Editing Hammer Film Productions (section)

==Last years of film production==
Hammer films had always sold, in part, on their violent and sexual content. In the late 1960s, with the release of Hollywood films like ''[[Bonnie and Clyde (film)|Bonnie and Clyde]]'', ''[[Rosemary's Baby (film)|Rosemary's Baby]]'', and ''[[The Wild Bunch]]'', the studio struggled to maintain its place in the market. [[Roman Polanski]]'s ''Rosemary's Baby'' was a successful example of [[psychological horror]], while ''Bonnie and Clyde'' and ''The Wild Bunch'' exposed mainstream audiences to more explicit gore, and were more expertly staged than Hammer films. Meanwhile, [[George A. Romero]]'s ''[[Night of the Living Dead]]'' (1968) had set a new standard for graphic violence in horror films.

In 1969 Tony Hinds resigned from the Hammer board and retired from the industry.<ref name="Telobit">[https://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/oct/07/anthony-hinds "Obituary: Anthony Hinds,"] ''The Guardian'' (7 October 2013).</ref> Hammer was not the same without him; it responded to the new reality by bringing in new writers and directors, testing new characters, and attempting to rejuvenate their vampire and Frankenstein films with new approaches to familiar material. (1974's ''[[Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell]]'', for example, features a scene where the Baron treads on a discarded human brain.)

The company soon realised, however, that if they could not be as gory as the new American productions, they could follow a trend in European films of the time and instead play up the sexual content of their films.

While the studio remained true to previous period settings in their 1971 release ''[[Vampire Circus]]'', ''[[Dracula AD 1972]]'' and ''[[The Satanic Rites of Dracula]]'' (1973), for example, abandoned period settings in pursuit of a modern-day setting and a "[[swinging London]]" feel. ''The Satanic Rites of Dracula'', then called ''Dracula is Dead... and Well and Living in London'', indulged the turn toward self-parody suggested by the title, with some humour appearing in the script, undercutting any sense of horror. These latter films were not successful and drew fire not only from critics but from [[Christopher Lee]] himself, who refused to appear in any more Dracula films after these. Speaking at a press conference in 1973 to announce ''Dracula is Dead... and Well and Living in London'', Lee said:
{{cquote|"I'm doing it under protest... I think it is fatuous. I can think of twenty adjectives – fatuous, pointless, absurd. It's not a comedy, but it's got a comic title. I don't see the point."<ref>{{cite book|last=Haining|first=Peter|title=The Dracula Scrapbook|publisher=Chancellor Press|year=1992|isbn=978-1-85152-195-1}}</ref>}}

===TV adaptations===
Hammer Films had commercial success with some atypical output during this period, with film versions of several British TV situation comedies, most notably the [[ITV (TV network)|ITV]] [[On the Buses|series]] ''[[On the Buses (film)|On the Buses]]'' (1971). The first spin-off made was Hammer's biggest domestic earner of the 1970s and was popular enough to produce two sequels, ''[[Mutiny on the Buses]]'' (1972) and ''[[Holiday on the Buses]]'' (1973), seeing Hammer return to their pre-horror practice of adapting television properties for the cinema as they had once done with ''PC 49'' and ''Dick Barton''.

Other adaptations included:
*''[[Nearest and Dearest (film)|Nearest and Dearest]]'' (1972)
*''[[That's Your Funeral]]'' (1972)
*''[[Love Thy Neighbour (1973 film)|Love Thy Neighbour]]'' (1973)
*''[[Man at the Top (film)|Man at the Top]]'' (1973)
*''[[Man About the House (film)|Man About the House]]'' (1974)

===Final films===
In the latter part of the 1970s, Hammer made fewer films, and attempts were made to break away from the then-unfashionable Gothic horror films on which the studio had built its reputation. ''[[The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires]]'' (1974), a co-production with [[Hong Kong]]'s [[Shaw Brothers]] which attempted to combine Hammer's brand of horror with the then popular [[martial arts films|martial arts genre]], and ''[[To the Devil a Daughter]]'' (1976), their third adaptation of a [[Dennis Wheatley]] novel, were both quite successful at the U.K. box office, but Hammer was unable to capitalise on them as most of the profits went to other financial backers.

Hammer Films struggled on throughout the 1970s before going into liquidation in 1979.<ref name="Telobit" /> Hammer's last production, in 1979, was a remake of [[Alfred Hitchcock]]'s 1938 thriller ''[[The Lady Vanishes (1979 film)|The Lady Vanishes]]'', starring [[Elliott Gould]] and [[Cybill Shepherd]]. (''The Encyclopedia of British Film'' characterized the remake as "about as witless and charmless as could be conceived".)<ref>{{cite book|editor-last1=McFarlane|editor-first1=Brian|editor-last2=Slide|editor-first2=Anthony|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mqyuDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA578|title=The encyclopedia of British film|location=Manchester & New York City|publisher=Manchester University Press|date=2013|page=578|isbn=978-0-7190-9139-1}}</ref>