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Rating *5*
Created and written by Nigel Kneale
Starring André Morell (Professor Bernard Quatermass), Cec Linder (Dr Matthew Roney), Antony Bushell (Colonel James Breen), John Stratton (Captain Potter), Christine Finn (Barbara Judd), Harold Goodwin (Corporal Gibson), Brian Worth (James Fullalove), Richard Shaw (Sladden), Hilda Barry (Mrs Anne Chilcot), Howell Davies (Mr Chilcot), Victor Platt (PC Ellis), Richard Dare (Private Secretary) and Michael Ripper (Sergeant)
A pre-human skull is discovered on building works in Hobbs Lane in Knightsbridge. Palaeontologist Dr Matthew Roney identifies it as a missing link, many thousands of years old, and obtains permission to carry out archaeological excavation of the site. However, when what appears to be a previously-unidentified unexploded World War II German missile is discovered, the site is closed off by an Army bomb disposal team. Roney asks his friend Professor Bernard Quatermass of the British Experimental Rocket Group to intercede on his behalf and they begin to piece together the terrible truth about the origins of the human species.
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When I was growing up, the 1967 Hammer Films version of ‘Quatermass and the Pit’ was one of my favourite films. I guess I would first have watched it as a teenager sometime in the early to mid-1970s. I remain very fond of it. Like the two earlier Quatermass films made by Hammer, it was a remake of a 1950s BBC serial. ‘Quatermass and the Pit’ was the final one in the trilogy, broadcast in six 30-minute segments between 22 December 1958 and 26 January 1959, most of it performed live.
‘Quatermass and the Pit’ is a wildly acknowledged classic, possibly the single greatest example of British science fiction. It was hugely influential, both in style and theme. Doctor Who is a very obvious example of the influence of the Quatermass trilogy, but it extends much wider than just that.
It might be a little bit dated and stagey now, but science fiction does not get any better or more intelligent than this. The quality of the surviving print is also superior to the first two instalments in the trilogy, ‘The Quatermass Experiment’ (1953) and ‘Quatermass II’ (1955).
Review posted on 21 November 2010
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Rating 2¾
Directed by Val Guest
Written by Nigel Kneale and val Guest, based on the original BBC serial written by Nigel Kneale
Starring Brian Donlevy (Professor Bernard Quatermass), John Longden (Inspector Lomax), Sid James (Jimmy Hall), William Franklyn (Brand), Bryan Forbes (Marsh), Vera Day (Sheila), Charles Lloyd Pack (Dawson), Percy Herbert (Gorman), Michael Ripper (Ernie) and Jogn Rae (McLeod)
Professor Bernard Quatermass is angry after his request for more funds for his planned exploration of the Moon is rejected, but he is intrigued by the meteorite shower his team has been tracking and by the sample they have analysed. He travels to Winnerden Flats, the area where the meteorites were concentrated and discovers what appears to be a fully-functioning replica of his planned Moon base. His colleague Marsh is badly burned by ammonia gas from one of the fallen rocks that leaves a strange V shape mark on his skin. Quatermass is warned away by armed guards and when he is given a hostile reception in the nearby town he goes to Inspector Lomax at Scotland Yard for help investigating the true purpose of the secret base.
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‘The Quatermass Xperiment’ in 1955 was a Hammer Films production based on the 1953 BBC television serial. The commercial success of that film resulted in ‘Quatermass II’ in 1957, also based on a BBC serial. Nigel Kneale, who wrote the BBC serials, was involved in writing the screenplay this time around, with input by producer Anthony Hinds and subsequent re-writes by the director Val Guest. The American actor Brian Donlevy returned as Bernard Quatermass, much to Kneale’s annoyance, who considered him, quite rightly, to be miscast in the role. Kneale also claimed that Donlevy was an alcoholic who was paralytic on the set and could barely read his lines off the idiot boards that were being used because he was incapable of memorising them. Guest claimed that these allegations were not true, saying Donlevy was very professional, although he did concede that the actor laced his coffee with whisky and was “not stone cold sober either”.
