H
ammer Film Productions will always be best known for its long-run- ning series of colour monster movies that debuted in the 1950s, but these gothic treats weren’t the studio’s only genre output at the time. Between lush adaptations of Dracula and Frankenstein, Ham- mer also regularly cranked out low-budget black and white thrillers
CASH ON DEMAND (1961)
Starring Peter Cushing, André Morell and Richard Vernon Directed by Quentin Lawrence
Written by David T. Chantler, Jacques Gillies and Lewis Greifer Stars Peter Cushing and André Morell, who first paired in Hammer’s Sherlock Holmes
adaptation The Hound of the Baskervilles, reunite for this economically told, little-seen gem. Cushing is nothing short of brilliant as Fordyce, a stuffy, unfeeling bank manager who wouldn’t think twice about firing his most loyal employee just a few days before Christmas. But when Fordyce tries to impress a visiting insurance investigator, Mr. Hep- burn (Morell), he discovers the distinguished gentleman is not what he seems – a phone call confirms that Hepburn is a well-prepared heist artist ready to kill the banker’s fam- ily if he doesn’t get his hands on the fat payroll hidden away in the cavernous safe. Taking place on only a handful of sets, this exciting entry is mainly an actor’s piece, and doesn’t skimp on nail-biting sequences as Fordyce must reluctantly help stuff Hep- burn’s bags, signal to outside accomplices and go to extravagant lengths to cover up the pair’s criminal activities from the other employee, or risk harm to his wife and child. But it’s Cushing’s performance that really makes Cash on Demand the most inter- esting and successful thriller in the set, as he takes his character from a stuck- up Scrooge to a sympathetic coward for the poignant finale.
that offered punchy twists on familiar plots. A few of these programmers popped up previously, including Scream of Fear and The Nanny, but now Sony has de- voted a six-DVD set to Hammer’s stark but entertaining thrillers. Icons of Sus- pense Collection: Hammer Films reveals some of the British House of Horror’s best kept secrets.
MANIAC (1963)
Starring Kerwin Mathews, Nadia Gray and Liliane Brousse Directed by Michael Carreras Written by Jimmy Sangster
A deadly love triangle takes shape in this globe-hopping chiller when spurned Amer-
ican artist Geoff (Kerwin Mathews) rents a room at a small café in rural France. There he gets romantically involved with the attractive bartender (Liliane Brousse) and her stepmother, Eve (Nadia Gray), who owns the place. Like several of the films in this set, Maniac plays out largely as an innocuous melodrama before it takes an unexpected left turn into creepiness about halfway through. This time, Eve uses her natural charms to convince Geoff to help spring her deranged husband (Donald Houston), who was put in a mental institution for taking an acetylene torch to the rapist who attacked his daugh- ter. Geoff begins to realize that orchestrating a jailbreak for Eve’s jealous hubby may not have been such a good idea after all, especially when a welding torch in a nearby work shed keeps mysteriously lighting itself. Beginning with a highly effective scene of the rapist’s death and ending in a series of double crosses that turn logic on its ear, this is a fun and atmospheric collaboration between Hammer mainstays Michael Carreras and Jimmy Sangster.
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