The opening titles of Quatermass and the Pit.

Quatermass and the Pit is a British television science-fiction serial, the third of four in the famous Quatermass series by writer Nigel Kneale. It was originally broadcast by the BBC over the winter of 1958–59. Generally regarded by critics and fans as the most successful of the Quatermass serials, it was the last one to be produced by the BBC in the 1950s, and the last television outing of the character anywhere for twenty years. In a 2000 poll of industry professionals conducted by the British Film Institute, it was voted at number seventy-five in a list of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes. Image File history File links Download high resolution version (996x756, 320 KB)Screen capture from Quatermass and the Pit, uploaded by Angmering to illustrate that article. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (996x756, 320 KB)Screen capture from Quatermass and the Pit, uploaded by Angmering to illustrate that article. ... A broadcast of the long-running and popular British science-fiction series Doctor Who. ... Professor Bernard Quatermass is a fictional character, created by the writer Nigel Kneale originally for BBC Television, who appeared in three influential BBC science fiction serials of the 1950s, and made his swansong in a final serial for Thames Television in 1979. ... Nigel Kneale (born Thomas Nigel Kneale on April 18, 1922 in Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, England, UK) is a Manx television and film scriptwriter, who has worked mostly in the UK. He is best known for his creation of the character of Professor Bernard Quatermass, who has appeared in three... BBC One (or BBC1 as it was formerly styled) is the oldest television station in the United Kingdom, and indeed, the world. ... 1958 was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 1959 was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Millennia: 1st millennium - 2nd millennium - 3rd millennium // Events and trends The 1950s in Western society was marked with a sharp rise in the economy for the first time in almost 30 years and return to the 1920s-type consumer society built on credit and boom-times, as well as the... 2000 is a leap year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The British Film Institute (BFI) is a charitable organisation established by Royal Charter to encourage the development of the arts of film, television and the moving image throughout the United Kingdom, to promote their use as a record of contemporary life and manners, to promote education about film, television and... 100 Greatest British Television Programmes was a list compiled in 2000 by the British Film Institute (BFI) chosen by a poll of industry professionals, to determine what were the greatest British television programmes of any genre ever to have been screened. ...

Background

After the success of the two previous Quatermass serials — The Quatermass Experiment (1953) and Quatermass II (1955) — the BBC were more than willing for Kneale, now a freelance writer and not on the BBC staff, to pen a third instalment in the series. Since Quatermass II Kneale had been working mostly in film, writing the screenplay adaptations of his own television serials The Creature (as The Abominable Snowman) and Quatermass II (as Quatermass 2), and John Osborne's play Look Back in Anger. For Quatermass and the Pit, he was reunited with director Rudolph Cartier, who had helmed the previous two Quatermass serials as well as many other Kneale scripts for the BBC. It was to be the final collaboration between the two, who had formed the most successful writer/director partnership in British television of the 1950s. The Quatermass Experiment is a British television science-fiction serial, transmitted by BBC Television in the summer of 1953. ... 1953 is a common year starting on Thursday. ... Quatermass II is a British television science-fiction serial, the second in the popular and influential Quatermass series written by Nigel Kneale. ... 1955 is a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Categories: 1957 films | Films based on television series | Movie stubs | Science fiction films ... John James Osborne (December 12, 1929 – December 24, 1994) was a British playwright, the first of the Angry Young Men of the 1950s. ... Categories: Literature stubs | Plays | British drama | 1958 films | British films ... Rudolph Cartier (born Rudolph Katscher on April 17, 1904 in Vienna, Austria-Hungary; died June 8, 1994 in London, England, UK) was an Austrian television director, who worked almost exclusively in British television for the BBC. Cartier initially trained as an architect, but an enthusiasm for drama and the theatre... Millennia: 1st millennium - 2nd millennium - 3rd millennium // Events and trends The 1950s in Western society was marked with a sharp rise in the economy for the first time in almost 30 years and return to the 1920s-type consumer society built on credit and boom-times, as well as the...

Quatermass and the Pit built on the already popular status of the Quatermass character and created a story that enthralled much of the television-watching public: for many years it was stated that the final episode famously "emptied the pubs" as enthusiastic viewers rushed home to watch. It helped to popularise the science-fiction genre on television in the UK, and make it a respectable and adult format. The serial is also notable for the distinctive electronic wailing noise that accompanies alien phenomena, which was created by the then newly-formed BBC Radiophonic Workshop. The BBC Radiophonic Workshop, the sound special effects unit of the BBC was created in 1958 to produce sound effects for radio and was closed around 1996. ...

