Peter Cushing

Peter Cushing’s debut. Fitting it should come in a film directed by James Whale, who had—eight years prior—directed Frankenstein. This loose adaptation of Alexandre Dumas’s novel boasts a winning double-role from Louis Hayward. The lavish sets scream for Technicolor, but the optical effects involved in Hayward playing opposite himself may have prevented it. I’d have preferred more swashbuckling and less melodrama, but it’s still an entertaining ride. The climactic chase reminded me of a western. Our heroes on horseback pursing the villain across the California landscape as he shoots back at them. It also drove home that we weren’t in France. Cushing has one scene as the vice-goon of a band of soldiers sent to arrest d’Artagnan.

Peter Cushing’s second film. He has a minor speaking part playing one of the Oxford students who hassle Laurel and Hardy.

A nurse in wartime England endures personal and professional hardships while remaining true to her vocation.

Politics and social stature divide a Virginia couple (Cary Grant and Martha Scott) as events lead to the Revolutionary War.

A fictionalized biography of stunted artist Henri Toulouse-Lautrec (José Ferrer).

A medieval blacksmith (Alan Ladd) masquerades as a knight in order to win the hand of a lady and thwart a Saracen (Peter Cushing).

Awaiting execution, Baron Frankenstein recounts how he created life from corpse parts—and how his partner’s sabotage turned genius into monster.

Peter Cushing’s second film for Hammer. He plays a botanist who hitches a ride aboard Forrest Tucker’s Himalayan expedition to find and study the legendary Yeti. Of course, Tucker’s motives prove less than scientific. And of course, one-by-one the party members meet unfortunate ends.

A stacked cast and vivid location photography elevate this story of juvenile delinquency. Stanley Baker makes a strong case for Watchlist inclusion as a Liverpool detective volun-told to take over as Juvenile Liaison Officer. David McCallum plays the requisite troubled youth. Peter Cushing turns up as the local priest. The Liverpool photography puts you on the streets of the Beatles hometown a few years before they broke big. Baker and McCallum ensure you’re never bored. The script avoids soapbox soliloquies and rations the melodramatics. A pleasant surprise.

Howard Hawks’s recipe for a good movie comprised “three great scenes and no bad ones.” Hammer’s first entry in its Dracula franchise gives us exactly that.

Dr. Frankenstein (Peter Cushing) escapes the gallows and resumes his experiments while working in a hospital for the poor.

Peter Cushing plays Sherlock Holmes who, alongside André Morell’s Doctor Watson, seeks to save nobleman Christopher Lee from a family curse involving a supernatural beast.

Archaeologist defile the tomb of an Egyptian princess and face the wrath of her protector, an undead mummy.

A teacher falls prey to a vampire baron in the German countryside.

Robin Hood (Richard Greene) attempts to foil the Sheriff of Nottingham (Peter Cushing).

In 18th century England, a band of troops intent on investigating reports of smuggling arrives in a small coastal town led by the local vicar (Peter Cushing) only to discover that nothing is what it seems.

A professor (Christopher Lee) investigates a woman (Barbara Shelley) and a doctor (Peter Cushing) who may be linked to the Medusa-like creature terrorizing a small village.

A mysterious woman lures a trio of British adventurers to her lost kingdom in Africa, believing one of them to be the reincarnation of her long-dead lover.

When is a Hammer film not a Hammer film?

Carnival barker Dr. Diablo (Burgess Meredith) invites patrons to witness a glimpse of their possible futures in this anthology tale.

In nineteenth-century London, Scotland Yard detective Peter Cushing investigates a series of countryside murders attributed to a mysterious winged creature.

A surgeon (Peter Cushing) develops a new treatment to rebuild damaged tissue, but at a horrible cost.

A detective investigating a string of vampire-like murders uncovers a far-reaching conspiracy involving mysterious surgeon Vincent Price and shadowy government official Christopher Lee.

Reviewing anthology movies is hard. I picture you, dear reader, trudging through endless paragraphs of plot synopsis and I feel guilty. I have let you down.

A Foreign Office agent travels to Mykonos to retrieve a young Oxford Scholar who may be under the influence of a modern vampire.

“He would be the most dangerous human being on earth. A monster.”

A doctor interviews the patients of a gloomy asylum in this Robert Bloch scripted anthology from Amicus.

Horror Express may be flawed, but the production, performances, and novelty of genre icons Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee working as allies make it hard to resist.

A scientist (Peter Cushing) believes the monstrous skeleton he unearthed may lead to a biological cure for evil, but his ambitious brother (Christopher Lee) has other ideas.

The severed hand is surprisingly effective.

After suffering a nervous breakdown, an actor (Vincent Price) reluctantly revives his Dr. Death character at the urging of his screenwriter friend (Peter Cushing) and producer (Robert Quarry).

Van Helsing (Peter Cushing) travels to a remote Chinese village to help a group of brothers defeat a group of vampires.

First time seeing the “Special Edition” since its theatrical run in 1997. Once was enough.

The four survivors hole up in the abandoned hotel’s vault-like refrigerator. A good plan, considering the squad of undead, water-breathing Nazi storm troopers lurking outside. Then one survivor gets claustrophobic and fires a signal flare inside the refrigerator. That’s where Shock Waves lost me.

A spoof of spy movies, Elvis movies, and even The Blue Lagoon.