Quatermass and the Pit (film)
Quatermass and the Pit | |
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20th Century Fox (US) | |
Release dates |
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Running time | 97 minutes |
Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
Budget | £275,000[1] |
Quatermass and the Pit (US title: Five Million Years to Earth) is a 1967 British science fiction horror film from Hammer Film Productions. It is a sequel to the earlier Hammer films The Quatermass Xperiment and Quatermass 2. Like its predecessors, it is based on a BBC Television serial, in this case Quatermass and the Pit, written by Nigel Kneale.[2] The storyline, largely faithful to the original television production, centres on the discovery of ancient human remains buried at the site of an extension to the London Underground called Hobbs End. More shocking discoveries lead to the involvement of the space scientist Bernard Quatermass.
It was directed by Roy Ward Baker and stars Andrew Keir[2] in the title role as Professor Bernard Quatermass, replacing Brian Donlevy, who played the role in the two earlier films. James Donald, Barbara Shelley and Julian Glover appear in co-starring roles. The film opened in November 1967 to favourable reviews, and remains generally well regarded.
Plot
Workers building an extension to the London Underground at
Meanwhile, Professor
Roney's assistant, Barbara Judd, goes to the site with Quatermass. She becomes intrigued by the name of the area, recalling that "Hob" is an old name for the Devil. A local policeman tells them the legend that the bombed-out house opposite the station is haunted. All three go there to investigate. The policeman is so spooked that he has to leave. A member of the bomb disposal team witnesses a spectral apparition of Roney's apeman appearing through the wall of the object. Quatermass and Barbara find historical accounts of hauntings and other spectral appearances going back many centuries, coinciding with disturbances of the ground around Hobbs End.
An attempt to open a sealed chamber in the object using a Borazon drill fails. A few moments later, however, a small hole is seen, though the drill operator, Sladden, is certain he is not responsible for it. The hole widens to reveal the corpses of three-legged, insectoid creatures with horned heads. An examination of the creatures' physiology suggests they came from Mars. Quatermass and Roney note the similarity between their appearance and images of the Devil, while Quatermass believes the spaceship is the source of the spectral images and disturbances.
Quatermass and Roney reveal their findings to the press, attracting the ire of a government minister who has not sanctioned their statements. Quatermass theorises that the occupants of the spaceship came from a dying Mars. Unable to survive on Earth, they sought to preserve some part of their race by creating a colony by proxy, by significantly enhancing the intelligence of and imparting Martian faculties to the indigenous primitive
Whilst dismantling his drill, Sladden is overcome by a powerful
Disaster strikes when a power line is dropped within the craft, giving it a massive jolt of electrical energy. The effect and range of the spaceship's influence on those Londoners susceptible to it increases; they go on a rampage, attacking all those perceived as different, with powerful, deadly
Cast
- James Donald as Doctor Roney
- Andrew Keir as Professor Bernard Quatermass
- Barbara Shelley as Barbara Judd
- Julian Glover as Colonel Breen
- Edwin Richfield as Minister
- Duncan Lamont as Sladden
- Bryan Marshall as Captain Potter
- Peter Copley as Howell
- Grant Taylor as Police Sergeant Ellis
- Maurice Good as Sergeant Cleghorn
- Robert Morris as Watson
- Sheila Steafel as Journalist
- Hugh Futcher as Sapper West
- Hugh Morton as Elderly Journalist
- Thomas Heathcote as Vicar
- Noel Howlett as Abbey Librarian
- Hugh Manning as Pub Customer
- June Ellis as Blonde
- Keith Marsh as Johnson
- James Culliford as Corporal Gibson
- Bee Duffell as Miss Dobson
- Roger Avon as Electrician
- Brian Peck as Technical Officer
- John Graham as Inspector
- Charles Lamb as Newsvendor
Production
Origins
Professor Bernard Quatermass was introduced to audiences in two BBC television serials,
Writing
Kneale wrote the first draft of the screenplay in 1961, but difficulties in attracting interest from American co-financiers meant the film would not go into production until 1967.[citation needed]
The screenplay is largely faithful to the television original. The plot was condensed to fit the shorter running time of the film, the main casualty being the removal of a subplot involving the journalist James Fullalove.[6] The climax was altered to make it more cinematic, with Roney using a crane to short out the Martian influence, whereas in the television version he throws a metal chain into the pit.[6] The setting for the pit was changed from a building site to the London Underground.[7] The closing scene of the television version, in which Quatermass pleads with humanity to prevent Earth becoming the "second dead planet", was also dropped, in favour of a shot of Quatermass and Judd sitting alone amid the devastation wrought by the Martian spacecraft.[8]
Casting
Andrew Keir, playing Quatermass, found making the film an unhappy experience, believing Baker had wanted Kenneth More in the role.
