{"id":2040,"date":"2022-02-02T19:30:43","date_gmt":"2022-02-02T19:30:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.horrifiedmagazine.co.uk\/?p=2040"},"modified":"2023-01-19T21:57:39","modified_gmt":"2023-01-19T21:57:39","slug":"peter-cushing-in-corruption","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.horrifiedmagazine.co.uk\/film\/peter-cushing-in-corruption\/","title":{"rendered":"The Importance of Presentation: Peter Cushing in Corruption"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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The Importance of Presentation: <\/h4>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Peter Cushing in<\/h4>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Corruption<\/h1>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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It’s safe to say, British exploitation shocker, Corruption, was not a favourite of its star, Peter Cushing. Jamie Evans looks at Cushing’s turn as the damaged doctor, Sir John Rowan…<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Peter Cushing brought a certain dignity to all of his roles, and a commitment to performance that marks him out as one of Britain\u2019s greatest ever actors. <\/strong><\/p>

In his career prime throughout the fifties, sixties and seventies, Cushing became inextricably linked with the horror boom that followed Hammer\u2019s first colour forays into the genre. A practical sort with a fearsome work ethic, he knew there was a way to bring in the money he felt necessary to support his beloved wife Helen as her health deteriorated. Peter also seemed incapable of giving a poor performance and even in the depths of his grief after Helen\u2019s passing (notably\u00a0Horror Express\u00a0<\/i>(1972,\u00a0Eugenio Martin)), he always gave everything on-screen.<\/p>

\"PeterAs a result, we have a remarkable catalogue of great work to explore, from his leading roles as the Baron in\u00a0Hammer\u2019s Frankenstein series<\/a>, to his cameo spots and his beautifully done running gag on The Morecambe & Wise Show<\/b><\/i>\u00a0(BBC, 1968-77). There\u2019s also the more offbeat path to consider where Cushing was the best thing about the film or series or where the film doesn\u2019t have the cultural impact of his appearances as Van Helsing.<\/p>

Which brings us to his role in Corruption<\/b><\/i>\u00a0(Robert Hartford-Davis, 1968), an agreeably grubby and frequently unpleasant exploitation riff on the comparatively refined Eyes Without a Face<\/b><\/i> (1960, Georges Franju) that qualifies in both the above categories. Some spoilers now, even though most of the following takes place in roughly the first half-hour of a 90-minute film that ultimately takes a left-turn in a different direction altogether. Corruption<\/b><\/i> pushes the dignified Cushing into an often hysterically-pitched cartoon of carnage as the wealthy doctor Sir John Rowan.<\/p>

\"Peter<\/p>

Rowan is a pioneering plastic surgeon which proves immediately helpful when he accompanies his young, beautiful fianc\u00e9e, the fashion model Lynn, to a swinging party. John is uncomfortable around the hip kids of London as they, \u2018freak out\u2019. When he tries to convince Lynn to leave early, a confrontation with a slimy photographer trying to persuade her to undress for pictures in front of everyone else gets violent and she takes a hot lamp to the face. Rowan can\u2019t fix her disfigurement with his conventional methods so decides to conduct experiments of the dangerous kind with the pituitary gland of a corpse and a mix of ancient theories and modern science. It\u2019s a success and the previously despondent Lynn is back on her feet hosting dinners and planning holidays. But wait! It doesn\u2019t last and soon Lynn\u2019s face has deteriorated and Rowan desperately tries to refine the process.\u00a0<\/p>

With the spotlight on Rowan from colleagues and his experiments in no way ethical, corpses being chopped up are out of the question so John makes what we can clearly all agree is the only other logical choice and takes up a parallel career as a modern-day Jack the Ripper, stealing the necessary gland from a sex worker he brutally murders (in significantly more unpleasant style in the alternative international cut).<\/p>

\"Corruption<\/p>

In David Miller\u2019s book Peter Cushing: A Life in Film<\/b><\/i>, Cushing gave his take on the finished film: \u201cIt was gratuitously violent, fearfully sick. But it was a good script, which just goes to show how important the presentation is. With any film you participate in, the company, if they so wish, can destroy your original interpretation of the role.<\/i>\u201d This comment says a lot about what makes Cushing special. There\u2019s an oft-told anecdote about how Cushing would carry around props that he thought his character would have in his pockets, even though they wouldn\u2019t be seen onscreen.\u00a0<\/p>

