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The Glass Cage (The Glass Tomb) (1955)
Topic Started: Apr 23 2012, 06:46 PM (466 Views)
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What was going on behind the scenes at Hammer was more interesting than what was going on in front of the cameras, folks.

1954, and since finishing Mask of Dust, that road-race movie I wrote about last week, Hammer had produced Men of Sherwood Forest with Don Taylor and the comedy sequel The Lyons in Paris. Their deal with Lippert was ending, and they had a big backlog of these "quota quickies" still to be released. They were also quite busy with the (for them) ambitious undertaking The Quatermass Xperiment, as well as converting to widescreen cinematography. And so, the studio retrenched. By early 1955, they'd finished The Glass Cage with John Ireland, Break in the Circle with Forrest Tucker, and Women without Men with Beverly Michaels; for the next year, they involved themselves strictly with post-production and publicity for Quatermass, and a series of musical and comedy short subjects.

The Glass Tomb is very short and was one of the final of the so-called Hammer Noir offerings to be released; John Ireland has a great idea for a carnival attraction: stick a guy in a big glass booth without any food, call him "The Starving Man", and charge the suckers, sorry, loyal British subjects, to come see him. Somebody gets killed, though, and the Starving Man is the only witness, so he's a pretty good target there behind the glass walls. When Ireland's wife (the delicious Honor Blackman) is threatened, Ireland needs to discover who the killer is, and he doesn't have much time, because the movie is less than an hour long.

Let's just say you won't be writing home about this one, shall we?

Well, anyway, in August 1955 the studio released The Quatermass Xperiment (on a double-bill with Rififfi!) and struck box-office gold, or at least silver. That film's success allowed Hammer to attract new interest from financiers, but they sure weren't interested in 60 min. crime dramas with minor American stars. Hammer's 1956 production schedule would include four features, one a war picture and the other three in the horror or sci-fi genres, but more on that yet to come.
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