Progress Report Two for the 11th Festival of Fantastic Films
Sept 8th to 10th 2000.

Publishing Date: June 2000

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Guests for 2000

Antonio Margheriti

Antonio is a prolific Italian movie Director, who has also been, throughout his long career, a Producer and Screenwriter.

Beginning his career in 1950 as an assistant editor, he graduated to directing documentaries and travelogues, before becoming involved in directing special effects in the mid-50's.

He directed his first feature film 'Assignment : Outer Space' (AKA 'Spaceman') in 1960, which he also co-wrote.

He made a number of movies under the anglicised name of Anthony M. Dawson. Not to be confused with the late British character actor Anthony Dawson famous for trying to kill Grace Kelly in Hitchcock's 'Dial M for Murder'.

Antonio's films include a mixture of Science Fiction, Horror and Action movies, including directing Festival favourite and previous guest the late lamented David Warbeck in 'The Last Hunter' (1980), as well as 'Castle of Blood' (1964), 'Seven Dead in the Cat's Eye' (1973), 'War of the Planets' (1965), 'Hercules', 'Prisoner of Evil Terror' (1964), 'The Unnaturals' (1969) and probably his most well known, the famous 'Cannibal Apocalypse' (1980).


Martine Beswick

Jamaican born Martine was one of the original Bond girls having appeared in two of the Sean Connery movies, namely 'From Russia With Love' (1962) and 'Thunderball' (1965).

Her Hammer career began with the 1966 Ray Harryhausen version of 'One Million Years BC' as well as the 1968 film 'Slave Girls' (AKA 'Prehistoric Women'), although to genre fans her most successful role was as the distaff side in 'Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde' (1971), with the late great Ralph Bates as 'her other half'. Later genre appearances subsequent to her move to the US include 'The Offspring' (1987), 'Seizure' (1974), 'Evil Spirits' and 'Trancers II' both 1991.


Brian Clemens

With Martine appearing at this years Festival it seemed appropriate to reinvite Brian Clemens, who wrote and co-produced the aforementioned 'Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde' in which she appeared.

So returning for a second visit is this prolific British writer, producer and director whose many television credits, usually with his producer partner Albert Fennell, include such notable series as 'The Avengers' (Original and New), and 'The Professionals', plus his recent collaboration with Festival stalwart Steven Gallagher on the series 'Bugs'.

Brian has had a distinguished movie career including writing - co-producing and directing the much underrated 'Captain Kronos Vampire Hunter' in 1972, as well as co-writing the 1960 version of 'Tell-Tale Heart' and 'The Golden Voyage of Sinbad' (1973) for Ray Harryhausen.

Brian also wrote 'See No Evil' (1971) and co-wrote/co-produced 'And Soon the Darkness' (1970).

His appearance at our 1991 Festival was much regarded and it will be great to have him return to see us.



Film Programme for 2000

The Film Programme First Draft

As the deadline for locating prints closes in, we'll be tightening our net to a final line-up of titles in this year's retrospective film programme. The movies you see below are in with a good chance of going through to the final line-up, but as always at this stage we do point out that some of the prints have still to be sourced and confirmed.

1920's

THE GOLEM & HOW HE CAME INTO THE WORLD (1920)

Paul Wegener's second filming (he co-directed with Henrik Galeen a version in 1914) of the Jewish folk legend about a Rabbi who creates a souless monster out of clay only to have it fall in love with his own daughter.

1930's

DEATH TAKES A HOLIDAY (1934)

Directed by Mitchell Leisen and starring Fredric March as Prince Sirki (Death) who arrives on Earth at a Riviera party and falling in love with Evelyn Venable decides to linger among the mortals. While he is here, nobody dies.

SHE (1935)

Merian C. Cooper's epic production directed by Irving Pichel and Lansing C. Holden has some incredible sets and wonderful art deco designs. Randolph Scott is the lucky explorer who She- who- must- be - obeyed has an eye for! Terrific musical score by Max (King Kong) Steiner.

1940's

BLACK DRAGONS (1942)

Here's a real oddity from Monogram with Bela Lugosi as a bearded Nazi plastic surgeon turning Japanese spies into passable Americans. Directed by William Nigh.

THE LADY AND THE MONSTER (1944)

This is the first screen version of Kurt Siodmak's science fiction story DONOVAN'S BRAIN. Directed and produced by George Sherman at the Republic Studios, it features some impressively atmospheric sets, great modelwork from Howard Lydecker and a wonderful performance from Erich Von Stroheim as the doctor who keeps the brain of a dead gangster alive.

MASK OF DIJON (1946)

Director Lew Landers worked in and out of our genres through his long career. Here he has the amazing Erich Von Stroheim as a magician who hynotises enemies to make them kill and then commit suicide. From poverty-row production company PRC.

