Jigsaw feeling... The Exquisite Cadaver (1969), with Judy Matheson, Festival of Fantastic Films, Manchester

The more I think about it as I think it’s a fantastic piece of art… Three wonderful parts for women. all very good actresses, well at least the other two!

The very modest and very talented, Judy Matheson

 

There is no doubt that watching a film with an audience makes the experience richer and more emotionally engaging. That word, engagement, does so much heavy lifting these days, especially in the media world I live in where we fixate over how to truly measure it. Here, in what one of the film’s stars, Judy Jarvis (nee Matheson) described as probably the UK premiere for a film rarely seen anywhere for the last half century, I sat as the audience of cinephiles were absorbed in silence as they watched this most engrossing tale at the Festival of Fantastic Films.

“Fantastic” has, of course a double meaning as many of the films on this splendidly eclectic programme were not only Fantastic but Fabulous too, with others just beyond the descriptive reach of either word although Marian Marsh and John Barrymore were definitely both in Svengali (1931), the deeply “pre-code” first film of the day and, incidentally, I’m still having anxious flashbacks… “run Marian, run as fast as you can and do not look back!”

The Exquisite Cadaver was definitely the most fabulous and fantastic film especially when watching it in the company of 25% of the original cast. I think Judy was slightly apprehensive about how it would be viewed but she needn’t have worried, it’s a cerebral film and one that was exceptionally well choreographed by its director and co-writer Vicente Aranda (not a Svengali, just a very smart man!) known for his considered and personal films which included a long working relationship with the great Victoria Abril, and hits such as Forbidden Love (1991) and Forbidden Love/Cambio de Sexo (1976) – both with Abril – along with Lolita’s Club (2007) and The Blood-Splattered Bride (1972). Not bad for a man who didn’t direct his first film until his forties and, as Judy pointed out, is listed as an influence by Pedro Almodóva and many more.

Capucine

For this film he cast the legendary Capucine, whose next film was Fellini’s Satyricon (1970), established Spanish actor Teresa Gimpera, perhaps best known for The Spirit of the Beehive (1973), and the darkly handsome Argentine, Carlos Estrada whose first film was in 1954 and last in 1999. To complete his quartet of characters Aranda selected a young British actress whose only previous film experience had been in a bit part in Gregory Peck’s The Chairman (1969), Judy Matheson.

I met up with Judy before the screening and we talked about the film and her early career. Having learned her craft at drama school Judy joined the company at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre, the oldest performing theatre in the UK, with whom she had toured the USA performing in a triumvirate of Shakespeare plays, Hamlet, Measure for Measure and Romeo and Juliet with Jane Asher as the latter, who’s fab boyfriend Paul McCartney once joined them on Jane’s 21^st birthday.

There’s so much luck in my life. There was a little bit of imposter’s syndrome… the other actors were very serious and intimidating, I wasn’t quite ready for that.

Judy Matheson now Judy Jarvis

Judy is remarkably honest and modest but I think she is self-aware and recognises the stages of learning in her career. Working in repertory theatre was a way to get your Equity card but it also gave you a fast-track to the visceral learnings only being dropped into the deep end can provide. The American tour must have been the richest of experiences with Judy getting to meet Robert Kennedy, Louis Armstrong and many others. Meeting a Beatle must have felt almost routine in what was, as Judy says, the most brilliant first job!

Back in London, one of her fellow cast members, Janet Key, put her in touch with the agent Hazel Malone, whose roster included the cream of a new wave of up-and-coming British talent: Susan George, Judy Geeson, Malcolm McDowall, Richard O’Sullivan, Robin Askwith, Carol White and Luan Peters. Judy made an immediate impression with Malone and, as her next job was to prove, her eloquence and emotional intelligence helped her to establish common ground very quickly.

One of the things she sent Judy for was Vicente Aranda’s latest project, The Exquisite Cadaver. He was looking for a young English actress and after meeting Judy, cast her without a screen test, after which she was flown to Spain for fittings and what turned into an incredibly enjoyable, glamorous six-month production. Whilst this speaks of the budget Aranda had at his disposal, the film is so polished and well shot, there was also distributor pressure for some reshooting of “sexier” scenes as if these for performers could get any more eye-catching. They also asked for the film to be retitled Las Crueles a sexier title with a nod to Cluzet’s Les Diaboliques.

