* This post was requested/commissioned by silent reader Nathan Bartholomew
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'Gordon Hessler passed away in his sleep January 19, 2014 at the age of 83. An underrated horror director, Hessler cut his teeth on the Hitchcock Presents TV show then helmed several genuinely creepy and atmospheric British films. He worked with Vincent Price three times, all with scripts by Christopher Wicking; SCREAM & SCREAM AGAIN (1970) was an outrageous sci-fi/horror hybrid that presented a berserk view of swinging 60′s London (and also starred Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee). CRY OF THE BANSHEE (1970) was gritty and mean-spirited featuring Price as a sadistic monarch with an intense hatred of witchcraft and a sardonic sense of macabre. THE OBLONG BOX (1969 – co-starring Chris Lee) was a dark and moody tale of voodoo, body snatching, medical experiments, brotherly betrayal, and being buried alive.
'Hessler’s MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE was like a Vincent Price movie without Price (it starred Herbert Lom and Jason Robards). It mixed Poe with Phantom of the Opera and was an interesting take on Paris’ historic Grand Guignol theater. One of his last films, GIRL IN A SWING (1988) was an effective, low-key ghost story worth seeking out. Hessler directed Ray Harryhausen’s GOLDEN VOYAGE OF SINBAD in 1973, a film that’s always lived in the shadow of 7th VOYAGE as an inferior sequel but has aged well. It’s a terrific fantasy film worthy of big screen reassessment (and was recently released on Blu-ray by Twilight Time). No one could mistake his KISS MEETS THE PHANTOM OF THE PARK for a good movie, but the 1978 TV movie plays like a live-action Scooby-Doo episode and has a huge cult following. He also directed two martial arts films in the late ‘80s starring Sho Kusugi, the best known actor/martial artist during the 1980s ninja cinema craze: PRAY FOR DEATH (1985), and RAGE OF HONOR (1987).'-- collaged
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Stills
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_____
Further
Gordon Hessler @ IMDb
'KISS Co-founders Simmons and Stanley Remember Gordon Hessler'
Gordon Hessler @ MGM Channel
Lumière ! Réalisateurs : Gordon Hessler
Gordon Hessler: An Alan Smithee Podcast
DVD Savant Double Feature: Gordon Hessler
'And You Call Yourself a Scientist!'
Shock Cinema Issue #38
'Alfred Hitchcock Presents': The Quality of Humor
SATANIC PANDEMONIUM: THE OBLONG BOX
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Interview
from DVD Drive-In
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What was your relationship like with AIP?
Gordon Hessler: I always got along well with Deke Heyward, the head of DIP. He was very politically adept at handling things at AIP. He would protect you from [Sam] Arkoff and [James] Nicholson because they'd come into town and stay at the Savoy Hotel, and then they'd go in to discuss the picture, or they would see the finished product and make their suggestions.
Obviously they were happy with you, as you continued to work with them.
GH: Well, THE OBLONG BOX was very successful for them. They were in tremendous trouble with DE SADE. They didn't get along with Cy Endfield and all sorts of other problems existed. It was the greatest piece of luck that I was fired from it. When I did THE OBLONG BOX, they left me alone, there was nobody there. The day I started, Nicholson came on the set and said, "Good luck." That's it, and he was off. That film was made for £70,000, which is about $250,000. At Shepperton Studios, you could shoot from 8 AM until about 4 PM because of the union. If you wanted to do overtime, you'd have to let them know by lunchtime that you were going to take it one more hour. And only if all the union leaders agreed would they go along with it. It was a very tough assignment to shoot and get finished. Actually, when we were finishing it, I had three or four more days left. They [AIP] said, "Look, we like what you're doing, take an extra week. Can't you make this bigger?" This never happened to me before, so I was happy with the situation and I took an extra week at the studios and built up certain sequences. I can't remember which, but whatever we were shooting, we elaborated on it. And the film did very well for them.
How did you get along with Vincent Price?
GH: Oh, marvelous, he was a marvelous man, highly intelligent. I remember at Shepperton Studios, during THE OBLONG BOX, we had an African prince who was the head of this tribe. So we put them in the film for this dance sequence. I asked Vincent if he wouldn't mind having lunch with this African prince, or king, or whatever he was. You know, most actors always talk about themselves; Vincent was completely the opposite. He talked to him about African art, and all about the various art he knew about and so on. I was just stunned at the conversation and his knowledge. What a unique man.
I'm sure you're aware that your director's cut of MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE has been restored and remastered by MGM and recently aired on U.S. cable TV.
GH: I'm amazed that MGM had the instinct to do this version of it after so many years. I was appalled when I originally saw the theatrically released version. I wrote a five-page letter to Arkoff. I knew it was his picture and he could do what he wanted with it, but I asked him to do certain things so it would at least make more sense. But by that time, it was already out and released. There's another film that I did--which I feel very strongly about--called GIRL ON A SWING that was terribly mauled. It's awful what Miramax did. They spliced ten or 15 minutes out of it, and it didn't make any sense. We all wanted to take our name off of that picture. In my contract, they had to give me a 35mm print of the original version--it's the only one in existence. But as far as MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE, it seems that someone at MGM is doing some researching or something, releasing my cut of the film. This cable TV version--which I haven't yet seen--is apparently the original. I remember the flashbacks were originally never tinted, but AIP tinted them for the theatrical release. The whole idea was not to tint them so that you wouldn't know when you're more or less in a dream sequence or just being puzzled by it. The whole trick in that was instead of it being a flashback, this would be a flash-forward, which people really hadn't done before at that time. It was a premonition of what was going to happen. When it's tinted, it's just so obvious. Audiences picked up on it immediately.
SCREAM AND SCREAM AGAIN is an extraordinary film, very different from the typical Poe/Price cycle. Was AIP happy with it?
GH: Well, they didn't know what the film was about and were always questioning what I was doing. The editor kept assuring them that everything was fine, but they didn't quite know what they had as a picture. I'm sure they were a little queasy when that film came out because Arkoff had to try and sell it. We knew we had a good film. It was different. It was a science fiction film really, but the thing is, although the pulp book was very badly written, once Chris Wicking had put the nucleus of that idea into it, it elevated the whole picture and made it much more interesting. But all these pictures were made so quickly with so little money, I think we shot that in three or four weeks. But we had fun making it.
You had Christopher Lee in small parts in THE OBLONG BOX and SCREAM AND SCREAM AGAIN. How did you get along with him?
GH: I got on very well with Christopher Lee. He became even more talented as he moved on in his career. I was quite surprised at how good he was in certain movies. When you're shooting, you're so busy and you never really get to know the actors very well. You meet them and they get a sense of what you want, and then you don't see them again because they're off doing another picture. I think that the thing with a horror picture is that you have to convince your actors to believe in what they're doing. You really have to get embellished in it and enjoy it.
You also worked with Peter Cushing in SCREAM AND SCREAM AGAIN.
