 | This articleneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "The Skull" film – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(May 2016) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
| The Skull | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Freddie Francis |
| Written by | Milton Subotsky Robert Bloch |
| Based on | short story "The Skull of the Marquis de Sade" by Robert Bloch |
| Produced by | Max Rosenberg Milton Subotsky |
| Starring | Peter Cushing Christopher Lee Jill Bennett Patrick Wymark Nigel Green |
| Cinematography | John Wilcox |
| Edited by | Oswald Hafenrichter |
| Music by | Elisabeth Lutyens |
Production company | |
| Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
Release date |
|
Running time | 83 minutes |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
The Skull is a 1965 Britishhorror film directed byFreddie Francis forAmicus Productions, and starringPeter Cushing andChristopher Lee,Patrick Wymark,Jill Bennett,Nigel Green,Patrick Magee andPeter Woodthorpe.[1] The script was written byMilton Subotsky from a short story byRobert Bloch, "The Skull of the Marquis de Sade".
It was one of a number of British horror films of the sixties to be scored byavant-garde composerElisabeth Lutyens, including several others for Amicus.
In the 19th century, Pierre, aphrenologist robs the grave of the recently buriedMarquis de Sade. He takes the Marquis's severed head and sets about boiling it to remove its flesh, leaving the skull. Before the task is done, Pierre meets an unseen and horrific death.
In modern-day London, Christopher Maitland, a collector and writer on theoccult, is offered the skull by Anthony Marco, an unscrupulous dealer in antiques and curiosities. Maitland learns that the skull has been stolen from Sir Matthew Phillips, a friend and fellow collector. Sir Matthew, however, does not want to recover it, having escaped its evil influence. He warns Maitland of its powers. At his sleazy lodgings, Marco dies in mysterious circumstances. Maitland finds his body and takes possession of the skull. He in turn falls victim as the skull drives him to hallucinations, madness and death.
The film was an attempt byAmicus to challengeHammer Film Productions by making a full length colour movie. Once filming started,Freddie Francis rewrote much ofMilton Subotsky's script.[2]
Christopher Lee is billed as "guest star" in the film's credits; he plays a supporting role, and, unusually, is not a villain. The film's final twenty-five minutes contain almost no dialogue.
In real life, theMarquis de Sade's body wasexhumed from its grave in the grounds of the lunatic asylum atCharenton, where he died in 1814, and his skull was removed forphrenological analysis. It was subsequently lost, and its fate remains unknown.[3]
When it was released in France, promotional materials had to be changed at the last minute by pasting a new title,Le crâne maléfique ("The Evil Skull"), over the original French titleLes Forfaits du Marquis de Sade ("Infamies of the Marquis de Sade") on posters and lobby cards, after legal action by the present-day Sade family.
The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "A graveyard opening, followed by the cleansing of the skull in a decor which establishes a nice line in drawing-room laboratories, promises a 19th century piece of macabre skullduggery in familiar idiom; but the opening is merely a resumé of the skull's history, and the main action takes place in contemporary decor which is unusually vivid and imaginative. The film is pictorially effective throughout, and is directed by Freddie Francis with an individual flair which far outstrips the standard gimmicks of the genre. Francis has perhaps an over-fondness for camera motion (pans, tracks and tilts galore, which tend to become irksome after a time); the trick shots, with the camera, as it were, inside the skull so that we look out through the eye-sockets, are over-used; and it is a pity that the idea was not reserved for a single presentation during the climax when the skull establishes itself on a pentacular table on which it teleports one of the statuettes. But except for one shot towards the end when, through boldness in bringing the thing into close-up, suspension wires are too clearly visible, the mobility of the skull is very well contrived; and such blemishes are small price to pay for an unusually deft piece of macabre supernatural, the impact of which is given extra distinction in Bill Constable's art direction andElisabeth Lutyens' score."[4]