Quatermass and the Pit
Encyclopedia
Quatermass and the Pit is a British television science-fiction
serial
, originally transmitted live by BBC Television
in December 1958 and January 1959. It was the third and last of the BBC's Quatermass
serials, although the character would reappear in a 1979 ITV
production simply entitled Quatermass
. Like its predecessors, Quatermass and the Pit was written by Nigel Kneale
.
The series continues the loose chronology of the Quatermass adventures, and begins with Professor Bernard Quatermass
being forced out of his role at the British Experimental Rocket Group, with the organisation being passed into military control by the British Government. Quatermass and his new colleague Colonel Breen become involved in the discovery of a bizarre object at an archaeological dig in Knightsbridge
, London
. As the serial progresses, Quatermass and his associates find that the contents of the object have a horrific influence over many of those who come into contact with it. As this influence increases, affecting Quatermass himself, darker implications are revealed about the entire nature and origins of mankind.
The serial has been cited as an influence on the writer Stephen King
and the film director
John Carpenter
. It featured in a list of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes
compiled by the British Film Institute
in 2000, where it was described as "completely gripping", and in 2005 the BBC's own website
declared it "simply the first finest thing the BBC ever made. It justifies licence fees
to this day."
(1953) and Quatermass II
(1955) had been critical and popular successes for the BBC, and in early 1957 the corporation decided that they would like a third serial. Nigel Kneale had left the staff of the BBC towards the end of 1956, but on 2 May 1957 was contracted to write the new scripts on a freelance basis. The director assigned to the project was Rudolph Cartier
, with whom Kneale particularly enjoyed working; the two men had collaborated on both of the previous Quatermass serials, as well as the literary adaptations Wuthering Heights
(1953) and Nineteen Eighty-Four
(1954). Quatermass and the Pit had a larger budget than the previous Quatermass productions, with £17,500 being allocated to the serial. Kneale was keen to write a story that would work as an allegory for the racial tensions that had recently been seen in the United Kingdom, which eventually culminated with the Notting Hill race riots
of August and September 1958.
Pre-production
work began in September 1958, while Cartier was still working on productions of A Tale of Two Cities
and A Midsummer Night's Dream
for the BBC. As the two previous Quatermass serials had been scheduled in half-hour slots but, performed live
, had often overrun, Cartier requested thirty-five minute slots for the six episodes of Quatermass and the Pit. This was agreed to by the BBC drama department management in November 1958, just prior to the start of production proper on 24 November. The six episodes—"The Halfmen", "The Ghosts", "Imps and Demons", "The Enchanted", "The Wild Hunt" and "Hob"—were broadcast on Monday nights at 8pm from 22 December 1958 to 26 January 1959.
Each episode of Quatermass and the Pit was predominantly performed live from Studio 1 of the BBC's Riverside Studios
complex in Hammersmith
, London. The episodes were rehearsed
from Tuesday to Saturday before broadcast, usually at the Mary Wood Settlement in Tavistock Place, London, with camera rehearsals taking place in studio on the morning and afternoon of transmission. Not every scene was live—a significant amount of material was pre-filmed on 35 mm film
and inserted during the performance as required. Most of the pre-filming involved either scenes set on location
or those that were too technically complex or expansive to achieve live. The latter were shot at Ealing Studios
, which had been acquired by the BBC in 1955, with Cartier working with the experienced cinematographer
A. A. Englander
. Pre-filming was also used to show the passage of time in the second episode, with the archaeological dig set at Ealing shown to have dug deeper into the ground than the equivalent set at Riverside, enabling a sense of timescale that would not have been possible in an all-live production.
Special effects requirements were handled by the BBC Visual Effects Department, which had been formed by Bernard Wilkie and Jack Kine in 1954. Usually either Kine or Wilkie individually would oversee effects work on a production; due to the number of effects required, both worked on Quatermass and the Pit. The team pre-filmed most of their effects for use during the live broadcasts. They also oversaw practical effect
s for the Ealing filming and Riverside transmission, and constructed the bodies of the Martian creatures.
The music for the serial was credited to 'Trevor Duncan
' a pseudonym
used by composer Leonard Treblico, whose music was obtained from stock discs. Quatermass and the Pit also made extensive use of sound effect
s and electronic music
to create an eerie, disturbing atmosphere. These tracks were created especially for the serial by the BBC Radiophonic Workshop
, overseen by Desmond Briscoe
; their work on Quatermass and the Pit was one of the productions for which Briscoe and the Workshop became most renowned. It was the first time that electronic music had been used in a science-fiction television production.
After Quatermass and the Pit, Kneale felt that it was time to rest the character. "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", he told an interviewer in 1986. By the early 1970s however, Kneale decided there were some new avenues to explore with the character, and the BBC announced plans to produce a fourth Quatermass serial in 1972. This was not in the event made by the BBC, but Kneale's scripts did eventually see production in 1979, as a four-part serial for Thames Television
called Quatermass
.
Made just prior to the introduction of early videotape machines into general use at the BBC, all six episodes of Quatermass and the Pit were preserved for a possible repeat
by being telerecorded onto 35 mm film. Although this effectively worked by pointing a synchronised film camera
at a television monitor
and filming the output, the process had been refined throughout the 1950s and the recordings made of Quatermass and the Pit were of a high technical quality. The serial was repeated in edited form as two 90-minute episodes—titled "5 Million Years Old" and "Hob"—on 26 December 1959 and 2 January 1960. The third episode, "Imps and Demons", was re-shown on BBC Two
on 7 November 1986 as part of the "TV50" season, celebrating fifty years of BBC television.
A pre-human skull
is discovered while building works are taking place in the fictional Hobbs Lane
(formerly Hob's Lane, from an old name for the Devil
) in Knightsbridge
. Dr Matthew Roney, a paleontologist
, examines the recovered remains, which are many thousands of years old, and reconstructs a dwarf-like humanoid
with an unusually large brain
volume, which he believes to be a form of primitive man. As further excavation is undertaken on the site, something that looks like a missile
is unearthed; further work by Roney's group is halted as the military believe it to be an unexploded bomb left over from World War II
.
Roney calls in his old friend Professor Bernard Quatermass
of the British Experimental Rocket Group, an expert on matters of unusual scientific background, to stop the military from disturbing what he believes to be an archaeological find. Quatermass and Colonel Breen, who has been placed in charge of the Rocket Group over Quatermass's objections, become intrigued by the site. More and more of the artefact is uncovered, and additional fossil
s are found inside which Roney dates to five million years in age—suggesting that the object is at least that old as well. The interior is empty, but a symbol consisting of five intersecting circles, which Roney identifies as the occult pentagram
, is found etched on an interior wall which appears to hide an inner chamber.
The shell of the object is so hard that even a borazon
drill makes no impression, and when the attempt is made, strange vibrations cause severe distress in the people around the object. Quatermass interviews the local residents and discovers that sightings of ghost
s and other poltergeist
activity have been common in the area for decades. Meanwhile, a soldier is carried out of the object in hysterics — he claims to have seen a dwarf-like apparition walk through the wall of the artefact, a description which matches a 1927 newspaper
account of a ghost sighting.
Following the drilling attempt, a hole has somehow opened up in the wall which allows Quatermass and the others access to the interior chamber. There they find the remains of insect
-like aliens
resembling giant three-legged locust
s, with stubby antennae on their heads giving the impression of horns. As Quatermass and Roney examine the remains, they theorise that the aliens might have come from a nearby planet
which was habitable five million years ago — Mars
.
Meanwhile, the borazon drill operator clearing his equipment from the craft triggers off more poltergeist activity. The operator is forced to run through the streets in a dazed panic until he finds sanctuary inside a local church. Quatermass and Roney find him there, and he describes visions of the insect aliens killing each other. As Quatermass investigates deeper into the history of the area, he finds accounts dating back to medieval times about devils and ghosts, all tending to be centred on incidents where the ground was disturbed. He suspects that somehow a psychic projection of these beings has remained behind on the alien ship and is being seen by certain people who come in contact with it.
Quatermass plans to use an invention of Roney's, an "optic-encephalogram", to see these visions. The device will record impressions from the optical centres of the brain, in effect showing whatever the subject is seeing, hallucinatory
or not. He wears the device and goes into the craft, but it is Roney's assistant, Barbara Judd, who is affected most. Placing the device on her, they record what she "sees"—a violent, bloody purge of the Martian hive
, to root out unwanted mutations.
Quatermass begins to have a working theory as to what is going on. He believes that in its most primitive phase mankind was visited by this race. Some humans were taken away and genetically altered to have special abilities such as telepathy
, telekinesis and other psychic powers. They were then brought back to Earth — the buried artefact was one of the return ships that had crashed. The idea was that, with their home world dying, the aliens had tried to change humanity's ancestors to have minds and abilities like theirs, created in their own mental image, but with a bodily form adapted to Earth. In effect, humanity are the Martians.
However, the plan was a partial failure: the aliens died out before completing their work, and as the human race bred and further evolved, only a percentage of it retained these abilities, with even these only surfacing sporadically. For centuries the buried ship itself had been occasionally triggering these dormant abilities. This explained the reports of poltergeists, people were unknowingly using their own telekinesis to move objects around them, the ghost sightings being traces of a race memory. It also explained the history of witchcraft and why people attributed it to a being they identified as the devil; the pentagram would have been the symbol for this alien race.