GH: I really didn't get to know him because he was put into the picture. That was Deke Heyward's idea. Deke would try to find some well known actor to dress up the picture--who at least Americans would be familiar with--which was a good idea. He did the same thing with Lilli Palmer in MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE. When I was doing the AIP pictures, I tried to keep a stable of actors and give them different roles. They were so wonderful, and they had to work for practically nothing. Since I was producing and directing, I had to go to the actors and tell them that I could only offer them so much, and that they could take it or leave it. It's not that I was in a situation to bargain with them. I just didn't have it in the budget. When you only have £70,000 and you're working in a large studio, everybody else got screwed--these actors. Hopefully they get some residuals of some kind, I'm not sure.
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The Lost Son of Batman
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'The financial position of DC Comics in the early 70’s was precarious. A number of publishing moves initiated by publisher Carmine Infantino had failed to see a substantial return, coupled with a number of their creators either retiring or crossing over to work at Marvel, lead to new owners Warner Bros-Seven Arts selling off the movie rights to their characters to the highest bidder to raise capital. While ABC television picked up the option on Wonder Woman, and the Salkind family snapped up Superman, the rights to Batman were sold to Canadian producer, George H. Brown in 1972. Brown himself would be declared bankrupt the following year with the rights being brought up by the Hong Kong based Shaw Brothers, whose primary output was kung-fu pictures, yet who had just signed a joint-production deal with British based Hammer films. The resultant Batman film produced is probably one of the strangest and most schizophrenic films ever produced – it is certainly one of the cheapest with a reported budget of £300,000.
'John Phillip Law was cast as Batman but he had to withdraw due to sickness, leading to the casting of David Chiang. The Shaw Brothers answer to Bruce Lee, Chiang would play Bruce Wayne’s son, who assumes the mantle of Batman after the death of his father, now played by Stuart Whitman. Anton Differing appeared briefly as a very Germanic Alfred, his performance hampered by a lengthy bout of food poisoning. As the non-comic book villain Lady Ice, Julie Ege looks stunning but her line readings were so weak she had to be re-voiced by Joanne Lumley. Chiang’s usual sparring partner Ti Lung appears as Ege’s bodyguard, Dragon Fist and the climatic duel between him and Chiang is the film’s one real highlight.
'Original director Gordon Hessler was fired after a month due to repeated clashes with the screenwriter and producer Don Houghton, leading to Hammer’s Chief Executive Michael Carreras having to complete the picture himself. Issues with the Shaw Brothers Hong Kong studios meant that much of the film was recorded without sound leading to a very costly series of post-production work which gobbled up much of the film's already meagre budget. Chiang looks absurd in the Batman costume, something which Carreras/Hessler seem to admit to given that Chiang only wears it twice in the whole film. The tiny resources granted to Hammer means that Hong Kong Harbour, doubling as Gotham City, only manages to reinforce the fact that the budget is almost non-existent. When shooting finally drew to an end, Carreras realised that they only had just over 60 minutes of usable footage. The Shaw Brothers managed to pad out the running time by splicing in unused scenes from earlier Chiang/Lung films, the majority of it from 1971's Duel of Fists. Carreras' hope that Hammer's own team in the UK would handle the special effects were for nothing,with the Shaw's handing it over to a subsidiary of Toei. "It looked one of those bloody cheap Godzilla films by the time they got through with it! The fire at the docks at the climax? I could've spit on that burning model and put the fire out!", Carreras would later say.
'The final film limped out to British cinemas in November 1975 as the bottom half of a double bill with Man About the House. After only managing to take a paltry £1,014 in its first month, Bernard Delfont pulled the film from his ABC cinema chain. In the Far East, the Shaw’s assembled a more action-orientated edit, released under the title The Legend of the Lost Son of The Batman which did much better. Unfortunately, due to a carefully worded contract, Hammer Films did not see a cent of that revenue – all box office receipts for that region went straight to the Shaw Brothers. DC were mortified when confronted with the completed picture and instigated a major lawsuit to reclaim the rights from the Shaw Brothers, finally buying their own property back for a rumoured $2 million. The film would not be released in the US until 1979 when Roger Corman’s New World Pictures picked up the film as part of a package buy-out. Corman re-cut the film, bookending it with scenes shot by Allan Arkush featuring Dick Miller as “Matches” Malone. Corman has stated that the edit was an attempt to catch some of the excitement following the success of Star Wars. It failed to do so and either Corman's version or the original are hardly seen at all today. Bootleg DVDs have been known to sell for up £70 to £80 on the comic convention circuit.'-- Warning: Contains Traces of Bowie
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14 of Gordon Hessler's 46 films
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The Oblong Box (1969)
'This troubled production from American International Pictures initially began life as the next project for young British filmmaker Michael Reeves. He had clearly impressed his backers with the strength of his third film Witchfinder General (1968). The death of Reeves during the pre-production of The Oblong Box was a major blow, not only to the film, but to British filmmaking in general. With the death of Reeves any ambition the film might have had began to dwindle and this was signposted by the arrival of the undistinguished Gordon Hessler as his directorial replacement. Hessler was a capable director, but one who rarely achieved any kind of inspiration - and this derivative and clichéd piece of gothic horror was badly in need of inspiration.'-- Son of Celluloid
Trailer
Finale
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De Sade (1969)
'I was asked to produce a film, DE SADE, for AIP while I was in Los Angeles that was taking place in Munich, Germany. I flew into London and met the writer, and the director was supposed to be there, but he never showed up. He didn't come to the meeting; he was sick or something like that. Having met the writer, I flew to Munich to set up the film about eight weeks before they were going to start shooting. I was there preparing the production and then I was told that the original director was not going to make the picture. So we waited for a while, and finally the American director who did ZULU, Cy Endfield, came in to do it. This was a big picture for AIP, which usually made very cheap pictures, and I was an outsider. I was not an employee, just a freelance director. My position got very shaky there, even though I was very friendly with everybody. I was actually fired from the job because the local people employed by AIP wanted to produce the picture rather than have an outsider like me.'-- Gordon Hessler
Excerpt
Excerpt
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Scream and Scream Again (1970)
'With its daft one-size-fits-all title and unassailable front-line of Cushing, Lee and Price, one could easily be forgiven for writing off Scream and Scream Again as another entry in the ill-fated cycle of ‘old boys club’ horror movies that began to take off as the box office for old-fashioned horror flicks started to diminish through the ‘70s. All bets are off however the second one sits down to actually watch Scream and Scream Again. By some strange quirk of fate, this modest Amicus/AIP co-production turns out to be one of the most beserk, imaginative and unconventional British horror movies ever made - a real kick in the teeth for anyone who bought a ticket expecting to see Vince and the gang rattling around dark old house for eighty minutes. That’s not to say it’s actually all that great, but ... '-- Breakfast in the Ruins
Trailer
Excerpt
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Cry of the Banshee (1970)
