Ged Jones

  • Night of the Bloody Apes

    Night of the Bloody Apes

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    This Mexican horror from 1969, originally titled ‘La Horripilante Bestia Humana’ has its fair share of cheap gore and a liberal helping of female wrestlers! It also featured footage of an actual human heart transplant operation in two separate scenes and it was these that added it to the video nasty list, where it remained…

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  • The Sorcerers

    The Sorcerers

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    Walton Films had already released a number of Tigon titles, ‘Witchfinder General’, ‘Curse of the Crimson Altar’, ‘Black Beauty’, ‘Hannie Caulder’ and ‘Doomwatch’, but  we knew there were still a were a number of titles we would be able to market. They had their offices in Hammer House in Wardour Street and it only took…

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  • Generic 200′

    Generic 200′

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    It was a natural step, that as we introduced labels for specific titles, that it was decided that we should have labels for most if not all of the films we released. Rather than produce a vast number of individual labels a Generic label was the ideal solution, as some films just ticked over and…

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  • King Creole

    King Creole

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    Apparently James Dean was first in the running for this role that, several years later, would be played by Elvis Presley. It was to have been a gritty urban drama based on the best selling 1952 novel by Harold Robbins ‘A Stone for Danny Fisher’. Following Dean’s death and the casting of Elvis, it was…

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  • Countess Dracula

    Countess Dracula

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    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…

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  • Kronos

    Kronos

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    A science fiction thriller from 1957, starring Jeff Morrow and another from our contract with Ivy Film.  Ivy Film had purchased many of its titles from NTA (National Telefilm Associates), which had closed down its TV distribution the previous decade. Much of NTAs product was from  Twentieth Century Fox (who owned 50% of NTA), and…

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  • Hoppity Goes to Town

    Hoppity Goes to Town

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    Released in 1941, under its original title ‘Mr Bugs Goes to Town’, much of this movie’s financial failure was blamed on the fact that it was released on 5 December, just two days before Pearl Harbor was bombed and as a result of that failure  Paramount fired Max Fleischer and Dave Fleischer and took over…

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  • Revenge of the Vampire

    Revenge of the Vampire

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    This film (Original Italian title ‘La Maschera del Ddemonio’), was rejected for UK cinema release by the BBFC in 1961 and was essentially banned, only after some heavy censoring did it get a release in 1968 and it was this version that we used to produce our 8mm prints. I have only very recently found…

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  • Wake of the Red Witch

    Wake of the Red Witch

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    One of the feature titles on our contract with Ivy Film in New York. Starring John Wayne, Gail Russell and Gig Young, it was produced by Republic Pictures and released in 1948.  With Wayne in probably in his most romantic role as Ralls, Captain of the Red Witch, which he deliberately sinks in an act…

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  • Gulliver’s Travels

    Gulliver’s Travels

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    Released in 1939, this was only the worlds second full length animated motion picture and although it was box-office success, it never managed to recover its enormous cost, which went nearly $500,000 over budget. Unlike Disney’s ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs’, which was all hand drawn animation, Max and Dave Fleischer decided to use…

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