Hammer Film Production

 

Hammer Film Productions Ltd. is a British cinematic production entity located in London. Established in 1934, the firm is most renowned for a sequence of Gothic horror and fantasy motion pictures created from the mid-1950s through the 1970s. Numerous films feature iconic horror figures such as Baron Victor Frankenstein, Count Dracula, and the Mummy, which Hammer reintroduced to spectators by depicting them in vibrant colour for the first time. Hammer also produced science fiction, thrillers, film noir, and comedies, in addition to television series in more recent years.

During its peak years, Hammer commanded the horror film sector, benefiting from global distribution and substantial financial prosperity. This success was partly attributed to its distribution alliances with American firms including United Artists, Warner Bros. , Universal Pictures, Columbia Pictures, Paramount Pictures, 20th Century Studios, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, American International Pictures, and Seven Arts Productions.

In the late 1960s and 1970s, the influx of competitors in the horror film arena and the withdrawal of American financing necessitated alterations to the formerly profitable Hammer model, with varying levels of achievement. The enterprise eventually halted production in the mid-1980s. In 2000, the studio was acquired by a consortium comprising advertising executive and art collector Charles Saatchi and publishing tycoons Neil Mendoza and William Sieghart. The company announced intentions to recommence film production, although none materialized.

In May 2007, the company name was sold to a consortium led by Dutch media magnate John de Mol, who revealed plans to invest approximately $50 million (£25 million) in new horror films. The new organization obtained Hammer's cinematic library of 295 titles. Simon Oakes, who assumed the role of CEO of the revived Hammer, stated, "Hammer is a remarkable British brandwe plan to bring it back into production and cultivate its global potential. The brand still exists but has lacked investment for an extended period. "

Since that time, Hammer has produced a number of films, such as Beyond the Rave (2008), Let Me In (2010), The Resident (2011), The Woman in Black (2012), The Quiet Ones (2014), and The Lodge (2019). In November 1934, William Hinds, a comedian and entrepreneur, registered his film company, Hammer Productions Ltd. It was situated in a three-room office suite at Imperial House, Regent Street, London. The company name was derived from Hinds' stage persona, Will Hammer, taken from the London area of Hammersmith where he resided.

Work commenced almost instantly on the inaugural film, a now-lost comedy titled The Public Life of Henry the Ninth at the MGM/ATP studios. Filming concluded on 2 January 1935. The film narrates the tale of Henry Henry, an unemployed street musician from London, and the title served as a "playful homage" to Alexander Korda's The Private Life of Henry VIII, which was Britain's first Academy Award nominee for Best Picture in 1934. During this period, Hinds encountered Spanish émigré Enrique Carreras, a former cinema proprietor, and on 10 May 1935, they established the film distribution company Exclusive Films, operating from an office at 60-66 National House, Wardour Street. Hammer produced four films that were distributed by Exclusive:

• The Enigma of the Mary Celeste (1935; Phantom Vessel in the U. S. ), featuring Bela Lugosi

• Athletic Affection (1936)

• Melody of Liberation (1936), featuring Paul Robeson

• The Bank Courier Conundrum (1936)

A downturn in the British film sector compelled Hammer into insolvency, leading the company to enter liquidation in 1937. Exclusive endured and on 20 July 1937 acquired the leasehold on 113-117 Wardour Street, continuing to distribute films produced by other entities.

James Carreras, Enrique's offspring, joined Exclusive in 1938, closely followed by William Hinds' descendant, Anthony. At the onset of World War II, James Carreras and Anthony Hinds departed to enlist in the military, while Exclusive continued to function in a restricted capacity. In 1946, James Carreras returned to the company post-demobilisation. He revitalised Hammer as the film production division of Exclusive, aiming to provide ‘quota-quickies’, economically produced domestic films intended to fill voids in cinema schedules and support pricier features. He persuaded Anthony Hinds to rejoin the firm, and a rejuvenated Hammer Film Productions commenced work on Death in High Heels, The Dark Road, and Crime Reporter. Unable to afford prominent stars, Hammer secured the film rights to BBC radio series such as The Adventures of PC 49 and Dick Barton: Special Agent (an adaptation of the popular Dick Barton radio show). All were filmed at Marylebone Studios during 1947. During the making of Dick Barton Strikes Back (1948), it became evident that the company could conserve expenses by filming in country estates rather than studios. For the subsequent production, Dr Morelle – The Case of the Missing Heiress (another radio adaptation), Hammer rented Dial Close, a 23-bedroom mansion on Winter Hill, alongside the River Thames, at Cookham Dean, Maidenhead.