She was cast out of some 500 others up for this role (according to IMDB) and to get such a meaty part with equal screen time as these three more experienced performers shows how much Aranda saw in her. But there is, indeed, something about Judy and to this we can now add The English Abril… an actress who can emanate conflicting emotions from an almost unknowable core. She was clearly on the same page as Aranda and, as she points out how much harder it is for young actors now who have to audition via smart phone, back in the age of the landline, she was able to meet directors talking to them in depth, discussing ideas and finding that common ground. Not so luck but intellect.

Aranda was very considered and intellectually precise, he clearly had a deep vision for the kind of film he wanted to make as well as the kind of performer who he needed. The connection they made was key to the film’s success, after all, you know what you’re going to get with Capucine, but not from a relatively inexperienced English actress in Spain. His trust was palpably rewarded.

This is patient film making requiring discipline and perfect teamwork in front of and behind the camera. The title refers to the practice of assembling a collection of words or images from a number of people none of whom knows what the other has done. Invented by the surrealist movement, leading light André Breton reported that the exquisite cadaver started in fun, but became eventually enriching presumably by being either a mess or revelatory. Here we have four characters in search of meaning and a puzzle with four moving parts that includes so much that is open to interpretation; a real challenge to the audience to wrestle our presumptions away from the narrative we expect and the people we think they look and act, like.

Carlos feels the heat from Capucine

The film begins with Esther seemingly about to take the ultimate action of self-determination… walking towards a railway line and gently placing her head on the track as a freight train rapidly approaches… We then switch to Barcelona and a fractious publishing company where an executive referred to only as The Editor (Carlos Estrada) is in the middle of putting one of his writers in his place. It’s no accident that the character carries this title, he’s trying to control his existence, cutting out the sections he doesn’t like and imposing his own will, as far as possible on those around him. His pomposity is punctured by the arrival of a yellow (Giallo?) box containing what appears to be the hand of a young woman, although he firstly balls out the writer assuming it’s his “joke” and then quickly tells his secretary that it’s wax. All the same, he takes the hand and buries it.

At home he is also shown up as something of a stuffed shirt as his two boys shoot him with toy guns and ask him far too many questions about their pet tortoise, which he calls a reptile. He’s reminded of this when the poor creature dies and, in a pure Almodóvan moment, he throws it over into next door’s garden.

Also well aware of her old man’s tumultuous struggle with calm is his wife (Teresa Gimpera) who has endless patience coupled with growing suspicions, especially after a second yellow parcel arrives. Too panicked to open the parcel he walks into town and leaves it on a bench hoping someone will steal it, but it ends up back at the house where his wife opens it to find a dress and a photograph of a woman, Lucia Fonte (Capucine) not, as we expected, Esther. The Editor’s explanations do not convince his wife and she begins to follow him when she notices a glamorous woman in a chauffeur-driven Citroen tracking him as well.

The Editor gets driven by Lucia – calling herself Parker, so much misdirection – to her mansion where she has the strangest of encounters with him. She says she has an artificial hand, did she cut it off to scare him?  She makes him take LSD and leads him deep into the house listening to recording of Esther’s voice before revealing her perfectly preserved body in a fridge. It’s not a tiny British fridge but nor is it a grand American one, but it’s just about Judy sized and she must have struggled to stay cool in such a crushed position.

The Editor wakes up at home on his couch, was it a dream – did anything actually happen?

Lucia had called his wife to her house after, she says, The Editor, turned up looking for her… neither wife nor watcher are now sure who or what to believe. There follows a neat Antonioni-esque moment at the park when Mr and Mrs Editor utterly fail to communicate, talking in turn as the focus is pulled from one profile to the other. All the while, young men are flying a toy plane – it buzzes around like nagging doubt before landing on the couple and being snapped into pieces by The Editor, just like our constructed theories about the narrative.

In and out of focus: Teresa Gimpera and Carlos Estrada

Finally, we begin to discover the relationship Esther had with The Editor, with their initial meeting in a hotel and a fascinating interplay between a seemingly carefree young woman, counting what she calls sweets but what are treatments for her cancer. She asks him his star sign before saying hers is Cancer, another double meaning… in a world where reality has simply fallen through the floor. Later she will meet Lucia in a similar setting, and the two will begin a relationship after she has had her heart broken by The Editor’s unforgiving red pen.

