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Early history (1935 to 1937) — Hammer ProductionsIn November 1934, William Hinds, a comedian and businessman registered his own film company — Hammer Productions Ltd.[1][2] — based in a three-room office suite at Imperial House, Regent Street, London. The company name was taken from Hinds' stage name, Will Hammer. Work began almost immediately on the first Hammer film, The Public Life of Henry the Ninth at the MGM/ATP studios, with shooting concluding on 2 January, 1935. During this period Hinds met Spanish émigré Enrique Carerras, a former cinema owner, and on 10 May, 1935 they formed a film distribution company Exclusive Films, operating from a single office at 60-66 National House, Wardour Street.[3] Hammer produced a further four films distributed by Exclusive:
A slump in the British film industry forced Hammer into bankruptcy and the company went into liquidation in 1937. Exclusive, however, survived and on 20 July, 1937 purchased the leasehold on 113-117 Wardour Street, and continued to distribute films made by other companies.[4] Resurrection (1938 to 1955) — Hammer Film Productions
On 12 February, 1949 Exclusive finally registered "Hammer Film Productions" as a company with Enrique and James Carreras, and William and Tony Hinds as company directors. Hammer moved into the Exclusive offices in 113-117 Wardour Street, and the building was rechristened "Hammer House".[7] In August 1949, complaints from locals about noise during night filming forced Hammer to leave Dial Close and move into another mansion, Oakley Court, also on the banks of the Thames between Windsor and Maidenhead.[8] Five films were shot there: The Man in Black (1949), Room to Let (1949), Someone at the Door (1949), What The Butler Saw (1950), The Lady Craved Excitement (1950). In 1950, Hammer moved again to Gilston Park, a country club in Harlow Essex, which hosted Black Widow, The Rossiter Case, To Have and to Hold and The Dark Light (all 1950). In 1951, Hammer began shooting at its most famous home, Down Place also on the banks of the Thames. The company took out a one year lease and began its 1951 production schedule with Cloudburst. The house, a virtual derelict, required substantial work, but it did not have the kind of construction restrictions that had prevented Hammer from customising its previous homes. A decision was therefore made to turn Down Place into a substantial, custom-fitted studio complex.[9] Its expansive grounds were used for almost all of the later location shooting in Hammer's films, and are a key part of the "Hammer look". Also during 1951, Hammer and Exclusive signed a four-year production and distribution contract with Robert Lippert, an American film producer. The contract meant that Lippert and Exclusive effectively exchanged products for distribution on their respective sides of the Atlantic — beginning in 1951 with The Last Page and ending with 1955's Women Without Men (AKA Prison Story).[10] It was Lippert's insistence on an American star in the Hammer films he was to distribute that led to the prevalence of American leads in so many of the company's 1950s productions. It was for The Last Page that Hammer made one of its most significant appointments when it hired film director Terence Fisher, who went on to play a critical role in the forthcoming horror boom of the 1950s. Towards the end of 1951, the one-year lease on Down Place expired, and with its increasing success Hammer looked back towards more conventional studio-based productions. A dispute with the Association of Cinematograph Technicians, however, blocked this proposal, and instead the company purchased the freehold of Down Place. The house was renamed Bray Studios after the nearby village of Bray and it remained Hammer's principal base until 1966.[10] 1952 brought the first of Hammer's science fiction films: Four Sided Triangle and Spaceways. Hammer Horror people Directors and writers
Other crew The scores for many Hammer horror films, including Dracula and The Curse of Frankenstein, were composed by James Bernard. Production designer Bernard Robinson and cinematographer Jack Asher were instrumental in creating the lavish look of the early Hammer films, usually on a very restricted budget. Actors Hammer's horror films featured many of the same actors in recurring roles; these actors are sometimes called the "Hammer repertory company". 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:
The Curse of FrankensteinAs 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 novel by Mary Shelley was long since in public domain, Subotsky's script adhered closely to the plot of the 1939 Universal film Son of Frankenstein, featuring a second-generation Frankenstein emulating his father, the original monster-maker. This put the project at risk of a copyright infreingement lawsuit by Universal. In addition, a great deal of polishing and additional material was needed as the short script had an estimated running time of only 55 minutes — far less than the minimum of 90 minutes needed for distribution in the UK. 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 and the Monster was chosen. Plans were made to shoot the film in Eastmancolor — 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.