QUATERMASS II

   1) UK tv serial (1955). BBC TV. Prod and dir Rudolph Cartier, starring John Robinson (as Quatermass). Written Nigel KNEALE. 6 35min episodes. B/w.

   This was the sequel to The QUATERMASS EXPERIMENT ; for details of the story see below. The script was published as Quatermass II * (1960) by Kneale.

   2) Film (1957; vt Enemy from Space US) Hammer/United Artists. DirVal Guest, starring Brian Donlevy (as Quatermass), Bryan Forbes, John Longden, Sidney James. Screenplay Nigel KNEALE, Val Guest, based on the BBC TV serial by Kneale. 85 mins. B/w.

   This was \#2 of the 3 Quatermass films produced by Hammer, and the first coscripted by Kneale; it is the most difficult to judge since Kneale, who disliked Donlevy's US performance and Guest's tampering with his script, withdrew the film from circulation in 1965 when rights reverted to him. Many critics think it the best of the Quatermass films, and some deem it the greatest of all UK sf movies (though astonishingly similar in theme to the US film INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (1956)): disturbing, intense, unrelenting, paranoid and especially nightmarish in its depiction of figures in power conspiring with aliens capable of entering and controlling human bodies. Much of the action takes place in the brooding landscapes of the North of England, where a mysterious technological complex turns out to be the alien power base. The strong political allegory of ordinary people cruelly exploited by a cold-blooded (and in this case literally inhuman) ruling class was very adventurous for the time.The tv ending (Quatermass goes into space to destroy the asteroid which is the alien base) is dropped in the film. The film's predecessor was The QUATERMASS XPERIMENT (1955) and its successor was QUATERMASS AND THE PIT (1967).

   PN

   See also: MONSTER MOVIES; PARANOIA; QUATERMASS.