The government authorities, and Breen in particular, find this explanation preposterous despite being shown the recording of Barbara's vision. They believe that the craft is actually a Nazi
propaganda
weapon and the alien bodies fakes designed to create exactly the impressions that Quatermass has come to. They attribute the vision to an overactive imagination, and intend to hold a media event to halt the rumours that are already flitting through the population. However, Quatermass realises that if these implanted psychic powers survive in the human race, there could also still be ingrained in us a compulsion to enact the "Wild Hunt
" of a race purge. Quatermass is concerned that the memories encoded inside the ship, which have already been picked up by sensitive people near it, will trigger that impulse and that those affected will begin to slaughter their own.
Despite his warnings, the media event occurs, and the power cables that string into the craft fully activate it for the first time. Glowing and humming like a living thing, it starts drawing upon this energy source and awakening the ancient racial programming. Those people of London 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 that the alien race mind considers impure and weak.
Breen stands transfixed and is eventually consumed by the energies from the craft as it slowly melts away and a holographic image of a Martian "devil" floats in the sky above London. Fires and riots spread, and even a passing aircraft
is affected and crashes into the city. Quatermass himself almost succumbs to the mass psychosis
, attempting to kill Roney, who does not have the alien gene and is immune to the influence. Roney manages to shake Quatermass out of his trance, and together they realise that the floating image is the source of the mass psychosis. Even without the craft and electricity, it is now draining the combined psychic energy of London.
Remembering the legends of demons and their aversion to iron
and water, Roney deduces that a sufficient mass of iron connected to wet earth may be enough to short
the apparition out. Quatermass (via another soldier, Captain Potter) gets a length of iron chain and tries to reach the "devil" but succumbs to the psychic pressure. Roney manages to walk up to the "devil" and hurls the chain, but both he and the craft are reduced to ashes. A moment later, Quatermass wakes up and finds Roney gone; he realises what Roney has done. Short time afterwards, people arrive and look at what's happened.
Some time later Quatermass (alongside Sladden (the borazon drill operator), the vicar who found him, Captain Potter, Barbara, and 2 other reporters) holds a television
broadcast, in which he praises Roney's sacrifice, saying that they now are armed with knowledge that will allow them to deal with any more Martian artefacts. He also warns that now that we are aware of the dark urges implanted within us all, we have to be careful about wars, witch-hunts and other communal violence — lest we Martians turn the Earth into a second dead planet.
being cast. The part had initially been offered to Alec Clunes
, who declined the role. Morell had a reputation for playing authority figures, such as Colonel Green in The Bridge on the River Kwai
(1957), and had previously worked with Kneale and Cartier when he appeared as O'Brien
in their BBC television adaptation of Nineteen Eighty-Four (1954). He had also been the first actor ever offered the part of Quatermass, for the original serial The Quatermass Experiment in 1953, but on that occasion he had turned the part down. Morell's portrayal of Quatermass has been described as the definitive interpretation of the character. The actor found that it became the role for which he was best remembered by the public in later years.
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 World War II
. He had also worked as Laurence Olivier
's manager and as a television producer
. Before Quatermass and the Pit he had most recently been seen as Arthur Rostron
in the film version of A Night to Remember (1958).
Roney was played by Canadian actor Cec Linder
. Linder had appeared in various American television series, such as Studio One
, and later appeared in Lolita
(1962) and the James Bond
film Goldfinger
(1964). John Stratton played Captain Potter; later he become a regular guest actor in a number of British television series. Christine Finn
played the other main character, Barbara Judd; she later voiced various characters in the popular 1960s children's television series Thunderbirds
.
For the first time, Kneale used a character from a previous serial other than Quatermass himself. He brought back the journalist James Fullalove from The Quatermass Experiment
, and the production team had hoped that actor Paul Whitsun-Jones
would be able to reprise the part. Whitsun-Jones was unavailable to appear, so Brian Worth
was cast instead. Appearing as an army sergeant was Michael Ripper
; Ripper had been in Hammer Film Productions
' adaptation of the second Quatermass serial, Quatermass 2
, the previous year. He had the distinction of appearing in more Hammer films than any other actor.
Nigel Kneale continued his successful career writing for film and television after Quatermass and the Pit. He wrote feature film
screenplays for The Entertainer
(1960), H.M.S. Defiant (1962) and The First Men in the Moon (1964). He returned to the Quatermass character for a final time with Quatermass
(1979), a serial for the ITV
network. He continued writing for television until the 1990s, and Quatermass and the Pit was often cited as the most successful work of his long career.
Quatermass and the Pit was the last original production upon which Kneale collaborated with Rudolph Cartier, although Cartier did direct a new version of Kneale's 1953 adaptation of Wuthering Heights for the BBC in 1962. Other later successes for Cartier were Anna Karenina
(1961) and Lee Oswald: Assassin (1966).
network in the ratings since the other channel had launched in 1955. However, the trade paper Variety
reported that according to the Nielsen Company's ratings data, the final episode of Quatermass and the Pit had lost out to the quiz show
Keep it in the Family on ITV, being viewed in 2,560,000 households as opposed to 2,996,000 for the commercial channel's programme, and failing to feature in the week's top ten shows. The same paper did also state that on the night of episode six's broadcast, British cinemas reported their worst evening's takings in "a long, long time."
The Times
newspaper reported the day after the final episode that members of Hereford City Council had "rejected last night a proposal that they should suspend standing orders to adjourn so that members could watch the final instalment of Quatermass and the Pit, the BBC television serial." BBC radio and television journalist John Humphrys
recalled being frightened by the serial as a child in a feature on television memories published by The Guardian
in 2006. Recalling the frightening qualities of the Quatermass serials in 1981, journalist Geoffrey Wansell wrote that "when the third series, Quatermass and the Pit was shown, three of my school friends insisted on leaving the room whenever it started."
The Timess 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," the anonymous reviewer went on to state how much he had enjoyed the episode.
Criticism of the serial was also expressed. Although Kneale would go on to use the Martian "Wild Hunt" as a deliberate allegory for the recent Notting Hill race riots, some Black British
leaders were upset with the depiction of racial tensions in the first episode. "Leaders of coloured minorities here to-day criticized the BBC for allowing a report that 'race riots are continuing in Birmingham
,' to be included in a fictional news bulletin during the first installment of the new Quatermass television play last night," reported The Timess Birmingham correspondent. The report quoted Dr. W. C. Pilgrim of the city's West Indian
community as saying, "I do not agree with this sort of thing, fiction or not. No trouble of this kind has happened in Birmingham, where our problems do not find expression in violence." The BBC replied to the criticisms with the assurance that:
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." The theme of military takeover of peaceful scientific research was also praised and compared to the contemporary outlook by Patrick Stoddart, writing for The Sunday Times
in 1988.
The serial has also been an influence on other television science-fiction productions. Mark Gatiss
wrote in The Guardian
in 2006 that "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." Gatiss was a scriptwriter for Doctor Who
, a programme that had been particularly strongly influenced by the Quatermass serials throughout its history. Derrick Sherwin
, the producer
of Doctor Who in 1969, acknowledged Quatermass and the Pit as an influence on changing the format of the programme.
More specifically, the 1971 & 1977 Doctor Who serials The Dæmons
and Image of the Fendahl
contain many very similar elements and themes to Quatermass and the Pit. Comparing The Pit to The Daemons, many people have noted the similarities between this story's plot and that of the 1958 BBC serial and 1967 Hammer film. Both involve 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 places with "devilish" names - Devil's End in The Daemons, and Hob's Lane in Pit. Similar themes also appear in Image of the Fendahl which deals with beings, the Fendahl of the title, that after the destruction of their homeworld came to Earth and influenced the evolution of humans to possess psychic powers. When its "skull", marked with a pentagram, is discovered in an archaeological dig, it proceeds to take over the descendants of the engineered humans in an effort to colonise the Earth.
The writer and critic Kim Newman
, speaking about Kneale's career in a 2003 television documentary
, cited Quatermass and the Pit as perfecting "the notion of the science-fictional detective story". Newman also discussed the programme as an influence on the horror fiction
writer Stephen King
, claiming that King had "more or less rewritten Quatermass and the Pit in The Tommyknockers
".
. Their adaptation of the serial
was released with the same title as the original in 1967, directed by Roy Ward Baker
and scripted by Kneale. Scottish actor Andrew Keir
starred as Quatermass, becoming the role for which he was best remembered, being regarded particularly highly in comparison to the previous film Quatermass, Brian Donlevy
. The film, made in colour, is regarded by many commentators as a classic of the genre. The film is currently available in DVD format. In the United States the film was retitled Five Million Years to Earth.
A script book of Quatermass and the Pit was released by Penguin Books
in April 1960, with a cover by Kneale's artist brother Bryan Kneale
. In 1979 this was re-published by Arrow Books to coincide with the transmission of the fourth and final Quatermass serial on ITV; this edition featured a new introduction by Kneale. The theatrical company Creation Productions staged a live adaptation of Quatermass and the Pit in a quarry near Nottingham
in August 1997.
The BBC made Quatermass and the Pit available to buy on VHS
videotape in the 1980s, edited into a two-part compilation format. This version was re-released on VHS by budget label Paradox Video in 1995, and later put out again, this time by Revelation Films, on DVD
. The 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 existing first two episodes of The Quatermass Experiment, all of Quatermass II and various extra features.