THE FLYING SERPENT (1946)

Another production from PRC is a re-mix of Lugosi's DEVIL BAT. But this film is quite difficult to track down on celluloid and the print we have seen is suffering from water damage. Chances are some undamaged footage can be used to replace sections of the print - would you folks like to view the result... or is there a pristine video copy out there?

1950's

Science Fiction and Fantasy from the 1950's are the backbone of our original concept for the Festival and we'll always look to this period with a special fondness.

The Brothers Spence - Roy and Noel - reside in a permanent time warp when it comes to the 50's. So we have asked them to put togther their own ideal celebration of that decade and provide a short introduction to the films in their programme which will be spread across the weekend. Here's the selection they came up with:-

THE ABOMINABLE SNOWMAN (1957)

Forrest Tucker, Peter Cushing feature in this excellent Hammer film directed by Val Guest.

ATTACK OF THE CRAB MONSTERS (1957)

Roger Corman's marvellous low-budget science fiction piece - in which every scene is designed to build the tension and succeeds. Richard Garland and Pamela Duncan head the cast.

THE DEADLY MANTIS (1957)

Nathan Juran helms this Universal monster flick that has Craig Stevens and William Hopper (great name in a Preying Mantis movie) trying to keep New York in one piece.

FRANKENSTEIN'S DAUGHTER(1959)

Sandra Knight, John Ashley and Donald Murphy appear in this lowest of low-budget horror films. Directed by Richard Cunha.

HOW TO MAKE A MONSTER (1958)

Herbert J. Strock puts together a meeting of the two classic American International teen monsters. Robert Harris is the make-up man about to lose his job... and the colour ending has a nice display of Paul Blaisdell creature masks.

IT CONQUERED THE WORLD (1956)

Roger Corman again - and the wonderful cucumber monster chasing after Beverly Garland.

THE MAN WHO TURNED TO STONE (1957)

Directed by Leslie Kardos with Victor Jory, Ann Doran and Charlotte Austin.

SHE DEMONS (1958)

Richard Cunha cut his teeth as director on this wonderful epic with the help of the sensational Irish McCalla. It features a mad lab and Nazis on a desert island.

THE THING THAT COULDN'T DIE (1958)

Directed by Will Cowan, this is possibly Roy Spence's favourite film of all time. Ask him why in the bar!

WAR OF THE COLOSSAL BEAST (1958)

Just when you thought The Amazing Colossal Man was long gone, Bert I. Gordon brings him back for even more terrible deeds.

And in addition, our own plans for the 50's so far, include the following:

THE MAD MAGICIAN 3-D (1954)

Vincent Price made this for Columbia who were obviously trying to attract the audiences that made THE HOUSE OF WAX the most successful 3D film of the 1950's. Vincent is a magician who designs illusions and works for a manufacturer. But when his best illusion, which he designed in his own time, is sold by his boss, he gets a little fed up and takes to a bout of beheading.
Our screenings of 3D movies over the previous years have always been popular but of course the number of titles we can obtain prints of is limited. Last year's 3D was IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE and prior to that we have run the two Gill Man films on more than one occassion. We have screened this one before, but a number of folks have asked if we can run it again this year. We'll also have a science fiction movie in 3D - so look out for details of that further down.

THE ROBOT v THE AZTEC MUMMY (1959)

The Mexican movies are a lot of fun and this is no exception. It's a bizzare sequel to THE AZTEC MUMMY telling of the lure of a treasure buried in the mummy's tomb. The star of the movie is the tin robot sent in to battle the Aztec Mummy. It has a human head looking through a face window and light bulbs for ears. Now this is science fiction!

1960's

FANTASTIC INVASION OF PLANET EARTH 3-D (1966)

Produced, Directed and Written by Arch Obler, who in the Golden Days of American Radio produced some classic science fiction stories on the air. He made the first 3D feature BWANA DEVIL in the 1950's which was responsible for the burst of stereoscopic productions at almost all the major studios of Hollywood. This odd science ficton piece was shot using a revolutionary process in the 1960's that only required a single projector to show the film. Obler called it SpaceVision.

SHAROD OF ATLANTIS (1961)

Actually, 1961 was the year of distribution of this feature, but it was originally made in 1936 as a 12 Chapter serial, THE UNDERSEA KINGDOM. It's a great Flash Gordon style action-filled adventure about a war in the lost city of Atlantis with Monte Blue, William Farnum, Ray 'Crash' Corrigan (as himself!) and Lon Chaney Jr. Filled to the brim with spiked tanks, warriors on horseback, submarines, flying bombs, a disintegration machine, ray guns, and the popular Republic robots. The oddest 1960's release ever.

