a double bill of classic Borehamwood horror.

Part 2

Shooting hadn't even finished on Blood from the Mommy's Tomb when camera's started rolling on Hammer's next film, and continuing with the classics, this time Robert Louis Stevenson Jekyll & Hyde - with a Hammer twist of course. " Dr Jekyll & Sister Hyde " Brian Clemens came up with the title while having lunch in the studio canteen at EMI, and then went on to write the screenplay and produce the film with Albert Fennell.



It's a great movie with some great performances, especially the two leads Ralph Bates and Martine Beswick. The Whole movie was shot on some very nice atmospheric sets evoking a dark and foggy 19th century London Town, with a healthy mix of Jack the Ripper and even some body snatching from Burke & Hare, and of course lots of bloody screams.


There's a definite sense of Movie Theatre here, something I think the film world has lost a lot of with its need for realism. One of my favorite scenes's is Jekyll's first transformation into Hyde, and its all done in one shot using mirrors and chairs - its great just for its pure sense of theatre. It's in this scene we first get to see Martine Beswick, and it's really quite creepy in a way only the 1970's can do creepy.



After such a great performance it's a shame she never worked with Hammer again, leaving England & Borehamwood for Hollywood.

A double bill of classic Borehamwood horror.

1971 style. Part 1


First up, Blood From the Mummy's Tomb based on the 1903 Bram Stoker novel "The Jewel of the Seven Stars". It starred Valerie Leon as both the Egyptian Queen Tera, and the bewitched Margaret Fuchs, Andrew Kier as Prof. Fuchs and James Villiers as the evil Corbeck. While its all a bit slow paced i did rather enjoy it. There are many classic Hammer moments, including the above where Aubery Morris playing Dr Putnam meets a rather grisly end. There's even a brief glimpse of Borehamwood towards the end of the movie, Margaret (in fact Valerie's double Sarah Mathieson ) running through the woods and around a lake - the lake being EMI's water tank on their back lot.


The real star of the movie is again Hammer itself, they created some great publicity shots for the film, which have become classic shots in their own right, some of which you can see at the current Hammer festival at the Idea Generation Gallery in London. If you can't make that then here's a few more.




Valerie Leon is truly an Icon of Iconic British Films, as well as a Hammer star she was a Bond girl in both The Spy Who Loved Me and Never Say Never Again, Numerous Carry On Films and every classic British TV show from the 60's and 70's. If that's not enough, she was the Hai Karate girl!



...And! she drove an Austin 1300GT ... and If you'd like to find out some more, you can go to her Valerie Leon website



I was too afraid to watch hammer films when i was young, so its been a real treat to visit these movie's like new releases. My only association with them is with my old next door neighbor Phoebe who used to be a cleaner at MGM and EMI studios. When she wasn't chasing me around her back garden with a large object, she was having me shovel coal or chop wood for her fire, or sending me around the shops to pick up a packet of Kensitas cigarettes. She was rather fond of Horror and would always tell me there was nothing to be afraid of , cleaning in the studios she knew it was all fake. I was never convinced, and after seeing Antichrist yesterday I'm still not.

Halloween

It's Halloween season so I felt it appropriate to change the picture on this page to something that will make you scream !
And who better than the fabulous Valerie Leon. Coming up A Hammer double bill to celebrate the Halloween season. But it will have to wait as i have a date with the Antichrist

Terry Spencer - A life well lived

Terry Spencer the man behind the main photo on this blog passed away earlier this year. In reading his obituary here there can be no sadness as his life was quite incredible and he leaves behind some great photos of the 20th century , here's a couple of them




We're glad you came by.
18 March 1918 – 8 February 2009

...a little more on Malcolm

I watched If.... recently. Its lost none of its brilliance, and for a film made in 1968 still feels very fresh, and is as groundbreaking now as it was then. I only note it here as some scenes where shot in another of the villages within a stones throw from Borehamwood - Aldenham


While the film is set at Cheltenham College, Gloucestershire a number of scenes where shot at Aldenham School.
The school was founded in 1596 by Richard Platt, and throughout If.... we see this overbearing portrait of the man.

If Mcdowell didn't quite make it all the way to the Wood for If.... , his next picture The Raging Moon would bring him to Elstree Studios in 1970 prior to his shooting of A Clockwork Orange.


I have never seen the film, but it was directed by Brian Forbes and also starred his wife Nanette Newman. Forbes had recently been appointed as managing director of the studio, and one could say responsible for the wealth of talent coming into the studios in 1970/71 including those mentioned before . He also wrote the screenplay for A Raging Moon just for good measure.

Here's a lovely picture of the two of them - they've been married for 54 years.

Canterbury Tales

This is Canterbury House my first stop after arriving in the world, i lived at no.77 for just a few months before moving on to a more cultured semi detached existence. There are no photographs of my time here but once again i can rely on my cinematic neighbors to fill in the blank spaces in my photo album.


well, O my brothers, its october 1970, and borehamwood being what it is " a chill winter bastard though dry". Upstairs at no.100 in Canterbury House Alex de Large has moved in - well horrorshow like! Great bolshy yarblockos indeed ! I can't imagine that my old flat ever looked like this, but i'm sure the layout is the same, and the colour and the light of 70's Borehamwood seems just right.


