Book Review: TERENCE FISHER--MASTER OF GOTHIC CINEMA

 

Nearly every film director with a major association with the cinema of the fantastic has been the subject of a major biography, including James Whale, Tod Browning, and Ishiro Honda. Now Terence Fisher is finally the recipient of an extensive look at his life with Tony Dalton's TERENCE FISHER--MASTER OF GOTHIC CINEMA, published by FAB Press. 

Fisher will always be best known for the many Gothic horror films he directed for Hammer Films--a group of pictures that redefined the genre. A major part of this book does deal with Fisher's Hammer years, but Tony Dalton covers the man's entire life, from his childhood, his early years in the British Merchant Navy, and his beginnings in the English film industry as a clapper boy. 

Fisher later moved into the editing department, and eventually became a director, helming a number of low-budget features from the late 1940s to the mid-1950s. In 1956 Hammer Films chose Fisher to direct THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN, a picture that changed horror films--and Fisher's career. 

The author is not just a Hammer fan, he is someone who was a friend of Terence Fisher and his family. For this book Dalton has done extensive research on Fisher's personal life before he got into the film industry. Dalton also spends plenty of pages on Fisher's editing work, and the films he directed before THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN. In most books and articles on Fisher, his non-Gothic films are barely acknowledged, or ignored, but Dalton doesn't make that mistake. The author also reminds the reader that before the color Hammer Gothics, Fisher worked with several known actors, such as Jean Simmons, Dirk Bogarde, Diana Dors, Noel Coward, Paul Henreid, Pat O'Brien, and Paulette Goddard. 

Terence Fisher's television work is also given a chapter here (another aspect of the man's career that gets ignored by film geeks). It is in this chapter that Dalton reveals that Fisher worked on a Walt Disney production!

When Dalton gets to the time of THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN, he breaks off the chronological narrative and examines the rest of Fisher's films in various sub-groups. I understand the author's intent in doing this, but I wish he had stuck to a consecutive timeline, especially since this is the first major biography of the director.  

Nevertheless, this is the best book on the life and work of Terence Fisher by far. What Dalton is most successful at is defining what sort of person Terence Fisher was, not just on a movie set but at home as well. Fisher was reserved, modest, and non-confrontational, and he loved nothing more than working on a Hammer film surrounded by artists he was familiar with (well, maybe nothing except spending time in a pub). The volume that I am reviewing is the limited-edition hardcover version of the book, which can only be ordered direct from FAB Press. (A softcover version is planned for later this year--I do not know if that will differ greatly from the hardcover version.)

This is a 500-page, well-designed book, with high-quality pages, and dozens of photographs, including several rare ones of Terence Fisher, and a few very familiar to Hammer fans. The book has three different color sections, and a filmography that the author states is the most complete of Terence Fisher's cinema work. 

There have been plenty of things written about Terence Fisher over the years. Most of the writing either gives Fisher too much credit or not enough. Tony Dalton strikes the right balance in this superb biography, while presenting Fisher as a filmmaker, not just a horror movie director. Even long-time hardcore Hammer enthusiasts will find plenty of things to learn and appreciate from TERENCE FISHER--MASTER OF GOTHIC CINEMA.