an
Exclusive
Interview with Jimmy Sangster
Jimmy Sangster, the man often credited with starting the "Hammer Horror" era with his superb scripts, has kindly agreed to grant the Hammer Graveyard an interview. Before you see what he has to say, take a minute to read this impressive entry taken from "The BFI Companion to Horror".
Sangster, Jimmy (b.1924)
British writer, producer, director. Sangster began work for Hammer in a minor production capacity in the late 40s (as assistant director on Room to Let, 1950) but quickly graduated to scriptwriting. The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), Dracula (1958), The Revenge of Frankenstein (1958), The Mummy (1959) and The Man Who Could Cheat Death (1959) are brisk, lively affairs with a streak of black humour, setting the tone for Hammer horror in this formative period. As a producer for the studio, he worked on a series of psychological thrillers inspired by the success of Psycho (1960) and Les diaboliques ( I955): only Taste of Fear (1961) and The Nanny (1965) are wholly successful in transplanting the format to a British context.
Sangster moved briefly into direction with the disastrous The Horror of Frankenstein (1970), Hammer's leaden attempt to redo the Frankenstein story with Ralph Bates taking over from Peter Cushing. His next film, Lust for a Vampire (1970), second in Hammer's 'Carmilla' trilogy, is slightly better, though marked by uneven performances and clumsy shifts in tone. Sangster spent much of the 70s working as a writer-producer for American television where he was associated with projects by John Llewellyn Moxey (A Taste of Evil, 1971) and Gordon Hessler (Scream Pretty Peggy, 1973).
Screenplays
X-The Unknown 1956
Blood of the Vampire / The Trollenberg Terror 1958
Jack the Ripper
1959
The Brides of Dracula 1960
Taste of Fear (+producer) 1961
Paranoiac 1962
Maniac (+producer) / Nightmare (+producer) 1963
Hysteria (+producer)1964
TheNanny (+producer) 1965
The
Anniversary/1968
Crescendo 1969
Whoever Slew Auntie Roo? 1971
Fear
in the Night (+producer and director)1972
Good Against Evi1 1977
The Legacy 1978
Phobial
1980
Television
Ghost Story:
'The Concrete Captain' / 'Time of Terror' 1972
Circle of Fear: 'Doorway to
Death' / 'Spare Parts' / 'The Phantom of Herald Square' 1973
Kolchak: The
Night Stalker: 'Horror in the Heights' 1974
A Man Called Sloane: 'Demon's
Triangle' 1979