CINEMA RETRO'S JOHN EXSHAW REPORTS ON A MEMORABLE TRIBUTE TO HAMMER FILMS WRITER/DIRECTOR JIMMY SANGSTER
JIMMY SANGSTER AT THE NATIONAL FILM THEATRE, LONDON
By John Exshaw –
The first time I met Jimmy Sangster, I remarked that he must
have endured a lot of leg-pulling over his surname during his days as Hammer’s
top scriptwriter. Jimmy looked up from his lunch, somewhat startled. “No,†he
said. “Why should that have happened?†“Well,†I replied, feeling I was stating
the obvious, “Sang is the French for blood, and you were writing all
these blood-soaked horror movies . . . Surely someone must’ve made a joke of
it?†Jimmy looked at me like I was the third loony from the left in some Hammer
opus before replying with finality: “No, no one’s ever said that before.â€
And, sad to report, no one mentioned it either at the
National Film Theatre on London’s South Bank on Tuesday 15 April, when Sangster
was guest of honour at an evening devoted to his long and remarkable career.
Billed as “Taste of Fear + Jimmy Sangster in Coversationâ€, the well-attended
event was hosted by Marcus Hearn, co-author of ‘The Hammer Story: The
Authorised History of Hammer Films’, and began with a screening of Sangster’s
first film as scriptwriter for Hammer, the 1955 short, ‘A Man on the Beach’,
directed by Joseph Losey and starring Donald Wolfit, Michael Medwin, and (of
course) Michael Ripper.
Based on a story by Victor Canning, it opens with a rather
Ealingesque casino robbery, in which Medwin does his best Alec Guinness
impersonation as a cross-dressing stick-up artist named Maxie. After deciding
that his partner (Ripper) is now surplus to requirements, Maxie manages to
shove both him and their car over a cliff, though not before sustaining a
gunshot wound himself. Having passed out on the beach, Maxie stumbles across a
gloomy beachcomber’s hut where he encounters a former doctor named Carter
(Wolfit). Self-obsessed and desperate, Maxie determines to kill Carter the next
morning in order to cover his tracks, but finds that the doctor has removed the
bullets from his gun during the night. Soon after, Maxie is apprehended by the
local gendarme on a routine visit. Only then does he learn what he was
too impatient to see before: that Carter is blind and therefore could not have
identified him.
An interesting curiosity, ‘A Man on the Beach’ set the scene
nicely for one of Sangster’s personal favourites, the 1961 chiller, ‘Taste of
Fear’ (known in the U.S. as ‘Scream of Fear’), directed by Seth Holt and
starring Susan Strasberg, Ronald Lewis, Ann Todd, and, as a suitably
sepulchrous red herring, none other than Christopher Lee. Speaking later on,
Sangster recalled, “I’d written five or six Gothics, and one week I remember I
went to see ‘Psycho’ and ‘Les Diaboliques’ . . . And they scared the shit out
of me, they really did! And I thought, hey, I can do that. So I went off and
wrote ‘Taste of Fear’.â€
Sangster, as he is happy to admit, has always preferred his
psychological thrillers (which include such early-Sixties’ titles as ‘Maniac’,
‘Paranoiac’, ‘Nightmare’, and ‘Hysteria’) to the “Gothics†for which he is best
known, although it’s an enthusiasm rarely shared by Hammer aficionados, who
tend to consider the convoluted, twist-in-the-tail plots and black-and-white
photography, however accomplished, to be rather less satisfying than the more
visceral, glorious Technicolor, blood-and-thunder approach which Sangster helped
to pioneer and which became synonymous with the company’s name following the
release of ‘The Curse of Frankenstein’ in 1957.
‘Taste of Fear’ finds Sangster, who also produced the film,
very much in Clouzot, rather than Hitchcock, mode, with a story involving
sustained assaults on the heroine’s sanity, greedy lovers, and the periodic
reappearance of a drowned corpse. Well-directed
by the talented Holt (who would later be responsible for Sangster’s
other personal favourite, ‘The Nanny’, in 1965), it boasts a solid cast on good
form, with Strasberg very fetching as the put-upon heroine with secrets of her
own, and Lewis and Todd suitably venal as the villains of the piece.
