Jimmy Sangster
Welsh screenwriter and film directorWikipedia
35
MENTIONS
11
EPISODES
9
PODCASTS
Search complete. 35 mentions across 11 episodes found for "Jimmy Sangster".
Nov 4, 2026
Philip Gwynne JonesHOST
It's our second visit to the Kahnstein family, the second part of the Kahnstein trilogy.
Philip Gwynne JonesHOST
And my first question to you is going to be, we love Jimmy Sangster, but should he ever be allowed to direct? Kev.
Cev MooreHOST
Oh, no pressure then.
Cev MooreHOST
Kev.
Cev MooreHOST
And it's only because Helen got completely ill. Peter Cushing was there up until like a couple of weeks before it started and then went, no, I've got to pull away.
Cev MooreHOST
So Ralph Bates comes in at very much the 11th hour and To save it, he's drafted in to try and rescue this.
Cev MooreHOST
And it's only because he's a good friend of Jimmy Sangster that he's basically...
Cev MooreHOST
Sangster's gone, Ralph, help us out, mate.
LexiHOST
And the last little bit of trivia I wrote down.
LexiHOST
is that screenwriter Jimmy Sangster threw out his original copy of Dracula, thinking it was of little value, much to his later regret.
LoriHOST
Well, you know, I was just thinking, after we had talked about that money, which one of those people we've talked about would think that a movie that they made in 1958 would be on your television in 2026.
LoriHOST
You know, this is...
LexiHOST
Right.
LoriHOST
So.
LoriHOST
Well, and this Dracula is a pure creation of this writer, Jimmy Sangster.
LoriHOST
He did not want Harker to be his, you know, this.
Dan ColónHOST
He's referring to Dracula, Prince of Darkness, by the way.
Dan ColónHOST
Here's two reasons why Jimmy Sangster used a pseudonym.
Dan ColónHOST
He was trying to distance himself from gothic horror as he was fed up with the genre and he didn't like the completed shooting script.
Dan ColónHOST
The vast majority of material I've read and watched over the years from the various Hammer Scholars side with Sangster on the matter as to why Dracula has no lines.
Riley SchreckHOST
Yay! For the Arizona Solution, maybe it would be easier to say who isn't in it.
Riley SchreckHOST
Outside of the Doctors and Nicola Bryant, we have Alan Cumming, who played King James in The Witchfinders, and Michael Wisher, who was in 10 Doctor Who serials.
Riley SchreckHOST
And of course, the writer of the film, Nicholas Briggs, who is well in so many Who serials, and he's also an executive producer of Big Finish.
Anthony WilliamsHOST
Riley, I'd also like to shout out Gary Russell as the detective, who was also a former Big Finish executive producer.
Riley SchreckHOST
This is a Hammer film from 1956 that was an example of early Hammer which focused on sci-fi instead of gothic horror.
Riley SchreckHOST
Directed by Leslie Norman and written by the Hammer main script writer...
Riley SchreckHOST
The King, Jimmy Sangster.
Riley SchreckHOST
This film would be Sangster's first film.
David HeathHOST
Uh, I said, again, it's directed by Terrence Fisher.
David HeathHOST
Um, And I think it's a really well acted film, really well written film by a man named James Sangster.
David HeathHOST
Who also wrote The Curse of Frankenstein and Dracula in 1958.
David HeathHOST
Also a great film.
Kevin LyonsHOST
When you look at...
Kevin LyonsHOST
You know, you look at Lust for a Vampire, which was directed by Jimmy Sangster, sort of stepping in at the last minute.
Kevin LyonsHOST
You kind of feel almost like a bit of a reluctance on his part.
Kevin LyonsHOST
He doesn't seem very engaged with the film.
10 MINS LATER
Kevin LyonsHOST
He had everything at his fingertips.
Kevin LyonsHOST
And he was a supremely talented director, his later films notwithstanding.
Kevin LyonsHOST
And it felt to me like he was much more engaged with the subject that Jimmy Sangster had been with Lust for a Vampire.
Becky DarkeHOST
Absolutely.
ClayHOST
Okay.
ClayHOST
The Curse of Frankenstein from 1957, directed by Terrence Fisher, written by Jimmy Sangster, based on the classic novel by Mary Shelley.
ClayHOST
Does it matter when she's referred to as Mary Shelley or Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley?
AmandaHOST
Does it matter?
Dave WatkinsGUEST
Yeah.
Thomas TinnerelloGUEST
It definitely wasn't written by Jimmy Sangster, that's for sure.
Dave WatkinsGUEST
[laughs] But it's, the, yeah, the writings in both of them are very bizarre.
Dave WatkinsGUEST
I me- it almost seemed like they were just trying to throw, like, like, throw, throw in, like, just throw stuff into, into the movie a lot of times.
Becky DarkeHOST
Um, and so-
Kevin LyonsHOST
And of course it's in the, um, Severin Jimmy Sangster box set, which I can highly recommend.
Kevin LyonsHOST
Even though the films aren't very good, the, the extras are.
Kevin LyonsHOST
I'm not saying that because we're on the extras-
Kevin LyonsHOST
But he suffered a very serious leg injury in a car accident and had to withdraw.
Becky DarkeHOST
Oh, God.
Kevin LyonsHOST
And Jimmy Sangster was at, um, Elstree finishing up The Horror of Frankenstein at the time.
Becky DarkeHOST
Mm-hmm.
Cev MooreHOST
Well, during that time, he'd written a screenplay simply titled Frankenstein, and then for a brief period, it was The Horrors of Frankenstein.
Cev MooreHOST
He penned nearly as many screenplays as acting jobs, and this one sat in the vault for a while until Jimmy Sangster got hold of it and knocked it into shape.
Cev MooreHOST
After all, he'd got form when it came to Frankenstein.
Cev MooreHOST
He was signed up to produce on the understanding that he'd be allowed to make his directorial debut, meaning he was spinning all the plates throughout the six weeks he spent making it, and this time we're going back to Victor's origin story, and the big bad Baron is played by Ralph Bates.
8 MINS LATER
Philip Gwynne JonesHOST
We'll never know quite how she might have developed as an actress because even at this early stage of her career, Hammer Films and Veronica Carlson were on different tracks.
Philip Gwynne JonesHOST
1970's Horror of Frankenstein would prove to be her last for the company, as it was for Kate O'Meara.
Philip Gwynne JonesHOST
Veronica described director Jimmy Sangster as a lovely and funny man, but disliked the jokey tone of the film.
Philip Gwynne JonesHOST
She was at heart a bit of a fangirl, and she liked her horror to be serious.
1 more episode mentions Jimmy Sangster.
Create an account to see the whole feed, search across every transcript, and follow the entities you care about.