TCM Schedule for Friday, October 29 -- TCM Prime Time Feature -- Hammer Horror Festival

[Staph]

It's the last night of the Hammer Horror Festival, featuring Peter Cushing as Baron Frankenstein, but before that we have a day full of horror, starring the likes of Fay Wray, Boris Karloff, and Bela Lugosi. Enjoy!


5:44am -- One Reel Wonders: West Point On The Hudson (1942)
A Traveltalk visit to the United States Military Academy at West Point just before America's entry into World War II.
Narrator: James A. FitzPatrick
Dir: James A. FitzPatrick
C-9 mins

Featuring Robert Lawrence Eichelberger, then superintendent of West Point.


6:00am -- Doctor X (1932)
A reporter investigates a series of cannibalistic murders at a medical college.
Cast: Lionel Atwill, Fay Wray, Lee Tracy, Preston Foster
Dir: Michael Curtiz
C-76 mins, TV-PG

This is the film for which Michael Curtiz is quoted as saying, "This will make your blood curl!"


7:30am -- The Mystery Of The Wax Museum (1933)
A disfigured sculptor turns murder victims into wax statues.
Cast: Lionel Atwill, Fay Wray, Glenda Farrell, Frank McHugh
Dir: Michael Curtiz
C-77 mins, TV-PG

The wax figures look like real people because they ARE real people. The original plan was to use actual wax figures, but they melted under the heat of the lights used at the time to film two-strip Technicolor.


9:00am -- The Vampire Bat (1933)
Villagers suspect the town simpleton of being a vampire.
Cast: Lionel Atwill, Fay Wray, Melvyn Douglas, Maude Eburne
Dir: Frank Strayer
BW-61 mins, TV-PG

Majestic Pictures cashed in on the success of Lionel Atwill and Fay Wray, who had been a sensation in the Technicolor thriller Doctor X (1932) and had already completed Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933), which was also being heavily promoted at the time. Majestic was able to get this film into theaters over a month before the release of the latter one.


10:15am -- The Ape (1940)
A mad doctor dresses as an ape to kill victims for their spinal fluid.
Cast: Boris Karloff, Maris Wrixon, Gertrude W. Hoffman, Henry Hall
Dir: William Nigh
BW-63 mins, TV-PG

Filming began July 29 1940 on this, the final feature in Boris Karloff's 6-picture contract with Monogram. He returned only once, in 1958 for "Frankenstein-1970."


11:30am -- Isle Of The Dead (1945)
The inhabitants of a Balkans island under quarantine fear that one of their number is a vampire.
Cast: Boris Karloff, Ellen Drew, Marc Cramer, Katherine Emery
Dir: Mark Robson
BW-72 mins, TV-PG

Filming began in July 1944, but was suspended when Boris Karloff required back surgery. It was completed in December 1944. After Karloff had recovered from surgery, but before the cast of Isle of the Dead could be reassembled, Val Lewton and Karloff made The Body Snatcher (1945), which was released first.


12:43pm -- One Reel Wonders: Black Cats And Broomsticks (1955)
Superstitions are examined in the context of mid-20th century America.
Narrator: Peter Roberts
Dir: Larry O'Reilly
C-8 mins

In 1948, behavioural psychologist B.F. Skinner published an article in the Journal of Experimental Psychology, in which he described his pigeons exhibiting what appeared to be superstitious behaviour. One pigeon was making turns in its cage, another would swing its head in a pendulum motion, while others also displayed a variety of other behaviours. Because these behaviours were all done ritualistically in an attempt to receive food from a dispenser, even though the dispenser had already been programmed to release food at set time intervals regardless of the pigeons' actions, Skinner believed that the pigeons were trying to influence their feeding schedule by performing these actions. He then extended this as a proposition regarding the nature of superstitious behaviour in humans.


1:00pm -- The Corpse Vanishes (1942)
A mad scientist kills brides and uses their glands to keep his wife alive.
Cast: Bela Lugosi, Luana Walters, Tris Coffin, Elizabeth Russell
Dir: Wallace Fox
BW-63 mins, TV-PG

Used as the main film in a Mystery Science Theatre 3000 episode -- Tom Servo: "You've been injecting her with young and pretty, now he should start injecting her with smart and nice."


2:15pm -- The Devil Bat (1940)
A mad scientist trains killer bats to respond to a special scent.
Cast: Bela Lugosi, Suzanne Kaaren, Dave O'Brien, Guy Usher
Dir: Jean Yarbrough
BW-68 mins, TV-PG

This low-budget thriller, boosted by Bela Lugosi, was one of the biggest successes for the poverty row Producers Releasing Corporation (PRC). After the war, the studio tried to recapture this success by producing a non-sequel "sequel", Devil Bat's Daughter (1946), and a virtual shot-by-shot remake, The Flying Serpent (1946).


3:30pm -- White Zombie (1932)
A zombie master menaces newlyweds on a Haitian plantation.
Cast: Bela Lugosi, Madge Bellamy, Joseph Cawthorn, Robert Frazer
Dir: Victor Halperin
BW-67 mins, TV-PG

Rob Zombie named his first heavy metal band, White Zombie, after this movie.


