Marcus K. Harmes Bücher

Critics abhorred it, audiences loved it, and Hammer executives where thrilled with the box office returns: The Curse of Frankenstein was big business. The 1957 film is the first to bring together in a horror movie the 'unholy two', Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, together with the Hammer company, and director Terence Fisher, combinations now legendary among horror fans. In his Devil's Advocate, Marcus Harmes goes back to where the Hammer horror production started, looking at the film from a variety of perspectives: as a loose literaryadaptation of Mary Shelley's novel; as a film that had, for legal reasons, to avoid adapting from James Whale's 1931 film for Universal Pictures; and as one which found immediate sources of inspiration in the Gainsborough bodice rippers of the 1940s and the poverty row horrors of the 1950s. Later Hammer horrors may have consolidated the reputation of the company and the stars, but these works had their starting point in the creative and commercial choices made by the team behind The Curse of Frankenstein. In the film sparks fly, new life is created and horrors unleashed but the film itself was a jolt to 1950s cinema going that has never been entirely surpassed.

Roger Delgado is instantly recognisable as the Master in Doctor Who but his most famous role was also one of his last. He died aged only 55 but his career was long and productive including roles in much loved television programs such as The Saint, The Avengers, Quatermass II and films including the Hammer horrors. His brilliant versatility made him an indispensable character actor, who was able to switch accent and nationality. This biography brings to light Delgado's life from his childhood and early work in banking, his repertory theatre, early television, film roles, and finally his fame as the Doctor's nemesis, when colleagues found a master criminal was played by the kindest man they had ever met. It also shows a private life more complex than previously thought. The biography commemorates the centenary of Delgado's birth in 1918 and looks beyond commonly told anecdotes to tell the story of Delgado's life and career based on painstaking archival research. It features never before seen photographs from the collection of Roger's widow Kismet Delgado and all new interviews with both some of Delgado's most famous co-stars as well as with rarely-interviewed co-stars and directors.