On 12 February 1949, Exclusive registered "Hammer Film Productions" as a corporation with Enrique and James Carreras, along with William and Tony Hinds as directors. Hammer relocated to the Exclusive offices at 113-117 Wardour Street, and the building was renamed "Hammer House. "

In August 1949, grievances from locals regarding noise during nighttime filming compelled Hammer to vacate Dial Close and relocate to another estate, Oakley Court, also situated on the banks of the Thames between Windsor and Maidenhead. Five films were produced there: Man in Black (1949), Room to Let (1949), Someone at the Door (1949), What the Butler Saw (1950), The Lady Desired Excitement (1950). In 1950, Hammer moved once more to Gilston Park, a country club in Harlow, Essex, which hosted The Black Widow, The Rossiter Case, To Have and to Hold, and The Dark Light (all 1950).

In 1951, Hammer commenced filming at their most cherished base, Down Place, alongside the Thames. The company signed a one-year lease and initiated its 1951 production schedule with Cloudburst. The house, nearly in ruins, required considerable renovations, but it did not have the construction limitations that had hindered Hammer from customizing earlier residences. A decision was made to remodel Down Place into a significant, custom-designed studio complex that became known as Bray Studios. The vast grounds were utilized for much of the subsequent location shooting in Hammer's films and are essential to the 'Hammer aesthetic. '

In 1951, Hammer and Exclusive entered into a four-year production and distribution agreement with Robert Lippert, an American film producer. This arrangement enabled Lippert Pictures and Exclusive to interchange products for distribution on their respective sides of the Atlantic, commencing in 1951 with The Last Page and concluding with the 1955 film Women Without Men (also known as Prison Story). Lippert's insistence on featuring an American star in the Hammer films he was set to distribute resulted in the notable presence of American leading actors in numerous productions from the company during the 1950s. For The Last Page, Hammer made a noteworthy appointment by hiring film director Terence Fisher, who significantly influenced the ensuing horror cycle.

By late 1951, the one-year lease on Down Place expired, and due to its increasing success, Hammer shifted its focus to more conventional studio-based productions. A disagreement with the Association of Cinematograph Technicians hindered this proposal, leading the company to acquire the freehold of Down Place instead. The residence was renamed Bray Studios after the adjacent village of Bray, serving as Hammer's primary base until 1966. In 1953, Hammer released its initial science fiction films, Four Sided Triangle and Spaceways.

Hammer's first notable venture into horror materialized with a 1955 adaptation of Nigel Kneale’s BBC Television science fiction serial The Quatermass Experiment, directed by Val Guest. Due to the contract with Robert Lippert, American actor Brian Donlevy was brought in for the lead role, and the title was modified to The Quatermass Xperiment to capitalize on the new X certificate designated for horror films. The film achieved unexpected popularity, leading to the successful 1957 sequel Quatermass 2, which was again adapted from one of Kneale's television scripts by Kneale himself, with a budget twice that of the original, totaling £92,000. Meanwhile, Hammer produced another Quatermass-style horror film, X the Unknown, which was initially intended as a part of the series until Kneale denied them permission to utilize his characters, as the writer reportedly disapproved of Donlevy’s performance as Quatermass. During this time, Hammer voluntarily submitted scripts to the British Board of Film Censors (BBFC) for review before production. Concerning the script of X the Unknown, one reader/examiner (Audrey Field) remarked on November 24:

"Well, no one can assert that viewers won’t feel they got their money's worth by now. In fact, it is highly probable that someone will have become unwell. We must exercise considerably more restraint and rely significantly more on the reactions of onlookers, rather than depicting sequences of 'pulsating obscenity,' grotesque scars, ghastly sightless faces, and so forth. It is the persistence of this same theme that renders this script so outrageous. They must take it away and edit it. However, before they do, I believe the President [of the BBFC] should review it. I possess a stronger tolerance than the average person (for viewing purposes), and perhaps my reactions should be more pronounced. "

Hammer films had consistently marketed themselves, in part, on their violent and risqué subject matter. In the late 1960s, with the emergence of Hollywood productions such as Bonnie and Clyde, Rosemary's Baby, and The Wild Bunch, the studio faced challenges in sustaining its position within the industry. Roman Polanski's Rosemary's Baby exemplified a successful instance of psychological horror, while Bonnie and Clyde and The Wild Bunch introduced mainstream viewers to more graphic violence and demonstrated superior production quality compared to Hammer films. Simultaneously, George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead (1968) established new benchmarks for explicit violence in horror films.