Donlevy was cast as a deliberate ploy to make the ‘Quatermass’ films more appealing to American distributors. He is not a perfect match for the role, but not a bad one, and his performance is fine. If he really was “crippled with drink” as Nigel Kneale claimed it doesn’t show. Reginald Tate had played the lead role in the first BBC serial, but following his sudden death in 1955 he was replaced at short notice by John Robinson for the second serial. The role was played by André Morell in the third BBC serial and subsequently by Andrew Keir, John Mills and Jason Flemyng.
The film rattles along at a brisk pace and doesn’t suffer for the general absence of special effects. A Shell oil-refinery doubled as the secret complex where the aliens are plotting their colonisation of Earth. We do not see the alien creatures until the final moments of the film and then only through the gloom of night cover. They are typical of the period, not at all convincing and yet somehow more effective than many of today’s state-of-the-art CGI effects. Fans of the ‘Carry On’ films would perhaps be interested to see Sid James in one of his earlier non-comic roles.
‘Quatermass II’ has been widely interpreted as an attack on the Conservative government at the time.
Review posted 7 April 2010
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Rating 1
Directed by Spencer Gordon Bennet
Written by Orville H Hampton, from a story by Irving Black and Jack Rubin
Starring Arthur Franz (Cmdr Richard ‘Reef’ Holloway), Dick Foran (Cmdr Dan Wendover), Brett Halsey (Dr Carl Neilson Jr), Paul Duboy (Lt David Milburn), Bob Steele (CPO Grif Griffin), Victor Varconi (Dr Clifford Kent), Tom Conway (Sir Ian Hunt), Richard Tyler (Frogman Carney), Kenneth Becker (Frogman Powell), Jean Moorhead (Helen Milburn) and Joi Lansing (Julie)
The US Navy atomic submarine Tigershark is sent to the Arctic Circle with a team of scientists onboard to investigate a series of mysterious incidents, including the disappearance of several vessels, and encounters an aquatic flying saucer.
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‘The Atomic Submarine’ was released in 1959, five years after the US Navy launched the USS Nautilus, the world’s first nuclear submarine, and one year after the Soviet Union successfully launched its first nuclear submarine. The film is, effectively, a simplistic advertisement for the power of the nuclear deterrent, in which the counter-argument, calling for an end to armed conflict and the proliferation of nuclear weapons, is put forward by the young scientist Carl Neilson, until his wholesale change of ideology at the end of the film after he has seen at firsthand the threat posed by the “alien”.
The special effects don’t impress, although the minimalist interior of the alien craft is quite effective, stock footage is used throughout and the interior of the submarine is laughable – but this is a film made very quickly with minimal budget during the period when drive-in theatres were at the peak of their popularity. The acting is stilted but passable and the story is filled with so many gaping holes that it becomes one gigantic chasm. Having said that, despite the increasingly irritating voiceover, the film is solid and it has a certain charm as a curiosity of the period.
Director Spencer Gordon Bennet was known as the “King of the Serial Directors” and during his long career, dating from 1921 to 1974, he directed the first ‘Superman’ serial, in 1948, and its sequel ‘Atom Man vs Superman’ in 1950. Actor Tom Conway was the brother of the rather more famous George Sanders. Brett Halsey, who plays Carl Neilson, has had a long career in films and television and most recently appeared in a 2008 episode of the CBS network police procedural ‘Cold Case’.
Review posted on 23 November 2009
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Rating 2
Directed by Robert Gordon
Written by George Worthing Yates and Hal Smith
Starring Kenneth Tobey (Commander Pete Mathews), Faith Domergue (Professor Lesley Joyce), Donald Curtis (Dr John Carter), Ian Keaith (Admiral Burns), Dean Maddox Jr (Admiral Norman), Chuck Griffiths (Lieutenant Griff, USN), Harry Lauter (Deputy Bill Nash) and Richard W Peterson (Captain Stacey)
The testing of a hydrogen bomb forces a gigantic octopus up from the depths of the ocean in search of food. It attacks shipping, including a nuclear submarine, before turning its attention to San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge.
