The Quatermass Collection - The Quatermass Experiment / Quatermass 2 / Quatermass And The Pit

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Customer reviews

review by: Barry McCann date: 2008-11-04 rating:
A must see!
If you want to know where the lineage of shows like The X Files originate, then marvel at the three ground breaking adventures of Professor Quatermass that haunted the flickering TV screens of the austere 1950s. Indeed, this trilogy represents the journey undertaken by Professor Quatermass and his creator, Nigel Kneale, via a medium that was still in the process of discovering itself. The evolution of Quatermass is reflective of the evolution of television itself.

It was during the austere days of 1953 when Kneale took his place in the drama department at BBC Television. He came in with such awe and vision at what brave new territory television drama could explore. But this brave new world was still dominated by an old guard: that traditional bureaucracy steeped in the values of an already bygone age. They did not share the young writer's extrapolation of what potential television could explore, content with offering little more than radio with pictures: productions limited to live performances at the already antiquated studios at Alexandra Palace. The brave new medium needed a good old fashioned kick.

So when asked to provide a six part serial to plug a gap in the Saturday night schedule during the summer of 1953, Nigel Kneale conspired to put a rocket up the BBC's collective anal retentive by quite literally dropping one on the very middle England this hierarchy aspired to represent and protect.

Bring Something Back was the original title of the six part serial Kneale was commissioned to write with haste. He was teamed with writer and director Rudolph Cartier who shared Kneale's dislike of BBC bureaucracy. Together the two conspired a serial that would unnerve middle England with something that threatened its very existence; all our existence. An all growing, all consuming parasite from space. Kneale had felt 1953 was proving an overconfident year. Yes, rationing had come to an end, Everest had been conquered and a new queen crowned. Kneale decided to be the party pooper and hit audiences with a drama in which British conquest fires horribly back. Little did Kneale know he was about to initiate one of the most influential sci-fi/horror series.

Now entitled The Quatermass Experiment, the six part serial was broadcast live from the Ally Pally with some pre filmed inserts and proved very much an experiment in that no adult sci-fi drama of this type had ever been attempted on television before. It starred Reginald Tate as Professor Bernard Quatermass, head of the British Rocket Group, whose first manned space rocket mission has blasted off from Australia, only to come crashing down in England. Worst still, two of the three astronauts have disappeared, and the third, Victor Carroon, is catatonic.

As proceedings unfold, it turns out Carroon is possessed by a strange space parasite which caused him to absorb the bodies and minds of the other two. After a botch kidnap attempt by foreign agents, Carroon is on the run and mutating fast. The resulting monster is tracked to Westminster Abbey where it is threatening to absorb mankind. Reasoning the minds of the three astronauts are still within the creature, Quatermass appeals to them to stop it, using tapes of their voices recorded on board the rocket. The creature dies and the world is safe.

This climax sadly only exists in script form, as only the first two episodes of The Quatermass Experiment were recorded for prosperity (and are included in this DVD set). But even in script form, Kneale builds up a tense, emotional situation as the professor tries to reach the creature's human sides and talk it to death. One can only imagine what Reginald Tate made of it.

Quatermass II was commissioned by the BBC in 1955, hoping to repeat the success of the first serial. Determined not to simply repeat the formula of the first, Kneale reflected contemporary fears of bureaucracy behind closed doors and secret government institutions, conceiving of an alien invasion/colonisation already established behind closed doors and infiltrating the government - nearly 40 years before The X Files.

Kneale established an alien invasion already well underway by the time our professor discovers the truth. A sentient life form colonising a synthetic food plant and possessing to will of all humans it infects. Winnerden Flats was the industrial village where the workers are regulated by armed guards; cold and emotionless, and answering to ... what? Kneale's previous TV adaptation of Nineteen Eighty Four shows its influence here; Kneale's fascination with demonology is also evident, the possessed human beings being marked by a "cloven hoof" on their necks.

The horror element is even stronger than the first serial. This is encapsulated in one sequence where a couple and their young boy are picnicking on a deserted beach in the area. The guards arrive and order them to leave. The father refuses and protests his rights. Back at the refinery, Quatermass (who is taking part in an official government visit to see what he can uncover) hears the sound of machine gun fire in the distance. Next we see the family's car being driven into the refinery by the guards - no sign of the family. Even fifty years later this scene still chills the blood: a testament to Kneale's power of suggested horror.

