All language subtitles for El legado del terror de Hammer

- They remain
on record as the most

consistently successful
British film company

in history.

From offices in Wardour
street in the heart

of London's film
business district,

and from the small
Thames side studio

near Windsor Castle, they
made films that played

in every country in
the world in every

category of entertainment.

Grand period adventures.

Grim military stories.

- What is it?

- Whiskey.

Officers are Russians.

- Police dramas,

suspense thrillers,

comedies, travel logs, dramas.

- But for mot of
the world, the named Hammer

conjures images of
fantasy and terror.

Like comedies from
Britain's Ealing Studio,

cartoons from Disney, or
westerns from Republic,

the Hammer style was
unique and distinctive.

By subtle implication,

and by graphic depiction,
the company made its

international reputation
with the primal elements

of exploitation films.

Sexuality and violence,

flesh and blood.

- The ties of flesh and blood

were also quite literal.

A business enterprise
with a family atmosphere

extending from the front office,

to the cast and crew.

To the clapper boy, and
the cooks in the canteen.

Home video has given
renewed life to these now

classic tales.

Original soundtracks
and paper back tie ins

have become valued
collector's items.

Posters given away
free to theaters,

now sell for hundreds,
sometimes thousands,

of pounds.

An album of film scores
from Silver Screen Records

sold out immediately in the UK,

the US, and Europe.

- Why then, do these films inspire such

nostalgic devotion?

And why did the company's
world influence seem to fade

after 20 years?

Like a vampire in the
rays of the morning sun?

Hammer's gothic revival
was both revolutionary,

and extremely traditional.

The blend of eroticism
and the supernatural

have imparted English literature
since the 18th century.

Mary Shelley, creator
of Frankenstein,

and Bram Stoker,
author of Dracula,

are a part of this tradition,

as for Henry James,
Arthur Conan Doyle,

and Robert Louis Stevenson.

With stage adaptations
of works like

Stevenson's Dr.
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,

filled audiences on both
sides of the Atlantic.

On a more lurid level,

the Penny Dreadfuls often
used supernatural themes.

Varney the Vampire
printed in 1847.

Early movies offered
similar thrills.

Nosferatu, the first
version of Dracula.

Without dialogue
to give it away,

even has leashed the minds
of audiences of the world.

- With the coming of talking pictures,

the international
market changed.

Like the Tower of
Babel, movies now spoke

in a thousand discordant voices.

- Furthermore, in the 1930s and 40s,

graphic violence was taboo.

Movie cowboys might get shot,

but you would never
see them bleed.

- Major Hollywood studio monopolized

the world film market
with name stars.

Over seas audiences
preferred these films.

- It's originated as a very
small distribution company,

under the title Exclusive Films.

The people concerned
then were my grandfather,

Enrique Carreras, from
Spain, a Spanish man,

and a man called Will
Hammer, or Hinds,

depending on how you knew him,

as to whether it was
in his private life,

or he had a sort
of theatrical life.

- Hammer was my father,
surprising enough.

He was a successful
business man,

and a failed comedian.

He failed because he
wasn't really very funny.

- Adopting a company name from Hinds'

stage name, Will Hammer,
they made a handful of films

such as this musical
with American singer,

Paul Robeson.

Prophetically, one of
these early films featured

Bela Lugosi, star of
Hollywood's Dracula.

- I killed a man.

- You killed a rat.

- I joined, where, very
close as we sit here today,

to being 50 years when I
first reported for work

as an office boy
in Wardour Street.

During the period,
may I tell you,

when doodlebugs were dropping
on London at that time.

So it was an exciting start.

Well then I had to go off
and do national service.

By the time I came back, my
father had joined the company.

- Jimmy Carreras was the
most wonderful salesman

I had ever met.

Full of charm.

Knew exactly what he wanted
but charmed you out of it

if it was not what you wanted.

- And he took this small company

and increased it in its size
and put on a sales force.

And Exclusive did actually
become quite a small entity

within the British film
industry at the time

of the quota quickies.

- To protect
domestic film production,

Parliament enacted
a quota system.

Colonel James Carreras
helped fill that quota.

- But you see, Jimmy
Carreras, and Mike Carreras,

never got on.

There was a great
schism between them.

- My father was a
businessman, a salesman.

He wasn't a film maker.

I mean, there was no collision,
but there was no meeting

of the minds either.

- I wasn't around when
Jimmy Carreras was running

the company.

There's no doubt that that was
the hey day of the company,

that he created it.

He was the entrepreneurial
driving force.

He let the directors
direct the way they wanted.

He let the writers
do what they wanted,

let the actors do
what they wanted

within a budget,
creating an osprey decor,

a sense of, um, of well
being and common purpose over

a tremendously
long period of time

and an awful lot of movies.

- Will Hinds' son, Tony,

alternated production duties
with Michael Carreras.

Although, his secret
wish was simply to write.

- Now after the war,
I went to see him.

We seemed to get on right,

and he said why don't I join.

And I'd just come
out of the airforce

and I really hadn't
anything to do.

So we got together and
uh, I joined the firm.

And it was then just a
distribution company.

It was handling
other peoples' films.

But, uh, you have to
realize that after the war,

there's a tremendous
audience for

a cinema going
audience in England.

People didn't even bother
to find out what was on,

they just went.

If it was terrible, they
came out to support.

If it was good, they came out,

but they still went.

So anything went.

And there was a tremendous
boom in film distribution.

The trouble was to
try and get the films.

- Tony Hinds was a better
filmmaker than I was.

He was, you know, a
definitive filmmaker.

Tony only lived to make films.

- We became quite friendly,
which is most unusual

as Tony never became
friendly with anybody

involved in movies.

We became quite friendly.

- We very luckily got a
hold of the rights and

were encouraged to make a
film by the booking manager

for the ABC Cinemas, which
turned out to be Dick Barton,

which was a tremendous,
successful radio series.

And from that, we actually
discovered that people

were going to the cinema
to see this very small

second feature, rather
than to see the feature

because Dick Barton really
was a national institution.

And from there it developed into

another Dick Barton, which
was made in Blackpool,

with great locations, we
actually went outdoors

to shoot a shot at the top of

the tower at Blackpool.

And from there in
a very small way,

we started to make a
series of radio orientated

characters and bringing
them to life in the cinemas.

I think it's 1948

we actually had a
production program of

six pictures a year.

All based on the radio series.

And from that, slowly,

whatever the company policies
were in changing names,

but Exclusive segued
into Hammer Films.

- Bray Studios
began as a Thames side

manor house.

- And a lot of it was
kind of falling apart

and you know, needed repair.

And I remember once it was
a terrible thunderstorm.

Oh, god, the rain
came down in sheets.

As it can, as you know that.

And uh, the roof's leaking,

everything's leaking.

And Terry Fisher
says, "Carry on.

"Carry on."

And there we are, a splash,
donk, going everywhere,

but we carried on.

- I can remember shooting
in a big room downstairs.

I can't remember
what film it was.

And there wasn't room
for the boom operator

and he had to stand
outside the window

with a boom through the window,

and if it rained,
it was too bad.

He chucked a tarpool
over himself.

And um, that's how we filmed.

And at the time, we didn't think

it was extraordinary at all.

- One of my jobs was
to go to the airport

and see if anybody got
off that I recognized.

And it was never the person
I went to meet because

they used to bandy
big names about

and I'd wait there and no big
names got off the airplane

and then somebody
that I might have seen

or somebody was
holding a card up,

would be the actor we got
for that particular film.

- Don't move.

- Hammer had Anthony Nelson-Keys

to run the Bray facility.

He and a young assistant
named Jimmy Sangster

both went on to
become producers.

- I worked for Hammer
ever since I came out

of the forces, which
was when I was about 20.

And I worked with
them constantly.

We'd work from 8:30 to 5:30
on Wednesdays and Fridays,

until six o'clock on
the other three days.

And they were very strict
about breaking up on time.

- You know, as executive
producer, you used

to cut the turkey at Christmas.

It was a really small
family, permanent unit.

I mean, our crew used to,

I think probably three years
was a minimum engagement

when they used to join
Hammer in those days.

We had the same
directors alternating

and the producers were
Tony Hinds and myself.

Certain types of films that
he enjoyed making, I didn't,

and certain types of films
I liked making, he didn't,

but the studio only
made one film at a time,

and that is a tremendous
advantage in not only

everybody knowing everybody,
but everybody knew

what the hell they were doing.

They were all working
on the same film,

and the Americans adored this.

- Out was limited
to second features,

the bottom halves
of double bills.

- Thank you, sir.

- Partnership with
Robert Lippert secured all

important American distribution.

A bit more money and
stock shots from other

Lippert pictures.

- It's jammed.

- And that's really
how we got into the

American market,
through Lippert.

A big influence in our lives.

And that started what
I call the second cycle

of the development of Hammer.

Which the first cycle
was the quota quickies.

The second cycle was
really quota quickies,

slightly bigger, but with an
American ingredient in them.

And suddenly, we were
a British company that

got known in America.

I mean, unheard
of in those days.

- But in the early
50s, there was little

to distinguish the company.

- They were not even on
their way to becoming

a cult then.

- Hammer flowed
with the incoming tides

of television by adapting
a BBC serial that had

Britons glued to the tellie.

The X in Xperiment
emphasized that the story

was too horrific for children.

- We were up on our way
to Tangier and we were

leaving the airport, and
Tony Hinds raced up in a car,

and just before we
got on the plane,

he put a whole bundle
of television scripts

in my hands and said,
"Read these in Tangier.

"We want to make a film of it."

I said to Tony Hinds, "I
would like to do this,

"as a documentary,
and I'd like to shoot

"it cinema verite, handheld
cameras, all that."

And he said, "Okay, do it."

- The Creeping Unknown

became the American
title as Quatermass

had no name recognition
outside the United Kingdom.

- Three men went into outer space.

Only one of them came back.

Came back a strange,
distorted creature.

Haunted and possessed
by something beyond

human understanding.

Lippert sent Brian
Donlevy over to play

Bernard Quatermass,
director of the first

British rocket group.

- Unlock his mind for
me, Brisco, and find it.

I know you can do it.

- It isn't jut a--

- I know of the strain and
tension you've been under,

but to stop now
when we're so close.

- These were stories
with a very dynamic hero

who was a no nonsense
kind of scientist

who let nothing stand in his way

and was actually kind
of ruthless in this way

which was a really interesting
protagonist for a picture.

Usually the protagonists
in pictures,

these people were the
villains in American pictures.

- You've destroyed him
like you've destroyed

everything else you've touched.

- There's no room
for personal feelings

in science, Judith.

- I want a corder
around the entire area.

Evacuate all public.

Get information to
check up every movement

that's likely to take place
inside this radius tonight.

- Yes, sir.

- With Quatermass
Xperiment and the

Terrence Fisher pictures,
and the sequel to Quatermass,

which is called
Enemy From Space,

which was another mind blower,

I began to notice

a musical score going on.

I mean, the music of these
movies was really astonishing.

It turns out it was a
composer named James Bernard.

- And it was then that
I started to work with

John Hollingsworth who was
already the music director

of Hammer.

And he played the tapes
to Tony Hinds who said,

"Okay, let's try."

And so there I was
suddenly flying into

the Quatermass Xperiment.

Very alarming it was, too,
the first time around.

Quatermass was called I
think entirely for strings

and percussion.

It seemed to suit the
subject very well.

- The special effects
fella that we had,

Les Bowie, did
miracles for nothing.

Always complaining, always
saying, "How can I do this?

"It's impossible."

Always came up with it.

And that monster was, in
fact, a piece of tripe.

- Again, emphasizing the X certificate,

Hammer followed
with X The Unknown,

a thriller about black
radioactive ooze from

beneath the Earth.

- It was Tony Hinds' and my
careers, and we were batting

around ideas and it seemed
at the end of a session,

I'd come up with the most idea,

so Tony Hinds said "Go
away and write it."

I said, "I'm not a writer.

"I'm a production manager."

And he said, "Well write it.

"If we like it, we'll buy it."

So I wrote it, and he
liked it, and he bought it.

- It's on its way.

The man at the main gate
had it just like the others.

It's coming in on the west side.

Look!

There is it! On the roof!

- Peter!

Peter!

Get out of the
Jeep, get out of it!

- And posters were the great
sell that used to go over

were most elaborate
in artwork, posters.

But I remember him once
telling an executive

that we wanted to do a
picture about the yeti,

and the man became most
interested in what the yeti

would look like and
Jimmy said to him,

"We don't know, we
haven't caught one yet."

- Bernard Robinson's art department

transformed the Bray Manor
House into a Tibetan temple

while the camera crew
shot action scenes

on location in the
French Pyrenees.

- And we had what was
lovingly called a crash course

in skiing.

We had two days
of it, that's all,

before we all went up
and hung on by a teeth.

- Forest Tucker
starred with the fellow

who became rather linked
with Hammer over the years.

- They know it was me.

Stay here.

