The Reptile (1966)

 "They don't like strangers in these parts!"

This may not exactly be Hammer's finest hour. It may, indeed, be a deeply formulaic Hammer Horror with a pleasingly unironic approsch to tropes. After all, we have both a pub that empties at the mention of the evil residence in question and a conclusion based around a country house being set on fire. But it's quirky, it's fun, and frankly I could never dislike a film in which Private Fraser from Dad's Army is bitten to death by Servalan from Blake's 7.

Yes, the film does tend to get slow towards the end as it runs out of plot but needs to pad out time until the exposition and conclusion, with various characters dramatically exploring the house to eerie Stockhausen-like incidental music. Yes, the reptile make-up is rubbish. But it's cheesy, it's fun, and it's recognisably Hammer.

It's nice, too, that there aren't any stars here, and that instead we get a stream of character actors. I'm not sure that this film is in any way scary, but there's plenty of intrigue, tension and mystery to hold the interest. Jennifer Daniel and Ray Barrett make an intriguing enough leading couple, while both Noel Wilman and Jacqueline Pearce are suitably sinister. John Laurie, of course, steals every scene he's in.

This is nothing special, certainly. It's Hammer by numbers. But there are times when Hammer by numbers is exactly what we want.

The Terror of the Tongs (1961)

 "Like all occidentals, you find it impossible to accept the inevitable."

This is one of those occasional non-horror films Hammer did in their glory days, a tale of a tong rather than a vampire and something a bit different for Jimmy Sangster to write and Christopher Lee to star in.

You can see from the pic that there's an unfortunate amount of yellowface here, prominently so with Lee; it appears that, aside from Burt Kwouk (who inevitably appears), there are no Chinese actors available for speaking roles so the Chinese characters all have to be played by white actors with various degrees of yellowface. Some attempt to sound Chinese; the likes of Lee and Roger Delgado sound English as ever- or, in the case of Yvonne Monlaur, French.

It's a fairly standard revenge plot, although with surprisingly little action overall, with Geoffrey Toone suitably square-jawed as the heroic and very British Jackson Sale.

It is, of course, all told from the perspective of the colonising British, with lots of unfortunate othering of Chinese ways and Chinese culture; it's not just the yellowface that means I'm hardly not exactly going to be able to deny the casual, unthinking racism and racist tropes that permeate this film, many of which no doubt have failed to catch my attention. There's a character called Confucius, after all. But it was 1961, and the past is a foreign country. It's also interesting to see Hong Kong as a place where cultures meet, and what that means for organised crime.

Lee is decent enough- he phones in his performance somewhat, but he's good enough to get away with it. Roger Delgado is also excellent- charismatic and commanding. The plot is standard stuff but decent enough. The direction, though, is sadly flat and uninspired, with unimaginative camerawork and lighting. But the script and performances raise the film to the level of an entertaining curiosity, from a time when no one batted an eyelid at portraying cultures in this way.