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Cruel Britannia: Three Killer Thrillers from the UK (Craze/Penny Gold/Crucible of Terror)
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray ALL - America - Vinegar Syndrome Review written by and copyright: Eric Cotenas (1st November 2024). |
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The Film
 "British cinema has long cemented its legacy of producing creative thrillers, often infusing macabre twists with a wry sense of cynical humor. By the early 1970s, the British film industry had become more daring in subject matter while still relying on the consummate technical professionalism that helped establish it as a leading force in the medium. Presented here are a trio of rarely-seen murder thrillers and mysteries that showcase the types of independent and transgressive work coming out of Britain in the first half of the decade, all of which have been newly restored by Vinegar Syndrome for this release." Craze: By day, Neal Mottram (Contempt's Jack Palance) runs a dying antiques shop; by night, he is the high priest of the "Witches of the Night" who worship a wooden idol of a Nigerian god called Chuku in the basement below the shop. Despite the practical worries about their livelihood by Neal's young live-in assistant Ronnie (Cruel Passion's Martin Potter), Neal believes Chuku will honor his blood sacrifices bloodletting offerings rather than actual killings with earthly rewards. When former high priestess Murial (Black Narcissus' Kathleen Byron), expelled in a coup by Neal, attempts to take Chuku with her and winds up with the god's trident in her throat, Ronnie reluctantly helps Neal dispose of the body in the river and wants them to flee to Majorca. Cleaning out an antique desk for sale, Neal discovers a hidden compartment with over a cache of valuable gold coins which he interprets as a reward from Chuku for his sacrifice. As Neal searches out victims for further sacrifices, police detective Wall (Zulu Dawn's Michael Jayston) starts looking into Neal's operations for a connection between the victims whose only link appears to be ritual mutilations. While Ronnie is starting to crack under the pressure, Neal remains steadfast that Chuku will protect and provide. A somewhat atypical British horror movie caught between the genteel though permissive-leaning traditions of the studios like Hammer, Amicus, and Tigon on their last legs and the nastier edge of the concurrent works of Robert Hartford-Davis (Beware My Brethren) and Lindsay Shonteff (Night After Night After Night) more so than the those of Pete Walker and Norman J. Warren, Craze was based on a pulp paperback by Henry Seymour helmed by acclaimed cinematographer-turned-jobbing-director Freddie Francis (Dracula Has Risen from the Grave) but the real signature behind it was American producer Herman Cohen who was a silent partner in American International and gave us Blood of Dracula, I Was a Teenage Werewolf, I Was a Teenage Frankenstein, and How to Make a Monster before moving to England where he independently produced a string of campy horror films starting with Horrors of the Black Museum and the later Joan Crawford-duo Berserk and Trog. Craze would be his last horror film and actually has some parallels with his first British work in the toxic duo of an older man and his reluctant younger assistant and the humiliation and destruction of female victims. As explored in the extras, the gay subtext is more overt here with Potter's Ronnie acknowledged as having been hustling "queens" in Hyde Park before Neal gave him a room and a job Ronnie is later seen at a club hanging out with a more obviously gay friend (Dean Harris) and a pair of platonic prostitute friend (Torso's Suzy Kendall) and much is made in the extras of Wall's suspicion of Neal early on for no other reason that "I don't like that bugger." Despite the catty exchanges between Neal and Ronnie, Palance's Neal is elsewhere depicted as a ladies man but even then he manhandles them as roughly as he does Ronnie and seems to hate them more, with Julie Ege (The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires) as a Scandinavian jet setter who gets her head rammed into a furnace and Diana Dors (Nothing But the Night) plied with cherry brandy so Neal can use her for a motive when he does away with his wealthy aunt (The Whisperers' Dame Edith Evans) which seems a more proactive means of enhancing his bank account even though he makes the killing an offering to Chuku and the film only seems to let Dors live so she can be on the receiving end of misogynistic jokes as even Wall finds her as Neal's motive unlikely to appeal to his suspect or anyone else (Wall is of the opinion that she is the exception to any port in a storm). The nastiness verges on camp thanks to Palance's scenery-chewing in contrast to the more straight-faced performances of Potter and Jayston and single-day supporting turns from Trevor Howard (faring better here than in Tyburn's Persecution), Percy Herbert (The Wild Geese) as Wall's