Hammer Glamour: Women of Hammer Studios

By Rhea Dee

When I think of Hammer movies, Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee usually pop into my mind first. It’s only logical considering the actors made about a billion movies for Hammer Studios.

But I also think of the women who starred in the films as well. In addition to the sex appeal each of the Hammer starlets provided, they also were some of the coolest characters I’d ever seen in horror and genre films. I mean, the leading lady in Scream of Fear? Effing terrific.

Hammer Glamour, by Marcus Hearn, is a nice dedication to some of the most famous females of Hammer films during their heyday (the late 50’s to early 70’s). The book is a collection of sexy photographs taken by Hammer to promote their films. And as many of the actresses biographies in the book illustrate, the photos were almost more notorious and popular than the films themselves.

It was particularly fascinating to read the actress bios, which range from no-previous-acting-experience-whatsoever models, to Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) trained actresses, to foreign women who couldn’t speak a lick of English, and ended up being dubbed in their films (actually they also dubbed a lot of English speaking actresses as well). Their personal stories also ranged from the successful (Raquel Welch and Ursula Andress) to the tragic (I was particularly saddened by Eva Bartok’s story; who was condemned to a concentration camp and forced into a marriage with a Nazi–which was later annulled because she was 15 at the time–and then died in relative obscurity struggling to make ends meet in 1998). There were even a few surprise actresses that I had no idea were even in a Hammer film (like Joanna Lumley, who would later achieve fame as Patsy in Absolutely Fabulous. I know, right?!).

Also, almost inadvertently, I found Hammer Glamour to be a nice reflection on the sexism of the film industry, with many of the actresses being tricked into doing full nudity with promises that the nudity bits would be for a Japanese version that the Britain and United States would never see. I was especially impressed with Barbara Shelley’s reaction to a demand of nudity:

“There was a rape scene and afterwards the producers, Monty Berman and Bob Baker, and the director Henry Cass wanted me to walk around with everything hanging out. I refused because it wasn’t in my contract. I said to them, ‘I’m not going to do it, so you can sue me. And if you use a body double I’ll sue you.’ I was saved by the wonderful wardrobe lady who walked up to the director with a plate in each hand. She broke the tension by saying ‘Here you are, Mr. Cass. Do you want them out on a couple of dinner plates?’”

Hammer Glamour is a wonderful book about some really wonderful women, and proved that the cool factor of the Hammer heroines was not confined to the screen.

Rhea Dee spends her time collecting vintage junk, daydreaming about Eli Roth, and pondering the genius of John Carpenter soundtracks. She really likes horror films.