recent viewing; Quatermass and the Pit (original t.v. serial)

Caught up on my Quatermass television history and finally watched Quatermass and the Pit.

It is a thrilling scifi tale with solid horror edge. At an archaeological dig, human "missing link" skulls are found, soon after the remains of a spaceship are found, and it is five million years old. The ship itself begins to exert an influence on people, and Quatermass soon learns that Hob's Lane has long been the center of "hauntings" anytime there has been a disturbance in the area. Quatermass butts heads with the military colonel on site, who insists the spaceship must be a German bomb from WWII, and refuses to change his view. Eventually the ship hull is breached, and the alien pilots are revealed. Quatermass soon believes the aliens are ancient Martians, who came to collect early man, experiment on them, and release them back on Earth. And their malevolent influence is still tangible.

As far as the actors who played Quatermass on television, I have to go with Andre Morell. He infused the presence and the humanity needed.

If you've seen the Hammer movie adaptation with Andrew Keir, they are very similar. Mostly, a newsreporter subplot from the television serial was dropped to tighten up the length. Everything else is in there.

This was definitely my favorite of the first three original television serials. It is worth watching, especially for its history if you enjoyed the Hammer adaptation.

(p.s. - the writer/creator of Quatermass, Nigel Keane, is the subject of a book coming later this year, We Are The Martians.)

latest consumptions; The Quatermass Xperiment & Wolf in Shadow

I finally got around to watching the movie version of The Quatermass Xperiment. I was disappointed that it is rather ordinary. I don't know that casting an American as Quatermass was necessarily a problem, but the character was extremely stiff. Brian Donlevy didn't play with any nuance, and seemed barely there except when he needed to butt heads. It felt flat, like a simple B alien monster movie rather than something deeper.

The story involves a rocket experiment that goes wrong. Three astronauts go up, only one comes back, and his behavior is unhealthy and strange. I will say my favorite thing about this adaptation was Richard Wordsworth's portrayal of the afflicted astronaut. He goes full "Frankenstein's Monster," with no dialog. But he conveys a lot with body language and physical acting. There is even an homage (in my mind) to the infamous monster and girl at the pond scene from Frankenstein.

On the BluRay, there is an interesting interview with John Carpenter, and he does make some good points about the film's impact - particularly on him.

It had been a while since my last Gemmell read. I grabbed this one. Originally entitled The Jerusalem Man (a title I still prefer,) it serves as both the opening to one trilogy (tales of Jon Shannow, the Jerusalem Man,) and the third entry in a longer series about the Stones of Power.

Wolf in Shadow is an apocalyptic Western. The nature of the disaster that ended the world is revealed as the story progresses. Jon Shannow is a wandering hero. A man in search of the fabled city of Jerusalem. Along the way, he fights the good fight. But now he faces his biggest challenge - an organized army of satanists, spreading across the land. No mere brigand bands, this army attacks the very core of what Shannow holds true and dear.

I like the character of Shannow a lot. He's smart and resourceful but not without flaws. He is a "Christian" and a "Bible man."  There is an honesty to his faith. He sees the same conflicts between Bible passages as anyone else - and he has no priest or mentor to help him understand. He stands up for the oppressed and gives evil no excuses.

I was less interested as the book reached its crescendo. Lots of side characters were getting focused on, and I am far more interested in Shannow's story. Even though the setups were valid, I felt too much Deus ex Machina, too.

And I kept having a specific disconnect.;

In nearly every gunfight, Gemmell referred to "shells" whizzing around instead of "slugs" or "bullets." It threw me out of the story. I kept thinking someone called in artillery!

It's a surprising inaccuracy because there is more than a bit of cap & ball, cartridge, repeating weapon, flintlock, musket delineation throughout the story. I'm surprised this one detail was inaccurate.

All in all though, it is a good post-apocalypse tale with an interesting central hero. I will be finishing out the trilogy, for certain. And I will probably read the other books in the Stones of Power series.

Quatermass

On a whim, I decided to educate myself on the roots of Doctor Who, by watching some original Quatermass stories. If readers of this blog (outside the UK) know Quatermass at all, it is probably from the Hammer movie, Quatermass and the Pit - which was originally released in the US with the title, Five Million Years to Earth. (see above photo)  Before this week, it was the only Quatermass I'd ever seen, too.

But, Bernard Quatermass featured in four stories total. Like Doctor Who, he started out on television, and three of the original television serials were adapted into Hammer movies. Like the Doctor and James Bond, many different actors have played the role, even though there were only a total of four television serials and three theatrical movies. Rather than repeat a lot of data, I refer you to the wiki page.

Quatermass Wikipedia Page.

In a nutshell, Quatermass is a scientist who heads the British Experimental Rocket Group. In the first story, The Quatermass Experiment, three astronauts are sent into orbit, but only one returns. The returned astronaut behaves in very peculiar manners. Did he murder the rest of the crew? Or, did something even more sinister occur in the depths of outer space?

In the second tale, Quatermass's new atomic rocket has exploded just after launch in Australia. Struggling with failure and the loss of life, Quatermass has no time to idle as he discovers an alien invasion underway. Strange meteorites are falling, government officials are behaving oddly, and an entire English village has been razed to make way for a "food processing plant."

Quatermass is a large influence on British scifi, certainly television scifi at least. Nearly any alien invasion/conspiracy tale probably has some roots back to Quatermass. It certainly influenced Doctor Who - particularly the early Jon Pertwee years when the Doctor was exiled to Earth and constantly fought off alien incursions.

Like Doctor Who, Quatermass suffers from a loss of episodes. The first serial, The Quatermass Experiment, only has two available episode - parts 1 & 2 - of the six-part serial.

I went ahead and watched them, anyway. It held promise, and it is a shame the rest is lost.

Then I went on and finished up Quatermass II last night. It holds up very well, I think. I found it suspenseful and intriguing, though the new lead needed an episode to warm up to the role. The fifth and six parts suffered a bit of sag, but overall it kept my interest all the way through.

I am looking forward to getting through more Quatermass stories this year; the remaining television serials and the movie adaptations - especially the original Quatermass and the Pit television serial.

p.s. - for your convenience, my Quatermass YouTube playlist of the first three 1950s serials.

p.p.s. - coincidence would have it;

1.) The first Hammer Quatermass movie, The Quatermass Xperiment, finally became available on blu-ray in December. (For the North American market - it's been available in the UK.) Here's hoping the other two get the blu-ray treatment - especially Quatermass and the Pit.

2.) Spectral Press are planning on a book about the creator of Quatermass, Nigel Kneale.