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Wednesday 19 July 2017

#SILENTBUTDEADLY: LONG SHADOWS GIF AND SCREENPLAY : PLEASENCE AND DE'ATH!

#SILENTBUTDEADLY: TO RESIST the 'THE DEAD DROP IN' pun, is easy. To try and explain WHAT exactly is going on here, with out giving anything away about the twisty-wobbly-plot of #HOUSEOFTHELONGSHADOWS is some-what harder! All I will say is, if you still haven't had the opportunity to watch the ONE FILM where #PeterCushing #ChristopherLee and #VincentPrice star TOGETHER for the first and ONLY time, you need to do so!

THE VERY GOOD NEWS IS if you feel your delicate disposition would collapse under the strain and terror of actually watching 'House of the Long Shadows' ..have no fear! Paper Dragon Productions have just this week launched the PAPERBACK RELEASE of the Michael Armstrong's #SCREENPLAY. Which you can order : HERE! . Hardback signed copies are also available for sale! Look out for our PCAS #COMPETITION soon, where you can #WIN your very OWN copy!

#SILENTBUTDEADLY: I SEEM TO BE getting a lot of interest in requested #GIFS featuring Donald Pleasence at the mo! We have posted several rare pics and bits over the past two weeks, especially from his role in 'BEYOND THE GRAVE'. Here he is playing ham Hollywood film star, Valentine De'ath and cutting off a LARGE SLICE, in demonstrating 'How to play a death screen when you are about to be murdered in an iron maiden!' Hmm, I think we can all see where that's going?

THE UNCANNY is Milton Subotsky's distant relative of product from his beloved Amicus films. Sadly the film gets next to little love, despite having some truly frightening moments. Cushing as ever plays it straight as link man, Wilbur Gray and his disabling fear of milk lapping felines. While Pleasence in his story 'Hollywood 1936', melts the celluloid with fiery spite, ego, and cruelty, it's divine to watch! Donald PLEASENCE worked along side Peter Cushing in several productions. Can you name them? and WHICH IS YOUR FAV? #GIF requested by Marsha Matthews UK

#SILENTBUTDEADLY: IN 1967 THE #HAMMERFILMS Frankenstein series took an interesting turn. After three adventures on film where the Baron rustle-up not the prettiest of creations from the charnel houses and graveyards, his next adventure and focus of attention was something very much easier on the eye. And if that wasn't enough, he accomplishes something that moves his work beyond the stitches, the unpredictable brains and behavior of his reactivated dead, because the Baron captures, THE SOUL!

AS USUAL, Cushing doesn't flinch at these lofty goings-on, and I feel the film 'Frankenstein Created Woman' owes much of it's cult status not just to super siren Susan Denberg, the created Woman of the title, but as ever to Peter Cushing, whose conviction and performance is the real life and SOUL of the film! #GIF requested by Marty Kaiser, US.

#SILENTBUTDEADLY: The world of #DOCTORWHO is experiencing a 'tear in the fan continuum'...! But #PETERCUSHING's Doctor Who say, 'It will all turn out fine'...Agreed? Peter Cushing as Dr Who in film, Dr Who and the Daleks' (1965) ...Requested by Big Red Dalek in the UK.

IF YOU LIKE what you see here at our website, you'll love our daily themed posts at our PCAS FACEBOOK FAN PAGE. Just click that blue LINK and click LIKE when you get there, and help us . . Keep The Memory Alive!. The Peter Cushing Appreciation Society website, facebook fan page and youtube channel are managed, edited and written by Marcus Brooks, PCAS coordinator since 1979. PCAS is based in the UK and USA

#TOOCOOLTUESDAY! TALL MAN BIG PRIZE!

#TOOCOOLTUESDAY! THE RETURN OF THE PCAS COMPETITION! Here's a unique prize, from a film that was very close to #PETERCUSHING's heart, #THE GHOUL. The photograph is in #MINT condition, has been part of the #PeterCushingAppreciationSociety #Collection since 1975. It's looking for a #NEWHOME. Do you FEEL #LUCKY? Join us on SUNDAY!