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This 1955 monster movie is notable for an early example of the stop-motion special effects created by Ray Harryhausen, although the production budget, just $150,000 for the whole film, meant that this is not amongst his most celebrated work. The octopus apparently has just six tentacles as a way of cutting costs, not that I noticed. Harryhausen worked with the film’s producer Charles H Schneer on many more films after this.
Much of the location filming was done at the San Francisco naval dockyard, including filming on an actual submarine. It’s all a bit stilted, something not uncommon in films like this, and decidedly clunky at times, particularly the love-affair back story involving Pete Mathews, the submarine commander, and Lesley Joyce, the marine biologist. Having said that, it is a reasonably well executed production and generally quite effective, all in all, even if, undoubtedly, it is not amongst the best examples of this genre.
Kenneth Tobey had previously starred in the classic 1951 science-fiction film ‘The Thing From Another World’ and Faith Domergue starred in another 1950s science fiction classic, ‘This Island Earth’, playing Dr Ruth Adams, in the same year as ‘It Came From Beneath The Sea’. Domergue was played by the actress Kelli Garner in the 2004 Martin Scorsese film ‘The Aviator’.
Review posted 10 June 2009
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Rating 3
Directed by Arthur Crabtree
Written by Herbert J Leder, based on a story by Amelia Reynolds Long
Starring Marshall Thompson, Kim Parker, Stanley Maxted, Terry Kilburn, Kynaston Reeves, Peter Madden and Robert MacKenzie
When the inhabitants of a small Canadian town start to suffer horrible deaths, attention is directed towards a nearby American airbase, where secret experiments are being conducted to harness atomic power for use in a new radar system. Major Jeff Cummings (Marshall Thompson) is given the task of investigating the events, aided by Barbara Griselle (Kim Parker), the sister of the first victim of the mysterious killer, and he begins to suspect a connection to Professor R E Walgate (Kynaston Reeves), a retired atomic scientist.
This 1958 sci-fi movie was shot in England, although many of the cast and crew were American and Canadian. It bears some comparison to ‘Forbidden Planet’, although it certainly does not share the ambition of that great film. The stop-motion special effects are at once both laughable and endearing – and, truth be told, strangely effective.
Generally speaking, the acting is what might be expected in a b-movie like this one, clearly intended for the American drive-in circuit. However, the performance of Robert MacKenzie as the local constable stands out as being hilariously bad.
Anyone who likes 1950s sci-fi / horror films won’t go too far wrong with ‘Fiend Without A Face’. It gets the job done.
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Rating 4
Directed by Val Guest
Written by Nigel Kneale and Val Guest (uncredited)
Starring Peter Cushing, Forrest Tucker, Maureen Connell, Richard Wattis, Robert Brown, Michael Brill and Arnold Marlé
Dr John Rollason (Peter Cushing) is an English anthologist on expedition in the foothills of the Himalayas, collecting samples of rare plant life for his university. He is accompanied by his wife Helen (Maureen Connell) and colleague Peter Fox (Richard Wattis). He is also secretly awaiting the arrival of an American expedition, led by Dr Tom Friend (Forrest Tucker), who intends to climb high up into the mountains in search of the elusive Yeti. Rollason is given an ambiguous warning by the Llama (Arnold Marlé) and is begged by his wife Helen not to go, but still joins up with Tom Friend on the fated trek up to the mountain peaks.
‘The Abominable Snowman’ was made by Hammer Film Productions in 1957, based on a BBC television play called ‘The Creature’ written by Nigel Kneale, the creator of the famous character Professor Bernard Quatermass. Kneale had already worked with the director Val Guest on the Hammer films ‘The Quatermass Xperiment’ and ‘Quatermass 2’, both also based on original BBC television productions.