Reginald Tate had been scheduled to recreate the Quatermass role but died just weeks before transmission. John Robinson, who bore a striking physical resemblance to Tate, stepped into the role quite comfortably. Facilities at the BBC had improved since 1953, with a greater allocation of exterior filming and new studios at Lime Grove ensuring a more polished production. The serial also had the services of a new special effects team to handle the model work and the entire finished broadcast was recorded on film for future reviewing.

Three years later, the professor returned to television for his climatic serial. Britain was emerging from its post war austerity, massive rebuilding and reconstruction programs were underway. Kneale became fascinated with the number of building site hoardings that were springing up around London and this prompted an idea he then related to Rudolph Cartier: what if a building was demolished and a spaceship found underneath. He got the go ahead.

Quatermass and the Pit, this time starring Andre Morell as the Professor, was broadcast during late 1958 and remains a television legend. Pubs emptied, council meetings were cancelled, the streets of Britain became deserted as each new episode was broadcast. Once again, Kneale had managed to come up with a new hazard for Quatermass that would not simply repeat what had gone before. This time, the invasion had already happened 5 million years before, and had succeeded. An invasion by proxy by Martians who, unable to endure Earth's conditions, endowed ancient man with Martian faculties. The invasion may long since been over, but the danger is reawakened as the endowed attempt to exterminate the impure.

Not surprisingly, the idea of a Martian inheritance turning Martian-human against pure human was fed by the race riots that had been occurring in London at that time. Kneale also drew links to the witch hunts, psychic phenomena and, of course, demonology. The idea of an alien influence on ancient man was one that Von Daniken's Chariot of the Gods was still to make popular, though Arthur C. Clark had explored the idea in his 1953 novel Childhood's End.

The Pit proved Quatermass's finest hour. The production is more polished than its predecessors thanks to the availability of sound stages at Ealing Studios, which the BBC had recently acquired. The bigger stages meant more ambitious sets, including the pit itself whose illusion was achieved building up to ground level from the unearthed spaceship, rather than the other way around. The effects were also extra special, the telekinesis scenes and their flying debris keeping an alarmed 1958 audience glued to the edge of their seats.

The serial also proved to be Quatermass's final TV appearance for over 20 years. No body at the BBC really talked about doing another Quatermass at the time. There were really no more original plot variations to explore and Kneale felt saving the world thrice over was enough for the Professor. Kneal concentrated on single plays such as The Road, the highly prophetic Year of the Sex Olympics and The Stone Tape. But things were not quite over for Professor Quatermass; however, that is both another story and another DVD.

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review by: date: 2008-08-19 rating:
An absolute gem from the golden age of British sci-fi
Long long before camp time travellers and lightweight, politically correct, CGI-bolstered pap masquerading as sci-fi, the genius of Nigel Kneale created the magnificently human professor Bernard Quatermass. Kneale knew the secret of great sci-fi - to make the unbelievable believable and use the greatest asset of all - the viewers' imagination.

Never formulaic, this is edgy, unpredictable stuff. If you are watching for the first time, I really envy you! One moment you are enjoying the cosy reassurance of softly illuminated banks of radio equipment in the back of a Landrover and the next you are in the midst of the chilling reality of an alien encounter.

The presentation is excellent, although sadly, the original Quatermass Experiment is incomplete. The remaining 4 episodes are presented as scanned PDF files of the original, heavily annotated, typed scripts and are utterly fascinating, if somewhat difficult to read in places. It's worth persevering with though and remember - this was just 8 years after WW2, when scary stuff coming out of the sky was a reality to Britain's urban population.

Quatermass 2 is nothing short of superb and you will find it hard to believe that the plot involving the zombification of humanity predates the big-screen living dead genre by decades. Lovely cameo from old man Steptoe too!

Finally, the utterly sublime Quatermass and the Pit is a genuinely creepy tour de force. Far more atmospheric than the big-screen version, this is crying out to be watched late at night in a darkened room! André Morell was, for me, the definitive Quatermass, and QATP was almost certainly Kneale's finest creation.

Photo galleries, documentaries and highly informative viewing notes complement this marvellous DVD set which is your passport to rediscovering what sci-fi is all about.

An essential purchase!

