A Night to Remember

 Year of Release:  1958

Director:  Roy Ward Baker

Screenplay:  Eric Ambler, based on the book A Night to Remember by Walter Lord

Starring:  Kenneth More, Michael Goodliffe, Laurence Naismith, Honor Blackman, Kenneth Griffith, David McCallum, Tucker McGuire, Frank Lawton

Running Time:  123 minutes

Genre:  Drama

In 1912 the luxurious passenger liner RMS Titanic, the largest vessel afloat and widely believed to be unsinkable, sets sail on it's maiden voyage from Britain to America.  During the voyage, however it strikes an iceberg, in one of the most famous maritime disasters in history.

While this lacks the spectacle and production values of James Cameron's Titanic (1997), this is widely regarded by historians and survivors as the most accurate version of the famous disaster.  It's filmed in a documentary style with a large ensemble cast.  It moves from the opulent splendour of First Class, to the cramped, crowded Steerage, who are more or less abandoned to their fate.  We also see the reactions of the nearby ships, the only ship to render any assistance is too far away to do anything but collect survivors, and one ship that is very near is oblivious to their distress calls.  The cast do occasionally come across as comically upper class and the upper lips are as stiff as cardboard, but there are some good performances from a number of notable British actors including Honor Blackman, David McCallum and a very early, uncredited appearance from Sean Connery.  The film is most effective in it's quiet moments and cumulation of telling details.    While the special effects look crude by modern standards, the sequences of the ship sinking are still effective.

A Night to Remember

The Vault of Horror

Year: 1973
Director: Roy Ward Baker
Screenplay: Milton Subotsky, based on stories by Al Feldstein and William M. Gaines
Starring: Terry-Thomas, Curt Jurgens, Tom Baker, Dawn Addams, Denholm Elliot, Michael Craig
Running Time: 83 minutes
Genre: Horror, supernatural,

Summary: Five men get into an elevator in a high-rise building. However, instead of letting them off at the ground floor, they exit in a previously unknown sub-basement. Finding themselves trapped with no way out, they see that there is a table laden with drinks and five chairs. Assuming that someone will be down soon to let them out, the men decide to pass the time by each a telling a story of their recurring nightmares and deepest fears.
In the first story, "Midnight Mess", a murderous man (Daniel Massey) tracks down his sister (Anna Massey) to a strange village where the locals are terrified to be out of doors after dark.
In the second story, "The Neat Job", a confirmed bachelor (Terry-Thomas) pre-occupied with neatness gets married. However his wife finds herself unable to keep to his exacting standards.
In the third story, "This Trick'll Kill You", a failing magician (Jurgens) and his wife (Addams) travel to India to learn new and exotic magic. Going to murderous extremes to learn the secret of the Indian rope trick, they find that there is a heavy price to be paid.
In the fourth story, "Bargain in Death", a man (Craig) agrees to be buried alive as part of an insurance scam. However, he intends to double-cross his partner (Edward Judd) as soon as the scam is over, but his partner has his own trick up his sleeve.
In the fifth and final story, "Drawn and Quatered", a painter (Baker) returns to England from Haiti in the posession of powerful voodoo magic to enable him to get revenge on the art dealers and critics who cheated him out of the full price for his paintings.

Opinions: In the late 1960s and 1970s, Amicus Productions were one of the main rivals of Hammer Films in the field of British horror cinema. Amicus Productions specialised in portmanteau films which collected a number of self-contained short, connected by an overall framing story. A few of these were based on the works of horror writers such as R. Chetwynd-Hayes and Robert Bloch, but probably the best known were adapted from the American horror comics such as Tales from the Crypt, Haunt of Fear and The Vault of Horror, which were published by EC Comics in the 1940s and 1950s. These comics were hugely popular but also extremely controversial for their, at the time, graphic gore and violence. However they were extremely influential on the likes of horror author Stephen King, and directors George A. Romero and Steven Spielberg.
This was the second of the films based on the EC Comics, following Tales from the Crypt, in one scene, in fact, a character is seen reading the novelisation of Tales from the Crypt.
These portmanteau films were usually entertaining and they always had the advantage of the fact that of one story wasn't very good, there would shortly be another one along in a few minutes. With this movie there is a large cast of talented actors in fast movie and entertaining stories often with a darkly humorous twist at the end.
Interestingly enough none of the stories were actually taken from the Vault of Fear comics. Instead they were adapted from stories appearing in the Tales from the Crypt comic and Shock SuspenStories.
While the stories are tame by today's standards, there is enough to keep horror fans satisfied.


Terry-Thomas learns the dangers of DIY in The Vault of Horror

Quatermass and the Pit

Year: 1967
Director: Roy Ward Baker
Screenplay: Nigel Kneale, based on his 1958 television serial
Starring: James Donald, Andrew Kier, Barbara Shelley, Julian Glover and Duncan Lamont
Running Time: 97 minutes
Genre: Science-fiction, horror, thriller

Summary: London, the late 1960s. Extension work on the Underground station at Hobb's End is interrupted when a number of humanoid skeletons are discovered which indicate that human-like creatures were around on Earth much earlier than previously thought. However the resultant archeological dig headed by Dr. Roney (Donald) and his assistant Barbara (Shelley), discover a large metal object which is immediately assumed to be an unexploded bomb form the Second Worls War and an Army bomb disposal team is called in headed by the hawkish Colonel Breen (Glover) along with Professor Bernard Quatermass (Kier), head of the British Experimental Rocket Group, who has previously clashed with Breen over Breen's plans to use the Rocket Group to establish military bases on the Moon. During the investigation of the object, they discover it has various bizarre and dangerous properties, add to that the fact that evidence suggests that the object and the skeletons have been there for five million years. Linking the object to the unusually high number of apparently supernatural phenomena that has been observed in the area throughout history, Quatermass makes a shocking discovery about the nature of human life on Earth and discovers that the object is not nearly as dormant as it appears.

Opinion: This movie was made by the legendary Hammer Film Productions and was the third of their films based on Nigel Kneale's acclaimed Quatermass television serials. The other two were The Quatermass Xperiment (1955, based on the 1953 TV serial) and no, the spelling of "experiment" is not a typo that is how it appears in the movie title as a joke on the "X" ceritficate the producers expected to receive, and Quatermass 2 (1957, based on the 1955 TV serial).
The movie deals with a theme which Kneale returned to over and over again in his work, namely science-fictional explanations for apparently supernatural or paranormal activity. It also deals with the "ancient astronaut" theory which was quite fashionable in the late sixties and seventies. The ideas of the film are developed very well and it manages to maintain a good balance between ideas and action, especially in the last half hour where things really kick into gear. The television serial is often considered the best, and is certainly the best remembered of the Quatermass adventures.
The movie is a good adaptation of the show and follows the storyline pretty closely and, despite having only half the running time the series had, Kneale manages to effectively lay out his themes and provide plenty of room for character development. It's well directed by veteran director Baker with a strong sense of place and the performances are all good. Wisely, the movie doesn't concetrate too much on it's special effects, although one brief but key scene really does suffer from inadequate effects (even by the standards of the time) although it's not exactly a show-stopping flaw.
The serial is one of the masterpeices of television science-fiction and it is well served by this movie, which is one of the best of the Hammer films. Definitely recommended. By the way, in the USA the film was re-titled Five Million Years to Earth.




Barbara Shelley, James Donald, Andrew Kier and friend in Quatermass and the Pit.