A Review penned under my nom de plume...!

The Corvini Inheritance (1986)
by luc poirier
January 24, 2007 03:07 AM EST (Updated: March 09, 2007 07:12 AM EST)
to group: Movies & Film Corps
tags: reviews, movies - digg it del.icio.us
Directed by G. Beaumont
And starring David McCallum, Jan Francis and Terence Alexander.

This one may be a trifle hard to find, as it dates back 21 years and was made for British television to boot. It is part of a series of films that paired up numerous fine talents (other films had starred David Carradine and Stephanie Beacham; Mary Crosby and Nicholas Clay; Jenny Seagrove and Dirk Benedict; Hannah Gordon and Peter Graves) in well-crafted mini-thrillers each 90 minutes in length. The series was "Hammer House" - a sort of Masterpiece Theater for the Hammer Films tradition! Yes, you read right - Hammer Films! Ironically enough though, none of these films would feature vampire horror, as Hammer had pretty much run the genre to its grave, no pun intended... (It was a temporary demise anyways - for we all know that everything old is eventually new again and trends return, one day...)

Still, no one can deny that the Hammer style was perfection in itself. It still stands on its own as a masterful way to package the supernatural mystery suspense thriller and many of the currently successful projects in this genre owe a lot to it. The Christopher Lee Draculas and Ingrid Pitt Carmillas may have been past their time of glory, but the distinguished Hammer style will always be in fashion and au goût du jour - whatever the current trends may be!

Recognizing this, Hammer attempted a comeback in the mid-1980s on the small screen this time, with these 90-minute films rich in style and suspense, if not hemoglobin or special effects. Hammer Horror was never about gore anyways - it was always stylish, intelligent and refined fare that was, truly, well-suited for television and its censors. And so this series of films met with a certain success indeed. The Corvini Inheritance is a personal favorite of mine for it starred two under-appreciated stars; the true (invisible) man from U.N.C.L.E. and the mesmerizing Jan Francis, who got a chance here to be the center of a piece and not merely supporting characters once more.

Without giving away the mystery, this is a twist on the curse of the Hope diamond as well as a haunting story in all the possible senses of the expression! The ending is a shocker and one feels for the main hero and heroine - for, aye, it is not a happy ending that we get! When one deals with curses and ghosts, it isn't so simple as the vampire getting the stake through the heart and crumbling to dust! Maybe it is the problem here as well - despite being a "refreshing" change of pace, the lack of happy endings here must have hurt the popularity of these films, hence, the demand for them. Whether vampire films or other things, Hammer films had always ended in a satisfactory fashion for the moviegoer. Maybe expecting the film viewer to be less demanding in that regard -or more of a realist- only because he is watching this for free at home, was not so logical after all. Still, just for the well-structured suspense, Jan Francis' acting and gorgeous eyes and that perennial good guy who never gets the breaks that David McCallum always embodied so well, I highly recommend this one. The directing is nearly flawless and that can only come from veteran directors, true artists and masters of their medium - all of which were always to be found in "Hammer House" - the house that Peter Cushing built!

"Child's Play" and "Mark of the Devil" are two other finely-honed suspenses in the series - the latter also featuring Burt Kwouk, famous for his Pink Panther role, in a decisively very different role...

If these are ever on some specialty channel (such as Sci-Fi) I suggest recording them - these are for keeps!

... little did ''luc poirier'' know that, 

soon enough, it would be seen 

-in its entirety and for free- 

on YouTube!!! 

But that's another story...