Quatermass

The entire Quatermass series is important because of its attempts to revolutionize traditional conceptions of horror.  It replaces the run-of-the-mill monsters with more interesting, intelligent kinds of creatures, and the results are even more disturbing. (Gary Gerani) 

Exemplifying the dictum that no alien invasion ever takes place except in an isolated farmland location, and even then only if a pair of young lovers are present to be menaced by it, a crashing rocketship comes close to flattening one giggly couple ambling in chaste naughtiness down a deserted country road.    
  
Enter Bernard Quatermass (Donlevy), an arrogant rocket scientist who knows that the object was "the first" human vessel ever to travel 1,500 miles into space. When he orders the vessel opened, only one of the three astronauts, one Victor Caroon (Wordsworth), stumbles out, in shock and unable to say anything but "Help me!" The other two are missing, their space suits intact but empty.  Oddly, the headlines read SPACE MISSION SUCCESSFUL! 

Victor's wife, Judith (Margia Dean), thinks her nearly catatonic husband should be in a hospital. So does the project physician, Dr. Gordon Briscoe (David King-Wood). But police inspector Lomax (Jack Warner) discovers that Victor's very fingerprints have changed, into something no longer quite human. And an inspection of the spaceship turns up a strange, jellylike substance that might be all that's left of the two missing astronauts. 

It soon turns out that Victor has been infected by an alien life form, which has incorporated Victor and a potted cactus from his hospital room, turning him into a lurching, murderous predator ... 

Summarized in the broadest outline, as here, The Quatermass Xperiment reads like a parody of a typical '50s horror film, complete with mutated astronaut, arrogant scientist and alien life form that manages an earthly invasion only to shuffle about offing people one at a time. As a screen presence, the mutated Victor of the early scenes is not much different from any number of other conflicted monsters shuffling about since the very establishment of horror film. Indeed, if you want to carry matters that far, his very name evokes Victor 
Frankenstein, and one key scene echoes the Universal Frankenstein by showing us his encounter with a sweet little girl who only wants to be his friend. 

The difference between this monster and any number of his jump-out-and-say-boo doppelgangers, from eras before and since, is the airtight tone. Despite the presence of monsters, including the squidlike thing that Victor eventually becomes, this alien menace takes the form not of a monster movie, but of a scientific mystery. There's precious little camp and even less sensationalism. The tension, once built, is never permitted to break for cheap effect. This does not stop isolated moments from being creepy indeed—and there have 
been few scenes, anywhere, as effortlessly creepy as a zoo full of caged animals reacting in terror to the arrival of a ravenous alien presence in their midst—but, for the most part, the chills arrive from situations rather than sudden jolts. It also helps that Wordsworth gives a world-class, albeit almost dialogue-free, performance as the terrified, tormented Victor, who hates and fears what he's becoming but cannot help himself. 

Quatermass himself, who first entered the popular imagination in a series of BBC television dramas by Nigel Kneale, and who continued to face otherworldly menaces for years afterward, is a brilliant, irritable presence whose most memorable declaration occurs after the world is saved from the menace he unwittingly brought to it. He doesn't even hesitate. He wants to start his researches all over again. This must have seemed borderline insane to an audience well-accustomed to horror movie declarations of Things Man Was Not 
Meant to Know. Today he seems merely determined, in a manner that evokes the counterargument, Man Is Meant To Know Whatever Man Can Find Out. (Adam-Troy - w/o permission) 

Kneale wrote a sequel for the BBC: QUATERMASS 2, and Hammer bought that as well, though this time they hired Kneale to write the screenplay. Donlevy returned as Quatermass, and the movie became ENEMY FROM SPACE in the United States. Those who had loved THE CREEPING UNKNOWN were startled to discover that ENEMY FROM SPACE was a sequel to that well-made thriller.  

Under any title, it's one of the best science fiction movies of the 1950s. Crisp, authoritative, fast-paced, well-structured and intelligent, it's almost as good as the later, similar INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS, and definitely deserves to be better known. 