As with the previous two serials and in common with most other television drama of the day, Quatermass and the Pit was transmitted live, from the BBC's Riverside Studios in London. However, it also had a large amount of pre-filming work carried out on external location and, for complex sequences not easily achievable in the confines of a live television studio, at Ealing Studios. For these filmed sequences, Cartier employed the services of the BBC's experienced film cameraman A. A. Englander, who was at the time one of the top film cameramen working in the UK. As usual, the pre-filmed sequences would be played into the live transmission as and where required. St Stevens Tower - The Clock Tower of the Palace of Westminster which contains Big Ben London (see also different names) is the capital city of the United Kingdom and of England. ... Ealing Studios, a TV and film production company and facilities provider at Ealing Green in West London, claims to be the oldest film studio in the world. ... Adolf Arthur Englander (born July 15, 1915; died January 29, 2004) was a British television cinematographer, one of the most respected in the field of his generation, and the first film cameraman to work seriously in the field of television in the UK, which for much of its early period...

André Morell as Professor Bernard Quatermass.

The serial was broadcast over six Saturday evenings from December 22, 1958 to January 26, 1959. Although all six episodes — The Halfmen, The Ghosts, Imps and Demons, The Enchanted, The Wild Hunt and Hob — were written as half-hour instalments, each was given a thirty-five minute timeslot due to the overruns most of the episodes of the previous two Quatermass serials had gone into. All six episodes were scheduled in an 8.00–8.35pm timeslot. The production drew very high viewing figures for the BBC, with the final episode gaining 11 million viewers, one of the highest BBC drama audiences of the decade. Image File history File links Download high resolution version (994x766, 270 KB)Screen capture from Quatermass and the Pit, uploaded by Angmering to illustrate that article. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (994x766, 270 KB)Screen capture from Quatermass and the Pit, uploaded by Angmering to illustrate that article. ... André Morell as Professor Bernard Quatermass in the BBC Television serial Quatermass and the Pit (1958-59). ... Professor Bernard Quatermass is a fictional character, created by the writer Nigel Kneale originally for BBC Television, who appeared in three influential BBC science fiction serials of the 1950s, and made his swansong in a final serial for Thames Television in 1979. ... Note: This article is about serials in literature and the audio-visual media. ... December 22 is the 356th day of the year (357th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1958 was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... January 26 is the 26th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1959 was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

As each episode was being transmitted it was telerecorded onto 35mm film, and these telerecordings proved to be of exceptionally good quality. Keen to take an example of what it felt to be an important piece of television, the British Film Institute took prints of these telerecordings, all of which survive in the BBC's archives. In 1960, an edited compilation version was prepared and screened by the BBC, broadcast in two instalments as 5 Million Years Old (January 2, 1960, 8.40–10.10pm) and Hob (January 9, 1960, 8.45–10.15pm). This compilation version also survives in the BBC's archives, and is very important because the scenes originally shot on film were removed from it and replaced with the corresponding original film sequences, meaning that these pre-filmed inserts survived in excellent quality for the re-mastering of the story. The compilation also had a magnetic soundtrack, which gave better quality than the optical soundtrack which was all that survived on the original episodes. Telerecording (known as kinescoping in the USA) is the British name for a process pioneered during the 1940s for the storing of electronically-shot television programmes on film, which was used for the preservation, re-broadcasting and sale of television programmes before the use of commercial broadcast-quality videotape became... Simulated 35 mm film with soundtracks _ The outermost strips (on either side) contain the SDDS soundtrack as an image of a digital signal. ... The British Film Institute (BFI) is a charitable organisation established by Royal Charter to encourage the development of the arts of film, television and the moving image throughout the United Kingdom, to promote their use as a record of contemporary life and manners, to promote education about film, television and... 1960 was a leap year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ... January 2 is the 2nd day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1960 was a leap year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ... January 9 is the 9th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1960 was a leap year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ...

In November 1986 episode three, Imps and Demons, was selected by the BBC for transmission as part of their fiftieth anniversary of television season, although Kneale felt the broadcast of a single episode on its own to be a waste of time. He did, however, assist BBC Video with the preparation of a 178-minute two-part compilation version of the serial, which was released on VHS in 1987. In 1995 this video was re-released by independent budget label Revelation, who also put out a DVD version of the same compilation in 1999. Fans were disappointed that the DVD was taken from the VHS masters and had no additional material. 1986 is a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Nigel Kneale (born Thomas Nigel Kneale on April 18, 1922 in Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, England, UK) is a Manx television and film scriptwriter, who has worked mostly in the UK. He is best known for his creation of the character of Professor Bernard Quatermass, who has appeared in three... Top view VHS cassette with US Quarter for scale Bottom view of VHS cassette with magnetic tape exposed The Video Home System, better known by its acronym VHS, is a recording and playing standard for video cassette recorders (VCRs), developed by JVC (with some of its critical technology under lucrative... 1987 is a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 1995 was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... DVD is an optical disc storage media format that can be used for storing data, including movies with high video and sound quality. ... 1999 is a common year starting on Friday of the Common Era, and was designated the International Year of Older Persons by the United Nations. ...