'Within Cry of the Banshee can be found the groundings of what most people know as folk horror. The witchcraft elements will of course be attributed to Reeves’ film but there are more aspects in Cry of the Banshee that would crop up in later films. The worship aspects and group gestalts would be put to more dramatic and disturbing effects in Blood on Satan’s Claw (1971); a film that similarly embraces the reality of the supernatural to explain away its evils. However the purely humanistic evils found in Banshee can be seen in the sub-genre’s poster boy; The Wicker Man (1973). There’s little visually to tie in but there’s no doubt that Cry of the Banshee can be seen to be a step closer to the ultimate in folk horror madness. Some of the performances may be colourful but the film’s horror is still strong. However the better moments come from the human evils rather than the supernatural ones. The banshee creature bares little on scenes of torture and burning which have a documentary shake to them and are just as effective as Reeves’ prolonged agonies. Coupled with some Hammer like pulp and Price’s usual villainy, a film is left that is enjoyable, flawed and surprisingly influential.'-- Celluloid Wicker Man
Trailer
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Murders in the Rue Morgue (1971)
'Murders in the Rue Morgue is a 1971 American horror film directed by Gordon Hessler, starring Jason Robards and Herbert Lom. It is ostensibly an adaptation of the Edgar Allan Poe story of the same name, although it departs from the story in several significant aspects, at times more resembling Gaston Leroux's Phantom of the Opera. In an interview on the film's DVD, Hessler said that he thought everyone already knew the ending of the story, so he felt it necessary to reinvent the plot. According to IMDB.com, the film was banned in Finland in 1972.'-- Wiki
Trailer
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Medusa (1973)
'A couple of empty champagne glasses lay between a pair of corpses, a man and a woman – their hands folded peacefully together in the prose of two lovers who’ve opted to end it all with suicide. This is the shocking scene that greets a group of Greek police officials who have just boarded a floating yacht in the opening minutes of Medusa, a 1973 curio from television director turned big screen auteur, Gordon Hessler. Clearly this film isn't for everyone but if you love to see actors getting crazy and going over the top and generally having a great time, you should check it out.'-- CrankedOnCinema
Excerpt
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The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1974)
'Following manuscript-styled opening credits, an incantation of Baudelaire's albatross: A swooping creature drops a fragmented amulet on the vessel's deck, Sinbad (John Philip Hall) decides to hang on to it after a faceless odalisque with painted eyes on her palms comes as a vision. Another piece of the tablet belongs to the noble Vizier (Douglas Wilmer), who hides a charred visage behind a gold-plated Hellenistic mask; together they reveal a navigation chart, the answer to its riddle is at a mystical island populated by natives who paint themselves jade-green and worship Ray Harryhausen behemoths. The climactic brawl between a centaur and a griffin has to be some kind of stop-animation benchmark, and a few wide-eyed words are all it takes for the Amazonian figurehead at the ship's prow to come to vengeful life. Still, Harryhausen's most touching work is done in the quiet, beguiling scene in which the villainous wizard (Tom Baker) patiently breathes life into a tiny gargoyle, a concise ode to the divine qualities of the craftsman's art.'-- cinepassion.org
Trailer
Excerpt
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A Cry in the Wilderness (1974)
'On his isolated farm in the wilderness, Sam Hadley (played by George Kennedy) has an unfortunate run-in with a rabid skunk. How Sam and his wife handle the situation is the basis for the story, which is totally not convincing. Sam reacts in ways that defy logic or common sense. Plot devices include hallucinations, a coincidental flood, and menacing hillbillies. The acting is not bad, but the actors have nothing to work with. The story's premise, in my opinion, is not credible. It relies too much on coincidental timing, improbable behavior, hokey characters, and a predictable outcome. Indeed, without the skunk, there would be no story at all. The DVD version of this film is 74 minutes, but it seemed more like two hours. I don't wish to be unkind, but the film seemed to me to be a cross between a bad episode of Green Acres and a poor remake of the movie Deliverance. A more interesting film might have resulted if the story had been told from the POV of the skunk. How did the skunk react to the encounter? Was the skunk traumatized? Did the skunk suffer nightmares? What did the skunk learn, and so on.'-- Lechugilla
Excerpt
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KISS Meets The Phantom Of The Park (1978)
'A crude opening montage sees the members of Kiss super-imposed on top of night-time fairground footage. Inexplicably, Peter Criss is seen miming the drums on a roulette wheel. Drink it in, Kiss Army recruits, as this is the last glimpse of your commanding officers you’ll be getting for quite a while. Director Gordon Hessler (whose horror credits include Scream and Scream Again and Cry of the Banshee for AIP, as well as taking over The Oblong Box after the death of Michael Reeves), clearly has other things on his mind. Like FUN, primarily. Beautiful, sun-dappled, 1978 suburban American amusement park fun, to be precise. Thankfully I’m a bit too young and located on the wrong side of the world to be fully smitten by this full-scale nostalgia landslide, but anyone currently in about the 35-45 age bracket and raised somewhere in the Southern half of the USA should probably prepare themselves for paralysing wistfulness and bouts of uncontrollable sobbing, as gentle, smiling Dazed & Confused teens fade in and out of focus, enjoying a summer’s day out in their local parentally-approved leisure complex.'-- Breakfast in the Ruins
Opening credits
Excerpt
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Tales of the Haunted (1981)
'This low-budget feature is actually comprised of re-edited installments from a syndicated television serial. Jack Palance stars as a self-serving, abusive boor who becomes stranded -- along with his two hapless children -- by a thunderstorm, forcing them to take shelter in an isolated country estate owned by a group of mysterious and wealthy old dowagers. Seeing a golden opportunity, Palance soon turns to plundering their estate, but his plans collide horribly with the secret activities of a Satanic snake-cult who carry out ritual sacrifices in the attic. Guess who's next in line? Given the cheap-looking confines of the shot-on-video production, director Gordon Hessler manages to generate some creepy atmosphere, and Palance chews acres of scenery as the diabolical daddy, whose tyrannical behavior makes his eventual fate quite satisfying.'-- Cavett Binion, Rovi
Excerpt
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Pray for Death (1985)
'Pray For Death is essentially a carbon copy of Revenge of the Ninja. In both films Kosugi plays a Japanese businessman who relocates his family to America for the sake of his job, but once there runs afoul of gangsters. In both movies his respective wives are killed, AND in both films Kosugi’s two sons play the roles of his onscreen kids, which end up surviving the bloody carnage father and gangster doll out among each other in both movies. Pray For Death is notable for two things, it’s Kosugi’s last role in a movie where he plays a ninja, and it’s notorious for being his most violent and sadistic. Kosugi find’s himself going head to head wtih James Booth, who plays a gangster psychopath that enjoys beating old men to death, torturing Kosugi in front of his kid, and raping and killing Kosugi’s wife towards the end.'-- You Won Cannes
Trailer
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Rage of Honor (1987)
'Starting from the opening “party boat” scene, you know you’re in for a heavy dose of 80’s awesomeness. (frustratingly, the one song used in the film, a Wang Chung/Mister Mister-like jaunt, is not listed in the credits or anywhere online that we could find). Both here and throughout the whole film, Sho’s thick accent is in full force. Some of the most hilarious moments in the movie come during the dialogue scenes, where the other actors have to simply pretend his accent isn’t unintelligible. So, to keep Sho Kosugi’s dialogue to a minimum, he pauses instead of speaks in many cases. The result is amusing. But the other actors aren’t blameless here either - while Sho’s name in the movie is “Shiro”, it sounds like most people are calling him “Churro”. While this would be insulting to Mexicans and Japanese alike, I think we can put this down to lack of understanding of Japanese naming traditions. While this is part and parcel of the whole Sho experience, fans really want to see Sho in action, and they are treated to some great stuff here.'-- Comeuppance Reviews
