The Genres that made Hammer - Part Two: Rebirth and Radio Activity

As part of our celebrations for Hammer’s 90 ^th anniversary, we’re looking back on the studio’s infancy with a particular eye on its use of genre. In part one we traced its pre-war adventures. Now we turn our attention to the make-or-break forties and see how some of Hammer’s less heralded titles saved the day and paved the way for exciting new eras.

The story so far. After producing a number of very different films in the mid-1930s, including hits such as The Mystery of the Mary Celeste (1935) and Song of Freedom (1936), the UK cinema industry floundered and the fledgling studio died in 1937. But this is Hammer we’re taking about. It wouldn’t stay dead for long.

There’s a memorable scene in Dracula (1958) when the Count lies in his crypt, apparently lifeless. As Jonathan Harker attends to another ‘guest’, we see the vampire’s eyes spring open. It’s a dramatic shot, revealing the undead has awakened. Hammer’s own ‘eyes opening’ moment was Death in High Heels (1947), a murder-mystery starring Don Stannard, Elsa Tee and directed by Lionel Tomlinson (credited as Tommy Tomlinson). Anthony Hinds and James Carreras had been the driving forces behind the studio’s revival and launching it with this unassuming crimer proved to be a sign of things to come.

It’s based on the debut novel of Christianna Brand, whose most famous book, Green for Danger, had been successfully brought to the big screen the previous year. Death in High Heels is predominantly set in a boutique, high-end London fashion shop. There’s been a murder and suspects include a group of in-house models, the company’s dress designer and its vile owner, a womanising wastrel whose various affairs could have led to the crime. We see the cut of his gib early on, largely because he does nothing to disguise it. ‘I never employ married women,’ he tells the police in a matter-of-fact tone. ‘Home, children, husbands… Such a nuisance, don’t you think?’

‘Especially husbands,’ the officer replies, pointedly.

Death in High Heels featured Don Stannard in in his pre-Dick Barton days.

Stannard plays Detective Inspector Charlesworth, the nonchalant copper who’s hot on the killer’s (high) heels. The whole thing captures a moment in time when shops such as this were seen as aspirational and glamourous, and the picture’s ‘peek behind the curtains of fashion’ offered a prurient delight.

Brand wrote the source material whilst working as a salesperson, flogging pots and pans in wartime England. One story runs that she loathed a fellow-employee and confided to a friend, ‘I could murder her! But as I must not, I shall write a book and murder her in that!’ Brand previously made a living as a shop assistant and a model, and all these real-world experiences were exploited for Death in High Heels, lending it a pleasing authenticity that the movie manages to replicate.

The killing may be out-of-the-ordinary, but the film excels in its depiction of commonplace workplace politics, petty jealousies, overbearing bosses, the many quirks of the job and, of course, the models themselves. Bantering, cynical about their superiors, vain at times but united in a bond of friendship, they somehow ring true and bring a humanity to what would otherwise have been a darker tale. 

Death in High Heels is a modest endeavour, bereft of big names and, with a running time of less than an hour, a relatively slight movie. It’s also a good one. Admittedly, much of its charm now arises from its vision of a world that no longer exists. But it’s loaded with glamour, suspense, humour, intrigue and romance, and its brevity means the plot rattles along. The Kinematograph Weekly was impressed. ‘Ingenious story, exciting denouement, hardy crime featurette.’

Hammer was back.

Marketing material makes a point of referencing Green for Danger. The screen adaptation, starring Alastair Sim, had been a recent hit.

The film gives us a murderer who elicits our sympathy and a surprisingly touching resolution. And it gave Hammer a successful blueprint for their next tranche of productions which were all to be low budget crime films.

Their releases during the following year included Who Killed Van Loon? (1948), a featurette that saw Anthony Hinds accepting a hands-on production role for the first time, after the original producer pulled out. It’s another ‘missing’ Hammer movie but reviewers at the time gave it the thumbs up. Today’s Cinema enthused, ‘The mystery element is well enough sustained, and it is all very competently portrayed.’

River Patrol (1948), another short thriller released in a jam-packed 1948, featured the return of Wally Patch, the former comic who’d starred in Hammer’s very first production 14 years earlier. Here he’s cast against type, creating a disconcerting villain who’s happy to crack jokes but happiest when he’s murdering helpless victims with his bare hands.