There’s another fascinating scene with Esther and The Editor walking near a cliff, she says she could take the step to oblivion and, testing her, she takes ten paces back, removing her shoes and throwing them over and down, the final step made only conceptually this time. Is the hand Esther’s, did she die on the railway, was she killed by Lucia or by some other means of self-destruction? You’ll really have to watch and work it out for yourself…

As Judy says, this is an unusual film for featuring three strong roles for women and for a storyline in which the leading man is the least sympathetic character. He is the the centre of the disruption in their lives and the reason for that is his own insecurity and faithlessness. The women, distracting though one of them is, are only looking for sincere connections. It's a woman's film in so many ways as Judy says, addressing the consequences of selfish masculinity on their impact on the lives of those he loves.

Carlos and Judy on the cliff edge

Aranda sets so many traps for the viewer, unfolding the narrative via the individual character’s testimony either within the story or through their words. He is in the great Spanish tradition of Luis Buñuel, who knew Breton and those surrealists, through to Almodóva, a storyteller creating a distinct world and using atmospheres to unsettle and intrigue. He’s also clearly a fine director of his company and the love quadrangle is exceptionally well played.

Capucine, a near physical impossibility, has such protean depth that you are convinced her character is capable of anything, which is grand as you don’t really know what she has done. Carlos Estrada plays broodily confused so well and has the confused masculinity of an Antonioni male, lost in the subtext of life while all the while expecting that success and dominance will enable him to have his way. Teresa Gimpera’s portrayal shows she has already reached a position of distrust, batting away his excuses even whilst giving him the benefit of doubt as she fearlessly seeks out the truth. She is the detective in the film to Estrada’s perpetrator/editor.

And… Judy's is quite the most complete performance you could expect, especially for a youngster, away from home in Spain, facing a challenging role in circumstances quite different from touring with pals. Capucine especially was very supportive and both the other actors are generous in how they played alongside her. There’s a real curiosity and centred unpredictability about Judy’s character, Esther Casino (running out of luck?) a febrility somehow mixed with an interior detachment. She reminds me of Ian McShane in The Ballad of Tam Lin, another overlooked gem I watched the day after this one – whose character has to be almost a cypher but also one with agency when the moments come. So, Esther is to the maximum degree and with the added element of only gradually being unveiled to us.

Half a century after it’s premier at the San Sebastian Film Festival, The Cadaver was equally well received in Manchester. Let’s hope that this is the beginning of a wider rediscovery and that, as I suggested to Judy, we can look forward to a screening at the BFI with her and Theresa being interviewed by Mark Gatiss. Let’s make it happen!!

 

Hammer history… Peter Cushing in His Own Words, Cinema Museum

I normally come to this place to watch silent films many from the collection of Oscar-winning film archivist Kevin Brownlow who, through his interviews with silent film -makers in the sixties and seventies, helped to resurrect interest in this crucial period of cinema history. Kevin met with everyone from Pickford and Gish to Keaton, Chapin and Gish along with von Sternberg, Clarence Brown and King Vidor: he recorded the voices of those soon to be lost and preserved vital primary sources for future historians.

Derek Fowlds was one of the performers recorded for Richard Edward’s documentary on Peter Cushing and sadly it was one of his last filming engagements as he passed away in January. The cinematic world in which Cushing and Fowlds worked was vastly different from the silent period and yet it too is passing into history with many of the participants now heading into old age – as are we all. Documenting the era is, I would argue, as relevant as any film history and, whilst I’m not comparing Lust for a Vampire with Sunrise, I’m also not comparing The Roping Fool with The Hound of the Baskervilles or Peter Cushing’s ground-breaking performance as Winston Smith in the BBC’s 1984 (1954) with the work of George K Arthur. It's always been horses for courses and we love it!

It’s always important to remove the film-makers from their pigeon holes as “genre” and recognise their broader careers and skillset; many Hammer and other films of this time were made quickly – six weeks with no weekends – and on tiny budgets and they could do this because the teams all knew what they were doing; cast and crew all professionals to the core.

