Book Review: Running Scared by Phil Campbell with Brian Reynolds

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This is a non-fiction book I've just finished reading, being the memoirs of two guys who - fresh out of school - joined the famous Hammer Studios as office boys. Brian Reynolds started there first, in 1967, and was joined a couple of years later by Phil Campbell. They were mostly based at Hammer's offices in London, but when there was a film in production, one or the other of them would usually be transferred over to the studio to act as a production runner. A production runner's job is to run errands for the director, the actors or just about anyone else on the set. This could be anything from distributing updates to the script every morning to - one one occasion - nipping out to the chemist's to buy a packet of tampons for one of the actresses. So not the most senior of positions, but it brought them into contact with a lot of very famous people who were working for Hammer in the period 1967-1972. We're talking about people like Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Caroline Munro etc. Real horror legends. The pair worked on such classic horror movies as "Blood from the Mummy's Tomb", "The Horror of Frankenstien" and "Captain Kronos - Vampire Hunter", although it wasn't all horror. Although horror is what Hammer was know for, the studio was also making good money in the early 70s making film adaptations of popular British TV comedy series, most notably "On The Buses". As I say, this is a book of anecdotes. It's a quick read, with plenty of humour in it, and it's well illustrated with photos and film stills from the authors' collection. It doesn't give any information about the ins and outs of running a business such as Hammer, but it provides a worm's eye view of what it was like to work for them during their last great productive period before they went into decline. Being a fan of classic horror movies, I found it a fun read.