Trailer
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The Misfit Brigade (1987)
'The Misfit Brigade is adapted from a novel from Sven Hassle; who was a former Nazi Soldier and thus a bit of a questionable and slightly controversial figure himself. Regardless of his background, The Misfit Brigade definitely isn't pro-Nazi and actually quite blunt and uncompromising in the expression of its political opinions. The protagonists in this movie are anti everything and that's probably why this is such a good and plausible film. And by plausible I do not necessarily mean the depicted events in the film, but the characterizations of the rejected SS-soldiers and deserters. Director Gordon Hessler – known from the early 70's Vincent Price horror movies The Oblong Box and Cry of the Banshee– does an admirable job as well and he could rely on a fantastically devoted cast, including Bruce Davison as the uncrowned leader of the bunch, David Patrick Kelly as the eloquent and provocative Legionnaire and Jay O. Sanders as the big & dumb kamikaze freak Tiny. David Carradine is sublimely nefarious as the power-hungry Colonel Von Weisshägen; complete with his glasses for one eye only to make him look extra evil. Oliver Reed receives top billing but only makes a cameo appearance during the hectic and extremely cool climax. The role, however, is perfect for him and he gives his absolute everything in only five lines of dialog.'-- Coventry
the entire film
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The Girl in the Swing (1989)
'Gordon Hessler first made a name for himself as a producer of Alfred Hitchcock's TV series in the 1960s, and later, as a director of several interesting (if not entirely satisfying) British horror films of the late '60s and early '70s. The Girl in a Swing is not a good movie, but it is so ambitious in its strangeness that it cannot routinely be dismissed. Among the many curious decisions connected with this European film is the choice of Meg Tilly, an American actress, for the leading role -- a young German woman who speaks English with an almost-impenetrable accent. Twenty years ago, the great director Fritz Lang (Metropolis, M) hailed Hessler's Scream and Scream Again as one of the outstanding suspense films of the '60s, largely because he was impressed with the political subtext of what was otherwise a stock, modern horror movie. Movie buffs have been waiting for Hessler to live up to Lang`s praise since. The Girl in a Swing brings him closer than anything else he has made. That probably isn't enough to satisfy a mainstream audience, but it`s enough to warrant that the film not be totally ignored. Hessler has emerged from a long stretch of obscurity with The Girl in a Swing, a bizarre, almost hypnotically fascinating study of sexual obsession.'-- collaged
Trailer
Excerpt
*
p.s. Hey. ** Bill, Hi, B. Aw, awesome, thanks, so glad you dug it. Wow, a lengthy stay there in Copenhagen. You liking the place? I liked it a fair amount that one time I was there. Click Festival, nice. I just checked the website, and it looks quite fantastic. Anything you're particularly looking forward to at Click? ** les mots dans le nom, Hi. Oh, you were saying goodbye, okay, I mean ... you should do what works and feels best for you, although of course I'll be sorry you're away. I hope all of your work and concentration goes as well as humanly possible, and, if the mood strikes, and if this place beckons in a positive way for you, please come back any time. Take good care. ** Scunnard, Hi, J! Uh, god knows where the post idea came from. I don't think Paris itself had anything to do with it? Some imagination tangent-meets-search engine spontaneous combustion event or something, I guess. You're going to LA! Sweet! Where are you staying, what are you planning to do there? That sounds really nice. I hear it's being unseasonably warm or rather hot there, thanks, I guess, to the good old powers of the fucked up climate, so you should get plenty of heat. I've been great, really really busy, but in a nothing but a great way. ** David Ehrenstein, Ha ha, perhaps so. ... meets David and Goliath? Oh, that bookstore has a dreamy selection of books, you should check it out, and, duh, you should get over here for goodness sake. Yeah, the Antarctic horrible news. That melting ice shelf is not so far south of where Zac and I were on our recent Antarctica voyage. ** Sypha, I remember seeing that Roger Dean image on ... an album cover, I guess? It's one of his most pedo lite, ha ha. There's never a cogent argument against blurbs, is there? I think it's a 'well, it certainly can't hurt' thing. Poetry, interesting. You going to share those somewhere at some point? I'm definitely curious to see what happens to your mighty talent inside that size of housing. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. That's a great Friedman piece. He's done 'micro' a fair amount. Like this notorious one, for instance. I read about that 'Frank' film a while back. I hoped it was going to be an homage, one of those things that would lead to wider appreciation of the inspiration. Shit, if it isn't. You can do a Frank Sidebottom post for the blog, you betcha. It would be awesome! ** Paul Curran, Hi, Paul. Oh, yeah, Japan is a king of that, huh, true. Thanks, yes, the scrapbook defacement thing was a big shock, and I'm, as you can imagine, extremely unhappy about it. ** Schlix, Hi, Uli! Welcome back! Holy wow, 9 Bresson films in kind of a row? Envy. You saw Datashock! Was it good? I'd really like to see that. And Melt Banana as a two-piece, which is hard for me to imagine. Why only two of them? Did the others quit or get fired or something? I'm doing fine. I hope you're doing fine too! ** Schoolboyerrors, Hi, D. Yeah, understood about the self-observation. It's a good thing to do in preparation for when you find what you want and it does that overwhelming thing that makes a true separation of yourself from the effect so impossible. In, well, my experience. It'll be cool, I'm sure. Right, yeah, I resisted reposting the Martin and Munoz snow globes again, although it was hard, loving them and craving the possession of one of them as I do. With love back. ** Misanthrope, Hi, G. You live in the Waldorf Astoria?! Oh, wait, Waldorf period. right. Any relationship there? Definitely a different David Williams. The twin one didn't seem very bad ass. In fact, he seemed good ass, if you catch my drift. Pollen-central here too, but mitigated by the fact that it has barely stopped raining here for a week and a half straight. Silver lining. ** Keaton, You think gross when you think gay? Don't let Mr. E. know that, ha ha. Outta jail?! What?! You're being metaphoric or something or something else, no? I thought your Will Wheaten penis reference was connected to the 'micro' thing there for a minute. Apparently not. Not 'micro', someone told me. ** Will C., You sound really good, man. That's so awesome. And, yeah, your writing's stride is particularly good news. Writing is such a moody thing. It can make writers so codependent. Or me anyway. I haven't even seen an ad for 'Breaking Bad'. TV has become my weakest point since I've been over here. I'm missing the entire 'quality TV' revolution in the US or whatever people think it is. I'll catch up with 'BB' one of these months. ** Kier, Agent Kier! Ha ha, oh, I think talking to a worm is the coolest thing ever. I'm going to try it today. The ground here in Paris is soaked from a week-plus of rain into a wormy mulch, so that shouldn't be hard. Yesterday? Zac and I met with two of the performers we want in our film, and they both said yes, so we're very happy. And we met with our casting director and had a sobering but useful discussion. And I wrote some emails, which is not a small thing considering my terribleness with that form. And I worked on my novel a bit. And I bought some Japanese/French pastries as a gift for someone. And ... I can't remember what else. What did you do today? Tell me, please. ** That's it. So, a reader of this blog wrote me an email and asked or maybe more like dared me to do one of my filmmaker posts about Gordon Hessler, a minor (I think, I don't know) director of mostly horror-ish movies, and so I did it, as you see, and I hope Nathan Bartholomew is happy with the results, and, you know, I hope you are too. See you tomorrow.
