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It’s recently been announced that the next title to be restored and released by Hammer Films will be The Man in Black (1950), a thriller directed by Francis Searle and starring Betty Ann Davies, Sheila Burrell and Sidney James. We caught up with Hammer’s Steve Rogers to tell us all about the film…
Bray Studios will be forever associated with Hammer. Not simply because of the iconic movies, such as The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), Dracula (1958), and The Mummy (1959) that were shot within its walls over half a century ago. It’s more than that. Bray has come to represent the eccentricity, Britishness and a kind of familial identity that helped make Hammer so special.
Tom Conway does almost nothing in Blood Orange (1953). He simply arrives in the third minute, asks ‘Are the police still here?’ and then quietly steals every scene he’s in. He gives this noirish crime thriller something that transforms it from a cynical story of greed and murder into a strangely moving fable about fakery, thwarted love and a fool’s ambition.
It’s been a heck of a half-year. Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter (1974) led the charge in terms of Hammer’s Limited Collector’s Edition range: a series of 4K restorations presented with specially created programmes, expert commentaries, new artwork and exclusive archive material. The Captain was swiftly followed by Four Sided Triangle (1953), Shatter (1974) and, of course, The Quatermass Xperiment (1955) and Quatermass 2 (1957). We recently confirmed that Blood Orange (1953) would join the range imminently, but what next?
The next film to be inducted into the hall of fame that is Hammer’s Limited Collector’s Edition range, will be Blood Orange (1953), a murder-mystery thriller directed by fan-favourite Terence Fisher and starring Tom Conway.