For the box set release, Quatermass and the Pit was extensively restored. A process called VidFIRE
was applied to all of 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. For the pre-filmed scenes, most of the high-quality original 35 mm film inserts still existed, as they had been spliced
into the 1959–60 compilation repeat version in place of the lower-quality telerecorded versions of the same sequences. As this compilation also survived in the BBC archives, these film sequences were able to be digitally remastered
and inserted into the newly-restored episodic version for the DVD release.
, a BBC radio
comedy series, parodied Quatermass and the Pit extensively. The episode, The Scarlet Capsule, was written by Spike Milligan
, and used the original BBC Radiophonic Workshop sound effects made for the television serial. In the episode, some workmen employed by the government's Dig Up the Roads Plan for Congesting Traffic Scheme unearth an ancient skull ("Must be a woman ... the mouth's open."). Professor Ned Quartermess, a.k.a. Neddie Seagoon (Harry Secombe
), sceptical of claims that the remains might be unexploded German skulls from World War II
, discovers a fossilized Irish stew
, and then uncovers a strange scarlet capsule containing the fossilized remains of three serge
suits and the bones of a bowler hat
. Willium "Mate" Cobblers hears a voice saying "Minardor". Several people are struck down by flying Irish stews, and Quartermess becomes convinced there is a poltergeist
at work, and starts evacuating the local population—including Peter Sellers
as a woman whose seductive voice causes the script to be heavily censored. Eventually the scheming Hercules Grytpype-Thynne (Sellers) persuades Quartermess to blow up the capsule—with his sidekick Count Jim Moriarty (Milligan), whose life he has coincidentally insured for a large sum, tied up inside. But the blast blows everyone up—at least until the next episode—and a BBC announcer (Andrew Timothy
) reports that the capsule was actually a London Underground
train containing three striking Tube workers that had been shunted into a siding and forgotten. "The Mystic word 'Minardor' was in fact 'Mind the doors'. Not a very good ending, but at least it's tidy, don't you think?" He is then struck down by an Irish stew.
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. This episode no longer exists in the BBC's archives but a private collector's audio-only recording has been discovered.
Science fiction on television
Science fiction first appeared on a television program during the Golden Age of Science Fiction. Special effects and other production techniques allow creators to present a living visual image of an imaginary world not limited by the constraints of reality; this makes television an excellent medium...
serial
Serial (radio and television)
Serials are series of television programs and radio programs that rely on a continuing plot that unfolds in a sequential episode by episode fashion. Serials typically follow main story arcs that span entire television seasons or even the full run of the series, which distinguishes them from...
, originally transmitted live by BBC Television
BBC One
BBC One is the flagship television channel of the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It was launched on 2 November 1936 as the BBC Television Service, and was the world's first regular television service with a high level of image resolution...
in December 1958 and January 1959. It was the third and last of the BBC's Quatermass
Bernard Quatermass
Professor Bernard Quatermass is a fictional scientist, originally created by the writer Nigel Kneale for BBC Television. An intelligent and highly moral British scientist, Quatermass is a pioneer of the British space programme, heading up the British Experimental Rocket Group...
serials, although the character would reappear in a 1979 ITV
ITV
ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...
production simply entitled Quatermass
Quatermass (TV serial)
Quatermass is a British television science fiction serial produced by Euston Films for Thames Television and broadcast on the ITV network in October and November 1979. Like its three predecessors, Quatermass was written by Nigel Kneale...
. Like its predecessors, Quatermass and the Pit was written by Nigel Kneale
Nigel Kneale
Nigel Kneale was a British screenwriter from the Isle of Man. Active in television, film, radio drama and prose fiction, he wrote professionally for over fifty years, was a winner of the Somerset Maugham Award and was twice nominated for the British Film Award for Best Screenplay...
.
The series continues the loose chronology of the Quatermass adventures, and begins with Professor Bernard Quatermass
Bernard Quatermass
Professor Bernard Quatermass is a fictional scientist, originally created by the writer Nigel Kneale for BBC Television. An intelligent and highly moral British scientist, Quatermass is a pioneer of the British space programme, heading up the British Experimental Rocket Group...
being forced out of his role at the British Experimental Rocket Group, with the organisation being passed into military control by the British Government. Quatermass and his new colleague Colonel Breen become involved in the discovery of a bizarre object at an archaeological dig in Knightsbridge
Knightsbridge
Knightsbridge is a road which gives its name to an exclusive district lying to the west of central London. The road runs along the south side of Hyde Park, west from Hyde Park Corner, spanning the City of Westminster and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea...
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
. As the serial progresses, Quatermass and his associates find that the contents of the object have a horrific influence over many of those who come into contact with it. As this influence increases, affecting Quatermass himself, darker implications are revealed about the entire nature and origins of mankind.
The serial has been cited as an influence on the writer Stephen King
Stephen King
Stephen Edwin King is an American author of contemporary horror, suspense, science fiction and fantasy fiction. His books have sold more than 350 million copies and have been adapted into a number of feature films, television movies and comic books...
and the film director
Film director
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...
John Carpenter
John Carpenter
John Howard Carpenter is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, editor, composer, and occasional actor. Although Carpenter has worked in numerous film genres in his four-decade career, his name is most commonly associated with horror and science fiction.- Early life :Carpenter was born...
. It featured in a list of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes
100 Greatest British Television Programmes
The BFI TV 100 is a list compiled in 2000 by the British Film Institute , chosen by a poll of industry professionals, to determine what were the greatest British television programmes of any genre ever to have been screened....
compiled by the British Film Institute
British Film Institute
The British Film Institute is a charitable organisation established by Royal Charter to:-Cinemas:The BFI runs the BFI Southbank and IMAX theatre, both located on the south bank of the River Thames in London...
in 2000, where it was described as "completely gripping", and in 2005 the BBC's own website
Bbc.co.uk
BBC Online is the brand name and home for the BBC's UK online service. It is a large network of websites including such high profile sites as BBC News and Sport, the on-demand video and radio services co-branded BBC iPlayer, the pre-school site Cbeebies, and learning services such as Bitesize...
declared it "simply the first finest thing the BBC ever made. It justifies licence fees
Television licence
A television licence is an official licence required in many countries for the reception of television broadcasts...
to this day."
Production
The Quatermass ExperimentThe Quatermass Experiment
The Quatermass Experiment is a British science-fiction serial broadcast by BBC Television in the summer of 1953 and re-staged by BBC Four in 2005. Set in the near future against the background of a British space programme, it tells the story of the first manned flight into space, overseen by...
(1953) and Quatermass II
Quatermass II
Quatermass II is a British science-fiction serial, originally broadcast by BBC Television in the autumn of 1955. It is the second in the Quatermass series by writer Nigel Kneale, and the first of those serials to survive in its entirety in the BBC archives...
(1955) had been critical and popular successes for the BBC, and in early 1957 the corporation decided that they would like a third serial. Nigel Kneale had left the staff of the BBC towards the end of 1956, but on 2 May 1957 was contracted to write the new scripts on a freelance basis. The director assigned to the project was Rudolph Cartier
Rudolph Cartier
Rudolph Cartier was an Austrian television director, filmmaker, screenwriter and producer who worked predominantly in British television, exclusively for the BBC...
, with whom Kneale particularly enjoyed working; the two men had collaborated on both of the previous Quatermass serials, as well as the literary adaptations Wuthering Heights
Wuthering Heights
Wuthering Heights is a novel by Emily Brontë published in 1847. It was her only novel and written between December 1845 and July 1846. It remained unpublished until July 1847 and was not printed until December after the success of her sister Charlotte Brontë's novel Jane Eyre...
(1953) and Nineteen Eighty-Four
Nineteen Eighty-Four (TV programme)
Nineteen Eighty-Four is a British television adaptation of the novel of the same name by George Orwell, originally broadcast on BBC Television in December 1954. The production proved to be hugely controversial, with questions asked in Parliament and many viewer complaints over its supposed...
(1954). Quatermass and the Pit had a larger budget than the previous Quatermass productions, with £17,500 being allocated to the serial. Kneale was keen to write a story that would work as an allegory for the racial tensions that had recently been seen in the United Kingdom, which eventually culminated with the Notting Hill race riots
Notting Hill race riots
The Notting Hill race riots were a series of racially-motivated riots that took place in London, England over several nights in late August and early September 1958.-Context:The end of World War II had seen a marked increase in Caribbean migrants to Britain...
of August and September 1958.
Pre-production
Pre-production
Pre-production or In Production is the process of preparing all the elements involved in a film, play, or other performance.- In film :...
work began in September 1958, while Cartier was still working on productions of A Tale of Two Cities
A Tale of Two Cities
A Tale of Two Cities is a novel by Charles Dickens, set in London and Paris before and during the French Revolution. With well over 200 million copies sold, it ranks among the most famous works in the history of fictional literature....
and A Midsummer Night's Dream
A Midsummer Night's Dream
A Midsummer Night's Dream is a play that was written by William Shakespeare. It is believed to have been written between 1590 and 1596. It portrays the events surrounding the marriage of the Duke of Athens, Theseus, and the Queen of the Amazons, Hippolyta...
for the BBC. As the two previous Quatermass serials had been scheduled in half-hour slots but, performed live
Live television
Live television refers to a television production broadcast in real-time, as events happen, in the present. From the early days of television until about 1958, live television was used heavily, except for filmed shows such as I Love Lucy and Gunsmoke. Video tape did not exist until 1957...
