The Quatermass Experiment
Encyclopedia
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 Professor Bernard Quatermass
of the British Experimental Rocket Group. When the spaceship that carried the first successful crew returns to Earth, two of the three astronaut
s are missing, and the third is behaving strangely. It becomes clear that an alien
presence entered the ship during its flight, and Quatermass and his associates must prevent the alien from destroying the world.
Originally comprising six half-hour episodes, it was the first science-fiction production to be written especially for an adult television audience. Previous written-for-television efforts such as Stranger from Space (1951–52) were aimed at children, whereas adult entries into the genre were adapted from literary sources, such as R.U.R.
(1938 and again in 1948) and The Time Machine
(1949). The serial was the first of four Quatermass
productions to be screened on British television between 1953 and 1979.
As well as spawning various remakes and sequels, The Quatermass Experiment inspired much of the television science fiction that followed it, particularly in the United Kingdom, where it influenced successful series such as Doctor Who
and Sapphire and Steel. It also influenced Hollywood blockbusters such as 2001: A Space Odyssey
and Alien
.
television drama writer Nigel Kneale
, who had been an actor and an award-winning fiction writer before joining the BBC. The BBC's Head of Television Drama, Michael Barry, had committed most of his original script budget for the year to employing Kneale. An interest in science, particularly the idea of 'science going bad', led Kneale to write The Quatermass Experiment. The project originated when a gap formed in the BBC's schedules for a six-week serial to run on Saturday nights over the summer of 1953, and Kneale's idea was to fill it with "a mystifying, rather than horrific" storyline.
Rudolph Cartier
, one of the BBC's most highly regarded directors, directed the serial. He and Kneale had collaborated on the play Arrow to the Heart
, and worked closely on the initial storyline to make it suit the television production methods of the time. Kneale claimed to have picked his leading character's unusual last name at random from a London
telephone directory
. He chose the character's first name, Bernard, in honour of astronomer Bernard Lovell
. The working titles for the production were The Unbegotten and Bring Something Back...!, the latter a line of dialogue in the second episode. Kneale had not finished scripting the final two episodes of the serial before the first episode was transmitted. The production had an overall budget of £4000. The theme music used was "Mars, Bringer of War" from Gustav Holst
's The Planets
.
Each episode was rehearsed
from Monday to Friday at the Student Movement House on Gower Street
in London, with camera rehearsals taking place all day on Saturday before transmission. The episodes were then transmitted live
—with a few pre-filmed 35mm film inserts shot before and during the rehearsal period—from Studio A of the BBC's original television studios at Alexandra Palace
in London. It was one of the last major dramas to be broadcast from the Palace, as the majority of television production was soon to transfer to Lime Grove Studios
, and it was made using the BBC's oldest television cameras, the Emitrons, installed with the opening of the Alexandra Palace studios in 1936. These cameras gave a poor-quality picture, with areas of black and white shading across portions of the image.
The Quatermass Experiment was transmitted weekly on Saturday night from 18 July to 22 August 1953. Episode one ("Contact Has Been Established") was scheduled from 8.15 to 8.45 p.m.; episode two ("Persons Reported Missing"), 8.25–8.55 p.m.; episodes three and four ("Very Special Knowledge" and "Believed to be Suffering"), 8.45–9.15 p.m.; and the final two episodes ("An Unidentified Species" and "State of Emergency") from 9.00 to 9.30 p.m. Due to the live performances, each episode overran its slot slightly, from two minutes (episode four) to six (episode six). The long overrun of the final episode was caused by a temporary break in transmission to replace a failing microphone. Kneale later claimed that the BBC's transmission controllers had threatened to take them off the air during one significant overrun, to which Cartier replied, "Just let them try!" Some BBC documentation suggests that at least one transmitter region did cut short the broadcast of the final episode.
The BBC intended that each episode be telerecorded onto 35mm film, a relatively new process that allowed for the preservation of live television broadcasts. Sale of the serial had been provisionally agreed with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
, and Cartier wanted the material available to use in trailers
and recap
s. Only poor-quality copies of the first two episodes were recorded before the idea was abandoned, although the first of these was later shown in Canada. During the telerecording of the second episode, an insect landed on the screen being filmed, and can be seen on the image for several minutes. It is highly unlikely that material from the third to sixth episodes of the serial will ever be recovered to the BBC's archives. The two existing episodes are the oldest surviving examples of a multi-episodic British drama production, and some of the earliest existing examples of British television drama at all, with only a few earlier one-off plays surviving.
In November 1953, it was suggested that the existing two episodes could be combined and followed with a condensed live production of the latter part of the story for a special Christmas omnibus
repeat of the serial. This idea was abandoned. Although Cartier and star Reginald Tate
were keen to make an all-film omnibus version for television, this also did not come to fruition. In 1963, one of the existing episodes was selected as a representative of early British programming for the Festival of World Television held at the National Film Theatre in London.
The story revolves around Professor Bernard Quatermass
, head of the British Experimental Rocket Group. It begins with Quatermass anxiously awaiting the return to Earth of his new rocket ship and its crew, who have become the first humans to travel into space. The rocket is at first thought to be lost, having dramatically overshot its planned orbit, but eventually it is picked up on radar
and returns to Earth, crash-landing in Wimbledon, London
.
When Quatermass and his team reach the crash area and succeed in opening the rocket, they discover that only one of the three crewmen, Victor Carroon, remains inside. Quatermass and his chief assistant Paterson (Hugh Kelly) investigate the interior of the rocket, and are baffled by what they find: the space suits of the others are present, and the instruments on board indicate that the door was never opened in flight, but there is no sign of the other two crewmen.
