Post by Prime etc. on Apr 13, 2020 19:53:19 GMT
I didn't care for Cry of the Banshee, but I will rewatch it this July.
At a 1969 London speaking event (a week before the Oblong Box opened) Price didn't talk negatively about Reeves but did talk fondly of Hessler.
I agree that AIP has a "down with the system" theme while Hammer, although it does inject progressive messages (usually a visitor travels to a town where the people are incapable of dealing with the problem), is much more conservative. The typical Hammer ends with things returning to normal. Usually a male character successfully deals with the problem.
In Witchfinder General, Ogilvy is the likable male hero. He doesn't let the rape of his fiancee deter them from marriage, but by the end of the film, since it concludes with him (and her) half mad, what's the closure? It is very un-Hammer-like. The monster is not a foreign vampire, but the native system of the country.
Witchfinder General does feel like a western.
About Price's performance: I prefer him when he is hammy, and I am not fond of this one because he seems very sour and restrained (although it probably works better than if he had been "evil and loving it.").
Sterne is the "evil and loving it" character and I think has the most chilling line when he mocks the old woman.
Hopkins is the hypocritical self-righteous bureaucrat, Sterne is the thug who carries out his instructions.
So I think making Hopkins un-hammy is probably the right choice, but perhaps if Price had been willing to play it straight from the get-go, it would have been more energetic. Because he did occasionally do unhammy performances. I can't remember him being Hammy in Nefertiti Queen of the Nile and he certainly avoided it in An Evening Of Edgar Allen Poe.
Price: "Michael Reeves could not communicate with actors....I realised what he wanted was a low-key, very laid-back, menacing performance. He did get it, but I was fighting him almost every step of the way. Had I known what he wanted, I would have cooperated."
In one scene, Reeves needed Price to shoot his flintlock between the ears of the horse he was riding. When Price realised that Reeves had ordered that an actual blank charge was to be used so the weapon's puff of smoke would be visible, he shouted, "What? You want the gun to go bang between the ears of this fucking nag? How do you think he's going to react?" However, Reeves insisted and, when the gun went off, the horse reared and sent Price tumbling onto the ground. Price was not hurt but he was extremely angered by the incident.
Now I want to re-watch the AIP version to hear the Baxter score again.
Wikipedia has some interesting trivia:
Hollywood Citizen News was appalled by the film: "A disgrace to the producers and scripters, and a sad commentary on the art of filmmaking … a film with such bestial brutality and orgiastic sadism, one wonders how it ever passed customs to be released in this country."[14] The trade journal Box Office noted that: "Fans of the horror film will be glad to know that Vincent Price is back to add another portrait to his gallery of arch-fiends … bathed in the most stomach-churning gore imaginable …"[14] Variety opined that "Dwyer gives evidence of acting talent, but she and all principals are hampered by Michael Reeves's mediocre script and ordinary direction."[32] In a more favourable notice written for The New York Times, Renata Adler expressed that the film featured "any number of attractive young aspiring stars who seem to have been cast … mainly for their ability to scream. … Price has a good time as a materialistic witch-hunter and woman-disfigurer and dismemberer, and the audience at the dark, ornate New Amsterdam seemed to have a good time as well. There are lines like, "Take three good men and ride into East Anglia," through which a man behind me snored and a middle-aged couple next to him quarreled viciously, but people woke up for the action and particularly cheered when Price was hacked to death"
This is an interesting take:
Robin Wood wrote that "Witchfinder General is certainly [Reeves’] most successfully achieved work … what one is immediately struck by is the assurance and intensity of what is on the screen… the English countryside is felt as a real presence: it is difficult to think of other films in which it has been used so sensitively and meaningfully. With it is associated Paul Ferris’ theme-music, which suggests a traditional air without being actual quotation. Against the peace and fertility of nature is set the depravity of men."
Historical accuracy
Gaskill had several complaints regarding the film's "distortions and flights of fancy". While Hopkins and his assistant John Stearne really did torture, try and hang John Lowes, the vicar of Brandeston, Gaskill notes that other than those basic facts the film's narrative is "almost completely fictitious." In the movie, the fictional character of Richard Marshall pursues Hopkins relentlessly to death, but in reality the "gentry, magistrates and clergy, who undermined his work in print and at law" were in pursuit of Hopkins throughout his (brief) murderous career, as he was never legally sanctioned to perform his witch-hunting duties. Hopkins was also not axed to death, and instead "withered away from consumption at his Essex home in 1647". Price was 56 when he played Hopkins, but "the real Hopkins was in his 20s". According to Gaskill, one of the film's "most striking errors is its total omission of court cases: witches are simply tortured, then hanged from the nearest tree.
