Mixed bag

Nice as it is to see one of the TV channels doing something special for Halloween -this went out on the 31st October on the Sky Arts channel- it left me with the overall impression that the time to do a thorough documentary on Hammer has passed, with so many of the important voices in that story no longer being around. Don't get me wrong, the expert talking heads here do a good job of retelling the Hammer story, but the extra dimension that could only be brought by people who were there, knew the people involved and were privy to the back stage dramas and power struggles is noticeably absent here. Bringing out children and surviving spouses of the people who should be being interviewed here, only adds to the sense of absent friends and a period of history having passed. Of the filmmaker fans interviewed, Joe Dante and Tim Burton offer a few worthy sound bites, John Carpenter seems grumpy as if he's been prematurely woken up from a nap, and John Landis just makes silly noises. Despite these set backs, the documentary eventually finds a dramatic narrative thread when it comes to the story of Michael Carreras, who certainly deserves to be classed in the heroes part of the documentary's title, even though as heroes go, Carreras was certainly a tragic one. His father, Jimmy Carreras sounds like a total bastard, who behaved terribly towards his son throughout his life, eventually committing the ultimate betrayal of forcing his son's hand into buying the Hammer company from him, fully knowing that he was selling his offspring a failing dud.

Perhaps due to the fact that the documentary has a vested interest in making Hammer seem relevant and in line with modern mores, there is a tendancy here to throw the 'sexy' vampire movies they made in the early 1970s under the bus. They are largely dismissed as sexist and exploitative of the women who were in them. Although Michael Style, the outside producer of The Vampire Lovers, is damned by his own actions, and sounds like a total creep, whispering obscenities into the ear of sweet, virginal Madeline Smith. Maddie seems a strange bird, in the earlier Hammer documentary 'Hammer Glamour', there are moments where she seems quite amused and comfortable with her former sex symbol status, yet others where she comes across as a prim and proper schoolmarm, berating these movies for there reliance on female nudity. Maddie really likes to remind people she was a virgin when she made these films. In full disapproval trip mode here, Smith seems like a person who, all these years on, is still conflicted over her screen image and lasting legacy.

I'm guessing that the company's reliance on film versions of politically incorrect sitcoms in order to stay afloat during the 1970s is a source of embarrassment to the current owners. So, don't go expecting mentions of Love Thy Neighbour and the On the Buses films here, even though such productions are said to have been more successful at the British box-office than the horror movies made during that period. At the same time, I do wonder if this documentary isn't grabbing too much credit when it comes to the company being a socially progressive outfit. Dr Jekyll and Sister Hyde is presented as a pioneering movie in terms of exploring sexuality and gender, echoing recent online attempts to claim it as a pro-trans movie. An interpretation that conveniently ignores a fair amount of the movie's plot itself. Ralph Bates' Dr Jekyll doesn't set out to change his sex, or has any desire to live as, or be regarded as female. He narrastically wants to prolong his life, and his attempts to do so causes him to become a woman, because women generally have longer lifespans then men. The use of drugs to inadvertently alter his sex, also results in him becoming a sociopathic, cold blooded killer as well...in that sense, it hardly holds up to pro-trans interpretation, does it.

As for the AI at the end, yeah I'd agree with the general consensus that the documentary really shits the bed at the last minute. The unveiling of AI Peter Cushing is breathtaking, but not necessarily in the way that was intended. Rather than provoking a elated reaction of "cinematic magic can bring dear Peter Cushing back to life", it seems to have provoked a collective groan of a "who thought that was a good idea". Interestingly Kevin Francis, litigious head of Tyburn films, was recently in the news for attempting to sue Disney over the AI use of Peter Cushing in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. Francis' claims to own Peter Cushing's image is contradicted by the end credits of this documentary which suggests the current owners of Hammer actually own Cushing's likeness. I have a feeling that an interesting documentary will one day be made about the inglorious battle for Peter Cushing's soul that currently seems to be brewing between Kevin Francis, Disney and Hammer.