Carroon, gravely ill, is cared for by the Rocket Group's doctor, Briscoe (John Glen), who has been having a secret affair with Carroon's wife, Judith (Isabel Dean
). It is not just Quatermass who is interested in what happened to Carroon and his crewmates; journalists such as James Fullalove (Paul Whitsun-Jones
) and Scotland Yard
's Inspector Lomax (Ian Colin) are also keen to hear his story. Carroon is abducted by a group of foreign agents whose government wants the information they believe he has obtained about travelling in space. It is clear that there is something very wrong: he appears to have absorbed the consciousness of the other two crew members, and is slowly mutating into a plant-like alien organism
.
As the police chase the rapidly transforming Carroon across London, Quatermass analyses samples of the mutated creature in a laboratory, and realises that it has the ability to end all life on Earth if it spore
s. A television crew working on an architectural programme locates the monster in Westminster Abbey
, and Quatermass and troops from the British Army
rush in to destroy it in the hour before it brings about doomsday. Quatermass convinces the consciousness of the three crewmen buried deep inside the creature to turn against it and destroy it; this appeal to the last remains of their humanity succeeds in defeating the organism.
went on to become one of the most highly regarded screenwriter
s in the history of British television. In addition to the various Quatermass spin-offs and sequels, he wrote acclaimed productions such as Nineteen Eighty-Four
(1954) and The Stone Tape
(1972). A tribute article by writer and admirer Mark Gatiss
, published on the BBC News Online
website shortly after Kneale's death in 2006, praised his contribution to British television history. "He is amongst the greats—he is absolutely as important as Dennis Potter
, as David Mercer, as Alan Bleasdale
, as Alan Bennett
."
Kneale's actions were represented on screen in the final episode of The Quatermass Experiment. He manipulated the monster seen in Westminster Abbey at the climax, with his hands stuck through a photographic blow-up of the interior of the Abbey. The monster actually consisted of gloves covered in various plant and other materials, prepared by Kneale and his girlfriend (and future wife) Judith Kerr
. The couple kept the gloves as a memento, and still owned them fifty years later, when Kneale wore them again in a television documentary about his career.
Rudolph Cartier
had emigrated from Germany in the 1930s to escape its Nazi
regime, and joined the staff of the BBC the year before The Quatermass Experiment was made. He collaborated with Kneale on several further productions, and became a major figure in the British television industry. He directed important productions such as Kneale's Nineteen Eighty-Four adaptation, the two further BBC Quatermass serials, and one-off plays such as Cross of Iron (1961) and Lee Oswald: Assassin (1966). His 1994 obituary in The Times
praised his contribution to 1950s television drama: "At a time when studio productions were usually as static as the conventional theatre, he was widely respected for a creative contribution to British television drama which gave it a new dimension." The same piece also highlighted The Quatermass Experiment as a high point in his career, calling the serial "a landmark in British television drama as much for its visual imagination as for its ability to shock and disturb."
Quatermass was played by the experienced Reginald Tate
, who had appeared in various films, including The Way Ahead
(1944). He died two years later, while preparing to take the role of the Professor again in Quatermass II
. Tate was the second choice for the part; Cartier had previously offered it to André Morell
, who declined the role. (Morell did later play Quatermass in the third instalment of the series, Quatermass and the Pit
.) Victor Carroon was played by Scottish actor Duncan Lamont
, who later appeared in the film Mutiny on the Bounty
(1962), and as a different character in the film adaptation of Quatermass and the Pit
(1967). He enjoyed working on The Quatermass Experiment so much that, although he was not required for the final episode, he went to Alexandra Palace to lend moral support. While there, he helped Kneale and Kerr to prepare their 'monster' prop.
Appearing in a small role as a drunk was Wilfrid Brambell
, who later appeared as a tramp
in Quatermass II
. Brambell, who also appeared in Cartier and Kneale's production of Nineteen Eighty-Four, later became widely known for his roles in the sitcom Steptoe and Son
(1962–74) and the film A Hard Day's Night
(1964). The 74-year-old actress Katie Johnson
played a supporting part; she later became well known and won a British Film Award
for her role as the landlady Mrs. Louisa Wilberforce in the film The Ladykillers
(1955).
estimated that one year before The Quatermass Experiment was broadcast, in August 1952, the total television audience consisted of about 4 million people. In March of that year, the BBC estimated that an average of 2.25 million people watched BBC programmes each evening.
In 1954 Cecil McGivern
, the Controller of Programmes at BBC Television, referred to the success of the serial in a memo discussing the impending launch of a new commercial television channel, ending the BBC's monopoly
. "Had competitive television been in existence then, we would have killed it every Saturday night while [The Quatermass Experiment] lasted. We are going to need many more 'Quatermass Experiment' programmes." Following Kneale's death in 2006, film historian Robert Simpson said that the serial had been "event television, emptying the streets and pubs for the six weeks of its duration." When the digital television
channel BBC Four
remade the serial in 2005, the channel's controller, Janice Hadlow
, described the original as "one the first 'must-watch' TV experiences that inspired the water cooler chat of its day".
Viewers' responses were positive. Letters praising the production were sent to the BBC's listings magazine, the Radio Times
, while the writer and producer were also applauded by readers of TV News magazine, which nominated them for one of the publication's "TV Bouquet" awards. Looking back at The Quatermass Experiment in a 1981 article for The Times, journalist Geoffrey Wansell highlighted the finale:
Subsequent audience research showed that technical problems interrupting the final episode's broadcast had a negative impact on audiences' views of the serial; the audience felt that the climax had been spoiled.
