Wonderful Double Bill on offer here to all Horror Fans.  – and more particularly to all HAMMER Horror enthusiasts of which there are so many. This Double Bill was actually from the Sixties but it seems a good feature to include here.

In the 1970’s, BBC-2 ran a summer season of ‘Horror Double Bills’ on Saturday nights, usually a black & white Karloff and Lugosi movie followed by a much more recent  Hammer, Amicus or Vincent Price chiller in colour.

On one particular Saturday night, ‘The Reptile’ was shown around the midnight mark and when  Jacqueline Pearce made her first full appearance in her snake make-up (as The Reptile) it was a memorable moment in Horror Film History.

A few years ago I was out with my daughter and her family living at that time in Lobethal in the Adelaide Hills, Australia. We went to a Sunday Collectors Fair at Port Adelaide – a very large one at that – and I purchased The Reptile on Video and we all watched it – and enjoyed it -when we got back to Lobethal that evening. This was a Double Bill Video release in a box along with ‘She’ with John Richardson, Ursula Andress and of course Peter Cushing.    Wonderful  memories.

Above The Trailer from The Reptile –

Below Scenes from the Film

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZ95jCVIFDA&feature=player_detailpage

Above The Trailer from Rasputin The Mad Monk with Christopher Lee.

I often go back to this wonderful colour film made out in Fiji many years ago. These pictures come from an old Annual I recently bought.

Jean Simmons – above

Scenes from the film – above

This film was on Television last week here in England – and it was just as good as it always is. My wife saw it for the first time and really liked it.

See The Trailer to this exciting film here :-

Below are some action shots from the film in stunning Technicolor.

I have seen this film featured a number of times in Film Annuals and periodicals of the time, and I recently purchased it on DVD. Looks to be a good film. I like Jean Simmons and also James Donald – remember him in The Great Escape. He was such a good understated actor.

A young bride believes her husband has been killed. After a suitable period of mourning, she re-marries. But then her “dead” husband comes back and tries to extort money from her.

We have now acquired a film copy of this rare B movie Western.

 

Action shots –  above.

When I was searching for this film – and didn’t at that time know its name I posted this below – I soon found out what the film was called and found that it was very difficult to locate for some reason – it seemed very rare and I couldn’t and still can’t think why. Some of my assumptions reference  Inca treasure were well wide of the mark BUT I reckon the film could easily have been on such a theme – and might have been even better :-

Santiago – 1956 with Alan Ladd.

Alan Ladd shows Jo-Ann Cox of Ballwin, Missouri around the set of “Santiago.” This young lady had won a film magazine competition and was taken around the film studios in Hollywood and as well as meeting Alan Ladd , she also remembers Tab Hunter well according to the press article.

On a holiday in California a few years ago, we visited the Warner Brothers Studios for a tour which was really good. On the outside tour the guide took us through mature trees and foliage and this quite small area was called the Jungle Set and it had been widely used over the years but had originally been built for the Alan Ladd film Santiago in 1956.

This facility at Warner Brothers is still very much in use.

Although Alan Ladd had his own production company, Jaguar Productions, this film was made at a straight fee  for Warner Brothers. The jungle set itself alone cost $125,000

Alan Ladd was  maybe not at his best here, but the real value is in the superb cast of supporting character actors, including Lloyd Nolan, Paul Fix, Chill Wills and Royal Dano, among others.

“Santiago” is set in Cuba just before the Spanish-American War.  Alan Ladd and Lloyd Nolan are competing gunrunners trying to sell weapons to the Cuban revolutionaries.  Lloyd Nolan is the villain while Alan Ladd of course is the good one .  His guide is the beautiful rebel Rossana Podesta, who is fiery and noble.The  rest of the cast are very competent supporting actors and play their roles well. There is one surprise in the ending but otherwise it’s predictable.

It’s a competent studio production for the period, with enough detail to make it credible. It’s not a great film, but it is good entertainment, with a beautiful girl.

Santiago 1956

Who could ever forget this tremendous opening to the famous TV series

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=n0YOlU3SMgs

Patrick Macnee and Dianna Rigg

So sorry to see that Patrick MacNee alias John Steed of The Avengers fame has died today June 25th 2015. His partnership with Diana Rigg in the series was classic British Television at its best with a unique querky style that to my knowledge has no parallel. He played the epitomy of the classic English gentleman and carried it off with a style bordering on perfection. He later played Roger Moore’s colleague in the Bond film A View to a Kill but it is as John Steed that he will be remembered.