The ominous life and times of Prof. Bernard Quatermass

[mmcirvin]

samantha2074 and I recently got around to watching her DVD of the original live TV serial of Quatermass and the Pit, which means that now we've seen some version of all the Quatermass stories, though not necessarily the best-loved one in every case.

The adventures of Professor Quatermass, a leonine and fiercely humanistic English scientist who somehow always ends up fighting sinister extraterrestrial beings, began as TV serials in Britain in the Fifties, starring Andre Morrell [correction: the first two starred Reginald Tate and John Robinson, respectively] and written by creator Nigel Kneale. They were immensely influential, most obviously on Doctor Who, which incorporated elements of the earlier show from the beginning, and temporarily turned into something greatly resembling a continuing Quatermass serial during the Jon Pertwee years.

These three serials were also adapted into feature films from Hammer, the first two of which starred Brian Donlevy as an inexplicably Americanized and, sadly, somewhat irritating variant of Prof. Quatermass. Sam and I have seen these two films, and they're OK, despite the weakness of the main character. The Quatermass Experiment (Xperiment in the film version, emphasizing the British X-certificate that meant it was not for kiddies) is a typical Fifties B-horror plot about an astronaut (part of the pioneering British Rocket Group, of which Quatermass is the leader) who comes back from space monster-possessed. It does have slightly more of a gross-out element than is usually characteristic of the period.

Quatermass II is a nicely paranoid proto-X Files sort of story, about an alien conspiracy that plans to xenoform the Earth and has infiltrated the British government.

Each story ups the ante a bit. We haven't seen the feature-film version of Quatermass and the Pit, perhaps better known as Five Million Years to Earth; it seems to be very well-regarded. The TV serial, though, is an impressive piece of work, especially considering that it was shown live. It's talky and slow by modern standards, but also smart, never condescending to its audience, large in its ambitions, and creepy as hell, amazingly effective at conjuring a feeling of gathering, apocalyptic darkness.

The story begins with the paleontological find of the century: five-million-year-old hominids unearthed at a construction site in London. A team of paleontologists, led by a Canadian friend of Quatermass's with quirky side interests in brainwave-reading and the occult, starts methodically excavating the bones; but once they uncover what is initially assumed to be an unexploded bomb left over from the Blitz, the military takes over. Quatermass, who has already been squabbling with closed-minded General Breen over the proposed militarization of the Rocket Group, figures out quickly that it is no German bomb at all, but an alien spacecraft: one that is (a) covered on the inside with occult symbols, (b) possibly connected with historical sightings of ghosts and goblins in the area, and (c) five million years old. The long-dead bodies of insectoid Martians are discovered in the nose compartment; the spacecraft starts to produce terrifying, poltergeist-like effects on people and things in its vicinity; and the investigators uncover buried secrets about the origin and nature of humanity, and a danger deep in the human soul that threatens to destroy the world.

I'm guessing that certain details of the story were heavily influenced by Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End, but, at the same time, Quatermass and the Pit may have had some influence itself on the backstory of 2001: A Space Odyssey. I've heard it claimed that John Carpenter ripped off Quatermass and the Pit for elements of Prince of Darkness, but from what little I recall of that movie, the similarity is slight.

We saw the last Quatermass story some time ago: a 1979 serial called simply Quatermass (and cut down to feature length as The Quatermass Conclusion). It seems not as well regarded as the earlier serials, but we liked it. Upping the ante again, this one is set in a wretched and disintegrating near-future world wracked by escalating Sixties-style youth unrest. Old Quatermass (this time played by Sir John Mills) is a despairing and confused man, searching for his granddaughter, who has joined a strange cult of annoying hippies who gather in ancient stone circles (and, later, in Wembley Stadium)... where they get vaporized by mysterious beams from outer space! Saving the world requires nothing less than a realization that all the social friction of the past several decades has been the result of alien mind-control rays... and that to stop it requires an extraordinary sacrifice.

The chanting Planet People grate, but the atmosphere of decay and foreboding is impressive. I have a hunch that one or two elements of this story influenced Russell T. Davies' interesting theological fantasy The Second Coming, starring Christopher Eccleston (soon to play the Doctor in Davies' Doctor Who revival).

Still, I think that overall Quatermass and the Pit is the best story of the lot.

Comments

[urbeatle.livejournal.com]

the only Quatermass I've ever seen is the theatrical version of #3, Five Million Years To Earth, which, for years before I saw it, I consistently confused with Harryhausen's Twenty Million Miles To Earth. the Quatermass film was pretty good, probably a more interesting plot than the Harryhausen film, but the other film does have the Ymir, so it's hard to say which is better. I probably need to watch both again.

also, SSC: until tonight, I always thought it was "Quartermass".

[avocado123.livejournal.com]

That's also the only Quatermass movie I've seen - I can never remember the American title of "Five Million Years to Earth", but when I refer to it as "Quatermass and the Pit", no one knows what I'm talking about. Very good movie, but not much Quatermass, for whatever reason.

When CS Ed's hair goes awry, he gets little antennae that make him look like the crickets in "Quatermass and the Pit".