Category Archives: Jimmy Sangster

PAINKILLER by NJ Fountain

Posted on 17 February 2017 by Cavershamragu

“You wrote my note! My suicide note! You want to kill me!” Although the term ‘gaslighting’ has existed for decades, it is very popular at present to describe stories in which men manipulate the minds of women – and this … Continue reading →

Posted in Alfred Hitchcock, Amnesia, Boileau-Narcejac, England, Film Noir, Hammer Studios, Jimmy Sangster, London, Nev Fountain, Patrick Hamilton, Robert Bloch, Ruth Rendell | 42 Comments

The Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion (1970)

Posted on 20 October 2015 by Cavershamragu

Dagmar Lassander is a bored housewife who has been relying too much on drink to keep herself together. Her husband knows he has been neglecting her but his business (underwater diving equipment) is at a critical stage. One night she … Continue reading →

Posted in Film Noir, Giallo, Hammer Studios, Italy, Jimmy Sangster, Tuesday's Overlooked Film | 40 Comments

Top 20 Amnesia Mystery Movies

Posted on 20 May 2014 by Cavershamragu

Whether it’s the intrigue of Jason Bourne adventures or the farcical escapades of the Hangover films, memory loss remains a popular narrative device in fiction in general and at the cinema in particular. Here is a guide to my top 20 favourite … Continue reading →

Posted in 'Best of' lists, Alfred Hitchcock, Amnesia, Billy Wilder, Boileau-Narcejac, Charlie Chan, England, Eric Ambler, France, Greece, Hammer Studios, James Hilton, Jimmy Sangster, John Frankenheimer, Len Deighton, London, Los Angeles, LP Davies, New York, Orson Welles, San Francisco, Spain, Tuesday's Overlooked Film | Tagged | 88 Comments

A Taste of Evil (1971) – Tuesday’s Overlooked Film

Posted on 10 September 2013 by Cavershamragu

This ABC TV Movie of the Week stars Barbara Stanwyck, that classiest of all Golden Age Hollywood leading ladies. After 25 years as a movie star and the eccentric highpoint that was Sam Fuller’s Forty Guns (1957), she gracefully made … Continue reading →

Posted in Hammer Studios, Jimmy Sangster, John Llewellyn Moxey, San Francisco, Tuesday's Overlooked Film | Tagged | 22 Comments

Side Effects

Posted on 12 March 2013 by Cavershamragu

The thriller genre can be so capacious and seductive that filmmakers often use the form to smuggle in less commercial content on its coat-tails. Successful examples of this include the debate on Britain’s antiquated homosexuality laws found in Victim (1961), … Continue reading →

Posted in Hammer Studios, Jimmy Sangster, New York, Steven Soderbergh, Tuesday's Overlooked Film | 13 Comments

Douglas Slocombe – 100 years old today

Posted on 10 February 2013 by Cavershamragu

OK movie buffs, here’s a fun pop quiz for you: what do Raiders of the Lost Ark, Sean Connery’s last Bond movie, Michael Caine in The Italian Job, Montgomery Clift’s turn as Sigmund Freud and several classic Ealing comedies such … Continue reading →

Posted in 'In praise of ...', Basil Dearden, Douglas Slocombe, Film Noir, George Baxt, Gothic, Hammer Studios, Jimmy Sangster, Joseph Losey, London, New York, Paris, Scene of the crime, Screwball | 26 Comments

Edgar Wallace Mysteries (1960–65)

Posted on 10 July 2012 by Cavershamragu

Between September 1960 and October 1965 cinemas in the UK screened 47 films produced by Anglo Amalgamated as part of their Edgar Wallace Mysteries series. These low-budget movies, more or less based on the works of the celebrated mystery author, … Continue reading →

Posted in Edgar Wallace, George Baxt, Jimmy Sangster, London, Police procedural, Scene of the crime, Tuesday's Overlooked Film | 26 Comments

BRAT FARRAR (1949) by Josephine Tey

Posted on 30 May 2012 by Cavershamragu

Imposture lies at the heart of this well constructed suspense novel by Elizabeth Mackintosh, the Scottish author best known today for the mysteries she published as  ‘Josephine Tey’, though she also wrote books and plays using her own name and … Continue reading →

Posted in 2012 Alphabet of Crime, 2012 Vintage Mystery Reading Challenge, Crime Fiction Alphabet, Golden Age Girls, Hammer Studios, Jimmy Sangster, Josephine Tey | 24 Comments