'Gordon Hessler passed away in his sleep January 19, 2014 at the age of 83. An underrated horror director, Hessler cut his teeth on the Hitchcock Presents TV show then helmed several genuinely creepy and atmospheric British films. He worked with Vincent Price three times, all with scripts by Christopher Wicking; SCREAM & SCREAM AGAIN (1970) was an outrageous sci-fi/horror hybrid that presented a berserk view of swinging 60′s London (and also starred Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee). CRY OF THE BANSHEE (1970) was gritty and mean-spirited featuring Price as a sadistic monarch with an intense hatred of witchcraft and a sardonic sense of macabre. THE OBLONG BOX (1969 – co-starring Chris Lee) was a dark and moody tale of voodoo, body snatching, medical experiments, brotherly betrayal, and being buried alive.
'Hessler’s MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE was like a Vincent Price movie without Price (it starred Herbert Lom and Jason Robards). It mixed Poe with Phantom of the Opera and was an interesting take on Paris’ historic Grand Guignol theater. One of his last films, GIRL IN A SWING (1988) was an effective, low-key ghost story worth seeking out. Hessler directed Ray Harryhausen’s GOLDEN VOYAGE OF SINBAD in 1973, a film that’s always lived in the shadow of 7th VOYAGE as an inferior sequel but has aged well. It’s a terrific fantasy film worthy of big screen reassessment (and was recently released on Blu-ray by Twilight Time). No one could mistake his KISS MEETS THE PHANTOM OF THE PARK for a good movie, but the 1978 TV movie plays like a live-action Scooby-Doo episode and has a huge cult following. He also directed two martial arts films in the late ‘80s starring Sho Kusugi, the best known actor/martial artist during the 1980s ninja cinema craze: PRAY FOR DEATH (1985), and RAGE OF HONOR (1987).'-- collaged
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Stills
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Further
Gordon Hessler @ IMDb
'KISS Co-founders Simmons and Stanley Remember Gordon Hessler'
Gordon Hessler @ MGM Channel
Lumière ! Réalisateurs : Gordon Hessler
Gordon Hessler: An Alan Smithee Podcast
DVD Savant Double Feature: Gordon Hessler
'And You Call Yourself a Scientist!'
Shock Cinema Issue #38
'Alfred Hitchcock Presents': The Quality of Humor
SATANIC PANDEMONIUM: THE OBLONG BOX
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Interview
from DVD Drive-In
What was your relationship like with AIP?
Gordon Hessler: I always got along well with Deke Heyward, the head of DIP. He was very politically adept at handling things at AIP. He would protect you from [Sam] Arkoff and [James] Nicholson because they'd come into town and stay at the Savoy Hotel, and then they'd go in to discuss the picture, or they would see the finished product and make their suggestions.
Obviously they were happy with you, as you continued to work with them.
GH: Well, THE OBLONG BOX was very successful for them. They were in tremendous trouble with DE SADE. They didn't get along with Cy Endfield and all sorts of other problems existed. It was the greatest piece of luck that I was fired from it. When I did THE OBLONG BOX, they left me alone, there was nobody there. The day I started, Nicholson came on the set and said, "Good luck." That's it, and he was off. That film was made for £70,000, which is about $250,000. At Shepperton Studios, you could shoot from 8 AM until about 4 PM because of the union. If you wanted to do overtime, you'd have to let them know by lunchtime that you were going to take it one more hour. And only if all the union leaders agreed would they go along with it. It was a very tough assignment to shoot and get finished. Actually, when we were finishing it, I had three or four more days left. They [AIP] said, "Look, we like what you're doing, take an extra week. Can't you make this bigger?" This never happened to me before, so I was happy with the situation and I took an extra week at the studios and built up certain sequences. I can't remember which, but whatever we were shooting, we elaborated on it. And the film did very well for them.
How did you get along with Vincent Price?
GH: Oh, marvelous, he was a marvelous man, highly intelligent. I remember at Shepperton Studios, during THE OBLONG BOX, we had an African prince who was the head of this tribe. So we put them in the film for this dance sequence. I asked Vincent if he wouldn't mind having lunch with this African prince, or king, or whatever he was. You know, most actors always talk about themselves; Vincent was completely the opposite. He talked to him about African art, and all about the various art he knew about and so on. I was just stunned at the conversation and his knowledge. What a unique man.
I'm sure you're aware that your director's cut of MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE has been restored and remastered by MGM and recently aired on U.S. cable TV.
GH: I'm amazed that MGM had the instinct to do this version of it after so many years. I was appalled when I originally saw the theatrically released version. I wrote a five-page letter to Arkoff. I knew it was his picture and he could do what he wanted with it, but I asked him to do certain things so it would at least make more sense. But by that time, it was already out and released. There's another film that I did--which I feel very strongly about--called GIRL ON A SWING that was terribly mauled. It's awful what Miramax did. They spliced ten or 15 minutes out of it, and it didn't make any sense. We all wanted to take our name off of that picture. In my contract, they had to give me a 35mm print of the original version--it's the only one in existence. But as far as MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE, it seems that someone at MGM is doing some researching or something, releasing my cut of the film. This cable TV version--which I haven't yet seen--is apparently the original. I remember the flashbacks were originally never tinted, but AIP tinted them for the theatrical release. The whole idea was not to tint them so that you wouldn't know when you're more or less in a dream sequence or just being puzzled by it. The whole trick in that was instead of it being a flashback, this would be a flash-forward, which people really hadn't done before at that time. It was a premonition of what was going to happen. When it's tinted, it's just so obvious. Audiences picked up on it immediately.
SCREAM AND SCREAM AGAIN is an extraordinary film, very different from the typical Poe/Price cycle. Was AIP happy with it?
GH: Well, they didn't know what the film was about and were always questioning what I was doing. The editor kept assuring them that everything was fine, but they didn't quite know what they had as a picture. I'm sure they were a little queasy when that film came out because Arkoff had to try and sell it. We knew we had a good film. It was different. It was a science fiction film really, but the thing is, although the pulp book was very badly written, once Chris Wicking had put the nucleus of that idea into it, it elevated the whole picture and made it much more interesting. But all these pictures were made so quickly with so little money, I think we shot that in three or four weeks. But we had fun making it.
You had Christopher Lee in small parts in THE OBLONG BOX and SCREAM AND SCREAM AGAIN. How did you get along with him?
GH: I got on very well with Christopher Lee. He became even more talented as he moved on in his career. I was quite surprised at how good he was in certain movies. When you're shooting, you're so busy and you never really get to know the actors very well. You meet them and they get a sense of what you want, and then you don't see them again because they're off doing another picture. I think that the thing with a horror picture is that you have to convince your actors to believe in what they're doing. You really have to get embellished in it and enjoy it.
You also worked with Peter Cushing in SCREAM AND SCREAM AGAIN.
GH: I really didn't get to know him because he was put into the picture. That was Deke Heyward's idea. Deke would try to find some well known actor to dress up the picture--who at least Americans would be familiar with--which was a good idea. He did the same thing with Lilli Palmer in MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE. When I was doing the AIP pictures, I tried to keep a stable of actors and give them different roles. They were so wonderful, and they had to work for practically nothing. Since I was producing and directing, I had to go to the actors and tell them that I could only offer them so much, and that they could take it or leave it. It's not that I was in a situation to bargain with them. I just didn't have it in the budget. When you only have £70,000 and you're working in a large studio, everybody else got screwed--these actors. Hopefully they get some residuals of some kind, I'm not sure.