4:45pm -- I Walked With A Zombie (1943)
A nurse in the Caribbean resorts to voodoo to cure her patient, even though she's in love with the woman's husband.
Cast: James Ellison, Frances Dee, Tom Conway, Edith Barrett
Dir: Jacques Tourneur
BW-69 mins, TV-PG

Val Lewton did not like the article "I Walked With A Zombie" by Inez Wallace that had been optioned so he adapted the story to fit the novel "Jane Eyre" because he felt the article's plot was too clichéd.


6:00pm -- Curse of the Demon (1958)
An anthropologist investigates a devil worshipper who commands a deadly demon.
Cast: Dana Andrews, Peggy Cummins, Niall MacGinnis, Maurce Denham
Dir: Jacques Tourneur
BW-96 mins, TV-PG

This film was mentioned in the opening song from The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) ("Science Fiction Double Feature"): "Dana Andrews said prunes gave him the runes, but passing them used lots of skill".


7:37pm -- One Reel Wonders: The Magician's Daughter (1938)
A magician's daughter falls in love with a reporter, but heartbreak ensues when the reporter's magazine runs a story exposing the magician's secret methods.
Cast: Frank Albertson, Maurice Cass, Eleanor Lynn
Dir: Felix E. Feist
BW-18 mins

The magician's son is played by Tommy Bond, best remembered as the bully Butch in the Our Gang shorts.


What's On Tonight: TCM PRIME TIME FEATURE: HAMMER HORROR FESTIVAL


8:00pm -- The Curse of Frankenstein (1957)
A scientist's attempts to create life unleash a bloodthirsty monster.
Cast: Peter Cushing, Hazel Court, Robert Urquhart, Christopher Lee
Dir: Terence Fisher
C-83 mins, TV-14

Although they had both previously appeared in Hamlet (1948) and Moulin Rouge (1952), Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing met on the set of this film for the first time. They would pass the time between shots by exchanging Looney Tunes phrases, and quickly developed a fast friendship, which lasted until Cushing's death in 1994.


9:30pm -- The Revenge of Frankenstein (1958)
After escaping execution, a mad scientist moves his experiments to a German hospital.
Cast: Peter Cushing, Francis Matthews, Eunice Gayson, Michael Gwynn
Dir: Terence Fisher
C-90 mins, TV-PG

In correspondence from Hammer to the BBFC dated 30 July 1958, Hammer executives say that per the BBFC's request, the shot from "Reel 2" of Frankenstein dropping Karl's brain from a pan into a jar of fluid had been removed from the final print. This brief moment was a point of contention with the BBFC ever since the film had been submitted for certification during the script stage. However, the scene has existed in all known prints of the film ever since its distribution, even on Columbia's Super 8mm digest version.


11:15pm -- Frankenstein Created Woman (1966)
Baron Frankenstein puts a wrongly executed man's brain into a beautiful woman's body.
Cast: Peter Cushing, Susan Denberg, Thorley Walters, Robert Morris
Dir: Terence Fisher
C-92 mins, TV-14

We are never told in which Country the film is set, however the Coat of Arms on the coach is that of the Canton of Berne in Switzerland.


1:00am -- Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed! (1969)
Baron Frankenstein blackmails a brother and sister into helping him with a brain transplant.
Cast: Peter Cushing, Simon Ward, Veronica Carlson, Thorley Walters
Dir: Terence Fisher
C-101 mins, TV-14

The controversial rape scene was added at the last minute, after shooting was nearly complete, because Hammer studio head Sir James Carreras thought the film lacked "sex".


2:45am -- Carnival Magic (1982)
An animal tamer plots revenge when a magician with a talking chimp overshadows his carnival act.
Cast: Don Stewart, Jennifer Houlton, Mark Weston, Howard Segal
Dir: Al Adamson
C-86 mins

Filmed in North Carolina


4:12am -- One Reel Wonders: Carnival Day (1936)
If Bobby the singing jockey wins the race at the carnival, he will have enough money to marry Maggie.
Cast: Henry Armetta, Felix Knight
Dir: Ralph Staub
C-16 mins

Felix Knight spent four seasons performing with the Metropolitan Opera in New York.

[Staph]

1. The Curse of Frankenstein (1957)

Often acknowledged as the most influential and successful British horror film released in the post World War II era, The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) not only increased the popularity of horror films with its much more violent, highly sexualized approach but also revitalized the British film industry, establishing Hammer Studios as an internationally renown production company. The film, directed by Terence Fisher, opens with Baron Frankenstein (Peter Cushing) in jail, recounting his reprehensible tale of reanimation to a priest, and then flashes back to that fateful time before a charge of murder landed the Baron in prison.

