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ance, Fisher subsequently helmed The Hound Of the Baskervilles, The Mummy, The Curse Of the Werewolf, The Brides Of Dracula, The Two Faces Of Doctor Jekyll, The Phantom Of the Opera, The Gorgon and last but not least Dracula, Prince Of Darkness.
While Fisher was the most prolific of Hammer’s directors, others who worked at Bray during this period were John Gilling (The Plague Of the Zombies, The Reptile), Freddie Francis (The Evil Of Frankenstein), Don Sharp (Kiss Of the Vampire) and Michael Carreras (The Curse Of the Mummy’s Tomb). But it was Gilling who directed the very last Hammer horror at Bray, The Mummy’s Shroud, which wrapped on 21st October, 1966.
By November of that same year, the studio was closed down and Hammer had to find a new home. It seems incongruous now that The Hammer House Of Horror TV series they moved into Hampden House, a former girls’ school in Amersham where Steffanie Pitt, actress daughter of the company’s long time
favourite Horror Queen
Ingrid Pitt, had once herself
been a pupil.
During their tenure at Bray, many of the films pro- duced owed their success to the combined teamwork of production designer Bernard Robinson, Phil Leakey and Roy Ashton (make-up), Les Bowie (special effects), Jack Asher (director of photography) and editors James Needs, Bill Lenny and Eric Boyd-Perkins.
The summer of 1973
saw the studio renamed as
the Bray International Film
Centre with an extensive pro-
gramme of refurbishment
including the construction of
a vast new 10,000 ft sound
stage, plus an extension to
the lot and the addition of
more construction work-
shops and cutting-rooms.
The opening ceremony was
attended by Britain’s then
Film Minister Anthony Grant,
with the studio represented by executive director David Goodenough, managing director Tony Bagley and studio manager Larry Cleary.
Yet in outward appearance at least, lit- tle had seemed to have changed over four decades. Visitors still have to proceed along the winding path leading off the main Windsor road signposted opposite by a black and white clapperboard marked quite imposingly “Bray Studios”.
The Victorian façade of Oakley Court has been transformed by a multi-million pound facelift into a four-star luxury hotel with its nine-hole golf course, tennis courts and an additional accommodation annexe. Yet for many filmgoers it will always be remembered on screen as Dracula’s Castle and providing the gaunt exterior for The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Arthur Lowe lost his head here to bogus surgeon Vincent Price in the black
comedy, Theatre Of Blood; Jack Palance strolled across its lawns as a menacing Count Dracula for an American TV movie; while Oakley Court was base for the equal- ly horrendous schoolgirls in Launder and Gilliat ’s Wildcats Of St. Trinian’s, (for which Lord Delfont’s daughter, Susan, was stills photographer).
William Castle’s The Old Dark House was shot for Hammer on the studio’s back lot starring American Tom Poston and the supporting cast of Robert Morley, Janette Scott, Joyce Grenfell and Fenella Fielding.
“Being asked to direct the first Frankenstein was a stroke of pure luck,” for veteran director Terence Fisher. “Under the terms of my contract I was owed a film by Hammer, and this was it. I also believe that the first Dracula film was about the best thing I ever did for the company, by bring- ing out the sexual element in the story. It still looks very successful today.”
When Hammer moved to larger sets at Elstree and Pinewood, they had the advan- tage of the adjoining Black Park which ‘dou-
Samuelson Group took over in 1984, but the owners since 1990 have been Bray Management Ltd., who still run and manage the studio today with great effect.
Since the departure of Hammer, many notable films have been produced at Bray including Ken Russell’s The Music Lovers, John Schlesinger’s Sunday, Bloody Sunday, the Alistair MacLean thriller Fear Is the Key along with Pope Joan, producer John Heyman’s The Hireling, Ghost In the Noonday Sun, The Spiral Staircase and No Hiding Place. Derek Jarman shot Edward II with Steve Waddington and Tilda Swinton as Isabella, as did John Boorman for Hope And Glory. Norman Wisdom played a gangster in Double X, while there was the crime caper Loophole, Euan Lloyd’s The Sea Wolves, Queen And Country and A Month In the Country, starring Colin Firth and Kenneth Branagh, during the ‘Eighties.
Special effects have won a world- wide reputation for the gifted Bray crafts- men, whose skills have serviced Alien for
Ridley Scott, the Space 1999 TV series and Jim Henson’s The Witches, starring Anjelica Huston as Her Terrible Grandness, the evil high witch who turns all the country’s children into mice. In addition to a location base for film-makers, Bray is par- ticularly well suited for pro- viding rehearsal space, TV dramas, features, commer- cials and ‘pop’ promos.
The studio also hosted such renowned television series as Paradise Postponed, Terrahawks, Inspector Morse, The Manageress, Forever Green, Jeeves and Wooster, Titmuss Regained, Life After Life and Anglo-Saxon Attitudes.
The Royal Chamber Orchest ra and the Sadlers Wells Ballet rehearsed at Bray as well as many big bands along with such legends from the music world as Elton John, Paul McCartney, the Rolling Stones,
STALGIA
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bled’ for scenes in Dracula’s Transylvanian forest. Earlier, Burnham Beeches had been the location for Val Guest ’s Men Of Sherwood Forest.
But Bray had always been unique with its rural setting in the Berkshire country- side. The unmistakable aroma from neigh- bouring farms still permeates the air. On a nostalgic visit last year, the fields opposite the studio stretch as far as the eye can see, with aerial crop dusting in progress in a style most reminiscent of Hitchcock’s clas- sic film-noir North By Northwest.
Hammer fans came from far and wide in June last year when the famous studio played host to these faithful followers in celebration of the 40th anniversary of Dracula released in 1958.
During the late ‘Sixties, Bray had been under the control of Seeberg Management, before passing into the hands of Broadway House Properties in the mid-70’s. The
C l i f f
Collins, George Michael, Gloria Estefan, Sinead O’Connor, The Who and Take That!
R i c h ar d , R o d S t e w ar t , S t i n g , P h i l
The Hammer era is sadly for many long past, but certainly not forgotten. For those lucky enough to have been there in its Hammer heyday, Bray will always be a special studio like no other.
As recalled by Michael Car reras, “Having a permanent base for our unit was unique and very personal for us all. There was great warmth and atmosphere about the place. The films we made there will last forever. For everyone who worked there, Bray Studios was Hammer’s true home.”
According to the ever-evil Count Dracula himself (for children or aliens that’s the legendary Englishman and actor Christopher Lee) “Collaboration and tremendous dedication by a quite superb group of actors and technicians was the key to Hammer’s success. Even