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The Lost Son of Batman
'The financial position of DC Comics in the early 70’s was precarious. A number of publishing moves initiated by publisher Carmine Infantino had failed to see a substantial return, coupled with a number of their creators either retiring or crossing over to work at Marvel, lead to new owners Warner Bros-Seven Arts selling off the movie rights to their characters to the highest bidder to raise capital. While ABC television picked up the option on Wonder Woman, and the Salkind family snapped up Superman, the rights to Batman were sold to Canadian producer, George H. Brown in 1972. Brown himself would be declared bankrupt the following year with the rights being brought up by the Hong Kong based Shaw Brothers, whose primary output was kung-fu pictures, yet who had just signed a joint-production deal with British based Hammer films. The resultant Batman film produced is probably one of the strangest and most schizophrenic films ever produced – it is certainly one of the cheapest with a reported budget of £300,000.
'John Phillip Law was cast as Batman but he had to withdraw due to sickness, leading to the casting of David Chiang. The Shaw Brothers answer to Bruce Lee, Chiang would play Bruce Wayne’s son, who assumes the mantle of Batman after the death of his father, now played by Stuart Whitman. Anton Differing appeared briefly as a very Germanic Alfred, his performance hampered by a lengthy bout of food poisoning. As the non-comic book villain Lady Ice, Julie Ege looks stunning but her line readings were so weak she had to be re-voiced by Joanne Lumley. Chiang’s usual sparring partner Ti Lung appears as Ege’s bodyguard, Dragon Fist and the climatic duel between him and Chiang is the film’s one real highlight.
'Original director Gordon Hessler was fired after a month due to repeated clashes with the screenwriter and producer Don Houghton, leading to Hammer’s Chief Executive Michael Carreras having to complete the picture himself. Issues with the Shaw Brothers Hong Kong studios meant that much of the film was recorded without sound leading to a very costly series of post-production work which gobbled up much of the film's already meagre budget. Chiang looks absurd in the Batman costume, something which Carreras/Hessler seem to admit to given that Chiang only wears it twice in the whole film. The tiny resources granted to Hammer means that Hong Kong Harbour, doubling as Gotham City, only manages to reinforce the fact that the budget is almost non-existent. When shooting finally drew to an end, Carreras realised that they only had just over 60 minutes of usable footage. The Shaw Brothers managed to pad out the running time by splicing in unused scenes from earlier Chiang/Lung films, the majority of it from 1971's Duel of Fists. Carreras' hope that Hammer's own team in the UK would handle the special effects were for nothing,with the Shaw's handing it over to a subsidiary of Toei. "It looked one of those bloody cheap Godzilla films by the time they got through with it! The fire at the docks at the climax? I could've spit on that burning model and put the fire out!", Carreras would later say.
'The final film limped out to British cinemas in November 1975 as the bottom half of a double bill with Man About the House. After only managing to take a paltry £1,014 in its first month, Bernard Delfont pulled the film from his ABC cinema chain. In the Far East, the Shaw’s assembled a more action-orientated edit, released under the title The Legend of the Lost Son of The Batman which did much better. Unfortunately, due to a carefully worded contract, Hammer Films did not see a cent of that revenue – all box office receipts for that region went straight to the Shaw Brothers. DC were mortified when confronted with the completed picture and instigated a major lawsuit to reclaim the rights from the Shaw Brothers, finally buying their own property back for a rumoured $2 million. The film would not be released in the US until 1979 when Roger Corman’s New World Pictures picked up the film as part of a package buy-out. Corman re-cut the film, bookending it with scenes shot by Allan Arkush featuring Dick Miller as “Matches” Malone. Corman has stated that the edit was an attempt to catch some of the excitement following the success of Star Wars. It failed to do so and either Corman's version or the original are hardly seen at all today. Bootleg DVDs have been known to sell for up £70 to £80 on the comic convention circuit.'-- Warning: Contains Traces of Bowie
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14 of Gordon Hessler's 46 films
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The Oblong Box (1969)
'This troubled production from American International Pictures initially began life as the next project for young British filmmaker Michael Reeves. He had clearly impressed his backers with the strength of his third film Witchfinder General (1968). The death of Reeves during the pre-production of The Oblong Box was a major blow, not only to the film, but to British filmmaking in general. With the death of Reeves any ambition the film might have had began to dwindle and this was signposted by the arrival of the undistinguished Gordon Hessler as his directorial replacement. Hessler was a capable director, but one who rarely achieved any kind of inspiration - and this derivative and clichéd piece of gothic horror was badly in need of inspiration.'-- Son of Celluloid
Trailer
Finale
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De Sade (1969)
'I was asked to produce a film, DE SADE, for AIP while I was in Los Angeles that was taking place in Munich, Germany. I flew into London and met the writer, and the director was supposed to be there, but he never showed up. He didn't come to the meeting; he was sick or something like that. Having met the writer, I flew to Munich to set up the film about eight weeks before they were going to start shooting. I was there preparing the production and then I was told that the original director was not going to make the picture. So we waited for a while, and finally the American director who did ZULU, Cy Endfield, came in to do it. This was a big picture for AIP, which usually made very cheap pictures, and I was an outsider. I was not an employee, just a freelance director. My position got very shaky there, even though I was very friendly with everybody. I was actually fired from the job because the local people employed by AIP wanted to produce the picture rather than have an outsider like me.'-- Gordon Hessler
Excerpt
Excerpt
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Scream and Scream Again (1970)
'With its daft one-size-fits-all title and unassailable front-line of Cushing, Lee and Price, one could easily be forgiven for writing off Scream and Scream Again as another entry in the ill-fated cycle of ‘old boys club’ horror movies that began to take off as the box office for old-fashioned horror flicks started to diminish through the ‘70s. All bets are off however the second one sits down to actually watch Scream and Scream Again. By some strange quirk of fate, this modest Amicus/AIP co-production turns out to be one of the most beserk, imaginative and unconventional British horror movies ever made - a real kick in the teeth for anyone who bought a ticket expecting to see Vince and the gang rattling around dark old house for eighty minutes. That’s not to say it’s actually all that great, but ... '-- Breakfast in the Ruins
Trailer
Excerpt
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Cry of the Banshee (1970)
'Within Cry of the Banshee can be found the groundings of what most people know as folk horror. The witchcraft elements will of course be attributed to Reeves’ film but there are more aspects in Cry of the Banshee that would crop up in later films. The worship aspects and group gestalts would be put to more dramatic and disturbing effects in Blood on Satan’s Claw (1971); a film that similarly embraces the reality of the supernatural to explain away its evils. However the purely humanistic evils found in Banshee can be seen in the sub-genre’s poster boy; The Wicker Man (1973). There’s little visually to tie in but there’s no doubt that Cry of the Banshee can be seen to be a step closer to the ultimate in folk horror madness. Some of the performances may be colourful but the film’s horror is still strong. However the better moments come from the human evils rather than the supernatural ones. The banshee creature bares little on scenes of torture and burning which have a documentary shake to them and are just as effective as Reeves’ prolonged agonies. Coupled with some Hammer like pulp and Price’s usual villainy, a film is left that is enjoyable, flawed and surprisingly influential.'-- Celluloid Wicker Man