Promotional material called River Patrol, ‘The inside story of the constant battle between the smuggling gangs and the secret dept of customs’. The phrase inside story might have been pushing it…

The film follows the titular River Patrol whose agents are tasked with arresting nylon smugglers. Robinson, one of their top men, wants to capture the gang because they killed a friend and fellow operative. Strangely, no-one else at River Patrol HQ seems that bothered about the murder, with one colleague receiving the news with a perfunctory, ‘Gosh! I’m sorry, Robbie…’ But the fact that the high-ups ‘…estimate that 20,000 pairs of nylons were smuggled in Iast week!’ is quite beyond the pale, so Robinson is ordered to round up the miscreants responsible – whatever it takes.

It’s a little uneven in places, but like Death in High Heels, River Patrol delivers on atmosphere and provides mystery, moments of levity and a dash of romance. 

The Dark Road (1948) feels grittier. It’s another B movie crimer, this one based on the career of former jewel thief, Stanley Thurston. These days it would be branded ‘true crime’ with such a designation used as a marketing tool. But back in ’48 critics were horrified that it allegedly glorified a ‘genuine’ criminal, and they weren’t the only ones up in arms. As reported in The Newcastle Morning Herald, ‘Cinema exhibitors are being asked to boycott a film in which a real-life gaol-breaker, Stanley Thurston, recounts his experiences… Action to ban it has been taken by the British Cinema Exhibitors' Association, under an old rule by which they refuse to handle any film that features a character who has gained notoriety in the courts.’

You can almost hear the weariness in producer James Carreras’s voice as he explained, ‘The picture already has official police approval. I have done everything to show that crime is a mug’s game.’ Also known as There is No Escape, as Carreras pointed out, it explicitly states that ‘a criminal life just isn’t worth the candle, especially when guns are brought into crime.’ But the backlash it engendered convinced Hammer to stick with cosier crime, a politic and practicable decision reflected in their next few features.

Mackenzie Ward stars as Ashcroft in The Dark Road. He returned to Hammer over a decade later, playing a small role in The Two Faces of Dr Jekyll (1960).

Already the company’s 40s iteration felt more pragmatic and focussed. It initially identified crime as a métier it could run with, delivering effective movies on a budget, something that would have been impossible for other popular genres such as Hollywood-style musicals or historical romance. And having courted ‘true crime’ controversy with The Dark Road it quickly reverted to a lighter path.

Dick Barton, Special Agent (1948) is much more fun and scored Hammer its first, significant post-war hit. Very much a proto-Bond crime caper, it did good business and won strong reviews. The laughs and punches fly fast and loose and although not all of them land, the pace is frantic enough for it not to matter. ‘Dick Barton will be the death of me,’ one of his friends admits. ‘It wouldn’t surprise me to hear he’s been bit by snakes, poisoned, drowned, burned, blown up or shot!’ She doesn’t add, ‘All on the same day,’ but the implication is clear. Barton’s an old-fashioned adventurer whose bravery and enthusiasm border on insanity. Hurrah!

Still, his reputation puts the heebie-jeebies up his opponents – in this case, undercover Nazis (wouldn’t you just know it?) operating in the heart of Blighty. They’ve got his number, all right. ‘What’s up?’ one of them asks a fellow blackguard who’s clearly in distress. ‘Plenty!’ comes the breathless reply. ‘Barton’s on his way! He’s no mug! He plays rough! I’m getting out!’ And that’s before the Special Agent in question has even arrived on the scene!

The movie has a Boys’ Own quality to it, terrific theme music (Devil’s Galop, composed by Charles Williams), and can be comfortably classed as silly but effective entertainment.

The film’s opening voice-over, ‘Ladies and gentlemen – Dick Barton, Special Agent!’ feels like a rallying call that post-war audiences were evidently keen to respond to.

In terms of its origins, Dick Barton, Special Agent formed an important milestone in Hammer’s journey. It was the first of their movies based on a radio show, and many such productions soon followed. Celia (1949), a comedy-thriller starring the effervescent Hy Hazel, was a spin on a 1948 BBC radio serial written by one of Dick Barton’s co-creators, Edward J. Mason. And The Adventures of PC 49 (1949) was similarly based on a radio series, as was Doctor Morelle (1949), a well-received thriller which featured Valentine Dyall’s Hammer debut.