James Donald first came to prominence playing
Nigel Kneale had long been highly critical of Brian Donlevy's interpretation of Quatermass and lobbied for the role to be recast, arguing that enough time had passed that audiences would not resist a change of actor.[11] Several actors were considered for the part, including André Morell, who had played Quatermass in the television version of Quatermass and the Pit.[12] Morell was not interested in revisiting a role he had already played.[11] The producers eventually settled on the Scottish actor Andrew Keir, who had appeared in supporting roles in other Hammer productions, including The Pirates of Blood River (1962), The Devil-Ship Pirates (1964) and Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1966).[12] Keir found the shoot an unhappy experience: he later recalled: "The director – Roy Ward Baker – didn't want me for the role. He wanted Kenneth More ... and it was a very unhappy shoot. [...] Normally I enjoy going to work every day. But for seven-and-a-half weeks it was sheer hell."[13] Roy Ward Baker denied he had wanted Kenneth More, who he felt would be "too nice" for the role,[14] saying: "I had no idea he [Keir] was unhappy while we were shooting. His performance was absolutely right in every detail and I was presenting him as the star of the picture. Perhaps I should have interfered more."[15] He reprised the role of Quatermass for BBC Radio 3 in The Quatermass Memoirs (1996), making him the only actor other than Donlevy to play the role more than once.[16]
Barbara Shelley was a regular leading lady for Hammer, having appeared in
Filming
By the time Quatermass and the Pit finally entered production Val Guest was occupied on Casino Royale (1967), so directing duties went instead to Roy Ward Baker.[11] Baker's first film had been The October Man (1947) and he was best known for The One That Got Away (1957) and A Night to Remember (1958).[19] Following the failure of Two Left Feet (1963), he moved into television, directing episodes of The Human Jungle (1963–64), The Saint (1962–69) and The Avengers.[20] Producer Anthony Nelson Keys chose Baker as director because he felt his experience on such films as A Night to Remember gave him the technical expertise to handle the film's significant special effects requirements.[6] Baker, for his part, felt that his background on fact-based dramas such as A Night to Remember and The One That Got Away enabled him to give Quatermass and the Pit the air of realism it needed to be convincing to audiences.[14] He was impressed by Nigel Kneale's screenplay, feeling the script was "taut, exciting and an intriguing story with excellent narrative drive. It needed no work at all. All one had to do was cast it and shoot it."[21] He was also impressed with Hammer Films' lean set-up: having been used to working for major studios with thousands of full-time employees, he was surprised to find that Hammer's core operation consisted of just five people and enjoyed how this made the decision-making process fast and simple.[14] Quatermass and the Pit was the first film for which the director was credited as "Roy Ward Baker", having previously been credited as "Roy Baker". The change was made to avoid confusion with another Roy Baker who was a sound editor.[19] Baker later regretted making the change as many people assumed he was a new director.[14]
Filming took place between 27 February and 25 April 1967.