Trailer
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Murders in the Rue Morgue (1971)
'Murders in the Rue Morgue is a 1971 American horror film directed by Gordon Hessler, starring Jason Robards and Herbert Lom. It is ostensibly an adaptation of the Edgar Allan Poe story of the same name, although it departs from the story in several significant aspects, at times more resembling Gaston Leroux's Phantom of the Opera. In an interview on the film's DVD, Hessler said that he thought everyone already knew the ending of the story, so he felt it necessary to reinvent the plot. According to IMDB.com, the film was banned in Finland in 1972.'-- Wiki
Trailer
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Medusa (1973)
'A couple of empty champagne glasses lay between a pair of corpses, a man and a woman – their hands folded peacefully together in the prose of two lovers who’ve opted to end it all with suicide. This is the shocking scene that greets a group of Greek police officials who have just boarded a floating yacht in the opening minutes of Medusa, a 1973 curio from television director turned big screen auteur, Gordon Hessler. Clearly this film isn't for everyone but if you love to see actors getting crazy and going over the top and generally having a great time, you should check it out.'-- CrankedOnCinema
Excerpt
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The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1974)
'Following manuscript-styled opening credits, an incantation of Baudelaire's albatross: A swooping creature drops a fragmented amulet on the vessel's deck, Sinbad (John Philip Hall) decides to hang on to it after a faceless odalisque with painted eyes on her palms comes as a vision. Another piece of the tablet belongs to the noble Vizier (Douglas Wilmer), who hides a charred visage behind a gold-plated Hellenistic mask; together they reveal a navigation chart, the answer to its riddle is at a mystical island populated by natives who paint themselves jade-green and worship Ray Harryhausen behemoths. The climactic brawl between a centaur and a griffin has to be some kind of stop-animation benchmark, and a few wide-eyed words are all it takes for the Amazonian figurehead at the ship's prow to come to vengeful life. Still, Harryhausen's most touching work is done in the quiet, beguiling scene in which the villainous wizard (Tom Baker) patiently breathes life into a tiny gargoyle, a concise ode to the divine qualities of the craftsman's art.'-- cinepassion.org
Trailer
Excerpt
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A Cry in the Wilderness (1974)
'On his isolated farm in the wilderness, Sam Hadley (played by George Kennedy) has an unfortunate run-in with a rabid skunk. How Sam and his wife handle the situation is the basis for the story, which is totally not convincing. Sam reacts in ways that defy logic or common sense. Plot devices include hallucinations, a coincidental flood, and menacing hillbillies. The acting is not bad, but the actors have nothing to work with. The story's premise, in my opinion, is not credible. It relies too much on coincidental timing, improbable behavior, hokey characters, and a predictable outcome. Indeed, without the skunk, there would be no story at all. The DVD version of this film is 74 minutes, but it seemed more like two hours. I don't wish to be unkind, but the film seemed to me to be a cross between a bad episode of Green Acres and a poor remake of the movie Deliverance. A more interesting film might have resulted if the story had been told from the POV of the skunk. How did the skunk react to the encounter? Was the skunk traumatized? Did the skunk suffer nightmares? What did the skunk learn, and so on.'-- Lechugilla
Excerpt
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KISS Meets The Phantom Of The Park (1978)
'A crude opening montage sees the members of Kiss super-imposed on top of night-time fairground footage. Inexplicably, Peter Criss is seen miming the drums on a roulette wheel. Drink it in, Kiss Army recruits, as this is the last glimpse of your commanding officers you’ll be getting for quite a while. Director Gordon Hessler (whose horror credits include Scream and Scream Again and Cry of the Banshee for AIP, as well as taking over The Oblong Box after the death of Michael Reeves), clearly has other things on his mind. Like FUN, primarily. Beautiful, sun-dappled, 1978 suburban American amusement park fun, to be precise. Thankfully I’m a bit too young and located on the wrong side of the world to be fully smitten by this full-scale nostalgia landslide, but anyone currently in about the 35-45 age bracket and raised somewhere in the Southern half of the USA should probably prepare themselves for paralysing wistfulness and bouts of uncontrollable sobbing, as gentle, smiling Dazed & Confused teens fade in and out of focus, enjoying a summer’s day out in their local parentally-approved leisure complex.'-- Breakfast in the Ruins
Opening credits
Excerpt
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Tales of the Haunted (1981)
'This low-budget feature is actually comprised of re-edited installments from a syndicated television serial. Jack Palance stars as a self-serving, abusive boor who becomes stranded -- along with his two hapless children -- by a thunderstorm, forcing them to take shelter in an isolated country estate owned by a group of mysterious and wealthy old dowagers. Seeing a golden opportunity, Palance soon turns to plundering their estate, but his plans collide horribly with the secret activities of a Satanic snake-cult who carry out ritual sacrifices in the attic. Guess who's next in line? Given the cheap-looking confines of the shot-on-video production, director Gordon Hessler manages to generate some creepy atmosphere, and Palance chews acres of scenery as the diabolical daddy, whose tyrannical behavior makes his eventual fate quite satisfying.'-- Cavett Binion, Rovi
Excerpt
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Pray for Death (1985)
'Pray For Death is essentially a carbon copy of Revenge of the Ninja. In both films Kosugi plays a Japanese businessman who relocates his family to America for the sake of his job, but once there runs afoul of gangsters. In both movies his respective wives are killed, AND in both films Kosugi’s two sons play the roles of his onscreen kids, which end up surviving the bloody carnage father and gangster doll out among each other in both movies. Pray For Death is notable for two things, it’s Kosugi’s last role in a movie where he plays a ninja, and it’s notorious for being his most violent and sadistic. Kosugi find’s himself going head to head wtih James Booth, who plays a gangster psychopath that enjoys beating old men to death, torturing Kosugi in front of his kid, and raping and killing Kosugi’s wife towards the end.'-- You Won Cannes
Trailer
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Rage of Honor (1987)
'Starting from the opening “party boat” scene, you know you’re in for a heavy dose of 80’s awesomeness. (frustratingly, the one song used in the film, a Wang Chung/Mister Mister-like jaunt, is not listed in the credits or anywhere online that we could find). Both here and throughout the whole film, Sho’s thick accent is in full force. Some of the most hilarious moments in the movie come during the dialogue scenes, where the other actors have to simply pretend his accent isn’t unintelligible. So, to keep Sho Kosugi’s dialogue to a minimum, he pauses instead of speaks in many cases. The result is amusing. But the other actors aren’t blameless here either - while Sho’s name in the movie is “Shiro”, it sounds like most people are calling him “Churro”. While this would be insulting to Mexicans and Japanese alike, I think we can put this down to lack of understanding of Japanese naming traditions. While this is part and parcel of the whole Sho experience, fans really want to see Sho in action, and they are treated to some great stuff here.'-- Comeuppance Reviews
