Michael Carreras was born on December 21, 1927 in London,
England. He entered the British film industry as a teenager, and began
directing low-budget action, adventure, and horror films in the late 1950s,
including “Maniac” (1963) and “The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb” (1964), both for
Hammer Films, which was founded and run by Sir James Carreras, his father. As a
producer, Carreras' Hammer credits include the Terence Fisher horror films “The
Mummy” (1959) and “The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll” (aka “House of Fright”) (1960).
He also produced such memorable Hammer chillers as Fisher's “The Curse of the
Werewolf” (1961), Joseph Losey's “These are the Damned” (1963), and Tallulah
Bankhead's final film, Silvio Narizzano's “Die! Die! My Darling!” (1965).
Carreras was also the director of one of the first Euro-westerns filmed in
Spain, “The Savage Guns” (1962) starring Richard Basehart, Alex Nicol and
Fernando Rey. Michael died in London on April 19, 1994. Today we remember
Michael Carreras on what would have been his 85th birthday.
"Savage Guns" isn't a bad Euro-western and it helps that non-western actor Richard Basehart is the hero, an interesting change of pace for the fellow best known for "Moby Dick" and "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea."
ReplyDeleteI agree Van. Basehart is a hardnosed gunman much in the vein of the Spaghetti Western heroes who would follow him in droves a few years later. The Spanish landscapes give it the film a different feel from the American westerns of the 1950s. Thanks to Michael Carreras for breaking ground which opened the door to a decade and a half of westerns being filmed in Spain.
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