Richard Edwards and Peter Cushing in 1986

Judy Jarvis (nee Matheson) for example describes herself as a jobbing actor and she had a wide range of stage experience and formal training alongside the likes of Dame Helen Mirren enabling her to make the most of her iconic burning at the stake in Lust. She played off Cushing and was able to channel her genuine response to his fearsome change into character in the required sequence. Before these moments the older actor’s only concern had been for her and it was one of many examples of his soulful professionalism.

Cushing was undoubtedly a high-level performer and, having begun work in the late thirties, he only gradually attained top billing after years of smaller roles – you can see him briefly in Olivier’s Hamlet (1948) during the Prince’s fatal duel. Today he is remembered chiefly for his horror roles, playing perhaps the best Sherlock this side of Basil Rathbone (or, Eille Norwood if you want it silent and approved by the author!) and, depending on your age, Star Wars. Now, thanks to an interview Edwards recorded in the 80’s, we can also see that he was a decent impressionist too; not the best Frankie Howerd but passable!

Derek Fowlds

Edwards has been able to digitally recover his old C90 and he has combined Cushing’s career-long commentary with contributions from those who worked with him including Fowlds, Jarvis, Madeleine Smith, Valery Leon and others. Narrated by Jenny Hanley, the documentary includes many actorly tales and paints a picture of a committed and creatively generous individual, a man of faith and steadfast friendships too who mourned the loss of his wife as intensely as any living thing could bear and yet who still found vital purpose in his work.

There’s a precious recording of Christopher Lee filmed on VHS by Morris Bright MBE, now MD of Elstree, who talks of his close friendship with Cushing – perhaps it’s not too surprising to find that van Helsing and the Count got on so well?

Fowlds testimony, so close to his own passing, was especially poignant. He worked with Cushing on Frankenstein Created Woman (1967) and even though it was another short shoot, learned a lot from the older actor. Years later when enjoying the success of Yes, Minister, Derek got a letter from Peter praising his work on the series and saying how proud he was to be able to say they worked together. Fowlds kept it framed and on the wall of his office as indeed you would!

Maurice Bright, Richard Edwards and Brian Reynolds

Derek was supposed to have been here for tonight’s screening and his absence was felt even more during the post-screening Q&A. Maurice Bright hosted with a lively line in mischievous questioning for the first panel featuring not just Richard Edwards but also Brian Reynolds who, along with his fellow Elstree Runner, Phil Campbell, wrote Running Scared, tales of their time working on Hammer and other films at the studio.

Up next where the three leading ladies, described by Maurice as The Vampire Lovies and, as usual, they were delightful company, relishing the opportunity to talk about this period of their careers and much more besides. More than anything else of course, there was a lot of love for the evening’s main subject and all three attested to Peter Cushing’s influence, however brief on them. Valery Leon had only a day with the actor on Blood from the Mummy's Tomb before he had to leave the production after his wife’s diagnosis with emphysema.

Madeleine Smith worked with Cushing before and after the tragedy of his wife’s death and told of the physical impact of his grief but also his dedication to a profession that literally kept him going. Working hard, supporting those around you and creating lasting entertainment; it’s a terrific legacy and it’s good to understand the motivations and ethics that drove the man.

The Vampire Lovies

Richard Edwards also gave us a brief preview of another film he has almost completed; an extended interview with Derek Fowlds conducted last Autumn alongside his Cushing interview. I’ve a lasting image of Derek’s youthful smile as he walks down his “Hall of Fame”, posters of a life in film, television and theatre. Another visual testament to treasure.

You can watch Peter Cushing: In His Own Words on Amazon Prime.

Further details of Edwards’ films are available on his production company, Rabbit and Snail Films, website.

Running Scared is currently sold out but there are copies available on second hand sites and at events like tonights. Details are on the Peveril Publishing website.

Charmed… Captain Kronos – Vampire Hunter (1974) & Hammer Scream Queens, Phoenix Cinema Vampire Festival

To the four actors on stage before us, a part in a Hammer horror film could have been “just another job” with there being rent to pay, but it also provided the chance to find their way in this most competitive of careers at a time when British film was not exactly flourishing. Their backgrounds may have varied but in a profession in which filmmaking might only reward the truly inquisitive, they knew they had to make the most of any screen time, even if you were just being burned at the stake.

