Happy October, friends, one of - if not the - most glorious of months. Fall is here, but autumn will soon creep in, taking the form of slate grey skies, the skittering of dead leaves, dying daylight hours giving way to a flesh-crawling chill that spreads through the night skies like the translucent wings of a bat. And as much as I love October, I love Halloween even more.

Since I was a child, I've been drawn to monsters. The fog-drenched, grave-strewn fields of a mysterious Europe still scourged by the specters of the Old Ways were Gothic doppelgängers to the fluffy, friendly, color-festooned realms of cherished childhood artifices like the Disney ouerve; the cycle of black-and-white horror films from Universal Pictures over the '30s and '40s were themselves inspired by the chiaroscuro aesthetic that emerged from Germany in the tumultuous period between the two World Wars, a period marked by economic failure, government instability and civil unrest; isolation and alienation, the themes of daily life in the Germany of the Weimar Republic, seeped into an Expressionistic body of culture and art reflecting the utter madness of a failed, crumbling society. As the Nazis ascended to power, many of Germany's intellectuals and artists fled, including more than a few that found themselves in Los Angeles, lensing chillers for struggling, neophyte studios like Universal Studios.

Those early films - made at the height of the Great Depression - are rooted in literary tradition, adapted from books, stories and plays; they're archetypal tales of the clash between modernity and tradition, hedonism and repression, religion and humanism. Figures like Dracula and Frankenstein's monster were at once horrifying, repulsive - yet strangely alluring, sometimes vulnerable. It should come as no surprise the decades have seen counterculture adopt the visages of these phantoms, as they are the ultimate embodiment of the outcast, figures of rebellion against the status quo. For the disenfranchised, they are power fantasies, totems of non-conformity around which those outside the mainstream can rally.

Of course, I didn't know any of this as a child. I just thought capes were cool.

Well, I can't think of a better way to begin October than Kate Bush's music ode to Hammer Films, a British production company that remade the literary Gothic horror film in the late '50s, '60s and '70s. Though Hammer adapted many of the same stories Universal had covered in their horror heyday, the small British studio's approach was markedly different, producing almost strictly period pieces peppered with then-controversial teases of titillation and blood.

The 1957 and 1958 theatrical releases of "Curse of Frankenstein" and "Horror of Dracula," respectively, saw Britain's Hammer Films become legendary; by returning to the sources of cultural horror that propelled Universal Pictures to eminence during the Great Depression, Hammer found great financial success in the U.S., so much so Universal, who had previously threatened voluminous lawsuits should Hammer's interpretations tread too closely to their own, offered up the remake rights to their library of creepers.

Unsurprisingly, Hammer took full advantage, their own adaptations of "The Mummy," "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," "The Wolfman" and "The Phantom of the Opera" following soon thereafter - 1959,1960, 1961 and 1962, to be precise. Like Universal before them, Hammer likewise turned the Frankenstein and Dracula films into franchises, spawning 14 sequels between them, as well as four additional (but unrelated) "Mummy" sequels.

Gradually, Hammer diversified their genre offerings outside of the traditional but familiar literary characters; 1964's "The Gorgon" is just such an example, based on a script by director John Gilling that drew inspiration from the mythology of ancient Greece. Gilling would also be responsible for writing and director several other notable original Hammer films including "Plague of the Zombies" and "The Reptile" (both from 1966, shot back-to-back with the same sets and locations in England's rural Cornwall).

Interestingly, however, "The Gorgon" was not the sole creation of Gilling nor even Hammer. After two underperforming films, Hammer solicited input from audiences, asking moviegoers to submit ideas for upcoming Hammer films they'd like to see; one entry touched upon the combination of Greek myth and Hammer's usual Gothic setting and Hammer began to develop the idea into a full-fledged script, first called "Supernatural" and finally taking up the title "The Gorgon."

The film concerns itself with a quaint German village set upon by one of the mythic Gorgons, the half-serpent, half-women monsters kin to Medusa, whose gaze  can turn any living thing to solid stone. Hammer's two leading men, Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, star alongside "scream queen" Barbara Shelley and Prudence Hyman, formerly an extra on Hammer's "The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll" from 1964, wearing a snake-hair headress as the titular creature. Each of the headress' latex rubber snakes could move independently thanks to cables running through each one.

Basil Gogos' rendered "Curse of Frankenstein" star Peter Cushing just as Hammer Films was really gearing up for major U.S. success with the other half of its one-two punch, "Horror of Dracula."