Music
Tristram Cary was chosen to provide the score for Quatermass and the Pit. He developed an interest in electronic music while serving in the Royal Navy as an electronics expert working on radar during the Second World War.[27] He became a professional composer in 1954, working in film, theatre, radio and television,[28] with credits including The Ladykillers (1955).[29] He said of his assignment: "I was not mad about doing the film because Hammer wanted masses of electronic material and a great deal of orchestral music. But I had three kids, all of which were at fee-paying schools, so I needed every penny I could get!"[30] Cary also recalled that "the main use of electronics in Quatermass, I think, was the violent shaking, vibrating sound that the "thing in the tunnel" gave off ... It was not a terribly challenging sound to do, though I never played it very loud because I didn't want to destroy my speakers—I did have hopes of destroying a few cinema loudspeaker systems, though it never happened."[31] Several orchestral and electronic cues from the film were released by GDI Records on a compilation titled The Quatermass Film Music Collection.[32] The soundtrack was released on yellow vinyl in the UK for Record Store Day 2017.[citation needed]
Title sequence
The title sequence of Quatermass and the Pit was devised to be evocative. Kim Newman, in his British Film Institute (BFI) monograph about the movie, states: "The words 'Hammer Film Production' appear on a black background. Successive jigsaw-piece cutaways reveal a slightly psychedelic skull. Swirling, infernal images are superimposed on bone – perhaps maps or landscapes – evoking both the red planet Mars and the fires of Hell. Beside this, the title appears in jagged red letters."[33]
Reception
Censors
The script was sent to
Critical
Quatermass and the Pit premiered on 9 November 1967 and went on general release as a double feature with Circus of Fear on 19 November.[12] It was released in the US as Five Million Years to Earth in March 1968.[34] The critical reception was generally positive. Writing in The Times, John Russell Taylor found that, "after a slowish beginning, which shows up the deficiencies of acting and direction, things really start hopping when a mysterious missile-like object discovered in a London excavation proves to be a relic of a prehistoric Martian attempt (successful, it would seem) to colonize Earth [...] The development of this situation is scrupulously worked out and the film is genuinely gripping even when (a real test this) the Power of Evil is finally shown personified in hazy glowing outline, a spectacle as a rule more likely to provoke titters than gasps of horror."[35]
Paul Errol of the Evening Standard described the film as a "well-made, but wordy, blob of hokum", a view echoed by William Hall of The Evening News who described the film as "entertaining hokum" with an "imaginative ending".[36] A slightly more critical view was espoused by Penelope Mortimer in The Observer who said: "This nonsense makes quite a good film, well put together, competently photographed, on the whole sturdily performed. What it totally lacks is imagination."[37] Leslie Halliwell wrote: "The third film of a Quatermass serial is the most ambitious, and in many ways inventive and enjoyable, yet spoiled by the very fertility of the author's imagination: the concepts are simply too intellectual to be easily followed in what should be a visual thriller. The climax, in which the devil rears over London and is "earthed", is satisfactorily harrowing."[38]
Box office
According to Fox records, the film required $1.2 million in rentals to break even and made only $881,000 ($6.14 million in 2023).[39]
Legacy
The film was a success for Hammer and they quickly announced that Nigel Kneale was writing a new Quatermass story for them but the script never went further than a few preliminary discussions.
Quatermass and the Pit continues to be generally well regarded among critics. John Baxter notes in Science Fiction in the Cinema that "Baker's unravelling of this crisp thriller is tough and interesting. [...] The film has moments of pure terror, perhaps the most effective that in which the drill operator, driven off the spaceship by the mysterious power within is caught up in a whirlwind that fills the excavation with a mass of flying papers."[41] John Brosnan, writing in The Primal Scream, found that "as a condensed version of the serial, the film is fine but the old black-and-white version, though understandably creaky in places and with inferior effects, still works surprisingly well, having more time to build up a disturbing atmosphere."[42] Bill Warren in Keep Watching the Skies! said: "The ambition of the storyline is contained in a well-constructed mystery that unfolds carefully and clearly."[43] Nigel Kneale had mixed feelings about the result "I was very happy with Andrew Keir, who they eventually chose, and very happy with the film. There are, however, a few things that bother me. ... The special effects in Hammer films were always diabolical."[26]
It has been suggested that Tobe Hooper's 1985 Lifeforce is largely a remake of Hammer's Quatermass and the Pit. In an interview, director Tobe Hooper discussed how Cannon Films gave him $25 million, free rein, and Colin Wilson's book The Space Vampires. Hooper then shares how giddy he was: "I thought I'd go back to my roots and make a 70 mm Hammer film."[44]
Home media release
Various DVDs of the film include a commentary from Nigel Kneale and Roy Ward Baker, as well as cast and crew interviews, trailers and an instalment of The World of Hammer TV series devoted to Hammer's forays into science fiction.[45]
A UK Blu-ray was released on 10 October 2011,[46] followed by releases in the US, Germany and Australia.[47]
References
Notes
- ^ Hallenbeck & Meikle 2011, p. 135.
- ^ a b "Quatermass and the Pit". Turner Classic Movies. Retrieved 14 April 2016.
- ^ Hearn & Barnes 1999.
- ^ Murray 2006, p. 76.
- ^ a b Hearn & Barnes 2007, p. 13.
- ^ a b c d e Kinsey 2007, p. 18.
- ^ a b c Hearn & Barnes 2007, p. 116.