Despite such problems — and the existence of only the first two episodes in the archives — The Quatermass Experiment continued to earn critical praise in the decades following its transmission. The British Film Institute
's "Screenonline
" website describes the serial as "one of the most influential series of the 1950s", adding that "with its originality, mass appeal and dynamism, The Quatermass Experiment became a landmark of science fiction and the cornerstone of the genre on British television." The website of the Museum of Broadcast Communications
praises the serial's underlying themes as its most effective feature. "The Quatermass Experiments depiction of an Englishman's transformation into an alienated monster dramatized a new range of gendered fears about Britain's postwar and post-colonial security. As a result, or perhaps simply because of Kneale and Cartier's effective combination of science fiction and poignant melodrama, audiences were captivated." The website also points to the programme's influence on the British science-fiction television productions that followed, claiming that "with [The Quatermass Experiment] began a British tradition of science fiction television which runs in various forms from Quatermass to A for Andromeda
to Blake's 7
, and from Doctor Who
to Red Dwarf
."
Kneale disliked Doctor Who — the most successful of the British science-fiction programmes — saying that it had stolen his ideas. An article for The Daily Telegraph
in 2005 described Doctor Who as the "spiritual successor" to the Quatermass serials, and Mark Gatiss
, a scriptwriter on Doctor Who, wrote of his admiration of Kneale in an article for The Guardian
in 2006. "Kneale wrote that [1953] was 'an over-confident year' and he piloted his hugely influential tale like a rocket into the drab schedules of Austerity Britain… What sci-fi piece of the past 50 years doesn't owe Kneale a huge debt?"
In 2007, Gatiss appeared as the character Professor Lazarus in the Doctor Who episode "The Lazarus Experiment
". The Radio Times noted in its preview of the episode that "Tonight's story is an enjoyable synthesis of She
, The Fly
and The Quatermass Experiment—even down to the final battle in a London cathedral."
industry, and Hammer Film Productions
quickly purchased the rights to make an adaptation. It was released in 1955, and starred the American actor Brian Donlevy
, with Val Guest
directing and co-writing the screenplay. Nigel Kneale was unhappy with the result, and was especially displeased with the casting of Donlevy as Quatermass. He stated in an interview, "[Donlevy] was then really on the skids and didn't care what he was doing. He took very little interest in the making of the films or in playing the part. It was a case of take the money and run. Or in the case of Mr Donlevy, waddle." The film was titled The Quatermass Xperiment
to emphasise its X-certificate status. In America the film was renamed The Creeping Unknown after the title Shock! was considered for that territory, and an alternative opening title sequence with that name was prepared.
The BBC were also pleased with the success of The Quatermass Experiment and in 1955 a sequel, Quatermass II
, was broadcast, with John Robinson
in the title role following Tate's death. This was followed in 1958 by Quatermass and the Pit
, and both serials also had feature film versions made by Hammer. The character returned to television in a 1979 serial, simply titled Quatermass
, for Thames Television
.
A script book of The Quatermass Experiment, containing several production stills from the missing episodes, was published by Penguin Books
in 1959. To coincide with the broadcast of the Thames serial, it was republished in 1979 with a new introduction by Kneale.
In April 2005, BBC Worldwide
released a box set of all their Quatermass material on DVD
, containing digitally restored versions of the two existing episodes of The Quatermass Experiment, the two subsequent BBC serials, and various extra material—including PDF
files of photocopies of the original scripts for episodes three to six. However, the quality of these photocopies is in some cases quite poor.
On 2 April 2005, the digital television
channel BBC Four
broadcast a live remake of the serial, abridged to a single special, also entitled The Quatermass Experiment
.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
science-fiction serial
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...
broadcast 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 the summer of 1953 and re-staged by BBC Four
BBC Four
BBC Four is a British television network operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation and available to digital television viewers on Freeview, IPTV, satellite and cable....
in 2005. Set in the near future against the background of a British space programme
British space programme
The British space programme is a plan by the UK government and other interested bodies to promote British participation in the international market for satellite launches, satellite construction and other space endeavours. Significantly, however, it has never been government policy to create a...
, it tells the story of the first manned flight into space, overseen by 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. When the spaceship that carried the first successful crew returns to Earth, two of the three astronaut
Astronaut
An astronaut or cosmonaut is a person trained by a human spaceflight program to command, pilot, or serve as a crew member of a spacecraft....
s are missing, and the third is behaving strangely. It becomes clear that an alien
Extraterrestrial life
Extraterrestrial life is defined as life that does not originate from Earth...
presence entered the ship during its flight, and Quatermass and his associates must prevent the alien from destroying the world.
Originally comprising six half-hour episodes, it was the first science-fiction production to be written especially for an adult television audience. Previous written-for-television efforts such as Stranger from Space (1951–52) were aimed at children, whereas adult entries into the genre were adapted from literary sources, such as R.U.R.
R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots)
R.U.R. is a 1920 science fiction play in the Czech language by Karel Čapek. R.U.R. stands for Rossum's Universal Robots, an English phrase used as the subtitle in the Czech original. It premiered in 1921 and introduced the word "robot" to the English language and to science fiction as a whole.The...
(1938 and again in 1948) and The Time Machine
The Time Machine
The Time Machine is a science fiction novella by H. G. Wells, published in 1895 for the first time and later adapted into at least two feature films of the same name, as well as two television versions, and a large number of comic book adaptations. It indirectly inspired many more works of fiction...
(1949). The serial was the first of four Quatermass
Quatermass
Quatermass may best be known as the surname of the title character of a British science fiction franchise of several television serials and films, and a radio production...
productions to be screened on British television between 1953 and 1979.
