ChikPapa Very disappointed :(

Stometer Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Solidrariol Am I Missing Something?

Portia Hilton Blistering performances.

Red-Barracuda Straight on Till Morning is certainly one of the most atypical films that Hammer Studios ever produced. It begins like a social realist kitchen-sink drama, replete with fragmented snapshot montage editing similar to Ken Loach's Up the Junction – incidentally, a film remade by Peter Collinson the director of this film. And for the first third of the film it seems like this is going to be another such gritty drama, however, it takes an unexpected detour when it suddenly turns into a psychological thriller. It's an extremely unusual combination that isn't entirely successful but definitely interesting. In actual fact it's one of Hammer's more intriguing efforts in my opinion because it's so weird.The story is about a naive young girl called Brenda who moves to London to try and find a man. She winds up staying with a very strange foppish man called Peter who is in fact a serial killer of women.The social realism and montage heavy editing is entirely at odds to anything else Hammer ever put out. This is a film that has way more in common with the British New Wave than it does with anything previously produced by the famous studio. None of the characters are particularly likable, with the men in particular very creepy and/or deeply unpleasant people with appalling haircuts. The central relationship between Brenda and Peter is, to put it mildly, bizarre. It's difficult to see what either of them sees in each other; while Peter's strange issues with beauty are a little hard to fathom. Nevertheless, I thought this one was not bad at all. It wasn't predictable in the way that most Hammer films tend to be. It was pretty bleak and overall a commendably uncommercial offering. Definitely worth a look if you like downbeat psychological dramas.

christopher-underwood The swinging sixties are coming to an end in swinging London but there are still some hang overs from the 1950s and still plenty of odd ball characters. Pregnancy outside of marriage was still much looked down upon and under the guise of the 'flower children' it was perfectly possible for even homicidal maniacs to not seem out of place. Rita Tushingham is as great as ever and this much under rated actress puts in one of her more endearing performances. Shane Briant is eerily convincing as the psycho and the rest of the cast including James Bolam are all fine. Some decent location shooting is always appreciated around this time and here we get a couple of boutiques and some very moody stuff around the then recently completed South Bank complex. Plenty of surprises and well worth catching as one of the most unusual hammer movies.

MARIO GAUCI This one is perhaps Hammer's most incongruous film - a flashily-directed modern suspenser with pretensions; actually, the horror brand-name is only displayed at the very end (even if the credits themselves are unmistakable) - whereas the trailer proudly advertises it as "A Love Story From Hammer"! While the film features gratuitous nudity (virtually a Hammer mandate by this stage), in spite of a number of murders occurring throughout, it's surprisingly bloodless for this studio.Director Collinson's fragmentary style is appropriately disorienting at times and actually proves quite economical - for instance, in the course of the first couple of minutes, we get to know practically the entire back-story of the two protagonists - but it also becomes irritating very quickly! Rita Tushingham and Shane Briant are quite good in their roles, the former typically kooky and the latter effectively disturbed; lovely Katya Wyeth appears as Tushingham's colleague/room-mate, an unfortunate association which ends in her brutal murder.The title (and title tune) are inspired by "Peter Pan" and, in fact, the script makes several references to J.M. Barrie's popular tale: the leading characters call one another Peter and Wendy when their names are really Clive and Brenda; Briant is a bit the boy who never grew up, whereas Tushingham's relocation from humdrum Liverpool to Swinging London (cue some horrid 70s fashions and hairstyles) can be seen as the equivalent of the journey to Neverland. The film ends rather abruptly on a downbeat note.The Rita Tushingham Audio Commentary (moderated by Jonathan Sothcott), unsurprisingly, is not up to the level of tracks I've heard for other Hammer films - given the star's limited connection with the company. However, she displays a winning sense of humor throughout and her recollections prove engaging enough to make it a worthwhile listen nonetheless. Incidentally, here it's mentioned that STRAIGHT ON TILL MORNING was released as the A feature in a double-bill with another Hammer thriller - FEAR IN THE NIGHT (1972) - which I also recently watched for the first time and is, ironically, the superior effort!

Taffy Turner I hadn't seen this movie for decades because it hasn't been shown on terrestrial TV for years, but I decided to buy the Region 1 DVD release (there's no official Region 2 UK release as yet) and I thoroughly enjoyed it.Well it's difficult to dislike Rita Tushingham in any film, but it's directed in such a great style by the late/great Peter Collinson (director of The Italian Job (1969)fame), with a bleak beginning that could only be Britian of the 1960's/1970's and with a real snap shot of how things were in London back then.This is a very different type of film from Hammer, when compared to their usual offerings and must have been truly shocking back then with it's level of cruelty, but it's a classic movie you simply have to own and the fact it's unavailable in the UK (the very place it was made & with an all British cast) is scandalous.