TERENCE FISHER
British Film Makers
by Peter Hutchings

Peter Hutchings attempts to reappraise Fisher's work and give him the attention denied by so many critics.

REVIEW IN DEPTH

text
Peter Hutchings is a senior lecturer in Film Studies at Northumbria University in the UK. This tome is the fourth in a series by Manchester University Press, looking at neglected British Film Makers, and attempting to put them into a new critical context. As such this is primarily a critical book, in the University sense. The casual reader or horror fan may be easily put off by discussion of camera movement, mise-en-scene and such. The film scholar may feel that the book doesn't go far enough.

Reading the book the second time for this review, and filling the pages with my own notes in the columns, I came to realise just how much I sympathised with that second thought. However it is true that Fisher has been largely neglected in discussion of British cinema, and even horror cinema has ignored him for American names, despite his acknowledged influence on nearly all subsequent horror film directors.

Hutchings is a Hammer film fan, and a Fisher fan - stating this at the outset is a clear laying down of the cards that will be played. Hutchings takes the auteurist debate as his main starting point - the French concept of directorial authorship of a film, and takes the various arguements about Fisher (some see him as a hack, a few as an auteur), and puts forward the proposition that he is more auteur than hack.

That is of course, a simplificiation of the arguement in the book. Hutchings takes time to discuss the theory, and its implications here, and follows with a systematic appraisal of his films, and evidence of a "signature" throughout his work. With the bulk of Fisher's most accessable, and striking work (ie, the films most likely to support the authorship claim) being for Hammer, Hutchings does well to point out the team environment at the studio, and the levels of collaboration between crew on each project.

The book is laid out into four chapters, plus an introduction and conclusion. The first eighty pages (two chapters) deal with Fisher's work before The Curse of Frankenstein, outlining his history as a film editor and the lessons learned and implemented in his later work. There is discussion of his work at Gainsborough, and of his first brushes with the studio that made his name.

The problem with the text as an overview as I see it, is the concentration of text on Fisher's Hammer films. Even during this opening half, more space is spent proportionally on the selection of Hammer films, as will be the case throughout the book. Clearly, the reasons are commercial - knowing that the bulk of readers will know and want to read about his Hammer work, Hutchings virtually excludes the other Fisher works. During the latter half, as Fisher breaks away from Hammer, these other films are brushed past with speed. Island of Terror for instance (which I have recently rewatched myself), is given a cursory mention, with little or no attempt to see anything of Fisher's handiwork, instead causing the film to be seen as little more than a footnote. Whilst this particular film has little in the way of critical support generally, it would have been more satisfying if Hutchings had attempted to see Fisher at work here.

In conclusion then, despite Hutching's valiant attempts to reconcile Fisher with an auteurist view, the question of collaboration with the crews (notably the Hammer crew including Jack Asher, Bernard Robinson, Roy Ashton, Tony Hinds, Jimmy Sangster, Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee) remains only slightly touched. Where the films seem uninspired or lacking edge, Hutching's brushes past them, which is a shame, because it is here perhaps were we are given the best opportunity to see the real hand of Fisher.

presentation
The hardback version of the book, sports a plain jacket, whereas the paperback sports a shot of David Peel in Brides of Dracula, eyes wide and blood trickling from his bared fangs. The paperback has its marketing aimed surely at the Horror fan. It is unfortunate then that there are no photographs of the actual subject of this book - Terence Fisher himself. The cover is slightly ghastly, and a little unappealing, but betraying its splendid contents.

The book itself is written and presented in simple pose, with little special in the presentation. The four chapters are broken into clearly stated subsections, and the book contains a suitable filmography and index section as well as a limited selected bibilography for students to follow up.

There are fifteen black and white illustrations around half way through the book. For the most part, they are posters. Reproduction is okay, although the obvious colour source of several results in very grey images. According to the acknowledgements, images from Curse of Frankenstein, Dracula and The Mummy had to be removed owing to prohibitive permission costs. It would have been nice to have images which accompanied scene specific commentaries, and presented alongside the text.

SUMMARY
Go for the paperback, which at £12.99 is more reasonably priced. The text is fair, and informative - a welcome discourse on a much overlooked career. As with all film texts, the author's bias is the limitation, but a very readable assesment.

RJES

Terence Fisher
by Peter Hutchings
is published by Manchester University Press
198 pages
paperback
ISBN 0 7190 5637 3
hardback
ISBN 0 7190 5636 5
First Published in UK 2002

all original text and graphics are © RJE Simpson, used with permission by Avalard Productions 2005
review text is copyright to the individual authors
nothing is to be reused without express written permission
Images from films, tv shows etc are used in the spirit of publicity, and remain copyright of their respective creators/copyright owners.