British studio Hammer, which is currently enjoying worldwide box office success with The Woman In Black, has announced it is working on a project to house an "unparalleled" script archive at Leicester De Montfort University.
The Cinema And Television History Research Centre at the university will become the custoidan of Hammer’s historical output.
The CATH Research Centre agreement will involve the cataloguing and curation of the scripts, with the intention to make them available to scholars in digital form.
In excess of 240 items from the Hammer script archive have been already been deposited.
Hammer’s archivist Robert Simpson oversaw the collection and transfer of the material, formally handing over the first of the script boxes to CATH director Professor Steve Chibnall earlier this month.
Simpson said: “During a reorganisation and inventory of the company’s extensive archive we decided that our script collection deserved to be made accessible. De Montfort has been nurturing some truly excellent work on British film history and the CATH facility seemed the perfect place to host our archive; respecting the historical and physical value of the material and allowing protected access to those studying the company and its films.
"While this is by no means the entire contents of our archive – we have hundreds of thousands of pages of corporate paperwork, ephemera and of course the film elements, much of which is still in active use – it is an unparalleled collection, including classic Hammer screenplays from the likes of Jimmy Sangster, Michael Carreras, Val Guest, Nigel Kneale and John Elder.
"It covers most of our film and television production from 1947 through to 1990, embracing not only the horror output of Hammer, but also documentaries, comedies, war films, shorts, and swashbucklers. This is the first time in several decades that Hammer has opened its archives to such outside scrutiny, and will be a wonderful opportunity for film students.”
De Montfort was selected over competing universities because of the particular expertise in British genre cinema at the CATH Research Centre.
Prof Chibnall – who is the only Professor of British Cinema and has co-edited a collection on British Horror Cinema – said: “When I was growing up, Hammer and horror were virtually synonymous, and seeing one of their films was a rite of passage into adulthood.
"Of course, they liked to sail as close to the wind as possible as far as the censor was concerned, but their products were memorable and influential internationally, and have now been recognised as Britain’s most important contribution to fantasy cinema.
"Although they became incredibly successful after the release of classic shockers like The Curse Of Frankenstein (1957) and Dracula (1958) and won a Queen’s Award for Industry in the 1960s, Hammer remained something of a maverick independent with a transgressive edge that kept audiences interested and expectant.
"We welcome the arrival of this collection at its new home in dedicated archival space at De Montfort University and look forward both to making its treasures available in electronic form to the wider community of scholars, and to a long and fruitful collaboration between the CATH Research Centre and Hammer.”
Marcus Hearn, Hammer’s official historian and a research fellow at CATH added: “I’m glad that the scripts from so many of Hammer’s classic productions will be going to a good home at Leicester’s De Montfort University.
"We will also be adding scripts and paperwork from the private collections of director Roy Ward Baker and writer Jimmy Sangster, both of whom enjoyed long associations with Hammer. Both Roy and Jimmy would have been pleased to know that their work was being made available to students and researchers in this way.”