- ^ Mayer 2004, p. 155.
- IMDb
- ^ Hearn & Barnes 2007, p. 11.
- ^ a b c Murray 2006, p. 95.
- ^ a b c d Hearn & Barnes 2007, p. 117.
- ^ a b Mayer 2004, p. 40.
- ^ a b c d Kneale & Baker, DVD Commentary
- ^ a b Baker 2000, p. 125.
- ^ Murray 2006, p. 177.
- IMDb
- ^ Hearn & Barnes 2007, p. 29.
- ^ a b c Hearn & Barnes 2007, p. 129.
- ^ a b Kinsey 2007, p. 20.
- ^ Baker 2000, p. 124.
- ^ Kinsey 2007, p. 26.
- ^ a b c Kinsey 2007, p. 21.
- ^ Kinsey 2007, p. 22.
- ^ Kinsey 2007, p. 24.
- ^ a b Kinsey 2007, p. 27.
- ^ Huckvale 2008, p. 125.
- ^ Huckvale 2008, p. 126.
- ^ Newman 2019, p. 108.
- ^ Martell, p. 15.
- ^ Huckvale 2008, p. 129.
- ^ "The Quatermass Film Music Collection". www.SoundtrackCollector.com. Retrieved 18 October 2010.
- ^ Newman 2019, p. 37.
- ^ Kinsey 2007, p. 67.
- ^ Taylor, John Russell (2 November 1967). "A Menace from Mars". The Times. London.
- ^ Mayer 2004, p. 152.
- ^ Mayer 2004, p. 153.
- ISBN 0-586-08894-6.
- ISBN 9780818404856.
- ^ Murray 2006, p. 96.
- ^ Baxter 1970, p. 98.
- ^ Brosnan 1995, p. 149.
- ^ Warren 1982, p. 339.
- ^ Miller 2016, p. 180.
- ^ Chandler, Phil. "Quatermass and the Pit". www.dvdcult.com. Archived from the original on 22 November 2010. Retrieved 23 October 2010.
- ^ "Quatermass and the Pit". blu-ray.com.
- ^ "Quatermass and the Pit". blu-ray.com.
Bibliography
- ISBN 978-1-9031-1102-4 – via Google Books.
- ISBN 978-0-3020-0476-0.
- ISBN 978-0-3562-0222-8 – via Google Books.
- Hallenbeck, Bruce; Meikle, Dennis (2011). British Cult Cinema: Hammer Fantasy & Sci-fi. Hemlock Books. ISBN 978-0-9557-7744-8 – via Google Books.
- Hearn, Marcus (1999). "Hammer's Quatermass Trilogy". The Quatermass Film Music Collection (CD liner). Various Artists. GDI. GDICD008.
- Hearn, Marcus; ISBN 978-1-8457-6185-1 – via Google Books.
- Huckvale, David (2008). Hammer Film Scores and the Musical Avant-Garde. ISBN 978-0-7864-3456-5 – via Google Books.
- Kinsey, Wayne (2007). Hammer Films: The Elstree Studios Years. Tomahawk Press. ISBN 978-0-9531-9262-5 – via Google Books.
- Kneale, Nigel; Roy Ward Baker (1998). Quatermass and the Pit DVD Commentary (Quatermass and the Pit DVD Special Feature). Anchor Bay.
- Mansell, John (1999). "Tristram Cary – Quatermass and the Pit". The Quatermass Film Music Collection (CD liner). Various Artists. GDI. GDICD008.
- Mayer, Geoff (2004). Roy Ward Baker. British Film Makers. ISBN 978-0-7190-6354-1 – via Google Books.
- Miller, Thomas (2016). Mars in the Movies: A History. McFarland, Incorporated. ISBN 978-0-7864-9914-4 – via Google Books.
- Murray, Andy (2006). Into The Unknown: The Fantastic Life of Nigel Kneale. Headpress. ISBN 978-1-9004-8650-7 – via Google Books.
- Newman, Kim (2019). Quatermass and the Pit. ISBN 978-1-8445-7791-0 – via Google Books.
- ISBN 978-0-7864-0479-7 – via Google Books.
External links
- Quatermass and the Pit at the TCM Movie Database
- Quatermass and the Pit at IMDb
- Quatermass and the Pit at AllMovie
- Quatermass and the Pit at BritMovie (archived)
- The Quatermass Trilogy – A Controlled Paranoia