Sight&Sound - 05.2020

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May 2020 | Sight&Sound | 87

HAMMER VOLUME FIVE:
DEATH & DECEIT
VISA TO CANTON / THE PIRATES OF BLOOD RIVER /
THE SCARLET BLADE/ THE BRIGAND OF KANDAHAR
Michael Carreras / John Gilling ; UK 1960 / 1962 / 1963 / 1965;
Powerhouse / Indicator; Region B Blu-ray; Certificate 12;
75 / 87 / 83 / 82 minutes; 1.85:1 / 2.35:1. Extras: alternative
US presentations of Visa to Canton and The Scarlet
Blade; audio commentaries, profiles of women stars,
appreciations of films and scores, featurettes, booklet.
Reviewed by Trevor Johnston
Commercial considerations pushed Hammer
Films to venture outside the horror sequels
which had proved so lucrative for the British
independent outfit. The prospect of capturing
a broader family audience proved a strong
lure, albeit an unlikely fit for the studio who
regularly pushed the envelope on what British
censors would accept for X-certificate fare. A
significant moment came in 1962 with The
Pirates of Blood River, one of three Hammer
swashbucklers included in this fifth box-set of
Hammer titles from Indicator – all three directed
by John Gilling, a British B-movie mainstay
who here plays intriguingly with familiar genre
templates and formulaic action material.
Hammer’s output was at this point defined
by what could and couldn’t be accomplished
within its modest base at Bray Studios and
environs. Founded on a team ethos, the studio
brought to each project superb craft skills in
production design, costuming, camerawork
and scoring, and a reliable stable of signature
actors, including Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing
and the young Oliver Reed. All this created
a brand identity unlike any other in British
cinema, which ran across genre lines, and
explains why the films still have a following.
A pirate picture presented a particular
problem for Hammer, though, since their
production facilities and budgetary constraints
precluded the availability of an actual ship.
So Jimmy Sangster’s script for The Pirates of
Blood River brought captain Christopher Lee’s
band of brigands ashore on an island, location
unclear, peopled by fugitive Huguenots. The
rogues think there’s booty to be pillaged, but the
islanders are having their own issues, as their
leaders’ strict religious codes of behaviour prove
increasingly onerous. Telling heroes from villains
is surprisingly difficult, here and in the other two
Gilling titles in the set. There’s entertainment
value though, in the way the story works in the
versatile Gerrards Cross sandpit and the lake
in Black Park, Buckinghamshire. A video essay
included as one of the extras, memorably titled
Yes, We Have No Piranhas, shows how the BBFC
chopped away at the version initially submitted,

reducing an X-certificate title to a benign U.

Removing the blood in the piranha-infested

water enabled distribution on a successful

holiday double-bill with the Ray Harryhausen

flick Mysterious Island (1961). Here for the first

time is the original unseen version, with Blood

River living up to its name: what was an X

qualifies for a 12 rating from today’s BBFC.

That is one of the features that lends this

Indicator set a certain modest rarity value.

Another is the presence of Visa to Canton, a rarely

screened spy story directed by Michael Carreras

and set, topically, on the border between Hong

Kong and Red China. This is one for the Hammer

completists: though proceedings have a mild

proto-007 vibe, it’s an inert affair, seemingly

pitched (unsuccessfully) to set up imported

star Richard Basehart with a US TV series.

These compilation sets include some less

essential fare, but the curatorial attention that

Indicator lavishes throughout is impressive. The

discs include worthwhile featurettes focusing

on the careers of notable Hammer supporting

actresses, and the musicologist David Huckvale

offering usefully illustrated insights into the

scores. Expert analysis is offered by the critic

Kim Newman, the academic Neil Sinyard and

archivist Vic Pratt, drawing attention to the often

undervalued Gilling. To Hammer fans, Gilling

is probably best known for the liberal attitudes

and melancholic tone of his two 1966 horror

films The Plague of the Zombies and The Reptile;

but what comes across in these family-friendly

swashbucklers is an unexpected seriousness of

intent, setting fairly functional swordplay and

set-tos within a thought-through context of

conflict, with something to say both about its

setting and about shifting contemporary values.

At first it seems that The Scarlet Blade has

overlaid Cold War politics on its relatively

unusual English Civil War setting: its sympathies

lie with the Royalists rather than the totalitarian

Roundheads, represented by New Model Army

commander Lionel Jeffries, who is charged with

getting the captured Charles I to trial while

battling Cavalier insurgents. Ideological loyalties

prove contingent and malleable, often in conflict

with family bonds, and ultimately destructive

for both sides; the drama has nary a hint of

climactic restored order or evident triumphalism.

The Brigand of Kandahar also has a cautionary

tone. This film has long been given short shrift

even by the Hammer faithful: Gilling’s thankless

task was to construct a studio drama around

action out-takes from a colonial epic called Zarak

(1956), and the joins are glaringly obvious. But

the film shows intriguing liberal sympathies

towards its protagonist, a mixed-race British

Army officer on the North-west Frontier who

reacts to perceived racist mistreatment by his

superiors by joining the Afghan patriots. Despite

its anti-establishment undertones, the casting of

British actors Ronald Lewis and Oliver Reed in

brownface in the Indian roles may make the film

unacceptable viewing for current audiences. But

the narrative does gesture tentatively towards

more modern multicultural values and, like

the other Gilling offerings here, indicates a

filmmaker trying to deliver work of genuine

thematic integrity in what was essentially kiddie-

market fodder. This sterling collection displays

the unexpected quality Hammer could deliver

outside its familiar horror comfort zone.

A new collection of swashbucklers

and spy flicks shows a surprisingly

unhorrifying, even thoughtful

side of Hammer Films

China gates: Richard Basehart, a sleepwalking proto-Bond in Visa to Canton (1960)

What comes across in these

family-friendly swashbucklers

is director John Gilling’s

unexpected seriousness of intent

SWORDS AND HAMMER

Rediscovery