Quatermass and the Pit
Quatermass and the Pit | |
---|---|
Created by | Nigel Kneale |
Starring | |
Opening theme | "Mutations" composed by Trevor Duncan |
Country of origin | United Kingdom |
No. of episodes | 6 |
Production | |
Camera setup | Multi-camera |
Running time | 31–36 minutes per episode |
Original release | |
Network | BBC |
Release | 22 December 1958 26 January 1959 | –
Related | |
Quatermass and the Pit is a
The serial continues the loose chronology of the Quatermass adventures. Workmen excavating a site in Knightsbridge, London, discover a strange skull and what at first appears to be an unexploded bomb. Quatermass and his newly appointed military superior at the British Rocket Group, Colonel Breen, become involved in the investigation when it becomes apparent that the object is an alien spacecraft. The ship and its contents have a powerful and malignant influence over many of those who come in contact with it, including Quatermass. He concludes that millions of years in the past the aliens, probably from Mars, had abducted pre-humans and modified them to give them psychic abilities much like their own before returning them to Earth, leaving a genetic legacy which is responsible for much of the war and racial strife in the world.
The serial has been cited as having influenced
Background
The
Kneale was also inspired by the rebuilding of London in the 1950s. Huge pits were dug in the process of erecting new structures, and the digs found unexploded ordnance from the Blitz and the occasional Romano-British ruin. Kneale thought: "What if they uncovered a spaceship?"[9]
Plot
Workmen discover a pre-human skull while building in the fictional Hobbs Lane (formerly Hob's Lane, Hob being an antiquated name for the Devil) in
Roney calls in his friend Professor Bernard Quatermass of the British Rocket Group to prevent the military from disturbing what he believes to be an archaeological find. Quatermass and Colonel Breen become intrigued by the site. Breen has recently been appointed, despite Quatermass's objections, to be nominally his deputy but in reality to lead the Rocket Group. As more of the artefact is uncovered additional fossils are found, which Roney dates to five million years ago, suggesting that the object is at least that old. The interior is empty, and a symbol of six intersecting circles, which Roney identifies as a pentacle, is etched on a wall that appears to conceal an inner chamber.
The inner chamber wall of the object is so hard that even a borazon boron nitride drill makes no impression, and when the attempt is made, vibrations cause severe distress to people around the object. Quatermass interviews local residents and discovers reports of ghosts and poltergeists have been common in the area for decades. An hysterical soldier is carried out of the object, claiming to have seen a dwarf-like apparition walk through the wall of the artifact, a description that matches a 1927 newspaper account of a ghost.
Following the drilling attempt, a hole opens up in the object's interior wall. Inside, Quatermass and the others find the remains of insect-like aliens resembling giant three-legged locusts, with stubby antennae on their heads giving the impression of horns. As Quatermass and Roney examine the remains, they theorise the aliens may have come from a planet habitable five million years ago - Mars.
While clearing his equipment from the craft, the drill operator triggers more poltergeist activity, and runs through the streets in a panic until he finds sanctuary in a church. Quatermass and Roney find him there, and he describes visions of the insect aliens killing each other. As Quatermass investigates the history of the area, he finds accounts dating back to
Quatermass decides to use Roney's optic-encephalogram, a device that records impressions from the optical centres of the brain, and see the visions for himself. Roney's assistant, Barbara Judd, is the most sensitive; placing the device on her, they record a violent purge of the Martian hive to root out unwanted mutations.
Quatermass concludes that in its most primitive phase mankind was visited by this race of Martians. Some apes and primitive pre-humans were taken away and genetically altered to give them abilities such as
The authorities, and Breen in particular, find this explanation preposterous despite being shown the recording of Barbara's vision. They instead suggest that the craft is a buried remnant from the
Quatermass warns that if implanted psychic powers survive in the human race, there could also still be an ingrained compulsion to enact the "Wild Hunt" of a race purge, but the media event goes ahead regardless. The power cables that string into the craft fully activate it for the first time, and glowing and humming like a living thing it starts to draw upon this energy source and awaken the ancient racial programming. Those Londoners in whom the alien admixture remains strong fall under the ship's influence; they merge into a group mind and begin a telekinetic mass murder of those without the alien genes, an ethnic cleansing of those the alien race mind considers to be impure and weak.