[17] 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 become the backbone of later films,[17] 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. Image:Curseoffrankenstein1957-1.jpg Christopher Lee as Frankenstein's monster DraculaThe huge box office success of The Curse of Frankenstein lead to the inevitable desire for a sequel in The Revenge of Frankenstein,[18] 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.[19] Image:Dracula1958-1.jpg John Van Eyssen as Jonathan Harker in Dracula (1958) 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.[20] 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 was not interested,[22], 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 eventually came from the National Film Finance Council (£32,000) and the rest from Universal in return for worldwide distribution rights.[23] With an eventual budget of £81,412, Dracula began principal photography on 11 November, 1957.[24] 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 — so radical, in fact, that Hammer executives considered paying him off and finding another designer.[25] Many consider Dracula to be Hammer's finest film. 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,
The MummyWith the agreement in place, Hammer's executives had their pick of Universal International's horror icons and 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 1962, 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 UK and the U.S when it was released there in December.[27] 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. Sequels (1959 to 1969)Hammer consolidated their success by turning their most successful horror films into series. Six sequels to The Curse of Frankenstein were produced between 1959 and 1974:
All starred Peter Cushing as Baron Frankenstein, except The Horror of Frankenstein, where Ralph Bates took the title role. Cushing also appeared in the first Dracula sequel, The Brides of Dracula (1960), in which David Peel played a decadent Dracula substitute "Baron Meinster". Christopher Lee returned to play Dracula himself in six sequels:
The first three were direct sequels to the original film, and employed much ingenuity in finding ways to resurrect the Count. Hammer broke continuity with Scars of Dracula in an attempt to re-imagine the character to appeal to a younger audience. The commercial failure of this film led to another change of style with the latter two films, which were not period pieces like their predecessors, but had a then-contemporary 1970s London setting. Peter Cushing appeared in both films playing a descendant of Van Helsing. Further "mummy" movies were unrelated to the 1959 remake and one, The Mummy's Shroud, was relegated to second feature status. The films were The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb (1964), The Mummy's Shroud (1966) and Blood from the Mummy's Tomb (1971). The latter was a modern day version of Bram Stoker's The Jewel of Seven Stars and featured Valerie Leon as a reincarnated Egyptian Princess, rather than an actual mummy. The same novel also served as the basis for the 1980 Charlton Heston film The Awakening. From the mid-1960s, the "Mummy" films and some of Hammer's other horror output were increasingly designed for double-billing. Two films would be shot back-to-back with the same sets and costumes to save money. Each film would then be shown on a separate double-bill to prevent audiences noticing any recycling. for example The Plague of the Zombies and The Reptile (both 1965), Hammer also made occasional one-off forays into new territory, and would sometimes import American stars, including Bette Davis, Tallulah Bankhead and Raquel Welch. Examples include:
Running alongside production of the Gothic horror films, Hammer also made a series of what were known as "mini-Hitchcocks". These very low-budget suspense thrillers, often in black-and-white, were made in the mould of Les Diaboliques, although more often compared to the later Psycho. This series of mystery thrillers, which all had twist endings, started with Taste of Fear (1961) and continued with Maniac and Paranoiac (1963), Nightmare and Hysteria (1964), Fanatic and The Nanny (1965), and Crescendo (1969).[28] On 29 May, 1968, Hammer was awarded the Queen's Award to Industry in recognition of their contribution to the British economy. The official presentation ceremony took place on the steps of the Castle Dracula set at Pinewood Studios, during the filming of Dracula Has Risen from the Grave.[29] Market changes (early 1970s)As audiences became more sophisticated in the late 1960s, with the release of artfully directed, subtly horrific films like Roman Polanski's Rosemary's Baby, the studio struggled to maintain its place in the market. It responded by bringing in new writers and directors, testing new characters, and attempting to rejuvenate their vampire and Frankenstein films with new approaches to familiar material. Dracula AD 1972 and The Satanic Rites of Dracula, for example, abandon period settings in pursuit of a modern-day setting and "swinging London" feel. These films were not successful, and drew fire not only from critics, but from Christopher Lee himself, who refused to appear in more Dracula films after these. Speaking at a press conference in 1973 to announce The Satanic Rites of Dracula, then called Dracula is Dead... and Well and Living in London, Lee said:
