The most prolific British production company of the 1960s
It was a landmark decade for culture in general, so it was only natural that British cinema would undergo some evolutions of its own during the ‘Swinging Sixties’, which turned out to be a pivotal ten-year stretch for the industry in more ways than one.
Among the most notable was the increase in international co-productions, with the United Kingdom becoming less and less localised, to the point almost 15% of all movies made between 1960 and 1969 involved backers from the United States, with the James Bond franchise and Lawrence of Arabia two of the most notable.
The aforementioned popularity of 007 caused an influx of espionage films like Michael Caine’s Harry Palmer trilogy and John le Carré adaptations The Spy Who Came In from the Cold and The Deadly Affair, while the emergence of Ken Loach and the rest of his ‘British New Wave’ cohorts instigated the age of social realism becoming a staple of the country’s cinematic output.
It wasn’t all blockbuster sagas, award-winning epic, and naturalistic dramas, though, with the free-spirited nature of the 60s drastically increasing the volume of bawdy sex comedies flooding cinemas on an annual basis. The genre film was alive and well, then, with one production company that became synonymous with glorified B-tier trash ending up as the most prolific outfit in the nation.
Even though the company had been active since 1934 and was hardly shy when it came to churning out multiple movies on an annual basis, it wasn’t until two decades later that ‘Hammer Horror’ became a brand unto itself. Spearheaded by Christopher Lee’s Dracula, anyone with a soft spot for bloodthirsty cinema was hardly left wanting as the company ramped up its output.
Hammer produced or co-produced a monumental 53 features in the 1960s, and not all of them fell into its established wheelhouse. Obviously, there was plenty of that when many of its best and most iconic films – including The Devil Rides Out, The Phantom of the Opera, The Old Dark House, Kiss of the Vampire, Taste of Fear, and Maniac – kept rolling off the production line, but horizons were also broadened.
The ominous-sounding Never Take Sweets from a Stranger lived up to its eerie nomenclature by presenting a dramatic thriller where a family tries to bring an elderly sex offender to justice, Cash on Demand delivered a neo-noir crime story set almost entirely in a single location, The Brigand of Kandahar was basically Hammer’s twist on Zulu, and One Million Years B.C. became one of its most memorable movies simply for Raquel Welch and her prehistoric bikini.
Admittedly, the vast majority of Hammer’s filmography from the 60s was comprised of the cheap and cheerful horror that made it such a legendary brand that carries a strong cult following to this day, but no company becomes the most prolific of an entire decade by being selective over what it chooses to make.