, had often overrun, Cartier requested thirty-five minute slots for the six episodes of Quatermass and the Pit. This was agreed to by the BBC drama department management in November 1958, just prior to the start of production proper on 24 November. The six episodes—"The Halfmen", "The Ghosts", "Imps and Demons", "The Enchanted", "The Wild Hunt" and "Hob"—were broadcast on Monday nights at 8pm from 22 December 1958 to 26 January 1959.
Each episode of Quatermass and the Pit was predominantly performed live from Studio 1 of the BBC's Riverside Studios
Riverside Studios
Riverside Studios is a production studio, theatre and independent cinema on the banks of the River Thames in Hammersmith, London, England. It plays host to contemporary and international dramatic and dance performance, film, visual art exhibitions and television production.-History:In 1933, the...
complex in Hammersmith
Hammersmith
Hammersmith is an urban centre in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham in west London, England, in the United Kingdom, approximately five miles west of Charing Cross on the north bank of the River Thames...
, London. The episodes were rehearsed
Rehearsal
For other uses, see Rehearsal or Dress rehearsal A rehearsal is a preparatory event in music and theatre that is performed before the official public performance, as a form of practice, and to ensure that all details of the performance are adequately prepared and coordinated for professional...
from Tuesday to Saturday before broadcast, usually at the Mary Wood Settlement in Tavistock Place, London, with camera rehearsals taking place in studio on the morning and afternoon of transmission. Not every scene was live—a significant amount of material was pre-filmed on 35 mm film
35 mm film
35 mm film is the film gauge most commonly used for chemical still photography and motion pictures. The name of the gauge refers to the width of the photographic film, which consists of strips 35 millimeters in width...
and inserted during the performance as required. Most of the pre-filming involved either scenes set on location
Filming location
A filming location is a place where some or all of a film or television series is produced, in addition to or instead of using sets constructed on a movie studio backlot or soundstage...
or those that were too technically complex or expansive to achieve live. The latter were shot at Ealing Studios
Ealing Studios
Ealing Studios is a television and film production company and facilities provider at Ealing Green in West London. Will Barker bought the White Lodge on Ealing Green in 1902 as a base for film making, and films have been made on the site ever since...
, which had been acquired by the BBC in 1955, with Cartier working with the experienced cinematographer
Cinematographer
A cinematographer is one photographing with a motion picture camera . The title is generally equivalent to director of photography , used to designate a chief over the camera and lighting crews working on a film, responsible for achieving artistic and technical decisions related to the image...
A. A. Englander
A. A. Englander
Adolf Arthur Englander was a British television cinematographer. He was one of the first film cameraman to work seriously in the field of television in the UK, which for much of its early period almost exclusively employed electronic cameras.Englander was born in London during a First World War...
. Pre-filming was also used to show the passage of time in the second episode, with the archaeological dig set at Ealing shown to have dug deeper into the ground than the equivalent set at Riverside, enabling a sense of timescale that would not have been possible in an all-live production.
Special effects requirements were handled by the BBC Visual Effects Department, which had been formed by Bernard Wilkie and Jack Kine in 1954. Usually either Kine or Wilkie individually would oversee effects work on a production; due to the number of effects required, both worked on Quatermass and the Pit. The team pre-filmed most of their effects for use during the live broadcasts. They also oversaw practical effect
Practical effect
A practical effect is a special effect in which a prop appears to work in a situation where it obviously could not in real life . They do not use trick photography or post-production artifice. This type of effect is normally found in live theatre.In film, practical effect denotes an effect produced...
s for the Ealing filming and Riverside transmission, and constructed the bodies of the Martian creatures.
The music for the serial was credited to 'Trevor Duncan
Trevor Duncan
Trevor Duncan was an English composer, particularly noted for his light music compositions. Born in London, and largely self-taught, he originally composed as a sideline while working for the BBC...
' a pseudonym
Pseudonym
A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...
used by composer Leonard Treblico, whose music was obtained from stock discs. Quatermass and the Pit also made extensive use of sound effect
Sound effect
For the album by The Jam, see Sound Affects.Sound effects or audio effects are artificially created or enhanced sounds, or sound processes used to emphasize artistic or other content of films, television shows, live performance, animation, video games, music, or other media...
s and electronic music
Electronic music
Electronic music is music that employs electronic musical instruments and electronic music technology in its production. In general a distinction can be made between sound produced using electromechanical means and that produced using electronic technology. Examples of electromechanical sound...
to create an eerie, disturbing atmosphere. These tracks were created especially for the serial by the BBC Radiophonic Workshop
BBC Radiophonic Workshop
The BBC Radiophonic Workshop, one of the sound effects units of the BBC, was created in 1958 to produce effects and new music for radio, and was closed in March 1998, although much of its traditional work had already been outsourced by 1995. It was based in the BBC's Maida Vale Studios in Delaware...
, overseen by Desmond Briscoe
Desmond Briscoe
Harry Desmond Briscoe was an English composer, sound engineer and studio manager. He was the co-founder and original manager of the pioneering BBC Radiophonic Workshop....
; their work on Quatermass and the Pit was one of the productions for which Briscoe and the Workshop became most renowned. It was the first time that electronic music had been used in a science-fiction television production.
After Quatermass and the Pit, Kneale felt that it was time to rest the character. "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", he told an interviewer in 1986. By the early 1970s however, Kneale decided there were some new avenues to explore with the character, and the BBC announced plans to produce a fourth Quatermass serial in 1972. This was not in the event made by the BBC, but Kneale's scripts did eventually see production in 1979, as a four-part serial for Thames Television
Thames Television
Thames Television was a licensee of the British ITV television network, covering London and parts of the surrounding counties on weekdays from 30 July 1968 until 31 December 1992....
called Quatermass
Quatermass (TV serial)
Quatermass is a British television science fiction serial produced by Euston Films for Thames Television and broadcast on the ITV network in October and November 1979. Like its three predecessors, Quatermass was written by Nigel Kneale...
.
Made just prior to the introduction of early videotape machines into general use at the BBC, all six episodes of Quatermass and the Pit were preserved for a possible repeat
Rerun
A rerun or repeat is a re-airing of an episode of a radio or television broadcast. The invention of the rerun is generally credited to Desi Arnaz. There are two types of reruns—those that occur during a hiatus, and those that occur when a program is syndicated. Reruns can also be, as the...
by being telerecorded onto 35 mm film. Although this effectively worked by pointing a synchronised film camera
Movie camera
The movie camera is a type of photographic camera which takes a rapid sequence of photographs on strips of film which was very popular for private use in the last century until its successor, the video camera, replaced it...
at a television monitor
Video monitor
A video monitor also called a broadcast monitor, broadcast reference monitor or just reference monitor, is a display device similar to a television set, used to monitor the output of a video-generating device, such as playout from a video server, IRD, video camera, VCR, or DVD player. It may or...
and filming the output, the process had been refined throughout the 1950s and the recordings made of Quatermass and the Pit were of a high technical quality. The serial was repeated in edited form as two 90-minute episodes—titled "5 Million Years Old" and "Hob"—on 26 December 1959 and 2 January 1960. The third episode, "Imps and Demons", was re-shown on BBC Two
BBC Two
BBC Two is the second television channel operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It covers a wide range of subject matter, but tending towards more 'highbrow' programmes than the more mainstream and popular BBC One. Like the BBC's other domestic TV and radio...
on 7 November 1986 as part of the "TV50" season, celebrating fifty years of BBC television.
Plot
Human skull
The human skull is a bony structure, skeleton, that is in the human head and which supports the structures of the face and forms a cavity for the brain.In humans, the adult skull is normally made up of 22 bones...
is discovered while building works are taking place in the fictional Hobbs Lane
Hobbs End
Hobbs End, sometimes Hobbs Lane, is the name of a fictional location used in several works of speculative fiction. Its name is possibly intended to convey a sense of unease, evil, or "wrongness", since "Hob" is an old nickname for the devil....
(formerly Hob's Lane, from an old name for the Devil
Devil
The Devil is believed in many religions and cultures to be a powerful, supernatural entity that is the personification of evil and the enemy of God and humankind. The nature of the role varies greatly...
) in Knightsbridge
Knightsbridge
Knightsbridge is a road which gives its name to an exclusive district lying to the west of central London. The road runs along the south side of Hyde Park, west from Hyde Park Corner, spanning the City of Westminster and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea...
. Dr Matthew Roney, a paleontologist
Paleontology
Paleontology "old, ancient", ὄν, ὀντ- "being, creature", and λόγος "speech, thought") is the study of prehistoric life. It includes the study of fossils to determine organisms' evolution and interactions with each other and their environments...
, examines the recovered remains, which are many thousands of years old, and reconstructs a dwarf-like humanoid
Humanoid
A humanoid is something that has an appearance resembling a human being. The term first appeared in 1912 to refer to fossils which were morphologically similar to, but not identical with, those of the human skeleton. Although this usage was common in the sciences for much of the 20th century, it...
with an unusually large brain
Brain
The brain is the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate and most invertebrate animals—only a few primitive invertebrates such as sponges, jellyfish, sea squirts and starfishes do not have one. It is located in the head, usually close to primary sensory apparatus such as vision, hearing,...
volume, which he believes to be a form of primitive man. As further excavation is undertaken on the site, something that looks like a missile
Missile
Though a missile may be any thrown or launched object, it colloquially almost always refers to a self-propelled guided weapon system.-Etymology:The word missile comes from the Latin verb mittere, meaning "to send"...
is unearthed; further work by Roney's group is halted as the military believe it to be an unexploded bomb left over from World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
.