Wait!

Ed, I can hear ya, I'm comin'!

- You've got to understand
that isn't Shelley,

that isn't anybody.

- I can hear his voice.

- It's in your own mind.

It's just happened to me too.

- A great guy.

A great guy with props.

He works out over night

every single prop and
thing that he can use,

and never tells anybody,

and he comes out
during the scenes.

He became known as Props Peter.

- We dare you,

dare you to see the
Abominable Snowman

of the Himalayas.

- So what we tried desperately
to do is we all said

we must never,
ever see that yeti.

You can see pieces
of him, bits, an arm,

or an eye or a thing, and
let people build their own

vision of him.

- Nigel Kneale
adapted his BBC sequel,

Quatermass II.

Future director Brian Forbes
was one of the victims

of a mass alien invasion.

Only Quatermass
suspects the truth:

that the synthetic food
in a top secret facility

is not for human consumption.

But Nigel Kneale still
felt Donlevy was too harsh,

too bullying,

too American.

- Benson Broadhead is dead.

- Dead?

- I watched him die a few
hours ago in that plant.

His whole body covered with
some kind of corrosive poison,

and eaten away.

- Naturally, the
director defended his star.

- Now, would that
sort of a thing,

a down to Earth, prosaic,
honest to God man like

Brian Donlevy was
an enormous help.

- I know that Nigel Kneale,
who wrote the teleplays,

was not happy with the
condescension that went on.

But having seen the
teleplays, you know,

they're now available here,
and the six hour Quatermass

in the pit, for
instance, of three hours,

however long it is,

that the film adaptions
were really remarkably good.

The high points and all
the ideas were all retained

in these things.

- That pipe has been
blocked with human pulp.

- Yes, what is it, tell us.

Inside those domes are creatures
from outside this Earth.

- Oh, you're mad.

- I've seen them.

Thousands of tiny creatures
that have conjoined together

and expanded to
things 100 feet high.

- Quatermass and The Pit televised in 1958

was planned by Hammer
for more than a decade.

Ultimately, Andrew Keir
took the Quatermass role

under the direction
of Roy Ward Baker.

- Well I read it and I thought

"That's absolutely marvelous."

It was a really
foul proof script.

It was excellent.

The film was meant to be
made at Elstree Studios,

and they suddenly said,
"Sorry, we have no space."

But just up the road was the
old Metro Goldwyn Mayer Studio

and they were only too
delighted because their studio

was empty so we had the
whole place to ourselves.

So it was very lucky in
an enormous back lot,

which we built the exterior
of the underground station.

- An excavation
uncovers a rocket ship

of unknown origin and
the rotting remains
of giant insects.

Quatermass deduces that
alien technology endowed

the human race
with intelligence,

and the will to purge society
of anyone who does not

follow the will of the hive.

- Roy Ward Baker didn't
want me for Quatermass.

He wanted, uh,
what was his name?

Kenneth Moore.

And, for,

seven and a half weeks,
it was utter hell.

- Those sort of choices were
made in a small committee,

really, of Tony Hinds,
who was really the head

of production at
any rate, at Hammer,

and was also one of
the partners in Hammer.

And, Sir James Carreras,

and Tony Nelson-Keys, and me,

who put his name for this,
I couldn't really remember,

because he was excellent.

- They were coming.

- Who? What were?

- Them.

Them.

- He saw the creatures.

- They were alive.

- Alive?

- Despite the fact that
I didn't get on with Roy

and it was a bit tricky
with other people,

but um, we gelled as a
unit, as a group of actors.

I wanted to kill you.

- Why?

- Because you are

different.

- I caught that some of
the scenes were uneven.

Ronan, it's Barbara.

She's the one, get
down here quick.

- My duty now is to
quiet public alarm.

And you, you'll keep your
damn paws out of things.

- Listen, I am advising
you all to leave.

There may be grave danger.

I tell you, this
could be dangerous.

So get back!

It was what I was afraid of.

The thing got a huge
intake of energy,

the very substance of it
seemed to be coming alive.

And the,

and you can't see
this world any longer.

- It's just brilliant.

It's just fantastic
what a great,

what a great idea, you know.

What a great way of
finishing it off.

- It's still a
remarkable picture.

There was an idea movie,
and that was really unusual.

- The film came
out the same year as 2001.

By then, the name Hammer
signified gothic fantasy.

- By 1950, the classic themes

had been used a buffoons
and comic foils.

- In the 50s, when the
genre was basically in decline,

- Wow!

- The horror movies
had sunk pretty low.

And when the Hammer
pictures came along,

they were obviously classier.

- American Max
Rosenberg and Milton Subotosky

approached Hammer's
silent partner

with a Frankenstein script.

- It didn't bear much
relationship to the film

that we finally made.

They had the ear of Eliot
Hyman, I think I'm correct

in saying, and Eliot,
by this time we were

now associated with
Eliot, but he, because

he didn't know much
about it either,

thought it was a
good idea in making,

because there hadn't been
a gothic horror maiden

since the universal cycle,

and certainly to in color.

And so he really
sent the script over.

Tony looked at it and said,
"No we can't do this."

It just wasn't good enough.

- And I'm given a script,
which I didn't really like.

It was boring, and a sort
of a rehash of the old,

but anyway, we were gonna do it.

- A cheap black
and white production was

planned with Boris Karloff
considered for the role

of the old baron when
Hammer learned that they

would be sued if they
copied any elements from

the older films.

- So we had to make a
film that was entirely

different from the first one.

Well then it became fun.

- Instead, the planned an all new version

with Jack Asher shooting
in Eastman color

and Jimmy Sangster completely
rewriting the script.

- I'm not sure.

I don't think so, I
don't think I read it.

I'd just seen all the
old Frankenstein movies.

The only problem with
Universal was they had

a copyright on the monster.

We couldn't use an idea
of the Boris Karloff

type monster with the
bolts through his neck.

See, that was the only problem.

I mean, Frankenstein
was public domain.

That's why we came up
with a different one,

a different design.

- Terrance Fisher had directed moody

TV episodes of Robin Hood,
and a thriller admired

by Hitchcock himself,
so Long At the Fair.

- Oh, it was lovely.

He was such fun.

He always knew exactly
what he wanted,

and that's why the
films were made fast,

in the way they were.

- Quiet, didn't
have a lot to say.

Knew what he was doing.

He was an old time pro.

- Luckily, I had a
break in my BBC work,

and was able to take
the role I'd seen

Colin Clive play in
the original 1931 film.

We've discovered the
source of life itself.

And we've used it to restore
a creature that was dead.

- We never make our films
with tongue in cheek.

Having played so many
of the period doctors,

I always go to my doctor,

and ask, you know, "How
do you take a brain out

"and do anything?"

But something, you must
do it all correctly.

- I can't prove your word.

But I can stop you
using his brain.

- Why?

He has no further use for it.

Don't be a fool.

Be careful!

You'll damage it!

- The sale to Warner Brothers brought barely

enough to finish the film.

40,000 pounds, about $112,000.

Christopher Lee brought
a new interpretation

to the role of the man made man.

- The legs are
independent of the arms.

The hands sort of don't
coordinate with the feet

or the rest of the body.

So I tried to play the character
like an ill coordinated,

childish creature.

- The first
day I met Christopher,

he was disappointed that
he hadn't any dialogue.

I told him, "Well
consider yourself lucky.

"I've read the script."

- Well we were
shooting in the dark.

We rarely were.

I did about three tests
if I remember right,

remember rightly,

for the character.

They were quite
dreadful, I mean,

one of them made me
look like a combination

between a wolf and a pig.

And the other

was actually, it was
actually surprisingly

quite close to the Elephant Man.

And then, I think it was I,

or perhaps it was Phil
Leakey, the makeup man,

or Roy Ashton, the
other makeup man,

we put out heads together
and I think I said,

"Look, it's bits and
pieces of other people so,

"it should be patched together."

So there were these
lumps and these scars

and the one dead eye
and the stitch marks

and everything.

Which was pretty unpleasant.

Makeup man Phil
Leakey created a face

that's been rightly
described as looking

like a road accident,
a patchwork creature

of shards and stitches.

It was almost impossible
for me to eat or drink

and naturally, there
weren't many people

prepared to sit down and
eat and drink with me.

- It's never horrific to you.

In fact, we might have laughed.

Probably did.

- I guess I was 10 or 11.

Oh it was terrifying.

I mean, I was scared to death.

I've always heard the makeup
criticized in later years

as not being very good makeup,

but I thought it
was pretty creepy.

- When we saw Curse
of Frankenstein,

there was a graphic quality to
it that was totally shocking.

Which made it extremely
endearing to us.

We enjoyed it a great
deal, and I'll never forget

the audience's reaction
at that midnight snowing

at the New York
Paramount, they loved it.

We were about 15
years old, I think,

my friends and myself.

- Wouldn't you understand,
you're in real danger?

What Victor is doing
is dangerous to

everyone in the house.

No, you cannot possibly
conceive what dreadful thing

he's planning to do.

- What are you trying
to tell me, Paul?

That Victor's wicked, insane?

What is amazing today to
me is the production value

with the beauty of the
sets, the costumes.

They were all real.

They were all
Victorian costumes.

- Elizabeth, come back!

- The disembodied hands, eyes, and organs

were liberally garnished
with bright red blood,

much to Christopher's dismay
when he was shot in the face.

- When this happened, I gave
in to the most ear splitting

shriek which literally
paralyzed everybody on the set,

that I don't think they'd
ever heard anything like it.

And it was genuine because
there was some agent

in this blood,
glycerin, whatever,

I felt somebody had put a
red hot poker into my eye.

The film grossed 70 times
its production cost.

Seven million dollars.

The company had, in fact,
created a being with a life

of its own.

- Hammer made their first remake

after the 29 pictures in
1956 or 58, I think it was.

And it was the
Frankenstein picture

and it was the only
one amongst five.

It was up the junction,
and it was Peter Sellers

and the Frankenstein
picture and,

two or three others.

It was quite a nice picture,

no idea they were starting
this incredible snowball.

- I remember everyone
being astounded

at the success at
that movie though.

I mean, it took off.

And I don't think we got
very good reviews, did we?

- The critics hated us.

I mean, really, loathed
the film and loathed us,

but it started the cycle
and it started Hammer

as it really became
know, Hammer horror.

The critical reaction came at
the same moment as the queues.

I mean, you haven't
got a choice.

What are you gonna do?

Are you gonna read the
newspaper or look at the queues?

- The success of The
Curse of Frankenstein

was way out of proportion
to what was expected.

I think if that picture hadn't
been as successful as it was

in America, there might
not have been any other

big Hammer films.

- Through his friend, Mike Frankovich,

James Carreras struck
a three film pact with

Columbia Pictures,
to include a sequel,

originally called
Blood of Frankenstein.

The script focused on
the continuing attempts

of Baron Frankenstein to
perfect his grizzly work.

- In the year 1860,
I, Baron Frankenstein,

was sentenced to death
on the guillotine.

But I have escaped
the guillotine,

and I shall avenge the
death of my creation.

- I wanted to scare people
and make them sort of shudder,

and I think what is the
most shudder making thing

from my point of view
was cannibalism, so
I put cannibalism

into the picture.

- 'Cause Peter and I used
to play games on the set

all the time.

- Who is he?

- Nobody.

He isn't born yet.

We had a sheep's brain.

And so we shot the
scene and we didn't

finish the scene on
the day we were using

the brain, and we had to
pick it up next morning.

And the, when I opened
it, it was actually alive.

I mean, the smell was appalling.

All the technicians
were fainting.

So we had to um, I said, "I
can't work with this thing."

I said, "He's going
to upstage me."

Anesthetic!

- I think what he's doing
is a ruthless thing,

and it might be different
from Mary Shelley, but

it wasn't much
different from the other

movie Frankensteins.

- There was also an abortive TV pilot film

but it was shot in
Hollywood, not by the

Hammer production team.

- It was just a disaster.

I mean, the people how were
involved with the Screen

Gems had no idea what
they were trying to make.

I mean, I don't know
why the ever came to us

in the first place because,
you know, we had made

some fairly good gothic stories.

When I got there, I took
with me six scripts.

All written by Jimmy Sangster,

and all ready to shoot.

I mean, you know, in
good professional niche.

And the first thing
they made me do

was to sit down and
listen to the title music.

They had some jingle.

I mean, that confused
me slightly that we were

listening to jingle
music before we even

made anything, but they
were very proud of that.

And then they started to
trot out some directors

who I think they kept in
cupboards on the lower floor,

ready to work.

You know, have megaphone,
will travel sort of directors.

And I just couldn't believe
the whole scene so I

kicked up a bit of a
stink and we started again

by them getting out
a list of writers.

- Your name

is Herbert.

If you remember, and understand,

lift your hands.

- And finally, having
gone through with their

head writing honcho,

he said to me, "There's
a guy here who I think

"lives in England
called Jimmy Sangster.

"Why don't we try him?"

