This was Derann’s first Super 8 Hammer feature in colour and was one of the films included in our first contract with Rank Film Distributors. Derek had a soft spot for the Norman Wisdom film ‘Trouble in Store’ and admittedly this title, along with it’s two 200′ extracts (‘The Window Dresser’ and ‘Don’t Laugh at Me’), was without doubt the best seller from this contract…other titles were ‘The Chiltern Hundreds’, ‘Dangerous Exile’, ‘We Dive at Dawn’, ‘The History of Mr. Polly’ and this film, ‘Countess Dracula’. Rank were insistent (as were most distributors of the time), that all six should have a minimum of 10% edited from them for their release on super 8.
This ‘Hammer Horror’ isn’t one of their best but most, if not all, of the other Hammer’s Rank handled were spoken for. However the name of Ingrid Pitt was now well known and gave the film some notoriety, so we felt it should be a fairly popular title with the ‘horror’ crowd.
The label was designed and printed by a small printing firm based in Penkridge and run by Ann Ellis, with her husband in charge of the printing press. Ann mustn’t be blamed for this tame offering for a Hammer Horror as both Derek and myself must have had our say as to to the final label. We never produced a full colour label.
Label courtesy of Peter Brooke at ‘SPROCKETS’
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