The film has tended in the past to get a mixed reaction, especially in relation to the depiction of the Yeti, who we barely see, but more recently it has started to be re-appraised as a minor classic. It is a film I like very much. I first saw it many years ago in my early teens and watching it again now, I still enjoyed it immensely. Val Guest makes the most of a tiny budget and the mainly studio-bound sets and the film benefits from the presence of Peter Cushing, who is in top form in the lead role. In some ways it bares similarities to the classic 1937 Frank Capra film ‘The Lost Horizon’, although on a much smaller scale.
What I did notice on this latest viewing more than previously was the sweeping stereotypical charactisation. Cushing’s character John Rollason is softly spoken and refined – and retains a suitably English stiff upper lip throughout. Rollason’s colleague Peter Fox uses the age-old trick of shouting at the Tibetans in English to make himself understood, simply shouting louder when he wants to make a particularly important point. Helen Rollason is spunky but rather shrill, predictably so given that she is the token female character. The Americans are brash and obsessed with money and showmanship. The Tibetans are devious, lazy and untrustworthy and even the Llama is portrayed in slightly sinister tones.
Ultimately, though, this does not detract from a really rather wonderful and nicely atmospheric film.
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Rating 2½
Directed by Val Guest
Written by Richard Landau and Val Guest, based on the original BBC television play written by Nigel Kneale
Starring Brian Donlevy, Jack Warner, Richard Wordsworth, Margia Dean, David King-Wood, Lionel Jeffries, Thora Hird, Sam Kydd, Gordon Jackson and Jane Asher
A secret manned rocket launch into space, conducted under the auspices of Professor Bernard Quatermass (Brian Donlevy), becomes news when the rocket crashes back to Earth, landing near to an English village. Only one of the three-man crew survives, the other two crew-members having mysteriously disappeared from the ship. Victor Carroon (Richard Wordsworth), the sole survivor, exhibits signs of severe traumatic shock, but when he escapes from the hospital where he is undergoing treatment it becomes clear that he is changing into something not of this Earth. From this point onwards it becomes a race against time to stop him before it is too late to save the human race.
‘The Quatermass Xperiment’ is, essentially, a variation of the same story told in the 1951 film ‘The Thing From Another World’. This 1955 Hammer Films version was based on the original BBC production ‘The Quatermass Experiment’, which was broadcast in six 30-minute segments between 18 July and 22 August 1953.
Professor Bernard Quatermass was the creation of the writer Nigel Kneale and was partly based on the famed British astronomer Bernard Lovell. Kneale was not impressed by the casting of the veteran American actor Brian Donlevy to play the title role. Donlevy’s Hollywood film career dated back as far as 1923 and he had been Academy Award nominated for his role in the 1939 film ‘Beau Geste’, but his career was now in decline and he took work wherever he found it. Kneale claimed that Donlevy was often drunk on set, an allegation that was disputed by Val Guest, the film’s director, who said Donlevy was professional and committed to the production throughout.
The American bit-part actress Margia Dean plays Judith Carroon, the wife of the doomed astronaut and gives a performance of rather transparent ineptitude. The film is otherwise cast with a group of instantly recognisable British actors, including Lionel Jeffries, who later starred in ‘H G Wells’ First Man On The Moon’ (1964), which was co-written by Nigel Kneale, and ‘Jules Verne’s Rocket To The Moon’ (1967). Also present are the always-reliable Sam Kydd and the wonderful Thora Hird, who would later find her niche working with the writer Alan Bennett. Jane Asher, then aged just nine-years-old, makes an early appearance here, in a sequence clearly inspired by ‘Frankenstein’.
It is also worth mentioning Jack Warner, who plays Inspector Lomax of Scotland Yard. Warner was famous for his role as PC George Dixon in the 1950 film ‘The Blue Lamp’, gunned down by Dirk Bogarde’s young thug. George Dixon, played again by Warner and now promoted to the rank of Sergeant, was resurrected for the BBC series ‘Dixon of Dock Green’, which began in 1955, the same year ‘The Quatermass Xperiment’ was released, and ran for a total of 432 episodes until 1976.
