It’s Cushing and Lee together again! While this is Cushing’s show all the way, the two play amiable peers for a change in this worthy mood piece.
Tagline: “The New Height in Fright” [how generic]
WTF Factor: **
Notable Dialogue:
- Maitland: “You’re a coward.”
- Phillips: “Perhaps sometimes it’s better to be.”
Synopsis: We open on grave robbers in the 1800s. A gentleman climbs into the hole and steals the corpse’s head. He’s less than pleased to find his mistress in the tub when he gets home. He mixes up an acid bath and soaks the skull until clean. When the mistress comes looking for him, she sees something terrifying. Roll credits.
We now open on a contemporary auction house. Sir Matthew Phillips (Christopher Lee) and Dr. Christopher Maitland (Peter Cushing) have a friendly rivalry going in the bidding on occult items. A set of demonic statues representing the hierarchies of hell is brought forward, and the two bid each other up until Phillips makes a ridiculously high offer, as if in a trance. Afterward, he tells Maitland that he doesn’t know why he wanted the statues so badly.
Seedy dealer Marco (Patrick Wymark) goes to Maitland’s home that evening. He is intercepted by Maitland’s wife Jane (Jill Bennett), who clearly doesn’t like him. Maitland tells Jane that he needs Marco to bring him materials for his research into demonology and witchcraft. This time Marco offers a book about the Marquis de Sade, bound in human skin. Marco also promises to return with a valuable item the next night.
Marco lives in a grimy walk-up. He examines a skull and is pleased with his plans.
He brings his prize to Maitland, who is not interested in a skull per se. He is much more impressed when Marco identifies it as the skull of the Marquis de Sade. Marco expositions that the skull was stolen soon after de Sade’s death in 1814, by a phrenologist. We flash back to the intro footage. The phrenologist’s mistress returned to his apartment to gather her things and was stabbed to death by the estate executor, apparently under the influence of the skull.
Maitland remains skeptical and when Marco lowers his price, promises to think about it. He accuses Marco of having stolen the skull, which Marco doesn’t deny.
Maitland and Phillips play billiards and Maitland tells him about the skull, which was actually stolen from Phillips. Phillips says that the skull is dangerous and he doesn’t want it back.
Phillips: “De Sade said he wasn’t mad, and I believe him. He was far worse than mad; he was possessed. Possessed by an evil spirit. A spirit which still inhabits the skull.”
He believes that the skull is needed for rituals on the new moon, and that the skull directed him to buy the statues. Maitland scoffs at the warning.
Marco returns to his room to find the skull gone. The landlord finds it in the hall broom closet.
Maitland reads his new book into the night and is interrupted by two goons at the door. They tell him he is under arrest and take him away. He is unceremoniously dumped into a large empty room with a judge.
The judge forces Maitland to play Russian roulette three times. He survives and is locked in a side room, which begins to fill with gas as the walls close in. Maitland sees the skull floating towards him and screams, waking up in Marco’s boarding house.
When he returns home, he finds Jane waiting for him. While Jane worries, he slips off to Marco’s place to find out more about the skull. He arrives to find the door open and Marco dead. Before calling the police, he hides the skull in the housekeeper’s closet. The coroner says that Marco’s jugular was “bitten clean through.”
The next night Maitland visits Phillips, who points out that the previous night was the first of the new moon. Phillips warns Maitland to get rid of the skull if he has it and gives him a cross medallion for protection.
Maitland returns to the boarding house for the skull. He is intercepted by Marco’s landlord, who intends to blackmail him. Then the landlord “accidentally” falls from the landing to his death.
Maitland returns home with the skull and places it in a glass cabinet. The skull then moves on its own to a nearby table, along with the book about the Marquis, as Maitland watches in horror. Maitland goes out and breaks into Phillips’ study to steal the statues. Phillips confronts him and Maitland clobbers him with the statue of Ba’al Bereth, which he takes home to the skull. Afterward he is shocked to see blood on his gloves.
Under the influence of the skull, Maitland picks up a knife that belonged to the child murderer Gilles de Rais and goes to his sleeping wife’s room. He prepares to kill her but then her cross necklace comes into view.
Maitland comes to his senses and returns to the study, planning to destroy the skull but merely placing the occult items back in the glass case. He uses the necklace Phillips gave him to seal the cabinet. The skull is not pleased.
He returns to his bedroom and sobs, while the skull breaks through the glass and returns to the table. It exerts its influence to bring Maitland back to the study. Maitland takes up the knife again but plunges it into the skull this time.
The spell is apparently broken, but Maitland returns to his bedroom to find the knife stabbed through his pillow. The doors won’t open and he tries to scream for Jane to help him, to no avail. The skull then levitates from the table and goes to Maitland’s room.
In the morning, his wife finds him with his throat torn out.
Doctor: “His throat was torn exactly like the Marco case.”
Inspector: “What’s the connection?”
Doctor: “What connection could there be? Witchcraft?”
Inspector: “Hardly. Not in this day and age… not in this day and age.”
And…curtain.
Thoughts: You could be forgiven for mistaking this early Amicus production for a Hammer film. Amicus is now best known for its horror anthology movies (Tales From the Crypt (1972), The House That Dripped Blood (1971)) but The Skull was their first full length horror movie. With established Hammer stars Cushing and Lee, along with director Freddie Francis and other familiar faces (Hammer did not use exclusive contracts), this movie would certainly pass muster as a Hammer production. While Amicus movies generally took place in contemporary settings, The Skull actually starts out with a Hammer-esque period interlude, which was probably not a coincidence.
The Skull was adapted by Milton Subotsky, one of the founders of Amicus Productions, from Robert Bloch’s short story, The Skull of the Marquis de Sade. Apparently the director did substantial rewriting during filming. There is a bit of padding as Maitland moves between locations, but Freddie Francis succeeds in using these bits as mood enhancers. Given that Francis was an award-winning cinematographer, it is no surprise that the movie looks great. The suspense is enhanced by the moody lighting and excellent set dressing. Maitland’s study/library is particularly stunning and is almost a character unto itself. One could quibble with the repeated use of a “skull’s eye” view, but the framing is impeccable. Apparently Francis was wheeled around on roller skates to mimic the skull’s movement. The one misstep arguably is the use of the “flying” skull, which doesn’t look realistic, especially on those occasions when the wires show.
This movie is Peter Cushing’s show all the way. He is present and central in almost every scene, many of which call for acting without dialogue, and Cushing does an extraordinary job of conveying Maitland’s state of mind. This movie would not have worked with a lesser actor. Christopher Lee is billed as a “guest star” in the film’s credits and he indeed plays a supporting role. It is delightful to see these two actors, friends in real life, interact as friends on the screen.
All in all, this movie is effective in creating an atmosphere of unease and dread. It is a must for Peter Cushing fans.
Quick bits:
- The final third of the film contains almost no dialogue.
- The original title, The Skull of the Marquis de Sade, had to be changed when the estate of the real-life Marquis de Sade threatened legal action.
- The landlord’s death scene, where he falls through a stained glass ceiling into the building lobby is reminiscent of the opening death in Suspiria (1977), but precedes it by a decade.
- The musical score, by avant-garde composer Elisabeth Lutyens, is striking.
Suggested double feature: This could be teamed up with The Screaming Skull (1958) or The Four Skulls of Jonathan Drake (1959).
Tagline for Coming Attraction: “Flying Beast Out of Prehistoric Skies!”
