Devil's work kills off the Hammer house (From Borehamwood Times)

Devil's work kills off the Hammer house

6:05pm Tuesday 22nd July 2008

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I walked on to the set of the latest Hammer horror movie 33 years ago without realising it was to be the last they ever made.

Compared with nearly all their previous efforts this one had a top rate cast of established names including Christopher Lee, Denholm Elliott, Honor Blackman and Richard Widmark.

Its title was To The Devil A Daughter and was based on a 1950s novel by best-selling author Dennis Wheatley.

However, the omens were not good when director Peter Sykes decided on the eve of filming that the script was appalling and signed up a new writer.

That meant the movie went into production with new pages of dialogue arriving every day and nobody certain how the story was going to end.

I bumped into Richard Widmark on the set and I could tell he was an unhappy bunny.

He described the film as a disaster being made by a Mickey Mouse company. Producer Roy Skeggs later told me that on several occasions he had threatened to fly back to America during filming.

The film went ahead and Christopher Lee was happy with the movie until it came to the final sequence.

He recalled: "They filmed quite a good finale in which my character is confronted and killed but then scrapped it.

“Then they filmed a scene where I am simply killed by a rock and disappear, which was nonsense and ruined it.”

The author Dennis Wheatley told me: “I was disgusted by the film. It bore no resemblance to my book.”

Dennis died a couple of years later and although once a best-selling author, he now seems relatively forgotten.

I still remember watching a stunt man being engulfed in a ball of flame in a shot filmed at a disused church in Shenley.

He encountered problems during the filming of what was the first full body burning stunt of its kind but thankfully was not badly hurt.

Richard subsequently refused ever to talk about the film and would only say “I should never have gotten involved.”

It could have started a new cycle of modern day horror movies for Hammer, but they made very little profit, and it signalled the end of the road for a company that had entertained audiences for decades.

It was the last movie Christopher ever made for Hammer although 33 years later he is still remembered for his long association with that particular company.

Meanwhile I am still wondering where all those years have gone.

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