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THE GORGON

THE GORGON, directed by Terence Fisher at his most serenely metaphysical, is a supernatural tale of doomed love featuring a mythological creature (as in Val Lewton’s 1941 film CAT PEOPLE) that frighteningly comes to life. Although the trailer included as an extra seems more than a little silly, THE GORGON is a whole lot better than its reputation would warrant. Even today, most horror film historians focus on the underwhelming visage of the film’s titular monster Magarea, the sister of Medusa, whose glance turns men into stone. Unfortunately, Magarea, at least in this incarnation, has a hair-full of plastic snakes that sway with the gentle rhythm of a grass skirt at a luau.

Apparently, a fairly realistic head of writhing snakes had been planned, but the Hammer powers-that-be slashed the budget at the last minute, and make-up department head Roy Ashton was forced to improvise. What he came up with, while evocative, isn’t really scary, not that this matters. (The scare factor did matter to me as a twelve year old, but now I’m a little surprised to find myself loving this film. Well, maybe it’s not that surprising, as director Terence Fisher considered this his best work.)

Instead, the elaborate tracking shots and gorgeous color design, especially a reflecting pool that captures the image of Magarea (played by ballerina Prudence Hyman) surrounded by autumn leaves, creates a sense of dread and sublime otherworldliness that had me on the edge of my seat for most of the film’s 83 minutes. In fact, THE GORGON may be one of Hammer’s most evocative and serious films from its classic period, a movie that manages to successfully take elements from Hitchcock’s VERTIGO and Michael Powell and Emeric Pressberger’s THE RED SHOES and combine them in the context of a horror film. There’s an air of doomed romanticism that hovers over the photography and performances, especially Barbara Shelley as Carla, a nurse in a tiny, middle-European village at the turn of the last century.

Like Madeline (Kim Novak) in VERTIGO, Carla seems conflicted, sexually available yet prone to bouts of amnesia. Ms. Shelley manages to be vibrantly alive, yet somewhat vague, as if she’s listening to stage directions from an unknown source. It would be very hard not to fall madly in love with Ms. Shelley’s Carla, as she’s so willing to help and be held, yet curiously unavailable. The fact that by gazing at her lovely features may put one face to face with one’s doom (it’s possible that Carla is possessed by the spirit of Magarea) makes her all the more sexy.

Of course, Carla may only be having a little problem with her memory, as there’s plenty of other suspects in the village. For instance, Martha (Joyce Hemson), a patient at the local sanatorium, goes wandering about the ruined Castle Borski – production designer Bernard Robinson’s masterpiece, with diaphanous cobwebs covering gilt-edged mirrors, sinister purple-lit sculptures and a red velvet throne – whenever the moon is full. Right behind her, generally hiding near a skeletal tree, is Ratoff (Jack Watson), a sinister and violent manservant who works for the mysterious Dr. Namaroff (Peter Cushing).

Dr. Namaroff, who runs the sanatorium and is also Carla’s employer, is given the film’s best line: “It’s difficult to perform an autopsy on a corpse that’s turned to stone.” Actually, Dr. Namaroff spends most of his time issuing false death certificates to Magarea’s victims by classifying them as suicides. (The fictional country in which this film is set is controlled by the Army, which doesn’t want the populace panicking.)This bad habit of Dr. Namaroff’s brings the attention as well as the presence of the gallant Paul Heitz (Richard Pasco), a student of philosophy at the University of Leipzig, who attempts to discover the truth behind the sudden deaths of his father and brother. Paul becomes romantically involved with Carla, who promises to help him gain access to Dr. Namaroff’s secret archives. Also around is Paul’s professor, Carl Maister (Christopher Lee), who gives the kind of relaxed, “jolly good fellow” performance Nigel Bruce (Sherlock Holmes’ Dr. Watson) had patented back in the 30’s, but with a sinewy undercurrent.