Peter thought deeply about his characters, trying to understand their motivations and always taking them seriously. He never looked down on the work as beneath him, even while critics of that period tended to sniff haughtily at how silly,\u00a0 juvenile and distasteful the horror game was.\u00a0<\/p>

\"Corruption<\/a>
Buy Corruption on Blu-ray<\/figcaption><\/figure>

If we compare Sir John to another of Cushing\u2019s \u2018good men doing bad things\u2019 roles from three years later, we get a picture of just how varied and nuanced he was in presenting this kind of complicated character. Rowan is inarguably a villain, just as Gustav Weil is in Twins of Evil<\/i> <\/b>(John Hough, 1971), even though both act in such despicable ways because they believe it is their only choice. Where the steely, cold Weil abuses moral superiority to underwrite as necessary the cruelty of his actions, Rowan murders out of love and guilt. It\u2019s in his face during the murder of the sex worker, it\u2019s in his cold stare on the train as drains his humanity to prepare himself to the task at hand, it\u2019s in the small pause at the bedroom door of his cottage, knife in hand, as it hits him again what he has become.<\/p>

As we\u2019ve seen, Cushing was not kind to the finished film. It does everything to undermine the subtly of his performance, or the escalating panic that layers Sue Lloyd\u2019s unravelling Lynn. Largely for this writer, it’s due to an appropriate-for-the-swinging-times but nevertheless wildly misjudged jazz score from Bill McGuffie. This is at its most egregious during a late-in-film argument between Rowan and Lynn;\u00a0 Sir John drowning in guilt and no longer able to justify his crimes and Lynn desperate for another chance to get the treatment right. Stripped of the score, this would be a beautiful, intense moment between the two characters as they come to understand they have lost each other despite everything. That this still comes across, and that these two damaged people still compel us is down to those two, and a fine example of what one of Britain\u2019s most capable, most compelling, most powerful actors could achieve.\u00a0<\/p>

It\u2019s an undeniably entertaining but cacophonous and mean-spirited film – remarked upon now largely for its attention-grabbing violence. Sir John Rowan is its villain. Peter Cushing gives it a beating heart. This is, as ever, his gift to us, finding the dignity in darkness, the humanity in horror.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJames Evans\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/h4>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
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Tired enthusiast. Written many things on film, television and popular culture for magazines and websites. Now focusing on fiction.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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\"The<\/a><\/div>
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\tDisturbing the Fairy Tale in The Company of Wolves (1984)\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/h2>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t14\/07\/2021\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\tLakkaya Palmer examines how The Company of Wolves subverts the conventions of the traditional fairytale...\u200b\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/article><\/div>
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\tDoes a horror film have to be scary? Revisiting The Awakening (2011)\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/h2>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\tNick Bartlett returns to The Awakening, finding a subtle and affecting ghost story beyond the genre tropes...\u200b\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/article><\/div>
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\tNight of the Demon (1957)\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/h2>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t24\/05\/2021\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\tJenny Davies recalls fond memories of 1957 classic Night of the Demon and how trouble behind the scenes have not detracted from a piece of perfectly crafted storytelling...\u200b\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/article><\/div><\/div><\/div>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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More film ><\/a><\/h2>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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It’s safe to say, British exploitation shocker, Corruption, was not a favourite of its star, Peter Cushing. Jamie Evans looks at Cushing’s turn as the damaged doctor, Sir John Rowan…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":123929,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"elementor_header_footer","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"no-sidebar","site-content-layout":"page-builder","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"disabled","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[126,1978,1931,271],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.horrifiedmagazine.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Untitled1.png?fit=554%2C391&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horrifiedmagazine.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2040"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horrifiedmagazine.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horrifiedmagazine.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horrifiedmagazine.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horrifiedmagazine.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2040"}],"version-history":[{"count":24,"href":"https:\/\/www.horrifiedmagazine.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2040\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":123940,"href":"https:\/\/www.horrifiedmagazine.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2040\/revisions\/123940"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horrifiedmagazine.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/123929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horrifiedmagazine.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horrifiedmagazine.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horrifiedmagazine.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}