sergeant, Hugh Griffith (Tom Jones) as Neal's aunt's lawyer, and a nothing role for David Warbeck (Twins of Evil) who we are told in the commentary was merely supplementing his income being on retainer as an on-call replacement for Roger Moore should he quit the Bond series as he often threatened. Making use of recycled Pinewood back lots and standing sets, the film has a professional sheen more so thanks to the photography of John Wilcox (The Creeping Flesh) who was Francis' regular D.P. of choice for much of his directorial career ending with Francis' Tyburn films Legend of the Werewolf and The Ghoul after which Francis went back to working a cinematographer on high profile assignments with the exception of directing The Doctor and the Devils and replacing Ken Wiederhorn on Dark Tower like David Lynch's The Elephant Man and Dune, as well as winning a second Oscar for Glory, with his last assignment for Lynch in The Straight Story.  Penny Gold: When someone bludgeons Windsor boutique owner Diane Emerson to the point where her face is completely unrecognizable, Detective Inspector Matthews (Revenge's James Booth) sees a contradiction between the deduction by his superiors of an interrupted sex crime Scotland Yard being eager to pin the killing on the suspect in a similar killing of a model in France and fob the investigation off to their jurisdiction and what is apparently the expert cracking of her shop's double-locking mechanism safe. Despite his younger colleague Roger (Psychomania's Nicky Henson) having checked the alibis for Diane's family and friends, Matthews goes under the nose of his superiors and reexamines them: Diane's American shop assistant Tina went from scared little mouse to assuming management of the fashion show to promote the shop's newest inventory, Diane's photographer boyfriend Claude (Colditz's Richard Heffer) is a serial gigolo but she was apparently worth more to him financially alive than dead, her philatelist stepfather Charles Blachford (Gorgo's James O'Conor) is more concerned with obtaining the "Penny Gold" the last surviving stamp of an overprinted run from Queen Victoria's jubilee celebration from which a few books vanished before they were to be destroyed his doctor Merrick (Hell Drivers' George Murcell) seems more annoyed that Diane had to make a fuss even in dying, and housekeeper Miss Parsons (Lolita's Marianne Stone) seems to have loved both twins equally in spite of Diane's temper. The only person who seems more than mildly affected by Diane's murder is her twin sister Delphi (Macbeth's Francesca Annis) who was always frightened of her sister's violent temper as a child and grew apart from her when Diane came into her own amid the Bohemian crowd. When Matthews discovers that Diane recently made a side trip to Amsterdam during a continental buying expedition for her shop, he starts to wonder what else might have been in her safe besides the shop's takings for the day and how far some stamp collectors would really go to get the Penny Gold. Opening with a brutal murder elided as much in length as through the use of darkness in keeping with the film's British A-classification Penny Gold suggests a lot more than it shows both in terms of exploitation content and its own plotting. Playing like a pilot for a bad detective series or even a desperate movie spin-off during this period in the seventies where several British sitcom and suspense shows were getting them, the film feels like it is missing chunks of material. It drags out introducing the suspects and establishing their relationships, motives, and alibis while making reference to earlier questioning and other events that happened offscreen which would have been ideal situations for introducing the tension the film lacks and occasional cutaways to montages of sequences in which the patchwork scoring of John Scott (Symptoms) drowns out the dialogue which would not be a big deal if we could infer what was going on in these scenes and crucial pieces of the investigation. Before learning about Diane's trip to Amsterdam, there is no reason for Matthews to take a special interest in the stamp-dealing business run by Delphi and her stepfather apart from the obligatory romantic subplot for which neither Booth or Annis convey chemistry for one another. The only motive for the entire investigation is Matthews stating that he does not like to be told what to think, either by the suspects for which Diane's death is supposed to be so convenient or his superiors (although he does not seem motivated by the actual murder of a possibly innocent pawn). When another body turns up, the audience is shown a flashback to the real or speculated events leading up to the character's death but are given no indication of whose flashback it is or what lead the investigators to these speculations. A ridiculous amount of throwaway dialogue is made to none of the people who knew Diane and Delphi well being able to tell them apart, which makes it even more insulting to the audience that everyone including the investigators falls for