Review: The Gorgon

Set in early 20^th century Germany, a spate of bizarre deaths have spiked during nights with a full moon. The bodies weirdly seem to turn to stone. Inspector Patrick Troughton (and his seriously awesome helmet) suspects young Jeremy Longhurst of the murders after his girlfriend is one of the victims, and Longhurst himself is found dead. Murder-suicide it is, then. Longhurst’s father Michael Goodliffe suspects otherwise, and tries to enlist the help of the local medical examiner, Peter Cushing, who performed the autopsy on Longhurst’s girlfriend. Cushing won’t be drawn further into the matter, however. Eventually Goodliffe’s other son Richard Pasco and his mentor Christopher Lee come to start an investigation of their own. Barbara Shelley plays Cushing’s assistant, whom Pasco takes a fancy to, much to Cushing’s displeasure. Jack Watson plays another employee of Cushing.

 

One of Hammer’s forgotten monster movies somewhat, this 1964 effort from Terence Fisher (“Curse of Frankenstein”, “Horror of Dracula”, “The Mummy”, “The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll”, “Night of the Big Heat”) and writer John Gilling (writer-director of “The Flesh and the Fiends”, AKA “Mania”) is actually a strong, underrated Medusa variant. The cast is tops right through, the cinematography by Michael Reed (“Rasputin - The Mad Monk”, “Dracula: Prince of Darkness”), and especially he music score by James Bernard (“Curse of Frankenstein”, “The Horror of Dracula”, “The Devil Rides Out”, “Dracula: Prince of Darkness”) are top-notch as well. It’s irresistible stuff, and actually quite eerie at times, too. Having been forewarned by Christopher Lee in his excellent updated autobiography Lord of Misrule, I must say I didn’t think the Gorgon FX were too bad for the period, though perhaps a bit cheap-looking for the Hammer standard. For the most part, Fisher is smart enough to keep us at a distant from the title beast anyway. It’s not as cool as the stop-motion Medusa in “The 7 Faces of Dr. Lao”, but I expected bottom-of-the-barrel, and thankfully it’s not that badly done. Plot-wise the film reminds me of one of Peter Cushing’s lesser films, the non-Hammer “The Blood Beast Terror”, though this is a much, much better film.

 

Although Christopher Lee is top-billed, almost all of his work is confined to the last 20-30 minutes of the film. That’s utterly absurd false advertising, though Lee and his Albert Einstein hair and moustache arrive with great gusto in a wonderfully lively performance. The film could’ve used more of him. It’s actually much more of a Richard Pasco and Barbara Shelley film, with Michael Goodliffe (sporting a fierce beard – facial hair is par excellence in this film!) and Peter Cushing (equipped with an awesome moustache) probably the next most prominently featured in the cast. Goodliffe’s performance is actually the most impressive in the entire film, he’s terrific. However, there are no duds here, even if Cushing has given much more interesting performances in other films. He’s still as dependable and solid as ever. Barbara Shelley was always an underrated and solid actress and she does a terrific job in a rather complex role. She’s one of my favourite Hammer actresses along with Ingrid Pitt, Veronica Carlson, Valerie Leon, and Martine Beswick. Pasco, the third alum from “Rasputin - The Mad Monk” (Shelley and Lee being the others), does really well with a tricky role that also could’ve been overplayed in lesser hands.

 

Good-looking, good-sounding, well-acted Hammer outing might not be as memorable as “The Horror of Dracula” or “The Mummy”, but it’s certainly among the better Hammer films I’ve seen over the years. It’s full of atmosphere and deserving of much better stature in my opinion. It’s probably even better than “Rasputin - The Mad Monk” and “The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll”. It just needed more Christopher Lee, if anything.

 

Rating: B-