The Gorgon

Infobox Film
name = The Gorgon


image_size =
caption = Theatrical release poster
director = Terence Fisher
producer = Anthony Nelson Keys
writer = John Gilling
starring = Peter Cushing Christopher Lee Richard Pasco Barbara Shelley Michael Goodliffe
music = James Bernard
cinematography = Michael Reed
editing = Eric Boyd-Perkins James Needs
distributor = Columbia Pictures
released = 1964
runtime = 83 min.
country = UK
language = English
budget =
gross =
amg_id = 1:20389
imdb_id = 0058155

"The Gorgon" is a 1964 British horror film directed by Terence Fisher for Hammer.

It stars Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Barbara Shelley and Richard Pasco. The film was photographed by Michael Reeves, and designed by Bernard Robinson. For the haunting score James Bernard combined a soprano with a little-known electronic instrument called the Novachord. The film marks one of the few occasions when Hammer turned to Greek mythology for inspiration; this time it is the legend of the Gorgon that is respun for the Hammer audiences. The film was not generally well-received either by critics or Hammer fans.

Plot

In the rural German village of Vandorf, seven murders have been committed within the past five years, each victim having been petrified into a stone figure. Rather than investigate it, the local authorities dismiss the murders for fear of a local legend having come true. When a local girl becomes the latest victim and her suicidal lover made the scapegoat, the father of the condemned man decides to investigate and discovers that the cause of the petrifying deaths is a phantom. The very last of the snake-haired Gorgon sisters who haunts the local castle and turns victims to stone during the full moon.

Casting

* Dr. Namaroff – Peter Cushing
* Prof. Karl Meister – Christopher Lee
* Megaera (the Gorgon) – Prudence Hyman
* Paul Heitz – Richard Pasco
* Carla Hoffman – Barbara Shelley
* Prof. Jules Heitz – Michael Goodliffe
* Inspector Kanof – Patrick Troughton

Trivia

* The Gorgon herself is called Megaera, although according to classical mythology, Megaera was not a Gorgon at all. In fact, of the three Gorgons named in the film - Megaera, Tisiphone, and Medusa - only Medusa was actually a Gorgon in classical Greek mythology. The other two should be properly named Stheno and Euryale. (The Gorgon in the film would be one of these last two, Medusa having been slain by Perseus centuries before.)
* In the German dubbed version of this movie (called "Die brennenden Augen von Schloss Bartimore") the correct names of the three Gorgons - Medusa, Stheno and Euryale - are used instead of a direct translation of the original English dialogue.
*The script was novelized by John Burke as part of his "The Hammer Horror Omnibus" paperback in 1966.

External links

*imdb title|id=0058155