SCFZ poll: Terence Fisher

[flip]

Polling the films of director Terence Fisher

The rules:

- your list can include no more than half of the Fisher films you've seen, up to a maximum of 5. So if you've seen seven of his films, for example, you can list only a top 3. It's only if you've seen ten or more of his films than you can list the maximum of five.

- i'll assume ballots are ranked unless you tell me otherwise. unranked ballots are fine.

- deadline for ballots: next Tuesday, in seven days, whatever day that is

- if anyone is watching films for these polls, then i'll extend the deadline up to three days, if someone requests an extension

- next poll: whoever posts the first ballot in this thread is free to nominate the director we poll next, unless you've nominated in this round already (everyone should get a chance). Already nominated this round: umbugbene, greennui, evelyn, bure, m arkadin, mrcarmady, nrh

umbugbene created an index on letterboxd of all of our previous polls here: letterboxd.com/umbugbene/list/index-of-all-scfz-director-polls/

one rule for nominees: at least 3 scfzers need to have seen 10+ of a nominee's films, or at least 4 scfzers need to have seen at least 8 of the nom's films, so if it isn't clear if that will be the case, we'll confirm that's true before moving forward

if 24 hours pass after a poll opens, and no one eligible to nominate has posted a ballot, then i'll nominate someone, and then we'll start over, and everyone will be able to nominate again

[flip]

we'll use the extended rules for this poll:

- if you've seen an odd number of fisher films, you can round up instead of down to determine the length of your ballot (e.g. if you've seen seven, you can vote for four instead of the usual three)

- if you've seen more than ten fisher films, you can vote for more than five. so if you've seen 13, you can vote for up to seven. longer ballots will help ensure we can get to a top ten. i'll only count up to eight films from one ballot though (so you can list a top ten if you want, but #9 and #10 won't get any points)

[greennui]

2

Dracula

[Evelyn Library P.I.]

Seen 2

1. The Mummy (1959)

[brian d]

just 1

the devil rides out

[...]

The Mummy
The Hound of the Baskervilles
The Devil Rides Out
Dracula (aka Horror of Dracula)
Phantom of the Opera
The Gorgon
The Earth Dies Screaming
Brides of Dracula

[Umbugbene]

Seen 4

The Astonished Heart
Blackout (a.k.a. Murder by Proxy)

I've also seen Gambler and the Lady (1952), of which Fisher is an unconfirmed co-director.

[MrCarmady]

In the sacred words of Holyman, who? Gonna have to check one out.

[thoxans]

so long at the fair
the curse of the werewolf
the revenge of frankenstein
the devil rides out

*seen eight

[oscarwerner]

seen 5. All from Hammer films. My votes go to :
1.The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959)
2. The Mummy (1959)

[Roscoe]

HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES
DRACULA
THE MUMMY

Might be room for a couple more. We'll see. I remember noting the zipper on the Mummy's costume the last time I saw it.

[sally]

ok seen 2 don't remember either of them, but the ones i haven't seen all look delicious and i want to see them all NOW.

[rischka]

the devil rides out!! (1968)!!!
dracula (1958)
curse of frankenstein (1957)
revenge of frankenstein (1958)
brides of dracula (1960)
the gorgon (1964)

♥♥♥peter cushing and christopher lee♥♥♥

seen 12. fisher was the best hammer director for my money

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XR4KnfcgLm0

[Holymanm]

Never heard of this hombre

[---]

Stolen Face

[nrh]

i kind of wonder if greg is right and the hammer films overall have kind of faded from people's memory. fisher certainly is in a bit of a strange place; he gets championed by durgnat in the '60s, positif's sister publication midi-miuit fantastique dedicates their first issue to him, some of the later cahiers guys like oudart and daney love him and even refer to him as last representative of the tradition of lang and murnau, but i'm not sure if he really captures a lot of auteurist attention?




rewatched dracula/horror of dracula last night, which is kind of amazing actually, and much more delicately textured than i remember it being from seeing it on tv and older dvds. strips the dracula story down to its essentials (even renfeld gets cut), a kind of haunted drawing room chamber piece, with cushing's pitiless rationalist van helsing on one side and lee's fallen romantic vampire monster on the other.

durgnat quoting michael caen (from an unpublished essay called a stake is a stake) in films and feelings -

