'MASTER BUILDER' THE HAMMER HOUSE HINDS THAT HINDS BUILT

Hammer Film fans across the globe were saddened yesterday by the news that Anthony Hinds had passed away at the grand age of 91.  Hinds is seldom discussed as much as Peter Cushing.  Or Christopher Lee.  Or Terence Fisher.  Or Jimmy Sangster.  Or Jack Asher.  Or Bernard Robinson. But the fact remains, it was Hinds who assembled these gifted men, thus creating “Hammer Horror.”

Hinds was born in Middlesex, England, on September 19^th, 1922.  After a stint in the Royal Air Force, he accepted an invitation from his father, Will Hammer, to come and join the ranks at Exclusive Films.  In 1948, he produced his first picture, a modest potboiler named Who Killed Van Loon?.  Hinds displayed an ability to bring his films in on time and on budget and also showed a genuine concern for quality, which was something of a rare quality for men in his position in the lower echelons of British film production.  In 1954, Hinds produced The Quatermass Xperiment – in essence the first of Hammer (as the studio had by then been rechristened) Films’ major commercial successes.  A tight, well-paced adaptation of a hit TV serial by Nigel Kneale, the film disappointed its original writer, but proved to be a hit with audiences.  The film’s success prompted Hinds to push his friends and coworkers at the studio to develop an idea for a follow-up in a similar style.  Production manager Jimmy Sangster won the friendly competition by suggesting a story of radioactive mud which has undesirable effects on those who come into contact with it, and Sangster was then catapulted into a new career as a writer; Sangster always remembered Hinds for having the faith in him to allow him to write his first screenplay.  The success of these early black and white sci-fi/horror hybrids eventually lead Hammer, and Anthony Hinds, into a new direction…

American writer/producer Milton Subotsky approached Hinds with the idea of remaking James Whale’s Frankenstein (1931), but Hinds wasn’t exactly wild about the idea.  After considering his options, however, Hinds decided that a brand new approach to the Mary Shelley novel might prove rewarding – and he proceeded to assemble an ace team of artisans and technicians to make the picture.  It was Hinds who also decided to push for filming in color – a costly addition, in a sense, but one which the producer wisely realized would pay off in dividends.  The end result, The Curse of Frankenstein, would prove to be a watershed “event” in the evolution of the horror genre.  With its deceptively rich production values and then-scandalous dashes of blood and gore, the film would go on to become a box office triumph, revitalizing the popularity of Gothic horror films at the box office and putting Hammer on the map as a major player in the UK film production scene.  Hinds decided to reassemble the same team – director Terence Fisher, screenwriter Jimmy Sangster, cinematographer Jack Asher, production designer Bernard Robinson, composer James Bernard, and stars Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee – for Dracula (1958), and the resulting film was met with critical consternation and tremendous box office numbers.  From this point on, Hammer was, as the saying goes, a force to be reckoned with.

Quite apart from being savvy enough to assemble the people who made these films so special, Hinds was also a rare producer who had genuine passion for film.  He took pride in his work, and expected others to do the same.  Hinds was by all accounts a humble, laid back individual – not exactly the kind of cigar chomping “mover and groover” one normally associates with producers.  His thoughtful disposition prompted him to push his collaborators to take their work seriously.  He knew the value of a pound, and saw to it that the films he produced were executed with a glossy veneer which hid their humble origins.  It was an attitude that he did his best to implement on every picture he ever produced.