‘The Quatermass Xperiment’ is inferior to the original BBC version, although the production values are undeniably higher. It had a production budget of £42,000, a rather pitiful sum by today’s standards. Allowing that Brian Donlevy is miscast, he gives a perfectly adequate performance. Richard Wordsworth is impressive as Victor Carroon and the film would probably have benefited from this character being given greater depth and screen time.
The film remains well worth watching for anyone with an interest in 1950’s science fiction. It is also interesting as a visual snapshot of the austerity of Britain in the decade following the end of the Second World War. I like the film, but I much prefer ‘X the Unknown’, which is more or less a Quatermass film in all but name and was released in 1956 to cash-in on the success of ‘The Quatermass Xperiment’.
The BBC commissioned Nigel Kneale to write a second Quatermass series, which was broadcast in 1955. Hammer Films turned it into the film ‘Quatermass II: Enemy From Space’ in 1957, once again with Brian Donlevy in the lead role, much to the annoyance of Kneale.
In 2005 the BBC commissioned a new version of ‘The Quatermass Experiment’, which was broadcast live. Jason Flemyng took the lead role. David Tennant and Mark Gatiss were among the cast.…
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Rating 2½
Directed by Fred F Sears
Written by Curt Siodmak, George Worthing Yates and Bernard Gordon, from the book by Donald E Keyhoe
Starring Hugh Marlowe, Joan Taylor, Donald Curtis and Morris Ankrum
Although I consider myself to be a fan of 1950s American sci-fi, this is one film I had somehow never got around to watching, apart from seeing clips of the “flying saucers” in numerous television documentaries down the years. Ray Harryhausen was responsible for the creation these celebrated special effects.
‘Earth vs The Flying Saucers’, which was released in 1956, has much in common with ‘War Of The Worlds’ (1953) and ‘The Day The Earth Stood Still’ (1951), as has been pointed to many times in the past. I would also add the wonderful ‘It Came From Outer Space’ (1953) to that list, the primary difference being that the aliens on that occasion were benevolent, whereas here they are intent on conquering the planet for themselves.
As was the case with nearly all 1950s b-movie sci-fi coming out of Hollywood, the story is a metaphor for the perceived threat of communism and the Soviet Union. The space race is also a concern of the storyline, but while American scientific ingenuity succeeds where military might fails, I would be somewhat dubious of a scientist who launches ten satellites into space and is then apparently wholly unconcerned that all ten disappear without a trace.
In the end, ‘Earth vs The Flying Saucers’ is not going to be added to my list of favourite films of the genre. However, it is rightly noteworthy for the special effects. Tim Burton’s ‘Mars Attacks!’ pays homage to it and ‘Independence Day’ is effectively a remake.
The director, Fred F Sears, also made ‘The Giant Claw’, a film I last watched many years ago now, but still have fond memories of.
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Rating 3½Directed by William Cameron Menzies
Written by Richard Blake from a story by John Tucker Battle
Starring Jimmy Hunt, Leif Erickson, Helena Carter and Arthur Franz
I first saw this film many long years ago. Watching it again now has brought home exactly why the memory of it has always remained lodged in my head.
It’s difficult to know where to start. This really is a film that has to be watched in order to be believed. It is almost pointless trying to explain it.
In keeping with other 1950s American sci-fi films, it derives inspiration from the paranoia that was percolating in response to proliferation of atomic weapons and the perceived threat emanating from the Soviet Bloc. Martians from the “Red Planet” were a thinly veiled metaphor for Communism and “Reds Under the Bed”.
Shot in colour, ‘Invaders From Mars’ tells its story of alien invasion and abduction from the perspective of a child. The acting might be obstinately and laughably wooden, but the surreal sets, camera angles and sound effects create a strange and queasy aura of increasing unease. The very poor quality of print used for the DVD I watched just adds to the strangeness of it all.
The film was directed by William Cameron Menzies, who also directed the celebrated 1936 British sci-fi film ‘Things To Come’.
Tobe Hooper (of ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ fame) directed a remake of ‘Invaders From Mars’ in 1986. I think I need to check that one out sometime soon. ...
