Hammer Film Productions: Encyclopedia II - Hammer Film Productions - The birth of Hammer Horror 1955 to 1959

Hammer Film Productions - The birth of Hammer Horror 1955 to 1959

Hammer's first significant experiment with horror came in the form of a 1955 adaptation of Nigel Kneale's BBC Television science fiction serial The Quatermass Experiment, which was directed by Val Guest. As a consequence of the contract with Robert Lippert, American actor Brian Donlevy was imported for the lead role, and the title was changed to The Quatermass Xperiment to cash in on the new X certificate for horror films. The film was an unexpectedly big hit, and led to an almost equally popular 1957 sequel Quatermass 2 — again adapted from one of Kneale's television scripts, this time by Kneale himself and with a budget double that of the original: £92,000.^[11] In the meantime, Hammer had produced another Quatermass-style horror film X the Unknown. At the time, Hammer voluntarily submitted its scripts to the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) for comments before beginning production. Regarding the script of X the Unknown, one reader/examiner (Audrey Field) commented on the 24 of November:

Hammer Film Productions - The Curse of Frankenstein

As production began on Quatermass 2, Hammer started to look for another U.S. partner willing to invest in and handle the American promotion of new product. They eventually entered talks with Associated Artists Pictures (AAP) and its head, Eliot Hyman. During this period, two young American film-makers, Max J. Rosenberg and Milton Subotsky, submitted to AAP a script for an adaptation of the novel Frankenstein. Although interested in the script, AAP were not prepared to back a film made by Rosenberg and Subotsky, who had only one film to their credit. Eliot Hyman did, however, send the script to his contact at Hammer.^[13]

Anthony Hinds was unsure about the script, as Universal Pictures had already made a series of successful Frankenstein films. Although the script was based on the novel, and therefore an adaptation of public domain material, there was a risk that Universal would see a new adaptation as copyright infringement. In addition, a great deal of polishing and additional material was also needed as the script had a running time of only 55 minutes — far less than the minimum of 90 minutes needed for distribution in the U.K. Accordingly, comments on the script from Hammer's Michael Carreras were less than complimentary:

Further revisions were made to the script, and a working title of Frankenstein - The Monster! was chosen. Plans were made to shoot the film in Technicolor — a decision which caused further worry at the BBFC. Not only did the script contain horror and graphic violence, but it would be portrayed in vivid colour.^[15]

The project was handed to Tony Hinds who was even less impressed with the script than Michael Carreras, and whose vision for the film was a mere black and white 'quickie' made in three weeks. Concerned that Subotsky and Rosenberg's script still had too many similarities to the old Universal films, Hinds commissioned Jimmy Sangster to rewrite it as The Curse of Frankenstein. Sangster's treatment impressed Hammer enough to rescue the film from its place on the 'quickie' treadmill and restore it as a colour shoot.

Sangster submitted his own script to the BBFC for examination. Audrey Field's report on the 10 October 1956 read,^[16]

Regardless of the BBFC's stern warnings, Hinds supervised the shooting of a virtually unchanged script.^[18]

The film was directed by Terence Fisher, with a look that belied its modest budget. Peter Cushing's performance as Baron Victor Frankenstein, and Lee's as the imposingly tall, brutish monster provide the film with a further veneer of polish. With a budget of £65,000 and a cast and crew that would be the backbone of later films^[19], Hammer's first Gothic horror went into production. The use of colour encouraged a previously unseen level of gore. Until The Curse of Frankenstein horror films had not shown blood in a graphic way, or when they did it was concealed by monochrome photography. In this film, it was bright red, and the camera lingered upon it.

The film was an enormous success, not only in Britain, but also in the USA, where it inspired numerous imitations from, amongst others, Roger Corman and his American International Pictures. It also found success on the European continent, where Italian directors and audiences were particularly receptive.

Hammer Film Productions - Dracula

The huge box office success of The Curse of Frankenstein lead to the inevitable desire for a sequel in The Revenge Frankenstein^[20], and an attempt to give the Hammer treatment to another horror icon. Dracula was yet another successful film character for Universal, and the copyright situation was even more complicated than Frankenstein. A full legal agreement between Hammer and Universal was not completed until 31 March 1958 — after the film had already been shot — and was 80 pages long.^[21]

Meanwhile, the financial arrangement between AAP and Hammer had broken down when money promised by AAP had not arrived. Hammer began looking for alternatives, and with the success of The Curse of Frankenstein signed a deal with Columbia Pictures to distribute the sequel The Revenge of Frankenstein and two films from the defaulted AAP deal The Camp on Blood Island and The Snorkel. Hammer's financial success also meant the winding down of the parent film distribution company Exclusive, leaving Hammer to concentrate solely on film-making.^[22]

Work continued on the script for Dracula, and the second draft was voluntarily submitted to the BBFC. Audrey Fields, 8 October 1957,

Despite the success of Curse of Frankenstein, the financing of Dracula proved awkward. Universal were not interested, and the search for money eventually brought Hammer back to AAP's Eliot Hyman, through another of his companies, Seven-Arts. Although an agreement was drawn up, the deal was never realised and funding for Dracula would eventually come from the National Film Finance Council (£32,000) and the rest from Universal in return for worldwide distribution rights.^[24]

With an eventual budget of £81,412, Dracula began principal photography on 11 November 1957.^[25] Peter Cushing starred as Van Helsing and Christopher Lee as Count Dracula, with direction by Terence Fisher and set design by Bernard Robinson that was radically different from the Universal adaptation^[26]. Many consider Dracula to be Hammer's finest film.

Hammer Film Productions - The Mummy

Dracula was an enormous success, breaking box-office records in the UK, the United States (released as Horror of Dracula), Canada, and across the world. On 20 August 1958 the Daily Cinema reported,

Presented with a wide range of possible subjects under this arrangement, Hammer's executives chose to remake The Invisible Man, The Phantom of the Opera and The Mummy. All were to be shot in Technicolor at Bray Studios, by the same team responsible for Dracula, Curse of Frankenstein and Revenge of Frankenstein. The Mummy was made in 1959, The Phantom of the Opera followed in 1961, but The Invisible Man was never produced.

Principal photography for The Mummy began on 23 February 1959 and lasted until 16 April 1959. It starred both Peter Cushing (as John Banning) and Christopher Lee (as the Mummy, Kharis), and was again directed by Terence Fisher with a screenplay from Jimmy Sangster. The Mummy went on general release on 23 October 1959 and broke the box-office records set by Dracula the previous year, both in the U.K. and the U.S when it was released there in December.^[28]

During the period 1955-1959 Hammer produced a number of other horror and non-horror films, including The Hound of the Baskervilles starring Peter Cushing as Sherlock Holmes, and comedies such as Don't Panic Chaps!. Nevertheless, it is the three films, The Curse of Frankenstein, Dracula and The Mummy that set the direction and provided a template for many future films, and for which the company is best known.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "The birth of Hammer Horror 1955 to 1959", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki