TERENCE FISHER, HIS LIFE AND

HORROR FILMS
Daniel Arana

Terence Fisher and Hammer Films have, as fans and critics already know, benefited
well from each other, combining the company's money and the director's talent for the
revival of a genre that has fallen into disuse over the last twenty years: fantasy cinema.
From 1955 until the 1970s, the most prosperous age of British genre cinema began, that
is to say, Gothic Horror films. Let us see how its leader made it possible.
Fisher was born on 23rd February 1904 in Maida Vale (London). He lost his father at an
early age and had his education taken over by his grandparents and mother, an
education that was bound to be classical English, because his grandparents were born
and raised at the Victorian era. He was therefore sent to a military school. At the age of
sixteen, he finished his studies and, at his mother's request, was taken on board the
Conway to attend maritime classes. He sailed until he obtained the rank of petty officer.
It was at his twenties when he decided to change his life, because, although he has
already travelled a lot, his passion for the seas and oceans has never really won him
over. There, looking for a job, he will content himself for six years with being an
apprentice fabric merchant. At the beginning of the 1930s, there were few distractions.
Terence Fisher then became passionate about cinema, and more particularly about its
technical aspects. He wanted to become an editor.
By dint of hanging around the studios, asking for small jobs and insisting, he ended up
being hired as a clapper boy. After several years of good and loyal service as third
assistant director, he finally becomes chief editor. In 1947, by pure chance, director and
founder of the Rank Organization, Sir J. Arthur Rank, was looking forward to renew his
stock of directors. Terence Fisher, a little tired from a decade of editing, felt
irremediably attracted to filmmaking, so he set out on the adventure. After some lessons
of purely technical nature, he was chosen to try at some medium-length films. A great
admirer of John Ford and Frank Borzage, he conscientiously applies all he has learnt
through the films of his masters. His first medium-length film, Colonel Bogey (1948),
was already an incursion into the realm of fantasy, telling the story of a ghost, Uncle
James, who continues to haunt his home, still inhabited by his wife. It stands clear that
Fisher's talent, despite taking a long time, made him get his complete and favourite
profession.
In 1951, perhaps Fisher’s most important year, William Hinds hired Terence Fisher for
his company, Hammer Films, created in the mid-thirties by William Hinds and Enrique
Carreras. After the war, it would take five years and some fifteen films together for
Terence Fisher and Hammer Films to find their way, reinventing fantasy genre. Fisher's
films during this first period are very rare and not worthless, but we have to concentrate
on what happens in November 1956. Anthony Hinds recalls Fisher within Hammer
because he owes him a film (by contract). Hammer Films has just had some success
with Val Guest’s masterpiece, The Quatermass Xperiment, starring the great Brian
Donlevy as a marvellous, reactionary scientific, and Fisher decides to go into the deep
seas of fantastic films. The rights to Frankenstein being public, Jimmy Sangster writes a
different scenario from what has been done so far. Peter Cushing, who was working by
then in television, and had always refused Hammer's advances, told the producers that
he was very interested. Everything is ready for the beginning of the golden age of
English fantasy film.
Jimmy Sangster and Terence Fisher decided to reread Mary Shelley's novel, trying to
forget, at many ways, the earliest adaptations made by Universal and James Whale. First
of all, the action is placed in post-Victorian England, the bourgeois will often be shown
as decadent, the people are also of supreme importance in Fisher's films, we will see
how present they are, often as willing victims. In The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), the
victim is, among other things, Frankenstein's maid. But the biggest change occurs on the
film’s main character: it will no longer be, for the first time, the creature (which only
appears after an hour of filming) but the baron himself. He is transformed into a young
nobleman whose generosity and kindness are only pure appearances, and through a
perfectly mastered editing, Fisher will often oppose in the film the Baron's attitude to
the city and in private.
One of the most successful moments is certainly the one in which gorgeous Hazel Court
declares that her dearest wish has always been to marry Baron Frankenstein, and later,
another shot displays him, at the same time, kissing the maid. Other example is his
proposal to offer a place in his family vault to a scientist who has just died. As a result,
the baron is considered by all to be a benefactor thanks to this noble attitude. But what
he has done, in fact, is to murder the scientist in question and we learn how he offers
him his vault so that he can quietly remove his brain. A strong character therefore, who
could have put the creature completely in the background, fortunately, Christopher Lee's
charisma and talent allow him to impose himself at the most propitious moment.
Especially, the scene in which he is shot in the woods, in the colours of autumn, where
Fisher creates an astonishing contrast: nature is natural, therefore beautiful, and the
creature is an unnatural creation, therefore monstrous. These two aspects, put into
competition with a lot of talent by Fisher, are at the origin of the most poetic scene of
the film, once again, in complete opposition to the baron's attitude.
In April 1957, a copy of the film was sent to executives of Warner Bros, who,
impressed and positive of its impact, showed the film to Jack Warner himself. As a
result, given the final success, Hammer had no problem obtaining the rights to exploit
Dracula, so with certain logic, at the end of 1957, the shooting of Horror of Dracula
began, probably Terence Fisher at his best, a complete masterpiece and one of the
greatest films ever made. Horror of Dracula is quite remarkable in its intention to
renew again the original novel in many aspects, by means of the employ of special
effects, both for artistic purposes and to make substantial savings. Fisher and Sangster
eliminated Count Dracula’s possibility of turning himself into a bat, a wolf or a fog
bank, and they placed the action in only one Central European country. Sangster added
a prop that had never before appeared in the cinema: the vampire's abnormally long and
pointed canines, which will become the most widely used distinctive sign. The other
significant change consisted in simplifying the plot, in which most of the characters are
voluntarily forgotten (Renfield, in the first place), and once again, to return to the novel,
they decided to build the film in the same way Bram Stoker wrote his book, that is to
say, by using the principle of points of view (the novel is largely made up of epistolary
exchanges, diaries, etc.). Thus, the film opens with Harker's journal, although he is
introduced as a vampire hunter and positive hero from the very beginning. Fisher and
Sangster quickly remove him, so the effect is astonishing and gives the Count Dracula
even more power, evil aura and invincibility. The question that immediately comes to
mind is if he can be stopped.
Moreover, Dracula is featured, not systematically and only as a bloodthirsty monster,
but rather as a real seducer: he is endowed with such an aura that one can hardly believe
that he only appears for ten minutes in the film. In fact, even when invisible, his
presence is constant. The count, or at least his evil presence, is everywhere. In an
extraordinary scene, everyone is watching the surroundings of the house, waiting for the
possible intrusion of the Count, and we can perfectly notice that he is already inside,
hidden in the cellar, so the evil is (as we had presumed) already in that place. In
opposition to Dracula/Lee, Peter Cushing gives the spectator a much more classical Van
Helsing, a very British, holmesian character and, in any case, much less vulgar than the
one originally portrayed by Stoker. Even if he is seen much more often than the vampire
on the screen, his presence is eclipsed by the omnipresent evil. Another new and
important aspect of this adaptation is eroticism, of course -already with a certain
presence if we consider the seductive aspect of Baron Frankenstein-, which has a value
of its own, thanks to some particular scenes. Above all, we should point at the moment
in which the attractive vampire woman, killed by Harker with a stab in the heart. It has a
powerful sexual interpretation, apart from those bites in the neck, which also allowed
showing those pretty actresses’ neck and shoulders. Critics were divided but, in any
case, the names of Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Hammer Films and Terence Fisher
will be synonymous of a real fantasy revival.
Later on, Fisher, being short of material at the time, chose to take the same one and start
again, with The Revenge of Frankenstein (1958), even superior to the first of the series.
The film starts where the first one ended. The sequel tells us about the adventures of the
Baron trying to help a friend to find a carnal envelope in good condition, his own being
seriously damaged. The film focuses entirely on the character of the Baron, much less
criticisable than in the first Frankenstein: he has (by force) left high society, and has
become more human, closer to the people. A constant throughout Fisher's Victorian
work, we find throughout the film this strong contrast between poor and rich.
Nevertheless, The Revenge of Frankenstein would not work for critics and the reason is
rather simple, because the Creature is not there like it was at the first movie and the hero
is definitely the Baron. Moreover, Fisher and Sangster had allowed themselves a few
moments of very tasty black humour, for example, Frankenstein’s removal of a
pickpocket’s arm.
Next year, Fisher, mastering well the Victorian atmospheres, decides to adapt a Conan
Doyle classic, which borders the fantastic, The Hound of the Baskervilles, in 1959.
Fisher takes great pleasure in contrasting decadent nobility with Holmes' Victorian
rationalism, or, in other words, charming evil with ambiguous good, which is good only
because it opposes evil, but not really pure and absolute. Once again, the film goes on
with a lot of humour, notably in the character of the minister played by Miles Malleson.
Peter Cushing performs a relatively classic Holmes with all his talent. The film is above
all a plastic success: sets, all in mist, allow a particularly successful mixture of colours,
another great work by Fisher's favourite cinematographer, Jack Asher.
After that, there is another project entrusted to Fisher by Hammer Films, The Man Who
Could Cheat Death, which has only a very limited interest, partly because of Jimmy
Sangster’ screenplay. It is true that Fisher tries by all means to make the film much less
talkative and static than what the script proposed, but still, it remains quite boring. So,
to restart the machine, we have to go back to the classics already adapted by Universal
Pictures, and thus, Jimmy Sangster is asked to tackle the numerous stories of mummies
and make a synthesis. Apart from the fact that Sangster seemed unable to transcend the
subject or to make something else than an amalgam of clichés, delivering a poor script, I
consider Terence Fisher’s The Mummy (1959) a great film. Though it is bathed in a
certain naivety and the tension regularly collapses, Fisher and Asher placed all of his
attention on the visual aspect, with a remarkable use of Technicolor and the
magnificence of some scenes, such as those that take place in the swamp, simply
sublime. Moreover, Christopher Lee, all wrapped in strips and covered in mud, gives an
extremely clear and sensitive interpretation.
Still in 1959, Fisher tackles a curious subject: a film about the Thug sects. The movie is
entitled The Stranglers of Bombay and remains as one of its director's major
achievements. Shot in black and white, it conveys images and scenes of a sadism rarely
achieved at the end of the 1950s. This sadism and cruelty are embodied by an actress,
with a very small role, Marie Devereux, physically enjoying each scene of torture.
Photography and direction are as remarkable as entertaining turns out to be its
exoticism.
Without leaving 1959, Fisher and Wolf Mankowitz (his scriptwriter at the moment)
adapted Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Despite
the good idea of reversing the beauty and ugliness of Jekyll and Hyde, the unusual
strength of certain scenes (Jekyll's wife commits suicide after a rape, things that we had
only just begun to show in the cinema), the magnificent painting of the London
shallows (the bourgeoisie and the low people, Fisher’ speciality and a constant in his
work, as we have already said)... despite all this, the film remains rather disappointing.
Some reasons for this could be that the topic has already been used in screen many
times in the cinema (and especially in the theatre) and apart from making it much less
politically correct, Fisher and Mankowitz never manage to make the story really
exciting. Maybe the film lacks a bit of rhythm or maybe we expected a more appealing
story, like Roy Ward Baker’s Dr Jekyll and Sister Hyde (1972). In The Two Faces of Dr.
Jekyll, one can sense that the screenplay is prisoner of convention, for many parts
remain liaison scenes and the contrast with the stronger ones is too pronounced, unlike
Mamoulian’s 1931 extraordinary adaptation. Fisher has not been able to maintain the
tension throughout the film. Besides, an inadequate actor such as Paul Massie
will by far not reach Fredric March’s interpretative levels.
At this point of his career, even if Fisher has known a small failure of good scenarios,
his next film, The Brides of Dracula (1960) is absolutely exceptional. In particular,
what concerns David Peel’s interpretation of Baron Meinster (a sort of Dracula) and, of
course, Peter Cushing’s timeless Van Helsing. We should not also forget the ending,
where the entire director's talent is exposed. Fisher’s next horror film has a beginner
actor in it, playing the leading role, Oliver Reed. Our filmmaker has been entrusted with
a big project, The Curse of the Werewolf, based on Guy Endore’s well known story. For
the first time in Fisher’s career, we find a love tale which, along with the omnipresence
of religion, is the central pillar of the film. The opening scene is one of the cruellest ever
filmed by Fisher: a beggar is ridiculed, tortured and thrown into oblivion by a local
nobleman (abject and decadent, syphilitic). The beggar, who has become bestial through
a long incarceration, is joined by a mute maid. From the meeting of these two beings a
rape takes place, from which a cursed child is born. A werewolf is born, if you allow me
the joke. The passion that drives Oliver Reed, the omnipresence of the church and the
people (potential lynch mob) gives Fisher all the breath necessary for a great success.
The director, highly motivated by the subject, finds the inspiration he had been lacking
for these last two films. And so much the better.
In 1961, Hammer Films announces the launch of one of its most expensive productions,
The Phantom of the Opera, a new adaptation of Gaston Leroux’s masterpiece. However,
the script should have emphasized the fantastic aspect, forgetting the sad romantic love
affair. In the same way, Hammer Films should have used a better screenwriter than John
Elder and, above all, the company should never have got rid of Terence Fisher’s director
of photography, the great Jack Asher. For these reasons, the result is quite
disappointing, despite two or three good scenes (including the opening), and the rest of
the film proves to be boring, rather ugly. Sets are nothing grandiose, the actors (and
their roles) inconsistent. I must admit that disappointment is equal to what we expected
from such an adaptation with such a director. Still, Fisher manages to overcome, at
least, Arthur Lubin’s tiresome adaptation of 1943 or George Waggner’s The Climax
(1944), a disguised remake, even more tedious.
The following year, Terence Fisher made an international co-production (with France,
Germany and Italy), a new Sherlock Holmes adventure, Sherlock Holmes und das
Halsband des Todes (Sherlock Holmes and the Deadly Necklace). Once again,
disappointment is here to stay. Reasons are numerous: Fisher is not interested in the
film, he just does his work with correction, Curt Siodmak said that the script was
rewritten many times by German producers and, last but not least, Christopher Lee (who
plays Sherlock Holmes) is dubbed, even in the original version, by an American actor
(sic). Fisher shoots lesser films per year, finally reducing his activity to one. In 1963, he
has the dishonour to release one of his worst films, The Horror of It All, vaguely
inspired by Dame Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None (1939). A psychotropic
comedy, filled with clichés, thick humour and too many characters out of place, which
even includes an outrageous song played by Pat Boone (sic again).
Fortunately, the same year, Fisher takes his opportunity to find an essential element of
the miracle team in the person of Peter Cushing, who keeps Christopher Lee and obtains
the collaboration of the great John Gilling. For a change, they will transfer a story from
Greek mythology to Central Europe to find their marks. A fantastic film, full of
romantic aspects, which features a character colonized by both good and evil, in
constant struggle, The Gorgon is one of Fisher’s masterpieces, not inferior to the
Dracula and Frankenstein adaptations. The idea of creating a new monster shows a
willingness to renew the bestiary, not to stick to the creatures already staged by
Universal in the 30s (Frankenstein’s creature, Dracula, the Mummy, the Phantom of the
Opera and the Werewolf).
Next film, The Earth Dies Screaming, is, despite its lack of resources, filled with good
ideas. It was released by Planet Films Productions, a company established by Tom
Blakeley and Lance Comfort in 19621. The story is already reminiscent of the
magnificent paranoid films that populate the cinematographic universe of the 1950s: a
pilot, just after landing, discovers that the population has been eliminated in its entirety
(at least that is what he thinks). It is the result of a conspiracy of some nasty robots that
kill everyone. As in Don Siegel's Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), a small group
of survivors will do everything they can to stop the invasion. Not much point, one might
say, but the film is rather well made, though budget seems to have been reduced to its
simplest expression, and never lacks in strong and effective scenes. This is a film that
would make the happiness of night-time fans.
In 1965, since the artistic failure of The Phantom of the Opera, nothing is going well for
Fisher. It is true that we can feel a rise in motivation with The Gorgon, but nothing big
all the same. There is only one solution left to make up for the breakdown of the script:

1
Vid., ARANA, Daniel. 2014. «Cast a Hammer shadow: notes on other Brit-horror companies», in We
Belong Dead (Brighton, n. 14), pp. 54-60
to give a new sequel to Horror of Dracula. The screenplay of Dracula, Prince of
Darkness was written by Jimmy Sangster and it has the peculiarity of having a rather
good story, even with the vampire’s dialogues absolutely reduced. The explanation is
simple: Christopher Lee did not want to play the role of Dracula anymore, because he
was afraid he would be locked up there for his whole career, so he asked the producers
to be paid per day. As a result, the producers contacted Jimmy Sangster, and asked him
to keep the appearances of the Count to a minimum. Fisher, rather than filming
ridiculous dialogues, chooses to give the vampire a much more animalistic manner,
wincing and grunting in each one of his short appearances. Contrary to what one might
think, the result is pretty excellent and it allows Fisher to focus his attention on a satire
of the bourgeoisie, of the ridiculous nobility and its Victorian morals. In addition, some
scenes go further into sadism and violence: we see a victim crucified upside down (a
satanic rite intended to resurrect Dracula) and drained of her blood. The final scene,
which occurs on the castle moat, covered with a thick layer of ice, is also quite
memorable. The only pitiful thing about this film, too often underestimated, is that it
would be Terence Fisher's last Dracula. However, it became one of his masterpieces and
also one of the best horror movies of all time, along with its two vampiric predecessors.
The following year, Fisher returns to a mixture of science fiction and horror with the
extraordinary Island of Terror, again produced by Planet Films. It is one of the most
interesting products of Brit-horror, wonderfully filmed and scripted and, by all means,
incomprehensibly underrated. An excellent movie, it features a most simple but yet
curious plot: at a cancer research lab off the coast of Ireland, a group of scientists dies
under mysterious circumstances. Before anyone notices their demise, the human and
bovine inhabitants of the little island begin to turn up dead. Two renowned bone
doctors, Brian Stanley (Peter Cushing) and David West (Edward Judd), are dispatched
from the mainland to solve this medical mystery. It is a very well done film which
follows a similar structure than in Fisher’s Dracula (1958) or The Mummy (1959): a
small community trapped in a dangerous menace from the exterior2.
Even more fisherian, sort of speak, would be his next film Frankenstein Created
Woman (1967). It starts with lots of irony: Baron Frankenstein is thawed out,
resurrected. Later on, the story needs to be renewed. Rather than cutting its flesh, the
modern Baron creates his new monster choosing the much cleaner method (in the
physical, not ethical sense) of soul transferring. Thus, the myth evolves, Frankenstein
no longer takes himself for God, and he is content to empty one vase into another.
Another fascinating aspect of the film is sexuality, with Frankenstein’s androgynous
monster (a young woman with the soul of a man) flirting with everything to satisfy his
desire for revenge. Though one cannot say that this part of Frankenstein's adventures is
as good as the others, Fisher takes a certain, satirical distance from the myth and his
filming is as elaborate as the others3.
Still in 1967, Fisher returns once again to good old basic SF with the last Planet Films
production, Night of the Big Heat. Interesting but much inferior than the previous PFP
film, Fisher does the best he can when telling the story of what is happening on the
British island of Farra which, while the mainland is shivering through a severe cold
snap, is experiencing an incredible, and baffling, heat wave. The story takes place in the
main around pub –in 60’s Brit-horror, the presence of a pub was almost compulsory-,
2
Vid., ARANA, Daniel. 2007. «S.O.S., el Mundo en Peligro», in Laberintos (Zaragoza, nº14), pp. 58-59
and also ARANA, Daniel. 2014. «Island of Terror», in We Belong Dead (Brighton, n. 12), pp. 56-58
3
Vid., ARANA, Daniel. 2014. «Frankenstein Created Woman: Hammerian Intersections of Gender, Sex
and the Monster», in We Belong Dead (Brighton, n. 15), pp. 30-31
where pub’s landlord and crime novelist Jeff Callum (Patrick Allen) investigates a
series of bizarre accidents and deaths, with locals talking of strange lights and whirring
sounds. Into this confusion, he will join forces with the mysterious Hanson (Lee), an
extremely private scientist who spends most of his time prowling the fields setting up
cameras, and a doctor played by Peter Cushing, to clear up the truth.
