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A Movie A Day: THE GORGON (1964)
Don’t use long words, Inspector. They don’t suit you.
Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with the next installment of A Movie A Day: Halloween 2010 edition!
[For the entirety of October I will be showcasing one horror film each day. Every film is pulled from my DVD shelf or streamed via Netflix Instant and will be one I haven’t seen. Unlike my A Movie A Day or A Movie A Week columns there won’t necessarily be connectors between each film, but you’ll more than likely see patterns emerge day to day.]
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Continuing our theme of Terence Fisher directed Hammer films co-starring Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee today’s flick is THE GORGON.
Most of you learned of Gorgons the same way I did, through Ray Harryhausen’s Fantasy/Action flicks. Medusa was one, a woman whose appearance was so hideous she turned any living creature who gazed upon her to stone. Oh, and she was cursed with a neverending stream of bad hair days.
This flick has the spirit of one of the Gorgons (the film calls her Megaera, but Megaera was really one of the Fates in Greek mythology) has possessed one of the ladies in the small European town. Every full moon the spirit takes over and turns people to stone.
What’s interesting about the process here is that it’s not instantaneous. For some reason bloody wounds appear in the foreheads of The Gorgon’s victims and they slowly, over what appears to be at least an hour if not more, turn to stone. One character has time to stumble home, talk to his butler and write a 3 page letter before dying/turning to stone.
In a rare turn, Christopher Lee is a good guy here, a Professor and friend to the family that is being picked off by The Gorgon. On the other side is Peter Cushing who plays more of a villain than he usually does as a town doctor hiding the secret of The Gorgon. It’s a nice role reversal as both characters have aspects of their usual archetypes. For instance, the doctor comes across as a nice, proper guy who lets jealousy and fear control him whereas the Professor is morally in the right, but kind of a dick, holding his intellectual superiority over those he views beneath him.
Lee doesn’t even come into the film in any serious capacity until about halfway through. The first half is about the Heitz patriarch reacting to the apparent murder suicide involving his son and his son’s pregnant girlfriend.
Let me just take a minute to talk about how fucked up the opening of the movie is. Yeah, I said pregnant girlfriend and we open with these two people. The Bruno Heitz (Jeremy Longhurst) is an artist painting his topless girlfriend (Toni Gilpin), which leads to some melodrama where she wants to know when they’re going to get married.
She confesses that she’s pregnant, kind of a shocker to me in that out of wedlock pregnancy was kind of an off-limits topic at this time, and to make matters worse Bruno decides to go out and tell her father, promising that he’ll do right by her.
When she chases after him, through the woods during a full moon, she instead runs into The Gorgon. While it happens off camera the fact remains they kill a pregnant woman in the opening minutes of this film.
Bruno is found hanging by his neck, face bloody. Maybe I missed it… I’m not sure if he did that in order to stop himself from turning to stone or if he was strung up by the crazed countrymen who do indeed later brandish torches.
But how could there be any possible human explanation for these people to be murdered and turned to stone? I felt that question rise a few times as we see glimpses of the court proceedings and the off-hand explanation of the townspeople just don’t want to acknowledge it didn’t hold water with me.
Luckily it becomes apparent that as far as the top brass know these people are murdered in a regular fashion because Cushing’s Dr. Namaroff is fudging the death certificates. And when we find out why he is it becomes even more understandable.
So first, Bruno’s father comes in to investigate and then, when he is killed, Bruno’s brother, Paul (Richard Pasco) comes in to finish the job, falling in love with Dr. Namaroff’s beautiful assistant in the process (Barbara Shelley).
It’s an odd structure as we’re without a real leading man for quite a bit of the story, but the structure doesn’t hurt the film. Although I will say that if they had made this Christopher Lee investigating the legend of The Gorgon from the very beginning this film would be a classic.
Lee is so great here, an imposing figure with a bushy gray mustache who doesn’t suffer fools and refuses to be intimidated. Because he’s so great I naturally wanted him to be lead. No offense to Richard Pasco, but the dude got totally overshadowed and I found myself just waiting for more Cushing and Lee when he was on screen.