So we did full circle.

I had the six
scripts under my arm,

which they hadn't read.

Probably Jimmy had put
another name over them,

I don't know, so I said to them,

"Well I actually know this
man, I have some influence,

"I can probably get
him to do a script."

And then of course
when I told them that

all these were his, I
mean the whole thing

just fell apart.

I went home.

It was Christmas time, I
couldn't bear it anymore,

and Tony Hinds went over
to finish the project,

and even he couldn't get
them to make a good film.

- If nothing else, it pointed out how

uninspired the first
film might have been.

Hammer and the Baron went
back to work in 1963.

- You are interrupting my work.

- Your work?

The work of the Devil?

- Hans.

- Please, Father, would you--

- No.

- A wrestler named Kiwi Kingston

played this new monster
under the direction

of Freddie Francis.

- Terry was unwell at that time,

and then terribly became
unwell and then got

progressively worse.

By this time, Hammer had
cleared with Universal

they could use the
original makeup.

And I thought it needed
something much more physical

than dear old Chris.

And our man was physical, but,

you know, if we did it again,
I would have somebody who

could act a little better.

And obviously I used to
think of the most effective

way visually, you know,
having been a DP and still am,

I always think visually first.

- The Baron was
a bit ahead of his time.

I mean, I was
unstunting human organs

before that clever
doctor, Christiaan Barnard

in South Africa in 1968.

Get out of his way, you fools.

- Go back

and kill him.

- He lives.

See Hans, he's alive.

- Terry Fischer returned in 1967.

- The Terrence Fisher
pictures tend to be shot

on long masters, I noticed.

And one of the fascinations
in those pitures

is just to sort of watch
and try to do something

with essentially an empty frame.

- You see?

A shield of
indestructible matter.

- What it it for?

- What is it for?

To give life after
death, my friend.

That's what it's for.

Life after death.

- Hans!

- My dear, that man
possesses such power.

Such knowledge that,

well sometimes I don't
even understand him myself.

- Papa!

- With novice performers like

Playboy model Susan Denberg,
Terry patiently blocked out

the action bit by bit.

- Who am I?

Who am I?

- Frankenstein Created
Woman was a very interesting

picture, it's got a lot of
interesting thematic stuff

that you really wouldn't
expect, that they didn't

have to deal with.

In Frankenstein Created
Woman in particular,

I remember great stills of
Peter Cushing and Susan Denberg

that weren't in the
movie, you know,

and I could never
figure out whether they

were never shot or
whether they were cut out

or what the story was.

- The stills had nothing to do with

the story.

Hammer just wanted to
sell theater tickets.

In 1967, Frankenstein moved
to the larger Elstree Studios

with Terry Fischer
again as director.

- Terry would
pretty much let you go

through the scene.

He trusted your own instincts.

He was very easy to work for.

- You haven't finished.

- He would just tell
you what you'd already,

what you'd be doing
previous to this,

what your emotions would
be likely to be like.

And, then ask you
to run it through.

- Right, action.

- I can transplant his brain.

If I don't, it'll die
through lack of oxygen.

- But that would mean
you'd have to remove someone

else's brain to do it.

- Of course, Carl.

How else?

- The police.

They're searching all the houses.

- You must choose between
the flames, and the police.

- Once more into the bleach,

with blackmail, murder,
and skull duggery.

- Of course he's
only doing it for

a frighteningly good call.

- I loved Peter.

Everybody loved Peter.

He was very gentle,
he adored his wife.

He was kind.

- What a lovely
piece of export, hm?

- I can't speak
too highly of him.

- What have you done to him?

- For God sake's go away!

Leave us alone!

- How many heart
transplants today?

- Hearts?

I'm ashamed they're old
fashioned, we're on brains now.

- Are you?
- Yes.

- Jimmy Carreras
rarely visited our sets.

He wasn't too keen
on horror pictures,

and seeing a crew of
50, at least 40 of whom

appeared to be doing
absolutely nothing,

well he became a bit testy.

He preferred to stay
on Wardour Street.

- That was their business,
it wasn't his business.

I don't think he
particularly cared about

the films themselves.

Now, as a film person, I
would say that's exactly the

kind of person you want
running a film company.

Someone who lets the creative
people get on with it,

and if the price for that
is a degree of cynicism

on his part, fine, it worked
extremely well for Hammer.

- Hammer opted for a younger Baron,

the late Ralph Bates.

Veronica Carlson played
the Hazel Court role

while Jimmy Sangster
directed, wrote, and produced.

- Jimmy was irreplaceable.

He had a great sense of humor.

At lunch time, we went
into the restaurant,

laughed ourselves
silly about everything,

calmed down, and then Jimmy
said, "Now be serious."

- I had the most fun ever
directing that movie.

It's not a good
position to be in,

writer, producer,
and the director,

because there's
nobody to tell you

you're making a mistake.

- But fresh, mind you.

Nothing more than
three days old.

- Anything I bring
you will be so fresh,

it'd get past the
cattleman meat inspector.

- It's almost like
the same saga that

the Universal pictures
had where they kept adding

more monsters and tried
to make the pictures

seem more exciting than
they had been previously.

And then by the time
they'd done the parodies,

it was over.

It's the same thing that's
happened to the westerns.

- 6'7" David Prowse
wore a diaper and a bald

cap as this monster.

- I said, "Have you
got any ideas as to how

"you're going to
play this monster?"

He said, "I've got
three children."

And I said, "I just play about
with them and frighten them,

"I'd stand up as
far big as I can,

"and I sort of walk
towards them and say,

"'I am the monster.'"

And the kids'll run away
from me and Terry, he said,

"That's fine, perfect,
that's just what we want."

And so that was how we
finished up, you know,

playing this monster.

- David looked far more imposing in black leather

years later in Star Wars.

As usual, the next film
began with a poster,

eventually modified.

With burned hands
useless for surgery,

the Baron enlists
a young surgeon to

help fashion one
last abomination.

It was the Baron's
last hurrah so far.

Because of the period,
I was given a wig

covered in Marcel waves.

I thought it made me look
rather like Helen Hayes.

- I knew you couldn't give
up your work completely.

And you haven't.

- David Prowse also played this monster

in a stiff mask and
hairy rubber suit.

- It was a sweat
suit and a mask.

I could get in the complete
outfit within, like,

20 minutes, it was so simple.

I think in my acting
as the monster

in Monster From Hell was
probably the high point.

And that includes Darth
Vader and everything

else that I've done.

I still think the Monster From
Hell was probably one of the

best acting jobs
that I've ever done.

- I've succeeded this time.

And every sacrifice will
have been worth while.

- We had one stunt
where he had to,

I was on the rampage
in the laboratory.

- Professor!

- And Peter had to
come and calm me down.

He smashed the chloroform
bottle in his coat,

sort of jumped up
onto to the table,

made a dive across,
a dive from off.

I mean, the guy was in
his like 60s at the time,

and I'm swinging him around,
trying to get him off

and doing like an airplane
spin, like a wrestler does,

and eventually I have
to collapse in a heap,

I'm being suffocated
by the chloroform.

We eventually collapse,
with him still hanging on

like grim death, you
know, on the back.

And when we finished,
the whole studio got up

and applauded.

It was wonderful.

- Long time employee Roy Skeggs

had risen to producer.

Tony Hinds wrote the
script as John Elder.

The composer, Jimmy
Bernard, and Terrence Fisher

directing our last
film together.

- But even if the monster

was not state of the art,

- Well?

- The Baron was his usual
warm and considerate self.

- If everything could
be reborn, unblemished,

if a new version of his
true self could be created,

in the normal way, by mating.

- But who with?

- Sarah.

- For good or ill,

these films brought technicolor
blood to the screen.

Without them, we may have
never seen The Wild Bunch

or even the black comedy
of the original M-A-S-H.

- To Baron Frankenstein,

the creator of man.

- In any case, Hammer breathes new life

into the Mary Shelley myth.

In return, Frankenstein
created Hammer.

They will never be ready for me.

- In 1958, Universal Pictures allowed

Hammer to remake
Dracula in exchange for

US distribution rights.

- The Horror of Dracula was
a particularly big moment

in my life and the life
of a lot of kids my age.

We had watched the Universal
pictures, and they were scary,

but they were on
television, in your house.

So there something a
little safer about watching

those picture, but in
a theater, with color,

I remember kid's parents
not letting them go see it

because it was supposed
to be so scary.

- On one side, the power of good.

- Castle Dracula is somewhere
here in Klausenburg.

Will you tell me
how I get there?

- On the other?

The seductive allure of evil.

Jimmy Sangster's script
eliminated the supernatural

powers suggested by Bram Stoker,

but substituted something
even more potent:

sex appeal.

- I thought the more
human he became,

the less magic or
fantasy figure he became,

the more threatening he was.

- And then, I think
the better of the two,

the film that we really
felt went further,

was the Horror of Dracula.

You know, there's nothing like

the introduction of
Dracula in that picture

where he simply walks
down the stairs,

and walks over Jonathan
Harker and says,

"Hello, I'm Dracula."

- Mr. Harker.

I'm glad that you've
arrived safely.

- Count Dracula.

- I am Dracula, and I
welcome you to my house.

- Slip on canine fangs became

de rigueur for all vampires
to come in Hollywood,

Italy, Mexico,
France, even Japan.

Like Frankenstein, this
was a drastic change

from previous versions.

- Oh, you must help me.

You must.

You're my only hope, you must.

- I'll help you.

I promise.

- I decided to play him
as a malevolent hero.

I decided to play him as
a man of immense dignity,

immense strength, immense
power, immense brain,

because it's all there.

He's kind of a
super man, actually.

- Dracula was sexy and
he was seducing people

and he was basically
going to bed with women.

You know, and afterward, they
just thought he was great.

- Particularly, as my dear
friend Christopher Lee

plays the character of Dracula,

the women are very
much attracted to him.

I mean that first
picture you had the lady

opening her French
windows, lying back

and waiting for
her lover to come.

- Well that was definitely
in the screenplay,

and I think Terry
Fisher, the director,

certainly emphasized that
it wasn't a new ingredient.

It's definitely been there.

If you look at Nosferatu,
and I mean even in the

strangest forms of these films,

there's a strong,
sexual element,

but in the color again,
the blood became a little

more gory, the sex became
a little more cleavage,

and the whole thing
grew up a little.

- So after we'd
done the first one,

we'd have a complete
reshuffle and I was surprised

when I was told that I had
to have the same people.

As a matter of fact,
as it were done,

it couldn't have been better.

Cushing had been a star and
I was delighted to have him

in Frankenstein.

I thought he was
excellent in Dracula,

and really, you couldn't
have found a better person

than Chris Lee for
Dracula, I don't think.

Anyone.

He was quite original,
I think, in making him

a very presentable, quite
sexually attractive,

not to me, a quite
sexually attractive actor

instead of this rather
florid, puffy faced gentleman

that one associated with.

- The one I found just
a little more difficult

was Van Helsing,
because in the book by

Bram Stoker, he's described
a very old, little wizard

man who speaks
almost double Dutch.

And that this was
going back, what,

nearly 25 years when I
was younger and prettier,

if that is possible.

The one thing that
Dracula didn't like

was a crucifix.

And there were so many
time I had to use one

that in the end, I thought
it had become ludicrous.

I was rather like a traveling
salesman in crucifixi.

- This three note dropping octave theme

underscored the power
of the title character.

- Taking the title of the
movie, is that what you mean,

and thinking of a tune,
and the obvious one is

♪ Drac-U-La

- I had this date with
this guy that I was trying

to impress, and all of 16, and
I'm looking and I'm going--

- This is not the
Lucy you loved.

It's only a shell,
possessed and corrupted

by the evil of Dracula.

- And I'm grabbing him
and I'm doing all of this

and all of a sudden,
this scene comes in where

they put the stake in.

And I faint.

"Are you alright,
are you alright?"

And I'm going, "Oh god, oh god."

- The end of The Horror
of Dracula was one of the

few times that I can
remember when I was a kid,

people screaming in a theater.

And they screamed
just because it was

so horrible and so scary.

- Right at the end
of the picture,

Van Helsing forces Dracula
into a shaft of sunlight

by rushing along and
pulling some curtains down.

Whereupon he withdrew
yet another crucifix

out of his pocket and I said,

"Could we not have
something different?"

And I suggested that they
had the long refectory table,

a candlestick at each end,

and I could rush along
like a mad thing,

leap on the table again
and grab one table stick

and rush to the other and
then wing them together.

And it worked, 'cause it made
quite a jolly good climax,

and I believe they used
the end of that picture

in the second Dracula, which
I wasn't in for some reason.

- Dollar for dollar, the film outperformed

Hitchcock's Vertigo,
released the same year.

Critics castigated the film
as revoltingly inferior

to the 1931 version.

But Jack Asher was hailed
for his camera work,

and Terry Fisher's status
as a filmmaker was assured.

In New York for the
premiere, we found out just

how valuable a product
we had created.

