Until the Joker Was Drawn
This is a tremendous sample of the Hammer Productions' horror stable of movies. A small cast, only a couple of sets, spend the money on dialogue and the use of cameras lighting and film and you get success.The colors of this are visually striking down to the velvet smoking jacket worn by Diffring late in the tale. And the green lighting used to infer "special" significance to a vial of colored water with frozen CO2 bubbling it is some of the best uses of mood by color in the history of films. There is no mention that the celluloid was remastered for the digital copy and I do not think it was, just pointing to the high quality material used to put the images onto. Wikipedia has some of the story wrong. The bad guy only shows up like a Mr. Hyde when he doesn't get his special operation and he usually, he says, gets his organs from cadavers. But he was desperate that once, and now again...
Anton Diffring is masterful in the lead (The burning here is foreshadowing of his role in "Fahrenheit 451". Christopher Lee is solid as the supporting character. He is solidifying his legend in this role. Hazel Court is performing one of her final leading lady parts to the max. This movie is a good sample of the Saturday Horror feature at its best. Cheat to watch it if you have to.
The DVD copy I watched had no bonus features available. A shame. It would have been nice to get at least the supporting actor, Lee's thoughts on the making of and the behind the scenes intrigue of getting this work to the theaters.