Christopher Lee has famously quipped that the only thing wrong with The Gorgon was the Gorgon and I see his point. The snakes are extremely rubbery and so obviously fake as to distract from the rest of the make-up, which I actually really liked. The contact lenses and semi-scaled cheeks particularly looked good.
But I think Fisher did well with what he had. In fact, I’d bet some of the creepier shots in the movie were because of Fisher creatively shooting around the crappy rubber snakehair. The shots of the Gorgon in shadow or in a wavy reflection are the most effective in the movie, my favorite being the shot of Pasco looking into a pool of water and seeing the Gorgon inches from his own head, the snakes lunging at his face.
I don’t have a problem with this movie at all other than some structural decisions. You could have taken these characters, performed by these actors, and with a slight reshuffling of the script and character priority made a classic of the genre. What we have is a strong turn by two of horror’s greatest performers in a nice, atmospheric creature feature.
They mythology is also strong. I like the new version of a Gorgon, I like the rules they set up. I like that if you see her in a reflection she still hurts you, just doesn’t kill you. Pasco’s hair turns white after glimpsing her reflection and he becomes sickly and, for a time, nearly insane.
I also want to take a little time out and give some love to the Icons of Hammer box sets. The Gorgon comes from the Icons of Horror Collection and is a beautiful transfer. Longtime AMAD followers will remember my run of Hammer Adventure reviews, all coming from the great Icons of Adventure Collection. I highly recommend either sets to people who love Christopher Lee or Hammer films and want to seek out some of the studio’s lesser known, but still awesome, films.
Final Thoughts: The Gorgon is a strong film, a fun and atmospheric film that is surprisingly fucked up. There are some structural flaws that keep it from being a classic, but for Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing themselves it’s worth watching. If you’ve ever thought of yourself as a fan of either man you owe it to yourself to seek this out. If you do, also try to find The Skull, featuring both men. It’d make a pretty good double bill with this one!
Currently in print on DVD: YES
Currently available on Netflix Instant: NO
Here are the next week’s worth of AMAD titles:
Saturday, October 16th: MAD LOVE (1935)
Sunday, October 17th: REPULSION (1965)
Monday, October 18th: THE VIDEO DEAD (1987)
Tuesday, October 19th: THE BLACK CAT (1981)
Wednesday, October 20th: THE BLACK CAT (1934)
Thursday, October 21st: THE COMEDY OF TERRORS (1963)
Friday, October 22nd: DOLLS (1987)
Tomorrow is crazy bald Peter Lorre in MAD LOVE! Can’t wait!
-Quint
quint@aintitcool.com
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Previous AMAD 2010’s:
- Raw Meat (1972)
- Ghost Story (1981)
- Two on a Guillotine (1965)
- Tentacles (1977)
- Bad Ronald (1974)
- The Entity (1983)
- Doctor X (1932)
- The Return of Doctor X (1939)
- The Tenant (1976)
- Man in the Attick (1953)
- New Year’s Evil (1980)
- Prophecy (1979)
- The Other (1972)
- The Mummy (1959)
Click here for the full 215 movie run of A Movie A Day!
Readers Talkback
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... (the only Hammer Horror I hadn't ever seen) and really enjoyed it. After the film the TCM host Robert Osborne (Osbourne?) spoke of how there was talk of using real snakes as part of the Gorgon's make up, and that another actress played the part of the Gorgon, apparently to speed up production.
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Which is kinda like a Gorgon.
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one of those Saturday afternoon movies in the sixties, when I was a 1-10. The final image of the Gorgon with her head cut off has haunted me since, one of those images that is always a place I can go to in my head. Freaks me the fuck out, in AICN-speak. A lot of the movie was slow and for a child, indecipherable--but those images! That feeling of weird horror! I was a fan of Greek, Norse and Roman myth as a kid, and comics, of course, and so the movie was a strange take on material I knew well. How do you describe that feeling...of dread? Seeing something explicitly killed back in those day was uncommon, and though a monster, it was human, and a woman--it rang all my bells.
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but this is a terrible film.