- James Carreras, Tony Hinds,

Peter Cushing and I, the
four of us went to the

office of the President
of Universal Film,

and his name was Al Deff.

And he then said "Gentlemen,
this film of yours,

"will lift Universal
out of bankruptcy."

Now I've made a point
of asking Peter Cushing

and Tony Hinds and Jimmy
Carreras over the years,

"Did he really say that
or did I imagine it?"

He said it.

Interesting.

Brides of Dracula in 1960
featured a sexually ambiguous

Baron Meinster,

who drank the blood
of men, women,

even his own mother.

- You needn't be
afraid, she's dead.

- It offered strong roles to

Martita Hunt and Freda
Jackson, again under

Terry Fisher's direction,

as Dr. Van Helsing continued
his zealous crusade against

the corrupt cult of vampirism.

- David Peel as the baron,

blindingly handsome,
beautiful Yvonne Monlaur,

France's latest sex
kitten as Marianne,

whose beauty was her passport
to the twilight world

of the undead.

- Neither the budget, nor my sense of the character,

allowed the original climax,

Van Helsing conjuring
a hoard of bats

to destroy the depraved baron.

But a jolly good fight
and a splash of holy water

and a burning windmill
provided a fine alternative.

Count Dracula himself
returned eight years after

the original 1958 film.

John Travellion of the
British Board of Census

objected to a ritual
use to revive the Count

from the ashes of
the first film,

so Hammer turned it down.

A bit.

Instead of cutting
the victim's head off,

Dracula's disciple tastefully
just slits his throat.

Charming, so unlike the
home life of our dear queen.

- I must kill him.

- He is already dead.

He is undead, Mr. Kent.

He can be destroyed,
but not killed.

- Over three warm days in May 1965,

the brother of Francis
Matthews shot these

home movies at Bray Studios.

Camera angles will hide
the fact that the castle

is really only one story high.

There are a great
many scenes to shoot.

Arrivals, and departures.

And the climax.

- Susan Farmer and Barbara Shelley run their lines.

Charles Tingwell snoozes.

Christopher Lee
discusses the action,

and Francis Matthews
paces out his walk across

the castle draw bridge.

- Well the hero's always
boring in those films.

They have to be because
the excitement comes from

the character roles,
and the villain.

Since you're not
gonna do anything,

it's better you don't
say anything either.

I wish you could run it
again and hear me saying--

I must kill him.

Just after this terrible
thing has happened.

It's not only the
delivery of the line,

but the fact that I allowed
Terry to let me say the line.

My sister-in-law's a
vampire, my brother's dead,

my wife's nearly been killed.

I'm exhausted.

There was always a
danger with Hammer

that they forget what
had happened to you.

- Makeup man Roy Ashton inserts hand

painted contact lenses for
that wild, bloodshot look.

Sometimes with these
wretched contact lenses in,

I could hardly see at all.

I'd lunge for somebody and
miss them all together.

Terry was a great arranger.

- Chris is ready.

- He'd say, "Show me what you're going to do

"and I'll tell you if
it's right or wrong."

And he always gave editor
James Kneads exactly

what was needed.

- The first assistant that supervises

the frozen moat, actually
a plaster surface

covered in a salt
solution to simulate ice.

On action, Christopher
strides regally

holding his cloak for the
proper billowing effect.

Later that day, the climax.

- It's too late Kent!

Get away from there!

It's too late!

- The dialogue in the original script was

just dreadful, so
we compromised.

The character remained mute.

- Why don't you shoot him?

- It would do no good my dear.

- Impervious to bullets, perhaps.

- Running water.

- But not the pure elements.

Whatever the merits of
the individual films,

the combination of
technical expertise,

on screen talent,
and showmanship,

proved that British
films could succeed

in the world market place.

- Of the 19 films released

by 20th Century Fox in 1966,
only six were profitable.

Two of those were Hammer.

This one,

and Rasputin the Mad Monk.

In later films, we
could afford stunt men

like Eddie Powell to do
the more dangerous scenes.

But that's really me, getting
a lung full of cold water,

in the main part.

- It's a good take, but the aftermath

is a bit anticlimactic.

Wardrobe misses,
Rosemary Burrows,

cleans off Dracula's
shoes and cape

and Christopher Lee slips
out of his wet clothes,

presumably into a dry martini.

But the ice thawed less
than two years later.

You just can't
keep your boy down.

- I know that on that one,
Terry was definitely not fit,

so there was never
any question than

to ask Terry to do it.

- Director Freddie Francis had been

an Oscar winning director
of photography or DP.

- Then later when people
like Freddie Francis,

who was the DP,
started to direct,

the pictures would
go in for a little

bit more gimmicky visuals.

- Arthur Grant, he was
a great fan of mine

when I was a camera man.

And, uh, I let him use

my filters from The
Innocence for that

with the sort of
graduating colors coming

in from the side.

- These amber filters visually indicated

an aura of evil.

- There is a girl.

- Maria?

- Bring her to me!

Irresistible to women.

Unstoppable by men.

- Christopher Lee.

Veronica Carlson.

Hammer's new star discovery,

Dracula's most beautiful victim.

- Well I used to skip
classes at college

if I knew there was a
new Dracula film out

or a new Frankenstein film out,

and they were always
the Hammer films.

I don't think that I
thought that I would ever be

up there with them.

But I yearned to be just that,

and I pretended.

- They lost a lot of what
I'd hoped to get in it.

I wanted to accentuate
the romantic interest

between the boy and the girl.

And which I did do
in the shooting.

But, um, as I say,

once we'd finished
shooting, the film is put

in the mincing
machine and wound up.

I went away for a week's holiday

and when I came back,
they'd finished editing it.

The film was probably
due out in about

another two weeks anyway.

- Very tall,
very aristocratic.

Beautiful operatic voice.

I think he is the
epitome of Dracula.

It was a dream come true.

- The American distributor

came up with a silly,
effective ad catch line,

"Boy, does he give a hickie."

- The big difference that
those pictures had at the time

from American pictures was
they were not just gorier,

because the gore, if
you look back at them,

was actually kind of tame.

Although at the time, it
was a bit more than people

were used to, but
it's mainly the sex.

The parade of buxom,
British starlets,

closeups, alleged closeups on
medallions that are really,

you know, huge buxom shots.

These myths have a certain
built in Freudian fascination

that never really goes away.

- You're talking about
the driving of a stake.

I don't,

if you like to look
at it that way it is,

but I don't think
that's all it meant.

But no, the reason
they're staking in Dracula

is to get rid of him.

- And they nearly did.

To save money, accountant
Brian Lawrence suggested

that Dracula film in name only,

but the American distributor
insisted that the

title character actually appear.

So James Carreras
pleaded with me,

saying that I would throw
the entire crew out of work

if I didn't appear.

So, of course, I accepted.

Alice.

- Who are you?

How do you know my name?

- But they now had to fit

the character into the script,

so I was only required
to pop up from

the occasional dark corner
and do very little acting.

Now.

- Secure enough to
spoof his image, Christopher Lee

appeared in The Magic Christian,

the first of four films
with Raquel Welch.

- And Christopher and I
became good friends also

at one point when I
was living in London.

He and his wife, Birgit,
they were very nice people.

He was quite an elegant and
quite a sensual Dracula.

I thought that was
just an act and,

he was quite like
Dracula actually.

Christopher.

- Within a year, Hammer ground out

another sequel.

- What I was trying to
incorporate is the element

of magic, the mystery, the
touch of the supernatural.

It was one thing that
nobody had ever done,

which was when the
hero, Jonathan Harker,

as it is in the book, he
looks out of his window

and he sees Dracula climb out
of a window of the castle.

It has a certain amount of
opposition because it was going

to cost money to build
a special set for this.

But at any rate, we did.

When Christopher Lee
has to pick up the girl

and carry her from one
room to another, whatever,

he said to me, "Well
I can carry her, but,

"how am I going
to open the door?"

And I said, "Count Dracula
doesn't open doors.

"The door opens for him.

"He goes through, and the
door closes behind him."

They got them all
in supermarkets now,

exactly the same thing.

- But this one barely received

American release.

- The blood line is getting thin so Hammer

tried a transfusion
in a new vein.

- I think it came
from a distributor.

I think it was partly
accepted by us eagerly

as a change of scene.

It didn't work.

It was a mistake.

- The late Canadian director,

Alan Gibson, put us
all through our paces.

Vampirism went mod.

- That was the first time
I think in my short career

at that time that I
realized I actually did

want to act, this was really it,

because I believed
in what I was doing.

- Something new,
yet as old as time.

- Come on Johnny.

- A date with the Devil.

- I was Dracula's disciple.

I was 22 and I enjoyed
it, enormously.

He was absolutely
the part, you know,

and you couldn't
imagine anyone being

better than him, or being
more impressive than him.

I summoned you!

- It was my will.

- Just his presence alone helped you,

you know what I mean?

- One bright spot was the return

of Peter Cushing as
the descendant of

Dr. Van Helsing.

- He was delightful.

He was very tough
and very, very fit

for a man of his age.

And I would do a lot
of the stunts with him.

Grappling and so on and
he was in very good shape,

and he did a lot
of his own stunts.

I mean, falling off hay
wagons and things like that.

An extraordinary man.

- You!

- Could be Dracula's next victim.

- Seriously, I am a fully
fledged vampire because

we had this scene where I
had to have Christopher Lee

sunk his fangs into
me and he actually,

he got a little carried
away and drew blood, so,

I am a fully fledge vampire

and that is one of
my claims to fame

which I have on my resume.

- You don't have to act much
because he is very frightening

when he has all his gear on.

His white face and
his contact lenses.

No.

And he's very tall.

I'm not small, and
he is very tall.

At that moment, I was
being bitten by Dracula.

And I believed it.

- Christopher Lee had major reservations

with the story.

- I stopped making them in 1972

because in my opinion, the
presentation of the character

had deteriorated
to such an extent,

particularly
bringing him into the

contemporary day and age,

that it really no
longer had any meaning.

- Nevertheless, when the cameras rolled,

we both gave it
everything we had.

Lee's final Dracula was
out to destroy mankind

with a deadly virus,
and deprive himself

of human victims.

A rather twisted death wish.

- Van Helsing.

I call upon you to witness

my supreme triumph.

You were living, and
yet you were dead.

The undead.

You cannot die.

You must want to.

- You will all pray for death.

Release.

- And so you destroy every
living soul on this Earth?

And are left with an
empty world to command.

Is that what you want,

Count Dracula?

A last blaze of utter
horror and violence?

The ghastly annihilation
of an entire planet?

Is this your own death wish?

- My revenge went
over centuries,

and it's just begun!

That was one of the few
Bram Stoker lines that

managed to creep
into the scripts.

This film finally
wound up in America

years after it was made,

under a rather generic title.

- Count Dracula and His Vampire Bride.

- Other fine actors have since donned the cloak.

Frank Langella, Jack Palance,

Louis Jordan, George Hamilton,

and Gary Oldman.

But Hammer's Dracula
seems to live eternally

in the memories of those
who experienced him.

- I am Dracula, and I
welcome you to my house.

- The growing facility at Bray Studios

reflected the company's
expanding horizons.

- And we all lived through
the times when the first stage

went up.

There was never a stage
when I went there.

And then a second stage went up.

The field where
we shot Quatermass

with the rocket coming
down and the tree

and all the fire engines,

they finally built a
stage on that, too,

and everything, so all
our stuff there went.

- This macabre world peaked over

the studio fence.

- In those days the
filmmakers still actually

knew how to make
films, and not deals.

- We had six weeks
to make the movies.

- I think it got to the
end of the six weeks,

the movie was really young,

still had about three days
work to do on the movie.

And they'd say, "No
sorry, cut your film

"to whatever you've got."

And, um, I think it suffered
a little bit from the cuts.

- Well we just had
to do it in the time

that was allotted.

And it was never enough.

- After we'd been
making it for a while,

I was asked if we can cut down,

make it a bit cheaper.

I was always being asked that.

- The ready reckoner.

If you've got a ready
reckoner in your mind,

that takes over and you know
exactly which line to take.

- Jimmy Carreras
somehow or other managed

to create a sense of
family in the company

and amongst the
company of actors,

technicians, and so
on, who all worked over

and over again on Hammer films.

- Constructions.

85%.

Dialogue's not important.

The actors are gonna change,

the actors and the
director are gonna change

the dialogue anyway.

- We would bring the films
in on budget and on schedule,

and deliver them.

The Americans were
really only interested

in delivery dates because
once they put it on

a piece of paper, it was gospel.

- If any of us could get
any artistic points in,

we could, but the whole
overall operation was a

sort of business,
financial situation.

- I mean, in '74, Hammer
did 10 movies in one year.

And these days, a major
studio can't do that.

- Well I have to say that
yes, they didn't like

spending too much money.

- I was earning me
wages, basically.

- I thought the stars
were behind the camera

more than in front of it.

