The Book Tower

Marshes intersected by dykes to the south, recalling the early chapters of Great Expectations; flat fields to the north, merging into heath; heath, fir woods, and, above all, gorse, inland …. old firs, wind-beaten, thick at the top, with the slope that old seaside trees have; seen on the skyline from the train they would tell you in an instant, if you did not know it, that you were approaching a windy coast.

On Christmas Eve 1972 the BBC televised M.R. James’ classic ghost story A Warning to the Curious as part of their Ghost Story for Christmas series. The film has since become a classic in its own right; chillingly atmospheric and a perfect evocation of the wind-beaten and bleak seaside town of Seaburgh as described by James above. Although the viewer must allow for the production values of 1970s television, the mud flats and the hazy landscape are still brilliantly captured by director Lawrence Gordon Clark. And a small budget works in its favour, making the studio bound interior scenes extremely tight and claustrophobic. The eerie music, too, works wonders for the story.

The film begins with with a man digging a deep hole. James enthusiasts will tell instantly that he is going to meet a sticky end. The man is watched by a shadowy figure who warns him “no digging”. When he persists, the dark figure attacks and kills him. Twelve years later a man called Paxton arrives in Seaburgh, carrying suitcase and spade. Paxton is an amateur archaeologist searching for a fabled Anglo-Saxon crown, buried somewhere in the local area…

After checking in at his lodging house Paxton passes through a cemetery, where he learns that the site of the buried crown was once guarded by one William Ager, a man who has since died and who we presume to be our murderer from the first scene. The vicar indicates where Ager’s grave is but declines to show Paxton to it, as he has become suddenly “very cold”. As he looks at Ager’s gravestone Paxton notices, or thinks he notices, a dark clad figure watching him from the distance. This black robed spectre remains ever present just outside Paxton’s immediate field of vision. As James explains:

Sometimes, you know, you see him, and sometimes you don’t, just as he pleases, I think; he’s there, but he has some power over your eyes.

Paxton continues his research into the whereabouts of the crown, visiting Ager’s former home and a creepy curiosity shop. Gathering just enough information, he sets out to dig up the crown, announcing that he will be away overnight and catching a train. Returning to Seaburgh with his prize, he climbs into his train carriage and then turns to hear the guard holding the door open and calling “room for one more! Oh, sorry … I thought someone else was there” before shutting the door on the lone Paxton.

Following a troubled night Paxton reveals to Dr Black, a fellow lodger at the boarding house, that “someone” is now with him, the shadowy figure watching him has accompanied him from the burial site. He vows to return the crown and asks Black to go with him. Together they return the crown, Clive Swift as Black never being one to shirk his responsibilities when it comes to spooky tales. In the morning the two arrange to go walking together, but Paxton is enticed onto the beach by the shadowy figure, thinking it is Black. Dr Black later finds Paxton lying dead beside the burial mound.

The film ends with Black boarding a train to leave Seaburgh. He holds what looks like Paxton’s case. Climbing into the carriage, he turns to hear the guard holding the door open and calling “room for one more! Oh, sorry … I thought someone else was there” before shutting the door on the lone Black…

A Warning to the Curious stars Peter Vaughan as Paxton and Ghost Story for Christmas regular Clive Swift as Dr Black. Mr Paxton, a now redundant office clerk, attempts to rise above his lowly status by making this rare archeological find. As an embellishment to James’ original story, the film creates a solid class structure – from those above Paxton (Black, a local vicar) to those below him (the boots of his boarding house, the young girl he meets in Ager’s cottage). Where James warns antiquarians and learned men not to become too curious in their findings (The Treasure of Abbott Thomas, Oh, Whistle and I’ll Come to you, My Lad) the film goes further in warning the likes of Paxton not too think too high above their social standing. And Black, by lowering himself to Paxton’s level, is seen to suffer too.

But the BBC adaptation doesn’t stray too far from the original classic, and the only serious change they make is creating Dr Black, who serves to replace James as the narrator figure and his friend Henry Long. All of the best ingredients are James’ inventions; the churchyard, the curiosity shop and the half glimpsed ghost of William Ager. Changes to James are always forgiven as the leads in the Ghost Stories for Christmas series always turned in fine performances, and here Vaughan and Swift are magnificent. Vaughan is perfectly nervy as Paxton, driven although quite terrified before the haunting properly begins, Swift is also perfect as Black, delivering his usual take of urbane reason.

