"Hammer Glamour"; Just Order This Already. Seriously. You'll Thank Me.

Hammer Glamour: Classic Images from the Archive of Hammer Films

written &compiled by Marcus Hearn

This lovely tome arrived not so long ago and it’s taken me a bit of time to get around to giving it a proper review. For those of you living the on-the-go lifestyle that might not have time a long winded review, let me sum it up by saying there’s absolutely no chance I’d give a book filled from cover to cover with glamour shots of the most gorgeous women to grace the silver screen anything but a ringing endorsement. Don’t wait, just go ahead and order the book from titan right away. Trust me, you won’t regret it.


For those of you that want to know more, read on.

I grew up in the heyday of Channel 56’s “Creature Double Feature” Saturday afternoon programming. Every weekend my adolescent eyes were glued to the screen as I got a double barreled heaping of the classic Universal Monsters, the gigantic Godzilla/Rodan types that ravaged Japanese cities, and the blood soaked reinvention of the classics provided by Hammer studios. As much as I loved (and still do) the way Karloff, Lugosi and Chaney Jr. brought the icons of horror to life, there was no doubt as I got older that the Hammer films provided a more visceral experience. While the more energetic performances of Sir Christopher Lee brought a menace to the screen that rendered Universal quaint by comparison, the buxom beauties of Hammer went a long way in making the Hammer Horror machine the driving force in genre cinema. From its earliest days of reinventing the stories of Dracula and Frankenstein, Hammer studios pushed the acceptable boundaries of both blood and sexuality on screen. Whereas Universal was content to keep its leading ladies largely in the background, often reducing their participation to “damsel in distress” rote characters, Hammer had no issue giving its women far more varied roles. Not only did Hammer allow the ladies to play sexually charged villainess in a number of films, they helped propel a number of ladies to international stardom as women such as Raquel Welch and Ursula Andrews got their big breaks from Hammer.

Hammer Glamour peels back the curtain a bit, giving the reader a look at each of the ladies that gained a level of fame or notoriety by appearing in the Hammer Horror oeuvre. The behind the scenes information is pretty fascinating for a couple of reasons. First, I found the stories about how directors would convince the skeptical actresses to disrobe for the camera both hysterical and disturbing. Apparently, in order to appease certain ladies’ concerns that their family would disapprove of seeing them naked on screen, directors would convince the girls that the nude scenes were being released only in foreign territories, and very few people would ever see the film. Lo and behold, the actresses would hit the red carpet with their families, only to visually whack them over the head with surprise boobage. Surprisingly, the book tells about a half dozen tales like this, which would never fly now in the internet and TMZ age. It’s stories like the above that make this a fascinating read in between ogling over the photos. Hearn does a commendable job in filling out each of the ladies back stories of the featured women, as well as reveal when the studio system operated under more carefree guidelines.

Of course, while the behind the scenes stories are nice, the real reason this book belongs on your shelf is the hundreds of glamour photos crammed inside. Executives searched far and wide hoping to find the next it girl. At a time when waifish models like Twiggy were rising to fame, Hammer bucked the evolving anorexic trend and continued to fill their films with gorgeous, curvy buxom women. God bless them for that. While everyone has their preferences, I will gladly stand by my assertion that a look stemming from a cocaine and meth diet is as unappealing as it gets. So without further ado, here’s a brief synopsis of my five favorite horror ladies.

Caroline Munro

This statuesque brunette beauty with legs up to here and then some enjoyed one of the more varied careers of any of the Hammer ladies, achieving international fame modeling for Lamb’s Navy Rum for two years, appearing as a Bond girl twice (Casino Royale and starring in Captain Kronos Vampire hunter and Dracula AD 1972. She also appeared in Maniac before going on to host British game shows. She possessed one of the most gorgeous, intelligent faces to grace the horror genre and those who attend current Hammer and Bond events can attest she is still a stunningly beautiful woman.

Ingrid Pitt

For many, she remains the female peer of Christopher Lee, and the ultimate symbol of grace, sexual confidence and menace of Hammer. She brought the Sapphic story of Carmilla from the page to the big screen in The Vampire Lovers and went on to bring Elizabeth Bathory to life in Countess Dracula and Beyond the Rave (made in 2007) for the studio as well. In her stills she exudes an icy self confidence and she remains comfortable with the eroticism she brought to the screen to this day.

Marie Devereux

Blessed with a va-va-voom curvaceous figure, it is no wonder Ms. Devereux earned the nickname “The Countess of Cleavage”. By age sixteen she was appearing nude in the days “under the counter” magazines before eventually appearing in Playboy, and if she had been around during the age of the internet, there is no doubt she would have contested Heidi Klum for the crown of “most downloaded woman of the internet”. For a short time she proved to be one of the more popular women of Hammer, appearing in I Only Asked, The Stranglers of Bombay, The Brides of Dracula, A Weekend with Lulu and The Prates of Blood River. Unable to land the starring roles she craved, she exited acting after tiring of the business in 1964.

Madeline Smith

With her gorgeous round eyes, blonde hair and alabaster skin, cover girl Ms. Smith just oozed desirability. Despite her natural sex appeal, it appears she was a good girl at heart saying “The closest I came to anything dangerous was going out with a young man who subsequently became a monk”. She appeared in three Hammer films: Taste the Blood of Dracula, Frankenstein & the Monster From Hell and the lesbian themed The Vampire Lovers. While her character found herself seduced by Ingrid Pitt’s Carmilla in the latter film, the in experienced Madeline states she “didn’t know what a lesbian was and had no idea what was supposed to be happening on that bed”.

Yutte Stensgaard

Yes she may have only appeared in one Hammer film, Lust For A Vampire, but hot damn what a role. Taking over the Carmilla role from Ingrid Pitt, Ms. Stensgaard brought more of a typical “blonde bombshell’ appeal to the role in a film that ratcheted up both the sex and the blood content. Sadly, while she did her best to bring a sense of professionalism to her role, by this point Hammer had fallen from its lofty perch, and Lust is more of an exploitation and soft-core film, far removed from the high gothic standards the studio had set in years past.