As well as spawning various remakes and sequels, The Quatermass Experiment inspired much of the television science fiction that followed it, particularly in the United Kingdom, where it influenced successful series such as 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...
and Sapphire and Steel. It also influenced Hollywood blockbusters such as 2001: A Space Odyssey
2001: A Space Odyssey (film)
2001: A Space Odyssey is a 1968 epic science fiction film produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick, and co-written by Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke, partially inspired by Clarke's short story The Sentinel...
and Alien
Alien (film)
Alien is a 1979 science fiction horror film directed by Ridley Scott and starring Tom Skerritt, Sigourney Weaver, Veronica Cartwright, Harry Dean Stanton, John Hurt, Ian Holm and Yaphet Kotto. The film's title refers to its primary antagonist: a highly aggressive extraterrestrial creature which...
.
Production
The serial was written by BBCBBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
television drama writer 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...
, who had been an actor and an award-winning fiction writer before joining the BBC. The BBC's Head of Television Drama, Michael Barry, had committed most of his original script budget for the year to employing Kneale. An interest in science, particularly the idea of 'science going bad', led Kneale to write The Quatermass Experiment. The project originated when a gap formed in the BBC's schedules for a six-week serial to run on Saturday nights over the summer of 1953, and Kneale's idea was to fill it with "a mystifying, rather than horrific" storyline.
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...
, one of the BBC's most highly regarded directors, directed the serial. He and Kneale had collaborated on the play Arrow to the Heart
Arrow to the Heart
Arrow to the Heart is a British television drama, originally broadcast by BBC Television in 1952 and remade in 1956. It was adapted from the German novel Unruhige Nacht by Albrecht Goes, published in 1950...
, and worked closely on the initial storyline to make it suit the television production methods of the time. Kneale claimed to have picked his leading character's unusual last name at random from a 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...
telephone directory
Telephone directory
A telephone directory is a listing of telephone subscribers in a geographical area or subscribers to services provided by the organization that publishes the directory...
. He chose the character's first name, Bernard, in honour of astronomer Bernard Lovell
Bernard Lovell
Sir Alfred Charles Bernard Lovell OBE, FRS is an English physicist and radio astronomer. He was the first Director of Jodrell Bank Observatory, from 1945 to 1980.-Early Life:...
. The working titles for the production were The Unbegotten and Bring Something Back...!, the latter a line of dialogue in the second episode. Kneale had not finished scripting the final two episodes of the serial before the first episode was transmitted. The production had an overall budget of £4000. The theme music used was "Mars, Bringer of War" from Gustav Holst
Gustav Holst
Gustav Theodore Holst was an English composer. He is most famous for his orchestral suite The Planets....
's The Planets
The Planets
The Planets, Op. 32, is a seven-movement orchestral suite by the English composer Gustav Holst, written between 1914 and 1916. Each movement of the suite is named after a planet of the Solar System and its corresponding astrological character as defined by Holst...
.
Each episode was 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 Monday to Friday at the Student Movement House on Gower Street
Gower Street (London)
Gower Street is a street in Bloomsbury, Central London, England, running between Euston Road to the north and Montague Place to the south.North Gower Street is a separate street running north of the Euston Road...
in London, with camera rehearsals taking place all day on Saturday before transmission. The episodes were then transmitted 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...
—with a few pre-filmed 35mm film inserts shot before and during the rehearsal period—from Studio A of the BBC's original television studios at Alexandra Palace
Alexandra Palace
Alexandra Palace is a building in North London, England. It stands in Alexandra Park, in an area between Hornsey, Muswell Hill and Wood Green...
in London. It was one of the last major dramas to be broadcast from the Palace, as the majority of television production was soon to transfer to Lime Grove Studios
Lime Grove Studios
Lime Grove Studios was a film studio complex built by the Gaumont Film Company in 1915 situated in a street named Lime Grove, inShepherd's Bush, west London, north of Hammersmith and described by Gaumont as "the finest studio in Great Britain and the first building ever put up in this country...
, and it was made using the BBC's oldest television cameras, the Emitrons, installed with the opening of the Alexandra Palace studios in 1936. These cameras gave a poor-quality picture, with areas of black and white shading across portions of the image.
The Quatermass Experiment was transmitted weekly on Saturday night from 18 July to 22 August 1953. Episode one ("Contact Has Been Established") was scheduled from 8.15 to 8.45 p.m.; episode two ("Persons Reported Missing"), 8.25–8.55 p.m.; episodes three and four ("Very Special Knowledge" and "Believed to be Suffering"), 8.45–9.15 p.m.; and the final two episodes ("An Unidentified Species" and "State of Emergency") from 9.00 to 9.30 p.m. Due to the live performances, each episode overran its slot slightly, from two minutes (episode four) to six (episode six). The long overrun of the final episode was caused by a temporary break in transmission to replace a failing microphone. Kneale later claimed that the BBC's transmission controllers had threatened to take them off the air during one significant overrun, to which Cartier replied, "Just let them try!" Some BBC documentation suggests that at least one transmitter region did cut short the broadcast of the final episode.
The BBC intended that each episode be telerecorded onto 35mm film, a relatively new process that allowed for the preservation of live television broadcasts. Sale of the serial had been provisionally agreed with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly known as CBC and officially as CBC/Radio-Canada, is a Canadian crown corporation that serves as the national public radio and television broadcaster...
