The Earth Dies Screaming (1965)

The great Terence Fisher, whom regular readers will have figured out is one of my alltime favourite directors, only very occasionally forayed onto non-Hammer territory. One of those times was in the mid-1960s, when he had fallen temporarily out of favour with Hammer, due to financial failures like The Phantom of the Opera (1962) and The Gorgon (1964). From 1965 to 1967, he made a handful of science-fiction films for low-budget companies. The Earth Dies Screaming was made in 1965 for Lippert Films, whose other main contribution to '60s horror was Curse of the Fly, earlier the same year.

The Earth Dies Screaming is an enjoyable yarn which, at not much over an hour, is the perfect length for a movie of its era and genre. It opens in a way that recalls the wonderful Village of the Damned (1960), with people up and down the country mysteriously collapsing - commuters crumple to the ground where they stand, trains leave their tracks. A few survivors are holed up in the local pub (as happens again in Fisher's 1967 Night of the Big Heat), and must battle an onslaught from alien visitors.

The cast is mostly unknown, at least to me. I enjoyed Dennis Price's rather shifty turn; it was not long before he fell on hard times and was reduced to appearing in some very seedy rubbish. Hammer regular Thorley Walters also has a small part, which I found strikingly sympathetic.

Perhaps one of the film's finest features is Elisabeth Lutyens's haunting score. Lutyens was an avant-garde composer who, like many "serious" composers, regarded her film music as a necessary evil. However, she produced brilliant scores for British horrors such as Dr Terror's House of Horrors and The Skull. The music here is pivotal to the tension; combined with Fisher's usual expert direction, the film has some genuinely scary moments.

My rating? * * * * *

Two sixties Sherlocks

I settled down earlier this week to watch two enjoyable outings for Sherlock Holmes from the 1960s. Both fall roughly into the "British horror" genre, although the first was made in Germany, and was a co-production with France and Italy. They were Sherlock Holmes and the Deadly Necklace (1962) and A Study in Terror (1965).

Deadly Necklace is a very bizarre film. It was shot in Germany in English, but the audio was recorded separately by a different cast. And the dubbing is truly awful. It boasts British horror stalwarts Christopher Lee and Thorley Walters as Holmes and Watson, although they are sadly never heard. Lee dons a false nose to play the famous sleuth; I get the impression he did a fairly good job, but it's sadly hard to tell when a third-rate American actor is providing the voice.

It was directed by Terence Fisher and some obscure German called Frank Winterstein, who I assume did some minor work, since the film is almost always credited exclusively to Fisher. The script is by Curt Siodmak, best-known for horror films in the '40s, such as The Wolf Man. I gather the story is a loose adaptation of Conan Doyle's The Valley of Fear.

It is shot in black-and-white, and feels curiously like a 1930s thriller. I felt I was watching a Charlie Chan or a Universal horror, not a sixties film. The film had a jazz score by bandleader Martin Slavin, which didn't match the setting at all, but somehow added to the film's quirkiness. I did enjoy it - perhaps it fell into the "so bad it's good" category. It was entertaining, if strangely out-of-place for its era.

A Study in Terror is a much more polished film, made in England, and fortunate enough to have all the voices matched to the right actors. John Neville is a likeable Holmes who combines gravitas with humour. Donald Houston is likeable enough as Watson, but not particularly interesting - the characterization is in the same vein as that of Nigel Bruce in the Basil Rathbone films, as was Thorley Walters in Deadly Necklace. The film has a grand supporting cast including Anthony Quayle, Frank Finlay (as Inspector Lestrade) and Robert Morley (as Sherlock's brother, Mycroft).

Again, it is an entertaining film, with plenty of pleasing, if familiar touches - fogbound London streets, dank alleyways, smokey pubs etc. The story is an original one, which has Holmes on the trail of Jack the Ripper (an idea later taken up in Murder by Decree). The main problem with the script is that, in common with almost any film that tries to transplant Conan Doyle's detective into a new story, Sherlock Holmes becomes a bit of a self-caricature at times, who can't seem to open his mouth without being a total smart-aleck, like he never stops making clever deductions to entertain Watson.

Nevertheless, a good film. In common with Deadly Necklace, A Study in Terror too has a score by a jazz bandleader (namely, John Scott), although the jazz influences are less subtle.

My ratings?

Sherlock Holmes and the Necklace of Death * * * * *
A Study in Terror * * * * *