..for those who are not familiar with the background to the framed photograph. from #theghoul...

ONE OF THE BONUSES of following our PCASUK FACEBOOK FAN PAGE is it is updated quickly through out the day. #NOT to the point of annoying you, with unwanted posts, but you get the #NEWS #THEVIEWS and certainly competition news there first. HERE are some of the comments from KEEN followers, who can't wait until #GETTHECUSHIONSUNDAY to enter the competition:

TM: 'I'M IN!!! Just tell me what I have to do.'

JM: 'OHHHHHHHHH... To be able to own this!! Would be pure magic'.

ML: 'What a wonderful prize!! Looking forward to this competition!'

AB: 'Awesome, can't wait'

MC: 'Oh what a fantastic opportunity to own his signature,you can count me in this as I would be totally overwhelmed to own it.....can you tell he's my favourite actor.'

LB: 'I met him twice and I never asked for his autograph .... it would have been so rude .. my biggest regret... but I had two wonderfully long conversations'

KR: 'This would be a dream to own! I collect autographs some and have been longing to add Cushing to my collection of Wayne Pygram and Stephen Stanton autos! I collect Tarkins and everyone who has portrayed him'

FT: 'I've always wanted his autograph. I have a couple from Lee and one from Price but Cushing's would be awesome sauce'.

FA: 'THAT IS AMAZING!'

DP: Looking forward to the this one what a prize to have a chance to win I'm defo in so excited ..

TM: 'Oh wow! What a prize. I've always absolutely adored the way the Peter Cushing lovingly looks at this photo in the film. From all of his stand out performances, this has always stuck out as very special to me. Please let me know what I have to do to be in with a chance of owning this piece of absolute magic.'

AV: 'How exciting!'

SC: 'If there was one film photograph, I could have Peter Cushing's signature on, it would be The Ghoul. I love that film, and Peter Cushing is so good in it. Sunday, I will be there! Thank you.'

KR: 'Just tell me what l have to do!'

AJ: 'Oh ....this is truly wonderful!!'

KK: ' I'm in. Can't understand why this is up in a competition. Do hope the winner will enjoy this him or herself and not just sell it.

MS: 'I've seen this film so many times and never realized the photos were of his wife. Makes my appreciation of the movie that much more now'.

MC: 'Oh what a fantastic opportunity to own his signature,you can count me in this as I would be totally overwhelmed to own it.....can you tell he's my favourite actor.'

#TOOCOOLTUESDAY: HERE IS A GREAT #VINTAGE STILL of #PeterCushing and #ChristopherLee... You can see quite clearly the difference in height between them. No wonder Lee was SO powerful as #Dracula. I also like the #coyness in Lee's face here...we often forget the difference in their ages and experience. Lee was the #BABY in the line up of many of their films together...that soon changed with experience and age though. Still, you can imagine the power of his performance as #DRACULA... I mean, would you pick a #fight with a guy with sharp #teeth and who soooo tall?

Monday 17 July 2017

#MONSTERMONDAY! SLIMY SPIV AND BOUNDER! BROCKLEY: DOCTOR WHO DALEK INVASION WITH EXPLOSIVE GIFS!

#MONSTERMONDAY! BROCKLEY! Ok not a 'monster' by our usual standards, but certainly a bounder, spiv and opportunist! Phillip Madoc's playing of what is written as quite a small role, would have been no big deal in perhaps any other actors hands. But Madoc makes him a real slime ball and a character that many do actually remember from Daleks Invasion of Earth 2150 AD. He double crossed Cushing's Doctor and friends, to lead them right into the hands... er.. claws, sink-plunger (??) of the dreaded Daleks.

