Monthly Archive for December, 2009
Page 2 of 2
If you’ve seen many horror film from the 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s, it’s pretty likely that you’ve seen one or two Hammer films. UK-based Hammer Film Productions made a name for itself by updating 1930s-style B grade monster movies and injecting a lot more steam. While some of these movies faded into obscurity, others went on to be classics. Two examples are: Dracula (1958) with Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, and Curse of Frankenstein (1957) also with Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. To give you a taste of how Hammer worked, they followed Dracula with eight sequels and Curse of Frankenstein with six.
The movies were low-budget, gothic, and besides Cushing, Lee, and other leading men, the movies featured a bevy of glamorous ladies, which leads us to the book, Hammer Glamour. Author Marcus Hearn has put together short biographies of 50 of the gorgeous actresses from the Hammer films. Horror movie fans will be fascinated by the intro and biographies, which provide a glimpse into the rise and fall of Hammer Film Productions. To supplement the bios, the publisher has added an amazing assortment of photos of each of the stars. The book includes hundreds of photos, including steamy pin-ups, glamorous portraits, and pictures taken on-set.
Did I mention that some of these photos are rather steamy? But obviously, we are really only interested in reading the articles, aren’t we? While I certainly expected to find Raquel Welch, who sported a sexy cave woman outfit in One Million Years B.C. (1966), I was actually surprised to find Nastassja Kinski, who starred in Hammer’s final film, To the Devil a Daughter (1976). I haven’t seen it, but apparently To the Devil a Daughter was not exactly a smash hit. Fortunately, Nastassja Kinski went on to bigger and better things, including Cat People (1982). On a side note, if you haven’t seen Nastassja Kinski’s father, Klaus Kinski in Werner Herzog’s Nosferatu (1979), you should go see it now. Now! Now!
OK… Now where was I? To satisfy my OCD, here’s a list of the ladies: Ursula Andress, Eva Bartok, Stephanie Beacham, Olinka Berova, Martina Beswicke, Carita, Veronica Carlson, Diane Clare, Mary and Madeline Collinson (Mmmmm – identical twins), Adrienne Corri, Hazel Court, Jennifer Daniel, Vera Day, Susan Denberg, Marie Devereux, Diana Dors, Shirley Eaton, Julie Ege, Barbara Ewing, Suzah Farmer, Shirley Anne Field, Yvonne Furneaux, Valerie Gaunt, Eunice Gayson, Judy Geeson, Jenny Hanley, Linda Hayden, Nastassj Kinski, Marla Landi, Suzanna Leigh, Valerie Leon, Jennie Linden, Joanna Lumley, Yvonne Monlaur, Rosenna Monteros, Caroline Munro, Kate O’Mara, Barbara Payton, Jaqueline Pearce, Ingrid Pitt, Stefanie Powers, Yvonne Roman, Edina Ronay, Catherina Von Schell, Janette Scott, Barbara Shelley, Madeline Smith, Yutte Stensgaard, Victoria Vetri, Raquel Welch. Mmmmm. That’s 50.
Creepy Factor: 2 out of 5
Suspense Factor: 0 out of 5 (there IS NO suspense in a coffee table book.)
Weird Erotic Tension Factor: 4 out of 5
Funny and/or Strange Factor: 2 out of 5
Final result: This book is very well put together. The writing is excellent. The photos are lush and plentiful. The subject matter is interesting. Everybody knows that monsters love the ladies. And how! This coffee table book will make a great gift for the monster in your life, or failing that, the monster movie lover in your life.
Hammer Glamour by Marcus Hearn – Titan Books – 2009
Get Hammer Glamour on Amazon
Many thanks to Titan Books for sending me this book to review. (See my disclosure policy.) Thanks for reading another one of my book reviews. See you next time!
A THRILL-PACKED MYSTERY NOVELETTE
THE MONSTER WHO WORKED IN CLAY
by PAUL ERNST
*
THE
BEAUTY
SHOP
HORRORS
TERROR NOVELETTE
by FRANCIS JAMES
*
DAVIS • HINES
AND OTHERS
darkinthedark does not claim copyright on these images. If you are the copyright holder and object to their presence here, please contact me and I will remove them.
One of the real problems of toiling in obscurity is that it’s so easy to get lost in all these tunnels. You might put together some papercraft, take some pictures of dead bugs, write things about monsters, and you still wouldn’t really know how things are going. Sometimes people write me letters or emails. I was contacted by the author of this book to do a review. You can check out Lorin Morgan-Richards website here. The book is called Simon Snootle and Other Small Stories and is an illustrated book of odd nonsense stories. The book has seven stories and each book is bound by hand by the author. The stories are:
- Simon Snootle was such a Gracious Host
- Mr. Slowbug and Ms. Shellquick
- Peter Puddlestick and the Precious Plot
- The Life of Otto Loud
- The Callous Shrub
- The Earwig and Mrs. Snipit
- The Boy Who Loved Beef Sandwiches
The book is a very quick read. The stories are about odd people who do odd things, or in one case, an odd plant that does odd things. For example, there’s a story about a boy who liked to feed an earwig and then gets lost on a bus. In the story about the plant, a shrub takes pleasure in stealing people’s hats and scarves.
The good: If you’re a fan of nonsense stories such as Alice in Wonderland or some of the other more obscure nonsense practitioners from the past (James Thurber comes to mind), you might enjoy these odd stories. The stories are very imaginative and, as I keep saying, odd. Also, fans of the self-published “zine” genre will probably be interested. The books are hand-bound and so they are pieces of art in and of themselves. The not-so-good: There are numerous grammatical and spelling errors. I think one of the problems with nonsense stories is that it’s very hard for an author to keep his audience engaged.
Creepy Factor: 1 out of 5
Suspense Factor: 0 out of 5
Weird Erotic Tension Factor: 0 out of 5
Funny and/or Strange Factor: 4 out of 5
Final result: I’m a big fan of cartoonists and people who publish zines. One of the nice things about zines is that they are very personal and have this great primitive edge to them. One of the problems with zines is that very often the authors never really have other people help them, and thus there are things like spelling and grammatical errors. I checked out other reviews of this book online and found that it was very well received. I myself, on the other hand, ended up wishing for more outrageous tragedy and monsters.
Simon Snootle and Other Small Stories by Lorin Morgan-Richards – A Raven Above Press – 2009
Simon Snootle and Other Small Stories on Amazon
Many thanks to Lorin Morgan-Richards for sending me this book to review. (See my disclosure policy.) Thanks for reading another one of my book reviews. See you next time!
Fhtagn Spoken Here.
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