Tony Tenser

Dec 20 2007 by David Charters, Liverpool Daily Post

ALTHOUGH he will be remembered in British culture as the man who burned witches, his flair for selling wicker chairs in Southport should not be overlooked.

For, during a career making films, many of which appealed to men not accustomed to seeing women’s flesh in the flesh, as it were, the man had a simple philosophy.

“I would rather be ashamed of making a film that was making money than proud of a film that was losing it,” he said in a contemplative moment.

Surprisingly, the film regarded by his critics as his best was not a financial success when it was made in 1968.

However, The Witchfinder General, starring Vincent Price as Matthew Hopkins, the religious maniac who delighted in torturing women suspected of dallying with dark forces, is now a favourite among fans of horror movies, settling on the couch on Friday night with a curry and cans of lager.

In these parts, however, Tenser was better known for The Haunted House of Horror (1969), featuring Frankie Avalon, Mark Wynter, Jill Haworth and Richard O’Sullivan, which was shot at the Palace Hotel, Southport.

The psychopathic killer is now regarded as rather less frightening than the film’s stab at 1960s fashion.

In the same year, Tenser also used the hotel for what the critics judged to be one of the worst British films ever made, What’s Good for the Goose, starring Norman Wisdom and some nudie actresses.

A few months later, the hotel was demolished.

Samuel Anthony Tenser was one of seven children born in comparative poverty to Lithuanian Jews in London’s East End.

After a grammar school education, he applied to join the RAF as a pilot during the war, but was rejected because of poor sight, instead becoming a technician.

An expert publicist, who is credited with first dubbing Brigitte Bardot, the “Sex Kitten”, Tenser worked in cinema management and strip-clubs, before making the “documentary”, Naked As Nature Intended (1961).

He later formed Tigon films, which would rival Hammer with titles such as Repulsion (directed by Roman Polanski), Curse of the Crimson Altar and The Blood Beast Terror.

In the 1970s, the father-of-four moved to Birkdale, outside Southport, where he worked in property development, the marketing of wicker chairs and was added to a list of the resort’s famous residents.

Tony Tenser, film maker; born August 10, 1920, died December 5, 2007