HAMMER: Frankenstein Films (1957-74)

The Curse of Frankenstein (1957)

Dir. Terence Fisher

TCoF was a trio of firsts for HAMMER Studios: their first horror in colour, their first Frankenstein film and the first of their productions to feature Christopher Lee.

The story is a confessional flashback, meaning the Baron's evolution from cultivating an infectious curiosity to succumbing to an isolating obsession is paced by his own telling, working inexorably toward the creature's reveal. Universal forbade the use of their existing iconic image, so HAMMER had to make their own more gruesome version, sans neck-bolts.

It's privilege that enables the Baron to carry out his work. Meddling in pure science at the level he does is the exclusive preserve of the rich. If he'd been impecunious the creature would probably never have been born.

Dandelion Wine (1957)

Dandelion Wine (1957)

Author: Ray Bradbury  |  Page Count: 319

'He stood at the open window in the dark, took a deep breath and exhaled. The street lights, like candles on a black cake, went out. He exhaled again and again and the stars began to vanish.'

Like much of Bradbury’s output, Dandelion Wine is about childhood, the magical time, but it’s also about the fading of that time, making it a bitter-sweet experience. It captures the essence of what we all know and fear, that nostalgia for childhood can help you appreciate it more fully but can only be birthed posthumously.

It takes place over one summer in 1928, in the fictional Green Town, Illinois, a place Bradbury returns to in later books. In that year, in that summer, Douglas Spaulding and his younger brother Tom live life to the fullest. For Doug, every warm day will bring him something new - every day he'll collect experiences that'll become a part of him, helping shape how he sees the world.

The Mysterians (1957)

The Mysterians (1957)

Dir. Ishirô Honda

A festival, what should be a time of joy for all concerned, is interrupted by a mysterious fire. The blaze is followed not long afterwards by an earthquake that shakes the same community. The quiet little mountain village is about to lose the quiet part of its nature.

It;s an alien invasion film from TOHO that once again paired director Ishirô Honda's imagery with the sounds of master musician Akira Ifukube, both of whom had worked on the first Godzilla (1954) film. It has a kaijū of its own for a while, a kind of giant, robotic, metal mole-man, but mostly it's a regular sci-fi film with FX that are really amazing for the era; equal what Gerry Anderson would still be doing over twenty years later! Not just in the model work. The props and set dressings inside the spacey alien dome are also top quality.