AS USUAL, AT OUR PCAS FACEBOOK FAN PAGE WE ASKED YOU TO VOTE ON, IF BROCKLEY SHOULD BE THROWN IN OUR #MONSTERMONADY DUNGEON. BELOW ARE SOME OF YOUR COMMENTS:

E.HOW: 'A great example of how genuinely creepy and unsettling British sci-fi can be. The (accurate) depiction of human nature, and the recognition that even in the face of the most implacable and inhuman of enemies, some will still always choose to collaborate to save their own skin, or feather their own nest'.

S.HARBY: 'Madoc's vocal delivery of every line is a delight. Just adds so much to the role. And there is that wonderful slow burn moment when he realises that it is never wise to make a deal with the Daleks...'

M.GOULD: 'His part was brief, but he was quite sinister. I felt no sorrow when The Daleks exterminated him!

CHRISTOPHER STEPHESON: 'Exterminate for sure! He was all self, self, self and driven by greed! The doctor sussed him out right from the start..'I was expecting it'

MIND YOU, BROCKLEY DID GET his come come-uppance, in one of the most impressive ..if not the only, HUGE explosion involving a garden shed! See, you don't have to have huge castles, cities, planets or space stations..a garden shed, can be surprisingly effective, when loaded with 600 pounds of dynamite! 😉 So... does BROCKLEY go into our #MONSTERMONDAY dungeon? PASS OR EXTERMINATE? YOU decide 😉 - Marcus

MARTIN LANDAU DEAD AT 89 1928 -2017

IT IS TERRIBLILY SAD HEARING THE NEWS that has just broken, that actor, writer, director MARTIN LANDAU has passed today.... The achievements of Ladau are many and most impressive, screen, theater and television. Our connection to this the mildest and kindest of men, are the television series SPACE 1999 in which Peter Cushing guest starred in an episode called 'The Missing Link' in 1976...but also, both Peter and Landau worked together in theatre production of 'The Silver Whistle 1957'. In a statement, Dick Guttman, a publicist for Mr. Landau, said that the actor died of "unexpected complications," but did not provide additional details.

LANDAU'S SEVEN DECADE career featured verdant artistic peaks - including his work for directors Alfred Hitchcock, Francis Ford Coppola, Woody Allen and Tim Burton. A precociously gifted artist, Landau had been a cartoonist, illustrator and theater caricaturist at the New York Daily News in his teens before embarking on an acting career at 22. He had developed a strong talent for observing people's expressions and movements, as well as a flair for imitations and accents. Of thousands of applicants, only he and Steve McQueen were accepted in that class at the prestigious Actors Studio in Manhattan. Landau became a full-fledged star in 1966 with "Mission: Impossible," the CBS spy drama about an elite squad of government agents who infiltrate and destroy Cold War enemies.

THE CAST INCLUDED Steven Hill and later Peter Graves as the group's boss and Barbara Bain, then Landau's wife, as the sultry team member Cinnamon Carter. Lalo Schifrin's pulse-quickening jazzy score - and the self-destructing instructions that set every episode in motion - helped make the program a popular success. Landau had small roles in movie epics such as "Cleopatra" (1963) and "The Greatest Story Ever Told" (1965) while pursuing a prolific TV career. He was John the Baptist in an "Omnibus" adaptation of Oscar Wilde's play "Salome" and a sadistic western gunman in an episode of "The Twilight Zone."

"If I was an opera singer or a ballet dancer, I probably wouldn't be able to do that any longer, but being an actor playing old guys is kind of a gift," Landau told the Star, a South African publication. "Half of the people I came up with are gone, and the other half don't remember what they had for breakfast, so I'm very lucky."

