Stones of Evil Chantrell Hammer Artwork 1972

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An extremely rare piece of original Chantrell artwork, this being Chantrell's artwork for the unmade Hammer film "Stones of Evil" (1972). Chantrell acted almost as an "in-house" illustrator for Hammer during the period 1965-70 & thereafter, Chantrell continued to provide conceptual artwork to the studios. Pieces such as this were often produced as "finished" art & incorporated into pitches for finance or otherwise printed as flyers etc for similar purposes.

"Stones of Evil" was to have been set in prehistoric times & conceived to mine the same kind of territory as "One Million Years BC" (1966) & "When Dinosaurs Ruled The Earth" (1970) (image of "One Million Years BC" courtesy of www.moviepostermem.com). According to "Last Bus To Bray: The Unfilmed Hammer" (Glen Davies 2010), the film was to have revolved around a stonemason character called Haril. Haril was to be recruited by Druids to help in the construction of a stone ring (ie, Stonehenge). When Haril discovers that the edifice was to serve the purpose of sacrifice & devil worship he rebels & plans sabotage. A Producer, Don Houghton was in the frame to mastermind the project but like so many initiatives from Hammer at this time, no end product was finally to materialise.

The film obviously could have been enormous fun & in Chantrell's eyes, there was clearly lots of potential to feature nubile cavewomen with little or no clothing (always an astute & eye-catching device). Chantrell's artwork also utilises another Chantrell trademark, the film title being integrated into the design, here in the form of the stones themselves, rather than simply being employed as text overlay (another good example of this being "She" from 1965). At first sight the orb like red/orange background appears to mimic the sun but on closer investigation a series of ethereal images are skilfully & subtly enmeshed in the design. The blood dripping down the stone title is another fine detail & echoes a number of Chantrell's posters for Hammer (ie, "Taste The Blood of Dracula" from 1970). Overall this is a very fine piece. There has been some slight "wrinkling" to the artwork but this is fairly unobtrusive given the design.

Please note this lot is sold without copyright, reproduction rights, licensing agreements or any other type of legal release.

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