THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES (Terence Fisher, 1959)

 

A canine curse stalks the Baskerville heirs, its howl a death knell heard from the foggy moors to the grandiose mansion where the current Lord resides. Terence Fisher directs Hammer’s only adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s deductive detective, derived as more of a horror story than criminal investigation though still races at breakneck speed towards a bloody denouement.

Peter Cushing is excellent as the smarmy and pernicious Sherlock Holmes, his mannerisms as active as his mind: though Holmes is absent for most of the second act, Cushing steals the film in every scene. Christopher Lee as Sir Henry Baskerville, the latest target of the supposed curse, is woefully underwritten, relegated to plot device instead of proactivity. Andre Morell imbues Dr. Watson with a Doctorial wit, elevating him from bumbling sidekick to Holmes’ elementary peer.

The story is redacted then reduced to its basic elements, cutting to the narrative bone to allow complexities and exposition to be replaced with suspense and blood while everyone seems to be running in every scene. One great scene has Watson investigating a light in the mansion’s attic window: a shadow stalks him as he nears the door until he is lost in the penumbra, consumed by the mysterious perpetrator. It’s a momentary but neat effect and one of many flourishes that guide this towards Hammer tropes which inexplicably condemns it for Doyle purists.

The curse is revealed to be a shaggy dog story, and Holmes, once again proving his intellectual superiority takes full credit for services rendered.

Final Grade: (B+)

THE MUMMY'S SHROUD (John Gilling, 1967)

 

Once again, a Pharaoh’s curse is used as a convenient convention to resurrect the shrouded monstrosity whose rest is less than peaceful, murdering all who defiled his sacred tomb. John Gilling recycles the same tedious revenge scenario that is dominated by an excessive prologue (narrated by an uncredited Peter Cushing) that has to tell us instead of showing us, so the first ten minutes become boring exposition.

The story’s fault lies not so much in the boilerplate plot but in creating unlikable characters. The greedy businessman Stanley Preston is so abrasive that the only frisson is awaiting his demise…which is woefully unsatisfying. Hammer wunderkind Michael Ripper gets a great part (and the majority of screen time) as the belittled aid de camp to Preston, and his death is wonderfully developed and sympathetic. But little tension is created as the narrative shambles along towards its climax as the good guy scientist and his busty protégé must discover the nexus between the nasty murders and finally unwrap the mystery. 

THE MUMMY’S SHROUD is rather bland except for Michael Ripper’s slavish performance which imbues the film with emotion, while the dead eyes beneath the frightful Mummy makeup are disarming. Otherwise, a mundane addition to the Hammer oeuvre.

Final Grade: (C)

RACE FOR LIFE (Terence Fisher, 1954)

 

Speed racer Peter Wells crashes his marriage but not his car, his choice between chrome and steel and the soft, supple flesh of his lovely wife. The movie isn’t nearly as interesting as that sentence; it’s a humdrum melodrama without a single noir element. Terence Fisher’s direction is lax, the photography bland, and the editing and back projection lackluster. However, much of the film is stock footage of Formula 1 racing and it includes some awful, deadly crashes and some tense moments on the track. In one crash, the driver is actually catapulted from the car, and I expect it was a fatality! 

How this film ended up being included in the Hammer Film Noir set Volume 2 is the real mystery. This is purely a tepid melodrama that has as much energy as a TV soap opera. Peter Wells (Richard Conte) is aging out of his profession but can’t give it up just yet, while his beautiful wife Patricia (Mari Aldon) can’t take the pressure of his life-threatening career any longer.  That’s it. That’s the plot. No femme fatale. No Blackmail. No murder. No backstory. Just a lot of stock footage with an announcer telling us which driver is in the lead. This movie crashes and burns on the first lap. Skip it. 

Final Grade: (D-)

THE UNHOLY FOUR (Terence Fisher, 1954)

A dead man returns home after four years to confront those he believes responsible for his murder. This sentence is so much more interesting than the muddled mess of a story that follows, as our protagonist is so cold and detached (though warm and breathing) and the impious tetralogy so ill-defined that our interest in the bickering and arguing over who killed who is tiresome. This may win the Hammer Film Award for most phone calls in an 80-minute film! Terence Fisher’s direction is pedestrian but his DP Walter Harvey, working in widescreen (1:66:1) compositions with deep focus, somehow makes this dull story feel alive. Harvey often shoots characters in mirrors to reveal their duplicitous nature, and his medium shots still keep the background characters in focus so we can see expressions or body language. 