At a 1969 London speaking event (a week before the Oblong Box opened) Price didn't talk negatively about Reeves but did talk fondly of Hessler.
I agree that AIP has a "down with the system" theme while Hammer, although it does inject progressive messages (usually a visitor travels to a town where the people are incapable of dealing with the problem), is much more conservative. The typical Hammer ends with things returning to normal. Usually a male character successfully deals with the problem.
In Witchfinder General, Ogilvy is the likable male hero. He doesn't let the rape of his fiancee deter them from marriage, but by the end of the film, since it concludes with him (and her) half mad, what's the closure? It is very un-Hammer-like. The monster is not a foreign vampire, but the native system of the country.
Witchfinder General does feel like a western.
About Price's performance: I prefer him when he is hammy, and I am not fond of this one because he seems very sour and restrained (although it probably works better than if he had been "evil and loving it.").
Sterne is the "evil and loving it" character and I think has the most chilling line when he mocks the old woman.
Hopkins is the hypocritical self-righteous bureaucrat, Sterne is the thug who carries out his instructions.
So I think making Hopkins un-hammy is probably the right choice, but perhaps if Price had been willing to play it straight from the get-go, it would have been more energetic. Because he did occasionally do unhammy performances. I can't remember him being Hammy in Nefertiti Queen of the Nile and he certainly avoided it in An Evening Of Edgar Allen Poe.
Price: "Michael Reeves could not communicate with actors....I realised what he wanted was a low-key, very laid-back, menacing performance. He did get it, but I was fighting him almost every step of the way. Had I known what he wanted, I would have cooperated."
In one scene, Reeves needed Price to shoot his flintlock between the ears of the horse he was riding. When Price realised that Reeves had ordered that an actual blank charge was to be used so the weapon's puff of smoke would be visible, he shouted, "What? You want the gun to go bang between the ears of this fucking nag? How do you think he's going to react?" However, Reeves insisted and, when the gun went off, the horse reared and sent Price tumbling onto the ground. Price was not hurt but he was extremely angered by the incident.
Now I want to re-watch the AIP version to hear the Baxter score again.
Wikipedia has some interesting trivia:
Hollywood Citizen News was appalled by the film: "A disgrace to the producers and scripters, and a sad commentary on the art of filmmaking … a film with such bestial brutality and orgiastic sadism, one wonders how it ever passed customs to be released in this country."[14] The trade journal Box Office noted that: "Fans of the horror film will be glad to know that Vincent Price is back to add another portrait to his gallery of arch-fiends … bathed in the most stomach-churning gore imaginable …"[14] Variety opined that "Dwyer gives evidence of acting talent, but she and all principals are hampered by Michael Reeves's mediocre script and ordinary direction."[32] In a more favourable notice written for The New York Times, Renata Adler expressed that the film featured "any number of attractive young aspiring stars who seem to have been cast … mainly for their ability to scream. … Price has a good time as a materialistic witch-hunter and woman-disfigurer and dismemberer, and the audience at the dark, ornate New Amsterdam seemed to have a good time as well. There are lines like, "Take three good men and ride into East Anglia," through which a man behind me snored and a middle-aged couple next to him quarreled viciously, but people woke up for the action and particularly cheered when Price was hacked to death"
This is an interesting take:
Robin Wood wrote that "Witchfinder General is certainly [Reeves’] most successfully achieved work … what one is immediately struck by is the assurance and intensity of what is on the screen… the English countryside is felt as a real presence: it is difficult to think of other films in which it has been used so sensitively and meaningfully. With it is associated Paul Ferris’ theme-music, which suggests a traditional air without being actual quotation. Against the peace and fertility of nature is set the depravity of men."
Historical accuracy
Gaskill had several complaints regarding the film's "distortions and flights of fancy". While Hopkins and his assistant John Stearne really did torture, try and hang John Lowes, the vicar of Brandeston, Gaskill notes that other than those basic facts the film's narrative is "almost completely fictitious." In the movie, the fictional character of Richard Marshall pursues Hopkins relentlessly to death, but in reality the "gentry, magistrates and clergy, who undermined his work in print and at law" were in pursuit of Hopkins throughout his (brief) murderous career, as he was never legally sanctioned to perform his witch-hunting duties. Hopkins was also not axed to death, and instead "withered away from consumption at his Essex home in 1647". Price was 56 when he played Hopkins, but "the real Hopkins was in his 20s". According to Gaskill, one of the film's "most striking errors is its total omission of court cases: witches are simply tortured, then hanged from the nearest tree.