Gold from Ghouls

All in glorious color, the naked princess is eviscerated, basted with sacred oil, and simmered in bouillon (cooking time: 70 days). Somehow, she must be brought back to life, but before the trick is turned, six writhing slave girls are put to the sword, the high priest's tongue is cut out, and he is buried alive.

Shuddering millions may or may not recognize this nightmare as a remake of Boris Karloff's film classic, The Mummy. Whether they do or not, the sixth straight gals-and-ghouls movie (and 59th film) turned out by Britain's brash little Hammer Film Productions Ltd. is sure to be boffo all over the world. Last week Hammer's short, hard, bright boss. Colonel* Jimmy Carreras, 49, knocked the bung out of yet another barrel of blood: he gave Britons a fresh and frightening look at Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Hound of the Baskervilles. In three years, Hammer's remakes of Curse of Frankenstein, Dracula, and other items from Hollywood's library of horror classics have earned more dollars from world sales than the products of any other British moviemaker in the last decade. Cracks a Hammer executive inevitably: "We've pumped new blood into the industry."

Hammer's exports have also raised British blood pressure. "I feel inclined to apologize to all decent Americans for sending them work in such sickening bad taste," wrote the London Observer's Critic C. A. Lejeune after seeing Hammer's Curse of Frankenstein. This hardly worried Colonel ("The King of Nausea") Carreras. Frankenstein's production cost: $270,000. Its worldwide gross: $7,500,000. Net profit for Hammer: $7,000,000.

Secret of such astonishing returns is Hammer's easy access to cash and quickie production methods. To launch a film, tiny (160 employees) Hammer borrows from Columbia Pictures, which owns 49% of Hammer's studios in Windsor. Production is fast (average: six weeks).

Nobody loves Hammer more than a Windsor butcher who has grown fat on selling the studio his offal: lamb tongues, entrails, eyeballs. Such "authentic art" is a priceless asset to Hammer, which also fills theater lobbies with promotional displays of headless bodies floating in tanks.

* Who got an M.B.E. as a World War II antiaircraft officer.

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