Breen stands transfixed and is eventually consumed by the energies from the craft as it slowly melts away and an image of a Martian "devil" floats in the sky above London. Fires and riots erupt. Quatermass himself succumbs to Martian influence and attempts to kill Roney, who lacks the alien gene and is immune to alien influence. Roney manages to shake Quatermass out of his trance, and remembering the legends of demons and their aversion to iron and water, proposes that a sufficient mass of iron connected to wet earth may be sufficient to short-circuit the apparition. Quatermass acquires a length of iron chain and tries to reach the "devil" but succumbs to its psychic pressure. Roney manages to walk up to the apparition and hurls the chain at it, resulting in him and the spacecraft being reduced to ashes.
At the conclusion of the final episode Quatermass gives a television broadcast, at the end of which he delivers a warning directly to camera: "Every war crisis, witch hunt, race riot, and purge... is a reminder and a warning. We are the Martians. If we cannot control the [Martian] inheritance within us, this will be their second dead planet".[10]
Cast
For the third time in as many serials the title role was played by a different actor, this time by
Colonel Breen was played by Anthony Bushell, who was known for various similar military roles – including another bomb disposal officer in The Small Back Room (1949) – and preferred to be addressed as "Major Bushell", the rank he held during the Second World War.[16] Roney was played by Canadian actor Cec Linder, John Stratton played Captain Potter, and Christine Finn played the other main character, Barbara Judd.[12] Finn went on to provide the voices for various characters in the popular 1960s children's television series Thunderbirds.[17]
For the first time, Kneale used a character from a previous serial other than Quatermass himself, the journalist James Fullalove from The Quatermass Experiment. The production team had hoped that
Episodes
No. | Title | Directed by | Written by | Original air date | Prod. code | UK viewers (millions) [19] |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | "The Halfmen" | Rudolph Cartier | Nigel Kneale | 22 December 1958 | T/5133 | 7.6 |
2 | "The Ghosts" | Rudolph Cartier | Nigel Kneale | 29 December 1958 | T/5134 | 9.1 |
3 | "Imps and Demons" | Rudolph Cartier | Nigel Kneale | 5 January 1959 | T/5135 | 9.8 |
4 | "The Enchanted" | Rudolph Cartier | Nigel Kneale | 12 January 1959 | T/5136 | 9.5 |
5 | "The Wild Hunt" | Rudolph Cartier | Nigel Kneale | 19 January 1959 | T/5137 | 10.6 |
6 | "'Hob'" | Rudolph Cartier | Nigel Kneale | 26 January 1959 | T/5138 | 11.0 |
Production
Filming
The director assigned was
Each episode was predominantly live from Studio 1 of the BBC's
Special effects were handled by the BBC Visual Effects Department, formed by Bernard Wilkie and Jack Kine in 1954.[25] Kine or Wilkie oversaw effects on a production; due to the number of effects, both worked on Quatermass and the Pit.[26] The team pre-filmed most of their effects for use during the live broadcasts.[22] They also oversaw practical effects for the Ealing filming and Riverside transmission,[6] and constructed the bodies of the Martian creatures.[27]
Made just before
Quatermass and the Pit was the last original production on which Kneale collaborated with Rudolph Cartier.[29]
Music
The music was credited to Trevor Duncan, a pseudonym used by BBC radio producer Leonard Trebilco, whose music was obtained from stock discs.[6] Quatermass and the Pit also used sound effects and electronic music to create a disturbing atmosphere.[30] These tracks were created for the serial by the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, overseen by Desmond Briscoe; Quatermass and the Pit was one of the productions for which Briscoe and the workshop became most renowned.[31][32] It was the first time electronic music had been used in a science-fiction television production.[32]
Reception
Quatermass and the Pit was watched by an average audience of 9.6 million viewers, peaking at 11 million for the final episode.[19] The Times' television reviewer praised the opening episode the day after its transmission. Pointing out that "Professor Bernard Quatermass ... like all science fiction heroes, has to keep running hard if he is not to be overtaken by the world of fact",[33] the anonymous reviewer went on to state how much he had enjoyed the episode as "an excellent example of Mr. Kneale's ability to hold an audience with promises alone; smooth, leisurely, and without any sensational incident".[33]
Kneale went on to use the Martian "Wild Hunt" as an allegory for the recent
These themes and subtexts were highlighted by the British Film Institute's review of the serial when it was included in their TV 100 list in 2000, in 75th position – 20th out of the dramas featured: "In a story which mined mythology and folklore ... under the guise of genre it tackled serious themes of man's hostile nature and the military's perversion of science for its own ends".[3]