Philip Vickers (William Sylvester), sporting a jagged scar on his forehead, returns home after a four-year absence and is surprised that his wife Angie (Paulette Goddard) may be moving on with her life. She is having a party and coincidentally the three business associates, one of whom Vickers believes is responsible for his murder attempt, are in attendance. When one of these men ends up with his brains bashed in that same night, Vickers becomes the prime suspect. Soon, the story’s convolutions become monotonous and characters act, not out of reason or suspicion, but as plot points to propel the story to its unsurprising conclusion. 

William Sylvester imbues his character Vickers, the story’s protagonist and one we should feel some compassion for, as a stone-cold asshole. Paulette Goddard seems to be following the inept script and not doing much else, as there is zero chemistry between her and her husband. And this is four fucking years later, yet it seems like a few days as people don’t’ seem very shocked or alarmed at his return, while Angie’s life must have remained in stasis for this entire time both physically and emotionally. The entire third act is laughable, as Vicker’s associate attempts to frame him for the murder of the secretary (who claims Vickers was responsible for her father’s suicide years before), but the resolution is so inane it makes one laugh out loud. 

If you’re going to title a film that evokes Tod Browning’s fantastic silent masterpiece, there better be a murderous Ape in the third act! Alas, no such luck. So, the title exclaims that there are four who are blasphemous, but it remains ambiguous as to who the final applicant truly is. The secretary? The wife? Or Vickers himself? I posit the later. 

Final Grade: (C-)

THE DEADLY GAME (Daniel Birt, 1954)

A high society photographer starts dealing in tiny portraits of the micro kind and embroils his buddy in a darkroom full of nitrate death. Daniel Birt’s utilitarian direction lacks suspense, drama, emotional complexity and thrills for 70 minutes of Lloyd Bridges acting like a goofy nice guy, who knowingly carries the deadly microfilm around in his coat pocket without any bad guy shooting him (or at least clobbering him)! The film eschews action for talky exposition especially in a tearoom where plot points are practically shouted so anyone can overhear the secret information. Bad script, apathetic direction, uninspired compositions (except one scene) define this flaccid noir. 

Philip Graham (Lloyd Bridges) and his photographer buddy Tony (Pete Dyneley) are on vacation in Spain when Tony is suddenly called back to England on business. But he needs to get a mysterious envelope that he had stashed in the hotel’s safe; however, the owner’s wife has the only key, and she won’t be back until morning. Since Tony just has to leave now, Philip will snag the envelope in the morning and drive Tony’s car back to England where they’ll meet up. Of course this leads to Philip getting assaulted, confronting a femme fatale burning letters in Tony’s apartment while his cohort’s body goes all rigor mortise in the darkroom, discovering more mysterious envelopes, and getting involved in tepid blackmail subplot, then discovering that he’s carrying a secret formula on microfilm. It’s way less exciting than it sounds. 

Lloyd Bridges reads his lines and hits his marks, investing his character with a good-natured persona, yet shows practically no emotion like fear or loss (I mean, his wartime buddy was murdered) and his romance is flat and ineffectual. In one neat scene when Philip eavesdrops in the aforementioned tearoom, he slips the microfilm into the pocket of the man who sold it to Tony. It’s a compassionate act towards this little man who loudly proclaims his regret. Of course, Philip takes it back the next day! Then there’s a scene where Philip is led by one of antagonists into an empty theatre while carrying the microfilm, and why this dude doesn’t kill him immediately remains a mystery. Especially since it soon turns into fisticuffs above a trap door revealing a room full of pointy polearms while the theatre burns down around them, and if someone didn’t get impaled, I would have turned the movie off! It’s the only scene that develops some visual interest and tension, as low angle shots through the trap door depict the flailing men, while the weapons are foregrounded. 

The finale is as absurd as the previous 60 minutes as Philip meets with the kingpin (which is no surprise) and tries to secretly tape record the conversation. It should be notes that his reel to reel recorded is the size of luggage! It’s just shoved under the table. Once discovered, we are shown another microphone hidden in the dangling light and the Spanish police detectives eavesdropping. But the story builds no suspense as these key elements are never set up prior to the scene! It could have been a more exciting denouement as Philip and the police hide the microphones and maneuver the bad guys to the right table. Then as the conversation begins to reveal implicating details, maybe a loud sound or technical problem could briefly interrupt. Hell, I just plotted a better scene! I do like the final reveal as the bad guys try to escape in costume and the kingpin is exposed by man’s best friend. 

Final Grade: (C-) 

TEN SECONDS TO HELL (Robert Aldrich, 1959)

 

Six Wehrmacht soldiers, relegated to defusing Allied bombs by their Nazi superiors, are now POWs returning to the rubble of occupied Berlin and must wage another war against rational egoism. Robert Aldrich’s superb direction allows the narrative to unwind and defuse like the dual detonator of a British thousand-pound bomb, while DP Ernest Laszlo’s wonderful compositions and deep focus photography, especially while shooting on location in post-WWII Berlin, add verisimilitude and tension to this taught melodrama. 