If there’s still time, I urge you to read A Warning to the Curious by M.R. James this Christmas Eve…

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This year’s playlist of Christmas songs is a little offbeat. It’s interesting that although most of these records are well known, none of them were particularly successful when they were first released. None of my choices have ever (yet) made the UK top ten.

Kate Bush: December will be Magic Again

Released in 1980 and only reached 29 in the charts. Perhaps one of the reasons for this single’s relative failure was that it was too sophisticated for an audience that put There’s No-one Quite Like Grandma by the St Winifred’s School Choir at number one.

Worth catching is the BBC Christmas special by Kate Bush from a year earlier, which features performances by Peter Gabriel.

Strangely, a lot of Kate Bush material cannot be acquired digitally, so this song is not available as a legal download.

Saint Etienne: I was Born on Christmas Day

Released in 1993 and only just scraped into the top 40 at 39. I fail to understand why this song wasn’t a massive hit, and it is still only played rarely (although hats off to Next in Bristol for blaring it out to their shoppers). 1993’s Chirstmas number one was Mr Blobby.

The Greedies: A Merry Jingle

The Greedies were a short lived band featuring members of Thin Lizzy and The Sex Pistols. This was considered somewhat throwaway at the time, but Phil Lynott is still a superb vocalist and the Cook/Jones rhythm section is worth turning up loud.

A Merry Jingle reached 28 in December 1979, the Christmas that record buyers preferred the depressing and very unseasonal Another Brick in the Wall by Pink Floyd.

This record is now almost totally forgotten, and ownership of a digital version of A Merry Jingle is by no means legal. In fact it’s taken me two years to find a mere two thirds of the track!

Christmas Wrapping by The Waitresses

Number 42 in 1982. Although a flop at the time, Christmas Wrapping has ended up on many a Christmas compilation album and provided writer Chris Butler with a modest pension. Probably the most consistently played Christmas single that was not a hit record.

Number one that year was Save Your Love by Renée and Renato.

Merry Christmas I don’t want to Fight Tonight by The Ramones

Released in 1987 and failed to chart, the year where The Pet Shop Boys took the Christmas number one with Always on My Mind.

Gaudete by Steeleye Span

Number 14 in 1973.

Step into Christmas by Elton John

Number 24 in 1973. Eclipsed, like the Steeleye Span record, by the infinitely more irritating Slade and Wizzard dirges.

God Rest ye Merry Gentlemen by Ella Fitzgerald

From her 1967 Christmas album. Not released as a single. The Beatles had their fourth and last Christmas number one this year with Hello Goodbye. Oddly, none of The Beatles Christmas hits were Christmas songs, a tradition Paul McCartney continued with Mull of Kintyre in 1977. His only proper Christmas song, Wonderful Christmastime, made number six in 1979. John Lennon’s Happy Xmas (War is Over) reached number two in 1980. The winter that Lennon died saw the charts flooded with his solo records, but it wasn’t enough to beat the St. Winifred’s School Choir.

White Christmas by Otis Redding

Failed to chart in December 1968. Lily the Pink by The Scaffold was the preferred, sillier, choice for Christmas number one.

Here Comes Santa by Bob Dylan

From Dylan’s 2009 Christmas in the Heart.

What will be this year’s chart topper? The manufactured drivel of the X-Factor? Rage Against the Machine? Or perhaps Mr Dylan…

And for the Final Choice…

Probably something from A Christmas Gift for You by Phil Spector, released in 1963, at the time when The Beatles were just securing their dominance on both sides of the Atlantic. At least Mr Spector had his revenge seven years later when a deranged John Lennon enticed him to ruin the Let it Be tapes…

After looking at Wikipedia’s list of Christmas number ones I have realised that I’m more familiar with the chart toppers from the late 70s and early 80s than I am with the ones from recent years. In fact, after 2004 when Band Aid came back again I have no familiarity at all with any of the number ones. The likes of X-Factor really are producing disposable pop as flimsy as a cheap toy in a Christmas cracker.