the worst disguise in the world. Although it is fun to see the assembled cast Annis would be on the other side of investigations on television as part of Agatha Christie's The Secret Adversary and its series spin-off Partners in Crime along with Why Didn't They Ask Evans? one wonders if they were what married screenwriting couple David D. Osborn and Liz Charles-Williams (Deadlier Than the Male) had in mind: in what world is Booth "that young man" one wonders if at some point Henson's Roger was supposed to be the one romantically-involved with Delphi and his wife Anna (Sherlock's Una Stubbs) intended to be Matthews' in scenes that should have been dropped in favor of more plot-related ones and O'Conor merely "middle-aged" as described by Matthews' exposition-providing Scotland Yard mentor (The House That Dripped Blood's Joss Ackland) in a manner that leaves it uncertain whether he is supposed to be older or younger than Blachford, and Blachford's equally middle-aged lawyer apparently consumes cannibis at wild parties leaving him vulnerable to blackmail (on the other hand, we do get to hear To the Manor Born's Penelope Keith call Annis a "rotten bitch" and a young John Rhys-Davies has a nothing background role during the opening rugby game). Cinematographer-turned-director Jack Cardiff (Black Narcissus) and cinematographer Kenneth Hodges (The Spiral Staircase) give us some nice Windsor landscapes and Amsterdam second unit but demonstrate little visual flair elsewhere.  Crucible of Terror: John Davies (The Loneliness of a Long Distance Runner's James Bolam) is trying to make it as a London gallery owner, taking out a personal loan from "patron of the arts" cougar Joanna Brent (Horror of Dracula's Melissa Stribling) and hoping to cover it with the sale of artwork pilfered by alcoholic friend Michael (Raiders of the Lost Ark's Ronald Lacey) from his reclusive artist father Victor Clare. Joanna's husband George (Kenneth Keeling) becomes immediately captivated by a bronze sculpture of a nude woman, but when he is unable to get John to go back on the sale he decides to call in the loan. John hopes to cover the loan through the sale of more of Clare's works little does he realize that George will be murdered by persons unknown that night while attempting to steal the bronze and convinces Michael to let him approach his father with the offer of cold hard cash. John and Michael head down along with their respective wives Millie (The House That Screamed's Mary Maude) and Jane (Darklands' Beth Morris) to Jericho Valley on the remotest part of Cornwall's coast where Victor (Lust for a Vampire's Mike Raven) lives and works out out of the remains of a tin mine believed to be haunted after a major disaster. The household is fraught with Victor's wife and Michael's mother Dorothy (Coronation Street's Betty Alberge) driven around the bend by her husband's emotional abuse and flaunting of model Marcia (The House That Vanished's Judy Matheson), with family friend Bill (A Challenge for Robin Hood's John Arnatt) attempting to shield Dorothy from the brunt of it. Victor surprises John and Michael by revealing that he knows of the theft but he has no interest in fame, only the "preserving the beauty of his models" for himself alone; as such, he is willing to deal with John because he has tired of Marcia and wants Jane to pose for him. After an argument with Michael whose nerves are fraying under his father's abuse and interest in his wife, Jane decides to pose for Victor; however, when she is gone the next morning, everyone assumes she has gone back to London whereupon Victor sets his sights on Millie whose sense of the place goes beyond dιjΰ vu to vivid nightmares involving Bill's collection of medieval Japanese weapons. When John has to return to London to see Joanna, he leans on Millie to keep Victor happy no matter how much she is unnerved by him lest she upset his business deal. While John is away, someone starts stalking and killing the residents of Victor's farm and Millie may be next. One of two horror vehicles for former disc jockey Mike Raven's bid for British horror stardom along with Disciple of Death, Crucible of Terror is an odd concoction of mad artist the film makes no mystery of what happened to "that Japanese bird" (The Man from Deep River's Me Me Lai) who had been Victor's muse who inducted him into a sect that believed the spirits of the dead could possess and "transform living flesh" and giallo film with a black-gloved figure killing people for reasons unknown in gory ways. Produced and photographed by Peter Newbrook, a cinematographer who had shot second unit on films like Lawrence of Arabia and was main DP on films like The Black Torment before going into production with director Robert Hartford-Davis on films like Corruption and Blood Suckers, Crucible of Terror is a bit of a mess as Newbrook's first attempt without an anchoring directorial presence like Hartford-Davis who might have been responsible for the shambles that was the production of the latter film but demonstrated a