The six-pack is led by demoted Architect and anti-Nazi Erik Koertner (Jack Palance), a man whose altruistic temperament reduced him to choose between bomb squad tech or concentration camp victim, who must battle against his SS cohort Karl Wirtz's (Jeff Chandler) inherent selfishness. They gamble their mortality in a tontine, a three-month annuity where they invest their wages (minus living expenses) and all goes to the survivor, winner take all. But the group of experts is confronted by a new, unknown British bomb with a dual detonator, and they soon become extinct, one by one. There is a minor love interest between Koertner and his landlady Margot Hofer (Martine Carol), a French woman who betrayed her country by falling in love with a German soldier who was killed in the Africa Corps during the war. Alone, she is repulsed by Wirtz’s mocking nihilism and drawn to Koertner’s kind humanism. But the film doesn’t explode this melodrama as it’s concerned with the battle between Nazi ideology and Western morality.

The bomb defusing scenes are full of the anxiety of flesh and sinew against rusting steel death, which is less than ten seconds away at any moment. The scenes are shot from low angle without music, so we only hear their sharp breath and the slow grinding of metal as the fuse spins ever so slowly. They wear no armor or padding, their only protection their skill and blind luck, which soon runs out. So, it comes to the final scene were Wirtz is stuck with an unexploded bomb with only a pencil stub keeping him from oblivion, while Koertner works to save both of them (damn the annuity, which he wants to pay to one of the squad’s widows anyway). But Wirtz has the opportunity to sabotage the effort and he does so, with only Koertner’s skill keep him balanced on the razor’s edge of existence. But Wirtz realizes this is his bomb to defuse and as Koertner walks away, Wirtz purposely blows himself to kingdom come. 

Final Grade: (B+) 

THE BLACK GLOVE (Terence Fisher, 1954)

 

James Bradley is a world-famous trumpet player who really digs the London jazz scene but may just get buried by it! Terence Fisher and DP Walter Harvey just point the camera and go, allowing Alex Nicol as the musician James Bradley to blow his own horn once too often, investing his character with a smarmy resilience. Is this a one-man comedy act or a noir murder mystery? 

The film opens with Bradley (Brad, from here on out) and his orchestra bebopping to a packed house in London’s Palladium. He bails on the after-concert party (he doesn’t dig that scene), and by chance is lured by a siren’s song echoing down a crowded street. He hooks up with this bluesy siren Maxine (Ann Hanslip) and she promises to make a spaghetti dinner for the two of them...at 2 in the morning! When Brad exits a few hours later after a wholesome liaison, he’s surprised to wake up with police detectives hovering over his bed. Maxine was murdered and he’s the person of interest! The next 70 minutes or so involve Brad, a musician whose livelihood and creative outlet are in the use of his hands, get involved in multiple fistfights. Hell, he even dukes it out with a jazz pianist who doesn’t seem to care much about his own hands either. The convoluted story makes little sense as the story unwinds because Terence Fisher doesn’t know how to create tension or suspense; instead of giving the audience information hidden from Brad so we can root for him to uncover the killer or get some cheap thrills as he edges closer towards doom, Fisher gives Brad information not shared with the audience until the final minutes! Ha! So, the whole finale after the poisoned mouthpiece, which should have been a nice piece of suspense, is just Brad telling the police he discovered the killer’s identity so they round-up all of the suspects. The resulting mayhem is absurd. 

What really makes this film kick and feel alive is the jazz score full of diegetic music, as Alex Nicol as our protagonist mimics some killer trumpet solos played by legend Kenny Baker. The music is worth more than the price of admission to this tepid, unintentionally hilarious non-thriller. And it should be noted that there is no fucking black glove anywhere in this story. 

Final Grade: (C)

X THE UNKNOWN (Leslie Norman, 1956)

 

The Earth belches forth a parasite that feeds upon the fission of the Atomic Age, its amorphous symmetry laying radioactive waste to the surface world in its endless quest for sustenance. Hammer Films mimics the American zeitgeist of Cold War fiction, adventuring into this hybrid genre of science and horror that actually spawns its own grotesque cinematic bastard child: THE BLOB.

The film begins with restless soldiers during a training exercise, their Geiger counter clicking away in search of a harmlessly radioactive ingot. Suddenly, the ground erupts with fire and brimstone as a crack in the world opens into a grinning chasm, and a soldier’s flesh blisters with radiation burns. The bottomless hole vomit’s a sentient protoplasm that searches for nourishment, plentiful in the modern world of nuclear armament, this food of the gods. The roiling weapon of mass destruction consumes everything in its path, and one lone scientist has a theory that can render the charged creature neutral, as the army is impotent to stop its day of wrath.

