Mill Creek Entertainment has expanded its April collectible
product offerings with word this week that a double-disc DVD selection titled Hammer
Films Collection, Volume Two has been added to its release calendar for
delivery to retail on Apr. 5.
Priced at just $14.98 are six vault treasures from the
venerable Hammer Films library, including a couple of hard to find films that
will have collectors and film buffs snatching this DVD set up come Apr. 5 for
those alone.
This “six-pack” of Hammer Films kicks off with director Terence
Fisher’s 1958 gem, The Revenge of Frankenstein, a sequel to The Curse of Frankenstein
and once again starring Peter Cushing — only this time as “Doctor Victor
Stein.”
He escaped his fate and has changed his identity and has morphed
into a successful physician who graciously donates his time and skills to the
local hospital … and therein lies the problem.
He is recognized, blackmailed into returning to his old experimental
ways and, yes, disaster once again follows.
Terence Fisher and scriptwriter Jimmy Sangster had a gift for delivering
Frankenstein and Dracula movies during this period that were lush in their
production values and deliciously wicked in their storytelling.
It didn’t hurt to have Peter Cushing and
Christopher Lee on hand as the stars of these films either; classics, one and
all!!
Never Take Sweets from a Stranger (aka: Never Take Candy from a Stranger)
is a 1960 film directed by Cyril Frankel that was an adaptation of Roger Garis’
stage play, “The Pony Cart.” Two young
girls come face to face with a rich pedophile, whose predilections are covered
up by officials … an offbeat and unexpected film from Hammer. Well worth a look … a different sort of
“horror” tale.
Director Michael Carreras joined the Hammer Films brethren
by teaming with scripter Jimmy Sangster for the 1963 film release of Maniac. He would go on to do The Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb,
Prehistoric
Women and The Lost Continent.
Here, American drifter Jeff Farrell (played by Kerwin
Mathews —
The 7th Voyage of Sinbad) gets seduced by a daughter (Liliane
Brousse) and then by her mother (Nadia Gray) into helping them free a deranged
killer from prison.
All is not as it
seems!
Run, Jeff, run!!
Another Jimmy Sangster screenplay takes the form of The
Snorkle, a 1958 murder mystery directed by Guy Green (Oscar-winner from
his cinematography work on Great Expectations) and starring Mandy Miller as
Candy, the only one who is convinced that a “family friend” by the name of Paul
Decker (Peter van Eyck) is responsible for the murder of not only her mother,
but her father as well. Will she be the
next to go?
Die! Die! My Darling is a nifty 1965 film, directed by Silvio
Narizzano (who would do
Georgy Girl the following year) and
starring Stefanie Powers as Patricia, a sweet young woman who is just trying to
do the right thing by visiting Mrs. Trefoile (Tallulah Bankhead), but soon
becomes her prisoner as she must repent or die … or both!
And lastly, the Hammer Films Collection, Volume Two
contains director Don Chaffey’s 1971 film release of Creatures the World Forgot
… it stars Bond Girl Julie Ege as a cave woman. A guilty pleasure if there ever was one!