Hammer Trading Monsters For Suspense

Hysteria (1965) Puts Another Amnesiac In Harm's Way

MGM-Elstree was a buzzing hive in 1964 when partnered with Hammer for Hysteria, another (and last) of B/W thrillers done by the horror specialists to feed off success of Psycho. Jimmy Sangster had written most of that group; now he would produce as well. This was likeliest a subcontract between Metro and Hammer, as Hysteria has belonged to the former since '65 release and is currently available from Warner Archive. MGM needed product to distribute and hired Hammer to supply it. There's little about Hysteria to identify it as a Hammer film. The company was transitioning out of Bray House and losing some of its distinctive identity in any case. To shoot at Elstree and London locations made Hammer product indistinguishable from others of similar type. Bob Lippert could have sent a lead man like Hysteria's Robert Webber over and gotten result same as chillers Witchcraft (Lon Chaney) or The Earth Dies Screaming (Willard Parker). Webber was functional if not charismatic; he's an amnesiac who might have killed during blackouts. There are bloody knives and a shower murder, these having more practical use in trailers and publicity for Hysteria than in the narrative itself. Sangster said later that he'd gotten tired of this stuff, and director Freddie Francis confessed it was a miserable six-week shoot (Webber's misbehavior, among other things). Wayne Kinsey tells the story with fascinating detail in his Hammer history book. There's no hint of mod or swinging London among drab backgrounds captured here. Even Webber's penthouse flat has lingering air of postwar austerity. Variety said Hysteria should please "at the bottom of a double bill," where it sat mostly behind Signpost To Murder, another Metro suspenser, or Hammer's She remake, also MGM handled in the US.