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Can't wait to hear what you have to say about "Repulsion" and the two "Black Cat"s. I love Fulci's "Black Cat" because...well...I love Fulci, but the Karloff/Lugosi "Black Cat" is the better film. Creepy as hell. And "Repulsion"...so fucking good. Catherine Deneuve is a goddess, then, now, forever.
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Two pretty good horror flicks I love a lot. The Video Dead is good fun :- )
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Oct. 16, 2010, 3:07 a.m. CST
Watch Hammer's Hound of the Baskervilles if you haven't yet...
by JuanSanchez
Another Cushing and Lee classic - and Lee actually gets to play a romantic lead of sorts. Cushing is perhaps the best Holmes of all time.
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in the end the old couple are magicians and they transform the bad guy into a doll for the kid to have?<br /> <p>i had seen it a few years ago on tv and yeah its very good.
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I used to see this pretty regularly on TV in the seventies but haven't since. Coincidentally the DVD arrived here a few days ago - I'm watching this goofy classic...TODAY. It may even be he first time I've seen it in colour. Hello, old friend.
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Doll's is great, one of stuart gordon's better movies
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Dr WHo number two plays the constable. Also THE SKULL is on a three disk release with THE DEADLY BEES and the Hammer THE MAN THAT COULD CHEAT DEATH. I recently saw it at Barnes and Noble.
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SOmeone please preserve him somehow and only allow him to surface when a movie must be made. He is a true legend.
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I had this film years ago on Laserdisc. Don't remember much but it was pretty to look at with the technicolor. The budget was small but the period costumes and sets made for a nice gothic tale. Wish it would come out on Blu Ray as the print was in good shape.
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I love that movie!
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"...out of wedlock pregnancy was kind of an off-limits topic at this time" <br> <br> In 1960s Britain? Like shite it was.
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would have been worth getting stoned over. She also played the character that had the insect orgasm in Quatermass and the Pit.
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I'd say the best of Hammer falls into the "really good" category. They don't really have any classics, but some of those movies are so great and atmospheric and real treats for horror fans. Great stuff for Halloween season also.
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especially anything with Lee and Cushing, but the Gorgon is a stinker.
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...are both as great as classic horror gets. Top notch. And if you think the implied death of a pregnant chick in THE GORGON from 1964 was something, you mind will probably be blown by some of the stuff implied in those two flicks from the 30's.
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I've just watched the disc, and the fight is there, but it's a candle holder on a stand, not a weather vane. (Damn thing looks like a weather vane on the poster, though - you're right)
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= gore gone.
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There's simply no better confection. THE GORGON died at the boxoffice (it was double-billed with Hammer's CURSE OF THE MUMMY'S TOMB, memorable for Fred Clark's performance as a U.S. entrepreneur). I'm elated it has been resurrected as a sleeper (I think Cushing is one of the very best actors in cinema history; I heard that his appearance during an Oscar telecast--a clip of Cushing was featured in homage of actors who died the previous year--drew a heavy round of applause. I hope this is true). THE GORGON is imperfect but its exploration of another genre icon (other than Dracula and Frankenstein) is quite rewarding.
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Stuart Gordon's most underrated movie (Charlie Band botched the release); quite charming, compare to the visceral content of DAGON. COMEDY OF TERRORS is unbridled Vincent Price, hamming to the max; absolutely sublime (his best AIP mugging next to the "Black Cat" episode from the TALES OF TERROR compendium).
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Welcome back, Your dreams were your ticket out. Welcome back, To that same old place that you laughed about. Well the names have all changed since you hung around, but those dreams have remained and they're turned around.<p> Who'd have thought they'd lead ya (Who'd have thought they'd lead ya) Here where we need ya (Here where we need ya)<p> Yeah we tease him a lot cause we've got him on the spot, welcome back, welcome back, welcome back, welcome back.
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... slept with the lights on for a long time. I though Medusa would pop out of the mirror, then I would shit myself and die of fright. <p> Then I saw Carrie.... no sleep 'til Junior High.
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my t is sticky
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The reason one of the characters takes ages to turn to stone is because he saw the Gorgon in a pool's reflection rather than straight-on, eye-to-eye.
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I love that close-up where you see the guy writing "...I am turning to ssstttoohooohooahhhghghhghhhh..."
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