THE GORGON, in its lyricism and sensitivity to nuance, takes Hammer’s blood and thunder formula to a new and harrowing place, where the very act of looking implies doom (a particularly troubling theme for a film director.) A lot of film criticism (especially in the UK) has focused on THE GORGON as a sexually conservative metaphor for the destructive potential of “the desiring male gaze.” This argument would be a lot more compelling if the image of Magarea were linked visually with her male victims’ point of view. Instead, these sequences are seen from Magarea’s viewpoint, which is expressed as a hypnotic crane shot that floats majestically around a potential victim, leading him to his doom. Even in the moment of death, we do not see what the victim sees, as Magarea usually appears in a mirror or reflecting pool in the same shot. Therefore, it is the audience (taking on Magarea’s point of view) whose gaze destroys most of the male characters in the film, creating a sense of complicity, as well as a deeper level of emotional involvement, while making the underlying theme more ambiguous.

Clearly, in this tale of an obsessive love which might at any moment turn into an agent of destruction, Hammer Studios was looking for a variation on their successful vampire films. Of course, this theme of an impossible love is also present in Fisher’s THE MUMMY and HORROR OF DRACULA, but here the director brings a bittersweet feeling of romantic abandon that transcends the boundaries of life and death.

First and foremost, it’s present in the use of color. In her romantic scenes with Paul, Carla wears a gown of pale orange, reminiscent of Autumn, that last burst of nature’s yearly passion, and of the turning leaves that are associated with Magarea’s appearance. That swatch of luxurious orange also makes Carla resemble a color negative, implying a dual personality, or at the very least, a dark side. The ruins of the Castle Borski, where Magarea’s spirit lurks, are filled with patches of color from purple and red spotlights, transforming the actors’ faces into visual elements. ( The color is so exquisitely rendered that this disc is a must have for fans of British Technicolor.)

Happily, THE GORGON is the most impressive transfer on the set, with rich, saturated colors and nary a trace of aliasing or edge enhancement. At times the sharp focus and depth of field, especially when the camera cranes about the ruins of the Castle Borski, seems to enter one’s own personal space, forming a visual correlative to the film’s underlying theme of supernatural transformation. (The aspect ratio is properly matted in 1:66:1, as opposed to 1:85:1, the somewhat looser frame casting a haunted presence through the camera angles and symmetrical framing.) In its overwhelming sense of fascination, sensuality and enigmatic beauty, not to mention the intense scariness of the whole experience (in spite of those pesky plastic snakes), THE GORGON trumps anything else I’ve seen along these lines, including the films of Val Lewton.

(Rating: ****)

SCREAM OF FEAR

Along with Alfred Hitchcock’s PSYCHO, SCREAM OF FEAR (entitled the slightly more culinary TASTE OF FEAR in the UK, evoking a cookbook editor in mortal jeopardy) is one of the most perfect devices for jumping out at an audience and saying ‘Boo!” Although scary as hell, the film also works as a meditation on mortality, about how our sense of roots and self goes awry in the crucible of other people’s desires. SCREAM OF FEAR is not only a landmark, both commercially and artistically, for Hammer Films, but it’s also probably director Seth Holt’s most lasting achievement.

Though Jimmy Sangster’s suspenseful script is clearly inspired by Hitchcock and Clouzot’s 1954 thriller DIABOLIQUE, Holt’s direction, quirky and unpredictable, presents multi-faceted yet mosaic-like performances (Bette Davis called Seth Holt “the most ruthless director I’ve ever worked with outside of William Wyler.”) changing one’s perceptions of the characters along with a highly evocative sense of place that transcends mere atmosphere, bursting the boundaries of an evening’s entertainment. Even more than featured players Susan Strasberg (astoundingly plucky and sympathetic as a disabled young woman) and Ann Todd (doing a silkily realist turn on the wicked stepmother, crossing Chekhov with Edward Gorey), the mid-winter somnolence of an under-populated and off-season Nice is a major character in this film. Immeasurably aided by the moody black and white cinematography of Douglas Slocombe, splintered sunlight and lazily bountiful palm trees take on a decidedly Gothic cast.

