists) to be found in the movie in the form of the phenomenal Ingrid Pitt in fine form as Carmilla, but also in the bevy of buxom beauties used to decorate the shot compositions with such budding flowers as the lovely Kate O’Mara and Madeline Smith... there’s a lot of softcore nudity in this film which doesn’t balk at pushing the, perhaps a tad more subtle, lesbian tinted overtones of the original text even further into the foreground with various actresses sharing nude scenes together and I believe that this was a very conscious and deliberate move by Hammer at this time. I’m certainly not complaining about that though (well that’s a surprise then) as I’m quite partial to the aforementioned young thespians draping themselves over each other in various states of undress... but there are other, just as potent pleasures to be found in this little gem of a movie.

For starters, the male cast of the movie are all very good, including the three main male protagonists played by Peter Cushing, George Cole and Jon Finch (Mr. Jerry Cornelius himself). With a cast like that it’s kinda hard to go wrong, to be honest.

Then, of course, there’s the atmosphere. The Vampire Lovers had me enthralled right from the opening of the movie in a pre-credits sequence that conjures up an atmosphere of gothic chills so thick you could cut it with a knife. The scene where a vampire rises from her grave wearing a white shroud is actually quite fascinating to watch and helps to set up a genuine sense of unease in the viewer. This is heady stuff and I didn’t anticipate catching anything quite this potent by Hammer. Admittedly the decapitation effects are nothing less than laughable and unconvincing but what this movie lacks in special effects it more than makes up for in its quite haunting cinematography.

Then too there is Harry Robinson’s score which features some of the more romantic and melodic music written for a Hammer movie. This gorgeous, lush sound is compromised only once where, for reasons known only to the composer or the director (I suspect) the end, winding down part of the shower murder music from Bernard Herrmann’s Psycho score is blatantly and quite surprisingly aped by the composer when, really, this movie didn’t need this kind of homage.

Probably the most surprising thing to me though is the way Hammer have managed to tease out the original Carmilla source material in such a way that it does not compromise the memory of the original and manages to stick quite faithfully to Le Fanu’s source elements without bringing in too much in the way of extra meat to flesh out the narrative where it might be expected to sag a little. On the contrary in fact, I would say that Hammer have managed to produce a movie that is actually quite startingly respectful of the original tale... so much so that I only remembered certain sequences from the story on their appearance in the Hammer movie... such as one of the character’s “dreams” of being troubled by something big and cat-like in her sleep. To see what could have been a tawdry dream sequence handled so well and in a “fairly” understated fashion was actually very instructional for me... I was expecting a bit more flash and bang from a studio who have, on occasion, been a lot less subtle in the past.

The Vampire Lovers is definitely a keeper and a spinner in terms of future DVD commitment, boasting a stunningly attractive cast, effective atmosphere, evocative score and more than competent performances, not least from stand outs Ingrid Pitt and Peter Cushing. This one will definitely go in my top-ten Hammer movies list and I am now faced with the somewhat harder challenge of finding copies of the two sequels in their correct aspect ratios... something which I understand is not as easy a prospect as I might at first have expected.

Blood Bathory

Countess Dracula 1971 UK

Directed by Peter Sasdy

Hammer/MGM Midnight Movies DVD Region 1

Feel free but forewarned to bathe in the bloody spoilers that bubble to the surface of this article!

Countess Elizabeth Báthory de Ecsed lived, in real life, in the late 16th and early 17th century where she and her four “accessories” tortured and murdered literally hundreds of young women and girls after the death of her husband. Just how many hundreds is up to speculation although the actual solid number her accomplices were tried and convicted for is 80. Báthory herself was neither officially tried nor convicted but was bricked into a set of rooms until her death four years later.

It’s no surprise then that the obvious hard-edged personality of this female serial-killer would be appropriated and used by so many artists in so many media over the years as a character in books, poetry, comics, films, animations and modern day BDSM scene videos. It’s also no surprise that out of all the many movies to feature a variation of her character, one of the first two movies (both made in 1970) to feature her was made by classic British horror studio Hammer.

