Product Description

HAMMER WASN'T JUST HORROR...The legendary British studio is justly reverred for its classic horror movies but they actually made all kinds of pictures and this first Sony collection of their best films presents four pulse-pounding adventures - all new to DVD - three of them starring Hammer icon Christopher Lee. He's at his snarling best as blood-thirsty buccaneers in the rousing swashbuckers The Pirates of Blood River and The Devil-Ship Pirates. Then he warms up for his famed Fu Manchu series by playing an evil Chinese crime lord in The Terror of the Tongs. Rounding out the set is the rarely-seen The Stranglers of Bombay based on the chilling true story of how the British attempted to vanquish the Thuggees the notorious death cult that terrorized India for centuries. So strap yourself in for the most rip-roaring group of movies since Errol Flynn laid down his sword!System Requirements:Running Time: 332 minutesFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: HORROR/CLASSICS UPC: 043396243156 Manufacturer No: 24315

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #20967 in DVD
• Brand: Sony
• Released on: 2008-06-10
• Rating: Unrated
• Aspect ratio: 1.37:1
• Formats: Color, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, French
• Number of discs: 2
• Dimensions: 1.00 pounds
• Running time: 332 minutes

Amazon.com
Icons of Adventure is a terrific quartet of picaresque features from Britain's Hammer studios, best known for such unique horror films as The Curse of Frankenstein and the 1958 Dracula, both starring Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. Lee was also the star of three of the films in the Icons set, two of those colorful pirate adventures. The 1962 The Pirates of Blood River finds Lee playing a deceptively docile buccaneer, one-eyed Captain LaRoche, who convinces a fugitive from a penal colony to help him locate a Huguenot colony on a large island. The runaway prisoner (Kerwin Matthews) is actually the son of a colony founder, sentenced to hard labor for challenging the establishment's tight grip on personal freedom. When the hero discovers that LaRoche simply intends to overwhelm the colony and use it as a new base of operation, he leads the fight to protect the authorities who previously threw him into hell. The more elegant and engaging The Devil-Ship Pirates (1964) is a 16th century tale of a Spanish pirate, Captain Robeles (Lee), who convinces a small village on the British coast that Spain has won its Spanish Armada battle against England. Pretending to be an official, occupying force instead of a bunch of swashbucklers, Robeles rules the village with an iron fist while being hectored by a real Spanish naval officer who doesn't agree with his methods.

Lee turns up again as the imperious leader of a cutthroat tong--a secretive, organized criminal society--in the exotic 1961 Terror of the Tongs. Geoffrey Toone plays the captain of a British passenger ship whose daughter is murdered by the Red Dragon Tong during the latter's attempt to find incriminating papers smuggled (against her knowledge) within her possessions. As the captain seeks vengeance, he gets close to the dangerous heart of the tong, which exacts punishment over anyone who does not cooperate by hacking off his or her fingers. The fourth feature in Icons of Adventure is very different from the others and doesn't involve Lee. The Stranglers of Bombay (1960) stars Guy Rolfe as Captain Harry Lewis, a career soldier helping to protect the interests of exporters the British East India Company. Stationed in India for years, Lewis has conducted a thorough study of a rash of disappearances and anticipates a military assignment to solve the long-running mystery. When the job goes to an outsider who knows nothing about India, Lewis works independently and discovers a religious cult called the Stranglers, who waylay travelers and steal their possessions. A tense thriller involving crazed rituals of bloodletting, torture, wild-eyed sacraments and poisonous snakes, The Stranglers of Bombay looks like an influence on Steven Spielberg's Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. --Tom Keogh

Customer Reviews

NICE RELEASE OF EXCEEDINGLY RARE HAMMERS
Hammer Studios is known for its particular brand of horror films, but in the early sixties they also ventured into the realm of adventure. Four of those titles are included here. PIRATES OF BLOOD RIVER is a swashbuckling potboiler, with Christopher Lee as a one-eyed pirate, and Sinbad's Kerwin Matthews as the persecuted hero who saves the town that rejected him from treasure seeking mauraders.

DEVIL-SHIPS PIRATES has a clever premise, a Spanish privateer that sailed with the Armada runs ashore near a small and remote British town and terrorizes the populace, tricking the hapless villagers into believing (at least for a while) that the Armada defeated the British navy and the rest of England is now occupied by the victorious Spaniards. This clever IT HAPPENED HERE touch from screenwriter Jimmy Sangster makes DEVIL-SHIP special, as does Christopher Lee's performance as the absolute nastiest villian he's ever played in his long and distinguished career.

Two dark masterpieces are on the second disk. THE TERROR OF THE TONGS, with Christopher Lee as the evil head of the Red Dragon Tongs, is set in nineteenth century Hong Kong. When the Red Dragons murder a British sea captain's teenaged daughter, they unleash a reckoning they never imagined.

The second film on disk two is STRANGLERS OF BOMBAY, the "true" story of the Kali Cult in India. This film is the only black and white entry in this set and it stars no major Hammer actors, yet you'll be rivited by a suspenseful story that really draws you in. Though this was made decades ago, be warned, STRANGLERS is not for the faint of heart. This story was "remade" in the 1980s with James Ivory behind the camera and Pierce Brosnan in front of it, titled THE DECEIVERS.

Jimmy Sangster, Hammer's premier screenwriter, offers commentary, along with a Hammer film historian. Trailers are included, along with some wacky supplemental material. The widescreen transfers are excellent on all four films. Kuddos to Sony Home Video for this release. Now, guys, when are you going to release THE GORGON on DVD?

Hammer films long awaited titles released on DVD!
Any fan of Hammer films and/or Christopher Lee cannot wait to snatch up this rare item. Be aware casual Hammer Film fans these are not Horror films but action/adventure. Many familiar Hammer actors and directors. So if you are a completist of the Golden Age of Hammer like myself,snatch up this DVD collection.

Glad to see "The Stranglers" on DVD finally!
I wanted to specifically point out my enthisiasm for "The Stranglers of Bombay". I've been trying to acquire this great 1960 Hammer film for a long time and, finally, it's now available!

This movie is shot in black-and-white and runs for 80 minutes. As I mentioned, this is a Hammer Studios film. It was directed by Terrence Fisher and conveys a sort of story about the Thuggees of India, a murderous religious cult.

Guy Rolfe plays Captain Harry Lewis, a seasoned British officer who trys to persuade the East India Company to investigate a situation where people have disappeared -- he is ignored. Lewis is replaced by an incompetent for all his troubles so he investigates the matter on his own. George Pastell plays the role of the High Priest of Kali.

The big picture is that this is yet another story of British mis-management of one of its colonies, in this case, India.

This is a very rare film and, for this movie alone, this movie set is worth the price. Highly recommended!