CARRY ON HAMMERING
Apr. 21st, 2009 07:27 pmThis is almost a year old, but I’ve only just seen it, and it’s worth passing on regardless.
ITEM: Royal Mail has issued commemorative stamps celebrating the 50th anniversary of two of Britain’s most revered cultural institutions: Hammer horror movies and the Carry On films.


Which is an interesting combination. Evidently, the first Carry On film and the first Hammer horror flick (the first color version of Dracula, starring Count Dooku and Grand Moff Tarkin!) both came out in 1958.
So now you can get a collection of six stamps featuring poster art from Dracula, The Curse of Frankenstein, The Mummy, Carry On Sergeant, Carry On Cleo, and of course Carry On Screaming, along with commentary by film critic Kim Newman.
I’m not a stamp collecter – not anymore – but I do like the subject matter. I grew up on Hammer horror (which explains a lot, doesn’t it?), and while I didn’t discover the Carry On films until later, I did watch an awful lot of Benny Hill as a teenager, which is more or less the same thing (and also explains a lot about me, no?). Granted, the Carry On films make Benny Hill look like Bill Hicks, and are unbelievably sexist, but then so were the 50s and 60s when they thrived. And anyway, I’m a sucker for old (and ribald) jokes and campy humor.
Hammer time,
This is dF
ITEM: Royal Mail has issued commemorative stamps celebrating the 50th anniversary of two of Britain’s most revered cultural institutions: Hammer horror movies and the Carry On films.


Which is an interesting combination. Evidently, the first Carry On film and the first Hammer horror flick (the first color version of Dracula, starring Count Dooku and Grand Moff Tarkin!) both came out in 1958.
So now you can get a collection of six stamps featuring poster art from Dracula, The Curse of Frankenstein, The Mummy, Carry On Sergeant, Carry On Cleo, and of course Carry On Screaming, along with commentary by film critic Kim Newman.
I’m not a stamp collecter – not anymore – but I do like the subject matter. I grew up on Hammer horror (which explains a lot, doesn’t it?), and while I didn’t discover the Carry On films until later, I did watch an awful lot of Benny Hill as a teenager, which is more or less the same thing (and also explains a lot about me, no?). Granted, the Carry On films make Benny Hill look like Bill Hicks, and are unbelievably sexist, but then so were the 50s and 60s when they thrived. And anyway, I’m a sucker for old (and ribald) jokes and campy humor.
Hammer time,
This is dF
no subject
on 2009-04-21 02:05 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2009-04-22 03:13 am (UTC)