, and Cartier wanted the material available to use in trailers
Trailer (film)
A trailer or preview is an advertisement or a commercial for a feature film that will be exhibited in the future at a cinema. The term "trailer" comes from their having originally been shown at the end of a feature film screening. That practice did not last long, because patrons tended to leave the...
and recap
Summary
A summary, synopsis, or recap is a shorter version of the original. Such a simplification highlights the major points from the much longer subject, such as a text, speech, film, or event...
s. Only poor-quality copies of the first two episodes were recorded before the idea was abandoned, although the first of these was later shown in Canada. During the telerecording of the second episode, an insect landed on the screen being filmed, and can be seen on the image for several minutes. It is highly unlikely that material from the third to sixth episodes of the serial will ever be recovered to the BBC's archives. The two existing episodes are the oldest surviving examples of a multi-episodic British drama production, and some of the earliest existing examples of British television drama at all, with only a few earlier one-off plays surviving.
In November 1953, it was suggested that the existing two episodes could be combined and followed with a condensed live production of the latter part of the story for a special Christmas omnibus
Omnibus (broadcast)
An omnibus is a compilation of daily television or radio episodes that is re-broadcast during the following weekend. The term has been most frequently used in the United Kingdom, though it has also been used in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa...
repeat of the serial. This idea was abandoned. Although Cartier and star Reginald Tate
Reginald Tate
Reginald Tate was an English actor, veteran of many roles on stage, in film and on television. He is best remembered as the first actor to play the television science-fiction character Professor Bernard Quatermass, in the 1953 BBC Television serial The Quatermass Experiment.-Early life:Reginald...
were keen to make an all-film omnibus version for television, this also did not come to fruition. In 1963, one of the existing episodes was selected as a representative of early British programming for the Festival of World Television held at the National Film Theatre in London.
Plot
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...
, head of the British Experimental Rocket Group. It begins with Quatermass anxiously awaiting the return to Earth of his new rocket ship and its crew, who have become the first humans to travel into space. The rocket is at first thought to be lost, having dramatically overshot its planned orbit, but eventually it is picked up on radar
Radar
Radar is an object-detection system which uses radio waves to determine the range, altitude, direction, or speed of objects. It can be used to detect aircraft, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor vehicles, weather formations, and terrain. The radar dish or antenna transmits pulses of radio...
and returns to Earth, crash-landing in Wimbledon, London
Wimbledon, London
Wimbledon is a district in the south west area of London, England, located south of Wandsworth, and east of Kingston upon Thames. It is situated within Greater London. It is home to the Wimbledon Tennis Championships and New Wimbledon Theatre, and contains Wimbledon Common, one of the largest areas...
.
When Quatermass and his team reach the crash area and succeed in opening the rocket, they discover that only one of the three crewmen, Victor Carroon, remains inside. Quatermass and his chief assistant Paterson (Hugh Kelly) investigate the interior of the rocket, and are baffled by what they find: the space suits of the others are present, and the instruments on board indicate that the door was never opened in flight, but there is no sign of the other two crewmen.
Carroon, gravely ill, is cared for by the Rocket Group's doctor, Briscoe (John Glen), who has been having a secret affair with Carroon's wife, Judith (Isabel Dean
Isabel Dean
Isabel Dean was an English film and television actress.Born as Isabel Hodgkinson on 29 May 1918 in Aldridge, Staffordshire. She studied painting at the Birmingham Art School and from 1937 joined the Cheltenham Repertory Company as a scenic artist...
). It is not just Quatermass who is interested in what happened to Carroon and his crewmates; journalists such as James Fullalove (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!...
) and Scotland Yard
Scotland Yard
Scotland Yard is a metonym for the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police Service of London, UK. It derives from the location of the original Metropolitan Police headquarters at 4 Whitehall Place, which had a rear entrance on a street called Great Scotland Yard. The Scotland Yard entrance became...
's Inspector Lomax (Ian Colin) are also keen to hear his story. Carroon is abducted by a group of foreign agents whose government wants the information they believe he has obtained about travelling in space. It is clear that there is something very wrong: he appears to have absorbed the consciousness of the other two crew members, and is slowly mutating into a plant-like alien organism
Extraterrestrial life
Extraterrestrial life is defined as life that does not originate from Earth...
.
As the police chase the rapidly transforming Carroon across London, Quatermass analyses samples of the mutated creature in a laboratory, and realises that it has the ability to end all life on Earth if it spore
Spore
In biology, a spore is a reproductive structure that is adapted for dispersal and surviving for extended periods of time in unfavorable conditions. Spores form part of the life cycles of many bacteria, plants, algae, fungi and some protozoa. According to scientist Dr...
s. A television crew working on an architectural programme locates the monster in Westminster Abbey
Westminster Abbey
The Collegiate Church of St Peter at Westminster, popularly known as Westminster Abbey, is a large, mainly Gothic church, in the City of Westminster, London, United Kingdom, located just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is the traditional place of coronation and burial site for English,...
, and Quatermass and troops from the British Army
British Army
The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...
rush in to destroy it in the hour before it brings about doomsday. Quatermass convinces the consciousness of the three crewmen buried deep inside the creature to turn against it and destroy it; this appeal to the last remains of their humanity succeeds in defeating the organism.
Cast and crew
Following the success of The Quatermass Experiment, Nigel KnealeNigel 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...
went on to become one of the most highly regarded screenwriter
Screenwriter
Screenwriters or scriptwriters or scenario writers are people who write/create the short or feature-length screenplays from which mass media such as films, television programs, Comics or video games are based.-Profession:...
s in the history of British television. In addition to the various Quatermass spin-offs and sequels, he wrote acclaimed productions such as 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) and The Stone Tape
The Stone Tape
The Stone Tape is a television play directed by Peter Sasdy and starring Michael Bryant, Jane Asher, Michael Bates and Iain Cuthbertson. It was broadcast on BBC Two as a Christmas ghost story in 1972...
(1972). A tribute article by writer and admirer 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....