In 1969, Tony Hinds departed from the Hammer board and withdrew from the industry. Hammer was noticeably different in his absence; it adapted to the new landscape by enlisting fresh writers and directors, experimenting with novel characters, and seeking to revitalize their vampire and Frankenstein narratives through innovative approaches to familiar themes. For instance, 1974's Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell includes a scene where the Baron steps on an abandoned human brain. The company soon recognized, however, that if they could not achieve the same levels of gore as the new American productions, they could instead align with a trend in contemporary European cinema by amplifying the sexual elements of their films.

While the studio remained faithful to earlier period settings in their 1971 release Vampire Circus, titles like Dracula AD 1972 and The Satanic Rites of Dracula (1973) opted for a modern-day context with a "swinging London" ambiance. The Satanic Rites of Dracula, originally titled Dracula is Dead. . . and Well and Living in London, embraced the inclination toward self-parody implied by its title, introducing some comedic elements in the script that undermined any sense of terror. These latter films proved unsuccessful and faced criticism not only from reviewers but also from Christopher Lee himself, who declined to appear in any further Dracula films after this. During a press conference in 1973 to unveil Dracula is Dead. . . and Well and Living in London, Lee stated:

Hammer Films achieved commercial success with some unconventional outputs during this timeframe, including film adaptations of several British TV situation comedies, most notably the ITV series On the Buses (1971). The initial spin-off became Hammer's largest domestic earner of the 1970s and enjoyed enough popularity to spawn two sequels, Mutiny on the Buses (1972) and Holiday on the Buses (1973), marking Hammer's return to their pre-horror practice of adapting television properties for the cinema as they had previously done with PC 49 and Dick Barton.

In the final years of the 1970s, Hammer produced fewer films, and efforts were initiated to depart from the then-untrendy Gothic horror films on which the studio had established its acclaim. The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires (1974), a co-production with Hong Kong's Shaw Brothers that sought to merge Hammer's distinctive horror with the then-popular martial arts genre, and To the Devil a Daughter (1976), their third adaptation of a Dennis Wheatley novel, both achieved considerable success at the U. K. box office; however, Hammer was unable to exploit these successes as most of the earnings were allocated to other financial investors.

Hammer Films persisted throughout the 1970s before entering liquidation in 1979. The final production by Hammer in 1979 was a remake of Alfred Hitchcock's 1938 thriller The Lady Vanishes, featuring Elliott Gould and Cybill Shepherd.

In the 2000s, despite the company appearing to be dormant, numerous announcements regarding new projects were made. For instance, in 2003, the studio revealed plans to collaborate with the Australian company Pictures in Paradise to create new horror films for the DVD and cinema markets. On 10 May 2007, it was disclosed that Dutch producer John De Mol acquired the Hammer Films rights through his private equity firm Cyrte Investments. In addition to possessing the rights to over 300 Hammer films, De Mol's firm aims to revive the studio. According to an article in Variety outlining the deal, the newly established Hammer Films was to be managed by former Liberty Global executives Simon Oakes and Marc Schipper. Furthermore, Guy East and Nigel Sinclair of the L. A. -based Spitfire Pictures are involved in producing two to three horror films or thrillers annually for the U. K. -based studio. The initial release under the new ownership is Beyond the Rave, a modern vampire narrative that premiered online for free, exclusively on Myspace in April 2008 as a 20 × 4 min. serial.

The company commenced filming a new horror/thriller project in County Donegal in 2008, supported by the Irish Film Board. The film is titled Wake Wood and was slated for release in the United Kingdom in the fall of 2009. This project was produced in partnership with the Swedish company Solid Entertainment, known for the vampire film Frostbiten, which pays tribute to the Hammer vampire films, among others. It received a limited U. K. /Ireland theatrical release in March 2011. In the summer of 2009, Hammer produced a U. S. thriller, The Resident, directed and co-written by Finnish filmmaker Antti Jokinen and featuring Hilary Swank, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, and Christopher Lee. It was released in the U. S. and U. K. in March 2011. In 2010, Hammer, in collaboration with Overture Films and Relativity Media, released Let Me In, a remake of the Swedish vampire film Let the Right One In.