"...there exists a whole sensuous 'layer' of film meaning with which film criticism has scarcely begun to deal Michael Caen underlines the importance of colour and clothes in Terence Fisher's Dracula (1958) and its sequel. 'What more can be said of Jack Asher's forests in Brides of Dracula except that they are more Gothic than ever Bram Stoker dreamed them? or of the glasses and decanters in which liquors shimmer in all colours from crimson to creme-de-menthe, except that they contribute to the sheerly decorative richness a note of that baroque which is precisely the key to the Victorian ear? Fisher as no other knows how to use soft blues to lyricize the sepulchral atmosphere of these haunted crypts...As part of a spectrum so hypersensitized, black takes on a new, its full, power. It ceases to be that meaningless tonal value rendered by panchromatic stock...it takes on life, substance (the shiny black of stain is played off against matte velvet), it acquires the value of an ethical symbol...it insterts itself like a wedge into a colour world where the mauve gowns and turquoise deshabilles stress the vulnerability of the women selected as victims..."

[greennui]

^ I also rewatched it recently and I was struck by it's colours and sensuousness. She's not in it for long but Carol Marsh's heady Lucy Holmwood was by far the most memorable performance in it for me, it's a shame that her career kinda vanished afterwards.

[john ryan]

Seen 25

1. The Devil Rides Out
2. Dracula
3. The Mummy
4. The Revenge of Frankenstein
5. Stolen Face
6. The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll
7. Brides of Dracula
8. Murder by Proxy (Blackout)
9. The Curse of Frankenstein
10. Island of Terror

[nrh]

either hadn't seen curse of the werewolf before or didn't really remember it. the simplicity here really works to sell the horror, there's no metaphor, poor oliver reed is just going to turn into a werewolf and be doomed one day due to the tragic circumstances of his conception (one of the great moments is child version of reed's character lying in bed, telling a story to his foster father about wanting to help a wounded squirrel when he was taken out hunting and then just being inescapably drawn to drinking its blood).

still very handsome and nicely textured but more exteriors and standing sets actually means fisher and the art direction team gets to exert less control overall, which means the film lacks some of dracula's intensity.

[...]

The big problem with Curse of the Werewolf is that the werewolfing strikes me as a complete waste of time. Oliver Reed being Oliver Reed is scarier than any werewolf, so the changing is superfluous.

[rischka]

The big problem with Curse of the Werewolf is that the werewolfing strikes me as a complete waste of time. Oliver Reed being Oliver Reed is scarier than any werewolf, so the changing is superfluous.

this

[nrh]

devil rides out is such a strange film, strips away almost all of the lush studio qualities of the hammer golden era for something kind of stark and unadorned, almost all the great set pieces taking place this weird kind of empty not that rich rich people mansion with the walls painted a sickly green.

here there is a kind of stark supernatural moral system - christ and the devil - but the main conflict is between two magicians who set themselves up as aristocrats of the world, one mabusian romantic and one van helsing type holy rationalist who doesn't hesitate before manipulating and sacrificing victims to make it all work out his way.

the seams start to show here, and i'm not sure why fisher allowed himself to get trapped in these action sequences when neither his budget nor his sensibility would suggest they'd work.

a very strange movie though

[nrh]

Oliver Reed being Oliver Reed is scarier than any werewolf, so the changing is superfluous.

kind of wonder how this movie would play if we didn't know the whole weird, strange reed mythology - here he's clearly a big possibly dangerous hunk of man flesh but in the film's world he really fights against the malign influences of his birth or whatever. knowing reed's later life makes it hard not to read all that into the film...

[flip]

just 1

brian - you can pick the director for our next poll if you like!

[brian d]

some options, not sure if any of these will work:
sergei parajanov
jacques feyder
mrinal sen
germaine dulac (i have 9)
boris barnet

[Umbugbene]

I have:

6 Paradjanov ❤
9 Feyder ♥
4 Sen ❤
2 Dulac
1 Barnet

[greennui]

8 Dulac

[rischka]

9 parajanov
7 feyder
4 sen
4 dulac
11 barnet ♥♥♥

[nrh]

8 sen

negligible for everyone else

[flip]

the most i have among those is 6 for parajanov, though i'd watch at least one more for a poll. we'd need someone to have 10+ to do the poll at all, but if you do (brian) or anyone else does, he'll work. and feyder works too if brian or someone else has 10+.

i'd bet barnet and sen will also work, but we'd need to be sure one more person has seen several of their films. for dulac, we'd need someone with 10+ seen to consider polling her right now