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Seth Holt is an odd figure. An editor at first, his career spans classic Ealing comedies (The Lavender Hill Mob, 1951) and gritty kitchen sink drama (Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, 1960), while his overlapping career as producer saw him preside over the classic The Ladykillers (1955). On becoming a director, he worked mainly at Hammer, which made radically different content from Ealing but perhaps shared the same cozy atmosphere.Taste of Fear (a.k.a. Scream of Fear, 1961) is a zestful Diabolique knock-off, while The Nanny (1965) continued Bette Davis' career in horror. It's incredibly strong, beautifully made and quite ruthless: Bette referred to Holt as "a mountain of evil" and found him the most demanding director she'd encountered since William Wyler. During the daft but enjoyably peculiar Blood from the Mummy's Tomb (1971), Holt developed a persistent case of hiccups that turned the screening of rushes into hilarious occasions. Then he dropped dead of a heart attack,...

“I didn’t bring your breakfast, because you didn’t eat your din-din!”

Whatever Happened To Baby Jane? screens Thursday December 3rd at 7:00pm at Schlafly Bottleworks

The 1962 shocker Whatever Happened To Baby Jane? blended Psycho with Sunset Boulevard to compelling effect. One of the great movies about the movies, (and the best movies about the movies bite the hand that feeds them), and the best of director Robert Aldrich’s ‘women’s pictures’. It’s about a couple of self-loathing sisters hauled up together in a decaying Hollywood mansion, a too-close-to-home study of the real life rivalry between stars Bette Davis and Joan Crawford or even as a veiled study of homosexual self-depreciation with the sisters as aging drag queens. But these are the very things that make the picture great. It is precisely because it can be read in this way that makes Whatever Happened To Baby Jane?...

Bette Davis movies: TCM schedule on August 14 (photo: Bette Davis in ‘Dangerous,’ with Franchot Tone) See previous post: “Bette Davis Eyes: They’re Watching You Tonight.” 3:00 Am Parachute Jumper (1933). Director: Alfred E. Green. Cast: Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Bette Davis, Frank McHugh, Claire Dodd, Harold Huber, Leo Carrillo, Thomas E. Jackson, Lyle Talbot, Leon Ames, Stanley Blystone, Reginald Barlow, George Chandler, Walter Brennan, Pat O’Malley, Paul Panzer, Nat Pendleton, Dewey Robinson, Tom Wilson, Sheila Terry. Bw-72 mins. 4:30 Am The Girl From 10th Avenue (1935). Director: Alfred E. Green. Cast: Bette Davis, Ian Hunter, Colin Clive, Alison Skipworth, John Eldredge, Phillip Reed, Katharine Alexander, Helen Jerome Eddy, Bill Elliott, Edward McWade, André Cheron, Wedgwood Nowell, John Quillan, Mary Treen. Bw-69 mins. 6:00 Am Dangerous (1935). Director: Alfred E. Green. Cast: Bette Davis, Franchot Tone, Margaret Lindsay, Alison Skipworth, John Eldredge, Dick Foran, Walter Walker, Richard Carle, George Irving, Pierre Watkin, Douglas Wood,...

Bette Davis’ eyes keep ‘Watch on the Rhine’ Bette Davis’ eyes are watching everything and everyone on Turner Classic Movies this evening, as TCM continues with its "Summer Under the Stars" film series: today, August 14, 2013, belongs to two-time Oscar winner Bette Davis’ eyes, cigarettes, and clipped tones. Right now, TCM is showing the Herman Shumlin-directed Watch on the Rhine (1943), an earnest — too much so, in fact — melodrama featuring Nazis, anti-Nazis, and lofty political speeches. (See “Bette Davis Movies: TCM schedule.”) As a prestigious and timely Warner Bros. release, Watch on the Rhine was nominated for a Best Picture Academy Award and earned Paul Lukas the year’s Best Actor Oscar. Bette Davis has a subordinate role and — for once during her years as Warners’ Reigning Queen — subordinate billing as well. As so often happens when Davis tried to play a sympathetic character, she’s not very good; Lukas, however,...

Joining the Fantasy Film Weekend for a second year, I knew what to expect, plenty of films and a Monday where your body feels like it wants to sleep for a whole week. The film festival is quite a rare gem in the festival calendar as it focuses not only on the new, but the classic and at times the downright strange films. This year there were Attractions such as a 70mm print of Big Trouble in Little China, Coraline 3D, The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm in Cinerama and most other films on 35mm where possible so this of course is one for the lovers of film of all types.

The first day was quite a leisurely stroll into the strange and horrific, just to ease into proceedings, but with Pieces being on the bill for the day it was sure to push up the gore value to a good level.

The National Media Museum in Bradford is, from 15th – 17th June 2012, set to play host to the 11th Fantastic Films Weekend, giving horror, fantasy and sci-fi fans in the North their annual fix of thrills and spills.

This year the festival will focus on schlock, women in horror and sci-fi, and feature a festival first – a Cinerama screening of The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm. Other highlights will include an evening of giallo treats new and old, family fun with Coraline 3D and live make-up demos, and a Hammer strand packed with rare and premiere Hammer screenings.

Special guests will include Renée Glynne who worked for many years as continuity/script supervisor for Hammer before going freelance. Her work includes The Nanny, Legend of the Golden Vampire and The Quatermass Xperiment, the HD premiere of which will be screened following her screentalk. She will be in conversation with Hammer archivist,...

,Darren Criss and guest attend the Cleveland Cavaliers vs New York Knicks game at Madison Square Garden.

