ICONS OF SUSPENSE: HAMMER FILMS COLLECTION (Columbia): THESE ARE THE DAMNED (1963) D: Joseph Losey, w/ Oliver Reed CASH ON DEMAND (1961) D: Quentin Lawrence, w/ Peter Cushing STOP ME BEFORE I KILL (1960) D: Val Guest, w/ Claude Dauphin THE SNORKEL (1958) D: Guy Green, w/ Peter van Eyck MANIAC (1963) D: Michael Carreras, w/ Kerwin Mathews NEVER TAKE CANDY FROM A STRANGER (1960) D: Cyril Frankel, w/ Patrick Allen. Rating: NNN DVD package: none Rating: NNN
Hammer Films is remembered and revered today for its string of late 50s to early 70s Gothic horrors, often starring Christopher Lee and/or Peter Cushing, but the company had been around since 1934 and produced crime dramas, comedies, science fiction and more.
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The six titles here are suspensers. They’re all black-and-white, talky by our standards and don’t have shock sequences every 10 minutes, but they feature good stories, some well-judged performances (and a few overwrought clunkers) and handsome visuals.
The prize in the package is These Are The Damned, starring a very young Oliver Reed as a violent teddy boy with a lust for his sister and a hate for one particular American tourist. The story turns to science fiction when our doomed triangle discover a secret government base that houses strange children.
In Cash On Demand, Peter Cushing and André Morell give excellent performances as, respectively a mean-spirited bank manager and a suave robber with a clever plan. It’s tight, moderately tense and sags only when the robber pronounces the Dickensian moral.
In Snorkel, we know who did it and how. But will his teenage step-daughter, whom everyone thinks is crazy, be able to figure it out and stay alive to the final fade-out?
Not many movies tackled pedophilia in the 60s, but Never Take Candy From A Stranger goes for it head-on. A newcomer’s wife in a small town lays charges against a local rich man who’s abused her nine-year-old daughter.
In Stop Me Before I Kill, a racing driver comes out of a bad crash with the impulse to strangle his wife.
A drifter falls for a woman in Maniac and agrees to spring her criminally insane husband from the loony bin.
No extras. It’s a budget collection.
EXTRAS Widescreen, b&w. English audio and subtitles.