Roney calls in his old friend Professor Bernard Quatermass
Bernard Quatermass
Professor Bernard Quatermass is a fictional scientist, originally created by the writer Nigel Kneale for BBC Television. An intelligent and highly moral British scientist, Quatermass is a pioneer of the British space programme, heading up the British Experimental Rocket Group...
of the British Experimental Rocket Group, an expert on matters of unusual scientific background, to stop the military from disturbing what he believes to be an archaeological find. Quatermass and Colonel Breen, who has been placed in charge of the Rocket Group over Quatermass's objections, become intrigued by the site. More and more of the artefact is uncovered, and additional fossil
Fossil
Fossils are the preserved remains or traces of animals , plants, and other organisms from the remote past...
s are found inside which Roney dates to five million years in age—suggesting that the object is at least that old as well. The interior is empty, but a symbol consisting of five intersecting circles, which Roney identifies as the occult pentagram
Pentagram
A pentagram is the shape of a five-pointed star drawn with five straight strokes...
, is found etched on an interior wall which appears to hide an inner chamber.
The shell of the object is so hard that even a borazon
Borazon
Borazon is a brand name of a cubic form of boron nitride . It is one of the hardest known materials, along with various forms of diamond and boron nitride. Borazon is a crystal created by heating equal quantities of boron and nitrogen at temperatures greater than 1800 °C at 7 GPa...
drill makes no impression, and when the attempt is made, strange vibrations cause severe distress in the people around the object. Quatermass interviews the local residents and discovers that sightings of ghost
Ghost
In traditional belief and fiction, a ghost is the soul or spirit of a deceased person or animal that can appear, in visible form or other manifestation, to the living. Descriptions of the apparition of ghosts vary widely from an invisible presence to translucent or barely visible wispy shapes, to...
s and other poltergeist
Poltergeist
A poltergeist is a paranormal phenomenon which consists of events alluding to the manifestation of an imperceptible entity. Such manifestation typically includes inanimate objects moving or being thrown about, sentient noises and, on some occasions, physical attacks on those witnessing the...
activity have been common in the area for decades. Meanwhile, a soldier is carried out of the object in hysterics — he claims to have seen a dwarf-like apparition walk through the wall of the artefact, a description which matches a 1927 newspaper
Newspaper
A newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...
account of a ghost sighting.
Following the drilling attempt, a hole has somehow opened up in the wall which allows Quatermass and the others access to the interior chamber. There they find the remains of insect
Insect
Insects are a class of living creatures within the arthropods that have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body , three pairs of jointed legs, compound eyes, and two antennae...
-like aliens
Extraterrestrial life
Extraterrestrial life is defined as life that does not originate from Earth...
resembling giant three-legged locust
Locust
Locusts are the swarming phase of short-horned grasshoppers of the family Acrididae. These are species that can breed rapidly under suitable conditions and subsequently become gregarious and migratory...
s, with stubby antennae on their heads giving the impression of horns. As Quatermass and Roney examine the remains, they theorise that the aliens might have come from a nearby planet
Planet
A planet is a celestial body orbiting a star or stellar remnant that is massive enough to be rounded by its own gravity, is not massive enough to cause thermonuclear fusion, and has cleared its neighbouring region of planetesimals.The term planet is ancient, with ties to history, science,...
which was habitable five million years ago — Mars
Mars
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun in the Solar System. The planet is named after the Roman god of war, Mars. It is often described as the "Red Planet", as the iron oxide prevalent on its surface gives it a reddish appearance...
.
Meanwhile, the borazon drill operator clearing his equipment from the craft triggers off more poltergeist activity. The operator is forced to run through the streets in a dazed panic until he finds sanctuary inside a local church. Quatermass and Roney find him there, and he describes visions of the insect aliens killing each other. As Quatermass investigates deeper into the history of the area, he finds accounts dating back to medieval times about devils and ghosts, all tending to be centred on incidents where the ground was disturbed. He suspects that somehow a psychic projection of these beings has remained behind on the alien ship and is being seen by certain people who come in contact with it.
Quatermass plans to use an invention of Roney's, an "optic-encephalogram", to see these visions. The device will record impressions from the optical centres of the brain, in effect showing whatever the subject is seeing, hallucinatory
Hallucination
A hallucination, in the broadest sense of the word, is a perception in the absence of a stimulus. In a stricter sense, hallucinations are defined as perceptions in a conscious and awake state in the absence of external stimuli which have qualities of real perception, in that they are vivid,...
or not. He wears the device and goes into the craft, but it is Roney's assistant, Barbara Judd, who is affected most. Placing the device on her, they record what she "sees"—a violent, bloody purge of the Martian hive
Beehive
A beehive is a structure in which bees live and raise their young.Beehive may also refer to:Buildings and locations:* Bee Hive, Alabama, a neighborhood in Alabama* Beehive , a wing of the New Zealand Parliament Buildings...
, to root out unwanted mutations.
Quatermass begins to have a working theory as to what is going on. He believes that in its most primitive phase mankind was visited by this race. Some humans were taken away and genetically altered to have special abilities such as telepathy
Telepathy
Telepathy , is the induction of mental states from one mind to another. The term was coined in 1882 by the classical scholar Fredric W. H. Myers, a founder of the Society for Psychical Research, and has remained more popular than the more-correct expression thought-transference...
, telekinesis and other psychic powers. They were then brought back to Earth — the buried artefact was one of the return ships that had crashed. The idea was that, with their home world dying, the aliens had tried to change humanity's ancestors to have minds and abilities like theirs, created in their own mental image, but with a bodily form adapted to Earth. In effect, humanity are the Martians.
However, the plan was a partial failure: the aliens died out before completing their work, and as the human race bred and further evolved, only a percentage of it retained these abilities, with even these only surfacing sporadically. For centuries the buried ship itself had been occasionally triggering these dormant abilities. This explained the reports of poltergeists, people were unknowingly using their own telekinesis to move objects around them, the ghost sightings being traces of a race memory. It also explained the history of witchcraft and why people attributed it to a being they identified as the devil; the pentagram would have been the symbol for this alien race.
The government authorities, and Breen in particular, find this explanation preposterous despite being shown the recording of Barbara's vision. They believe that the craft is actually a Nazi
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
propaganda
Propaganda
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....
weapon and the alien bodies fakes designed to create exactly the impressions that Quatermass has come to. They attribute the vision to an overactive imagination, and intend to hold a media event to halt the rumours that are already flitting through the population. However, Quatermass realises that if these implanted psychic powers survive in the human race, there could also still be ingrained in us a compulsion to enact the "Wild Hunt
Wild Hunt
The Wild Hunt is an ancient folk myth prevalent across Northern, Western and Central Europe. The fundamental premise in all instances is the same: a phantasmal, spectral group of huntsmen with the accoutrements of hunting, horses, hounds, etc., in mad pursuit across the skies or along the ground,...
" of a race purge. Quatermass is concerned that the memories encoded inside the ship, which have already been picked up by sensitive people near it, will trigger that impulse and that those affected will begin to slaughter their own.
Despite his warnings, the media event occurs, and the power cables that string into the craft fully activate it for the first time. Glowing and humming like a living thing, it starts drawing upon this energy source and awakening the ancient racial programming. Those people of London in whom the alien admixture remains strong fall under the ship's influence; they merge into a group mind
Group mind (science fiction)
A group mind, hive mind or group ego in science fiction is a single consciousness occupying many bodies. Its use in literature goes back at least as far as Olaf Stapledon's science fiction novel Last and First Men ....
and begin a telekinetic mass murder
Mass murder
Mass murder is the act of murdering a large number of people , typically at the same time or over a relatively short period of time. According to the FBI, mass murder is defined as four or more murders occurring during a particular event with no cooling-off period between the murders...
of those without the alien genes
Genetics
Genetics , a discipline of biology, is the science of genes, heredity, and variation in living organisms....
, an 'ethnic cleansing
Ethnic cleansing
Ethnic cleansing is a purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic orreligious group from certain geographic areas....
' of those that the alien race mind considers impure and weak.
Breen stands transfixed and is eventually consumed by the energies from the craft as it slowly melts away and a holographic image of a Martian "devil" floats in the sky above London. Fires and riots spread, and even a passing aircraft
Aircraft
An aircraft is a vehicle that is able to fly by gaining support from the air, or, in general, the atmosphere of a planet. An aircraft counters the force of gravity by using either static lift or by using the dynamic lift of an airfoil, or in a few cases the downward thrust from jet engines.Although...
is affected and crashes into the city. Quatermass himself almost succumbs to the mass psychosis
Psychosis
Psychosis means abnormal condition of the mind, and is a generic psychiatric term for a mental state often described as involving a "loss of contact with reality"...
, attempting to kill Roney, who does not have the alien gene and is immune to the influence. Roney manages to shake Quatermass out of his trance, and together they realise that the floating image is the source of the mass psychosis. Even without the craft and electricity, it is now draining the combined psychic energy of London.