In June 2010, it was revealed that Hammer acquired Wake, a screenplay by Chris Borrelli for an action feature to be helmed by Danish director Kasper Barfoed. In February 2012, the Hammer and Alliance Films adaptation of The Woman in Black was launched. Daniel Radcliffe stars as attorney Arthur Kipps. Jane Goldman composed the film's screenplay, with James Watkins in the director's position. In April 2012, the company announced it would produce a sequel to The Woman in Black entitled The Woman in Black: Angel of Death. Additionally, in 2012, Hammer and Alliance Films disclosed two more films entering production during that year, titled The Quiet Ones and Gaslight. The Quiet Ones narrates the tale of an unconventional professor (Jared Harris) who employs controversial techniques and directs his top students off the grid to engage in a perilous experiment: to summon a poltergeist. It premiered on 10 April 2014 in the UK and on 25 April in the US.

Subsequent to a few subdued years, the film The Lodge had its global premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on 25 January 2019. It was slated for release on 15 November 2019, by NEON.

In September 2019, Hammer executed a worldwide distribution agreement with StudioCanal for its catalogue. In November 2021, it was announced Network Distributing had collaborated with Hammer to establish Hammer Studios Ltd. In August 2023, it was conveyed that Hammer Film Productions, its associated enterprises, and backlog catalogue had been acquired by the John Gore Organisation.

In July 2022, Hammer Film Productions Ltd was established by independent filmmaker and writer, Ronan Williams via Companies House in the UK.

Hammer’s horror films were frequently commended by critics for their visual style, albeit often not regarded seriously. "Overall this is a horrific film and at times a coarse film, but by no means an unimpressive example of melodramatic storytelling," remarked one critic of Dracula in The Times in 1958. Critics specializing in cult films, such as Kim Newman, have more thoroughly celebrated Hammer Horror, appreciating their ambiance, craftsmanship, and occasional camp allure. In A History of Horror, Mark Gatiss noted that Hammer’s earlier films were taken more seriously at the time, in contrast to the characteristic camp charm of their later creations.

Shot in Eastman colour, the initial series of Hammer Horror films – Terence Fisher's The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), Dracula (1958), and The Mummy (1959) – are among the most visually appealing British films of the decade. . . The early Hammer films present a final breath of British romanticism, the sturdy sets enveloped in a soft brilliance of shadows, of greys, reds, and blues; when these films venture into the distant woods, it’s perpetually autumn there, never spring. The leaves cascade, and the light glows golden and clear; in comparison to the well-lit contemporary aesthetic of the "angry young men" films, Hammer’s sorrowful opulence must have been even more pronounced. They play out a 1950s daydream of contagion, desire, and post-Suez trepidation. Issues of guilt circulate in these films, where the virtuous can be transfigured into vampires through one fleeting moment of sexual frailty. .

This was a fantasy, science fiction, and supernatural anthology series that engaged with ordinary individuals in commonplace scenarios who encountered extraordinary occurrences. Seventeen episodes, each lasting approximately 50 minutes, were created by Hammer Film Productions and 20th Century Fox Television. In the United States, eight episodes from the series were aired as four television films comprising paired episodes, accompanied by new introductory footage contributed by actors Patrick McGoohan, Sebastian Cabot and Joan Crawford acted as hosts. The series was initially broadcast on ABC from September 26, 1968, to January 30, 1969, before being aired in the UK on ITV in 1969.

In 1980, Hammer Films developed an anthology series for British television, Hammer House of Horror. Aired on ITV, it comprised 13 episodes, each with a duration of approximately 54 minutes. Departing from their cinematic format, these self-contained episodes presented plot twists that typically culminated in the protagonists falling victim to that episode's horror by the conclusion. The series showcased a different type of horror weekly, encompassing themes such as witches, werewolves, ghosts, devil worship, and voodoo, alongside non-supernatural horror elements like cannibalism, confinement, and serial killers. All narratives were set in contemporary England.

A subsequent television anthology series, Hammer House of Mystery and Suspense, was produced in 1984 and also extended to 13 episodes. The stories were initially intended to retain the same 54-minute duration as their predecessor; however, it was determined to expand them to feature-length in order to market them as 'movies of the week' in the US. The runtime ranged from 69 to 73 minutes. The series was created in collaboration with 20th Century Fox (which aired films as Fox Mystery Theatre), leading to a significant moderation of the sex and violence depicted in the earlier series for US television. Each episode showcased a star, frequently an American, recognized by US audiences. This series marked Hammer's final production of the 20th century, after which the studio entered a state of semi-permanent hiatus.