Hammer Glamour (Hardcover)

I got my copy of Hammer Glamor a week ago, and I am now writing to share that if you like girls and Gothic horror, then you simply must own this gorgeous tome! This really is a fine effort and obviously a labor of love from Marcus Hearn. This big, glossy papered, (almost) full-color book is broken down into 50 major "chapters", each chapter focuses on one starlet and will be from two to four pages long. Also, each chapter features one rare and in-your-face, full page glamor shot of each actress spotlighted. As if this weren't enough, these 50 principle career overviews are followed by a back-up section comprised of 23 mini-biographies of other young beauties who gave their all for The House that Dripped Blood (each women is given a substantial paragraph or more, along with one studio portrait or rare film still).

Another big plus is that here we have a coffee table "feast for the eyes" that also features solid writing. It is obvious that Marcus worked very hard on the text, and must have attempted to personally contact each of the 50 actresses. The background information is fascinating, and even though I have yet to finish reading this I have already learned several new and surprising details (for instance you will be shocked to find out the truth about Susan Denberg of FRANKENSTEIN CREATED WOMAN).

My only complaint involves a few of the image choices. I do not know how much image material Marcus had to choose from (I assume a lot), but a handful of the photos are, in my opinion, sub-par, at least in comparison to the majority of them (which are superb). I will cite two examples: The full-page portrait of Catherine Von Schell is a nice enough photo - but it doesn't look like Catherine! The picture chosen looks exactly like Patty Duke! I swear to God, it does! This is not that uncommon. We have all run across photos of people we know, or even of ourselves, that look like "somebody else". I remember many years ago finding a portrait of actor William Hurt that looked exactly like me. Now, I am not saying I have ever thought that I look like William Hurt - I have not and I still don't - but that particular photo of him, for whatever reasons, did look just like me. Same thing here with this odd shot of Miss Von Schell. Why Marcus went with this pic is mysterious to me. Another misfire is the full-page shot of Veronica Carlson (maybe the quintessential Hammer actress). The photo in question, by most accounts, is certainly good enough, but the one fault lies in Veronica's makeup. When actresses have these important studio portraits made there must be present a skilled makeup artist on hand. One thing these professionals see to is that the woman being photographed does not appear shiny, glossy, or blotchy (typical problems when making intense color photos of faces - beautiful faces or not). For whatever reason Veronica's skin is obviously oily looking in the photo selected by Marcus, giving the appearance of an amateurish high school yearbook portrait as opposed to a major film studio promotional still. However, this nitpick aside, the book is perfection and a must-have for all Hammer hounds such as me (and you)! - JohnB