ThiefHott Too much of everything

Vashirdfel Simply A Masterpiece

filippaberry84 I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Logan By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

christopher-underwood The swinging sixties are coming to an end in swinging London but there are still some hang overs from the 1950s and still plenty of odd ball characters. Pregnancy outside of marriage was still much looked down upon and under the guise of the 'flower children' it was perfectly possible for even homicidal maniacs to not seem out of place. Rita Tushingham is as great as ever and this much under rated actress puts in one of her more endearing performances. Shane Briant is eerily convincing as the psycho and the rest of the cast including James Bolam are all fine. Some decent location shooting is always appreciated around this time and here we get a couple of boutiques and some very moody stuff around the then recently completed South Bank complex. Plenty of surprises and well worth catching as one of the most unusual hammer movies.

Jonathon Dabell Perhaps the least formulaic film ever released by Hammer, Straight On Till Morning is a bleak and unforgiving "kitchen-sink" horror flick that doesn't quite come off. It is undeniably refreshing to find the studio veering away from the usual period chillers with which it built (and then subsequently bludgeoned) its reputation. However, Straight On Till Morning has not dated particularly well and seems somewhat stuck in a time capsule of music, costumes and attitudes (other controversial movies of that era – Straw Dogs, Performance, Deliverance, Frenzy, etc - have all aged much better). Also, director Peter Collinson's busy and fragmented narrative style proves just a bit too wearisome for the film's own good.Ugly duckling Brenda Thompson (Rita Tushingham) lives in a terraced house in Liverpool, where she spends hours writing children's' fairy stories and dreaming of a perfect life. She lies to her mother that she is pregnant and heads off to London, claiming that she wants to find a nice man to raise her baby (when, in reality, she thinks she will find her perfect prince with whom to live happily ever after). Brenda is incredibly naïve and inexperienced, and it isn't long before she is literally throwing herself at men in desperation. When she fails to woo a work colleague named Joey (James Bolam), losing him instead to her beautiful room-mate Caroline (Katya Wyeth), she runs off into the dark London streets in despair. Whilst out wandering, she comes across a stray dog and takes it back to her lodgings to clean it up and make it look pretty. Later Brenda returns the dog to its rightful owner, the handsome yet day-dreamy Peter (Shane Briant). He seems to like her and offers her the chance to move in with him, but later – while Brenda is away collecting her things – he stabs his dog to death with a knife. Seems that Peter is psychologically messed-up and has a real problem with "beauty"…. in fact, he is behind the disappearance of various beautiful girls in the Earl's Court area of London, all of them brutally murdered by him because of their good looks. Blindly, agonisingly, Brenda allows herself to walk into the life of this dangerous psychopath….There are no characters in the film with whom we can empathise. They range from psychotic (Peter) to promiscuous (Caroline); from stupid (Brenda) to cruel and cold (Joey). To share an hour and a half with such mean-spirited people is fascinating in some respects, yet very unpleasant in others. (This is certainly not a film that encourages repeat viewings). The pacing is slow but deliberate, and the shocks are fairly infrequent (but powerful and disturbing when they come). The film ends on a typically bleak note – no great crescendo of action at the end with the villain getting his just desserts; instead a painfully realistic conclusion which cruelly refuses to play to genre expectations. Straight On Till Morning marks a major departure for Hammer and is interesting, challenging stuff. Sadly - having set up its grim tone, style and themes - it doesn't make a terribly good job of shaping them into a great film.

Trebaby Fans of bleak, late 60s/early 70s British cinema might enjoy this sadistic psycho-thriller -- probably the most atypical release from Hammer ever. Rita Tushingham stars as an empty-headed Liverpudlian who escapes from the claustrophobia of her mother's flat only to land in the arms of psychotic Shane Briant who has an ugliness fixation. The DVD release from Anchor Bay looks great although the mono sound is a bit muddled. Downbeat ending doesn't really deliver the goods and I can't tell if Rita's makeover is supposed to be deliberately funny or not. Opening 10 minutes are great but director Collinson abandons the film's earlier, psychedelic editing style once Tushingham and Briant hook up. Still worth catching for the 70s period costumes and sets.

Taffy Turner I hadn't seen this movie for decades because it hasn't been shown on terrestrial TV for years, but I decided to buy the Region 1 DVD release (there's no official Region 2 UK release as yet) and I thoroughly enjoyed it.Well it's difficult to dislike Rita Tushingham in any film, but it's directed in such a great style by the late/great Peter Collinson (director of The Italian Job (1969)fame), with a bleak beginning that could only be Britian of the 1960's/1970's and with a real snap shot of how things were in London back then.This is a very different type of film from Hammer, when compared to their usual offerings and must have been truly shocking back then with it's level of cruelty, but it's a classic movie you simply have to own and the fact it's unavailable in the UK (the very place it was made & with an all British cast) is scandalous.