Birthday shoutouts go to Thea Gill, who is 42, Paula Cole is 44, one of the people who helped shape my pop culture taste, Roger Corman is 86, and the faboo Agnetha Faltskog is 62. Time to name your fave Abba/Agnetha solo songs. Here are mine (I need ten): 10. "I Wasn't The One (Who Said Goodbye)" (Agnetha solo), 9. "Knowing Me, Knowing You," 8. "Voulez-Vous," 7. "Fernando," 6. "The Name Of The Game," 5. "Sos," 4. "Take A Chance On Me," 3. "Dancing Queen," 2. "The Winner Takes It All," and number one is Agnetha's solo hit "Can't Shake Loose," which has the great honor of placing at #10 on The Official Snicks Top 100 Of The 80's!

Mass Effect 3: Extended Cut Dlc will be out this summer. But it doesn't offer any actual ... gameplay. The faboo Pam Grier's autobiography Foxy -...

Here Lies... Bette Davis's Best Actress nomination for What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, sent to an early grave by Anne Bancroft's more Oscar-friendly work in The Miracle Worker.

Andreas from Pussy Goes Grrr here. In 1962, Bette Davis had a good three decades of acting ahead of her—what endurance!—but her disturbing, self-deprecating performance as Baby Jane Hudson sure feels like a go-for-broke swan song. It builds on all her tics and trademarks (bitchiness, powerful voice, melodramatic intensity) and exaggerates them almost beyond recognition. Following in the footsteps of Norma Desmond, Baby Jane's a quintessential star-as-monster. Try as you might, you just can't look away.

Granted, Joan Crawford does co-star as Baby Jane's paraplegic sister Blanche. But this is unmistakably Bette's show all the way: she dominates every second of screen time, whether by snarling and squawking with an alcohol-induced slur, or through a mere flutter of her eyelashes.

Screenwriter Jimmy Sangster, best known for penning Hammer Horror classics Dracula and The Curse Of Frankenstein, has died at the age of 83.

Sangster began his career as a clapper boy at the age of 16, before moving up to roles as an assistant director and screenwriter. But it was his stint as a writer at Britain's Hammer Horror studios which made his name, going on to tackle some of their most famous films, including The Mummy and Dracula, starring Sir Christopher Lee.

He later remarked, "All of a sudden I'm a cult figure. But it's all due to about five movies: a couple of Frankensteins, a couple of Draculas and a Mummy."

Sangster's other notable screen credits include Betty Davis' The Nanny and Paranoiac, which starred Oliver Reed.

He is survived by his second wife, actress Mary Peach, and his son. No cause of death had been made public as WENN went to press.

Screenwriter behind Hammer films such as Dracula and The Curse of Frankenstein

In 1957, Hammer Films revived gothic horror – in abeyance in a decade that offered nuclear or cosmic horrors which made the classic monsters seem tame – with The Curse of Frankenstein, directed by Terence Fisher and starring Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. To hear him tell it, Jimmy Sangster, who has died aged 83, wrote the script because no one else would, and simply typed it out and turned it in.

Yet Sangster came up with a new story – owing as little to Mary Shelley's novel as to James Whale's earlier film – and a radical depiction of Frankenstein as a determined, charming yet corrupt dandy who could still chill in an era of nuclear proliferation. Sexually amoral (he uses his monster to murder the maid he has impregnated), rigidly dividing his life (making a bloody hash in the laboratory...

The unstoppable philistine known as Death claims another Trailers From Hell patron saint.

Horror legend Jimmy Sangster has died, which should — in your exploration of genre classics (or just watching through the numerous trailers for films that feature his name) — mean something to you. If it doesn’t, Tim Lucas has an all-encompassing reminder of why it should:

After his first screenwriting credit (Joseph Losey’s A Man On The Beach, 1955), Sangster’s list of screenplay credentials form an impressive overview of Britain’s contribution to fantastic cinema over four decades:

X – The Unknown (1956), Blood Of The Vampire (1958), The Mummy (1959), The Man Who Could Cheat Death (1959), The Hellfire Club (1959), Jack The Ripper (1960), The Terror Of The Tongs (1960), Taste Of Fear (aka Scream Of Fear, 1961), The Pirates Of Blood River (1961), Maniac (1963), Paranoiac (1963), Hysteria (1964), The Devil-ship Pirates (1964), The Nanny (1965, his personal favorite), the Bulldog Drummond adventure Deadlier Than The Male (1967), The Anniversary...

We are saddened to hear of the passing of Jimmy Sangster today, at the age of 83. While Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing may be the first names Hammer Horror fans think of, Sangster was just as influential when it came to the success of Hammer’s films in the 50′s and 60′s.

Having written The Mummy, Horror of Dracula, and The Curse of Frankenstein, Jimmy Sangster was one of the men responsible for the creating some of Hammer’s most beloved films and horror franchises. After the success of those films, Sangster worked consistently with Hammer as a writer on dozens of films in the 60′s, including Dracula: Prince of Darkness. In the 70′s, Sangster tried his hand at directing and took on The Horror of Frankenstein and Lust For a Vampire.

Jimmy Sangster was married to his longtime wife and actress Mary Peach and they lived together in London.

New Hammer Films CEO Simon Oakes recently sat down to chat about the rebirth of classic Horror House Hammer Films with a few online sites. Oakes talked Hammer’s upcoming slate: Let Me In, the remake of critically acclaimed Let the Right One In; The Resident, with a star studded cast including Christopher Lee, Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Hillary Swanks; and Lady In Black based on the classic English novel of the same name. Highlights include discussing what American audiences can expect from Let Me In versus Let the Right One In, why Hammer Won’T be making films that glorify torture, and what the return of Christopher Lee to Hammer (in The Resident) means to Oakes personally. For fans of the genre who long to see it return to what it once was, Oakes offers exciting news, views, and insights into the future of Hammer. It’s a fantastic...