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Terence Fisher
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Terence Fisher had been at the forefront Hammer Films’ emergence as the top horror filmmaking company in the world in the late 1950s. He directed their two most influential works, The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) and Dracula/The Horror of Dracula (1958) and numerous other of their classic works. In the mid-60s Fisher briefly left Hammer and went to Planet Pictures to make a trilogy of science-fiction films of which Night of the Big Heat was the third. [The other two are The Earth Dies Screaming (1964) and Island of Terror (1966)].
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Terence Fisher is most associated with the look of Hammer horror films, Fisher began his film career as a clapper bay in 1928 after experience in the navy and as a department store window dresser. Worked his way up to become an apprentice editor, his first solo credit being Brown on Resolution (1935). After editing several movies, became a trainee director with Rank, his first fully-fledged credit being for Colonel Bogey (1947), which was followed by such films as Portrait from Life (1948), Marry Me (1949), The Astonished Heart (1949) and So Long at the Fair (1950).
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From All Movie Guide: Born in London and educated in Sussex, Terence Fisher served an apprenticeship in the merchant marine and as a junior officer for the P & O Lines. He worked briefly as a department-store window dresser, then joined Shepherd's Bush Studios as a clapper boy in 1930. Within six years, he graduated to film editor; 12 years later, he directed his first feature for the Rank Organisation, A Song for Tomorrow (1948). Fisher concentrated on romantic dramas until he joined Hammer Films in 1952, where he forged his reputation as a prime purveyor of low-budget, high-grossing horror pictures. Not all of Fisher's scare flicks were masterpieces, to be sure, but even non-fans of the genre have raised their hats to such stylish efforts as Horror of Dracula (1958), The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), The Mummy (1959), The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959), The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll (1960) and The Devil Rides Out (1960). Before he began keeping regular company with the likes of Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, Terence Fisher was a prolific TV director, turning out several episodes of the internationally successful Robin Hood series of the 1950s.
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Future Hammer horror director Terence Fisher filmed this lackluster wartime romance. Derek Wardwell (Shaun Noble) is struck with amnesia, and the last thing he remembers is the beautiful voice of opera singer Helen Maxwell (Evelyn Maccabe). When he regains consciousness, Wardwell thinks he's in love with her. After his amnesia is cured, Wardwell returns to his fiancee while Helen begins a romance with his doctor. Ralph Michael and Christopher Lee co-star in this sappy soap-opera. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
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Terence Fisher was born in Maida Vale, England, in 1904. He began his career as an editor and later became the leading British horror director of the 1950s and 60s. Fisher joined Hammer Studios in 1952, where he hit his first big success in 1957 with Curse of Frankenstein. His subsequent output included several Frankenstein sequels, the even more successful Horror of Dracula (1958) and The Devil Rides Out (1968). His films are noted for brash colors, precise framing and a dynamic editing style, but ... for liberal use of blood. After his final film Frankenstein and the Monster From Hell (1974) Fisher retired from film making for health reasons and died in 1980 at the age of 76.
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[T]hen, Terence Fisher was never a pure horror director. In the definitive career interview he gave to Cinefantastique magazine in the early 1970s, he expressed less interest in the mechanics of suspense, as exemplified by Alfred Hitchcock, than in the melodramatics of Frank Borzage. Fisher always wanted to make a love story, and here he gets his chance -- albeit a doomed love story. The emotional underpinnings raise THE GORGON to the level of a genre gem, even if you are more likely to cry than scream.
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Terence Fisher