Although less well known than its rival Hammer , Amicus Productions left its own mark on the horror genre during the peak years of the British horror film in the 1960s and 1970s. Amicus's trademark was the anthology or portmanteau film, comprised of four or five horror tales all linked by a framing story and often concluding with a revelation or surprise pay-off. Amicus was much more short-lived than Hammer, being formed in the early 1960s, and only lasting for around a decade and a half until the late 1970s. Unlike Hammer, it was a speciality studio almost from the beginning, focusing on horror and fantasy subjects. But Amicus films usually rejected traditional gothic horror and mostly used modern day settings with a less fantastical air than Hammer's.
The Hollywood History of the World is a survey of the way history has been portrayed by English-speaking film industries since the beginning of the sound era. The book was written by Scottish author George MacDonald Fraser, who obviously had a serious interest in history as he wrote the "Flashman" novels. These became known at least in part for their historical research and their interweaving of Fraser's fictional characters with real historical events and personalities. Fraser also worked in the film industry, writing the screenplays for Richard Lester's 1970s version of The Three Musketeers and its two sequels, the 1977 film of The Prince and the Pauper , an adaptation of his Flashman novel Royal Flash in 1975 and the 1983 James Bond film Octopussy .