"Unlike so many Hammer actors, Jon Finch rose to the heights of his profession..."

Some actors are typed as "horror" players and others aren't.  Some of the latter, though, have made an indelible mark in horror films all the same, as we see in... 

By HARVEY F. CHARTRAND

Jon Finch is a superb classically-trained actor, well remembered for starring roles in such cinematic milestones of the outré and macabre as Roman Polanski’s Macbeth (1971), Alfred Hitchcock’s Frenzy (1972) and Robert Fuest’s The Final Programme (1973).

Yet, for HORROR-WOOD readers, he's also fondly   remembered for his roles in two Hammer Studios gothic horror films.

After years learning his craft on stage, Finch starred in Counterstrike, a short-lived 1969 TV series, which followed the exploits of "a Milky Way alien trying to save the world from itself."

In 1970, Finch had supporting roles in two Hammer horror films--The Vampire Lovers [an erotic chiller about lesbian vampires starring Ingrid Pitt] and The Horror of Frankenstein, with Ralph Bates as mad scientist Victor Frankenstein and David Prowse as the monster.

Unlike so many Hammer actors, Jon Finch rose to the heights of his profession, landing the title role of Macbeth in Polanski’s brutal and bloody version of the Scottish play. Finch beat out many prominent actors for the part – including Anthony Hopkins, whom Polanski already considered too old to play Macbeth.

Finch delivered a towering performance in what many critics said at the time was the best cinematic treatment of any Shakespearean play. Polanski’s Macbeth was produced by Playboy Magazine publisher Hugh Hefner and adapted by theater critic Kenneth Tynan.

Finch doesn’t believe that the violence and savagery in this version of Macbeth were inspired by the 1969 Manson killings in Los Angeles, which claimed the lives of Polanski’s wife Sharon Tate and best friend (hair stylist) Jay Sebring.

"The murder of King Duncan is not in the play," Finch points out. "When Macbeth was written, you weren’t allowed to show royal assassinations on stage. This was the first time that Duncan’s murder was ever shown. It was very well done, I thought. Polanski wasn’t exorcising any demons. He’s far too intelligent for that. He is just a brilliant director, incredibly well read."

Finch has the distinction of starring in Hitchcock’s last great film. In 1971, the Master of Suspense directed Finch in Frenzy. Finch was terrific as Richard Blaney, an innocent man accused of a series of necktie strangulation murders. Finch delivers a splendid performance: his anti-hero Blaney--at first prickly and unsympathetic--becomes increasingly desperate as he is framed by the real killer.

Even though Frenzy was hailed as a true return to form for the Master of Suspense, Finch doesn’t consider it a masterpiece. "Frenzy came out of a cheap book (Goodbye Piccadilly, Farewell Leicester Square) written by Arthur La Bern, an ex-convict who became quite popular over here after the war.

Tony Shaffer--who adapted Frenzy from the book--told me recently that he didn’t know La Bern had been inside (the walls). I thought La Bern might have said something interesting about London that I didn’t know about, but it was just a simple-minded story with no psychological terror. Hitchcock didn’t use much of the book, though."

Finch then starred in The Final Programme (1973), based on Michael Moorcock’s apocalyptic science fiction novel and directed by Robert Fuest (The Abominable Dr. Phibes). The narrative concerns a dead scientist's son, who is asked by a consortium to recover some microfilmed formulas from his brother, while civilization collapses around him. This stylish cult movie tanked at the box office, despite being heavily cut and retitled The Last Days of Man on Earth – but The Final Programme has been lovingly restored to its original running time on the newly-issued DVD version.