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Rating 5
Directed by Jack Arnold
Written by Harry Essex from a story by Ray Bradbury
Starring Richard Carlson, Barbara Rush, Charles Drake, Joe Sawyer and Russell Johnson
This is my all-time favourite science fiction film.
I know a lot of people posting online these days get very worked up about films being placed in their “proper” categories, especially fans of “genre” films and TV shows. I would call ‘Invasion Of The Body Snatchers’ a sci-fi film, but ‘The Faculty’, which is effectively a variation of the exactly same story, is called a horror film. I’m not sure how the distinction is made.
Anyway, that isn’t especially important. There is a real cult following for 1950s American sci-fi, nearly all of which is basically a metaphor for the Cold War – the real fear that existed at that time about the (then) new proliferation of atomic weapons and the paranoia about the spread of Communism in the Soviet Bloc.
Many of these films are also regarded as classics – the likes of ‘The Day The Earth Stood Still’, ‘Them’, ‘This Island Earth’, ‘Invasion Of The Body Snatchers’, ‘Forbidden Planet’, the wonderfully titled ‘I Married A Monster From Outer Space’ –- and, of course, ‘The Thing From Another World’. I love all of these films, with exception of ‘Them’, which I’ve never really taken to.
I was quite surprised to discover that although ‘It Came From Outer Space’ has many supporters it isn’t universally regarded as one of the true 1950s classics. I think it might simply be that the “monsters” in this case turn out to be peaceful and benevolent rather than the deadly “McCarthy-era paranoia” threat observed in some of the other films.
“On the way, though, the dialogue and mannered acting are as dated as the special effects... As well, it moves terribly slowly because the plot is overly simplistic with absolutely no surprises -- aliens arrive, aliens possess humans, humans investigate, secrets are finally revealed -- sort of. The ending is wholly unsatisfying. I give it points for history, but it's just not very interesting today.”
Christopher Null, filmcritic.com
I think it’s a fantastic film. The Arizona desert setting is used brilliantly, especially with the black and white cinematography. I particularly find the scenes involving the two telegraph linesmen spooky and unsettling.
I’ve never seen the film in its original 3D format. I’d love to get the chance to do so on the big screen some day.
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Rating 5Directed by Christian NybyWritten by Charles Lederer (with Howard Hawks and Ben Hecht - uncredited) from a story by John W Campbell JrStarring Kenneth Tobey, Margaret Sheridan, Douglas Spencer and James Arness
There isn’t a great deal that needs to be said about this film. Some of the acting might be doggedly wooden, as is the way of these things, but this is a bona fide classic. Quite frankly, I don’t really care if it was directed by Christian Nyby (the credited director), Howard Hawks or Howard the Duck.
I have the two-disc DVD, featuring the original black and white theatrical version (with an audio commentary by John Carpenter), a colourised version, which I cannot imagine wanting to watch in a hurry, and a digitally remastered black and white copy. Personally, I prefer the original, with all its “authentic” murky graininess, to the remaster.
Is ‘The Thing From Another World’ better than ‘The Thing’? The way I see it, they’re both as good as each other.
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A pre-human skull is discovered on building works in Hobbs Lane in Knightsbridge. Palaeontologist Dr Matthew Roney identifies it as a missing link, many thousands of years old, and obtains permission to carry out archaeological excavation of the site. However, when what appears to be a previously-unidentified unexploded World War II German missile is discovered, the site is closed off by an Army bomb disposal team. Roney asks his friend Professor Bernard Quatermass of the British Experimental Rocket Group to intercede on his behalf and they begin to piece together the terrible truth about the origins of the human species.
When I was growing up, the 1967 Hammer Films version of ‘Quatermass and the Pit’ was one of my favourite films. I guess I would first have watched it as a teenager sometime in the early to mid-1970s. I remain very fond of it. Like the two earlier Quatermass films made by Hammer, it was a remake of a 1950s BBC serial. ‘Quatermass and the Pit’ was the final one in the trilogy, broadcast in six 30-minute segments between 22 December 1958 and 26 January 1959, most of it performed live.