On April 4, 2005, the BBC issued a fully-remastered DVD box set entitled The Quatermass Collection, containing the two surviving episodes of The Quatermass Experiment and the whole of Quatermass II and Quatermass and the Pit, remastered in their original format from the best surviving elements. The DVD also includes behind-the-scenes material and a comprehensive booklet giving production and remastering information. April 4 is the 94th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (95th in leap years). ... 2005 is a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar and is the current year. ... DVD is an optical disc storage media format that can be used for storing data, including movies with high video and sound quality. ...

Plot

This synopsis is based on the television version of the story.

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 the film version the location of the building works is moved to the also fictional 'Hobbs End' tube station.) Dr Matthew Roney, a palaeontologist, 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 done on the site, something that looks like a missile is unearthed, and further work by Roney's group is halted as the military believe it to be an unexploded bomb left over from World War II. A Hippopotamuss skull A skull, or cranium, is a bony structure of vertebrates which serves as the general framework for a head. ... The Devil is the name given to a supernatural entity who, in most Western religions, is the central embodiment of evil. ... Hobbs End is the name of a fictional location used in several works of speculative fiction. ... Slight modifications to the famous London Underground roundel indicate the name of each station on platform and some outdoor signs. ... A paleontologist carefully chips rock from a column of dinosaur vertebrae. ... In Norse mythology, fairy tales, and sword and sorcery fiction and role-playing games, a dwarf is a sprite, a member of a humanoid race, much like humans, but generally living underground or in mountainous areas. ... The term humanoid refers to any being whose body structure resembles that of a human. ... In the anatomy of animals, the brain, or encephalon, is the supervisory center of the nervous system. ... A missile (British English: miss-isle; U.S. English: missl) is, in general, a projectile—that is, something thrown or otherwise propelled. ... Mushroom cloud from the nuclear explosion over Nagasaki rising 18 km (over 11 miles) into the air, August 9, 1945. ...

Roney calls in his old friend Professor Bernard Quatermass of the British Rocket Group, an expert on matters of unusual scientific background, to stop the military from disturbing what he believes to be an archeological 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 artifact is uncovered, and additional fossils 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 the a symbol consisting of five intersecting circles (which Roney identifies as the occult pentagram) is found etched on an inside wall which appears to hide an inner chamber. Professor Bernard Quatermass is a fictional character, created by the writer Nigel Kneale originally for BBC Television, who appeared in three influential BBC science fiction serials of the 1950s, and made his swansong in a final serial for Thames Television in 1979. ... A fossil Ammonite Fossils are the mineralized remains of animals or plants or other traces such as footprints. ... A pentagram, pentacle, pentalpha, or pentangle A pentagram is a five-pointed star drawn with five straight strokes. ...

The shell of the object is so hard that even diamond drills make 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 ghosts and other poltergeist activity have been common in the area for decades. Meanwhile, a worker 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. A scattering of round-brilliant cut diamonds shows off the many reflecting facets. ... A bit and brace, a hand-powered drill. ... Reputed ghost of a monk. ... A poltergeist (German for mischievous ghost) is widely believed to be an invisible ghost that interacts with others by moving and influencing inanimate objects. ... 1927 was a common year starting on Saturday (link will take you to calendar). ...

Somehow, however, a hole has been opened up in the wall which allows them to uncover the interior chamber, and they find the remains of insect-like aliens resembling giant three-legged locusts, 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. A database query syntax error has occurred. ... Extraterrestrial life is life that may exist and originate outside our planet Earth. ... Desert locust Locust is the name given to the swarming phase of short-horned grasshoppers of the family Acrididae. ... A planet (from the Greek πλανήτης, planētēs which means wanderer or more forcefully vagrant, tramp) is an object in orbit around a star that is not a star in its own right. ... Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun in the solar system, named after the Roman god of war (the counterpart of the Greek Ares), on account of its blood red color as viewed in the night sky. ...

The dead Martian creatures inside the buried space ship.

Meanwhile, another worker inside the craft triggers off more poltergeist activity, which forces him to wander 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 center around 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. Image File history File links Download high resolution version (996x768, 295 KB)Screen capture from Quatermass and the Pit, uploaded by Angmering to illustrate that article. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (996x768, 295 KB)Screen capture from Quatermass and the Pit, uploaded by Angmering to illustrate that article. ... A church building is a building used in Christian worship. ... The Middle Ages formed the middle period in a traditional schematic division of European history into three ages: the classical civilization of Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and modern times, beginning with the Renaissance. ...