, published on the BBC News Online
BBC News Online
BBC News Online is the website of BBC News, the division of the BBC responsible for newsgathering and production. The website is the most popular news website in the United Kingdom and forms a major part of BBC Online ....
website shortly after Kneale's death in 2006, praised his contribution to British television history. "He is amongst the greats—he is absolutely as important as Dennis Potter
Dennis Potter
Dennis Christopher George Potter was an English dramatist, best known for The Singing Detective. His widely acclaimed television dramas mixed fantasy and reality, the personal and the social. He was particularly fond of using themes and images from popular culture.-Biography:Dennis Potter was born...
, as David Mercer, as Alan Bleasdale
Alan Bleasdale
Alan Bleasdale is an English television dramatist, best known for writing several social realist drama serials based on the lives of ordinary people.The Bleasdales live in prescot,liverpool,wales and london.-Early life:Bleasdale is an only child; his father worked in a food factory and his mother...
, as Alan Bennett
Alan Bennett
Alan Bennett is a British playwright, screenwriter, actor and author. Born in Leeds, he attended Oxford University where he studied history and performed with The Oxford Revue. He stayed to teach and research mediaeval history at the university for several years...
."
Kneale's actions were represented on screen in the final episode of The Quatermass Experiment. He manipulated the monster seen in Westminster Abbey at the climax, with his hands stuck through a photographic blow-up of the interior of the Abbey. The monster actually consisted of gloves covered in various plant and other materials, prepared by Kneale and his girlfriend (and future wife) Judith Kerr
Judith Kerr
Judith Kerr is a German-born British writer and illustrator who has created both enduring picture books such as the Mog series and The Tiger Who Came To Tea and acclaimed novels for older children such as the autobiographical When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit which give a child's-eye view of the...
. The couple kept the gloves as a memento, and still owned them fifty years later, when Kneale wore them again in a television documentary about his career.
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...
had emigrated from Germany in the 1930s to escape its Nazi
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
regime, and joined the staff of the BBC the year before The Quatermass Experiment was made. He collaborated with Kneale on several further productions, and became a major figure in the British television industry. He directed important productions such as Kneale's Nineteen Eighty-Four adaptation, the two further BBC Quatermass serials, and one-off plays such as Cross of Iron (1961) and Lee Oswald: Assassin (1966). His 1994 obituary in 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...
praised his contribution to 1950s television drama: "At a time when studio productions were usually as static as the conventional theatre, he was widely respected for a creative contribution to British television drama which gave it a new dimension." The same piece also highlighted The Quatermass Experiment as a high point in his career, calling the serial "a landmark in British television drama as much for its visual imagination as for its ability to shock and disturb."
Quatermass was played by the experienced Reginald Tate
Reginald Tate
Reginald Tate was an English actor, veteran of many roles on stage, in film and on television. He is best remembered as the first actor to play the television science-fiction character Professor Bernard Quatermass, in the 1953 BBC Television serial The Quatermass Experiment.-Early life:Reginald...
, who had appeared in various films, including The Way Ahead
The Way Ahead
The Way Ahead is a British Second World War drama released in 1944. It stars David Niven and Stanley Holloway and follows a group of civilians who are conscripted into the British Army to fight in North Africa. In the U.S., an edited version was released as The Immortal Battalion.The film was...
(1944). He died two years later, while preparing to take the role of the Professor again in 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...
. Tate was the second choice for the part; Cartier had previously offered it to André Morell
André Morell
André Morell was a British actor. He appeared frequently in theatre, film and on television from the 1930s to the 1970s...
, who declined the role. (Morell did later play Quatermass in the third instalment of the series, Quatermass and the Pit
Quatermass and the Pit
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...
.) Victor Carroon was played by Scottish actor Duncan Lamont
Duncan Lamont
Duncan William Ferguson Lamont was a British actor. Born in Lisbon, Portugal, but brought up in Scotland, he had a long and successful career in film and television, appearing in a variety of high-profile productions....
, who later appeared in the film Mutiny on the Bounty
Mutiny on the Bounty (1962 film)
Mutiny on the Bounty is a 1962 film starring Marlon Brando and Trevor Howard based on the novel Mutiny on the Bounty by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall. The film retells the 1789 real-life mutiny aboard HMAV Bounty led by Fletcher Christian against the ship's captain, William Bligh...
(1962), and as a different character in the film adaptation of Quatermass and the Pit
Quatermass and the Pit
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...
(1967). He enjoyed working on The Quatermass Experiment so much that, although he was not required for the final episode, he went to Alexandra Palace to lend moral support. While there, he helped Kneale and Kerr to prepare their 'monster' prop.
Appearing in a small role as a drunk was Wilfrid Brambell
Wilfrid Brambell
Henry Wilfrid Brambell was an Irish film and television actor best known for his role in the British television series Steptoe and Son. He also performed alongside The Beatles in their film A Hard Day's Night, playing Paul McCartney's fictional grandfather.- Early life :Brambell was born in Dublin...
, who later appeared as a tramp
Vagrancy (people)
A vagrant is a person in poverty, who wanders from place to place without a home or regular employment or income.-Definition:A vagrant is "a person without a settled home or regular work who wanders from place to place and lives by begging;" vagrancy is the condition of such persons.-History:In...
in 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...
. Brambell, who also appeared in Cartier and Kneale's production of Nineteen Eighty-Four, later became widely known for his roles in the sitcom Steptoe and Son
Steptoe and Son
Steptoe and Son is a British sitcom written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson about two rag and bone men living in Oil Drum Lane, a fictional street in Shepherd's Bush, London. Four series were broadcast by the BBC from 1962 to 1965, followed by a second run from 1970 to 1974. Its theme tune, "Old...