- Tony Hinds who was really
the head of production

at any rate at Hammer.

- He was a very shy man that
didn't get involved in films

on the floor.

He was a real behind
the scenes guy.

- Tony was the master at it.

I mean, he had Terry there.

I mean, why interfere
with a winning formula?

- Tony would never
complain if one altered

a little bit here or there.

- We did a bit on location,

and a lot in the studio.

- We started with one
of the exclusive films,

and they used to send
me a script and say,

"Andrew, what can
you do with this?"

It was like being in ramp.

- We were all a
wonderful team, really.

- I was ready and they
buried me up to my neck,

and it was getting
on for lunch time,

so they said, "Right.

"We'll come and shoot
the scene after lunch."

So there I was left.

- And I enjoyed working
at Bray so much,

they asked me to do another
film, and another film,

and another film, and
the next thing I knew,

I was something I
didn't want to be,

I was a horror film director.

- 11 or 12 years old,
and into my teenage,

went with groups of friends
to see certain films.

If we saw the logo of
Hammer films, we knew that

it was a very special picture,

and we knew that it was
a certain kind of film.

A surprising experience,
usually, and uh,

shocking.

- The art direction, of course,

was absolutely superb.

- Bernard Robinson,
an art director for

certainly all the
original horror films.

Very, very clever
man in making a lot

out of not very much.

- They had an excellent
team, and they got

marvelous sound from this
comparatively small orchestra.

- We never went over
budget or over schedule.

- There were many times where
I didn't finish a score,

until maybe the
morning of a recording.

- And we delivered them,
so we delivered the goods.

- They made films in
all sort of genres.

They made war pictures
and, you know,

program movies.

- We took a few more
chances, perhaps,

but the structure, the
family feeling, the flavor,

the units, the directors,
remained very much the same.

- Listen to the themes of James Bernard,

and you can hear the citadels
of the film's titles.

- She who must be obeyed.

- Technically the
pictures were very good.

You know, Jack
Asher's camera work

and the James Bernard
scores were exceptional.

They seemed to be doomed
to do the same thing

and just have to keep
repeating themselves

over and over.

- Bernie Robinson.

Brilliant.

An awful lot of what
we got away with,

and I can actually
say got away with,

was due to Bernie.

In Yesterday's Enemy,

it was the Burma war.

Bernie did revolving
jungles, that they used.

Lord Louis Mountbatten,
who was president of the

Burma Star Association, sat
next to me at the premiere,

and during the picture he
said, "I know that place.

"Now where did you shoot that?

"I know that place."

I hadn't the heart to say on
stage three at Shepperton.

And then they had a
set there which was

a ruraltarian village which was

a stand by set they
kept the whole time,

and had to keep repairing it.

- Suitably redressed, this ruraltarian village

became Parisian back streets,

alleys of Victorian London,

or the docks of Hong Kong.

- Have you ever had your
bones scraped, Captain?

It is painful and
extreme, I can assure you.

- You have sinned
against the goddess Kali.

Those that sin against
Kali must suffer the pain

of never looking
upon her face again.

- The incredible truth about India's thuggees,

the butchers of Bombay.

Deadlier than their
native cobras.

- For the 1959 remake of The Mummy,

Bernard Robinson's
art department

and construction crew
recreated the tombs of

Ancient Egypt.

- It was a very good movie.

Looked absolutely wonderful.

It looked like a multi
million dollar film.

You know, the real stars of
Hammer, in my opinion, were

people like Bernard
Robinson, the art director.

- Help!

- He who robs the
graves of Egypt, dies.

- Pre-production art puzzled me.

I saw a poster of The
Mummy striding through the

countryside and a light
shining through his body

as though he had a car
headlamp or something.

Now I said to Terry Fisher,

"We mustn't cheat the audience.

"Could I take the
harpoon in the study

"and run it right
through old Christopher,

"and he can just break it
off and carry on regardless?"

- No!

- But it did enable
me with movement

and with the eyes and
the thought in the eyes,

to create a character.

The movement is
terribly important.

I reach out a hand.

When you reach out a hand,
is it to take somebody,

or is, you know,

because you're
desperately seeking help?

- Tony didn't think The
Mummy was serious enough.

And then by this time,
he's now steeped in the

true gothics, and
it's quite true.

The Mummy is a
little more colorful

and a little bit
more adventurous.

I liked doing it.

In fact the only horror
films I ever personally

made were the two
Mummies, if not three,

I can't remember.

I enjoy directing
of course, yes.

I mean, I don't know anybody
who wouldn't enjoy directing.

- How did he die, man?

- Dr. Pepper signed the
certificate natural causes.

I should have
thought by the look

of the poor fellow
that he died of fright.

- Starring Peter Cushing as the person

who knew every secret
of the night creatures.

- Kenneth Hyman, son of Hammer's silent partner,

and later head of
Warner Brothers,

proposed a Sherlock
Holmes series to begin

with The Hound of the Baskervilles.

- Some revolting
sacrificial right

has been befalled.

The depths a human
being can sink to.

- What human being
could have done this?

- That is precisely what
I intend to find out.

- How can you be so
certain that somebody

took one of the bishop's
spiders and deliberately

placed it in Sir Henry's room?

But it wasn't in the
luggage he brought

from South Africa.

- Elementary, my dear Watson.

There are no tarantulas
in South Africa.

- What do you want me to do?

- Identify anything I may find.

Strange things are to
be found on the moor.

Like this, for instance!

- The bad guys.

In fact, after doing The
Curse of Frankenstein,

the next part I played
was the romantic lead,

Sir Henry Baskerville in the
Hunt of the Baskervilles.

That was before I did Dracula,

I think I'm right
in saying this.

I'm sure if I'm wrong, I'll
be instantly corrected.

- Swine.

You thought it was going
to be easy, didn't you?

Didn't you?

You won't be the first of
your family who thought that.

And you won't be the first
to die because of it.

- Alas, Holmes did not inspire a string of sequels,

like Dracula or Frankenstein.

- Which way?

For heaven's sake, which way?

- Playwright Wolf Mankowitz received double

Hammer's usual salary
for this Freudian twist

on Dr. Jekyll.

- For God's sake,
man, don't kill him.

- Let me alone, Jekyll.

Let me alone.

- Jekyll?

- I deserve nothing
better than you.

- Desire drove her to deception.

Jealousy drove him to madness.

- Will we ever know
who we really are?

Who are you, Kitty?

- The fascinating new Dr. Jekyll.

- Who are you?

- A terrifying new Mr. Hyde.

- Where is Henry?

- Good evening.

Your husband is here.

- But audiences didn't warm to the film,

nor to the handsome Mr. Hyde.

The picture was a
financial failure,

under several titles.

- At that time, we actually
were doing, in my opinion,

some of the best
films we ever made.

Hell Is a City, one of the
first and the strongest

of the police type of drama.

I mean, the fore runner
of all the things that

eventually came
out on television,

and very much the American
police type drama.

- I want children, Julia.

- Oh no, don't start
all that again.

- Look, Julia, we're both
still plenty young enough.

We could have some fine kids.

Your life wouldn't be so empty.

- Factual, you know,
shot on the streets.

Val Guest directed.

I did a war story,
a very strong story,

about war crimes and how
a crime is a crime when

it's done by the enemy,
but when it's done

by your own troops, it's
supposedly, you know,

you had to do it,
but to survive.

- You won't understand
what I'm saying.

It doesn't really
matter anymore.

Two days ago, I had a wife.

A wife I loved very dearly.

You murdered her.

I still have a
five-year-old son.

My last prayer is that
he will live long enough

to forget your vile, inhuman...

- Holy cow.

- And then Tony
found The Pony Cart,

which I think was a play
if I'm not mistaken,

and turned it into a very
strong film, a warning,

never take sweets
from a stranger.

- That's right, that
was the only film

I photographed for them, yes.

Which I thought was
a very good film.

I think that's the trouble
if you have a sort of

a trademark like Hammer,
you have to keep producing

the same films.

- Don't put that
little girl of yours

on the stand to testify
against my father.

Now don't do that.

- Get out of here.

- They'll tear her
apart, and they'll do it

on my instructions!

- Well maybe she
had something on.

- Maybe you had something on.

- I didn't, I didn't!

- Maybe you were fully
dressed the whole time

and this whole outrageous
story of Mr. Olderberry

making you undress is a lie.

- It isn't, he did.

I like dance.

- With nothing on?

- Sometimes.

- Do you do it often?

- Sometimes after my bath.

- In front of other people?

- For daddy and--

- Oh.

So your daddy likes to
see you dance naked?

- Yes.

- Well, what a very
unusual household.

- Your honor, I object...

- The problem there was
that the critics never

forgave us for being successful.

There's no doubt about that and,

when they saw this
film, which was serious,

they accused us of really
trying to capitalize

on the elements.

It was a very, very wrong
criticism, in my opinion,

and it was started by
a couple of critics

who actually never,
ever gave a Hammer film

of any sort a good critique.

- The Damned.

An intelligent and subtle
science fiction thriller,

also lost money
at the box office.

- Joe Losey on The Damned,

he took a lot of
interest in the music.

The people in sort of
frightening looking uniforms

who had to go in and
visit the children

who were being kept
underground to survive

after the world
had been blown up

by an atomic bomb.

It had a sort of slow,
sinister kind of walking

little themes.

"I need some little high sound."

I didn't know what he meant,

as often directors
don't know, really,

what they want.

They know it's not what
I want, they do want,

but they don't know
how to explain it.

So John Hollingsworth
said to me,

"Jimmy, go to the piano
and stand over the strings,

"not by the notes, but over
the strings of the piano,

"and when I do that, just
plink one of the strings."

And we did that

at certain moments, and
Joe at the end said,

"Perfect, that's
just what I wanted."

- Even a picture like
These Are the Damned,

which is one of my
favorite Hammer films which

is kind of an
atypical Hammer film,

it's sort of intellectual
and I don't think that

the studio really was that
crazy about the movie,

is the ads in Britain are
basically big, busty shots

of Shirley Anne Field and,

you know, the intonations
of incest and, you know,

all sorts of dirt.

- Don't ever do
that again, Joanie.

- I'll do what I like, King.

- Do you think I'll
let a man put his

dirty hands on you?

- And the American
ads are no better.

They have children with, like,

icicles hanging off
their noses or something.

That's really a much
maligned and not very

appreciated picture,
but I think one of the

best things they ever did.

- Let me go!

- Why are you doing this?

What's it all for?

What are you trying to
make out of these children?

- The financial failure of these

experiments convinced
James Carreras to stay

within the proven formula.

It was hard to
argue with success.

Michael Carreras
ordered the back lot

transformed for a film
about the Inquisition,

but the Catholic League
of Decency threatened

to ban it.

Luckily, Jimmy Carreras sold
Universal on another movie

on the basis of a poster.

But Hammer had to absorb the
cost of a Guy Endore novel,

Werewolf of Paris.

With no money left,

Tony Hinds became a
writer out of necessity.

- And all I know is I
was landed with a set

of Spanish sets.

- British census objected to everything.

Violent conception of
the werewolf child,

his sacrilegious birth
on Christmas day.

Even a nobleman picking
a scab from his nose.

Hammer argued that the
film was less graphic

than Hitchcock's Psycho.

The censor replied,
"Terrence Fisher is not

"Alfred Hitchcock."

- Oliver Reed was one of the many

who got early
breaks with Hammer.

Including Lesley-Anne
Down, Donald Sutherland,

and Freddie Jones.

Recurring character actors
like Michael Ripper,

Richard Wordsworth,
George Woodbridge,

and Miles Malleson, gave
the films the cozy feel

of a Rhett company.

- The quality of acting
in those pictures was way

above what you would usually
get in that kind of film.

People realized that
good actors could indeed

find elements in these
characters that really

brought out some of the drama.

- Professional frustration caused

Michael Carreras
to leave in 1961.

- I mean, I went off and
did my thing for a couple

of years.

I did a musical, which
I always wanted to do.

I made a western, which,
things I would have

never been able to do at Hammer.

- Executive chores fell to Tony Hinds

who handed the producer's reins

to Tony Nelson-Keys
and later, Aida Young,

one of the first female
producers in England.

- I don't think Aida was
as dedicated as we were.

She, um, rightly so, in a way,

her idea was just to
get the film through.

- Everybody who worked
for Hammer loved

what they were doing.

We didn't have enormous budgets.

We worked very long hours,
in very cramped facilities.

It was only a big old house,

and we did remarkable things.

If you look at the old
films, the old horror films,

that were made in
that old house,

it's quite remarkable.

You'd think we'd shot
it at MGM or Pinewood.

- It was Tony Hinds' unpleasant duty

to keep costs down.

Jack Asher's pain staking
photography took time.

Time was money.

Other cameramen like Michael
Reed and Arthur Grant

became regulars.

Budgets were stretched
to the limit.

- I said, "There's one
way you can make them.

"You can make them
back to back."

That is if to say
we do a picture,

same cast, same sets,
and do two pictures.