Remembering the legends of demons and their aversion to iron
Iron
Iron is a chemical element with the symbol Fe and atomic number 26. It is a metal in the first transition series. It is the most common element forming the planet Earth as a whole, forming much of Earth's outer and inner core. It is the fourth most common element in the Earth's crust...
and water, Roney deduces that a sufficient mass of iron connected to wet earth may be enough to short
Short circuit
A short circuit in an electrical circuit that allows a current to travel along an unintended path, often where essentially no electrical impedance is encountered....
the apparition out. Quatermass (via another soldier, Captain Potter) gets a length of iron chain and tries to reach the "devil" but succumbs to the psychic pressure. Roney manages to walk up to the "devil" and hurls the chain, but both he and the craft are reduced to ashes. A moment later, Quatermass wakes up and finds Roney gone; he realises what Roney has done. Short time afterwards, people arrive and look at what's happened.
Some time later Quatermass (alongside Sladden (the borazon drill operator), the vicar who found him, Captain Potter, Barbara, and 2 other reporters) holds a television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
broadcast, in which he praises Roney's sacrifice, saying that they now are armed with knowledge that will allow them to deal with any more Martian artefacts. He also warns that now that we are aware of the dark urges implanted within us all, we have to be careful about wars, witch-hunts and other communal violence — lest we Martians turn the Earth into a second dead planet.
Cast and crew
For the third time in as many serials the title role was played by a different actor, with André MorellAndré Morell
André Morell was a British actor. He appeared frequently in theatre, film and on television from the 1930s to the 1970s...
being cast. The part had initially been offered to Alec Clunes
Alec Clunes
Alexander "Alec" Demoro Sherriff Clunes was an English actor and stage manager.Among the plays he presented were Christopher Fry's famous play The Lady's Not For Burning. He gave the actor and dramatist Sir Peter Ustinov his first break with his production The House of Regrets. His film career was...
, who declined the role. Morell had a reputation for playing authority figures, such as Colonel Green in The Bridge on the River Kwai
The Bridge on the River Kwai
The Bridge on the River Kwai is a 1957 British World War II film by David Lean based on The Bridge over the River Kwai by French writer Pierre Boulle. The film is a work of fiction but borrows the construction of the Burma Railway in 1942–43 for its historical setting. It stars William...
(1957), and had previously worked with Kneale and Cartier when he appeared as O'Brien
O'Brien (1984)
O'Brien is a fictional character and the main antagonist in George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. The protagonist Winston Smith, living in a dystopian society governed by the Party, feels strangely attracted to Inner Party member O'Brien. Orwell never reveals O'Brien's first name.Winston...
in their BBC television adaptation of Nineteen Eighty-Four (1954). He had also been the first actor ever offered the part of Quatermass, for the original serial The Quatermass Experiment in 1953, but on that occasion he had turned the part down. Morell's portrayal of Quatermass has been described as the definitive interpretation of the character. The actor found that it became the role for which he was best remembered by the public in later years.
Colonel Breen was played by Anthony Bushell
Anthony Bushell
Anthony Bushell was an English film actor and director, who appeared in 56 films between 1929 and 1961. He also appeared on and directed various British TV series such as Danger Man.-Early life:...
, who was known for various similar military roles — including, another bomb disposal officer in The Small Back Room
The Small Back Room
The Small Back Room is a film by the British producer-writer-director team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger starring David Farrar and Kathleen Byron and featuring Jack Hawkins and Cyril Cusack. It was based on the novel of the same name by Nigel Balchin...
(1949) — and preferred to be addressed as "Major Bushell", the rank he held during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. He had also worked as Laurence Olivier
Laurence Olivier
Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier, OM was an English actor, director, and producer. He was one of the most famous and revered actors of the 20th century. He married three times, to fellow actors Jill Esmond, Vivien Leigh, and Joan Plowright...
's manager and as a television producer
Television producer
The primary role of a television Producer is to allow all aspects of video production, ranging from show idea development and cast hiring to shoot supervision and fact-checking...
. Before Quatermass and the Pit he had most recently been seen as Arthur Rostron
Arthur Rostron
Sir Arthur Henry Rostron, KBE, RD, RNR was a Captain for the Cunard Line and was the master of the ocean liner RMS Carpathia when it rescued the survivors of the RMS Titanic which sank on 15 April 1912 after striking an iceberg.Captain Rostron won wide praise for his energetic efforts to reach the...
in the film version of A Night to Remember (1958).
Roney was played by Canadian actor Cec Linder
Cec Linder
Cec Linder was a Polish-born Canadian film and television actor. In the 1950s and 1960s he worked extensively in the United Kingdom, often playing American characters in various films and television programmes.In film, he is probably best remembered for his role as James Bond's CIA counterpart...
. Linder had appeared in various American television series, such as Studio One
Studio One (TV series)
Studio One is a long-running American radio–television anthology series, created in 1947 by the 26-year-old Canadian director Fletcher Markle, who came to CBS from the CBC.-Radio:...
, and later appeared in Lolita
Lolita (1962 film)
Lolita is a 1962 comedy-drama film by Stanley Kubrick based on the classic novel of the same title by Vladimir Nabokov. The film stars James Mason as Humbert Humbert, Sue Lyon as Dolores Haze and Shelley Winters as Charlotte Haze with Peter Sellers as Clare Quilty.Due to the MPAA's restrictions at...
(1962) and the James Bond
James Bond
James Bond, code name 007, is a fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short story collections. There have been a six other authors who wrote authorised Bond novels or novelizations after Fleming's death in 1964: Kingsley Amis,...
film Goldfinger
Goldfinger (film)
Goldfinger is the third spy film in the James Bond series and the third to star Sean Connery as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. Released in 1964, it is based on the novel of the same name by Ian Fleming. The film also stars Honor Blackman as Bond girl Pussy Galore and Gert Fröbe as the title...
(1964). John Stratton played Captain Potter; later he become a regular guest actor in a number of British television series. Christine Finn
Christine Finn
Christine Finn was a British actress, known primarily for her work for the Thunderbirds television series of the 1960s, and the 1958–59 television serial Quatermass and the Pit...
played the other main character, Barbara Judd; she later voiced various characters in the popular 1960s children's television series Thunderbirds
Thunderbirds (TV series)
Thunderbirds is a British mid-1960s science fiction television show devised by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson and made by AP Films using a form of marionette puppetry dubbed "Supermarionation"...
.
For the first time, Kneale used a character from a previous serial other than Quatermass himself. He brought back the journalist James Fullalove from The Quatermass Experiment
The Quatermass Experiment
The Quatermass Experiment is a British science-fiction serial broadcast by BBC Television in the summer of 1953 and re-staged by BBC Four in 2005. Set in the near future against the background of a British space programme, it tells the story of the first manned flight into space, overseen by...
, and the production team had hoped that actor Paul Whitsun-Jones
Paul Whitsun-Jones
Paul Whitsun-Jones was a Welsh actor.He was educated at Merchant Taylors' School, Northwood, Middlesex.-Career:Whitsun-Jones played the role of Mr Bumble in the original West End production of the musical Oliver!...
would be able to reprise the part. Whitsun-Jones was unavailable to appear, so Brian Worth
Brian Worth (actor)
- Selected filmography :- External links :...
was cast instead. Appearing as an army sergeant was Michael Ripper
Michael Ripper
Michael Ripper was an English character actor born in Portsmouth.He began his film career in quota quickies in the 1930s and until the late 1950s was virtually unknown; he was seldom credited. He played one of the two murderers in Richard III. Ripper became a mainstay in Hammer Film Productions...
; Ripper had been in Hammer Film Productions
Hammer Film Productions
Hammer Film Productions is a film production company based in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1934, the company is best known for a series of Gothic "Hammer Horror" films made from the mid-1950s until the 1970s. Hammer also produced science fiction, thrillers, film noir and comedies and in later...
' adaptation of the second Quatermass serial, Quatermass 2
Quatermass 2
Quatermass 2 is a 1957 British science fiction horror film. Made by Hammer Film Productions, it is a sequel to an earlier Hammer film The Quatermass Xperiment. Like its predecessor, it is based on a BBC Television serial – Quatermass II – written by Nigel Kneale...
, the previous year. He had the distinction of appearing in more Hammer films than any other actor.
Nigel Kneale continued his successful career writing for film and television after Quatermass and the Pit. He wrote feature film
Feature film
In the film industry, a feature film is a film production made for initial distribution in theaters and being the main attraction of the screening, rather than a short film screened before it; a full length movie...
screenplays for The Entertainer
The Entertainer (film)
The Entertainer is a 1960 film adaptation of the stage play of the same name by John Osborne, which told the story of a failing third-rate music hall stage performer who tried to keep his career going even as his personal life fell apart....
(1960), H.M.S. Defiant (1962) and The First Men in the Moon (1964). He returned to the Quatermass character for a final time with Quatermass
Quatermass (TV serial)
Quatermass is a British television science fiction serial produced by Euston Films for Thames Television and broadcast on the ITV network in October and November 1979. Like its three predecessors, Quatermass was written by Nigel Kneale...
(1979), a serial for the ITV
ITV
ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...
network. He continued writing for television until the 1990s, and Quatermass and the Pit was often cited as the most successful work of his long career.