(1962–74) and the film A Hard Day's Night
A Hard Day's Night (film)
A Hard Day's Night is a 1964 British black-and-white comedy film directed by Richard Lester and starring The Beatles—John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr—during the height of Beatlemania. It was written by Alun Owen and originally released by United Artists...
(1964). The 74-year-old actress Katie Johnson
Katie Johnson
Katie Johnson , born Bessie Kate Johnson, was an English actress who appeared on stage from 1894 and on screen from the 1930s to the 1950s...
played a supporting part; she later became well known and won a British Film Award
British Academy of Film and Television Arts
The British Academy of Film and Television Arts is a charity in the United Kingdom that hosts annual awards shows for excellence in film, television, television craft, video games and forms of animation.-Introduction:...
for her role as the landlady Mrs. Louisa Wilberforce in the film The Ladykillers
The Ladykillers
The Ladykillers is a 1955 British black comedy film made by Ealing Studios. Directed by Alexander Mackendrick, it stars Alec Guinness, Cecil Parker, Herbert Lom, Peter Sellers, Danny Green, Jack Warner and Katie Johnson...
(1955).
Reception and influence
The Quatermass Experiment achieved favourable viewing figures in 1953, opening with an estimated audience of 3.4 million for the first episode, building to 5 million for the sixth and final episode, and averaging 3.9 million for the entire serial. The TimesThe 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...
estimated that one year before The Quatermass Experiment was broadcast, in August 1952, the total television audience consisted of about 4 million people. In March of that year, the BBC estimated that an average of 2.25 million people watched BBC programmes each evening.
In 1954 Cecil McGivern
Cecil McGivern
Cecil McGivern CBE was a British broadcasting executive, who initially worked for BBC Radio before transferring to BBC Television in the late 1940s....
, the Controller of Programmes at BBC Television, referred to the success of the serial in a memo discussing the impending launch of a new commercial television channel, ending the BBC's monopoly
Monopoly
A monopoly exists when a specific person or enterprise is the only supplier of a particular commodity...
. "Had competitive television been in existence then, we would have killed it every Saturday night while [The Quatermass Experiment] lasted. We are going to need many more 'Quatermass Experiment' programmes." Following Kneale's death in 2006, film historian Robert Simpson said that the serial had been "event television, emptying the streets and pubs for the six weeks of its duration." When the digital television
Digital television
Digital television is the transmission of audio and video by digital signals, in contrast to the analog signals used by analog TV...
channel BBC Four
BBC Four
BBC Four is a British television network operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation and available to digital television viewers on Freeview, IPTV, satellite and cable....
remade the serial in 2005, the channel's controller, Janice Hadlow
Janice Hadlow
Janice Hadlow is a British television executive. She is the current controller of the BBC television channel BBC Two, taking over this position in November 2008 having previously been controller of BBC Four....
, described the original as "one the first 'must-watch' TV experiences that inspired the water cooler chat of its day".
Viewers' responses were positive. Letters praising the production were sent to the BBC's listings magazine, the Radio Times
Radio Times
Radio Times is a UK weekly television and radio programme listings magazine, owned by the BBC. It has been published since 1923 by BBC Magazines, which also provides an on-line listings service under the same title...
, while the writer and producer were also applauded by readers of TV News magazine, which nominated them for one of the publication's "TV Bouquet" awards. Looking back at The Quatermass Experiment in a 1981 article for The Times, journalist Geoffrey Wansell highlighted the finale:
"Westminster Abbey undoubtedly dominated television during the summer of 1953 but it was not just the CoronationCoronation of the British monarchThe coronation of the British monarch is a ceremony in which the monarch of the United Kingdom is formally crowned and invested with regalia...
of the QueenElizabeth II of the United KingdomElizabeth II is the constitutional monarch of 16 sovereign states known as the Commonwealth realms: the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Jamaica, Barbados, the Bahamas, Grenada, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Belize,...
that sticks in my mind now. It is also the memory of Professor Bernard Quatermass grappling with the pulsating giant plant that threatened to destroy the world from its rooting place in the Abbey's nave… The Quatermass Experiment frightened the life out of a vast new generation of television viewers whose sets had been acquired in order to watch the Coronation… Quatermass was one of the first series on British television to make life seem potentially terrifying."
Subsequent audience research showed that technical problems interrupting the final episode's broadcast had a negative impact on audiences' views of the serial; the audience felt that the climax had been spoiled.
Despite such problems — and the existence of only the first two episodes in the archives — The Quatermass Experiment continued to earn critical praise in the decades following its transmission. 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 "Screenonline
Screenonline
Screenonline is a Web site devoted to the history of British film and television, and to social history as revealed by film and television. The project has been developed by the British Film Institute and funded by a £1.2 million grant from the National Lottery New Opportunities Fund.Reviews...
" website describes the serial as "one of the most influential series of the 1950s", adding that "with its originality, mass appeal and dynamism, The Quatermass Experiment became a landmark of science fiction and the cornerstone of the genre on British television." The website of the Museum of Broadcast Communications
Museum of Broadcast Communications
The Museum of Broadcast Communications is an American museum that currently exists exclusively on the Internet and not in any physical capacity. Its stated mission is "to collect, preserve, and present historic and contemporary radio and television content as well as educate, inform and entertain...
praises the serial's underlying themes as its most effective feature. "The Quatermass Experiments depiction of an Englishman's transformation into an alienated monster dramatized a new range of gendered fears about Britain's postwar and post-colonial security. As a result, or perhaps simply because of Kneale and Cartier's effective combination of science fiction and poignant melodrama, audiences were captivated." The website also points to the programme's influence on the British science-fiction television productions that followed, claiming that "with [The Quatermass Experiment] began a British tradition of science fiction television which runs in various forms from Quatermass to A for Andromeda
A for Andromeda
A for Andromeda is a British television science fiction drama serial first made and broadcast by the BBC in seven parts in 1961. Written by the noted cosmologist Fred Hoyle, in conjunction with author and television producer John Elliot, it concerns a group of scientists who detect a radio signal...
to Blake's 7
Blake's 7
Blake's 7 is a British science fiction television series produced by the BBC for its BBC1 channel. The series was created by Terry Nation, a prolific television writer and creator of the Daleks for the television series Doctor Who. Four series of Blake's 7 were produced and broadcast between 1978...
