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Hammer OriginalsThis is a box-set that comprises the first three major Hammer Horrors: Dracula, The Curse of Frankenstein and The Mummy. Although Hammer Studios had been operating for around 30 years, these three films, from 1957, 1958 and 1959 respectively, were what made them a household name, and helped to set the standard on which their films, for another decade at least, would be based. They also helped solidify a tightly-knit group of people who would become something of a Hammer Family: Anthony Hinds and Michael Carreras as producers, Jimmy Sangster on screenplays, and Terence Fisher directing, to name but a few.
However, they'd also solidify a life-long friendship between teo very distinguished actors who would later be described by one of them as "the best of on-screen enemies". This was, of course, Christopher Lee talking about his relationship with Peter Cushing.
This relationship is made most obvious by these three films, in which Lee is always the monster of the story, and Cushing the hero (though Baron Frankenstein is a debatable hero, in the beginning at least). Cushing is always the confident, dashing, unflappable gent, wherea Lee is always something that really should be dead and not moving about.
These films spawned a number of sequels and variations on the themes, and it must be said that these three originals are not the best of their respective sub-genres. But they are worth watching, as they have all of the unmistakeable Hammer leitmotifs: Glorious Technicolour, wonderfully unrealistic blood, James Bernard's cracking scores and plenty of women with plunging necklines. Brilliantly entertaining if Hammer is your thing.
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