Hello, welcome and where am I? Oh yes another great trouser-filler from the host with the most
...bones,
Nigel Honeybone from that frightful delightful television show THE SCHLOCKY HORROR
PICTURE SHOW. Sit back as I present Nigel as he presents that wonderful
British tourist trap known as
Horror Hotel, starring two of the tallest baritones ever to grave celluloid,
Christopher Lee and
Valentine Dyall. Although made in
England, Horror Hotel is set in the
USA, and you can sometimes hear the actors slip in and out of their accents.
It's easy to make fun of its clichés, but the truth is Horror Hotel created many clichés that were later done to death and, at its best, contains some genuinely creepy scenes and a plot twist or two. But I should warn all you practicing witches out there, I don't think you're going to be terribly happy with tonight's movie, mostly because it depicts all of you as evil devil-worshippers. You're probably getting used to this by now, and if it really annoyed you, surely you would have done something about it. That's not a suggestion, by the way. But if you can take a joke and your Wiccan sensibilities are not easily offended, be prepared for one of
Britain's very best films of the sixties. Before
The Wicker Man, before
Hot Fuzz, before that lame remake of The Wicker Man starring
Nicolas Cage, and before
The Wicker Tree, there will always be...Horror Hotel or if you prefer the more atmospheric title
City Of The Dead in its native England, but the USA changed its title to avoid confusion with
Detroit and also removed two minutes of footage. Still, any excuse to discuss this excellent exercise in atmosphere is good enough for me. It may not be a masterpiece, but it's definitely worth discovering. Horror Hotel has been compared to
Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho due to some structural similarities. Both films begin by establishing an attractive young blonde as the main character, leading the audience to assume that she'll be the protagonist for the remainder of the story. In both films, the blonde travels to a isolated location and checks into a motel run by an eccentric manager - which is essential for any exciting holiday - and both films were made the same year - 1960. This was the very first horror film from the team of
Milton Subotsky and
Max Rosenberg.
Later, the duo would form Amicus and produce many deadly homes and garden titles including
Doctor Terror's
House Of Horrors,
Torture Garden,
The House That Dripped Blood, and The Shrubbery Of
Fear, which was quickly buried.
Tonight's director,
John Llewellyn Moxey, went on to direct Kolchak
The Night Stalker in
1973. Written by
Richard Matheson and produced by
Dan Curtis, The Night Stalker became the most-watched made-for-TV movie, until
Elvis The Movie starring
Kurt Russell directed by my old friend
John Carpenter.
Betta St. John, who plays
Patricia Russell, made her film debut when she was only ten years old in
Destry Rides Again followed by
Jane Eyre - I'm not calling a horse race, those are two different films. She then went to work in the
Rodgers and Hammerstein sweatshop, starring on stage in
Carousel and
South Pacific, after which she appeared in
The Robe,
Dream Wife, All
The Brothers Were
Valiant,
The Law Versus Billy The Kid,
The Student Prince, and a couple of
Tarzan films. Tonight's epic, Horror Hotel, was the final straw that broke the camel's back, and drove poor Miss
St. John into retirement. Nan
Barlow is played by
Venetia Stevenson, who was born with a celluloid spoon in her mouth, being the daughter of director
Robert Stevenson and actress
Anna Lee.
Born in England, she moved to
Hollywood immediately when her father signed as a director for
David Selznick. In
1956, at age seventeen she married and divorced diminutive dancer
Russ Tamblyn, then in 1962 married
Don Everly of the
Everly Brothers and retired from acting, after only eight minor movies and about as many television appearances. The actor I really want to talk about is Valentine Dyall, known for many years as
The Man In Black, the narrator of the
BBC Radio horror series Appointment With Fear. He was such a good actor that no-one ever noticed he was actually wearing tweed.
Around the same time he made guest appearances in
The Goon Show sending himself up as
The Man In
Grey due to a mix-up at the dry cleaners. Later he could be seen as the sinister caretaker of
Hill House in the
Robert Wise film
The Haunting, and heard in the radio,
album, television, semaphore and wax roll versions of
The Hitchhiker's Guide To
The Galaxy. He also had the opportunity to put words into
Woody Allen's mouth in the chaotic mess known as
Casino Royale, but he spent his last years wearing a dead crow on his head as
The Black Guardian in
Doctor Who stories, including
The Armageddon Factor,
Mawdryn Undead,
Terminus and
Enlightenment, not to mention the
Blake's Seven episode
City At
The Edge Of
The World. Oh dear, I just mentioned Blake's Seven, didn't
I? I promise it won't happen again.
- published: 24 Sep 2012
- views: 5531