Judy Jarvis (nee Matheson) was formally trained and, as she put it, a “jobbing actor”, for whom working with people of the calibre of Peter Cushing was invaluable experience on a par, perhaps, with her time at the Liverpool Playhouse when, in between productions, she had to work shifts at George Henry Lees to support her room and board. Screaming as Mr Cushing burned her at the stake in Twins of Evil may not have been on an artistic level with her stage work at say, the Bristol Old Vic, Broadway or Sir Tyrone Guthrie's production of Measure for Measure, but it was part of her journey as a performer. It may also, as she said, have been the longest scream in cinematic history.

Caroline Munro, Judy Jarvis, Bruce G. Hallenbeck, Pauline Peart and Madeline Smith 

Madeline Smith would also learn from the actors around her and even chat up the crew to find out how the process worked, the lighting being important to any performer; just look what von Sternberg did for Marlene or Stiller for Garbo… All were at pains to stress the importance of collaboration and how script, director and crew could make or break any performance opportunity.

For Caroline Munro working with Christopher Lee enabled the self-trained actress to considerably raise her game: “I didn’t really have to act it because Christopher Lee was there and he was absolutely magnificent… The turning point was working with him as I hadn’t been to drama school and hadn’t done all the normal stuff you were supposed to do.” She learned on-set and acting became very instinctual for her, self-taught and "very driven by my feelings.”

There was similar praise for Peter Cushing who Caroline described as “… totally present which therefore made you present…” whilst Madeline echoed that thought: “…he totally inhabited the part and it inhabited him!” She described his work ethic on Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell (1974) when he’d go through the script every night making notes and additions even though his wife had just passed away.

The Queens on stage - both this and above courtesy of Miranda Gower-Qian, Phoenix Programme Director

Both Madeline and Judy feature in an upcoming documentary on the actor from Rabbit and Snail Films; it’s due for release in August details are on their website - link below.

The event was part of a Vampire Film Festival which saw screenings of key films at the Phoenix Cinema along with contributions from film makers. Tonight's was introduced by American horror expert Bruce G. Hallenbeck (author of The Hammer Vampire: British Cult Cinema) who talked about Hammer’s revitalisation of the vampire genre, showing clips from Dracula which he’d first seen aged five. Hammer didn’t create the vampire film but they perfected it commercially making cinema darker, more sexual and more graphic than anything seen before.

Another clip from the company’s last film, The Satanic Rights of Dracula (1973), featured Pauline Peart and a gaggle of glamourous blood-suckers being destroyed by sprinklers possibly containing holy waters. The reality was far from glamorous as the actress had to wear contact lenses that made her ordeal all the more uncomfortable: “I had to scream because I had contact lenses and my eyes were burning!”

Pauline Peart on the left coping with her cruel contacts

“I hate funerals! You must die, everyone must die!”

Hammer adapted J. Sheridan Le Fanu’s novella Carmilla with a lose trilogy starting with The Vampire Lovers, featuring Ingrid Pitt and Madeline Smith in one of the most talked about films of the seventies... in my school at least. It was followed by Lust for a Vampire and Twins of Evil both of which built on the successful formula and included Judy Jarvis (nee Matheson).

Madeline Smith and the great Ingrid Pitt in The Vampire Lovers

A clip from our main feature, Captain Kronos, followed showing the Captain rescuing Caroline Munro from the stocks for the crime of dancing on a Sunday, as she stands up, her hair is thrown back and that knowing smile gives a hint of the energy and adventure to come. Yes, Hammer is camp, but as Kronos was to show, not without its share of decent directors, writers and, of course, actors not the least of which are these famous Scream Queens.

Hallenbeck asked the four how they felt about this epithet and their response was refreshingly honest all round with some, no doubt, well-practiced zingers. Madeline Smith said that, in the Vampire Lovers she did indeed “…scream a lot, because Ingrid was biting me on an unspeakable place… “ There were also screams of frustration from Ingrid Pitt who hated her fangs and then a moment of reflection as we considered the time when her vampire teeth fell out into Kate O’Mara’s cleavage and “all the crew offered to retrieve them…”

Peter prays and Judy screams...