forceful vision even after they parted ways. The film has an atmospheric setting including the hellishly-lit forge and underground caverns, a few gory murders which are surprisingly-explicit for 1971 but actually less disturbing than Victor's emotional abuse of his wife but not enough it made of the subplot involving the Japanese model so the climax truly comes out of left field and requires a wrap-up explanation by obvious red herring Arnatt. There are some good performances, including Lacey's drunk, Matheson's jaded and jealous model, and Alberge who has a wonderful scene of lucidity in which she tries to warn Millie. Raven, on the other hand, goes between slimy geniality and angry barking and it is hard to see what anyone sees in him. As in Josι Ramσn Larraz's period thriller La muerte incierta Maude is given a rather thankless role as the final girl considering her showier turns as imperious secondary villains in The House That Screamed and Norman J. Warren's Terror. Then-assistant editor Tariq Anwar was subsequently nominated for multiple BAFTAs along with two Oscar nominations for American Beauty and The King's Speech but he and editor Maxine Julius (Bloody New Year) seem to have lacked adequate material to make the climax exciting. In spite of its faults, Crucible of Terror is perhaps the most rewatchable film in the set for all of its strengths and what-could-have-beens. 
Video
Distributed theatrically in the United States by Warner Bros., Craze turned up on VHS stateside from Saturn Productions and other fly-by-night labels, not getting an official release until Nucleus Films put out a DVD in the U.K. in 2016. Sourced from a 4K scan of the original camera negative, Vinegar Syndrome's 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.85:1 widescreen Blu-ray is stunning from the start with the studio-lit interiors boasting dark shadows, accents of red that pop in the art direction and bloodshed, and the burnished wood of Chuku. Apart from one scratch on a cut early on which might have been damage to the negative while it was being conformed rather than a repair there is also a six-second patch of a few seconds of degraded footage at the forty-nine minute mark consisting of a single shot that might have been optically-enlarged or patched in from a print (all the more obvious given the sudden jump back to fine quality in the next shot).  Unreleased theatrically in the United StatesPenny Gold first turned up in legitimate form on DVD from Geneon, a budget company that had the rights to the Dutch TV Matters library including the Scotia-Barber titles a few years after Image Entertainment. We have not seen that edition but it is probably the same fullscreen master that appeared on the U.K. DVD. Vinegar Syndrome's 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.85:1 widescreen Blu-ray is also derived from a 4K scan of the original camera negative; however, this one seems to have always looked a little rough if not for Vinegar Syndrome's transfer specs, I would have assumed this to be an interpositive or internegative beyond the generational loss of the grainy opening credits with the studio interiors faring better than the location work (which did have unpredictable weather with which to contend). Saturated colors pop in the art direction but mainly because the contrast with the mostly cheap sets which are white-walled and flatly-lit most of the time.  Crucible of Terror had a rather convoluted release history stateside, apparently going directly to television followed by VHS releases from several labels including Prism Entertainment and Video Gems, the latter claiming to be "uncut" and "uncensored" but it was no more complete than any of the other editions. When Dutch company TV Matters acquired the Scotia Barber library and licensed the film to VHS and DVD, it was a revelation in that the fullscreen transfer utilized an X-certificate British element that featured a surprising amount of gore missing from the TV prints and one might have just assumed that the early seventies British production had always been tame. This release was followed up by a cheaper, menu-less edition from Geneon using the same master and then a barebones but anamorphic upgrade from Severin Films. Vinegar Syndrome's 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.85:1 widescreen Blu-ray comes from a 4K scan of a 35mm vault positive that was presumably the same element used for the earlier DVD transfers. Shot largely on location and making use of a lot of natural light with diffusing scrims evident in front of the lens during some of the bright exteriors that sometimes played havoc with the encoding on the DVD versions and with its moody shadows made a little flatter and murkier by the generational loss of the print source, the transfer does at least make more evident how handsome Newbrook's photography really had been despite the low budget thanks as much to his camera moves, some hellish red gels, and mostly the contributions to the composition of the set dressing of cramped location interiors. 