1970's

LEGACY OF BLOOD (1973)

Great cast comprising of Faith Domergue, Jeff Morrow and John Carradine. The children of a millionaire must spend a week in his house in order to collect their inheritance... and one by one..... you guessed it.

SOMETHING CREEPING IN THE DARK (1970)

Here's a somewhat rare find for our Italian horror movie fanatics - It's described as very atmospheric and directed by Mario Colucci. Lead players are Stelvio Rosi, Mia Genberg and the American veteran Farley Granger.

THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW (1975)

Jim Sharman directed the cult Richard O'Brien musical and it's quite a number of years since we featured it at our event.... thought it was about time to bring it back and hope the audience are in the right frame of mind to join in the fun.

DEATH RACE 2000 (1975)

Roger Corman produced (and added extra gore) this cult movie and the late Paul Bartel did the directing. A young Sylvester Stallone competes with David Carradine in a no-holds-barred race across the States.

Movies from the 1980's and 1990's will be highlighted in our next PR when we will hope to be able to detail our Premiere line-up for this year. We'll also update you on the entries for our International Independent Film Festival, which get better each year!

SPECIAL EVENTS

Our programme of live events is building nicely as we move towards the summer and so far will include the following.

THE ANATOMY OF A HAMMER FILM

Wayne Kinsey will chair a panel of technicians who all worked on Hammer films and together they'll discuss how their individual skills fit together to produce a feature film. There will naturally be some wonderful anecdotes from behind the scenes at Bray and other classic locations.

THE BLAIR WITCH EFFECT

Richard Gordon flies in from New York to be with us again and he'll be on our panel of celebrities to discuss what the success of The Blair Witch means to other Independent horror film makers.

TO BE CONTINUED....

Last year Adrian James fascinated our audience with his knowledge of the movie serial and this year we have asked him to concentrate on a single studio. He's chosen Republic Pictures, the studio who made the best genre serials. They had the directors, the stunt men, the brilliant model makers... Republic were The Serials.

NOVEL TO SCREEN

Ramsey Campbell's novel THE NAMELESS has been filmed by Spanish director Jaume Balaguero and we are anticipating that we'll have an English language version of the film which Ramsey will introduce. After the 35mm screening, they'll be an open discussion with the director and producer.

INDEPENDENT AND AMATEUR FILM COMPETITIONS

Following last years great success, with some amazing films from new and exciting directors, this years event promises to be even better. We will have a full programme of new independent and amateur movies for your viewing.

Anyone interested in entering a film in the competition should get an entry form from our Website www.fantastic-films.com or by mail from Tony Edwards. Closing dates are July 8th for Amateur movies and July 31st for Independent films.

DEALERS FAIR

Once again we will have a Film and Memorabilia Fair on the Sunday of the Festival. Anyone interested in obtaining a table at the fair should contact Phil Nevitski on 0161 228 2947

THE AUCTION

The infamous Ramsey Campbell auction will take place on the Saturday of the Festival, and as always is in need of material. So please please look around and see what items in your genre movie collection can go into this years catalogue.

You can help in two ways, either donate something outright, in which case ALL the money raised goes directly into the Festival fund, or enter an item for auction from which the Festival will take 50% and you will receive the balance of anything sold, but you must let us know whether your items are donations of 50/50 shares.

If you advise Gil Lane-Young prior to the end of August, your item or items will be listed in the Auction catalogue and will be among the first items to go on sale.

All items brought along to the Festival without advising us will only be auctioned after the catalogue pieces have been under Ramsey's hammer.

Ring Gil on 0161 929 1243 or drop him a line at 33, Barrington Road, Altrincham, Cheshire. WA14 1HZ, telling him what you will be bringing, and whether you are donating it or want a 50/50 split.

More events to tell you about next issue - but you still have time to suggest something that will make for an interesting panel discussion or a specialised event you might like to present yourself for the Festival. Let's hear from you, Call Harry Nadler 0161 792 0991 or write to 5, South Mesnefield Road, Salford, Manchester. M7 3QP

THE 1999 FESTIVAL VIDEO

We still have a few copies of the 1999 Festival video, containing interviews with last years guests and scenes from the events which occured. Copies are available from Tony Edwards, 95, Meadowgate Road, Salford, Manchester. M6 8 EN, at £9.99p plus £1 Post & Packing.

The Venue

The Renaissance, Manchester, is a 4 star hotel set in the heart of the city. With superb convention facilities. All of the function rooms are set on one floor, with adequate space between to block out extraneous noise. There is a large lounge area, with its own bar, for our members to get together and socialise.

The accomodation is of a very high standard as are the service and staff. In all this is the best venue and layout we have ever had. It should be conducive to a great Festival, so book early.

Send Festival e-mail to Harry Nadler: mailto [email protected],uk

Return to Festival of Fantastic Films Main Page