Those who follow the current art scene and are well versed in art history know William Klein as one of the most influential American photographers to emerge in the fifties along with his contemporary Robert Frank. Famous for his unconventional fashion shoots for Vogue as well as his candid documentation of New York City street life, Klein went on to apply his photo-diary approach to Rome, Moscow and Tokyo in the sixties, all of which are available individually as photography collections. He is less well known for his idiosyncratic films (1970′s Eldridge Cleaver, Black Panther)  and shorts (Broadway By Light, 1958) but luckily some of his best work is available on DVD – his intimate portrait of Muhammad Ali, Float Like a Butterfly, Sting Like a Bee (1969, aka Muhammad Ali, the Greatest) and the Eclipse collection, The Delirious Fictions of William Klein that includes Who Are You, Polly Maggoo? (1966), Mr. Freedom (1969) and The Model Couple (1977). But I’m greedy and want to see more of his cinema explorations made available and THE LITTLE RICHARD STORY (1980), a West German production, is at the top of my list.      READ MORE

I’m not supposed to like Tod Browning’s MARK OF THE VAMPIRE (1935), much less love it, but I do.  Love it, I mean… and what’s not to love?  For the price of admission you get Bela DRACULA Lugosi, Lionel DOCTOR X Atwill, big-ass bats, poorly landscaped graveyards, moldy family crypts, lanterns glowing in the fog, superstitious gypsies, frightened villagers, comical servants, wolfsbane, an armadillo and the movie character who just might have been the inspiration for Mortitia Addams, Vampira and Elvira.  All that jazz in just 60 minutes… it’s like Instant Halloween, add yourself and mix! READ MORE

I must begin this with a confession. I’m obsessed with Hammer films. I love the “Studio That Dripped Blood” unconditionally so I was thrilled to learn that TCM was planning on showing Hammer films every Friday evening during the month of October. I was even more excited when I was told that The Movie Morlocks were planning a Hammer Blogathon to celebrate the event. Few things seem to invoke autumn and the Halloween spirit in me as strongly as the stylized gothic horror films made by Hammer. The diversity and sheer volume of the studio’s output was extremely impressive and this has occasionally led to some of their lesser seen films being overlooked because they didn’t live up to critic’s expectations or they followed a less conventional path than many horror fans had become accustomed to. One of the most widely dismissed and misunderstood Hammer films is the occult thriller THE WITCHES (aka The Devil’s Own; 1966) featuring the Oscar-winning actress Joan Fontaine in what would be her last starring film role. As a Hammer fan and a Fontaine admirer I thought this weeklong blogathon would be the perfect time to share my appreciation and affection for THE WITCHES.

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Every Friday night this month, TCM is showing a slate of Hammer Horror films, so we at Movie Morlocks have been saluting the venerable production company’s work. Hammer Films, launched in 1934, has an imposingly large filmography, and has just re-started after a 30 year hibernation.  Let Me In (the remake of Let the Right One In (2008)) is its first production to hit U.S. theaters since their 1979 version of The Lady Vanishes, starring Cybill Shepherd and Elliott Gould. They claim to have 25 projects in preparation, and they just inked a deal to publish horror novels with Arrow (an imprint of Random House). I’m going to dip into their past, though, and focus on the 1963 Joseph Losey film The Damned (re-titled These Are the Damned in the U.S. It airs October 22nd at 11:15PM. It is also available on DVD).

It’s a strange beast, a youth-in-revolt drama that morphs into a sci-fi dystopia fueled by nuclear panic. Based on a story by H.L. Lawrence (The Children of Light), and adapted for the screen by Evan Jones, it stars Macdonald Carey as Simon Welles, a rather dissolute American traveling to the graying resort town of Weymouth, in England (a stand-in for the blacklisted American exile, Joseph Losey). There he meets Joan (Shirley Ann Field), who lures him into a mugging by her brother King’s leather-clad Teddy Boy gang. King (played with neurotic smarminess by Oliver Reed) is a sexually-repressed type, tyrannically controlling his sister’s love-life and channeling his own lust into bits of random violence. Joan runs off with Simon, and they hide out in the cliffs, where they discover a secret government experiment to forge children who could survive a nuclear holocaust. King chases them into the same nightmare.

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‘Tis the season for fright nights, fright fests, and fright fans. Chicago is a horror kind of town, and between Facets’ own Fright School, the 24-hour horror marathon at the Music Box Theater next weekend, and assorted programs at the Portage Theater, I doubt if I get a wink of sleep all month. Needless to say, I am primed to join my fellow Morlocks in this week’s Hammer-thon to help TCM celebrate this legendary studio’s contributions to the horror genre.

As much as I respect the way that Hammer Films reinvented and, thus, revitalized the horror genre during the 1950s, I can’t say that I am a big fan of the studio’s style and films. Only a handful of Hammer movies really pique my interest and much of the studio’s output from the late 1970s leaves me cold. The exception is The Curse of the Werewolf, Hammer’s reworking of the lycanthropy myth, which has become one of my favorite horror movies from any era. After the Hammer blogathon was proposed for this week, I eagerly volunteered to write about this film, but when I perused the list of Hammer releases that TCM is showing this month, I was disappointed that it did not make the cut. The Curse of Frankenstein will be broadcast on October 29, and Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb airs on October 15, but no The Curse of the Werewolf. Hopefully, the rest of the Hammer series will inspire fans to seek out this most interesting of werewolf tales.

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TCM’s spotlight on Hammer Horror this month gives me the opportunity to give a special shout-out to one of my personal favorites: Five Million Years to Earth (aka: Quatermass and the Pit, 1967). It screens later this month on TCM (Friday evening, October 22nd). I first saw it as a kid back in the seventies in a creaky and dilapidated auditorium that was constructed in the late 1800′s atop a steep hill adjacent the mountains – a favorite spot for star-gazing and hopeful U.F.O. sightings. Inside the auditorium the uncomfortable wooden chairs were falling apart and there was no air-conditioning or cooling system to grant us a reprieve from the lingering summer heat. The cavernous ceiling was so porous that pigeons and bats could be heard and seen flying about the rafters. Adding to all this awesomeness was the fact that I was watching a 35mm print of a film that was about the scare the pants off of me and create a long-lasting impression.  READ MORE

Hammer Studios were always experts at following cinema fads and providing their own particular spin on a popular genre quickly to satify fans and take advantage of moviegoing trends. Besides the steady stream of horror films that made their reputation in the late fifties, they also had mini-franchises that ran from costume adventures (Sword of Sherwood Forest, The Pirates of Blood River) to grisly war dramas (Yesterday’s Enemies, The Camp on Blood Island) to crime thrillers (Hell is a City, Cash on Demand). And when What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? became a smash hit in 1962 they didn’t waste any time creating their own line of Grand Guignol shockers featuring famous veteran actresses such as Tallulah Bankhead (Die! Die! My Darling!) and Joan Fontaine (The Witches), which Morlock Kimberly will cover later in the week. While THE NANNY (1965), starring Bette Davis, definitely falls into the latter category, its intelligent and understated approach to the genre is a refreshing change of pace from the over-the-top hysteria of Baby Jane and Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte. It’s also safe enough for family viewing while still providing a taut, absorbing storyline that will engage children and their parents on entirely different levels.     READ MORE

Tonight at 9:30 pm EST (6:30 Pacific time), Turner Classic Movies will show THE BRIDES OF DRACULA (1960), Terence Fisher’s follow-up to Hammer Studios’ HORROR OF DRACULA (UK: DRACULA, 1958), as part of its month-long, 20-film “Hammer Horrors” tribute.  READ MORE