In time, Hinds branched out yet again, this time becoming a screenwriter.  The story goes that Hammer’s planned historical epic, The Rape of Sabena, fell afoul of the British Board of Film Censors (BBFC), thus leaving Hinds in a bit of a predicament.  He had already authorized Bernard Robinson to build some imposing “Spanish” sets, and now that this particular property was dead in the water, he had to find a way to utilize these sets.  Hinds turned his attention to Guy Endore’s novel The Werewolf of Paris – realizing that Hammer had yet to make their own werewolf film, he decided to change the setting from Paris to Spain, thus enabling the studio to make use of these troublesome sets.  Looking to save a buck, Hinds elected to write the script himself – and he found that he preferred the process of creating scenarios to dealing with the bureaucratic nightmares associated with producing.  Hinds would continue to produce throughout the better part of the 1960s, but when he found himself working “under” American producer Joan Harrison on Hammer’s ill-fated venture into anthology television, Journey into the Unknown, he decided to call it a day.  Hinds would later recall working with Harrison (or as often was the case, being at loggerheads with her) on this problematic production to be a dispiriting affair which he was in no great hurry to relive.  And thus it came to be that producer/writer Anthony Hinds became “plain old” writer Anthony Hinds… or John Elder, as the self-effacing scribe decided that having his name plastered all over the credits might look a bit conceited.  As a writer, Hinds’ credits include Kiss of the Vampire (1962), Phantom of the Opera (1962), The Reptile (1966), Frankenstein Created Woman (1966), Taste the Blood of Dracula (1969), and Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell (1972).  He eventually left Hammer for a time, going to work for rival company Tyburn Productions.  For them, he scripted The Ghoul and Legend of the Werewolf in 1974.  His final credits would include an episode of Hammer House of Horror, titled Visitor from the Grave, and a “story by” credit on Tyburn’s made for TV Sherlock Holmes adventure, The Masks of Death (1984), starring Peter Cushing and John Mills.

Hinds went into retirement in the 80s, granting the occasional interview, but basically content to enjoy his “golden years” on his own terms.  A quiet, humble and unpretentious individual, he reacted with genuine surprise (and pride) when his many classic Hammer productions were dredged up and celebrated as classics of their kind.  True to form, Hinds never seemed to take himself too seriously – but his passion for the work itself was obvious.  With his passing on September 30^th (a mere 11 days after his birthday), the key architect of Hammer horror passed to the great beyond.  Indeed, of the key creative personnel who created this world that we fans know and revere so much, only one remains standing: Christopher Lee, himself a mere four months Hinds’ senior.  Hinds’ passing may not signal the end of an era, but it does put one in a reflective mood as we look back and celebrate the many wonderful achievements of one of the British film industry’s unsung treasures.

Troy Howarth

Hammer Film fans across the globe were saddened yesterday by the news that Anthony Hinds had passed away at the grand age of 91.  Hinds is seldom discussed as much as Peter Cushing.  Or Christopher Lee.  Or Terence Fisher.  Or Jimmy Sangster.  Or Jack Asher.  Or Bernard Robinson. But the fact remains, it was Hinds who assembled these gifted men, thus creating “Hammer Horror.” - See more at: http://petercushingblog.blogspot.co.uk/#sthash.ApafMCzc.dpuf

Hammer Film fans across the globe were saddened yesterday by the news that Anthony Hinds had passed away at the grand age of 91.  Hinds is seldom discussed as much as Peter Cushing.  Or Christopher Lee.  Or Terence Fisher.  Or Jimmy Sangster.  Or Jack Asher.  Or Bernard Robinson. But the fact remains, it was Hinds who assembled these gifted men, thus creating “Hammer Horror.” - See more at: http://petercushingblog.blogspot.co.uk/#sthash.ApafMCzc.dpuf

Hammer Film fans across the globe were saddened yesterday by the news that Anthony Hinds had passed away at the grand age of 91.  Hinds is seldom discussed as much as Peter Cushing.  Or Christopher Lee.  Or Terence Fisher.  Or Jimmy Sangster.  Or Jack Asher.  Or Bernard Robinson. But the fact remains, it was Hinds who assembled these gifted men, thus creating “Hammer Horror.” - See more at: http://petercushingblog.blogspot.co.uk/#sthash.ApafMCzc.dpuf

Hammer Film fans across the globe were saddened yesterday by the news that Anthony Hinds had passed away at the grand age of 91.  Hinds is seldom discussed as much as Peter Cushing.  Or Christopher Lee.  Or Terence Fisher.  Or Jimmy Sangster.  Or Jack Asher.  Or Bernard Robinson. But the fact remains, it was Hinds who assembled these gifted men, thus creating “Hammer Horror.” - See more at: http://petercushingblog.blogspot.co.uk/#sthash.ApafMCzc.dpuf