Influence
In a 2006 Guardian article Mark Gatiss wrote: "What sci-fi piece of the past 50 years doesn't owe Kneale a huge debt? ... The 'ancient invasion' of Quatermass and the Pit cast a huge shadow ... its brilliant blending of superstition, witchcraft and ghosts into the story of a five-million-year-old Martian invasion is copper-bottomed genius".[37] Gatiss was a scriptwriter for Doctor Who, a programme that had been particularly strongly influenced by the Quatermass serials throughout its history.[38][39] Derrick Sherwin, the producer of Doctor Who in 1969, acknowledged Quatermass and the Pit's influence on the programme's move towards more realism and away from "wobbly jellies in outer space".[40] The 1971 and 1977 Doctor Who serials The Dæmons and Image of the Fendahl share many elements with Quatermass and the Pit: the unearthing of an extraterrestrial spaceship, an alien race that has interfered with human evolution and is the basis for legends of devils, demons and witchcraft, and an alien influence over human evolution.[41]
Writer and critic Kim Newman cited Quatermass and the Pit as perfecting "the notion of the science-fictional detective story".[42] Newman said the programme was an influence on horror fiction writer Stephen King, saying that King had "more or less rewritten Quatermass and the Pit in The Tommyknockers".[42] Newman also wrote that both the 1976 novel The Space Vampires and its 1985 film adaptation Lifeforce were closely inspired by Quatermass and the Pit; they feature a malicious alien influence on humanity, are set largely in London, and the problem is resolved using cold iron.[43]
After Quatermass and the Pit Kneale felt that it was time to rest the character. By the early 1970s he had decided there were new avenues to explore,[44] and the BBC planned a fourth Quatermass serial in 1972.[45] The BBC did not proceed with the project, and Kneale's scripts were produced in 1979 as a four-part serial for Thames Television titled Quatermass.[46]
Other media
As with the previous two Quatermass serials, the rights to adapt Quatermass and the Pit for the cinema were purchased by Hammer Film Productions. Their adaptation was released as the 1967 film Quatermass and the Pit, directed by Roy Ward Baker and scripted by Kneale.[47] Scottish actor Andrew Keir starred as Quatermass, the role for which he was best remembered and regarded particularly highly in comparison to the previous film Quatermass, Brian Donlevy.[48][49][a] The film, made in colour, is regarded by many commentators as a classic of the genre for the way it blends science fiction with the supernatural.[2][51] In the United States the film was retitled Five Million Years to Earth.[52]
A script book of Quatermass and the Pit was released by
The BBC made Quatermass and the Pit available to buy on VHS videotape in 1989 in a two-part format. It was edited from a 207 minute total runtime down to 178 minutes, largely by trimming comic relief segments.[53] A full, unedited, episodic version of the serial was released on DVD by BBC Worldwide in 2005, as part of The Quatermass Collection box set. Also included were the surviving two episodes of The Quatermass Experiment, all of Quatermass II and various extra features.[54]
For the box set release, Quatermass and the Pit was extensively restored using film from the BBC archives.[54] A process called VidFIRE was applied to the scenes originally broadcast live, restoring the fluid interlaced video look they would have had on transmission, but which was lost during the telerecording process.[28] This was used to digitally remaster scenes for the DVD release.[28]
A Blu-ray edition was released in 2018 to mark the show's 60th anniversary. For this edition, some material trimmed from the DVD box set version for technical reasons was reinstated, and a set of audio commentaries prepared by Toby Hadoke, based on his interviews and archival audio recordings by various members of the cast and crew.[55]
Parodies
A 1959 episode of the
The serial was also parodied by the BBC television comedy series Hancock's Half Hour in an episode entitled "The Horror Serial", transmitted the week following the final episode. In it, Tony Hancock has just finished watching the final episode of Quatermass and the Pit, and becomes convinced that there is a crashed Martian space ship buried at the end of his garden. It is in fact an unexploded bomb, although Hancock claims that the warning "Achtung!" is really the Martian for Acton. This episode no longer exists in the BBC's archives, but a private collector's audio-only recording has been discovered, and released publicly on the Hancock's Half Hour Collectibles Volume One CD box set.[6]
It was parodied a third time in a sketch from the final series of The Two Ronnies in 1986: the sketch featured a guest appearance by Joanna Lumley.[6]
References
Notes
Citations
- ^ Hutchinson, Tom (17 March 1988). "Space horror; Review of 'The Tommy Knockers' by Stephen King". The Times.