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review by: date: 2008-02-25 rating:
This is how to do it !
Take note all TV and film producers

You don't need sex, guns and gore to make a great story

The first 2 Quatermass adventures in this collection are pure nostalgia but Quatermass and The Pit steals the show - Totally

Superb characters, storyline and acting

Unmissable, try and see - Your eyes will love you for the rest of your life !

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review by: ian135 date: 2007-10-05 rating:
A message to the unconvinced.
How can an early television production of this era still deserve the sort of critical acclaim and all the time and money spent on it's restoration? Younger people will probably see this as a nostalgia-fest for the elderly and so I felt that it was worth adding some comments from someone who was only a few months old when the last of these was first shown on British television. I grew up with my parents repeating (ad nauseaum) glowing reminiscences of returning home from work to see each episode in a sociable buzz of anticipation as the entire viewing population made for the nearest available TV. The (fascinating) booklet included here tells how one north London telephone exchange did not connect a single call during the broadcast of the last episode of Quatermass and the Pit. The estimated viewing figures (between 11 and 13 million for that last episode) are astounding when you think of how many households actually had a television set at this time. So what makes them so special and are they still worth seeing?
The first two productions are primitive but ingenious. The acting is sometimes awkward but never poor and the main characters are often outstanding. I was very frustrated that the last four episodes of the first series have been lost because it is clear that Reggie Tate was a superb Quatermass and the storyline is strong.
I find Quatermass II fine but weakened by the primitive production and a rather stiff and unsympathetic Quatermass from John Robinson. (I know many other reviewers disagree with me here).
However, I feel that absolutely no apologies need be made for the "...Pit". Here everything comes together in a way that I found completely absorbing. By this stage, the production was about the best that TV could offer and there were none of those "cardboard" moments to undermine the atmosphere for me (as happened in the last episode of "II"). The script is superb and the acting from a large cast (that seemed to include every British character actor available) was brilliant. I found the hair standing up on the back of my neck. The story is plausible and chilling and the pacing from episode to episode wonderfully well judged. I watched the first four episodes on successive nights but lost the discipline and just had to watch the last two back to back. How the British public coped with the suspense, I will never know.
Instead of the ludicrous gore-fests that pass for horror these days, try these thought-provoking and very creepy chillers. Absolutely brilliant and congratulations to the superb job done by the restoration team.


review by: raymac22 date: 2005-09-26 rating:
A wonderful slice of 50s science fiction drama!
This marvellous box set brings together all of the existing episodes of the BBCs deservedly lauded 50s phenomenon. The two existing parts of "The Quatermass Experiment" (1953) allow us a rare glimpse of how a BBC drama of the period of British TV's first explosion in ownership was staged. This serial gripped the viewers and it's easy to see why as it's totally unlike anything else aired up to this point. Reginald Tate makes a comelling Quatermass and it's a shame that the rest was never recorded for posterity. All three serials were broadcast live, with filmed inserts used where necessary.

Quatermass II (1955) takes advantage of a further two years of technological development in TV and is a more accomplished production than the first, with ambitious and effective location filming and pioneering visual effects work from Jack Kine and Bernard Wilkie. Quatermass himself is less memorable, played this time by John Robinson, who was drafted in at short notice after the sad death of Reginald Tate during the serial's pre-production. There are strong turns from Hugh Griffith and future Master, Roger Delgado. The story is an exceptionally strong one, with Quatermass dealing with aliens who have already landed and begun to infiltrate humanity - a clasic 50s scenario.

The last of the three serials is also the best. "Quatermass and the Pit" certainly does not disappoint both in terms of story and production, which for the time was lavish and extremely imaginative. Quatermass is this time played by Andre Morell, who could have been made for the part, and he is given excellent support by Cec Linder, Anthony Bushell, John Stratton and Christine Finn.

All of these stories, particularly the last, benefit greatly from a superb restoration job undertaken as a labour of love by the BBC's Dr. Who Restoration Team. The films have been lovingly cleaned, sound significantly sharpened and the film prints of "The Pit" have also been put through the VidFIRE process, which restores their original appearance as live video transmissions. The film sequences are of particular note, with many being sourced from the original 35mm prints.

This DVD set is a must for fans of the science fiction genre and of classic tv drama in general and if you have any interest in eother of these you won't be disappointed. Last, but not least, the discs are accompanied by an exhaustively researched booklet courtesy of walking TV encylopedia Andrew Pixley. This covers anything you'd want to know about the three serials.

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