Audio
Each film has a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono track and optional English SDH subtitles. Just as Craze's picture element was virtually spotless, its audio source is the cleanest of the three conveying every register of Palance's vocal performance along with Scott's score. Some post-sync offscreen dialogue is apparent but what the cleaner track reveals compared to the boots is an uncredited theme song that incorporates the word "craze" which may be the only logic in the choice of title. Penny Gold's track is clean enough and there seems to be a lot more location sound, but the track also highlights the fact that the production apparently could only afford to license or create one pop song which is heard multiple times in the film. Crucible of Terror's dialogue is perfectly intelligible but location audio and the mixing budget may be as much responsible as the state of the vault element for the track sounding less clean. Unfortunately, Vinegar Syndrome has not carried over the Image disc's isolated music and effects track. 
Extras
The bulk of the film's extras are on the first disc with Craze which itself is accompanied by a pair of commentary tracks. Both the audio commentary by writers/film critics Kim Newman and Stephen Jones and the audio commentary by filmmaker David DeCoteau and historian David Del Valle note the recurring gay subtext to the relationships between the villain and his assistant in a number of collaborations between producer Cohen and screenwriter Aben Kandel including The Black Zoo. Whereas Jones and Newman discuss the potential of Wall being a closeted, self-loathing "queen" (as Ronnie's friend describes him when he misinterprets Wall seeking out Ronnie in the club as a pickup) which they suggest goes some ways towards explaining why he targets Neal as the chief suspect after their first meeting (and before he has even checked out any of the other fourteen people in Murial's address book DeCoteau and Del Valle focus on the triangle that is Neal, Chuku, and Ronnie with the latter as a hustler recognizing that Chuku's generosity must come with a catch. Newman reveals that both Peter Cushing and Michael Gough turned down the role (while also noting that Gough would later play a cult leader in Satan's Slave which also featured Potter who played a number of sexually-ambiguous characters in the likes of Fellini Satyricon and Goodbye Gemini. They also reference Ege's autobiography and her recollections of working with Palance, conjecturing that he must have been as rough with Potter during their fights as he was with Ege during their bedroom scene. Del Valle and DeCoteau disagree over whether Cohen himself was a misogynist or if the horror genre itself focuses on "destroying" female characters (although it could be argued that however much he treated Crawford like a star, her roles were merely more glamorous horror harridans). "Happy Gatherings" (9:59) is an interview with actress Judy Matheson who recalls enjoying the role as it was a bit more feisty than the victims she had played in other horror films. She speaks well of Maude, Lacey, and Bolam but less so about Raven's acting ability (noting that while Hooker offered her no notes about her performance he probably should have been more attentive to his lead). She also recalls the Cornish locations and how the production seemed to be well-funded before the shoot but less so during. "In for a Pound" (10:42) is an interview with actor Richard Heffer who recalls the film being one of his first larger film roles and being attracted to it due to the presence of Cardiff in the director's chair. He also recalls his impressions of his first day of shooting where he was left alone in a room for several hours before being brought onto the set to shoot "the soap scene" as well as how the weather effected the shoot and the film's reception. The first disc also includes an archival career-spanning interview with actor Michael Jayston (49:39) who passed away this past February. He discusses his early schooling and how hearing speeches by Churchill first inspired him to want to be an actor along with going to plays and the movies. He covers his early training, joining the Bristol Old Vic and then the Royal Shakespeare Company where he played Laertes to two Hamlets in Richard Pasco and