- ^ a b Adrian, Jack (2 November 2006). "Nigel Kneale". The Independent. Archived from the original on 28 November 2006. Retrieved 26 January 2007.
- ^ a b Duguid, Mark (2000). "75: Quatermass and the Pit". BFI Screenonline. Archived from the original on 21 March 2012. Retrieved 29 January 2007.
- ^ Collinson, Gavin. "Quatermass Experiment, The (1953)". BFI Screenonline. Retrieved 31 January 2007.
- ^ Duguid, Mark. "Quatermass II (1955)". BFI Screenonline. Retrieved 31 January 2007.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Pixley, Andrew (2005). The Quatermass Collection – Viewing Notes. BBC Worldwide. BBCDVD1478.
- ^ Telotte (2008), pp. 211–212.
- ^ Kneale, Nigel in Producer – Tom Ware; Executive Producer – Michael Poole (15 October 2003). "The Kneale Tapes". Timeshift. BBC Four.
- ^ Newman (2014), p. 43.
- ^ Seed (2008), p. 291.
- ^ Murray (2006), p. 67.
- ^ a b Duguid, Mark. "Quatermass and the Pit (1958–59)". BFI Screenonline. Retrieved 18 December 2020.
- ^ Duguid, Mark. "Nineteen Eighty-Four (1954)". BFI Screenonline. Retrieved 30 January 2007.
- ^ Murray (2006), p. 28.
- ^ a b Sangster & Condon (2005), pp. 596–601.
- ^ Purser, Philip (10 April 1997). "Major performance: Obituary of Anthony Bushell". The Guardian. p. 19.
- ^ "Thunderbirds (1965–66)". BFI Screenonline. Retrieved 3 December 2014.
- ^ Vallance, Tom (7 July 2000). "Obituary: Michael Ripper". The Independent. p. 6.
- ^ a b Chapman & Cull (2013), p. 60.
- ^ Nigel Kneale (2005). Cartier & Kneale in Conversation (Documentary using archive interview material. Extra feature on The Quatermass Collection DVD set). BBC Worldwide.
- ^ Wake, Oliver. "Cartier, Rudolph (1904–94)". BFI Screenonline. Retrieved 31 January 2007.
- ^ a b "Jack Kine". The Times. 11 February 2005. Retrieved 31 January 2007.
- ^ Alexander, Lou. "Ealing Studios". BFI Screenonline. Retrieved 31 January 2007.
- ^ Purser, Philip (7 February 2004). "AA Englander". The Guardian. Retrieved 31 January 2007.
- ^ Hadoke, Toby (3 June 2002). "Bernard Wilkie". The Guardian. Retrieved 31 January 2007.
- ^ Sutton (1982), p. 86.
- ^ Jack Kine and Bernard Wilkie (2005). Making Demons (Documentary using archive interview material. Extra feature on The Quatermass Collection DVD set). BBC Worldwide.
- ^ a b c Roberts, Steve (January 2005). "Quatermass". Doctor Who Restoration Team. Archived from the original on 6 August 2007. Retrieved 31 January 2007.
- ^ Wake, Oliver. "Wuthering Heights (1962)". BFI Screenonline. Retrieved 31 January 2007.
- ^ Niebur, Louis (19 December 2006). "Desmond Briscoe". The Guardian. Retrieved 31 January 2007.
- ^ "Desmond Briscoe". The Times. 15 January 2007. Retrieved 31 January 2007.
- ^ a b Smurthwaite, Nick (19 January 2007). "Desmond Briscoe". The Stage. Retrieved 31 January 2007.