Quatermass and the Pit was the last original production upon which Kneale collaborated with Rudolph Cartier, although Cartier did direct a new version of Kneale's 1953 adaptation of Wuthering Heights for the BBC in 1962. Other later successes for Cartier were Anna Karenina
Anna Karenina
Anna Karenina is a novel by the Russian writer Leo Tolstoy, published in serial installments from 1873 to 1877 in the periodical The Russian Messenger...
(1961) and Lee Oswald: Assassin (1966).
Reception and influence
According to the BBC's research figures, Quatermass and the Pit gained an audience of 7.6 million people for its opening episode, jumping to 9.1 million for the second and increasing sequentially each week, with the exception of episode four, until it concluded with a viewing figure of 11 million for episode six, just under 30% of the potential audience. The overall average figure for the serial was 9.75 million; this was the best figure the BBC had obtained since the programme Opportunity Murder in 1956, the corporation not having managed to beat the rival ITVITV
ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...
network in the ratings since the other channel had launched in 1955. However, the trade paper Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
reported that according to the Nielsen Company's ratings data, the final episode of Quatermass and the Pit had lost out to the quiz show
Quiz Show
Quiz Show is a 1994 American historical drama film produced and directed by Robert Redford. Adapted by Paul Attanasio from Richard Goodwin's memoir Remembering America, the film is based upon the Twenty One quiz show scandal of the 1950s...
Keep it in the Family on ITV, being viewed in 2,560,000 households as opposed to 2,996,000 for the commercial channel's programme, and failing to feature in the week's top ten shows. The same paper did also state that on the night of episode six's broadcast, British cinemas reported their worst evening's takings in "a long, long time."
The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
newspaper reported the day after the final episode that members of Hereford City Council had "rejected last night a proposal that they should suspend standing orders to adjourn so that members could watch the final instalment of Quatermass and the Pit, the BBC television serial." BBC radio and television journalist John Humphrys
John Humphrys
Desmond John Humphrys , is a Welsh-born British author, journalist and presenter of radio and television, who has won many national broadcasting awards...
recalled being frightened by the serial as a child in a feature on television memories published by The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
in 2006. Recalling the frightening qualities of the Quatermass serials in 1981, journalist Geoffrey Wansell wrote that "when the third series, Quatermass and the Pit was shown, three of my school friends insisted on leaving the room whenever it started."
The Timess 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," the anonymous reviewer went on to state how much he had enjoyed the episode.
This expository episode was an excellent example of Mr. Kneale's ability to hold an audience with promises alone; smooth, leisurely, and without any sensational incident, it was imbued in Mr. Rudolph Cartier's production with unearthly echoes of horrors to come. Sharing them for the next six weeks with Mr. Andre Morell and Mr. Cec Linder is an unnerving prospect.
Criticism of the serial was also expressed. Although Kneale would go on to use the Martian "Wild Hunt" as a deliberate allegory for the recent Notting Hill race riots, some Black British
Black British
Black British is a term used to describe British people of Black African descent, especially those of Afro-Caribbean background. The term has been used from the 1950s to refer to Black people from former British colonies in the West Indies and Africa, who are residents of the United Kingdom and...
leaders were upset with the depiction of racial tensions in the first episode. "Leaders of coloured minorities here to-day criticized the BBC for allowing a report that 'race riots are continuing in Birmingham
Birmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...
,' to be included in a fictional news bulletin during the first installment of the new Quatermass television play last night," reported The Timess Birmingham correspondent. The report quoted Dr. W. C. Pilgrim of the city's West Indian
Caribbean
The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...
community as saying, "I do not agree with this sort of thing, fiction or not. No trouble of this kind has happened in Birmingham, where our problems do not find expression in violence." The BBC replied to the criticisms with the assurance that:
This was a completely imaginary news bulletin in a fictional programme set in the indeterminate future that contained such items as a rocket landing on the moon. It was all Jules VerneJules VerneJules Gabriel Verne was a French author who pioneered the science fiction genre. He is best known for his novels Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea , A Journey to the Center of the Earth , and Around the World in Eighty Days...
sort of stuff. No slur on Birmingham was implied and no reference to past events nor prophecy of the future was intended.
These themes and subtexts were highlighted by the British Film Institute
British Film Institute
The British Film Institute is a charitable organisation established by Royal Charter to:-Cinemas:The BFI runs the BFI Southbank and IMAX theatre, both located on the south bank of the River Thames in London...
'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." The theme of military takeover of peaceful scientific research was also praised and compared to the contemporary outlook by Patrick Stoddart, writing for The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times (UK)
The Sunday Times is a Sunday broadsheet newspaper, distributed in the United Kingdom. The Sunday Times is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News International, which is in turn owned by News Corporation. Times Newspapers also owns The Times, but the two papers were founded...
in 1988.
Last week I watched a BBC drama in which a scientist fought against smirking government ministers and power-crazed army officers to stop his peaceful rocket research group being turned into a Star WarsStrategic Defense InitiativeThe Strategic Defense Initiative was proposed by U.S. President Ronald Reagan on March 23, 1983 to use ground and space-based systems to protect the United States from attack by strategic nuclear ballistic missiles. The initiative focused on strategic defense rather than the prior strategic...
vehicle to put missiles on the moon. They won. If you are wondering how you missed the ritual complaints which now follow every programme like this from offstage right, it is because the play was Quatermass and the Pit, which the BBC has just released on video. It was made in 1957, when the MacmillanHarold MacmillanMaurice Harold Macmillan, 1st Earl of Stockton, OM, PC was Conservative Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 10 January 1957 to 18 October 1963....
government presumably believed that defence policy was a reasonable thing for the BBC to debate, even in drama. You seriously wonder how much internal angst would be generated if the BBC was offered the same plot now.
The serial has also been an influence on other television science-fiction productions. Mark Gatiss
Mark Gatiss
Mark Gatiss is an English actor, screenwriter and novelist. He is best known as a member of the comedy team The League of Gentlemen, and has both written for and acted in the TV series Doctor Who and Sherlock....
wrote in The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
in 2006 that "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." Gatiss was a scriptwriter for Doctor Who
Doctor Who
Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor who explores the universe in a sentient time machine called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, whose exterior...
, a programme that had been particularly strongly influenced by the Quatermass serials throughout its history. Derrick Sherwin
Derrick Sherwin
Derrick Sherwin is a British television producer, writer, and actor. He is best known as the story editor and later producer of Doctor Who...
, the producer
Television producer
The primary role of a television Producer is to allow all aspects of video production, ranging from show idea development and cast hiring to shoot supervision and fact-checking...
of Doctor Who in 1969, acknowledged Quatermass and the Pit as an influence on changing the format of the programme.
What the producers had been trying to do—and what ultimately they achieved in Quatermass and the Pit—was to get some reality into it. So I said that this was the solution: that what we had to do with Doctor Who was to forget wobbly jellies in outer space and create some reason for bringing the stories down to Earth.
More specifically, the 1971 & 1977 Doctor Who serials The Dæmons
The Dæmons
The Dæmons is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in five weekly parts from May 22 to June 19, 1971.-Plot:...
and Image of the Fendahl
Image of the Fendahl
Image of the Fendahl is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four weekly parts from 29 October to 19 November 1977.-Plot:...
contain many very similar elements and themes to Quatermass and the Pit. Comparing The Pit to The Daemons, many people have noted the similarities between this story's plot and that of the 1958 BBC serial and 1967 Hammer film. Both involve 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 places with "devilish" names - Devil's End in The Daemons, and Hob's Lane in Pit. Similar themes also appear in Image of the Fendahl which deals with beings, the Fendahl of the title, that after the destruction of their homeworld came to Earth and influenced the evolution of humans to possess psychic powers. When its "skull", marked with a pentagram, is discovered in an archaeological dig, it proceeds to take over the descendants of the engineered humans in an effort to colonise the Earth.
The writer and critic Kim Newman
Kim Newman
Kim Newman is an English journalist, film critic, and fiction writer. Recurring interests visible in his work include film history and horror fiction—both of which he attributes to seeing Tod Browning's Dracula at the age of eleven—and alternate fictional versions of history...
, speaking about Kneale's career in a 2003 television documentary
Television documentary
Documentary television is a genre of television programming that broadcasts documentaries.* Documentary television series, a television series which is made up of documentary episodes....
, cited Quatermass and the Pit as perfecting "the notion of the science-fictional detective story". Newman also discussed the programme as an influence on the horror fiction
Horror fiction
Horror fiction also Horror fantasy is a philosophy of literature, which is intended to, or has the capacity to frighten its readers, inducing feelings of horror and terror. It creates an eerie atmosphere. Horror can be either supernatural or non-supernatural...
writer Stephen King
Stephen King
Stephen Edwin King is an American author of contemporary horror, suspense, science fiction and fantasy fiction. His books have sold more than 350 million copies and have been adapted into a number of feature films, television movies and comic books...
, claiming that King had "more or less rewritten Quatermass and the Pit in The Tommyknockers
The Tommyknockers
The Tommyknockers is a 1987 horror novel by Stephen King. While maintaining a horror style, the novel is more of an excursion into the realm of science fiction for King, as the residents of the Maine town of Haven gradually fall under the influence of a mysterious object buried in the woods.In his...
".
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 ProductionsHammer Film Productions
Hammer Film Productions is a film production company based in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1934, the company is best known for a series of Gothic "Hammer Horror" films made from the mid-1950s until the 1970s. Hammer also produced science fiction, thrillers, film noir and comedies and in later...