Hammer Film fans across the globe were saddened yesterday by the news that Anthony Hinds had passed away at the grand age of 91.  Hinds is seldom discussed as much as Peter Cushing.  Or Christopher Lee.  Or Terence Fisher.  Or Jimmy Sangster.  Or Jack Asher.  Or Bernard Robinson. But the fact remains, it was Hinds who assembled these gifted men, thus creating “Hammer Horror.” - See more at: http://petercushingblog.blogspot.co.uk/#sthash.ApafMCzc.dpuf

HAMMER FILMS ARCHITECT ANTHONY HINDS DIES

We are very sad to hear of the passing of Anthony Hinds yesterday. A writer and producer, who was not only the backbone Hammer Films, but was the driving force behind the building of Bray Studios. How painfully ironic then, that the bulldozers start their work on the Bray Studios lot tomorrow...

TERENCE FISHER'S 'STOLEN FACE' (1952) HAMMER FILMS NOIR GALLERY AND REVIEW

PRODUCTION:
Director: Terence Fisher Producer: Anthony Hinds Screenplay: Martin Berkeley & Richard H. Landau (story: Alexander Paal & Steven Vas) Cinematography: Walter J. Harvey Art Direction: Wilfred Arnold Music: Malcolm Arnold (played by London Philharmonic Orchestra; solo pianist Bronwyn Jones)

 

CAST:
Lizabeth Scott, Paul Henreid, André Morell, Mary Mackenzie, Arnold Ridley

THE STOLEN FACE:

Hammer Films came to prominence thanks to the series of bold horror films they made in colour from the late 1950s and throughout the next decade, the best of which were directed by Terence Fisher. But they both got their start making dozens of modest black and white B-movie thrillers often featuring emerging , or waning, Hollywood actors. Stolen Face is one of these lower berth productions, though it does stand out from the mix for the way that it seems to presage many of the elements in the company, and Fisher’s, more celebrated later output. In fact, this is a real gallimaufry of a movie, combining as it does a slew of (then) popular genre elements, including classical music, a romantic triangle, plastic surgery,  psychiatry and a wild finish on a train …

From 1951 to 1955 Hammer Studios, through an arrangement with Robert Lippert Pictures in Hollywood (and bankrolled by 20th Century Fox through a backdoor for quota purposes), became one of the most industrious of UK film companies, cranking out tightly budgeted features at a prodigious rate. These were mostly thrillers and melodramas that helped establish the studio and the production team that would largely be responsible for its greater successes later on. But first things first. Once upon a time in postwar London, a leading plastic surgeon is very successful but is clearly in need of a rest …

Paul Henreid plays Philip Ritter, a surgeon who seems imminently due for sainthood. When we first meet him he is checking the results on the latest of a series of free surgeries he has been conducting to restore hand movement to a young boy from a deprived background. He then meets another potential patient, an aging but very wealthy woman. Recognising that she has already been put under the knife by less expert hands, he tells her that he cannot in good conscience make much of a difference anymore, flatly turning down her offer of £1,000, much to her fury. He then heads over to the local prison for the latest in a series of operations that have helped many of its inmates become rehabilitated though his medical treatment, all of which of course is provided pro bono. It is here that the kindly warden (a nice cameo from playwright and future Dad’s Army co-star, Arnold Ridley) asks Ritter to talk Lily (played Mary Mackenzie though voiced by Lizabeth Scott in a nice touch), a persistent recidivist who seems to have taken up a life of crime following her severe facial disfigurement during a wartime raid. While the scars on her face are severe (and put well on display in what would become Hammer’s best manner), Ritter thinks he may be able to help her. On the way home he nearly crashes his car – burning the candle at both ends has really taken its toll and his partner succeeds in making the doctor take a well-earned holiday.

