You're a beautiful woman probably...

After listening to one of the fascinating 1951 Down Place podcasts about Hammer Films , I managed to borrow J B Priestley's book from the library. This is the original source for the excellent 1932 James Whale film The old dark house and the frankly awful reimagining from Hammer, released in 1963. The podcast confirmed that it wasn't worth my rewatching the Hammer version and that, basically, it was much more of a William Castle film than a Hammer Film. The book itself (called Benighted ) is a pleasantly old fashioned story (first published in 1927) that defines the mood and the plot of the earlier film very well. There are no ghosts or supernatural monsters here, or any implication that the book is that kind of story. The plot is fairly simple: a group of travellers is forced to seek refuge from a severe storm and flooding in an isolated country house, which turns out to be owned and populated by an eccentric family, some of whose members have "mental health problem...

I'm a huge fan of the HBO TV series Rome , for its superb look, brilliant performances and compelling plots. I was thoroughly immersed in both series and was sadly disappointed when sheer expense brought an end to it after 22 episodes. Purely because of this and a few favourable reviews, I bought the Blu-ray of the initial series Spartacus: blood and sand . I don't subscribe to any cable or satellite channels, so hadn't seen it until I got the discs. Rome it ain't. Yes, the plot becomes compelling after a while, but the scripts and performances are just not in the same league. Then there's the violence. Rome has some extremely violent scenes, but these almost always seem to grow out of the plot, and rarely seem gratuitous. The violence in Spartacus: BAS seems to be there almost for its own sake, and I'm disturbed that some people seem to like it for that reason alone. I used to be accused of being weird or sick for being a fan of horror films. To clarify, i...

Recently I bought a DVD set of the ABC/Thames Television series Mystery and Imagination . Although this dates from the late 1960s, I'm (just) old enough to remember it. I particularly recall being scared out of my wits as a child by a scene in which a long-dead man was discovered preserved in a locked room, with cobwebs over his eyes! I now find that this was a tale called The Tractate Middoth from an M R James story, and that this programme was sadly lost (or thrown out) from the archives years ago. The surviving episodes were released this year on DVD, and watching Dracula (the remaining one I was most keen to see) got me reminiscing on its various versions. Probably the scariest was the original Nosferatu (1922). Full of German Expressionism, this virtually invented a lot of horror film conventions such as long shadows, stark lighting and grotesque variations on the human form. Being a silent film, it's less accessible than one with a soundtrack and doesn't hold up ...

I was pleased to see in the Saturday papers that Christopher Lee is now Sir Christopher. I've resisted the temptation to go for a tabloid style title for this observation ( Fangs for the Honour, Arise Sir (Count) Christopher)...I'm sure they were all trotted out yesterday when it was first announced, and it would only annoy Sir Christopher anyway if he were to read this. It was nice to see an underrated talent recognised. He is now 87, and probably more successful in terms of international recognition than he's ever been. While he would probably admit that he isn't the world's most versatile performer, he is a great personality with a sense of humour and ability to move an audience ( Curse of Frankenstein , The Mummy etc.). He has also (it has to be said) been the only convincing actor in the role of Dracula. Sadly, Peter Cushing was never honoured in the same way. An even greater actor, capable of projecting a completely cool and callous persona (as in his Fran...