Doctor Blood’s Coffin * (1961, Kieron Moore, Hazel Court, Ian Hunter) – Classic Movie Review 11,779

Director Sidney J Furie’s 1961 Eastmancolour British horror film Doctor Blood’s Coffin has a daft plot about unhinged young biochemist Doctor Peter Blood (Kieron Moore) who returns to his hometown in Cornwall and attempts to revive the dead and transplant bad for good hearts. His helping nurse Linda Parker (Hazel Court) gets caught betwixt the rock of the doctor and the hard place of one of the revived dead.

Grotty glimpses of rotten flesh and surgery are just grungy and don’t provide any frights in this tacky horror flick, Nathan Juran’s script is poor and uncompelling, and the performances are lacklustre. However, it is noted as a pioneering early zombie colour film and for its early portrayal of zombies as homicidal rotting corpses.

It is Canadian director Furie’s first British film.

It was released in the UK in January 1961 and in the US in April 1961 in a double bill with The Snake Woman.

The cast are Kieron Moore as Dr Peter Blood, Hazel Court as nurse Linda Parker, Ian Hunter as Peter’s father Dr Robert Blood, Kenneth J Warren as police Sergeant Cook, Gerald Lawson as Mr G F Morton, Fred Johnson as Tregaye, Paul Hardtmuth as Professor Luckman, Paul Stockman as Linda’s husband Steve Parker / The Zombie, Andy Alston as tunnel expert George Beale., and John Ronane.

The British Board of Film Censors gave the film an X-certificate in the UK after cuts to ‘one or more versions of work’ had been made.

Hazel Court said the scenes set inside the tin mine were filmed inside ‘the real thing’ – a ‘very wet’ cave in Cornwall. The Cornish locations include the Carn Galver tin mine near St Just, and the town of Zennor, used as the fictional village of Porthcarron.

Nathan Juran wrote the script under the pseudonym ‘Jerry Juran’ and sold it to Furie, who got James Kelley and Peter Miller to adapt it to fit England, as Juran’s story was set in a gold-mining town out West in America.

Furie set up the film at Caralan Productions with a distribution deal with United Artists for both the UK and the US.

It was filmed in 10 days on a budget of £25,000, including Furie’s salary of £3500.

Its working title was Face of Evil.

It was one of the last movies to be shot at Nettlefold Film Studios in Walton-on-Thames.

© Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 11,779

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