Hammer and Beyond: The Jimmy Sangster Legacy

The story of Hammer Film Productions is, in many ways, the story of writer, producer and director Jimmy Sangster. In the late 1950s, Sangster became one of the chief architects of Hammer horror when he wrote the screenplays for The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) and Dracula (1958). But he soon tired of the Gothic horror formula that he had done so much to create. Refusing to believe that he, and Hammer, should be typecast, Sangster set the company on a new path by writing and producing a series of suspense thrillers, beginning with the acclaimed Taste of Fear (1961). The innovations didn't stop there – he subsequently wrote pirate films for Hammer, and collaborated with Bette Davis on The Nanny (1965) and The Anniversary (1968). He tried to initiate yet another direction for Hammer with the ultimately unproduced Bride of Newgate Jail, before returning at the end of Hammer's original horror cycle as a director – The Horror of Frankenstein (1970) is in many ways a parody of The Curse of Frankenstein, the film that had launched his career 14 years earlier. Sangster had another career in parallel with his work at Hammer. In the late 1950s he was a screenwriter in British television, as well as writing screenplays for Tempean Films. In the late 1960s he wrote his first TV movies for US broadcasters. He eventually moved to Los Angeles, where he hearned a place at the top table of network television writers from the 1970s into the 80s. Over the course of a remarkable career, Sangster had screenplays produced in every decade from the 1950s to the early 2000s. Sangster was a self-deprecating and enigmatic character. As a result, his achievements and influence have never been fully recognised. This film draws upon expert commentary from friends and admirers, and shares never-before-seen items from Sangster's own archive. The result is a revealing portrait of an often overlooked talent.