- I remember seeing
Rasputin the Mad Monk

and The Reptile and
they were all shot

on the same sets and
Dracula Prince of Darkness

and Plague of the
Zombies were all shot

on the same sets.

So, it was sort of like
watching the same picture twice.

- I think it's
probably the best thing

Christopher Lee's ever done.

Rasputin was supposed
to have had this ability

to hypnotize people.

Well, Chris practically
developed that ability.

It was an incredible
performance.

- Tomorrow you are
taking the little czar

to the frozen river.

While you are there,

you will see to it that
he meets with an accident.

He will be hurt,

and you will send for me.

You will go away

and destroy yourself.

- Gregory, no!

- Two weeks into the
shooting of my Rasputin,

Tony Hinds came to me and said,

"Don, we're in trouble,
we've got to save money."

"Now, we've worked
out possible savings.

"There's this way of doing it,

"and this way, and this way.

"Each of those
would save 25,000.

"Look at these
suggestions, take 'em home,

"think about them
over the weekend,

"but on Monday morning, I
want a decision from you."

But this was the
marvelous thing:

he left it to me to decide

which would do the least
damage in telling the story.

He left it to me to say,

"Alright, we can keep
that sequence but

"we don't have to
build that separate.

"I can put it into a
set we've already used."

- Cary Grant suggested he'd like

to try a horror picture
so Tony Hinds reworked

Phantom of the Opera,

but Grant dropped out.

The role was played
by Herbert Lom.

- Young woman.

You must come with me.

- More than in any other film,

Terry Fisher emphasized
the romance and sadness

in the story.

Because the script was
written for Cary Grant,

the dirty business was
left to a homicidal dwarf.

The distributor
publicized the film widely

as a horror story.

- But as anyone knows who has read the

Gaston Leroux novel, or seen the

Andrew Lloyd Webber musical,
it is a tragic romance.

Missing the point, Time
Magazine called the Phantom

about as dangerous
as dear old grand dad

dressed up for Halloween.

- Christine!

- The distributor blamed the failure

on Terrence Fisher
who did not direct

for Hammer for two years.

The all new climax
for Brides of Dracula

was revamped, too, if you'll
pardon the expression,

by Tony Hinds in
Kiss of a Vampire.

Director Don Sharp proved
as adept at gothic eroticism

as savant Fisher, even
more so than in Dracula,

vampirism is linked
to sexual appetites.

- I don't think anybody
could replace Tony Hinds

with that same understanding
of the basic plots

that would adapt to the genre.

I don't think anybody else
had the same sympathy.

The same feeling for quality.

- Richard Matheson, author of

The Incredible Shrinking
Man, adapted his novel,

I Am Legend, but the
script proved too intense

for the census.

Hammer sold it to
Robert Lippert,

who shot it in Italy
with Vincent Price

as Last Man on Earth.

- But Matheson also adapted a classic

Dennis Wheatley novel, retitled
by American distributors.

They worried that
audiences would assume

the Devil Rides Out
to be a cowboy movie.

- The premise is
what makes it work.

You don't get any idea and
then say, "Well I'm gonna

"turn this into
a scary picture."

The premise has to be
frightening to begin with.

- Rex.

Do you believe in evil?

- As an idea.

- Do you believe in the power of darkness?

- As a superstition.

- Now there you are wrong.

The power of
darkness is more than

just a superstition.

It is a living force,

which can be tapped at any
given moment of the night.

- I remember Tony
Hinds ringing me

and saying, "Jimmy, you've
got to do a very good

"job on this because I
don't think it's working."

And he was quite wrong in
his judgment, wasn't he?

- The lights.

- Now what about the lights?

- They seem to be dimmer.

Terry Fisher was
back as director,

and whenever he
gave me a close up,

I'd make a point of
walking up to him

and slipping a
fiver into his hand.

The crew really
believed I'd bribed him

for a close up every
time we did it.

- I felt kind of
guilty because I,

I spoke ill of that picture

for quite a while.

Mostly because it seemed
to me it had been miscast

and that several of the
special effects were very

cheap looking.

- But any movie that dealt
with the fantastic, okay,

it all automatically got a,

I forgave anything, right?

Any single thing that
went wrong with it.

- As I watch it again,
I overlook those things,

and it had some very
good stuff in it,

and Christopher
Lee was wonderful,

as Charles Gray wast, too.

- That light in the hall.

- Peggy.

No!

- No.

- Let me go!

No!

- I tell you, it's not Peggy.

- Peggy!

- In 1968, Hammer Films received

the Queens Award for
Industry for bringing two and

a half million pounds
into Britain for three

consecutive years.

- They weren't given the
Queens Award for Industry,

whatever, for nothing.

I mean, they were
really making a dent in

the American market in
a way that I don't think

anybody has made since.

- The creators of the Avengers brought Hammer

a movie idea inspired
by a lunch time joke.

- Brian Clemens
was sitting there,

and Brian sat there and
said, "I know what happens.

"He mixes up the
potion, he drinks it,

"and he turns into a woman."

We all fell about laughing.

It was a very funny idea,
but, he wasn't laughing.

He went home and he
wrote the script.

- Ralph Bates played one of the title roles,

but the company had some
difficulty coming up

with Dr. Jekyll's better half.

- There was some talk about
me playing Sister Hyde.

It was considered
for Dr. Jekyll.

Then a very fine
actress went on to play.

There was quite a bit of
nudity and I wasn't, uh,

that keen on that.

- David Booth, I think
was the the one that said,

"Oh, Martine.

"It's perfect, you've come at
the absolute perfect time."

And they said, "They've got
the guy, and they really,

"and it's Hammer."

And I said, "Michael Carreras?"

He said, "Yes."

And I read the script
and I realized that they

had some nudity and I
said, "Okay, fine, top,

"but not full nudity."

I agreed to do that
because I thought it

was an important change, and
in fact I still think it's

probably one of the
best scenes in the film.

- But of course once
you saw the two of them

together it was a
brilliant piece of casting.

And she did it very well, too.

- But unfortunately,
he was pressured.

I think everybody was
pressured, including Hammer,

was being pressured, into
going into more nudity

and more nudity, you
know, to compete with

what was going on.

And, um, they decided
to go even further

to full frontal nudity.

When I got on the
set and I said,

"I did not agree to that."

So we had a bit of a corporator.

However, I used all of
that sort of nervousness

and that sort of rage
and anger and stuff

to birth myself, really.

I mean, when I am there,
I don't know anything

about my anatomy.

It is I who exists, Dr, Jekyll.

Not you.

It is I who will be rid of you.

Rid of you!

Rid of you!

An interesting idea, the
male into the female,

and oh, this could be so great.

They could have taken
it so much further.

- It's Hyde, isn't it?

How is your brother?

- He hasn't been
himself of late.

- Years later when I
saw Roy Ward Baker,

he said to me,

"Martine, I wish we had really
gone into the male/female."

- And that they did do.

As the 1970s progressed,
the new formula became

a little more blood,
and a lot more flesh.

Victorian costumes
lent themselves to
fascinating visuals.

As early as 1959,
Hammer added nudity

in The Man Who
Could Cheat Death.

- Which is a remake of the
Man in Half Moon Street.

Anton Diffring was one
of the premiere actors

of the Berlin theater.

- I've been taking this
fluid every six hours now.

- It's madness.

- It is what keeps me alive.

- It was very necessary,
it was in very good taste.

But England at that time
would have no nudity.

So there was a version
which they paid me extra for

for Europe, and it was
very beautifully done.

- It was beautifully done exploitation.

- I think camera films
were exploitation films.

I mean exploitation
films basically are

films that are designed
to exploit the advertising

a particularly sensational
aspect and if you ever

look at the British
ads for Hammer films,

they are incredibly tasteless.

I mean, they really make
the pictures look like

AIP pictures from the 50s.

It was the American ads
that tend to be models

of restraint, actually,
in comparison.

- A keystone of having an international appeal

were the lovely ladies
they used on screen.

- Because I want to see you die.

- Unlike actors, actresses were often

used as window dressing,

rarely appearing in more
than two or three films

for the company.

- I'd been doing a poster
for an English campaign

called Lamb's Navy
rum, and apparently

he used to see
this big hoarding,

or this big poster everyday.

Supposedly he said, "Find
that girl and bring her in."

And then I was put onto
contract for a year,

which is wonderful.

But no, no duties,
no official duties.

- I had a photograph
on the front page

of one of the tabloid
papers in England one Sunday

and Jimmy Carreras
saw it and said,

"I'd like that girl for
the next Hammer film."

He would take care of you, he
was a fatherly type figure.

And he had everyone's respect.

- Outside producers approached Hammer

with a Victorian ghost
story by Sheridan Le Fanu.

- Harry Fine and
Michael Style came to me

and asked me to do it.

But they were reading into it
a great deal of lesbianism,

which I don't think Sheridan
Le Fanu would have ever

sort of dreamed of, and
neither did I, incidentally.

It was the old story,
a hundred of number of

pictures have been made.

What on Earth can we
do next with vampires?

"I know, we'll
make 'em lesbians."

Brilliant.

- It's very funny actually,
because I walked onto

the set the first
day of my shooting.

Peter Cushing was in the
process of decapitating me.

I don't know, it
made me swallow.

It was quite funny
when he stabbed her

and pulled her up and
slashed her head off

and held this head up high.

And I thought, "Oh, that's me."

And I remember showing
the photograph of it

to my mother and she
laughed and I thought,

"Funny, mother."

The fangs kept falling out

and they kept falling into
Kate O'Mara's cleavage

and the crew wanted
to help retrieve them.

- And it's easy to make lunatics or vicars

or indeed, lesbians, or
homosexuals of various kinds,

to make those figures look fun.

- You must die.

Everybody must die!

- To me, that is fatal.

I think that's, well, it's
downright rude and vulgar

apart from anything else.

- Co-production funds came from Hammer's

opposite number in Hollywood,

American International Pictures.

- I had a certain amount of
criticism while I was making it.

That it wasn't going to
be juicy enough, you know,

and all that.

- Ingrid Pitt proved as enticing to co-star

Ferdy Mayne as to the camera.

- I met her in a picture
called Where Eagles Dare.

I won't forget that one.

She used rather
provocative language

in between takes.

And it was rather delicious
to be bitten by her.

You know, we knew each other.

We'd met and worked
there together

and she said, "Oh
yes, I remember you.

"You played a small
part, didn't you?"

When she became very
pleasant and rather sexy,

I accepted this as a
full turn of character.

It wasn't so small anyway.

- In the Vampire Lovers film,

somebody throws a dagger.

And the dagger goes
straight through her,

and she just disappears.

It's a romantic view.

An essential element
in horror pictures,

which has been almost,
well now totally lost.

- Even before the film was finished,

an ill-fated sequel
began on the same sets.

- And we start with a title.

We think to ourselves,
"What's a good title?'

And we think To Love a Vampire.

And so then we make a poster.

And with this poster,
I go around and see

these distributors
and say to them,

"How would you like to
have a picture called

"To Love a Vampire?"

And they say, "Wonderful,
when can I have it?"

So I say, "Well perhaps
we can deliver it

"in about six months' time."

And I say you "You
wanna see a script?"

or, "Do you wanna
know who's in it?"

And they say, "No, don't bother.

"This is a Hammer film and
we know it'll be alright."

- Yutte Stensgaard replaced Ingrid Pitt

as Carmilla.

Peter Cushing dropped
out because of
illness with his wife.

He was replaced by Ralph Bates.

Terry Fisher was
scheduled to direct.

- And Terry got sick
and in about within

two or three weeks
of starting shooting,

and they asked me
would I like to do it.

And I said yes.

I did it without much muscle.

I hated the movie, hated it.

- I spent the
whole of last night

going through Giles' researches.

And believe me, they
are powerful evidence.

- Evidence?

Of what?

- That you are a vampire.

- You say that

and tell me you love me?

- Prove to me that you're not.

Love me.

♪ Strange love

- I hadn't even seen the first cut,

and I remember I
go down to the seat

and they have some
love song in it.

It was really quit embarrassing.

I mean really, incredibly
embarrassing, actually.

I mean, maybe fortunately
nobody in the audience

knew who I was, but I
still went under the seat.

I curled up, I died.

♪ Strange love

- I hope to become known as
an extremely good actress.

And I hope to get
an article sometime.

- With Yutte
Stensgaard, I don't mean

to demean her talent
any way, I think she's

very talented and
did a lovely job.

Her claim to fame was a
toothpaste commercial,

and, uh, very well endowed and
also, which helped, I'm sure.

- Doubly endowed were Mary and Madeleine Collinson,

Playboy's first
twin centerfolds,

stars of the third spin
off directed by John Hough.

- The Devil has sent
me twins of evil.

- The Carmilla character was reduced

to a bit part.

- They kept doing the
same things to death.

I mean, it was like
a big thrill to have

a lesbian vampire movie
which it turned out to not

be something the
people particularly
wanted to see anyway.