IF YOU LIKE what you see here at our

website, you'll love our daily themed posts at our PCAS FACEBOOK FAN PAGE. Just click that blue LINK and click LIKE when you get there, and help us . . Keep The Memory Alive!. The Peter Cushing Appreciation Society website, facebook fan page and youtube channel are managed, edited and written by Marcus Brooks, PCAS coordinator since 1979. PCAS is based in the UK and USA

THE AMICUS VAULT OF HORRORS DOCUMENTARY: PART ONE

#GETTHECUSHIONSUNDAY! IT'S HERE! EXCLUSIVE! 'The Amicus Vault of Horrors Part One'. Donald Fearney is a producer director based in the UK, who over the past twenty five years he has done much to keep the memory of Hammer films alive . He says he is just a fan, but no other fan has managed to co-ordinate and launch not one but three celebratory events at the legendary home of Hammer films Bray Studios, which were attended by over 70 special guest actors, directors and technicians from the studios hey days. Fearney also has produced lavishly illustrated exclusive books on the works of Peter Cushing and Amicus films. His earlier documentary The Legend of Hammer Vampires, produced in 2006 detailed the history of the studio and their link with Warner, Rank and Columbia, long before anyone else thought of the concept.

HOT TICKET! One of the much sort after tickets for the first of many Fearney events held at BRAY STUDIOS home of Hammer films in the 1960's

THE LEGEND OF HAMMER VAMPIRES: DONALD FERANEY'S FIRST DOCUMENTARY : AVAILABLE TO WATCH AT THE PCAS YOUTUBE CHANNEL HERE : HERE!

ANOTHER HAMMER FILM SERIES IS GIVEN THE DOCUMENTARY TREATMENT:

YOU CAN WATCH IT NOW AT OUR PCAS YOUTUBE CHANNEL : HERE!

ANOTHER FEARNEY EVENT: THIS TIME REUNITING THE

'FRANKENSTEIN AND THE MONSTER FROM HELL' CAST

FEARNEY'S DOCUMENTARIES HAVE helped to raise the bar and set the standard of excellence in how extras on Hammer / Amicus dvd's and blu rays should be produced! No skimping on materials and rare images from a Fearney documentary! This standard has prompted several distribution company to approach only him when planning a extras-documentary on a Hammer / Amicus release. In the last few years, he has added much extra production value to the releases of The Brides of Dracula, Captain Clegg, Phantom of the Opera and The Evil of Frankenstein, Final Cut blu ray releases.

'THE AMICUS VAULT OF HORRORS' documentary took three years to produce, much of the time collecting rare photographic and archival materials. Along with editor Jim Groom, Donald Fearney has produced the definitive history of Amicus Films. The Amicus Vault of Horrors documentary covers ALL of the Amicus output, in this 2 hour 30 minute documentary. It will be uploaded here at PCAS in 4 weekly parts. I think you'll enjoy it and I would love to read any thoughts and comments you may have on this, part one! ENJOY 🙂 - Marcus

DONALD FEARNEY IS CURRENTLY WORKING ON THE ABOVE DOCUMENTARY: PETER CUSHING : THE MAN WHO CREATED FRANKENSTEIN. WATCH THIS SPACE!

IF YOU LIKE what you see here at our website, you'll love our daily themed posts at our PCAS FACEBOOK FAN PAGE. Just click that blue LINK and click LIKE when you get there, and help us . . Keep The Memory Alive!. The Peter Cushing Appreciation Society website, facebook fan page and youtube channel are managed, edited and written by Marcus Brooks, PCAS coordinator since 1979. PCAS is based in the UK and USA

Sunday 16 July 2017

#GETHECUSHIONSUNDAY! WHO IS THAT?????

#GETHECUSHIONSUNDAY! WELL...there's a shocker! Actress Jodie Whittaker has been named as the latest regeneration of DOCTOR WHO! Ok.... What do you think????

MY TWO-PENCE WORTH: ...for what it is worth.....THE WONDER FACTOR: The 'Wonder Woman' movie this year made a lot of the studios sit up and think, it was a big surprise that it was so popular and made so much at the box office. Doctor Who is no longer a nice little tv show made in the UK for just 'the fans'...it's a show with an international audience, that sells overseas. The BBC and their programmes even though financed by the license fee, MUST make a profit, and move the tastes and predicted and unpredictable favor of the viewing public, both in UK, Europe and further afield. This casting is in line, with all of those things, despite what fans, supporters, long time viewers may think, it's a business... - Marcus

#GETTTHECUSHIONSUNDAY! THE 1999 RELEASE OF A CAMP CLASSIC! REALLY?