One of the myths of Báthory’s crimes which grew over the years was that she would bathe in the blood of virgins to prolongs her life and preserve or regain her youth was an obvious connection to the myth of the vampire and one which Hammer would exploit in the title of a movie “inspired” by Báthory’s final years called Countess Dracula - although it’s pretty clear that Ingrid Pitt, the star of the show, is playing a pretty much soft filtered version of Báthory.

My guess is that in their wisdom to not fall foul of the censor in such a way that would be a detriment to them releasing their finished product after so many battles with the British censors over the years, Hammer took away the torture aspect of her character and just ran with the premise of a woman who murders female virgins to bathe in their blood which has the effect of rejuvenating her body to that of a younger version of herself for a limited number of days. No attempt is made to explain why they have to be virgins however.

And that’s one of the problems with the film as a whole actually... not that it’s not a good film, there’s much to like in it. It’s just that in the scene where Báthory accidentally finds that smearing the blood of one of her hand servants across her face means that she can “wipe out wrinkles like the stars” and then, after experimenting with killing and bathing which gives new credence to the term “blood bath”, there is no actual explanation as to why this process of a young wenches blood over your naked and obviously attractive body (it is Ingrid Pitt we are talking about here after all, so attractive is right) would cause your hormones to wake up and dance in the air and treat your skin in such a friendly manner. There is talk of the condition later in an “ancient tome” where it is found that is has to be the blood of virgins, but no elaboration is offered. A bit strange and I don’t think that’s necessarily something modern day audiences of this kind of movie would sit still for today. For some reason modern cinema audiences like to have all manner of ridiculous explanation thrown into the mix so they can somehow half rationalise the ridiculous nature of the scenes they have inflicted upon them in the myriad of multiplexes dotted about our proud nation.

In the case of this movie, of course, it doesn’t matter in the least. Peter Sasdy’s direction is quite sure footed and the cinematography is actually quite creative with many of the shots existing with more than one plain of reference to refer to (main characters doing things and then walking off shot on a balcony on an upper level at the top of a set-up while the main action if focussed on an incident happening in the foreground for example) and in some cases objects and people follow the patterns of the interiors and shift with those interiors as the camera follows with them... smooth stuff.

Wonderful actors too with the likes of Nigel Green (The IPCRESS File, Jason and the Argonauts), Sandor Elès and the very young but very lovely Lesley-Anne Down joining the “titular” character Ingrid Pitt (who does wonders playing an older version of herself in what must have been very hampering make-up). Funnily enough there’s a lot of female nudity on show in this one (oh well, one has to make these sacrifices watching these movies :-) but I never once (thankfully) saw Nigel Green or Sandor Elès get their kit off! And this is the movie which features, you must have seen it, that wonderful iconic shot of Ingrid Pitt as Sandor Elès catches her standing in the bath sponging her naked body with Kensington gore which is perhaps a little short in terms of being barely glimpsed on screen (bet that was a battle with the censors to even get it on screen judging from some of the transcripts of the letters I’ve seen for some of Hammer’s earlier productions) but which has always been around as an iconic, although often censored, still photograph used to promote the movie (pardon me while I stop to wipe copious amounts of drool from my keyboard here).

Also on hand is a really excellent and lush score by Harry Robinson which is punctuated by rich orchestration and uses instruments like the cimbalom, presumably to highlight the Hungarian origins of Báthory’s surroundings (which I’m thankful for otherwise I would have had no idea it was supposed to be set anywhere near Hungary - it looks like the same forest they always use to me - wink). It’s truly a delightful score and one that I wish had been given a CD soundtrack release already.

I think my only other problem with this movie, apart from the lack of any explanation as to the logic behind the science/alchemy of blood to youth hygiene practices, would be the rushed nature of the ending which sees the quick and unexpected death of the young, romantic leading man and the imprisonment of Báthory, her other lover and her lady in waiting while the local villagers chant out “Countess Dracula” before we go to a horrendous 70s style freeze frame (well it is a 70s movie I suppose) which kinda jars a little with the rest of the pacing.

However, when all is said and done a quite nice accoutrement to the Hammer legacy and, although not in my top ten Hammers, certainly a worthy addition which would be mostly enjoyed by fans of British horror movies of this period.