I never liked the movie, and have never been a Huge Stanley Kubrick fan, but recently re-watched it ( it being A Clockwork Orange if you haven't figured it out by now ) and saw it as more the black comedy it was supposed to be. I still dont know why it is quoted as Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange, the film apparently had no working script and was filmed directly from the book, working day to day. A huge amount owes to the production design of John Barry for the look of the film, the great soundtrack by Wendy Carlos, and of course the excellent Malcolm McDowell. Some credit to I should add Lindsay Anderson and the character of Mick Travis in his groundbreaking film If.... played brilliantly by McDowell which led to his casting of Alex by Kubrick
There is of course no doubting Kubrick as a great director, and that the film is massively influential, but still it rubs me up the wrong way


The Korova Milk bar was one of the few sets built for the movie, and was built at Hawks Films then location at the corner of Bullhead Road, which is almost directly inbetween the old MGM studios which had recently closed, and EMI Studios. Bullhead Road is one of a few very steap hills in the town and as a kid used to enjoy riding my chopper down at great death defying speeds.


The Durango-95 purred away real horrorshow - a nice, warm, vibraty feeling all through your guttiwuts. Soon, it was trees and dark, my brothers, with real country dark. The area around Shenley Village to you and me, a village just north of Borehamwood.


Shenley was again the location for the murder of the cat lady with this rather large phallus. It is in fact a work by the artist Herman Makkink and not a movie prop.


It was called The Rocking Machine and first appeared in Dropout a 1970 film by the legendary Tinto Brass which starred Vanessa Redgrave.
The House - Shenley Lodge is now an all girls school called Manor lodge. Take a moment to watch the video on their website for a view of the house and grounds. I dont know that much about the buildings history as to when it was built, but it would seem that at the time Kubrick was shooting it was a health farm owned by the WWII double agent Eddie Chapman aka Agent ZigZag.


Here's the rascal standing outside the lodge he purchased with money given to him by both the MI5 and the Germans. You could not make this stuff up if you tried...

Aubery Morris pulls off a great cameo appearance as Dr Deltoid before taking a short walk down Shenley Road to play another Dr in a future post. On a final note the first edition of A Clockwork Orange in the U.S.A. had the last chapter missing. This was a decision of the American publisher and in no way endorsed by Anthony Burgess, he apparently was not too pleased that it was left out of the movie to. So with the image of alex taking a pee in my bathroom i give you the last paragraph.


But where I itty now, O my brothers, is all on my oddy knocky, where you can not go. Tomorrow is all like sweet flowers and the turning vonny earth and the stars and old luna up there and your old droog alex all on his oddy knocky seeking like a mate. And all that cal. A terrible grahzny vonny world, really, O my brothers. And so farewell from your little droog. And to all others in this story profound shooms of lipmusic brrrrrr. And they can kiss my sherries. But you, O my brothers, remember sometimes thy little alex that was. Amen. And all that cal.

Control Yourselves

Titter ye not Dr Phibes ! The great Frankie Howerd visits the Phibes set, while shooting the movie Up Pompeii, one of several Hammer films shooting at the studio in 1970. One can only imagine the conversation.



Here's the opening title sequence and theme song sung by the man himself



Also starring Julie Ege as Voluptua and Madeleine Smith as Erotica , both of whom where shooting multiple pictures at the studio


To help them from getting lost

Vincent & Vulnavia

Last night I watched The Abominable Dr Phibes , a 1971 AIP release.
If I sit back for a moment and think of the craziness going on in borehamwood in the early 70's i am left wondering why the town wasn't the most happening place in the country. But then maybe it was, and no one knew. I blame the towns All Saints church, and its clock tower that had Borehamwood running on a 72 minute hour. This must have slowed the things down enough for no one to notice the evil Phibes going about his business killing people with brussel sprouts, ice machines etc.


While some speak of it as one of VIncent Price's greatest performances, the star is really the fabulous Vulnavia played by Virgina North.


Even more impressive is she speaks no lines throughout the film, just glides from scene to scene, costume changes at every moment creating one suggestive erotic image after another.




all this is performed to the music of Dr Phibes Clockwork Wizards from a fabulous score by Basil Kirchin


theres also a stella supporting cast with Terry Thomas, Joseph cotten, Caroline Munro & Peter Jeffrey, even the great John Laurie makes an appearance. It would seem that most of the film is shot on set, so here's a couple of great behind the scenes shots of the opening dance.




Check out the great House of Phibes yahoo group for more excellent pictures.

Still standing today Phibes mansion is just up the road from Elstree Studios in Bushey Heath, the village where i was born. This Huge gothic masterpiece originaly called Caldecote Towers was built sometime in the late 19th Century by the impressively sounding Captain William John Marjoribanks Loftus Otway of the 4th Light Dragoons.

View from the Village

Sometime in early 1960 a certain Patrick McGoohan came to borehamwood to star as John Drake in Danger Man. He would end up sticking around for the next 8 years or so, and go on to create TV history, of which we'll get to ...



This rather imposing image is of Amalgamated Studios in Borehamwood on Elstree Way, built in 1937 and to become the old MGM studios where the series was shot from 1960 to 1967. The First episode was A view from a Villa written by the legend that is Brian Clemens and shot in the town of Portmerion



And here is a closer look at the fabulous clock tower that stood empty for many years, and which i would walk past every day on the way to school. Left to fall into disrepair it was demolished in late '80's to be replaced by, well nothing. all that remains is a small brick wall along the footpath.



But happily it lives on, here you see John Drake at the entrance in an Episode of Danger Man. The deeper I look into my home town and all its strange comings and goings, I am most excited when i see one of the many studios used as a location or as a back drop for a quick publicity shot, so you'll have to forgive me if thats where i focus.
I have not seen this show for many years so will go back to it at a later date