, and from 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...
to Red Dwarf
Red Dwarf
Red Dwarf is a British comedy franchise which primarily comprises eight series of a television science fiction sitcom that aired on BBC Two between 1988 and 1999 and Dave from 2009–present. It gained cult following. It was created by Rob Grant and Doug Naylor, who also wrote the first six series...
."
Kneale disliked Doctor Who — the most successful of the British science-fiction programmes — saying that it had stolen his ideas. An article for The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...
in 2005 described Doctor Who as the "spiritual successor" to the Quatermass serials, and 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....
, a scriptwriter on Doctor Who, wrote of his admiration of Kneale in an article for The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
in 2006. "Kneale wrote that [1953] was 'an over-confident year' and he piloted his hugely influential tale like a rocket into the drab schedules of Austerity Britain… What sci-fi piece of the past 50 years doesn't owe Kneale a huge debt?"
In 2007, Gatiss appeared as the character Professor Lazarus in the Doctor Who episode "The Lazarus Experiment
The Lazarus Experiment
"The Lazarus Experiment" is an episode of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It was broadcast on BBC One on 5 May 2007 and is the sixth episode of Series 3 of the revived Doctor Who series. It stars David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor and Martha Jones as his companion, played...
". The Radio Times noted in its preview of the episode that "Tonight's story is an enjoyable synthesis of She
She (novel)
She, subtitled A History of Adventure, is a novel by Henry Rider Haggard, first serialized in The Graphic magazine from October 1886 to January 1887. She is one of the classics of imaginative literature, and with over 83 million copies sold in 44 different languages, one of the best-selling books...
, The Fly
The Fly (1958 film)
The Fly is a 1958 American science-fiction horror film, directed by Kurt Neumann. The screenplay was written by James Clavell , from the short story "The Fly" by George Langelaan...
and The Quatermass Experiment—even down to the final battle in a London cathedral."
Other media
The popularity of The Quatermass Experiment gained the attention of the filmFilm
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
industry, and 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...
quickly purchased the rights to make an adaptation. It was released in 1955, and starred the American actor 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...
, with Val Guest
Val Guest
Val Guest was a British film director, best known for his science-fiction films for Hammer Film Productions in the 1950s, but who also enjoyed a long, varied and active career in the film industry from the early 1930s up until the early 1980s.-Early life and career:He was born Valmond Maurice...
directing and co-writing the screenplay. Nigel Kneale was unhappy with the result, and was especially displeased with the casting of Donlevy as Quatermass. He stated in an interview, "[Donlevy] was then really on the skids and didn't care what he was doing. He took very little interest in the making of the films or in playing the part. It was a case of take the money and run. Or in the case of Mr Donlevy, waddle." The film was titled The Quatermass Xperiment
The Quatermass Xperiment
The Quatermass Xperiment is a 1955 British science fiction horror film. Made by Hammer Film Productions, it was based on the 1953 BBC Television serial The Quatermass Experiment written by Nigel Kneale. It was directed by Val Guest and stars Brian Donlevy as the eponymous Professor Bernard...
to emphasise its X-certificate status. In America the film was renamed The Creeping Unknown after the title Shock! was considered for that territory, and an alternative opening title sequence with that name was prepared.
The BBC were also pleased with the success of The Quatermass Experiment and in 1955 a sequel, 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...
, was broadcast, with John Robinson
John Robinson (actor)
John Robinson was an English actor, who was particularly active in the theatre. Mostly cast in minor and supporting roles in film and television, he is best remembered for being the second actor to play the famous television science-fiction role of Professor Bernard Quatermass, in the 1955 BBC...
in the title role following Tate's death. This was followed in 1958 by Quatermass and the Pit
Quatermass and the Pit
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...
, and both serials also had feature film versions made by Hammer. The character returned to television in a 1979 serial, simply titled 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...
, 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....
.
A script book of The Quatermass Experiment, containing several production stills from the missing episodes, was published 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 1959. To coincide with the broadcast of the Thames serial, it was republished in 1979 with a new introduction by Kneale.
In April 2005, 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...
released a box set of all their Quatermass material 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....
, containing digitally restored versions of the two existing episodes of The Quatermass Experiment, the two subsequent BBC serials, and various extra material—including PDF
Portable Document Format
Portable Document Format is an open standard for document exchange. This file format, created by Adobe Systems in 1993, is used for representing documents in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems....
files of photocopies of the original scripts for episodes three to six. However, the quality of these photocopies is in some cases quite poor.
On 2 April 2005, the digital television
Digital television
Digital television is the transmission of audio and video by digital signals, in contrast to the analog signals used by analog TV...
channel BBC Four
BBC Four
BBC Four is a British television network operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation and available to digital television viewers on Freeview, IPTV, satellite and cable....
broadcast a live remake of the serial, abridged to a single special, also entitled The Quatermass Experiment
The Quatermass Experiment (2005)
The Quatermass Experiment was a 2005 live remake of the 1953 TV series of the same name by Nigel Kneale.-Production:The remake was commissioned as part of a "TV on Trial" season being run by BBC Four, examining past television trends and productions...
.