Captain's Theatre: QUATERMASS II

Now that you've read the comic adaptation of Quatermass II aka Enemy from Space...

...here's some kool videos to supplement your experience!
First up, the trailer for the American release (retitled Enemy from Space, since the US audience hadn't seen the original mini-series)!

...and speaking of the BBC mini-series...here it is!

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Captain's Library: QUATERMASS II Conclusion

When Last We Left Our Rocket Scientist...

Professor Bernard Quatermass, head of the British Rocket Group, is pissed-off because his MoonBase project budget is being slashed by government pennypinchers.

Meanwhile, his assistants have examined several meteorites that fell nearby, and can't identify the composition of the eerily-symmetrical (and hollow) projectiles from space.

Quatermass and his aide, Marsh, drive to the nearby town where the meteorites were found and discover a top-secret government facility that duplicates the Rocket Group's design for the MoonBase inch-for-inch!

The duo also see the ground around the complex covered with meteorites!

When Marsh picks up an undamaged one, it cracks open and something leaps onto his face!

Before Quatermass can examine his wounded friend, armed guards from the facility order him to leave and take his dazed aide away.

Quatermass goes to Whitehall and learns from Member of Parliament Vincent Broadhead that the secret site is supposedly a synthetic food production facility, but despite millions of pounds in funding, has yet to show any results!

Broadhead, who opposes funding the facility, takes Quatermass along for an inspection tour of the plant.

During the tightly-supervised tour, MP Broadhead manages to sneak away from the group to examine one of the domes.

The MP reappears, burned by the contents of the dome, then collapses and dies in front of the tour group!

When guards try to restrain the panicked group, Quatermass manages to get to a car and smash through a gate and head back to London...

If the whole film has an X-Files vibe, it's not surprising, since there's a popular theory among sf cinephiles that Chris Carter "borrowed" plot elements from the entire Quatermass series for the X-Files mytharc and that the feature film X-Files: Fight the Future "appropriates" Quatermass II almost entirely, even down to matching cinematography of the 1950s film!

You can read the article HERE.

This comic strip was published in Hammer's Halls of Horror #23 (1978), a British b/w magazine that, along with articles about Hammer Films, was also running comic adaptations of both early and (then) current movies.

Written by Steve Parkhouse and illustrated by David Lloyd (who would later co-create V for Vendetta), this story has never been reprinted.

Tomorrow:

Enter the Captain's Theatre for some kool Quatermass (movie and tv) clips!

Here's a sample!

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Captain's Library: QUATERMASS II Part 1

Our presentation of the first Quatermass story was so popular...

...that we're presenting the second Quatermass tale as the opener of our month-long contribution to the Countdown to Halloween Blogathon!

Will Quatermass make good his escape and get help?

What will Quatermass find inside the plant when he makes his own un-guided tour?

One hint: it ain't food!

Be here tomorrow for the thrilling conclusion!

Like the first Quatermass film which adapted the 1953 mini-series Quatermass Experiment, this 1957 flick was an adaptation/condensation of a BBC mini-series broadcast live in 1955.

Returning as the protagonist was Brian Donlevy as Bernard Quatermass, head of the British Rocket Group, which was apparently far ahead of NASA in terms of getting astronauts to the Moon, considering they had put men into orbit in the first film and were designing a MoonBase in this movie.

This comic strip was published in Hammer's Halls of Horror #23 (1978), a British b/w magazine that, along with articles about Hammer Films, was also running comic adaptations of both early and (then) current movies.

Written by Steve Parkhouse and illustrated by David Lloyd (who would later co-create V for Vendetta), this story has never been reprinted.

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Captain's Library: THE QUATERMASS XPERIMENT Conclusion

When Last We Left Our Hero...