#GETTHECUSHIONSUNDAY! THE BOX SAYS... 'Recently discovered CAMP CLASSIC! UNRELEASED for 25 YEARS!' ..Yeah, there was a reason for that delay 🙂 I wonder how much those critics were paid, or how much they drank before the screening??? ..It's a classic alright 😉 Anyone else have this release? This is one of those rare times where the box and packaging is more exciting and impressive that the contents!

HOW CAN A FILM, that gives us great images like the one above, get it so wrong??? I have said here many times, it almost seems that the budget and imagination needed for the creation of the film, was diverted into the publicity. The press and lobby photographs, were printed on hi quality colour paper, the photographer who took them, knew what he was doing.

THERE ARE SOME EXCELLENT photographs, the press kit was pretty lush-deluxe too! In 1976, I was at a meeting where a short promo reel was screened... it was made up entirely of the 'My grand father was a grave digger' scene. Cushing (MacGregor) was playing his character's grandfather, a young boy, actor Robert Edwards, played Cushing in a wonderfully atmospheric scene. Horse drawn hearse, the black feather plumes, wind howling... 'It took 40 years to bury my grandfather! For a grave digger that is tragic!....' The tragedy is the premise of Cushing playing a retired Horror film actor, holed up in a creepy castle, playing the 'I could really be a vampire' card, was a good idea. The props department even used actual press photographs of Peter from his own films, to add back story evidence of MacGregor's career on the screen.

THIS FILM PROBABLY gets more interest here at PCAS than it rightly deserves, and that is probably because, we don't know WHY Cushing signed on the line. There have been well documented instances in the past, where Cushing, questioned details in script, The Brides of Dracula and The Mummy for example, I would think he would have almost certainly declined to be involved with a film like this in his earlier years. And, I don't think we can lay the blame at the director shooting extra scenes in PC's absence or an editor putting a spin on the footage. I have never seen a full shooting script for Tender / Tendre Dracula.. but I am pretty sure the scene of PC's dashing out some buttock slapping (!!) to cast member Miou -Miou, was down in black and white, even if it was on a yellow or pink rewrite page !

WE ASKED YOU AT OUR FACEBOOK FAN PAGE what YOUR opinion and thoughts on the film were. Here are some of your comments from the post at the page:

S. ALEXANDER: 'A venture that Peter would have declined to be involved with in his earlier years. Remember his initial objections and reluctance over 'The Brides of Dracula'? Obvioulsly the finished cut differed from the scripted scenes too.'

R.JOYCE: 'I to have confess...it's the only Cushing movie I can't sit through. Beautiful box art. But it's a disjointed, pseudo erotic flick. Er, not even that erotic, actually'.

J.PLAYER: 'I watched it there last year...everytime I thought that I couldn't believe I was watching that crap and was ready tonight it down, something would happen that made me want to keep going to see how it would end up!'

R.SMITH: I have a fondness for films like this that are so bad they're not even funny, just jaw dropping exercises in disbelief! Similar to the Bond knock-offs of Lindsay Shonteff (you have to see these to believe their creative ineptitude) I do feel there's a real need to see TENDER DRACULA on Blu-ray someday. The version I have on VHS is pretty shabby.

G.GRANT: I watched this on YouTube a few years ago😱It was really bad. I mean it had novelty value, because Mr Cushing was in it. But just awful

T.TUTTLE: I got 20 minutes into it and had to stop! My pain threshold wasn't high enough to make it!

OUR FULL FEATURE AND GALLERY ON TENDRE DRACULA

CAN BE FOUND BY CLICKING : HERE