By Dave Worrall
It was raining outside and I was wrapped up in my warm office listening to the
2-CD soundtrack to The Great Escape
and enjoying designing the Hatari!
feature for next May's magazine. I was feeling good. All was going well... and
then there was a knock at the door. Damn! It turned out to be the postman, and
he delivered a package that was to throw out the rest of my carefully planned
day. For inside the package was Marcus Hearn's new book from Titan, 'The Hammer
Vault' - a deluxe large format hardback book packed with sensational,
never-before-seen material from the archives of Britain's most famous film
studio. Marcus, who has written for Cinema Retro on several occasions, has
already authored three books about Hammer: 'The Hammer Story' (with Alan
Barnes), the brilliant 'Hammer Glamour' and the to-die-for 'The Art of Hammer',
but for me, this is the best of the lot. Following the studio's history from
the early 30s to present day, Marcus has unearthed rare stills, publicity
material, documents and letters - some from the personal scrapbooks of the late
Michael Carreras and Peter Cushing. There are even photos of props, Tom
Chantrell poster artwork, and projects never made. This is a must-have book,
especially in time for Christmas. I've only spent about thirty minutes looking
through it so far, but it threw out my whole work schedule for the day. Damn
you, Marcus!
(The book will be available for shipping in December)
Click here to order from Amazon USA