BY HANK REINEKE

The cognoscenti will have no doubt noted this is the third home video resurrection of writer-director-co-producer Ted Newsom’s Flesh & Blood: The Hammer Heritage of Horror. Originally issued on VHS in 1999 as part of Anchor Bay’s ambitious and much welcomed “Hammer Collection” series, this affectionate documentary was subsequently ported over to DVD in 2004 by Image Entertainment, Inc. Both of those earlier releases shared a running time of some ninety-nine minutes. This comprehensive new version, curiously issued again on DVD rather than as an upgraded Blu, boasts of a “Digitally Remastered Expanded Director’s Cut.” This newest incarnation, as promised, has been expanded with an additional thirty-seven minutes of material. Whether or not the tighter original cut has been artistically or informatively superseded by this director’s cut is open to argument. While the new version is of more generous length, it must be said the story arc occasionally meanders, unnecessarily bloated by too-familiar footage culled from original trailers.

Regardless, this documentary is an essential item for fans of Hammer, thoughtfully outlining the studio’s metamorphosis from a small film distribution company to a vanguard of the British film industry. In the mid 1930s Hammer’s earliest successes were with such monochrome dramas as Songs of Freedom (with Paul Robeson) and mysteries as The Mystery of the Mary Celeste (with Bela Lugosi). Not surprisingly, it really wasn’t until after the country emerged from the rubble of WWII that the studio would hit a proper stride, adapting such popular British radio shows as Dick Baron: Special Agent as cinematic properties. But it wasn’t until the studio acquired the rights to bring Nigel Kneale’s popular science fiction BBC television series The Quatermass Experiment to the big screen in 1955 that Hammer’s course was set. The success of that film spawned a sequel and a knockoff which would signal what would follow. Beginning with The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), the studio would score with an influential and commercially successful string of science-fiction, fantasy and horror films. These successes cemented the studio’s reputation as Britain’s preeminent fright factory.

In that regard, Hammer had appropriated the mantle previously held by Universal Studios as the foremost purveyor of Gothic horror cinema. Though the studio was barred from utilizing Jack Pierce’s iconic make-up designs - as well as other Universal inventions protected by copyright – such public domain properties as Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein were free for an original and modern updating. If anything, the time was right for the torch of the angry villager to be passed on. Universal had all but abandoned their dependable stable of classic monsters, choosing instead to bring creatures of the atom-age to the screen. As Flesh & Blood astutely notes, Hammer would inadvertently rescue these monsters of folklore from the ignominy of their being mere slapstick foils to Abbott and Costello. With their distinctive trademark mix of splashy Technicolor, tawdry bloodletting, overt sexuality, and a battery of dreamy screen sirens (and unashamed displays of ample cleavage), the studio effectively reenergized interest in gothic-horror cinema.

To be sure, this is not an easy story to tell to satisfaction. Flesh & Blood bravely attempts to thoroughly document the sprawling history and trajectory of Hammer’s hits and misses, offering a score of first-person and genuinely interesting procession of candid talking-head interviews. The studio, as many of this film’s participants take great pains to point out here, was a business first and foremost. The producers were primarily interested in turning a tidy profit on their investment and productions were sometimes hobbled by miserly budgeting. Even in the studio’s halcyon days (1957-1972) most of the studio’s film projects – many pre-sold to distributors on little more than a colorful mock-up of an exploitative film poster – adhered to a tight six week shooting schedule.

As the principal photography of this documentary began as early as 1993, the pool of talent available for interview had not yet been thinned by time and age. In truth, there’s hardly a then-surviving veteran from behind or in front of Hammer’s cameras who isn’t interviewed or referenced in the film. In a particular masterstroke, the producers were able to enlist the studio’s two greatest and most iconic star players, Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, to serve as principal narrators of the opus. It’s mostly Lee’s narration that carries the documentary forward, though the wasting, frail voice of a clearly ailing Peter Cushing also bravely serves in this capacity.

Skillfully interweaving interviews, home movies, trailers, vintage newsreels, stock footage, photographs, promotional materials, and elements sourced from television archives, we are introduced to the surviving men and woman who served as the studio’s primary movers and shakers. Those sharing behind-the camera memories are Michael Carreras, Anthony Hinds, Roy Ward Baker, Don Sharp, Freddie Francis, Aida Young, Jimmy Sangster, Richard Matheson, and composer James Bernard amongst others. Among those who appeared on the silver screen and were happy to share their insights and warm recollections are the bosomy starlets who were the epitomes of “Hammer Glamour:” Ingrid Pitt, Martine Beswick, Caroline Munro, Hazel Court, Raquel Welch, and Veronica Carlson.