Fear in the Night (1972)

Posted on 13 March 2012 by Cavershamragu

Joan Collins plays a sexy sculptress with a taste for blood and the grotesque in this ‘old school’ thriller from Hammer productions. The star though is topbilled Judy Geeson as Peggy, a mentally fragile newlywed who plans to join her … Continue reading →

Posted in Hammer Studios, Jimmy Sangster, Scene of the crime, Tuesday's Overlooked Film | 30 Comments

Crescendo (1970) – Tuesday’s Forgotten Film

Posted on 21 February 2012 by Cavershamragu

Hammer made a return to the thriller genre after a break of several years by dusting off an old script by Alfred Shaughnessy that originally had been intended as a possible vehicle for Joan Crawford with Michael Reeves to direct. … Continue reading →

Posted in France, Hammer Studios, Jimmy Sangster, Scene of the crime, Tuesday's Overlooked Film | 22 Comments

The Nanny (1965) – Tuesday’s Forgotten Film

Posted on 14 February 2012 by Cavershamragu

Bette Davis gives a subtle and nuanced performance as the title character in this small-scale suspense movie that deserves to be much better known. It is easy to succumb to the temptation to lump it together with What Ever Happened … Continue reading →

Posted in Hammer Studios, Jimmy Sangster, London, Scene of the crime, Tuesday's Overlooked Film | 37 Comments

Hysteria (1965) – Tuesday’s Forgotten Film

Posted on 17 January 2012 by Cavershamragu

The Hammer company stopped acting as its own distributor from the late 1950s, instead making deals with virtually all the Hollywood majors to handle (and bankroll) their output. This film is one of the few made for distribution by that … Continue reading →

Posted in Amnesia, Hammer Studios, Jimmy Sangster, Tuesday's Overlooked Film | 16 Comments

Paranoiac (1963) – Tuesday’s Forgotten Film

Posted on 10 January 2012 by Cavershamragu

The young Oliver Reed was under contract at Hammer Studios just before becoming a major star and Paranoiac is among his best films of the period, providing the actor with one of his earliest chances to play the kind of … Continue reading →

Posted in Gothic, Hammer Studios, Jimmy Sangster, Josephine Tey, Tuesday's Overlooked Film | 45 Comments

Nightmare (1964) – Tuesday’s Forgotten Film

Posted on 20 December 2011 by Cavershamragu

A teenage girl in her nightie walks down an eerie and dark corridor, apparently lost. Becoming increasingly uneasy and hearing voices, she fearfully open a door and finds her mother, grinning, apparently waiting for her. It’s the inside of a … Continue reading →

Posted in Alfred Hitchcock, Gothic, Hammer Studios, Jimmy Sangster, Tuesday's Overlooked Film | 24 Comments

Maniac (1963) – Tuesday’s Forgotten Film

Posted on 13 December 2011 by Cavershamragu

In the movies it seems that the ‘Rural South’, irrespective of where it may actually be in the world, is synonymous with savage attitudes and retrograde customs; an atavistic haven where old customs die-hard; and where outsiders, usually from the … Continue reading →

Posted in Film Noir, France, Hammer Studios, James M. Cain, Jimmy Sangster, Tuesday's Overlooked Film | 29 Comments

Taste of Fear (1961) – Tuesday’s Forgotten Film

Posted on 29 November 2011 by Cavershamragu

This film, released more prosaically in the US as Scream of Fear, is a psychological suspense yarn plainly inspired by Les Diaboliques (Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1955) but offering several neat twists and turns of its own. A superior Hammer movie – … Continue reading →

Posted in Hammer Studios, Jimmy Sangster, Tuesday's Overlooked Film | 26 Comments

The Snorkel (1958) – Tuesday’s Forgotten Film

Posted on 22 November 2011 by Cavershamragu

This oddly titled movie is an inverted mystery about a husband who comes up with a seemingly fool-proof method to bump off his wife. As such we know the identity of the villain right from the start, though there is … Continue reading →

Posted in Columbo, Hammer Studios, Jimmy Sangster, Tuesday's Overlooked Film | 31 Comments

Jimmy Sangster (1927 – 2011)

Posted on 22 August 2011 by Cavershamragu

The British writer-producer-director Jimmy Sangster (James Henry Kinmel Sangster) has died aged 83. Long associated with the films made at Hammer Studios, where he first had a long career as an assistant director before moving on to writing, he is … Continue reading →

Posted in Hammer Studios, Jimmy Sangster, RIP | 14 Comments