In a catacomb of laboratories beneath his mansion, Victor Frankenstein and his faithful assistant Paul Krempe (Robert Urquhart) work on radical experiments to reanimate the dead. They start with small animals, but when Frankenstein begins talking about playing God with human beings, Paul becomes wary. When Frankenstein's beautiful, trusting fianc¿Elizabeth (Hazel Court) comes to stay in the castle before their marriage, Paul warns her that there is danger brewing in the basement laboratories.

Plundering graveyards and procuring body parts at the Municipal Charnel House, Frankenstein assembles a creature he imagines will astound the scientific community. The only element he lacks is the brain of a genius. But the devious Frankenstein finds a way of procuring that too, killing a fellow scientist for a much-needed body part. When his demented monster, implanted with an accidentally damaged brain escapes from Frankenstein's laboratory, a reign of terror and bloodshed is unleashed across the countryside.

The Curse of Frankenstein is invested with a sense of sexual and criminal perversity rarely conveyed in the more staid and restrained movie renditions of Mary Shelley's classic Frankenstein (1818) novel. Peter Cushing's Baron Frankenstein is a study in science without conscience, and a villain who uses murder, theft and deception to realize his ambitions. Ultimately, his Frankenstein is a far more grotesque monster than the pathetic creature he assembles in his laboratory. In his private affairs, Frankenstein is a cad too, seducing his comely maid Justine (Valerie Gaunt) with a promise of marriage, while his own fianc¿is a guest in his house.

Cushing, largely a TV actor of some renown in Britain before being cast in this career-defining role, is exceptional as Frankenstein and brilliantly conveys the decadence lurking beneath Frankenstein's facade of an upper-crust gentleman. That gift for conveying Baron Frankenstein's complexities explains why Cushing so often appeared in Hammer productions, including an entire cycle of Frankenstein films: The Revenge of Frankenstein (1958), The Evil of Frankenstein (1964), Frankenstein Created Woman (1967), Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed (1969) and Frankenstein and the Monster From Hell (1974, which was also director Fisher's last film for Hammer). Cushing also appeared in Hammer productions as Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Van Helsing (Dracula's nemesis) and other icons of the horror and mystery cinema.

Hazel Court, who plays Elizabeth, the baron's fianc¿ went on to become one of the more famous scream queens in the horror cinema (Dr. Blood's Coffin (1961), The Premature Burial (1962), The Masque of the Red Death, 1964). That's her own daughter, Sally Walsh, who plays young Elizabeth in the flashbacks, and regarding her wardrobe Court revealed (in Peter Cushing by Deborah Del Vecchio and Tom Johnson) that her period dresses were "actually part of a real Victorian wardrobe that had handed down over the years." The monster was played by Christopher Lee, who also made a name for himself in Hammer horror films, appearing twenty-two times alongside Cushing. Lee played a variety of monsters and fiends, from the Mummy to Dracula, from Fu Manchu to more realistic villains like Rochefort in The Four Musketeers (1974).

Lee's make-up in Curse was designed to be more realistic looking and in-keeping with the descriptions of the monster in Shelley's Frankenstein. It was also created so as not to imitate the copyrighted Jack Pierce make-up for the monster in James Whale's 1931 version of Frankenstein. Director Terence Fisher was once quoted as saying "We wanted a thing which looked like some wandering, forlorn mistral of monstrosity, a thing of shreds and patches."

In the biography, Hammer Horror by Tom Johnson and Deborah Del Vecchio, cameraman Len Harris recalled that the actual filming posed numerous risks: "We had some near-misses. When Peter Cushing pushed the professor off the balcony, we had part of the floor padded - the part where the stunt man's head (Jock Easton) should have hit. Well...he missed! Easton also doubled for Lee in the climactic fire. "This was an extremely dangerous stunt," said Harris. "We had more men with fire extinguishers on the set than you could count! They don't pay these chaps enough!"

The Curse of Frankenstein's lurid storyline is well-accentuated with the shocking colors that characterized the look of Hammer productions and was quite a dramatic departure from the black and white look of the Universal horror films. Now there were garish red pools of blood and the ghastly chalky blue face of Frankenstein's monster glows with a sickly, gory intensity.

Though critically attacked by many for its sadism and unprecedented emphasis on gore (criticism which would continue to dog the studio and undoubtedly helped advertise and attract younger audiences), The Curse of Frankenstein was a huge financial success (it only cost $250,000 to produce) and inaugurated Hammer's 10 year domination of the horror film. Once again Frankenstein's monster and other famous creatures had the power to terrify audiences anew and were no longer seen as comical as they were in the late forties when the horror genre descended into self-parody with fare like Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948).

Director: Terence Fisher
Producer: Anthony Hinds
Screenplay: Jimmy Sangster (based on the novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley)
Cinematography: Jack Asher
Production Design: Bernard Robinson
Music: James Bernard
Cast: Peter Cushing (Baron Victor Frankenstein), Christopher Lee (The Creature), Hazel Court (Elizabeth), Paul Krempe (Robert Urquhart), Valerie Gaunt (Justine), Noel Hood (Aunt Sophia), Marjorie Hume (Mother).
C-82m.

by Felicia Feaster