Christopher Lee’s oft-stated enthusiasm for the film, while perfectly valid in itself,
may be assumed to derive more from the fact that he was not required to bite,
strangle, or mutilate his fellow cast members than from any inherent merit in
what, for him, was a different but otherwise unremarkable role.
Following the support programme, so to speak, we moved on to
the main attraction – the conversation with the eighty-year-old scriptwriting
legend..Before Marcus Hearn had a chance to put his first question, however,
Sangster pulled out a letter sent to author Mark A. Miller in 1989 after the
latter had written to the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain to enquire of
Sangster’s whereabouts. “Dear Mr. Miller,†the letter read, “Thank you for your
letter of 18th. September 1989. Jimmy Sangster is now deceased.â€
Noting that they hadn’t even apologised, Sangster then pointed out that “if I
say anything tonight I shouldn’t, nobody can sue me because I’m dead.â€
Hearn then proceeded to take Sangster back to 1949, the year
he joined Hammer, though Jimmy obligingly filled us in on his earlier jobs
before his call-up for National Service in the RAF. These included a
short-lived stint as a projectionist, which came to an abrupt end when the
chief projectionist returned from the pub to find Sangster up to his waist in
hundreds of feet of celluloid. Concentrating fiercely on changing the reels and
checking the rack, Jimmy had forgotten to ensure that the take-up reel was
correctly threaded.
Sangster duly worked his was up the ladder at Hammer to
become assistant director, acting in that capacity on seven films directed by
Terence Fisher, many of which featured imported Hollywood names of faded
lustre, such as Tom Conway, George Brent, Paul Henreid, and Lizabeth Scott.
“And then, suddenly, out of the blue came Brian Donlevy and we made
‘Quatermass’ [‘The Quatermass Xperiment’, 1955]â€, Sangster recalled. “And
suddenly Hammer Films started to make money! And then we’ve got to do another
one!†When ‘Quatermass’ author Nigel Kneale initially declined to allow Hammer
to reuse his character, Sangster, then a production manager, joined Anthony
Hinds and Michael Carreras for what turned into a brain-storming session and
the start of Sangster’s screenwriting career. Deciding that Sangster had
contributed most of the ideas to what would become ‘X… the Unknown’ (1956),
Hinds suggested he write the script. “I’m not a writer, I’m a production
manager,†Sangster recalled pointing out. “And he said, ‘Write it; if we like
it we’ll pay you.’ Anyway, I said, ‘But I still get my production manager’s
salary?’ And he said yes, so I wrote it and they paid me, I think, £200 for
it.â€
Not long afterwards came what Hearn termed “the quantum
leap†for Sangster and the foundation of the company’s fortunes for the next
twenty years – “the Gothic horrorsâ€. “Yes, yes, that’s why you’re all here,â€
joked Sangster, who went on to stress that the Hammer versions of Frankenstein,
Dracula, and the Mummy were not remakes of the Universal films of the 1930s:
“You’re not remaking the movie, you’re remaking the book. They [‘The Mummy’
apart] were based on the books. When I was writing ‘Frankenstein’, I read the
book. And the same with ‘Dracula’.â€
When Hearn then suggested that Hammer made stars of
Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, Sangster replied, “No, it might have made a
star of Christopher Lee – but he won’t admit it – but Peter was already a
television star. He’d done ‘1984’ and he was very good and very well thought
of.†Was Sangster conscious of writing for the actors in particular? “Oh, yeah.
I remember one script, ‘Dracula – Prince of Darkness’ [1965], they asked
Christopher to be in it and there was no dialogue for him. And he called Peter
and said ‘I’ve been given this Hammer script and it’s okay but they don’t give
me any words to say’. And Peter said, ‘Well, who wrote it?’ And Christopher
said, ‘Jimmy Sangster’. And Peter said, ‘Well, be thankful for small mercies .
. .’†{Cue laughter, plus mutterings of “Terribly unfair, terribly unfair,â€
from Marcus Hearn.]
