Straight on Till Morning

Although Hammer's output from the 60s and 70s was dominated by splendid Gothic horrors, their filmography from that period also contained a number of lesser known psychological thrillers—titles that were no doubt produced to cash in on the success of films such as Hitchcock's Psycho and French chiller Les Diaboliques.

One of the last such efforts to be produced by Hammer (before they turned their attention to making TV comedies into full-length features) was the intriguingly titled Straight on Till Morning, which somehow managed to combine murder with the more mundane elements of a 'kitchen sink' drama.

Rita Tushingham stars as Brenda, a desperate, dowdy young woman who leaves her home in Liverpool to try and find love and happiness in London. After finding herself a job in a trendy boutique, and a room to rent at a work colleague's groovy pad, Brenda begins her search for a man, but finds attracting the attention of the opposite sex much harder than she thought it would be.

When Joey (James Bolam)—the one man with whom Brenda might have had some luck with—winds up in bed with her blonde nympho flat-mate Caroline (the lovely Katya Wyeth), the distraught girl flees into the night where she chances upon a lost dog that belongs to Peter (Shane Briant), a wealthy young man who could be her Mr. Right. If only he didn't have homicidal tendencies, a bizarre hatred of beauty, and a very sharp Stanley knife...

With this interesting story, exploitative content, and talented cast, Straight on Till Morning could have been superb, but the film's iffy editing (which irritatingly intercuts rapidly between scenes), combined with director Peter Collinson's frustrating decision to suggest his nasty violence rather than show us the goods, ultimately means that the film doesn't fulfill its potential.

Still, even though the film isn't classic Hammer by any stretch of the imagination, it's worth checking out for the hilariously horrible 70s fashion and fun scenes of swinging London, Briant's incredible mop of blonde hair that steals every scene it's in, the hysterical moment when Tushingham goes into town to glam herself up only to return looking like a bad drag queen, and a couple of genuinely disturbing moments that include a surprisingly bleak finalé.

5.5 out of 10, rounded up to 6 for IMDb.

I hadn't seen this movie for decades because it hasn't been shown on terrestrial TV for years, but I decided to buy the Region 1 DVD release (there's no official Region 2 UK release as yet) and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Well it's difficult to dislike Rita Tushingham in any film, but it's directed in such a great style by the late/great Peter Collinson (director of The Italian Job (1969)fame), with a bleak beginning that could only be Britian of the 1960's/1970's and with a real snap shot of how things were in London back then.

This is a very different type of film from Hammer, when compared to their usual offerings and must have been truly shocking back then with it's level of cruelty, but it's a classic movie you simply have to own and the fact it's unavailable in the UK (the very place it was made & with an all British cast) is scandalous.

This is not your usual Hammer House film.

The Brenda character is perhaps one of the strangest in cinema. She's desperately naive to the point of delusion. Los in her own fantasy world of fairytale endings she struggles to engage in the realy of her new life in London. The dog kidnapping scene where Brenda transform into a fairytale character of her own creation is a perfect example of this.

The weirdness and disconnectedness of the characters of swinging early 70's party scene reflects the lucid dream like quality of the film. The film occasionally jumps to alternative scenes, sexual, ordinary, her mother back home, they all suggest that Brenda's decisions could have led her down a different path.

When it seems that Brenda's bizarre plan to find a husband is starting to pay off, she stumbles into another person's fairytale. Peter offers Brenda what she wants but in exchange he takes her personality, renaming her as a character in his own delusional fantasy.

What follows is a superbly sinister and uneasy relationship. The tension between Peter and Brenda moves between a kind of marriage of convenience, dark sexuality and childish fantasy.

A brilliant example of 70's British horror. Well worth a watch.

Straight on Till Morning is certainly one of the most atypical films that Hammer Studios ever produced. It begins like a social realist kitchen-sink drama, replete with fragmented snapshot montage editing similar to Ken Loach's Up the Junction – incidentally, a film remade by Peter Collinson the director of this film. And for the first third of the film it seems like this is going to be another such gritty drama, however, it takes an unexpected detour when it suddenly turns into a psychological thriller. It's an extremely unusual combination that isn't entirely successful but definitely interesting. In actual fact it's one of Hammer's more intriguing efforts in my opinion because it's so weird.

The story is about a naive young girl called Brenda who moves to London to try and find a man. She winds up staying with a very strange foppish man called Peter who is in fact a serial killer of women.

The social realism and montage heavy editing is entirely at odds to anything else Hammer ever put out. This is a film that has way more in common with the British New Wave than it does with anything previously produced by the famous studio. None of the characters are particularly likable, with the men in particular very creepy and/or deeply unpleasant people with appalling haircuts. The central relationship between Brenda and Peter is, to put it mildly, bizarre. It's difficult to see what either of them sees in each other; while Peter's strange issues with beauty are a little hard to fathom. Nevertheless, I thought this one was not bad at all. It wasn't predictable in the way that most Hammer films tend to be. It was pretty bleak and overall a commendably uncommercial offering. Definitely worth a look if you like downbeat psychological dramas.

The swinging sixties are coming to an end in swinging London but there are still some hang overs from the 1950s and still plenty of odd ball characters. Pregnancy outside of marriage was still much looked down upon and under the guise of the 'flower children' it was perfectly possible for even homicidal maniacs to not seem out of place. Rita Tushingham is as great as ever and this much under rated actress puts in one of her more endearing performances. Shane Briant is eerily convincing as the psycho and the rest of the cast including James Bolam are all fine. Some decent location shooting is always appreciated around this time and here we get a couple of boutiques and some very moody stuff around the then recently completed South Bank complex. Plenty of surprises and well worth catching as one of the most unusual hammer movies.