Corruption

No, not another sordid tale from the Tory Party Conference, this Corruption is an incredibly hard to see British horror movie from the late sixties.  From the trailer, you might think it was some type of slasher movie with Peter Cushing as a Jack the Ripper-type serial murderer of women.  It's actually a bit more complex than that - Cushing is a top surgeon whose girlfriend's face is disfigured in an accident he is responsible for, all of his attempts at reconstructive surgery fail, leaving her looking worse than before.  Naturally, he then decides to try some kind of hormone treatment on her, which works.  Unfortunately, the effects are temporary and new doses of the hormone can only be obtained from the glands of freshly murdered women.  The rest of the plot is obvious.

Now, as I've already said that the film is extremely difficult to get to see (no UK TV showings I can recall and no VHS or DVD release in the UK that I'm aware of), then you are probably wondering how come I know so much about it.  Well, many years ago I obtained an original copy of the paperback novelisation of the film, published in 1968.  It confirms what the trailer indicates, that Corruption is a crude shocker, unworthy of the talents of Peter Cushing, who engages in much undignified molesting and murdering of women.  (Apparently there was a 'continental' cut of the film involving some bare breast groping of a victim on his part).  I have no idea why the film is so difficult to see in the UK.  I've often suspected that it might have something to do with the financial collapse of the production company, Titan Films, part way through the making of Incense For the Damned (aka Bloodsuckers), which could have left the ownership of their films in limbo.  However, the awful Norman Wisdom comedy they made, Press For Time, appears regularly on TV, implying that there is no rights issue regarding Titan's movies.  Maybe Corruption is simply so terrible nobody wants to claim ownership.

Titan themselves, whilst a cut above most of the tinpot exploitation film producers which seemed to proliferate in the UK in the sixties, knocking out horror and sex movies to provide the lower halves of double bills, was still several steps below Cushing's usual home at this time: Hammer.  Indeed, they were several steps below even Tigon, their nearest equivalent, which produced and distributed many cheap and cheerful horror and sex films (including the notorious Norman Wisdom sex comedy Sauce For the Goose), as well as a couple of genuine classics in the sixties and early seventies.  Corruption's script, which took in murderous beach bum gangs, swinging sixties parties and fashion shoots and a laser massacre, in addition to several brutal murders, was provided by Derek and Donald Ford, two of the era's most experienced low-budget exploitation film makers.  Robert Hartford-Davis, who directed Corruption, was something of a 'house director' for Titan and was also behind a number of other sixties exploitation movies in various capacities as writer, director or producer.  His son directs episodes of Home and Away.  I'm still waiting for the episode where Alf Stewart starts murdering the female residents of Summer Bay and keeping their severed heads in his fridge...

(Apparently the film is due a US Blu Ray release, via Grindhouse, later this year).