Speaking of the production team behind the Gothic horrors,
Hearn then mentioned the trademark Hammer blend of high production values and
low budgets. “Very low budgets,†said Sangster. “That was mainly the work of
[art director] Bernie Robinson, who, if you gave him 150 quid, he’d build you
Transylvania. He really was absolutely ace.†Asked about the public reaction to
his films as opposed to the critical response, Sangster began by reading out
three contemporary reviews of ‘Dracula’ from 1957 (“I regret to hear that it is
being shown in America with emphasis laid on its British origin, and feel
inclined to apologise to all decent Americans for sending them a work in such
sickening bad taste.†And, “I can’t remember being so revolted by a film.†And
lastly, “There should be a new certificate to replace the ‘X’. ‘S’ for sadistic
and ‘D’ for Disgusting.â€) before concluding with a review from 1996 which read,
“Romantic cinema that transcends genre… unimpeachable and unsurprised.†[Cue
loud round of applause.]
Sangster then continued, “So, the critics in those days . .
. But the public loved it right from the off. Immediately.†Did he find the
critical reaction depressing? “No, no. You see, I wrote all those over a short
time. Some of them I saw, some of them I didn’t even see, yet it’s just another
– it’s a job. I did a job. I didn’t mind if they liked it, fine, if they didn’t
like it, tough. I was doing the next one anyway. I mean, you know, Harold
Pinter I ain’t.†Perhaps missing the chance to suggest that we should all be
thankful for small mercies in that regard, Hearn then asked about Hammer’s
relations with the British Board of Film Censors (in the days when scripts had
to be submitted before shooting).
“We used to have . . . battles, actually. And we were always
going to have final arguments. The minions would do the first report and send
it back to us. You can’t do this, you can’t do that . . . So we’d jiggle this
and jiggle that and then we’d go back and give it to John Trevelyan, who was
the head of the Censors’ Board. Very nice guy. Very reasonable. And he’d say
[Sangster adopts an appalled tone of voice], ‘No, you can’t do this!’ But what
we’d do is we’d have a scene we particularly wanted to stay in, and we used to
write a really bad one. And when he’d say, ‘Oh, you can’t do
that’, we’d say, ‘Oh, we could take that one out – can we keep this one in?’
And he’d say, ‘Yeah, sure, keep it in . . .’†It was fine. We got on well with
him. We’d never stop battling with them but we usually got away with what we
wanted in the end.â€
In addition to being one of Sangster’s bosses at Hammer,
Michael Carreras was also the writer’s best friend, and to illustrate this
Sangster told an amusing anecdote about a location-scouting trip they undertook
in preparation for the 1958 film, ‘The Snorkel’. Having spent three days in
Paris living it up, the pair drove down to the Riviera in search of a suitable
villa for the picture. Having tried Nice and Monte Carlo without success, they
crossed the Italian border and finally found what they needed in San Remo.
Nonetheless, the design of the villa would require some changes to the script.
Outlining these, Carreras noticed that Sangster was simply standing beside him,
nodding his head in agreement. “‘Aren’t you going to write it down?’ he asked.
I said, ‘Well, I forgot to bring my pencil.’ (I used to write scripts in pencil
in those days.) And he said, ‘I’ve taken you on this wonderful trip, wined and
dined you and it’s taken us ten days to get here and you haven’t brought a
fucking pencil!’†{Cue laughter.)
Sangster then spoke about working with the formidable Bette
Davis on ‘The Nanny’, which he both wrote and produced: “Professionally, she
was a super person. She would complain but whatever she complained about, it
was always what she thought was good for the picture. She didn’t complain about
her dressing-room or any of that stuff. If she thought something was not quite
good for the part in the picture, she’d complain about it. She’d start every
discussion with, ‘I have starred in sixty-three movies . . .’†At the same
time, however, Davis developed a habit of calling Sangster late at night and
asking him to call over to her house in Elstree – “I’d get dressed and drive
fifteen, twenty miles, and there she was and she’d complain about this, that
and the other. And then, I’m sorry to say, she used to chase me round the sofa
. . . She did want to get into my trousers. I did resist it . . . It wasn’t hard to resist, I can tell you.â€
Two years later, in 1967, Davis returned to Hammer to star
in ‘The Anniversary’. Soon after third-choice director Alvin Rakoff, whose
background was in television, began blocking out the scenes with chalk marks on
the floor, Sangster, in his role as producer, was summoned to Davis’s
dressing-room: “I have starred in sixty-four movies and never have I had to
work for the camera. The camera always works for me.†Rakoff was duly sent
packing, to be replaced by Roy Ward Baker (who was among those present at the
NFT).