- Sometimes the sex was worse than arbitrary.

So James insisted that
Terry Fisher shoot

a rape scene in Frankenstein
Must Be Destroyed

for the United States version.

- That was a big
disappointment to me,

and it was to Peter as well.

We talked about that a lot.

We were not very
comfortable about it because

we'd almost completed
the whole film.

There was no reason.

I had no reaction
to Frankenstein

as if he'd raped me, even
though the scene was put in

the film much earlier.

That was a very difficult
thing for me to do.

And it was difficult
for Terry, too.

He was very sensitive
about it and,

in the end he just said,
"Enough is enough."

And he cut the cameras.

He just didn't want to continue.

- Ironically, it was later cut as unnecessary.

- Doctor, you'll perform an autopsy.

- On a body that's turned to stone?

- Why'd you want you want
Paul out of the way, Namaroff?

Is it because you're
afraid he'll take

Carla away from you?

Or is it because you
think he'll find out

about the secret that
you share with Ratoff?

- Yes.

- Do you realize
that you get uglier

each time you get old?

And you can't go
on killing forever.

- Why not?

- Female scenes never found the audience

of the male monsters.

Actresses fared better with
the non fantasy thrillers.

Susan Strasberg
in Taste of Fear.

- Father?

- I'm going to give you
a sedative, young lady,

and in the morning
when you wake up,

everything will be alright.

- But don't you understand
what I'm trying to say?

My father is dead, his
body's in the summer house.

- Tallulah Bankhead in Fanatic.

- You must die.

Die, my love.

- Bette Davis in The Nanny.

- You mustn't make it difficult
for nanny, Master Joey.

- Working again with Kenny Hyman,

Michael Carreras found
an interesting mix

of fantasy and flesh.

- And also it wasn't
that much more expensive.

I mean, we went on location
which was the great thing.

With She we went to Israel.

With One Million Years we
went to the Canary Islands.

- They didn't like to have
too large an orchestra.

I think the biggest
I ever had might have

been possibly for She.

Michael Carreras might
have let us have up to 40.

I think She had 50
minutes, which was a hell

of a lot of music.

- Now, H. Rider Haggard's overpowering

adventure classic, She,
comes to the motion

picture screen.

- I thought it was boring,
I must tell you simply again

because it's all
very well to say

"Okay, let's do a remake."

But when you look
at the original,

and it's so marvelous,
and it's got scenes

of thousands of people,

and they give you
four pence to do it,

I mean the color then shows
up all the imperfections.

I mean, I'm not saying
that Ursula Andress

is an imperfection.

She is a delight, and delicious.

But you couldn't make the film.

I mean, I kept referring to
the old film and everything

we shot looked like
a poor imitation.

I mean, we were
the poor relatives.

Yes, color.

But we couldn't make the film.

I thought we tried
to do too much

for too little money.

- We must stop this.

- How far do you
think we'd get in?

- Don't forget, sir,
they were gonna take

a knife and talk to Mr. Lear.

- The first time I
filmed that I remember

there was a double
bill that played at the

little theater in Bar,
and the poster for that

featured both Raquel
Welch and Ursula Andress,

both in the state
of semi undress,

and I would have been
15 or 16 years old,

and it was an
unmissable double bill.

Two films for the price of one.

- I was called on the
telephone by Dick Zanick,

who head of the studio then.

He said, "We've got
this fabulous project

"for you Raquel.

"It's called One
Million Years B.C.

"and it's a remake of a Victor
Mature, Carole Landis movie

and I said,

"Oh my god, not
a dinosaur movie.

"Man, I'll never
live this one down."

I figured, well Steve McQueen
got away with The Blob,

you know, maybe I can get away
with One Million Years B.C.

You know, nobody will
remember this thing.

I can shove it under
the carpet, you know?

But, uh,

people remembered it.

For the kind of films
that Hammer makes,

I thought that they
always do a very good job.

They have a certain budget,
and they have a certain

look they're trying to achieve.

It's not Gone With the Wind.

It's not a David Lee movie.

Relatively speaking, I
thought it was a pretty

well done movie.

Ray Harryhausen who was
a kind of genius of sorts

to do all of these
special effects

and his frame by frame
photography and it was

all explained to me, you
know, in great detail.

- So I took on the project
with the Hammer company

in London.

It was a pleasure to get
back to dinosaurs again.

They were my first love.

- The man was a genius.

The frightening thing
of course is that when

you're looking at the rushes
after a few days work,

you go into the
theater the next day,

you've got six frames, you know.

It's better to hold
them up to the light

'cause otherwise, they've
gone through so quickly.

- Carl Toms really made
the most of this little

doe skinned number that
I was supposed to wear,

so this costume got
smaller and smaller

as the production went on,

and I felt a little
self conscious with this

very brief thing
on all the time.

Alternately, I would try to

sort of strut my stuff
to make the most of it

because I figured, obviously
this is why they've

cast me in this movie.

Not for my acting ability,
because I have no lines.

- I think if cave women
in the early days looked

like Raquel Welch, well we've
regressed considerably today.

- When you were doing
it, it just seemed

so ridiculously silly.

I felt like a fool.

- Jamaican born Martine
Beswick writhed her way through

her portrayal of the
naughty Neanderthal.

- What was happening was
Raquel had this lovely,

everything was like perfect,

and mine looked like
a rag, you know?

So I was a bit jealous.

And she had more makeup
and she had eyelashes,

and I had to go
like a pig woman.

- And then you have this big
girl fight in the middle.

The queen of the Shell
people and the queen

of the Rock people had
to have a girl fight,

and we had to do Destry
Rides Again in the caves

of Tenerife.

The whole thing was
kind of like a dance.

Martine and I worked out
this whole routine together.

I just loved to do
the action stuff.

I should have been a boy.

- That got on really
well with everybody,

particularly John Richardson.

We didn't actually marry,
but we were, for a long time,

we were together
for a long time.

- My leading man was
like to die over.

He was probably,
when I first saw him,

one of the most beautiful men
I have ever seen in my life.

I was like dumbstruck.

I thought, "Man,
look at this guy."

I mean, those blue,
I mean that fa--

I mean, he's the pretty one.

I look butch next to him.

- We often wonder
whether the attraction

of Miss Welch or the dinosaurs
were the important thing

in the picture.

- It started me off.

So, I guess Dick Zanick
was right, you know?

- We had some set standing
from One Million Years B.C.

The idea came on
to make a quickie.

- And he said, "Martine,
I've got something."

He said, "I want
you to be my queen."

I said, "Oh?

"Alright darling, what?"

"Well I want to do
this film called..."

- Slave Women of
the White Rhino,

I mean what else can I say?

- You've got to be kidding.

Why did you come?

- I can only believe the
fates brought me here.

- And they brought you to me.

And all the little
blondies had these,

they just came right
out acting school,

and everybody had these
like really English

voices like this, and
it was hysterical.

I am queen here.

I will not be denied.

Bosco Holder, Jeffrey
Holder's brother,

and he did all of
the dance scenes.

I sort of let loose after
he choreographed it.

I thought, "Listen,
this is my vehicle.

"I get to have
eyelashes in this one

"and I get to have
my costume fit.

"I am going to make this work

"no matter what he says."

- We made a huge
mistake on that film

because we really should
have had those wonderful

cartoon biff, bang, ouch.

It should have been
done like that.

- Who are you?

- I mean those films did well.

But as a mainstay, they
didn't have the running power

of the gothic horrors.

- International beauty Carita,

and a thousand other
sights of savagery

and splendor are
yours to behold.

The Viking Queen.

- Olinka Berova, a new star.

Remember the name, you'll
not forget the woman.

- Val Guest directed the third saga

created in Sir James'
typical manner.

- Do me a picture
with dinosaurs,

and then there was a dinosaur
with a girl in his mouth,

and they did this
enormous, great poster,

with sex and bikinis.

And Jimmy said, "Fine.

"Okay."

So he sent that to
America and said,

"What about a picture?

"Here's the poster."

And they set up the
picture on the poster.

- The dinosaurs were created

by American Jim Danforth,
unusual its past budget.

- He was a brilliant
little guy because he used

to work out all those
monsters with little

human traits to them, which I
have never seen done before.

- Sir James came first with

producer Aida Young
and Brian Lawrence

later would head the
company with accountant

Roy Scaves.

- Wonderful.

They've got very good face.

Isn't it exciting
to find someone new?

- It'd be exciting
if you could find

somebody that looks like this.

I agree.

- She had to have a special kind of magnetism.

I can't describe it, but
I'll know it when I see it.

And Victoria Vetri
has it, I'm sure.

- That was a fait accompli
yes, that came over.

She had been a centerfold
in Playboy or something

and whoever was doing it, I
don't know who the picture

was done for over
there, it was AIP

or whoever it was.

Was it Warners?

Warners said, "Well give us
some glamor that we know."

- Although there is a more final judge than me,

and that's the audience
when they see Victoria Vetri

for the first time.

- But lightening didn't strike twice.

The distributor didn't
push the film widely,

nor did audiences take
Victoria Vetri to heart

as they did Raquel Welch.

Danforth received an Oscar
nomination for their effects,

but lost to the Disney musical,

Bed Knobs and Broomsticks.

- When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth.

- Cost cutting on Creatures the World Forgot

meant no dinosaurs, no dialogue,
and no clothes whatsoever.

Hammer was now
imitating its own films.

Unfortunately, so were
a lot of other people.

- It's over?

- Yes, son.

It's all over.

As early as 1958,
Eros films mimicked

the Quatermass style with
a Trollenberg terror.

- Where there are mountains,
there are always clouds.

- But this one remains
static on the side

of the Trollenberg,
it never moves.

- Freak of nature.

- A radioactive freak of nature?

- They also produced a technicolor chiller

with a script credited to
Jimmy "Frankenstein" Sangster.

- It's sickening, isn't it?

- No longer could there
be this indirection and

not showing things
and people, you know,

describing things
that had happened,

as opposed to seeing them.

The pictures were very graphic.

- Made in Hollywood by Herman Cohen

within months of
Curse of Frankenstein,

this film reverted at the
doctor's ancestral home

in England, creates in his lab,

or even stints of the
address, 113 Wardour Street

West One, London.

- Well that's because
Herman Cohen's office

was on Wardour Street.

In the same building as
the Hammer Films office.

- But not all imitations were cheaply done.

Roman Polanksi made dunce
of the vampires, also known

as the Fearless Vampire Killers,

spoofing Brides of Dracula
and Kiss of the Vampire.

- You.

- Christopher I don't
think ever forgave me.

He said, "How dare you?

"How dare you make a funny
character out of the serious?

"Something that should
be interpreted seriously,

as he's done it, of course.

- Nevertheless, Frankenstein and Count Dracula

himself returned
in this musical.

- Real monsters, I've seen
'em all in the movies.

You've got
Frankenstein's monster,

you've got Egor

and on the table is
this beautiful chick,

long blonde hair goin',
"Hey sweet cakes,

"how are ya?"

You got Frankenstein.

- Ah ha.

We have a visitor.

- And you also got the vampire.

- Won't you join
our little party?

♪ You'll get the feeling,
you'll lose your mind ♪

♪ Feeling make you
holler one more time ♪

♪ You go oh, oh, oh

♪ The feelin' hits ya

- A funny one?

My god, he had no
reason to criticize me.

Bring him up now and
say, "I can see you."

- Hammer's use of color and period decor

beget the Edgar Allan
Poe films in Hollywood,

directed by Roger Corman.

Hazel Court became
a familiar sight

in these American
international pictures.

- Your hands are so cold.

Well I don't think there's
really any difference.

You just have better facilities
here instead of a house,

you know, that leaks.

- We often found ourselves employed

by the competitors,
like the partnership

of Rosenberg and Subotsky,

which was actually
Frankenstein to Hammer

back in 1956.

- During the 60s, there were
a lot of imitators of Hammer.

Amicus pictures looked
virtually the same,

had identical casts,
and I think the studio

started losing its
identity a little bit.

- It's alive.

In someone on this train.

- You're a very good detective.

You've discovered everything
except who is now the host.

- That's our next step.

- I thought this
might come in handy.

- Oh, good idea.

- The two of you together?

That's fine.

But what if one of
you is the monster?

- Monster?

We're British, you know.

- Hollywood began spending millions on films

we'd done for really nothing.

Great stars, elaborate effects.

And on the low budget end,

violence we'd used
as punctuation

became the raison d'etre.

Nothing succeeds like excess.

The face of Hammer changed.

Tired of making quality
films on diminishing budgets,

Tony Hinds retired at 46,

though he continued
to write scripts.

- I think they went wrong
when Tony Hinds left.

Other producers took over,

but, they were copies.

They didn't have that original
inspiration that he had.

To me, Tony Hinds, was Hammer.

- So James used all his sales ability

to lure his son back to the foe.

- Money, I mean I needed that.

You know, I cleared my brain,

and came back and
got on with the job.

