One of England's top horror film writers and directors of the postwar period, Jimmy Sangster started out as a production manager in the '40s before turning to more creative pursuits. He was lucky enough to hook up with Sir James Carreras (1900-1990), the head of Hammer Films, which became one of the most successful of England's postwar studios, specializing in horror and science fiction material, where Sangster, either alone or in collaboration with others, excelled at the authorship of top-notch scripts. Some of these, such as The Curse of Frankenstein, The Horror of Dracula, and The Trollenberg Terror (aka The Crawling Eye) were adaptations of pre-existing stories and characters, but in every case, Sangster added tantalizing but economical twists of character and action that made them new to audiences -- Curse of Frankenstein and Horror of Dracula started up whole new horror cycles built around Hammer Films and the personalities of Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee that ran into the '70s, while The Trollenberg Terror -- which started life as a five-part BBC-TV serial -- became one of the most popular low-budget British science fiction chillers of the late '50s. Sangster later moved into more mainstream chillers, such as Seth Holt's The Nanny, starring Bette Davis, which he produced as well as scripted, and occasionally ventured into action/adventure films, such as Deadlier than the Male (1966), an entertaining but ultimately unsuccessful attempt to adapt H.C. "Sapper" McNeille's post-World War I hero Bulldog Drummond into the James Bond mold. On a still more mainstream level, his co-authored story became the basis for the 1981 Disney comedy The Devil and Max Devlin, starring Elliott Gould and Bill Cosby. Sangster has also written numerous scripts for British and American television, most notably "Horror In The Heights" for the series Kolchak: The Night Stalker.
| Title | Year | Editors' Rating | User Rating | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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Fanex Files: Hammer Films
Participant |
2008 | |||
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North Beach and Rawhide
Screenwriter |
1985 | |||
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The Toughest Man in the World
Teleplay By |
1984 | |||
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No Place to Hide
Screenwriter |
1981 | |||
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The Devil and Max Devlin
Screen Story |
1981 | |||
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Once Upon a Spy
Screenwriter |
1980 | |||
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Phobia
Screenwriter |
1980 | |||
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Ebony, Ivory and Jade
Producer, Screenwriter |
1979 | |||
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Murder in Music City
Producer, Screenwriter |
1979 | |||
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The Billion Dollar Threat
Screenwriter |
1979 | |||
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The Concrete Cowboys
Screenwriter |
1979 | |||
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The Legacy
Screenwriter |
1978 | |||
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Good Against Evil
Screenwriter |
1977 | |||
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Ironside: Raise the Devil, Part 1
Screenwriter |
1974 | |||
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Ironside: Raise the Devil, Part 2
Screenwriter |
1974 | |||
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Ironside: The Visiting Fireman
Screenwriter |
1974 | |||
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Scream, Pretty Peggy
Screenwriter |
1973 | |||
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Fear in the Night
Director, Producer, Screenwriter |
1972 | |||
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A Taste of Evil
Screenwriter |
1971 | |||
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Lust for a Vampire
Director |
1971 | |||
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Who Slew Auntie Roo?
Screenwriter |
1971 | |||
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Foreign Exchange
Producer, Screenwriter |
1970 | |||
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The Horror of Frankenstein
Director, Producer, Screenwriter |
1970 | |||
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Crescendo
Screenwriter |
1969 | |||
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The Spy Killer
Producer, Teleplay By |
1969 | |||
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The Anniversary
Producer, Screenwriter |
1968 | |||
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Deadlier Than the Male
Screenwriter |
1967 | |||
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The Nanny
Producer, Screenwriter |
1965 | |||
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Hysteria
Producer, Screenwriter |
1964 | |||
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The Devil-Ship Pirates
Screenwriter |
1964 | |||
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Maniac
Producer, Screenwriter |
1963 | |||
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Nightmare
Producer, Screenwriter |
1963 | |||
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Paranoiac
Screenwriter |
1963 | |||
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The Pirates of Blood River
Screenwriter |
1962 | |||
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The Savage Guns
Producer |
1962 | |||
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Scream of Fear
Producer, Screenwriter |
1961 | |||
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The Hellfire Club
Screenwriter |
1961 | |||
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The Terror of the Tongs
Screenwriter |
1961 | |||
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The Brides of Dracula
Screenwriter |
1960 | |||
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The Criminal
Screenwriter |
1960 | |||
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The Siege of Sidney Street
Actor, Screenwriter |
1960 | |||
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Jack the Ripper
Screenwriter |
1959 | |||
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The Man Who Could Cheat Death
Screenwriter |
1959 | |||
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The Mummy
Screenwriter |
1959 | |||
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Blood of the Vampire
Screenwriter |
1958 | |||
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Intent to Kill
Screenwriter |
1958 | |||
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The Crawling Eye
Screenwriter |
1958 | |||
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The Horror of Dracula
Screenwriter |
1958 | |||
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The Revenge of Frankenstein
Screenwriter |
1958 | |||
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The Snorkel
Screenwriter |
1958 | |||
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The Curse of Frankenstein
Screenwriter |
1957 | |||
|
X the Unknown
Screenwriter |
1956 |

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