After reminiscing about his time in the late 1960s working
as a story consultant for American television, Sangster recalled being lured
back to Hammer with the promise of directing their latest Gothic outing, “The
Horror of Frankenstein’ (1970): “They sent me a Frankenstein script and said
would I rewrite it. I looked at it and thought, Jesus Christ, it’s the same bloody
script I wrote twelve years ago! I said no, I’m not interested. And they said
okay, well, you can produce it. I said no, no, no. I’ve been there. Been
there, don’t want to do that. And they
said, well how about directing it? I said, oh, well, call me back. Twenty
minutes later, they called back and said okay, you can direct it. I said right.
I came back and became a director. A very bad director, but I became a
director.â€
Later, during the editing of the film, Sangster was asked to
take over the shooting of ‘Lust for a Vampire’ (1971), which had been slated
for Peter Cushing, with Terence Fisher as director. However, when Cushing’s
wife, Helen, became seriously ill and Fisher broke his leg, Sangster agreed to
step into the breach, despite his dislike of the two producers, Harry Fine and
Michael Style. On the first day of shooting, after overseeing a shot of the
arrival of a horse-drawn coach, Sangster recalled, “I said, ‘Fine, okay, Print’
and a voice from the back said ‘We can do better than that!’ And it was one of
the producers [Style]. I said ‘You can do better than that? You shoot the
fucking picture then!’ He never came on the set again. I wish he had. I wish he
had shot the picture. A very unhappy experience.†Indeed the only fond memories
Sangster retains of his stint as director was his friendship with the films’
leading man, the late Ralph Bates.
After some further discussion of his TV work and later film
scripts, Sangster was asked for his views on why the Hammer films attracted a
cult following and remain such favourites today. “They’re good pictures,†he
replied. “They were well-made pictures. People have tried to do it again. I
mean, Coppola tried to do it . . . Branagh tried to do it. They were good
pictures. And it was the time that they came in. And, you know, once a cult,
you’re always a cult. They’ll be showing those forever.†And does that make him
happy? Sangster shrugs, “I’m not getting any money out of it . . .†Hearn then
asked him who or what he missed most from the Hammer days. “Michael and Ralph,â€
he answered. Hearn then mentioned that some of the people responsible for the
latest attempt to revive Hammer as a production company were in the audience.
Did Sangster have any advice for them? Indeed he did. “Employ me!†he said,
quick as a flash.
Lastly, Hearn took some questions from the floor, during the
course of which Sangster offered some more sound advice: “The important thing
about a script is to tell the story. There are three acts: one, two, three. You
set it all up in the first act, you mix it all up in the second act, and then
you finish. And you tell the story . . . The most important thing about a
script is the construction. If you’ve got the right construction, it’s
difficult to mess up. If you’ve got the wrong construction, it doesn’t matter
what you do, you can’t do anything to remedy it.â€
And finally, following up on the theme of good advice, Hearn
asked Sangster, if he could go back in time, what would be the one piece of
advice he would give to himself as a young man in the early 1940s. “Exactly the
same thing,†replied Sangster. “I mean, I’ve made a very good living – well, a
modest living – doing what I love to do. Who can ask for more? I could want
another twenty years, but no, I would do exactly the same thing. I feel I’ve
been a very, very lucky person."
A few days before the event at the NFT, I’d asked
Jimmy how he felt about it. “Oh, I don’t know,†he replied, with his customary,
if not always convincing, off-handedness. “I mean, I’ve told these stories
hundreds of times before. But if they want to hear them again, why not?†So how
he did he feel the evening had gone? “Seemed to go all right, don’t you think?â€
he replied, nonchalantly. More than all right, I said, privately reflecting on
the fact that it would take the combined efforts of all the Hammer horrors he
ever created, Gothic and otherwise, to get Jimmy Sangster to admit that both he
and his audience had thoroughly enjoyed what could only be called a bloody good
time.