- Inside Michael was
another kind of producer

trying to get out, and
I think Michael had

a lot more ambition
for Hammer produce

and wanted to go
very much further.

- We had a period of
very good thrillers,

of which Jimmy wrote, Jimmy
Sangster wrote many of the very

good ones.

- Auntie, dear.

My sister's insane.

- Go away!

Don't come near me!

Don't come near me!

I'm like Simon!

I'm mad, I'm insane!

- Diaboliques.

I remember seeing that at first.

I didn't know what, my
wife was highly pregnant

when we saw that, and
I thought we'd nearly

lost the baby there,
she was so frightened.

I thought, "I'd love to
do a movie like that."

- Simon belongs to me.

No one shall have him

- If an audience thinks
about Jimmy's script,

then you're dead, but
Jimmy used to get them

rattling along at such
a pace that the audience

didn't have time to
think about them.

- Diaboliques.

I'm trying to remember
the English title.

The Devils, it was
called, wasn't it?

It was, it was.

I must have written that
about four times, I think,

Diaboliques.

- So we had to do
something else.

You couldn't just
go on churning out.

I think it total,
if I'm not mistaken,

we did 36 gothic horrors
anyhow, so, you know,

what more could you want?

- When Mike took over Hammer,

he had Jimmy breathing
down his neck saying,

"Oh you're an idiot.

"You can't do this."

So he was fighting that.

- I've never come across
anything like that before.

Leave him!

- The sea.

You will see torture pits
for forbidden lovers.

Barbaric sacrifice.

- No!

- Out on the starboard side!

- A living hell that time forgot

on The Lost Continent.

- Michael Carreras arranged a co-production

with the Run Run Shaw
Studio in Hong Kong.

- It seemed to me that if
we were going to go back

and make another Dracula type,

that we really ought to find
a new way of telling the tale.

So, the Shaws, who I've
always admired anyhow

in their attitude
to film making,

it seemed to me a
natural marriage.

- The idea of going to
Hong Kong to make a picture

of course was,

wonderful, if you'd
never been to Hong Kong.

The difficulties were
absolutely enormous,

but I think the combination
of trying to put

kung fu with straight
forward power didn't work,

or at least we didn't have
a script that made it work.

- Because it was kind of a
cynical exercise in exploitation

of that market interest, as
were most Hammer films, really.

But the result was absolutely
brilliant, in my view.

It was, again,
extremely intense,

wonderfully shot, and the
zombies in that film were,

at the time, were the best
zombies ever captured on film.

- Christopher declined this final indignity.

Instead, the Count was played
by John Forbes-Robertson.

At least I had the honor
of driving one final

wooden stake.

- As the seven brothers and their one sister

meet Dracula.

- If you're looking for trouble, you're staring it

right in the face.

- Shatter, you're marked.

You're waiting on
the other side.

- The idea came on
to make a quickie.

That was my idea, you
know, shot on the streets.

A police type drama.

It wasn't at the
peak of the kung fu.

It was a bit late.

Probably we were too late again.

But I think it's something
else that didn't work.

I'm not saying that it
necessarily makes for

a better picture to
have those ingredients,

'cause you're fighting
the believability factor

all the time.

The representatives of the
major American companies,

they should have said,
"This is no good."

But what they said instead was,

"If you can make it cheaper,

"or if you can show a
little more of this,

"that, or the
other, we'll do it."

And I think they
misled us in a way.

- I think that had
a lot to do with

the downfall of Hammer.

They lowered their standards,

because they had a,
they had their own,

venue, their own
way of doing things.

And then suddenly, because
everybody was doing

nudity and because it
was attracting more,

well it's happening
again right now.

The same thing's happening now.

- I think they knew
pretty much what

they could get away
with so that when

the films were submitted
for censorship,

they knew what they
could get away with,

but definitely that was a
ploy that they would use

to leave something in
that they knew they

could take it out later
without ruining the story.

But we wanted to keep on
his good side socially.

You knew you had a
problem picture coming up,

we took him to get
him a good lunch,

Leison Best is one of
the big restaurants

in town used by the film people.

- Knighted and respected, Sir James wished

to retire and sell
off the company.

Michael wanted to keep
it in family hands.

- I think Jimmy was
bought out for a while,

though Mike got
controlling interest.

- Our horror stories by
that time were passe.

I mean, they were
children's stuff.

You get into the chainsaw
massacres and what have you.

I suppose I wasn't in tune.

I have to take the blame
for this, I was in charge.

- And Mike swears that Jimmy
went 'round the industry

and said, "Don't help my son."

That's Mike's end of it.

Jimmy on the other hand, I
wouldn't put anything past him.

Jimmy got on with that
wide eyed face and say,

"I wish him all the
luck in the world."

- Everything

is born, it flowers,
and then it fades away,

and eventually it dies.

- The Hammer period was
like the last gasp of

world cinema.

- I think a moment
came to an end.

Sir James left, retired.

I think the moment came
to an end, you know.

There was a time, and
then there wasn't a time.

- And as it happened,
the horror thing

can't go on forever.

Sadly, some of the other
streams that I tried to instill

into the company's product
line just didn't work.

- I thought Vampire
Circus was one of the best

Hammer horror movies
of the whole lot.

I thought Robert Young
did a marvelous job.

And there were some
fantastic scenes where

the humans transformed
into animals and animals

transformed back into humans.

It was all a very,
very sexy film.

There was lots of sex in it.

I still think it was one
of the very, very best

of the Hammer movies.

I played the circus strongman.

I went through the entire film.

So it was a really
good part for me.

- No, it was none
of the old gang.

We saw this
disintegration happening

and we were rather sad for it.

Because the people who
were concerned with Hammer,

really, other than Mike,
were no longer around him.

- The novelty of color was now standard,

even on television.

Concepts often seemed strained.

- It is common to suppose
that the vampire attacks

in only one way: by biting
the neck and draining

the victim of blood.

The girls you spoke of,

they were not drained
of blood, but youth.

Of life itself.

- But they wanted,

they wanted it to appear nude.

So we kind of came
to a compromise,

in so far as my hair was a
lot longer in those days,

and uh, and so that
covered my upper chest.

- When we were
making that picture,

I didn't realize
that she didn't want

to show any of her top.

But it's become very apparent
when you see the movie,

that she didn't show anything.

- And I think I actually used

some sort of gaffer tape or
something to stick it down,

so I felt quite
secure in that sense.

And then a pair of flesh
color knickers, briefs,

and I was alright.

I was all set, so it was like
being on the beach, really.

- Captain Kronos, in fact,
I just watched Kronos today.

I was amazed that the
fight in the cemetery

was all done on the back
lot at Elstree which

was not a big back lot.

It had houses pretty
much all the way around,

but Captain Kronos, where
the cemetery was shot,

was a small little hill.

And when you look at the
show, it's just like up

the hill and down
the hill because

the camera angles, as if it
was filmed any differently,

would have had houses
eventually within 25 yards

of that place.

- Her life will be yours.

Yours.

Her youth will pulse through
your veins, my darling.

Replenishing,
restoring, take her.

- To death.

Yes.

You bleed, my lord.

This is God's blade.

Forged for your black heart.

- A lack of audience response killed

Captain Kronos as
a potential series.

- Possibly it was too romantic.

Maybe it was either
ahead of its time, or,

you know, the other way.

Maybe it was kind
of lost in time.

I'm not too sure.

The timing was wrong,
anyway, I think.

- Hammer flowed with the tide of television

by adapting a BBC serial.

- And On the Buses is one
of my least favorite films,

and I don't know anyone
who would put that high

on their list.

Interestingly, it
is without doubt,

the most successful commercially
of all the Hammer films,

and still generates a royalty
income for the company today.

- Hammer's last horror picture, so far,

was made in 1975.

- 98% of so-called
Satanists are nothing but

pathetic freaks

who get their kicks
out of dancing naked

in freezing church yards.

I have a feeling
I'm dealing with the

other two percent.

- Richard Widmark challenges Christopher Lee

for the soul of a
girl named Catherine.

- They got Catherine.

And we've got to get her
back before it's too late.

- By then the so-called low budgets

net a half million pounds:

over a million dollars.

Hedging their bets,
Hammer brought in

German Co financing,
and an American star,

Richard Widmark.

Appropriately, Christopher
Lee was the heavy.

- When this ceremony
has been performed,

I shall destroy
you, John Varney.

- The demons hate you, Rayner,
they're waiting for you.

- Catherine.

Catherine.

- You are warned.

- It's me.

Don't!

Damn you!

Damn you!

- The nude permissiveness

extended to a nude photograph of

teenage Nastassja Kinski
in the press book.

- Hammer's last theatrical venture

was made in 1979.

- The Lady Vanishes.

- Michael Carreras planned a

new version of the thriller
by Hitchcock himself.

- He was a journalist.

She was a mad cap
American heiress.

Miss Froy was an English nanny.

- I'm talking about the lady
who's sitting right there.

- There has been no
English lady here.

- There's a woman
missing on this train.

I saw her.

And now people keep saying
she was never there.

You saw her, I know you did.

- Ultimately, it was a Hammer film

in name only.

The dirty business was left
to Phantom of the Opera's,

Herbert Lom.

- You're asking me to
remove the bandages?

- No, no, not the
whole business.

Just enough so we can
get one teeny, tiny peak.

Just so we can see the face.

- But there is no face.

Nobody believes you now.

Nobody will believe you later.

- The Lady Vanishes received scant distribution,

a Loch Ness movie drowned
in a sea of delay.

- Michael Carreras left in 1979.

Royce Keggs helmed the
company through the

dungeons of the British
film industry by producing

two TV suspense series.

- Bastard, bastard, bastard.

- He makes such a noise when
anything unusual happens.

- Will you let me out?

Now?

- Oh no.

Not until you are trained.

Now please, we're not
trying to thwart my plans.

If you cause me to
close this hatch,

nobody will hear you.

Ever.

- The pictures that I
worked on over there

were Hammer pictures, and
they ended up in the space

of ten years.

So that's how
important they were.

They provided so many jobs.

Now, if Hammer wasn't around,
a lot of people wouldn't

have been in the business.

You know, and that's
from art directors,

all the way through.

- I get asked time and
time again in letters

and in interviews and things,

"When is Hammer gonna return?"

Or, "Will Hammer return?"

- It's a shame.

I think someone should
really pick up the torch

and run with it.

- Now Hammer has contracted to make

horror, suspense, and
science fiction films

with name stars and
top creative talent.

- Hammer's changed
hands a couple of times

over the last 10 years.

The new Hammer obviously
has to move into

the 21st century with new
techniques and new stories

and so on, appealing to
contemporary audiences,

and that's what they plan to do.

But always with a
respectful nod backward

to what the company
has always represented.

Quality film making.

Once in a while, maybe
some gothic horrors.

- Entertainment technology has changed radically

since the 1950s, yet
Hammer thrives in this

new incarnation,
inspiring a nostalgic cult

that reaches around the world.

- They've often said,
"We grew up with you.

"You are part of the family.

"We'd go on a Saturday
and see these horror films

"and scream and yell,

"so we've always considered
you a part of us."

Which is wonderful.

- Fan periodicals, like Little Shoppe of Horrors

published by Richard
Klemensen, savored the films

like fine old wines.

- Top professional tip their hats to Bray.

- Gremlins fashioned its climax

on the end of Hammer's
original Dracula.

Director Joe Dante cast
Christopher Lee himself

in Gremlins 2.

- He said, "But you have
to remember, Christopher,

"that I and all my peers,
and all my colleagues,"

and there's a
great many of them.

Martin Scorsese, Brandon
Palmer, John Landis,

Steven Spielberg, Joe Dante,

and many, many, many
other who don't come

to mind at the moment, he said,

"We were brought
up on your films

"when we were teenagers
and young men.

"We were brought
up on your films.

"We liked them, we loved them."

And I'm naturally very
grateful for that.

It means that don't forget.

- I'm not giving you bullshit.

They were made by
people who cared.

- While we were doing them,
we were dedicated to them.

- As a matter of
fact, as it were done,

it couldn't have been better.

- Those films will last forever.

- Mocked and vilified in their time,

these films are now
revered in places

like the British Film
Institute as classics

of their era, and the world
has finally come 'round

to know what we've
really known all along:

anything made by
Hammer is the best.

- Quite ironic, it's
got to be anything.

And here it is.

You know, they're
showing them at the

Museum of Contemporary Art
and the Lincoln Center,

all those horror films.

- It's in our blood.

Film is in our blood.

- Fun days.

- Hammer was one of the
happiest studios I've ever

worked in in my life.

And it was a family.

- These motion pictures created an

insular fantasy world
with fiery images of love

and innocence, of
dark sexuality,

and hideous death.

- We who created that world

have a touch of
immortality through them.

And you who share that
world over the years

can revisit it as
you would recall

a favorite fairy tale.

Secure that in the end,
good will always triumph

over evil.

- That is, until the next sequel.