Hammer House of Horror/Mystery and Suspense.

[studpuppet]

Two reminiscences:

1.   My parents bought an old house in the middle of nowhere that needed renovating and we lived in a mobile home in the back garden for three years while it was rebuilt.
One night my mum left me for 10-20 mins while she collected my sister from her friend's house. She left me in front of the telly and when she'd gone Armchair Thriller came on. The one with James Bolam as the writer. At the end of part 1 he gets run off the road in his Mini and I think the last thing you see is a spinning upside-down wheel on the car[nb]Obviously my memory of 'The Limbo Connection' is completely at odds with the actual plot due to sheer fright: http://www.markmcm.co.uk/blacknun/armchairthriller/[/nb][nb]It also pinpoints the evening to 2nd May 1978 – I was a few days shy of seven years old so it must have been a repeat, or my mum had a VERY cavalier attitude to childcare...[/nb].
My mum also drove a Mini at the time, and being alone with the creepy music and everything, my mind conflated it  into thinking that my mum had also been run off the road and the perpetrators were coming back to get me. Thus when my mum and sister got home, I was under my duvet cowering, and no amount of cajoling would get me out again. In the end my dad arrived home and had to crowbar the door of the caravan open.

2.   Same place a few years later. My parents' house is actually next door to a minor stately home that occasionally gets used for filming. It gets used as the main location for Hammer House of Mystery & Suspense: 'The Tennis Court' (the exterior of the tennis court actually being a plane hangar in reality[nb][/nb]). Place gets turned upside-down for a couple of weeks, Hannah Gordon and Peter 'Ever seen a grown man naked?' Graves pitch up, sister learns about being a make-up artist, parents make a bit of cash allowing the unit vehicles to park in their garden.
Sit down to watch it when it's transmitted; it's not even remotely scary in comparison to living there (rumours of ghosts and poltergeists abound), and is in fact just a bit silly, even to a 13 year-old.

[Glebe]

Yikes, sounds scary studpuppet. This Hammer House of Horror fan site has information on filming locations for that series, but I don't see anything for Hammer House of Mystery and Suspense.

Hmmm, can't find next episode 'A Distant Scream' streaming online...

[studpuppet]

...but I don't see anything for Hammer House of Mystery and Suspense.

This one does:

http://www.hammerhouseofhorrortvseries.co.uk/hhms.html

The proximity of a lot of the locations to Borehamwood leads me to think that the location people had also worked for ATV. You can look up some of them on the Avengerland site (not well mantained for non-ATV series by the looks of things):

http://avengerland.theavengers.tv/indexto.htm

[Danger Man]

I see the dairy crisis has forced them to turn the farm into an airport.

[studpuppet]

Danger Man, it's always been an airport...

[Glebe]

Okay I know we're not supposed to *bump* old topics, but this thread feels 'unfinished'... I'd given up some time ago when it came to 'A Distant Scream' and couldn't find a watchable copy streaming (the best I could find was one with a Russian voiceover over the top), but prompted by studpuppet in the 'Real life film locations you've been to' thread, I've just recently discovered HHoMaS episodes 'And the Wall Came Tumbling Down' and 'Tennis Court'.

'And the Wall Came Tumbling Down' is a bit meh, fairly pedestrian stuff involving the pulling down of an old church. It features among others the former Playboy model Barbi Benton, Peter Wyngarde, '80s coffee ad heartthrob Gareth Hunt, the late great Patricia Hayes and there's also a brief appearance from The Vicar of Dibley's Gary Waldhorn, who also appeared in Hammer House of Horror episode 'Carpathian Eagle'.

'Tennis Court' is pretty silly, involving as it does - yes - a haunted tennis court (haunted by a

Spoiler alert

living person

[close]

, as if things weren't ridiculous enough). It stars Hannah Gordon and Peter Graves, whose appearance a couple of years after playing Captain Clarence Oeuvre in Airplane! and it's sequel hardly reduce the absurdity of the situation. Also features among others Ralph Arliss, who played Kickalong in the 1979 Quatermass mini-series and Marcus Gilbert, who played Lord Arthur in Army of Darkness.

'And the Wall Came Tumbling Down' is currently available to stream here (first 55mins of it are on Dailymotion but the rest seems to have gone for a Burton), the full 'Tennis Court' is however available on there in two parts, here and here.

Can't find the remaining four Mystery and Suspense episodes I haven't seen (namely 'A Distant Scream', 'The Late Nancy Irving', 'Czech Mate' and 'The Sweet Scent of Death') streaming free online (I've never really gotten to grips with torrents, I'm sure they can be found that way though). Most of the previously-posted links are no use, with a lot of the videos being taken down in the last couple of years. The Internet Archive has a few episodes though.