The film itself also indulges the turn toward self-parody suggested by the title, with more humour appearing in the script, undercutting any real sense of horror. Hammer films had always sold themselves, in part, on their violent and sexual content. After the release of films like Bonnie and Clyde and The Wild Bunch, audiences were increasingly able to see more explicit gore, more expertly staged, in relatively mainstream films. Night of the Living Dead, too, set a new standard for graphic violence in horror films. Hammer tried to compete as far as possible - Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell, for example, features a scene where the Baron kicks a discarded human brain - but realised quickly that, if they couldn't be as gory as new American productions, they could follow a trend prevalent in European films of the time, and play up the sexual content of their films. The Karnstein TrilogyIn the Karnstein Trilogy, based loosely on J. Sheridan Le Fanu's early vampire novella Carmilla, Hammer showed some of the most explicit scenes of lesbianism yet seen in mainstream English language films. Despite otherwise traditional Hammer design and direction, there was also a corresponding increase in scenes of nudity in the films during this era. The Karnstein Trilogy comprises:
These three were written by Hammer newcomer Tudor Gates, who was recruited at about the same time as Brian Clemens (creator of The Avengers). Clemens wrote two unusual films for Hammer. Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde (1971) featured Ralph Bates and Martine Beswick and Captain Kronos, Vampire Hunter, which he also directed, were not successful at the time, but have since become cult favourites. The experimental films of this period represented a genuine attempt to find new angles on old stories, but audiences did not seem interested. Final years of film production (late 1970s)In the latter part of the 1970s, Hammer made fewer films, and attempts were made to break away from the then-unfashionable Gothic horror films on which the studio had built its reputation. Neither The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires, a co-production with Hong Kong's Shaw Brothers which attempted to combine Hammer's Gothic horror with the martial arts film, nor To the Devil a Daughter, an adaptation of the Dennis Wheatley novel, were very successful. The company did, however, have some surprising commercial success with the film version of the ITV sitcom On the Buses, which was popular enough to produce two sequels, Holiday on the Buses and Mutiny on the Buses. Hammer's last production, in 1979, was a remake of Hitchcock's 1938 thriller The Lady Vanishes, starring Elliot Gould and Cybill Shepherd. The film was a failure at the box office and all but bankrupted the studio. Critical responseThe Hammer Horror films were often praised by critics for their visual style, although rarely taken seriously. "Altogether this is a horrific film and sometimes a crude film, but by no means an unimpressive piece of melodramatic storytelling" wrote one critic of Dracula in The Times (May 28, 1958, p10). Terence Fisher's direction has been praised, however, in, for example, Richard Roud's Cinema: a Critical Dictionary. Critics who specialise in cult films, like Kim Newman, have praised Hammer Horror more fully, enjoying their atmosphere, craftsmanship and camp appeal. Television series (1980s)In the early 1980s Hammer Films created a series for British television, Hammer House of Horror, which ran for 13 episodes. In a break from their cinema format, these featured plot twists which usually saw the protagonists fall into the hands of that episode's horror. These varied from sadistic shopkeepers with hidden pasts, to witches and satanic rites. The series was marked by a sense of dark irony, its haunting title music, and the intermingling of horror with the commonplace. Notable episodes include:
Episodes were directed by Brian Gibson, Peter Sasdy and Tom Clegg, among others. A second television series, Hammer House of Mystery and Suspense, was produced in 1984 and also ran for 13 episodes. The stories were originally to have been the same 1-hour length as their previous series, but it was decided to expand them to feature-length so as to market them as 'movies of the week' in the US. The series was produced in association with 20th Century Fox and as such, some of the sex and violence seen in the earlier series was toned down considerably for US television. Each episode featured a star, often American, well-known to US viewers. This series was Hammer's final production of any kind to date. Hammer House of HorrorHammer House of Mystery & SuspenseRecent developmentsIn recent years, although the company has seemed to be in hibernation, frequent announcements have been made of new projects. In 2003, for example, the studio announced plans to work with Australian company Pictures in Paradise to develop new horror films for the DVD and cinema market. Tribute and parodyThe initial success of the Hammer Horror series led to a number of parodies:
See alsoNotes and references
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