. Their adaptation of the serial
Quatermass and the Pit (film)
Quatermass and the Pit is a 1967 British science fiction horror film. Made by 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 – Quatermass and the Pit – written by Nigel Kneale...
was released with the same title as the original in 1967, directed by Roy Ward Baker
Roy Ward Baker
Roy Ward Baker , born Roy Horace Baker, was an English film director, credited as Roy Baker for much of his career. His best known film is A Night to Remember which won a Golden Globe for Best English-Language Foreign Film in 1959...
and scripted by Kneale. Scottish actor Andrew Keir
Andrew Keir
Andrew Keir was a Scottish actor, who rose to prominence featuring in a number of films from Hammer Film Productions in the 1960s. He was also active in television, and particularly in the theatre, in a professional career that lasted from the 1940s to the 1990s...
starred as Quatermass, becoming the role for which he was best remembered, being regarded particularly highly in comparison to the previous film Quatermass, Brian Donlevy
Brian Donlevy
Brian Donlevy was an Irish-born American film actor, noted for playing tough guys from the 1930s to the 1960s. He usually appeared in supporting roles. Among his best known films are Beau Geste and The Great McGinty...
. The film, made in colour, is regarded by many commentators as a classic of the genre. The film is currently available in DVD format. In the United States the film was retitled Five Million Years to Earth.
A script book of Quatermass and the Pit was released by Penguin Books
Penguin Books
Penguin Books is a publisher founded in 1935 by Sir Allen Lane and V.K. Krishna Menon. Penguin revolutionised publishing in the 1930s through its high quality, inexpensive paperbacks, sold through Woolworths and other high street stores for sixpence. Penguin's success demonstrated that large...
in April 1960, with a cover by Kneale's artist brother Bryan Kneale
Bryan Kneale
Bryan Kneale RA is a Manx artist and sculptor, described by BBC News Online as "one of the Isle of Man's best known artists."-Biography:...
. In 1979 this was re-published by Arrow Books to coincide with the transmission of the fourth and final Quatermass serial on ITV; this edition featured a new introduction by Kneale. The theatrical company Creation Productions staged a live adaptation of Quatermass and the Pit in a quarry near Nottingham
Nottingham
Nottingham is a city and unitary authority in the East Midlands of England. It is located in the ceremonial county of Nottinghamshire and represents one of eight members of the English Core Cities Group...
in August 1997.
The BBC made Quatermass and the Pit available to buy on VHS
VHS
The Video Home System is a consumer-level analog recording videocassette standard developed by Victor Company of Japan ....
videotape in the 1980s, edited into a two-part compilation format. This version was re-released on VHS by budget label Paradox Video in 1995, and later put out again, this time by Revelation Films, on DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
. The full, unedited, episodic version of the serial was released on DVD by BBC Worldwide
BBC Worldwide
BBC Worldwide Limited is the wholly owned commercial subsidiary of the British Broadcasting Corporation, formed out of a restructuring of its predecessor BBC Enterprises in 1995. In the year to 31 March 2010 it made a profit of £145m on a turnover of £1.074bn. The company had made a profit of £106m...
in 2005, as part of The Quatermass Collection box set. Also included were the existing first two episodes of The Quatermass Experiment, all of Quatermass II and various extra features.
For the box set release, Quatermass and the Pit was extensively restored. A process called VidFIRE
VidFIRE
VidFIRE is a restoration technique intended to restore the video-like motion of footage originally shot with television cameras now existing only in formats with telerecording as their basis...
was applied to all of 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. For the pre-filmed scenes, most of the high-quality original 35 mm film inserts still existed, as they had been spliced
Film splicer
A film splicer is a device which can be used to physically join together lengths of photographic film. It is mostly used in motion pictures...
into the 1959–60 compilation repeat version in place of the lower-quality telerecorded versions of the same sequences. As this compilation also survived in the BBC archives, these film sequences were able to be digitally remastered
Remaster
Remaster is a word marketed mostly in the digital audio age, although the remastering process has existed since recording began...
and inserted into the newly-restored episodic version for the DVD release.
Parodies
A 1959 episode of The Goon ShowThe Goon Show
The Goon Show was a British radio comedy programme, originally produced and broadcast by the BBC Home Service from 1951 to 1960, with occasional repeats on the BBC Light Programme...
, a BBC radio
BBC Radio
BBC Radio is a service of the British Broadcasting Corporation which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a Royal Charter since 1927. For a history of BBC radio prior to 1927 see British Broadcasting Company...
comedy series, parodied Quatermass and the Pit extensively. The episode, The Scarlet Capsule, was written by Spike Milligan
Spike Milligan
Terence Alan Patrick Seán "Spike" Milligan Hon. KBE was a comedian, writer, musician, poet, playwright, soldier and actor. His early life was spent in India, where he was born, but the majority of his working life was spent in the United Kingdom. He became an Irish citizen in 1962 after the...
, and used the original BBC Radiophonic Workshop sound effects made for the television serial. In the episode, some workmen employed by the government's Dig Up the Roads Plan for Congesting Traffic Scheme unearth an ancient skull ("Must be a woman ... the mouth's open."). Professor Ned Quartermess, a.k.a. Neddie Seagoon (Harry Secombe
Harry Secombe
Sir Harry Donald Secombe CBE was a Welsh entertainer with a talent for comedy and a noted fine tenor singing voice. He is best known for playing Neddie Seagoon, the central character in the BBC radio comedy series The Goon Show...
), sceptical of claims that the remains might be unexploded German skulls from World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, discovers a fossilized Irish stew
Irish stew
Irish stew is a traditional stew made from lamb, or mutton, as well as potatoes, carrots, onions, and parsley....
, and then uncovers a strange scarlet capsule containing the fossilized remains of three serge
Serge
Serge is a type of twill fabric that has diagonal lines or ridges on both sides, made with a two-up, two-down weave. The worsted variety is used in making military uniforms, suits, great coats and trench coats. Its counterpart, silk serge, is used for linings. French serge is a softer, finer variety...
suits and the bones of a bowler hat
Bowler hat
The bowler hat, also known as a coke hat, derby , billycock or bombin, is a hard felt hat with a rounded crown originally created in 1849 for the English soldier and politician Edward Coke, the younger brother of the 2nd Earl of Leicester...
. Willium "Mate" Cobblers hears a voice saying "Minardor". Several people are struck down by flying Irish stews, and Quartermess becomes convinced there is a poltergeist
Poltergeist
A poltergeist is a paranormal phenomenon which consists of events alluding to the manifestation of an imperceptible entity. Such manifestation typically includes inanimate objects moving or being thrown about, sentient noises and, on some occasions, physical attacks on those witnessing the...
at work, and starts evacuating the local population—including Peter Sellers
Peter Sellers
Richard Henry Sellers, CBE , known as Peter Sellers, was a British comedian and actor. Perhaps best known as Chief Inspector Clouseau in The Pink Panther film series, he is also notable for playing three different characters in Dr...
as a woman whose seductive voice causes the script to be heavily censored. Eventually the scheming Hercules Grytpype-Thynne (Sellers) persuades Quartermess to blow up the capsule—with his sidekick Count Jim Moriarty (Milligan), whose life he has coincidentally insured for a large sum, tied up inside. But the blast blows everyone up—at least until the next episode—and a BBC announcer (Andrew Timothy
Andrew Timothy
Andrew Timothy was an Anglican priest and BBC Radio announcer, who is best remembered for being the original announcer of the comedy series The Goon Show. Timothy announced for the BBC Home Service from 1947 to 1959. Later he became one of the first BBC television newsreaders from July to...
) reports that the capsule was actually a London Underground
London Underground
The London Underground is a rapid transit system serving a large part of Greater London and some parts of Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and Essex in England...
train containing three striking Tube workers that had been shunted into a siding and forgotten. "The Mystic word 'Minardor' was in fact 'Mind the doors'. Not a very good ending, but at least it's tidy, don't you think?" He is then struck down by an Irish stew.
The serial was also parodied by the BBC television comedy series Hancock's Half Hour
Hancock's Half Hour
Hancock's Half Hour was a BBC radio comedy, and later television comedy, series of the 1950s and 60s written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson. The series starred Tony Hancock, with Sid James; the radio version also co-starred, at various times, Moira Lister, Andrée Melly, Hattie Jacques, Bill Kerr...
, in an episode entitled "The Horror Serial", transmitted the week following the final episode. In it, Tony Hancock
Tony Hancock
Anthony John "Tony" Hancock was an English actor and comedian.-Early life and career:Hancock was born in Southam Road, Hall Green, Birmingham, England, but from the age of three was brought up in Bournemouth, where his father, John Hancock, who ran the Railway Hotel in...
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. This episode no longer exists in the BBC's archives but a private collector's audio-only recording has been discovered.
External links
- Quatermass and the Pit at the Internet Movie DatabaseInternet Movie DatabaseInternet Movie Database is an online database of information related to movies, television shows, actors, production crew personnel, video games and fictional characters featured in visual entertainment media. It is one of the most popular online entertainment destinations, with over 100 million...
- BBC site — I Love Quatermass
- Quatermass.org.uk - Nigel Kneale & Quatermass Appreciation Site
- The Quatermass Trilogy - A Controlled Paranoia