Would you buy a second-hand Key to Time off this man?

Meet Simon Cherry (1949) was a screen version the BBC’s Meet the Rev and takes us into Agatha Christie territory, with shades of her stage play, The Mousetrap, which itself began life as a radio drama, Three Blind Mice, transmitted in 1947. The rev in question is Simon Cherry, a kind of Father Brown with added oomph who, in between sermons, helps run a boys’ club, teaches boxing and solves crimes. Feeling run down by his workload he takes off in a friend’s unreliable car, but when it breaks down he finds himself lost and alone in a storm.

Cherry finds shelter in a spooky old house full of characters who are by turns quirky, suspicious, friendly and hostile. He tries to telephone a garage but, as he puts it, ‘I rather fancy the gale must have blown some of the wires down.’ We can guess what that means. He’s effectively trapped, and when we get a lingering close up of a glass of milk we can deduce what will happen next. Sure enough, the stranded vicar is soon up to his dog collar in murder suspects, mystery and familial intrigue. 

Meet Simon Cherry isn’t terribly original but it’s got charm, verve, a lovely set-up and some fun dialogue. It seems unfortunate we never got to meet Cherry again, and even more unfortunate the film is now largely forgotten. It features Hugh Moxey as the crime-fighting cleric and co-stars Zena Marshall, who later achieved cinematic immortality as Miss Taro in EON’s first 007 outing, Dr. No. (1962).

Contemporary reviewer Josh Billings noted the film’s ‘Ingenious plot, imaginative treatment… clever finale an B.B.C. box office tie-up.’

With Dick Barton galloping back for the first Hammer sequel – Dick Barton Strikes Back (1949) – the studio’s only feature film of the year that wasn’t based on a radio show was The Jack of Diamonds (1949), a crime-adventure pic written by and starring Cyril Raymond and Nigel Patrick. Helmed by Vernon Sewell, it was shot entirely on location, with one location being the director’s own personal yacht. It sailed away with plenty of plaudits, with one reviewer calling it, ‘A neat and thrilling story’.

It’s another Hammer production set at sea, but this one’s leagues away from The Mystery of the Mary Celeste.

As the 40s drew to a close, Anthony Hinds, James Carreras and their fellow company directors had good reason to be positive. Hammer of the 1930s had briefly blazed with a few violently differing productions. There was a sense of dare and rare ambition about their slate, but five features in, it had been over.

The company was now a dab hand at crime films and had latterly recognised that adapting radio serials that were already well-liked was a skilful way of drawing an audience. The public was pre-sold on the concept on offer from the word go, and the stories being told were tried and tested winners.

This approach, in its own little way, was genius.

In February, 1949, Exclusive Films officially registered ‘Hammer Film Productions’ as a company. This feels like the close of the studio’s second phase. William and Anthony Hinds, along with Enrique Carreras and his son, James, were listed as directors and later that same year, the head of the Film Finance Corporation observed, ‘James Carreras has shown pretty shrewd judgment in cashing in on such a popular BBC series’. He was talking about Doctor Morelle but his words could have applied equally well to any one of Hammer’s early radio adaptations.

The organisation wasn’t just reborn, it was thriving. Whoever claimed that crime didn’t pay clearly hadn’t checked out Hammer’s post-war progress charts. The 1950s would bring more challenges, but more triumphs and yet more change.

The Man in Black is a solid, intriguing thriller. Debuting in January, 1950 it became Hammer’s first release of the new decade.

That decade began, reassuringly enough, with the release of The Man in Black (1950), another murder-mystery based on a radio show. But very soon, as the company’s confidence grew, there would be a broadening of genres, a willingness to take risks, bigger stars in lead roles and before the decade was half done, US deals that triggered a cash injection which enabled the studio’s first colour movie.

In hindsight, it’s clear. Crime had saved Hammer, but science fiction would bring it success that was out of this world. Because, of course, Professor Bernard Quatermass was waiting in the wings, and after his particular Xperiment, British cinema would never be the same again. But that, as they say, is a story for another time.