- ^ a b "Quatermass and the Pit – Echoes of Horrors to Come". The Times. 23 December 1958. p. 3. Retrieved 19 June 2016. (subscription required)
- ^ "Nigel Kneale". The Times. 2 November 2006. Retrieved 26 January 2007.
- ISBN 0-19-874233-9.
- ^ "Coloured Leaders Criticize BBC". The Times. 24 December 1958. p. 4. Retrieved 19 June 2016. (subscription required)
- ^ Gatiss, Mark (2 November 2006). "The man who saw tomorrow". The Guardian. Retrieved 2 June 2015.
- ^ Parkin & Pearson (2006), p. 93.
- ^ Newley, Patrick (5 January 2007). "Nigel Kneale". The Stage. Retrieved 30 January 2007.
- ^ Howe, Stammers & Walker (1992), p. 156.
- ^ Barnes, Alan (28 February 2007). "The Fact of Fiction: Image of the Fendahl". Doctor Who Magazine (379): 42–50.
- ^ a b Newman, Kim in Producer – Tom Ware; Executive Producer – Michael Poole (15 October 2003). "The Kneale Tapes". Timeshift. BBC Four.
- ^ Newman (2014), p. 100.
- ^ Pixley, Andrew; Kneale, Nigel (1986). Nigel Kneale – Behind the Dark Door (Media notes).
I didn't want to go on repeating because Professor Quatermass had already saved the world from ultimate destruction three times, and that seemed to me to be quite enough.
- ^ Dunkley, Chris (15 November 1972). "Quatermass and Quixote in BBC drama plans". The Times. p. 19.
- ^ Duguid, Mark. "Quatermass (1979)". BFI Screenonline. Retrieved 31 January 2007.
- ^ "Quatermass and the Pit (1967)". British Film Institute. Archived from the original on 14 July 2012. Retrieved 4 December 2014.
- ^ "Keir's best film role was as Professor Quatermass in the screen version of the classic television serial Quatermass and the Pit". Ruscoe, John (7 October 1997). "Obituary: Andrew Keir". The Independent. p. 22.
- ^ "Andrew Keir; Obituary". The Times. 8 October 1997. p. 21.
- ^ Purser, Philip (7 October 1997). "Obituary: Formidable regular on the small screen: Andrew Keir". The Guardian. p. 14.
- ^ Gatiss, Mark (19 October 2001). "British gothic – a celebration". The Guardian. p. 12.
- ^ "Five Million Years to Earth (British Title: Quatermass and the Pit)". Turner Classic Movies. Retrieved 4 December 2014.
- ^ Newman (2014), p. 7–8.
- ^ bbc.co.uk. 31 March 2005. Archived from the originalon 31 October 2005. Retrieved 13 November 2012.
- ^ Holcomb, Brian (19 August 2019). "'Quatermass and the Pit' Peers Into the Dark Nature of Human Evolution". PopMatters. Retrieved 25 January 2022.
Bibliography
- Chapman, James; Cull, Nicholas J. (2013). Projecting Tomorrow:Science Fiction and Popular Cinema (eBook ed.). I. B. Tauris. ISBN 978-0-85772-184-6.
- ISBN 978-0-86369-707-4.
- Murray, Andy (2006). Into the Unknown: The Fantastic Life of Nigel Kneale. Headpress. ISBN 978-1-900486-50-7.
- ISBN 978-1844577910.
- ISBN 978-0-9725959-9-5.
- Sangster, Jim; Condon, Paul (2005). TV Heaven. ISBN 978-0-00-719099-7.
- Seed, David (2008). A Companion to Science fiction. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1-4051-4458-2.
- ISBN 978-0-563-20011-6.
- Telotte, J. P. (2008). The Essential Science Fiction Television Reader (Kindle ed.). University Press of Kentucky. ASIN B003M5H7GU.[ISBN missing]
Further reading
- Brass, Tom (2010). "Fiends, friends and fools: screen images and/as rural struggle". Dialectical Anthropology. 34: 105–142. S2CID 143675252.
External links
- Quatermass and the Pit at BBC Online
- Quatermass and the Pit at IMDb
- The Quatermass Trilogy – A Controlled Paranoia