Puzzled by his encounter with an apparently disturbed man with a strange scar, Quatermass doesn't consider it as important as the launch of his new rocket, which he hopes to use to establish a base on the Moon. But strange radar tracks lead him and his assistant Marsh (Bryan Forbes, later a major director) to investigate the area where the man, his girlfriend said, got the odd scar. To their utter surprise, they find an installation very much like Quatermass' proposed Moon base -- a vast array of pipes, tanks, and huge domes. (The domes were added to a Shell refinery by special effects.) Marsh finds a rock-like object that pops open -- and now he has one of those scars, too. He's quickly rounded up by men in military garb, and whisked away, leaving a stunned and angered Quatermass behind. 

Now caught up, he learns that the stone is one of thousands that have been raining down for the last two years. A small scientific installation suddenly got vast government funding, leading to the construction of the "Moon project." Locals work at the plant, said to be for the development of artificial food, and angrily refuse to cooperate with Quatermass. He first turns to zealous Member of Parliament Vincent Broadhead (Tom Chatto), who's on his way with a team to inspect the puzzling "artificial food" project. But when things go very wrong there, only Quatermass escapes; he turns to Inspector Lomax (John Longden), helpful 
in his first adventure, and they slowly learn the awful truth. 

Aliens have taken over human bodies by the hundreds, and have infiltrated the British government from the lowest to the highest levels. The "Moon project" is to allow the methane/ammonia-breathing aliens, really small individual cells of a group creature, to adjust to the Earth's atmosphere -- with the intent of conquering the world. Can Quatermass stop them? Can there be any doubt? 

The movie is presented in a matter-of-fact, gray, documentary-like style which makes the fantastic events grippingly credible. It's also fast-paced and intelligently written, one of the most hypnotically involving movies of its period. It's surprising that none of the Quatermass films have been remade, but THE ARRIVAL did borrow a few ideas from QUATERMASS 2. 

Kneale is still bitter about not having been consulted on the first film, and complains at some length about Brian Donlevy, whom he considered altogether wrong for the role of Quatermass. It's true that Donlevy would have been wrong to play Quatermass as Kneale originally conceived of him -- a thoughtful scientist, a bit of a loner, quiet and bookish -- but Donlevy is ideal for the movie Quatermass. He's more bullheaded, more inclined to take charge, and though he's not tall, Donlevy looks determined enough to walk through 
the nearest wall. (Bill Warren - w/o permission) 

Tossed out by its initial American distributor without much promotion and a title ("Five Million Years to Earth") not designed to get viewers into theater seats, "Quatermass and the Pit" was initially noticed only by hard-core science fiction movie fans, and those who knew it was the third entry in the Quatermass series created by writer Nigel Kneale.  "Quatermass and the Pit" is one of the best science fiction movies ever made. It's a little short on special effects for the hard-to-dazzle crowd of today, and those that are in the movie are rather weak. But the movie rests solidly on a bedrock of fascinating ideas, intelligently developed and linked thematically to the characters.  

During the excavation for a new subway line in London, workers find skeletons of creatures that seem both ape- and man-like. Soon thereafter, what seems to be an unexploded bomb from World War II is found -- in the same strata as the skeletons. Both the gleaming, dark green bomb-like object and the skeletons were buried by accident at the same time. As investigations continue, insect-like creatures are found inside the object, and Professor Bernard Quatermass (Andrew Keir), a rocketry expert (and the continuing character in 
the series), paleontologist Roney (James Donald) and his assistant (Barbara Shelley) realize the ship came from Mars. A dead planet now, but five million years before, clearly it had life -- but what were the Martians doing with the apemen, clearly of Earthly origin? 

As the mystery unravels, it connects with nothing less than the origin of mankind, but there are surprises coming round every bend in the plot, and a threat develops that could wipe out humanity. 

If the first twenty minutes of the film seem less than riveting, stay with it -- this is a movie of ideas, not of action. And the premise of the film is built is challenging and imaginative, sharing some central ideas with "2001: A Space Odyssey," coincidentally released the same year. For some time, a remake of "Quatermass and the Pit" has been discussed, but it's hard to imagine how this film could be bettered, except in the area of special effects. 

The cast is exceptionally good, particularly the three leads. Keir plays Quatermass as brusque and dynamic, an effective contrast to the lower-key Donald; the basic humanity of Roney is ultimately key to the plot, but Donald never lets him seem weak. Barbara Shelley was one of the great treasures of Hammer movies in this period; this may be her best performance for the studio. (Bill Warren - w/out permission)