Director Leslie Norman evokes a chilling suspense with bleak black and white photography, as landscapes of shadow and fog become the hunting grounds for this unknown evil. The story progresses logically and thrums with tension, as Dr. Royston’s erector set laboratory becomes the nexus of the investigation. Stunned into silence when a dead boy’s parents hold him morally culpable for the child’s gruesome demise, Dr. Royston must perfect his experiment quickly in order to save the world. American science fiction of the Cold War era is ripe with conflict between science and the military, but here the two work together to solve this violent equation.

The final act seems too rushed, as belief is suspended between two trucks that must have been built in a few hours (at most), utilizing Dr. Royston’s esoteric experiment. But they race to capture the malignant mass between two sonic disruptors and blast it to oblivion. As the film fades to black, we wonder if other denizens of this underground labyrinth will someday surface to feed again.

Final grade: (B+)

PARANOIAC (Freddie Francis, 1963)

 

A dysfunctional family feud becomes a funeral procession as an ancient organ bleats a tormented tune. Freddie Francis imprints this delightfully paranoid celluloid with his signature touch, juxtaposing suspense and melodrama into a sordid mixture of horror where a family’s fortune is an inheritance of nihilism.

Oliver Reed as Simon the drunken antagonist steals nearly every scene, chewing up the scenery with devilish delight, his sharp eyes and Cheshire grin reflecting a playful yet pugnacious nature, like a bully with a grim sense of humor. Simon says and the deranged Aunt follows, her masquerade a chilling falsetto echoing through an empty cathedral, abandoned by both god and sanity. As Simon plans to drive his sister to her grave, his journey ends in his own final resting place of brimstone and hellfire.

The beautiful black and white Scope cinematography is often utilized for triptych compositions, as deep focus allows mise-en-scene to impart information through background events. Francis’ skewed angles are scored with eerie etude, and the pacing induces just the right amount of suspense without overzealous exposition. The opening scene is wonderful, as Francis introduces the family members one at a time (even the grave of the dead ones) with an unbroken crane shot, focusing upon each character and alluding to their unique personality traits. It is the perfect setup for the mystery to come.

The convoluted plot points an accusing finger at each character except Eleanor, who remains the femme whose fate seems written in blood, her sanity cursed and stripped away without last rights. Traumatized by the death of her parents and the suicide, years before, of her little brother Tony, she is now haunted by the grown-up image of her sibling who proves more flesh than bloodline. Invested by an incestuous affair, Eleanor nearly completes Simon’s murderous recipe for inheritance. But the truth sets her free and condemns Simon, self-medicating his malignant guilt with an excess of alcohol, to a burning embrace with his desiccated brother, evermore.

Final Grade: (B+)

STOP ME BEFORE I KILL (Val Guest, 1960)

 

A race car driver finds his life stuck in neutral after a terrible crash on his wedding night, his emotions twisted metal and impotent rage. Val Guest directs this thriller with the accelerator pushed firmly to the floor, a narrative that races through red flags towards a surprising climax.

Alan Colby is a world-famous race car driver who can no longer run at full speed, suffering post-traumatic stress that relegates him as a passenger to his docile wife. He must conquer the consuming fear of loss of motor control as his hands become weapons, murderous entities that seemingly act of their own accord. Unable to be physically aroused by his beautiful bride, he lashes out with unbridled violence, nearly strangling her with intimacy. Denise sticks by his side and seeks the help of a psychiatrist, but first Alan must swallow his pride and purge his guilty conscious.

Val Guest imbues the film with a riptide of dialogue as the characters trade barbs and malicious tirades, or collapse into crippled silence worn out from the maelstrom. Overlapping conversations heighten the sense of dynamic tension as Alan spins out of control while his wife stands by her man. Dr. Prade utilizes psychiatric gimmicks that would make professionals cringe (oxygen deprivation, drug therapy, hypnotic regression) that works well as a plot device, and finally gets to the root cause of the association between the crash and his urge to strangle his wife. It’s a clever link in the chain of events, as Alan is a man who controls his life with his hands, thundering horsepower his heartbeat…and it’s his hands that betray him. The suspense mounts between the trio: will Alan be cured, are Dr. Prade’s intentions therapeutic, and is Denise faithful?

Though the story relies on pop psychology (but so does Hitchcock’s SPELLBOUND) the final suspension of disbelief becomes refreshing and enlightening. The film begins with a car crash and fortunately doesn’t end as one.

Final Grade: (B-)