Next year, Richard Matheson, who had work previously for Hammer Films in Fanatic
(Silvio Narizzano, 1965), works at Fisher's side with a superb scenario, The Devil Rides
Out, adapting a novel of Dennis Wheatley. Fisher is thrilled, and he is not the only one:
the actor Christopher Lee, in his role of the Duc de Richleau, sees there the occasion to
integrate his great knowledge in the field of the occult, for example, the rite of exorcism
which takes place in the film is a real one, studied by Lee thanks to his personal library.
Fisher rediscovers the pleasure of filming, works on colour, offers a perfectly rendered
symmetry between good and evil from the point of view of staging, and when we see
that the special effects have benefited from a few extra means, we can say without
exaggeration that the whole is particularly successful. The Devil Rides Out is an
extraordinary piece of work.
Well, one could say that Fisher is saved. But things are not always what they seem,
because fate intervenes and Fisher breaks his leg crossing the street, beginning a series
of health problems and being replaced by Freddie Francis on the set of Dracula Has
Risen from the Grave. After almost a year without shooting, in 1969, Hammer Films,
certainly out of scripts, decides to shoot a new Frankenstein, and entrusts it to Fisher. A
great idea since it is his speciality (even if he has already declared that his favourite
myth is Dracula). Fisher will go all the way and the title alone would be enough to sum
up the spirit of the film: Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed. We can notice and feel the
relative hatred Fisher has for the Baron: he is shown killing at the slightest annoyance
or, for instance, raping the owner of the boarding house where he lives. He has never
been so abject, vile and out of touch with reality, an impression that is emphasized by,
among others, the very relaxed play of Cushing, more Frankenstein than ever. In
contrast to this, never before has so much tenderness been felt for the creature, an
ultimately innocent victim, whom Fisher treats with great respect. Direction is
flamboyant and our filmmaker succeeds in his framing and dolly shots, avoids useless
effects, maintains a rhythm and violence perfectly in line with the Baron's destructive
acts (it should be noted, in particular, that the film is much more gory than the others).
This is one of the best Frankenstein films of Fisher’s filmography and there is no doubt
about it.
We could say again that the filmmaker is saved, but his health problems and his struggle
with alcoholism force Fisher not to shoot anything else until four years later. And as
interesting scenarios are not legion, as the fashion of English horror films seems to fall
slowly into oblivion, it will be for Fisher an ultimate start, a decisive film on the subject
that he will have gone through length and breadth. For the last time, now in 1973, Baron
Frankenstein returns. Last of all, Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell is a dark,
sordid film, which features the Baron with burnt hands, even more ignoble and
insensitive than ever. The monster, alienated, has practically no interest but as a killing
machine. It constitutes a testament film for Terence Fisher, full of references to the
other episodes of the series, worked with care but without any real motivation.
Physically, Fisher is too weakened. It must be said that Hammer Films, in full decay, no
longer had the means to fulfil its ambitions. Fisher stops making movies once and for
all, he is seventy years old and feels rather tired and sick. He makes a few appearances
at the Paris Fantastic Film Festival (notably to present his last film, with a memorable
ovation), with Peter Cushing, and will not shoot a new Dracula as announced. He died
of cancer on 18th June 1980 in Twickenham.
As a final reflection, we can say that Fisher is far from having made only masterpieces,
as one sometimes reads in the articles of certain newspapers. Yet, Fisher's best
productions are not so much, but that much. More important than anything else, he
invented a style: Fisher represents, along with Hammer Films, a whole era of fantastic
cinema and its own revival. His movies are also the result of a group of technicians,
actors and authors who have managed to renew a genre that was thought to be
exhausted. If we had to say something about Fisher’s skills, we should remark the
narrative and visual restraints he brought to some potentially lurid material. He tended
mostly to avoid close-ups, preferring to generate a disturbing atmosphere through decor
and brooding colours (saturated blacks, blues and reds). Fisher was not specially an
audacious, pioneering or philosophical filmmaker, but a man who brought cleverness,
sobriety and pictorial stylishness to a genre often considered not respectable.