Stopping at a country inn, the romantic part of the narrative takes over. Ritter’s sleep keeps being interrupted by the sneezes emanating from the woman in the room next door and in the end he puts a note under their connecting door, suggesting she take some aspirin and a little brandy. She pops a note back to say she only has the aspirin … he takes his bottle over and meets concert pianist Alice Brent (Scott). The two, having ‘met cute’ in the time-honoured movie tradition, start a whirlwind romance in the warm embrace of the local folk, all of whom seem to have been won over by the obvious rapport of the couple. Ritter declares his love, but the next morning she is gone. Despondent, he goes back to work more obsessively than ever, and decides to put all his energy into giving Lily a new shot at life with a beautiful new face, one that he first sculpts into a statue with all his love and skill. In an act of what can only be described as romantic folly, he uses it as a guide to give the woman a new face – or rather, one that looks exactly like Alice’s, finally giving reason to the title of the movie. Lily proves to have a very different personality, no matter whose face she is sporting.

This plot development, in which a scientist creates in effect a dangerous new person through his surgical skills, certainly looks forward to Fisher’s Frankenstein films for the studio, but the movie also deserves some kudos for preempting many of the themes and motifs that Alfred Hitchcock would use several years later in his classic plunge into morbid romance, Vertigo (1958). In scene after scene, moments that we remember from the classic Hitchcock movie all get their first airing here – first there is the romantic obsession with a beautiful but unobtainable blonde who vanishes from a man’s life. He then makes another woman over in her image – dying her dark hair blonde, than buying her a new wardrobe, obsessing as he tries to recreate his lost love. We even get a scene centered on a broach that indicates the woman’s criminality, much as we would in the later film. Here though it indicates that Lily is in fact slipping back into her old habits – just having Alice Brent’s face and marrying her surgeon-cum-saviour seems not to have been enough to curb her darker impulses, the story switching course again into what would seem to be a crime plot crossed with a psychiatric case history about a woman suffering from kleptomania.

But what happened to Alice? We discover that she fled her romantic idyll as she has long been engaged to David, an older man (André Morell) to whom she feels a great sense of obligation. She travels through Europe successfully playing variations on the highly attractive piano concerto that Malcolm Arnold wrote especially for the film. As the concert tours extends, David realises that Alice is not really in love with him and so nobly bows out. All seems set for a reconciliation with Philip – except of course he is now married, very unhappily, to a woman that he has surgically altered to maker her look exactly like Alice … Scott has a great time playing both roles, a traditional good-vs-bad girl triangle rendered truly delirious by the movie’s bizarre plot twists. The story then contrives to lurch again into another genre as Alice becomes convinced that Philip is being driven to murder by the cruel antics of his wife, whose behaviour has become ever-more erratic after taking to alcohol. The scene is set for a race to the rescue and a climax aboard a speeding train.

This being a low-budget movie, there are few scenes in which Scott has to appear in both roles at the same time and all of them are handled through the use of a double, avoiding the use of time-consuming opticals. The results are actually pretty successful in the circumstances and the climax builds up some fair suspense as we wonder just who will try to kill who. The finale is a little bit too pat and, like Vertigo, doesn’t really solve things satisfactorily at a plot level, though one could argue that emotionally it is the only way the story could go in what is a variant on the story of beauty and the beast. Henreid makes for an appealing if rather stiff protagonist and it’s a shame that Mary Mackenzie i by necessity only seen int he early stages of the film before her surgery as she gives a fiery performance that contrasts well with Scott’s smoother style.

Along with two nice performances from the top-billed Scott (who does a fair in not completely convincing imitation of a cockney accent), Malcolm Arnold deserves a lot of credit for providing the film with an extra patina of gloss with his fine orchestra score – those wishing to hear a suite can listen to an arrangement for piano and orchestra, the ‘Ballade’ arranged by Philip Lane and included in the album, The Film Music of Malcolm Arnold Volume 2 released by Naxos.

DVD Availability: The film is available in no frills but perfectly acceptable versions in the US and the UK. The former is technically the better of the two and is available as part of the Hammer Noir box sets released by VCI.

SOURCE:HERE
Images: Marcus Brooks