Four Sided Triangle - Available for Pre-Order 14th February
Release date: 31st March
It was recently announced that the next movie to be restored and released by Hammer Films will be Four Sided Triangle (1953), an early thriller directed by fan favourite, Terence Fisher. It represents the first Hammer picture to be based, in part, on the story of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the seminal novel famously reworked by the studio throughout the 50s, 60s and 70s.
Steve Rogers is Hammer’s current Cryptkeeper, and one of the people responsible for this exciting project. We pulled him away from his laboratory at Hammer Towers so he could tell us more about Four Sided Triangle and what we can expect from the release…
Hammer News: For anyone who isn’t aware of Four Sided Triangle, could you tell us about its premise and why it was selected for restoration and release?
Steve Rogers: The film is a cautionary science horror tale about a lovesick scientist who uses his duplicating machine to fly in the face of both nature and conscience. Being a Hammer film it doesn't end well for him. The film itself is part of Hammer's rolling 4K restoration programme – an ongoing project where both classics and rarities from the Hammer archive are being transferred from the best available film elements and painstakingly restored.
HN: Critic David Quinlan called it an ‘Early Hammer excursion into [the] horror field…’ and of course, it’s a reworking of the Frankenstein myth. So could it be argued that this was Hammer’s first horror movie?
SR: It's definitely a candidate, but the horror in this film is of a very human and personal kind – not special effects or monsters. As is mentioned in one of the featurettes, the 1950s was a decade "both disturbed and disturbing" and that certainly comes through in this film.
HN: What do you think will surprise people about this film?
SR: Apart from the quality of the restoration I think what will surprise viewers the most will be when they realise how dark the story gets.
Close to the edge… Cast and crew get one of the film’s later scenes in the can.
HN: Four Sided Triangle was directed by future Hammer favourite, Terence Fisher, who was later at the helm for classics including Dracula (1958) and The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959). It’s also one of the few films he co-wrote. Is it recognisable as a ‘Fisher movie’, and what does it tell us about this stage of his development?
SR: This is a pretty early Hammer film for Fisher – he'd made his first film for them just the year before, in 1951, though he'd been directing since 1948. You can see in Four Sided Triangle, however, a style in certain shots that would be fully developed by the time he got to The Curse of Frankenstein four years later, so this is very much a key touchstone in his progression to being a world-renowned director.
Barbara Payton shares a moment of levity whilst on location.
HN: Barbara Payton (1927 - 1967) plays the roles of Lena / Helen beautifully. After she excelled in Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye (1950), she seemed to have Hollywood at her feet, but sadly, events off-camera curtailed her ascendency. Could you tell us a little about her career and her contribution to Four Sided Triangle?
SR: Barbara Payton ended up an unfortunate Hollywood casualty but, as can be seen from this film, she really could act. It might be a bit of a stretch to compare her to Grace Kelly but there's a similar luminosity to Barbara's demeanour and she turns in a very subtle performance here for Hammer where she's effectively cast against type. Lucy Bolton addresses Barbara's film career and tragic downfall in a brand-new featurette recorded for this release.
HN: Tell us more about the release… What extras can we expect?
SR: It's due for preorder on the 14th February and includes two new commentaries and, in addition to the featurette on Barbara Payton mentioned previously, it sports a discussion on that particular form of unsettling science horror that you only get with vintage British films, and a featurette on the film's director and stars, its influences and its somewhat problematic sexual politics.
HN: What format will the title be available on?
SR: It will be a two-disc set – one UHD and one Blu-ray with the content duplicated across both discs so that fans don't have to have a UHD player to see the new restoration. It will also be available on streaming platforms on the 31st March.
HN: Can you give us an idea of any accompanying literature that will be included with the release?
SR: The Limited Collector Edition's edition of Four Sided Triangle contains a 120-page booklet that features new articles on the making of the film, the ongoing influence of the Frankenstein trope on feature films, a comparison between the film and the novel on which it's based, an archive interview with Four Sided Triangle's camera operator, Len Harris, and a deep dive into the aborted remakes of Four Sided Triangle from the 1990s. There'll also be some facsimile replicas of both the UK and US pressbooks – all of this housed inside a rigid slipcase.
(l-r) Sean Barrett and Jennifer Dearman (playing the young Robin and Lena) alongside James Hayter as the curiously unageing Dr. Harvey.
HN: Four Sided Triangle embraces several genres but in part, at least, it’s a science-fiction movie. Can we look forward to Hammer releasing more sci-fi titles from its archives?
SR: Certainly. Hammer's coat buttons up over a number of genres – it may be rightly known the world over for its gothic horrors, but Hammer has made crime dramas, comedies, swashbucklers, war films, science fiction and several other different flavours of non-gothic horror. We're looking forward to making many classics and rarities available as limited collector's editions over the coming months and years.
Big thanks to Steve Rogers for his time and insight!
We’ll be bringing you more news on Four Sided Triangle, and other releases very soon, so if you haven’t already, why not sign up to receive Hammer’s regular newsletter and don’t forget, many titles are currently available from our extensive online shop. Dive in now to check out everything from The Mummy’s Shroud to Captain Kronos t-shirts!