The first manned flight into space by the British Experimental Rocket Group ends with a crash landing and only one survivor.
The other two astronauts' intact spacesuits are aboard the ship...but not the astronauts!
The remaining astronaut is alive, but catatonic, and his body seems to be infected with an unknown disease.
Meanwhile, blobs of organic material found in the ship appear to be the transformed remains of the two missing crew members.
The survivor's wife, fearing her husband will become a guinea pig for scientists' tests, has him spirited away from the hospital.
But the alien life-form inside him is transforming the hapless man into a creature who must absorb the energy of other living beings to survive...

In the original teleplay, Quatermass negotiates with the three astronauts' minds, still inside the creature, and convinces them to commit suicide to save the planet from the creature they're mutating into!
To fit the tv plot into a 90 minute movie, a sub-plot involving Victor Carroon's wife having an affair with the Rocket Group's doctor was jettisoned.
In addition, Carroon's kidnapping in the tv serial was by Communist agents, who are then killed by the mutating astronaut.
In terms of characterization, Brian Donlevy's cold, logical Quatermass is a far different version than the warm, paternal BBC-TV version played by Reginald Tate.
I think this was done primarily to reduce the amount of character interaction and dialogue not directly related to the main plot.

While the uncut British version has been released in the US on VHS, it is not on Region 1 DVD or BluRay (at least, not officially).
It is available in England both separately and as part of a Quatermass box set.
If you have a region-free player...

1n 2005, the original teleplay was reworked into a 97 minute production and broadcast live on the BBC!
Starring Jason Flemyng (X-Men: First Class, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen) as Quatermass, the cast included David Tennant (Doctor Who, Fright Night [2011]) as Dr. Briscoe, Indira Varma (TorchWood, Human Target) as Judith Carroon. and Mark Gattis (Doctor Who, Sherlock) as John Patterson.
While available in England on DVD, it has never been released in the US in any form, nor aired on BBC America!

The 11th Hour Web Magazine did a story about similarities between key plot points of The X-Files (both the series and first feature film) and the Quatermass series, showing how major plot elements from all four mini-series (and the film adaptations) were incorporated into the legendary "mytharc" by Chris Carter.

Finally, the BBC has a kool website devoted to all things Quatermass!
And here's the website for the 2005 remake.

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Captain's Library: THE QUATERMASS XPERIMENT Part 2

When Last We Left our Hero...

I love it when the strip itself recaps everything for you!

Tomorrow: the exciting and astonishing finale!

Nigel Kneale, the author of the original mini-series was not happy about the casting of American actor Brian Donlevy as Quatermass.
The American distributor, Lippert Pictures, insisted on name-value US actors as leads to help sell the British films to theatres.
Otherwise they wouldn't put money into the projects.
(When Hammer made a new US distribution deal with Warner Brothers in 1957, the casting requirement was dropped.)

BTW, I had mentioned yesterday that the original mini-series was six half-hour episodes.
They were, in fact, forty minutes each, with no commercials, for a total running time of four hours, which makes the compressing of the whole story into under ninety minutes in this film even more remarkable!

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Captain's Library: THE QUATERMASS XPERIMENT Part 1

It was a six-part mini-series broadcast live in 1953 on British TV to record ratings!

It was remade in 1955 as the first horror film from Hammer Studios!

Tomorrow: The survivor speaks!

If the plot is familiar, but the title isn't, that's because it was released in the US as Creeping Unknown, becoming a late-night tv staple in the 60s-70s.

The British title, Quatermass Xperiment, isn't a typo!

It was deliberately spelled that way to emphasize the fact that the Film Board gave the film the an "X" (Adults-Only) Certificate due to it's gruesome content!
The gimmick worked and the movie was one of 1955's top-grossing pix in England!

The 90-minute Quatermass movie is an amazingly-accurate adaptation of the original 3-hour (six half-hour episodes) mini-series, with the only major change coming at the end of the movie. (We'll be discussing it later.)

BTW, it's not the first Hammer Studios sci-fi film!
(That honor belongs to a little-known 1953 film called Four-Sided Triangle, about two scientists who use a matter-replicator to duplicate a woman they both lust after!
It's not a comedy!)

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