Cushing, born on May 26th, 1913, would go on to become an icon of not only of the literary, theatrical horror films alongside Christopher Lee for Hammer, but of the British cinema until his death in 1994. Long-time friend and frequent co-star Lee said this of Cushing: ""I don't want to sound gloomy, but, at some point of your lives, every one of you will notice that you have in your life one person, one friend whom you love and care for very much. That person is so close to you that you are able to share some things only with him. For example, you can call that friend, and from the very first maniacal laugh or some other joke you will know who is at the other end of that line. We used to do that with him so often. And then when that person is gone, there will be nothing like that in your life ever again."

Happy birthday Peter Cushing, where ever you are.

Artist/animator Bruce Timm's style is immediately recognizable; his contribution to the cultural zeitgeist, particularly amongst Millennials, is virtually immeasurable thanks to his lush work on Fox's "Batman: The Animated Series," one of the most lauded and celebrated works in modern animation.

The above is the back cover of an issue of "Little Shoppe of Horrors," a publication dedicated to coverage and appreciation of British horror films with a particular preference for those of Hammer Films. Timm illustrated the film that served as the final pairing of Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing as timeless nemeses Dracula and Van Helsing, 1974's ignominious "The Satanic Rites of Dracula," itself a sequel to 1972's "Dracula AD 1972," which tossed the monarch of vampires into the swinging London of the mid-1970s.

Learn more about "Little Shoppe of Horrors" at their official site.

CASH ON DEMAND concerns the fastidious taskmaster Mr. Fordyce, who runs a small but very successful bank outside London.  Fordyce, played wonderfully by Cushing, makes for a bizarre protagonist; his casual cruelty and condescension aren't exactly the types of behavior you find yourself identifying with, especially when he butts heads with his second-in-command, Pearson (Richard Vernon), over a minute detail that coldly warrants Fordyce to threaten Pearson with termination. 

Enter one Colonel Gore Hepburn (Morell, who you might recognize from other fine Hammer products like PLAGUE OF THE ZOMBIES from '66 or '59's HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES, where he played Watson to Cushing's Holmes), a supposed representative from the bank's higher-ups.  Once Hepburn and Fordyce are alone, however; we come to the real plot: Hepburn is an impersonator whose true purpose is to rob the bank, and to earn Fordyce's cooperation, Fordyce's beloved wife and son are captured and threatened.  What unfolds has the elements of a heist film, parts of a police procedural, a dash of Hitchcock's tired and true "the wrong man," and, finally, an ironic ending worthy of EC Comics.

The core of this film is the interactions between Fordyce and Hepburn.  The role of Hepburn was actually originated by Morell himself in an earlier television adaptation, and his mastery of the part certainly shows; Morell plays Hepburn with erudition, patience, and truckloads upon truckloads of charm, but occasionally drops those to demonstrate to Fordyce his deadly seriousness.  Cushing, meanwhile, plays Fordyce as a nervous, stuffy, and traumatized victim who also happens to "learn a thing or two" from Hepburn, believe it or not. 

You have to give credit for utilizing characters like Fordyce and Hepburn; while not uncommon to use rather unlikeable characters are protagonists (see Hammer's Frankenstein and Quatermass films, repectively), it is something of a rarity today, supplanted by the notion the audience should innately identify with the main character and can only do so if that character acts in a way audiences can or would like to picture themselves acting.  With Fordyce and Hepburn, not only do we get richer characters, but it becomes a more layered film, instead asking us to question why we find Hepburn such a charming, likeable fellow - and for all intents should be our protagonist - when, in fact, Hepburn is a lying criminal who has spent a year with his circle of conspirators to map out the patterns and details of the bank's assets and has ensured Fordyce's abducted wife and son will be murdered unless he escapes with nearly £93,000.  Fordyce, on the other hand, sops with perspiration as he attempts to stave off a complete breakdown, even telling Hepburn he has nothing - not even friends - apart from his family.  This does, I suppose, make the film's ending that much more of a conundrum, but I'll keep from spoiling it so that you might get the most mileage as possible.

Overall, CASH ON DEMAND is a compelling and tense film, pitting the actions of two polar opposites against one another in the midst of a complicated bank robbery.  The cinematography is crisp black and white with perhaps a hint of Expressionism, but plays second fiddle to the performance of the actors themselves.  Cushing and Morell carry the film, keeping sharp dialogue as snappy as possible, and it is doubtful even the most cynical of modern film viewers will be unable to watch CASH ON DEMAND.