It might seem a bit cheapskate having watched these streaming free in low quality, but to be fair there'd been no recent commercial releases until HHoH got a Blu-ray release in 2017 (which I've still not gotten my hands on as yet!). As for Mystery and Suspense, it apparently got a UK DVD release in 2006 and has only since received a German DVD release, in 2018. I imagine it has an English soundtrack, dunno about removeable subtitles, but in any case an official UK release - especially on Blu-ray of course - would be most welcome. Prolly rights issues preventing this, it is after all ripe for a re-issue!

[studpuppet]

Can't find the remaining four Mystery and Suspense episodes I haven't seen (namely 'A Distant Scream', 'The Late Nancy Irving', 'Czech Mate' and 'The Sweet Scent of Death') streaming free online (I've never really gotten to grips with torrents, I'm sure they can be found that way though). Most of the previously-posted links are no use, with a lot of the videos being taken down in the last couple of years. The Internet Archive has a few episodes though.

It might seem a bit cheapskate having watched these streaming free in low quality, but to be fair there'd been no recent commercial releases, then HHoH got a Blu-ray release in 2017 (which I've still not gotten my hands on as yet!). As for Mystery and Suspense, it apparently got a UK DVD release in 2006 and has only since received a German DVD release, in 2018. I imagine it has a English soundtrack, dunno about removeable subtitles, but in any case an official UK release - especially on Blu-ray of course - would be most welcome. I imagine there must be rights issues preventing this, it is after all ripe for a re-issue!

I have the HHOM&S Vol. 2 DVD which contains:
Last Video And Testament
Mark Of The Devil
The Corvini Inheritance
Paint Me A Murder
Childs Play
And The Wall Came Tumbling Down
Tennis Court

So it's Vol. 1 you're after, but fuck me they're expensive these days! I obviously bought Vol. 2 for its local colour, but should have bought both!

[Glebe]

So it's Vol. 1 you're after, but fuck me they're expensive these days! I obviously bought Vol. 2 for its local colour, but should have bought both!

I'm sure I could find a copy of the old DVD release online if I made the effort, it's just I'm not arsed scouring and shelling out a fortune for it!

[Ignatius_S]

...As for Mystery and Suspense, it apparently got a UK DVD release in 2006 and has only since received a German DVD release, in 2018. I imagine it has an English soundtrack, dunno about removeable subtitles, but in any case an official UK release - especially on Blu-ray of course - would be most welcome. Prolly rights issues preventing this, it is after all ripe for a re-issue!

I looked into the German version a while ago and its main issue is that although it's billed as the complete collections, it looks like there are 11 out of the 13 episodes. Listings vary and it's often describe it as the complete collection, but the running time suggests 11 episodes. From one listing, Czech Mate was not on it - I remember as it's one I want to see.

There is English audio and I have a feeling there is German audio as well - but in any case, the subtitles aren't burned in.

[Ignatius_S]

...So it's Vol. 1 you're after, but fuck me they're expensive these days! I obviously bought Vol. 2 for its local colour, but should have bought both!

Yeah, it's amazing how limited some print runs seem to be - that said, there have been times when I thought to myself 'ah, I'll just get it later' and later was too late!

[Glebe]

I looked into the German version a while ago and its main issue is that although it's billed as the complete collections, it looks like there are 11 out of the 13 episodes. Listings vary and it's often describe it as the complete collection, but the running time suggests 11 episodes. From one listing, Czech Mate was not on it - I remember as it's one I want to see.

There is English audio and I have a feeling there is German audio as well - but in any case, the subtitles aren't burned in.

Aha... odd that two episodes are missing. A rights issue perhaps? In any case once again Ignatius many thanks!

[Catalogue Trousers]

'And the Wall Came Tumbling Down' is a bit meh, fairly pedestrian stuff involving the pulling down of an old church. It features among others the former Playboy model Barbi Benton, Peter Wyngarde, '80s coffee ad heartthrob Gareth Hunt, the late great Patricia Hayes and there's also a brief appearance from The Vicar of Dibley's Gary Waldhorn, who also appeared in Hammer House of Horror episode 'Carpathian Eagle'.

I think that's a bit of a harsh judgement - it's always been one of my favourites of the bunch. Probably because it's almost a re-make, albeit outright supernatural rather than SF, of Quatermass And The Pit - with Hunt as Quatermass and Wyngarde as Breen.

In fact, I prefer episodes like it, Child's Play, and even Tennis Court (which really is a bit meh) to the rest of the run. It's that old thing that I find with other anthology series like Thriller (either the Boris Karloff or Brian Clemens version) - the non-fantastic straight 'suspense' stories are often the most dull.