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As well as the essential M.R. James reading and viewing, Christmas is also a suitable time for a Hammer Horror. Hammer’s immensely successful 1957 film The Curse of Frankenstein spawned six sequels; The Revenge of Frankenstein (1959), The Evil of Frankenstein (1964), Frankenstein Created Woman (1967), Frankenstein Must be Destroyed (1969), The Horror of Frankenstein (1970) and Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell (1974). Although the law of diminishing returns usually applies with film sequels, Hammer hit gold around the halfway mark. Frankenstein Created Woman is the best in the series, a classic chiller directed by Terence Fisher and featuring one of Peter Cushing’s best performances.

Frankenstein Created Woman is textbook Hammer, inviting the viewer to snuggle in front of the television under a cosy blanket. Unthreatening and warming, a well made film with recognisable settings, costumes, music and archetypal characters – all the familiar trademarks of the studio. That’s not to say that the film doesn’t look low budget by today’s standards. Its charm aside, the sets do look like they are ready to be folded away ready for the next production, and the costumes belong to the wardrobe that clothed the entire oeuvre of the studio. Even the rosé wine featured throughout this film that wasn’t drunk or spilt was probably carefully rebottled.

Nevertheless this is a horror film that has worn well over the decades. Frankenstein Created Woman is quite methodical in setting up its plot, reminding of The Curse of the Werewolf (1960) which has a similarly long preamble to the main story. It works very well here, and those who might find the early part plodding will be rewarded when things begin to fit together rather neatly towards the end. The film begins with a raving man being led to the guillotine. A small boy revealed to be the condemned man’s son is seen watching the execution, and when events jump ahead several years we see him again as Hans (Robert Morris), a young man in love with a disfigured girl called Christina (Susan Denburg). Hans works for Baron Frankenstein, who sends him out one night for a bottle of champagne following a particularly successful experiment (he has managed to be revived after freezing himself for exactly one hour. Yes, Baron Frankenstein always was a little weird).

As usual, Peter Cushing is superb as Baron Frankenstein, portraying the usual sharp wit and driven ambition that doesn’t quite tip him over into insanity. He is joined by Thorley Walters as his bumbling associate Dr Hertz. Walters plays a very baffled Watson to Cushing’s particularly sharp Holmes, and the two complement eachother quite perfectly throughout the film. Indeed, it’s a shame Hammer chose not to continue their partnership in the later films (Walters does turn up in Frankenstein Must be Destroyed but plays a different role). However it’s Cushing’s film and without his sublime acting it’s difficult to see how Hammer would have been so enduring and successful.

The quest for the Baron’s champagne sets things moving as Christina’s father happens to run the nearby inn. Three top-hatted scoundrels call in, the sort who are generally disagreeable in how they put their feet up on the tables and light smelly cheroots. Even worse, the type who demand their wine (to be put on credit) served by the innkeeper’s daughter. Their bullying turns nasty when Hans gets into a brawl with them and later, when the drunken trio return for some after hours drinking, Christina’s father disturbs them and they beat him to death. Hans is convicted of the murder and sent to the guillotine. Christina drowns herself. All a bit grim, but perfect for the Baron, whose latest experiment just happens to involve raising the dead. Together with Dr Hertz, he repairs Christina’s crippled body and, for good measure, implants the soul of Hans into it.

Susan Denburg is excellent as Christina in, surprisingly, the last of only a handful of film roles. This film does indeed create the type of starlet Hammer later used as a selling point for their films, the buxom young ladies employed for such titles as Lust for a Vampire and Twins of Evil. Resurrected by the Baron, Christina sets out on murdering the three top-hatted scoundrels who set the horrible ball rolling in the first place and this is all executed (pardon the pun) rather satisfyingly. And look out for Yes Minister’s Derek Fowlds as one of the above mentioned top-hatted victims.

The horror critic Alan Frank rated Frankenstein Created Woman quite highly in his 1982 Horror Film Handbook:

The last Hammer film to be made at Bray reworks Bride of Frankenstein to good effect. Fisher’s direction, impressive settings and a neat performance from Cushing make it a first-rate addition to the genre.

Frank also quotes a review from The Times:

Scriptwriter John Elder and director Terence Fisher have a nice sense of the balance between horror and absurdity and the film has the courage of its own lunatic convictions.

Surprisingly, other than mentioning that the film formed part of a double X double-bill with The Mummy’s Shroud in summer 1967, Hammer’s own celebratory 1973 The House of Horror has little else to say about the film. But perhaps it is time that has set Frankenstein Created Woman apart, where in a world now saturated with so many in your face explicit horror films we can recognise real quality.

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