You were left with a picture of four people who had made the most of their opportunities, been kind and supportive and received the same in return. People who are happy to share such positive experiences with good humour and a smiling sense of perspective. Hammer films were part of a democratised industry which broadened opportunities and supported a very successful British studio against the odds. How fitting that those of us who watched and enjoyed can now examine them in more detail and listen to such enlivening accounts of the process as well as the personalities.

Like a lot of popular culture, productions that were only ever meant to have a limited commercial existence have gone on to enjoy a digital after-life and to be not only re-assesed critically but also enjoyed by new generations. There were plenty here tonight who are now viewing these films for the first time and in the broader context of their cultural significance. As Judy concluded: “It’s wonderful... to have this recognition so many years later. Thank you!”

Screening: Captain Kronos – Vampire Hunter (1974)

Horst on a horse

Made on a micro-budget of £160,000, Brian Clemens’ Captain Kronos was a thoroughly enjoyable mix of swash-buckle, folk horror and rather a-typical vampirism. It was intended to become part of a series featuring Horst Janson as the dashing blade and it’s understandably one of Hallenbeck’s favourites and that's high praise given that he’s seen them all and many times too.

Thinking of the elements highlighted by the Q&A, it was noticeable how strong the script was for this film as well as the cinematography of Ian Wilson and Laurie Johnson’s spirited score. There were lots of knowing references and, darn it, jokes such as when Dr Marcus (John Carson) touches Kronos war-wound and says he knows he has guts as he’s seen them. There’s even a bar scene in which a “guest-starring” Ian Hendry and two henchmen face off against Kronos only to be dropped by a swift flash of his blade: the sword play is stylishly unlikely until a prolonged battle at the death which probably carried a large part of the film’s stunt budget!

Hello Ms Munro

Kronos and his aide, Professor Hieronymus Grost (the excellent John Cater, one of so many experienced stage actors who would lend gravitas), are vampire hunters – even more fearless than Roman Polanski’s from 1968. They rescue a peasant girl Carla (Caroline Munro) and set off to the scene of the strangest of vampiric killings, young women hypnotised and then sucked of all vitality, left for dead looking like old crones.

There is indeed an energy and honesty from Caroline Munro in this role and she clearly had the instinct to go with her screen presence as she rose to the level of those around her. Her Carla adds a vital element to the hunters, bringing out Kronos’ human backstory and allowing the Professor to explain their methods. Handsome Horst Janson is also very good as Captain Kronos and having had a heavy German accent, is well-voiced by Julian Holloway who I had no idea was the son of Stanley...

Don't talk to strangers

As the young girls keep on being picked off, the intrepid team use dead toads to track the path of the vampires who will animate the amphibians should they pass over them. The finger of suspicion and the steel sword of vengeance soon point to the mansion of the Durward family who’s father Kronos had fought alongside: the most feared of swordsman. Is it the son, Paul (Shane Briant) or the daughter Sara (Lois Daine) or is there an even darker secret? Well, what do you reckon?

I liked the visual dynamics of the film with excellent use made of tight angles to accentuate tension and maintain the sense of forboding even amidst the comfort of a family home or a tavern. This is a skill the best of the Hammer films always used and here the menace and the "horror" are mostly in the mind with the anticipation of another bloody cut-away all set in the pastoral peace of the Hertfordshire countryside. 

Love the design of this room - all made vulnerable by the camera angle

It's hard to think of a more positive and affirming evening at the cinema so well done Phoenix, ace programmer Miranda Gower-Qian and all concerned, especially the Scream Queens - it was a pleasure to meet you all. This was also the first time I’ve seen a hammer horror film on screen since I was a teen sneaking into the Liverpool ABC near Lime Street, at least this time I didn’t have to fib about my age!

The Peter Cushing documentary featuring contributions from Judy Jarvis and Madeline Smith is due in August, details on the Rabbit and Snail Films website which also features snippets of other productions and interviews. There's also an interview with Judy Jarvis on her career and her Hammer films.

Captain Kronos lives on with a graphic novel from writer Dan Abnett and artist Tom Mandrake, it comes with an introduction from Caroline Munro.