Trailer
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The Misfit Brigade (1987)
'The Misfit Brigade is adapted from a novel from Sven Hassle; who was a former Nazi Soldier and thus a bit of a questionable and slightly controversial figure himself. Regardless of his background, The Misfit Brigade definitely isn't pro-Nazi and actually quite blunt and uncompromising in the expression of its political opinions. The protagonists in this movie are anti everything and that's probably why this is such a good and plausible film. And by plausible I do not necessarily mean the depicted events in the film, but the characterizations of the rejected SS-soldiers and deserters. Director Gordon Hessler – known from the early 70's Vincent Price horror movies The Oblong Box and Cry of the Banshee– does an admirable job as well and he could rely on a fantastically devoted cast, including Bruce Davison as the uncrowned leader of the bunch, David Patrick Kelly as the eloquent and provocative Legionnaire and Jay O. Sanders as the big & dumb kamikaze freak Tiny. David Carradine is sublimely nefarious as the power-hungry Colonel Von Weisshägen; complete with his glasses for one eye only to make him look extra evil. Oliver Reed receives top billing but only makes a cameo appearance during the hectic and extremely cool climax. The role, however, is perfect for him and he gives his absolute everything in only five lines of dialog.'-- Coventry
the entire film
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The Girl in the Swing (1989)
'Gordon Hessler first made a name for himself as a producer of Alfred Hitchcock's TV series in the 1960s, and later, as a director of several interesting (if not entirely satisfying) British horror films of the late '60s and early '70s. The Girl in a Swing is not a good movie, but it is so ambitious in its strangeness that it cannot routinely be dismissed. Among the many curious decisions connected with this European film is the choice of Meg Tilly, an American actress, for the leading role -- a young German woman who speaks English with an almost-impenetrable accent. Twenty years ago, the great director Fritz Lang (Metropolis, M) hailed Hessler's Scream and Scream Again as one of the outstanding suspense films of the '60s, largely because he was impressed with the political subtext of what was otherwise a stock, modern horror movie. Movie buffs have been waiting for Hessler to live up to Lang`s praise since. The Girl in a Swing brings him closer than anything else he has made. That probably isn't enough to satisfy a mainstream audience, but it`s enough to warrant that the film not be totally ignored. Hessler has emerged from a long stretch of obscurity with The Girl in a Swing, a bizarre, almost hypnotically fascinating study of sexual obsession.'-- collaged
Trailer
Excerpt
*
p.s. Hey. ** Bill, Hi, B. Aw, awesome, thanks, so glad you dug it. Wow, a lengthy stay there in Copenhagen. You liking the place? I liked it a fair amount that one time I was there. Click Festival, nice. I just checked the website, and it looks quite fantastic. Anything you're particularly looking forward to at Click? ** les mots dans le nom, Hi. Oh, you were saying goodbye, okay, I mean ... you should do what works and feels best for you, although of course I'll be sorry you're away. I hope all of your work and concentration goes as well as humanly possible, and, if the mood strikes, and if this place beckons in a positive way for you, please come back any time. Take good care. ** Scunnard, Hi, J! Uh, god knows where the post idea came from. I don't think Paris itself had anything to do with it? Some imagination tangent-meets-search engine spontaneous combustion event or something, I guess. You're going to LA! Sweet! Where are you staying, what are you planning to do there? That sounds really nice. I hear it's being unseasonably warm or rather hot there, thanks, I guess, to the good old powers of the fucked up climate, so you should get plenty of heat. I've been great, really really busy, but in a nothing but a great way. ** David Ehrenstein, Ha ha, perhaps so. ... meets David and Goliath? Oh, that bookstore has a dreamy selection of books, you should check it out, and, duh, you should get over here for goodness sake. Yeah, the Antarctic horrible news. That melting ice shelf is not so far south of where Zac and I were on our recent Antarctica voyage. ** Sypha, I remember seeing that Roger Dean image on ... an album cover, I guess? It's one of his most pedo lite, ha ha. There's never a cogent argument against blurbs, is there? I think it's a 'well, it certainly can't hurt' thing. Poetry, interesting. You going to share those somewhere at some point? I'm definitely curious to see what happens to your mighty talent inside that size of housing. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. That's a great Friedman piece. He's done 'micro' a fair amount. Like this notorious one, for instance. I read about that 'Frank' film a while back. I hoped it was going to be an homage, one of those things that would lead to wider appreciation of the inspiration. Shit, if it isn't. You can do a Frank Sidebottom post for the blog, you betcha. It would be awesome! ** Paul Curran, Hi, Paul. Oh, yeah, Japan is a king of that, huh, true. Thanks, yes, the scrapbook defacement thing was a big shock, and I'm, as you can imagine, extremely unhappy about it. ** Schlix, Hi, Uli! Welcome back! Holy wow, 9 Bresson films in kind of a row? Envy. You saw Datashock! Was it good? I'd really like to see that. And Melt Banana as a two-piece, which is hard for me to imagine. Why only two of them? Did the others quit or get fired or something? I'm doing fine. I hope you're doing fine too! ** Schoolboyerrors, Hi, D. Yeah, understood about the self-observation. It's a good thing to do in preparation for when you find what you want and it does that overwhelming thing that makes a true separation of yourself from the effect so impossible. In, well, my experience. It'll be cool, I'm sure. Right, yeah, I resisted reposting the Martin and Munoz snow globes again, although it was hard, loving them and craving the possession of one of them as I do. With love back. ** Misanthrope, Hi, G. You live in the Waldorf Astoria?! Oh, wait, Waldorf period. right. Any relationship there? Definitely a different David Williams. The twin one didn't seem very bad ass. In fact, he seemed good ass, if you catch my drift. Pollen-central here too, but mitigated by the fact that it has barely stopped raining here for a week and a half straight. Silver lining. ** Keaton, You think gross when you think gay? Don't let Mr. E. know that, ha ha. Outta jail?! What?! You're being metaphoric or something or something else, no? I thought your Will Wheaten penis reference was connected to the 'micro' thing there for a minute. Apparently not. Not 'micro', someone told me. ** Will C., You sound really good, man. That's so awesome. And, yeah, your writing's stride is particularly good news. Writing is such a moody thing. It can make writers so codependent. Or me anyway. I haven't even seen an ad for 'Breaking Bad'. TV has become my weakest point since I've been over here. I'm missing the entire 'quality TV' revolution in the US or whatever people think it is. I'll catch up with 'BB' one of these months. ** Kier, Agent Kier! Ha ha, oh, I think talking to a worm is the coolest thing ever. I'm going to try it today. The ground here in Paris is soaked from a week-plus of rain into a wormy mulch, so that shouldn't be hard. Yesterday? Zac and I met with two of the performers we want in our film, and they both said yes, so we're very happy. And we met with our casting director and had a sobering but useful discussion. And I wrote some emails, which is not a small thing considering my terribleness with that form. And I worked on my novel a bit. And I bought some Japanese/French pastries as a gift for someone. And ... I can't remember what else. What did you do today? Tell me, please. ** That's it. So, a reader of this blog wrote me an email and asked or maybe more like dared me to do one of my filmmaker posts about Gordon Hessler, a minor (I think, I don't know) director of mostly horror-ish movies, and so I did it, as you see, and I hope Nathan Bartholomew is happy with the results, and, you know, I hope you are too. See you tomorrow.