Over the years, Finch appeared in many horror and science fiction productions – as ‘Christ’ (actually a shape-shifting alien) in the 1979 TV mini-series based on Ray Bradbury’s acclaimed sci-fi novel The Martian Chronicles; as a bewitched writer in La Sabina (a dark fantasy, shot in Spain and Sweden in 1979, with Carol Kane and Harriet Andersson); as the villainous wizard Vortigern in Merlin of the Crystal Cave (filmed in the gloomy hills of Wales in 1991); as the forbidding Count Sylvius in The Mazarin Stone episode of The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (1994), opposite the late Charles Gray as Mycroft Holmes; and as a sinister Welsh politician in the occult thriller Darklands (1997).

In 1980, Finch renewed his association with Hammer Films, appearing in Witching Time, a frightening episode of the Hammer House of Horror TV anthology series, about a man who is gradually possessed by the soul of a witch in an isolated cottage.

And, had it not been for a life-threatening case of bronchitis, Finch would have starred in Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979), in the part of Executive Officer G.W. Kane, subsequently played by John Hurt.

"There I was on the set of Alien," Finch recalls. "I had been shooting for two days. I had my face cast and my chest measured for when the alien (chest-burster) comes out. Suddenly, I get bronchitis. I was in intensive care for three days. Obviously, they had to go on and John Hurt got in on it. I have pondered what would have happened if I’d been able to stay on, but what’s the use? You can’t gain a lot, can you, by extrapolating yourself from somebody else’s position."

In the 1982 German film of Thomas Mann’s epic novel Doktor Faustus, Finch portrayed composer Adrian Leverkuehn, who sells his soul to the devil for the acquisition of genius in his lifetime.

"I play this very bright young composer/pianist who enters into a pact with Satan in order to become famous," Finch relates. "I played it all in English, but the film was never released outside Germany. We shot for months and months – in Switzerland, France, Germany and Austria. I had to age from 17 to 75. I was about 38 at the time, and playing 17 was a bit difficult, but playing 75 was no problem at all. I had a genius makeup artist."

In 1994, Finch traveled to Romania to film Full Moon Entertainment’s Lurking Fear, very loosely based on a horror story by H.P. Lovecraft. Director C. Courtney Joyner was eager to cast Finch as Bennett, the villain of the piece. Sadly, the results were disappointing gangsters fighting ghouls and the undead in an old churchyard cemetery. "Lurking Fear was a piece of crap," Finch says flatly. "The script was an insult to H.P. Lovecraft."

Finch fared much better in his next horror entry – Darklands (1997), in which he delivered a masterful performance as a mysterious Welsh nationalist. In a bizarre twist, the cast and crew of Darklands were cursed by a real-life pagan cult.

Finch laughs when told about the ‘Darklands curse.’ "Touch wood, the curse hasn’t affected me. I think the film needed a stunt of some sort. I couldn’t work it out at all. I know that some of my scenes were cut. Yes, I hear I’m quite good in Darklands. I must make a point of seeing it sometime, but it barely got a release here." Darklands was expertly directed by Julian Richards (Silent Cry).

Finch’s latest film is the exotically-titled Anazapta (2001), a medieval thriller set in 1348 England. In this dark tale of lust and revenge unfolding in the shadow of the Black Death, Finch plays Sir Walter, the nobleman whose mysterious absence hastens the decay of the village over which he is lord and master.

Anazapta stars Jason Flemyng (From Hell) and Lena Headey (Gossip), and is directed by Alberto Sciamma (The Killer Tongue).

Anazapta is Finch’s first theatrical release since 1997. "D’you know, I never wanted to be a big star," he sums up. "I usually do one film a year, so I always have enough money to enjoy myself and keep myself out of the public eye. It’s a very pleasant life, not one of great ambition. I don’t have to worry about anything, because I made one sensible decision in my life. With the money I got paid for doing the Hitchcock picture, I went out and bought a flat in Fulham, which is now worth an absolute fortune."

Thanks, Harvey, for providing this glimpse into the interesting and eclectic career of Jon Finch.  We'll always remember Mr. Finch for his "grapes" of wrath in Frenzy.

 Article copyright © Harvey F. Chartrand  

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