David Warner, and his early supporting film roles leading to Nicholas and Alexandria, the faults of which he attributes to the interference of producer Sam Spiegel who vetoed the casting of Liv Ullman as Alexandria and Max von Sydow as Rasputin because they had accents (which Jayston believes would have been justified to distinguish their characters in nationality and social class respectively from the British cast members playing Russian royalty). Later in the piece, he does discuss his horror roles including Craze and his impression of Palance who the crew was afraid of, as well as his love triangle with Joan Collins and a tree stump in Tales That Witness Madness.  Penny Gold is accompanied by an audio commentary by writers/film critics Kim Newman and Barry Forshaw who note that while acclaimed cinematographer-turned-director Freddie Francis was known for directing affordable Hammer and Amicus productions, Cardiff as a director had moved to prestige productions rapidly with Sons and Lovers and The Long Ships but there was a five year gap between Girl on a Motorcycle and his last feature directorial efforts Penny Gold and The Mutations (the types of films they would have been less surprised with the likes of Francis or one of Hammer's jobbing directors at the helm). They discuss the giallo touches of the opening and the more well-worn mystery elements as well as discussing the state of Booth's career at the time which took a downward turn after he turned down the lead in Alfie Annis' career which was divided between film, television, and the stage, and the lack of chemistry between them in the romantic subplot, the effectiveness of the mystery itself, as well as how Ackland plays a character who conveys exposition in two scenes yet manages to walk away with the film.  Crucible of Terror is accompanied by an audio commentary by writers/film critics Kim Newman and Stephen Jones who provide perhaps the definitive accounting of Mike Raven's bid for horror stardom, starting out on pirate radio before being hired by BBC Radio, making television appearances, and being inspired by his two Cornwall-set films to move there and become a sculptor of both religious and erotic artwork (with the commentators noting the irony that he is remembered as a failed actor rather than a successful disc jockey and sculptor). They discuss his horror roles, noting that Hammer seemed more interested in him as a new horror star than in Lust for a Vampire than in showing Christopher Lee that he could be replaced, dubbing Raven's voice with that of Valentine Dyall and cutting in close-up inserts of Lee's bloodshot eyes from Scars of Dracula while Amicus cast him alongside Lee and Cushing in their Jekyll-and-Hyde adaptation I, Monster as the lawyer whose account in the novel introduces Jekyll and Hyde but was much reduced in the film. They also draw from an account by the later genre writer Denis Meikle who visited the film's set during the shooting of the climax and observed that they did not seem to be getting the required coverage due to a sort of communal filmmaking approach (Jones speculates that documentary editor Ted Hooker might have lent his name to the film which Newbrook might have directed, but Newman cites Meikle's account which does confirm Hooker was on set). They also cite an interview from the time with Me Me Lai and then wonder what became of her after moving from sexploitation and Italian cannibal films to joining the Essex police force (seeming unaware that she has been more recently interviewed in a feature-length documentary in 2018 that has appeared on Blu-ray releases of Eaten Alive! and Man from Deep River). 
Packaging
The standard edition features two discs in a standard keep case with no reversible artwork; however, a limited edition of 5,000 copies available directly from Vinegar Syndrome and select indie retailers includes a slipcase, a slipcover, and a 40-page perfectbound book. 
Overall
For a collection titled Cruel Britannia only two of the films Craze and Crucible of Terror truly move away from the Gothic and the "cozy" although the artwork suggests that Penny Gold might have been a late substitute for Disciple of Death but it does provide greatly-improved and thus far definitive presentations of the films therein. 
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