Penny Appleby (Ms. Strasberg) is confined to a wheelchair and depressed from the recent death of her mother. Out of the blue, she receives a letter from her father – whom she hasn’t seen in ten years – inviting her to stay with him in the South of France. Arriving at Nice airport, however, Penny is told her father has been suddenly called away on “business,” and she is left to fend for herself in a desolate mansion perched on a sea cliff. Besides a part-time maid, only Jane (Ms. Todd), the second Mrs. Appleby, whom Penny has never met, and Bob (Ronald Lewis), the chauffeur, occupy the overstuffed, gloomy manse. In fact, the only neighbor in that wind-swept neck of the woods seems to be Dr. Gerrard (Christopher Lee), a Frenchman with a perennial five o’ clock shadow who speaks heavily accented English akin to Inspector Clouseau. Because he is played by Mr. Lee, though, Dr. Gerrard is very scary, in a quiet and insinuating way.

Speaking of scary, the first night Penny is awakened by the sounds of loud thumping. It turns out to be an open window, but then she notices flickering candlelight and weird shadows in the summer house across the way. Could it be her father? Naturally, Penny gets into her wheelchair to investigate. As she opens the creaking, cobweb-covered door, she discovers…well, you don’t really expect me to tell you, do you? I will mention, though, that Jane acts inappropriately maternal in her dealings with Penny (considering they’re complete strangers), while staring at her from a distance with hooded, fearful eyes. And Bob, the chauffeur, is a little bit too friendly. Then there’s the swimming pool. It hasn’t been swum in for many years, you see, and overgrown weeds obscure its murky depths. That very same night, in fact…well, maybe I should let you see the movie for yourself.

The screams in SCREAM OF FEAR come not so much from events but perceptions, suggested through the imagery alongside the shifting perspective of character. In this sense, Holt’s directorial style is very different from that seen in other Hammer thrillers, as the horror is generated chiefly from a sense of possibility inherent in the situation, made manifest through an almost “kitchen sink” aesthetic, free-floating yet mesmerizing, of what the human heart is capable of.

The film has plenty of thrills, though, as the director has a tendency to move his camera into shadowy rooms where sinister things seem to infiltrate, first quietly and then dangerously, both Penny’s personal space and that of the audience. This technique was innovative in 1961 and still works today, possibly because the situation is so darkly matter of fact and the characters so believable. Built up through the accumulation of small details (such as the use of wide-angle lenses at climatic moments to purposely distort the contours of rooms) and the slight variation of light and shadow (which is deeply unsettling due to being fairly subliminal), one might almost call Mr. Holt’s style impressionistic. Since one is spending so much time scared out of one’s mind, however, this may be too dignified a word.

Seth Holt worked at Ealing films (on THE LAVENDER HILL MOB and THE LADYKILLERS, among others) as an editor and producer. Although Holt’s first film as a director was NOWHERE TO RUN (1958), a crime melodrama starring Maggie Smith, Holt came into his own as a director of a distinctive sensibility and visual style on SCREAM OF FEAR. Holt made two more films at Hammer, one of which, THE NANNY, also written by Jimmy Sangster, is even more sharply directed, with an astounding late career performance by Bette Davis, at once iconic yet touchingly human. BLOOD FROM THE MUMMY’S TOMB (1971) was Holt’s last film. The first hour has some amazing sequences where the texture of the light itself seems to take on an almost spiritual quality, moving Holt’s visually impressionistic style towards a sublime abstraction. Unfortunately, the director died during production due to general physical exhaustion, and the film was completed by Michael Carreras.

Once again, the transfer on SCREAM OF FEAR is absolutely fantastic, preserving the shimmering, translucent quality of Douglas Slocombe’s photography. I didn’t notice a single instance of aliasing or edge enhancement, even from Christopher Lee’s patterned tie. SCREAM OF FEAR is not only a film that stays in the mind (somehow, it’s even more compelling, not to mention frightening, on a second or third viewing) but Holt’s sense of subtle suggestiveness focuses on the human dimension that takes Sangster’s clever but derivative screenplay to a surprising level of audience empathy and mysterious contemplative beauty.

Rating: (****)

As I stated at the beginning, no one is more surprised than me to discover how utterly wonderful these films are. Though grinning jack o’ lanterns are currently being replaced with velvet images of Santa Claus, the artistry and entertainment value of these Hammer horrors will linger on no matter what the season.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

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