Quatermass plans to use an invention of Roney's, an "optic-encephalogram", to see these visions. The device will record impressions from the optical centers 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. A hallucination is a false sensory perception in the absence of an external stimulus, as distinct from an illusion, which is a misperception of an external stimulus. ... Hives is the name given to a common form of allergic reaction. ...

Quatermass begins to have a working theory on 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 like 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 make over our ancestors to have minds and abilities like theirs, created in their own mental image, but with a bodily form adapted to earth. In effect, we are the Martians. Telepathy, from the Greek τηλε, tele, distant, and πάθεια, patheia, feeling, is the supposed ability to communicate information from one mind to another without the use of extra tools such as speech or body language, and is one form of extra-sensory perception or anomalous cognition. ... Psychokinesis (literally mind-movement) or PK is the more commonly used term today for what in the past was known as telekinesis (literally distant-movement). It refers to the psi ability to influence the behavior of matter by mental intention (or possibly some other aspect of mental activity) alone. ...

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 maintained these abilities, and even these only surfaced 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, believing 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 assuage the rumors 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 inclination and that those affected will begin to slaughter their own. For alternate meanings, see National socialism. ... North Korean propaganda showing a soldier destroying the United States Capitol building. ... The wild hunt, by Peter Nicolai Arbo The Wild Hunt was a folk myth prevalent in former times across Northern Europe and Britain. ...

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 convenient 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. Collective intelligence as characterized by Tom Atlee, Douglas Engelbart, Cliff Joslyn, Ron Dembo, and other theorists, is that which overcomes groupthink and individual cognitive bias in order to allow a relatively large number of people to cooperate in one process - leading to reliable action. ... A mass murder (massacre) involves the murder of large numbers of people either by a state or an individual. ... Genetics (from the Greek genno γεννώ= give birth) is the science of genes, heredity, and the variation of organisms. ... The term ethnic cleansing refers to various policies of forcibly removing people of another ethnic group. ...

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 alien 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. This article is about the photographic technique. ... An aircraft is any machine capable of atmospheric flight. ... Psychosis is a generic psychiatric term for mental states in which the components of rational thought and perception are severely impaired. ...

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 gets a length of iron chain and tries to reach the "devil" but succumbs to the psychic pressure. It is Roney, in the end, who manages to hurl the chain into the fiery image and end the madness, but both he and the craft are reduced to ashes. General Name, Symbol, Number iron, Fe, 26 Chemical series transition metal Group, Period, Block 8 (VIIIB), 4, d Density, Hardness 7874 kg/m3, 4. ... For alternate meanings see Short circuit (disambiguation) A short circuit (sometimes known as simply a short) is a fault whereby electricity moves through a circuit in an unintended path, usually due to a connection forming where none was expected. ... A chain can be any of the following: Look up Chain in Wiktionary, the free dictionary a flexible connection through multiple rigid links; applications include: pulling (it cannot be used for pushing) power transmission, as in roller chains (e. ...

In the end, Quatermass 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 artifacts. 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 lead role of Professor Bernard Quatermass was played by a different actor, this time the suave and dignified André Morell. The original Quatermass actor, Reginald Tate, had died quite suddenly shortly before production of the second serial, necessitating a hasty replacement with John Robinson, who neither Cartier nor Kneale were ever completely happy with. For Quatermass and the Pit, with more time to consider their options, they chose Morell, who had previously appeared as O'Brien in their famous 1954 adaptation of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. Professor Bernard Quatermass is a fictional character, created by the writer Nigel Kneale originally for BBC Television, who appeared in three influential BBC science fiction serials of the 1950s, and made his swansong in a final serial for Thames Television in 1979. ... André Morell as Professor Bernard Quatermass in the BBC Television serial Quatermass and the Pit (1958-59). ... Reginald Tate (December 13, 1896 – August 23, 1955) was a British actor, veteran of many roles in film and on television. ... Several notable individuals have been named John Robinson: John Robinson (1576-1625), organized Mayflower voyage. ... 1954 was a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar. ... George Orwell George Orwell was the pen name of British author Eric Arthur Blair (June 25, 1903 – January 21, 1950). ... Peter Cushing played Winston Smith while Donald Pleasence played Syme. ...

Cec Linder as the archeologist Doctor Matthew Roney.

Roney was played by Canadian actor Cec Linder, possibly with an eye on the potential of selling the serial to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Linder later appeared in Lolita (1962), and in the James Bond film Goldfinger (1964) as the CIA agent Felix Leiter. Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1000x768, 303 KB)Screen capture from Quatermass and the Pit, uploaded by Angmering to illustrate that article. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1000x768, 303 KB)Screen capture from Quatermass and the Pit, uploaded by Angmering to illustrate that article. ... Cec Linder (sometimes credited as Cecil Linder; born March 10, 1921 in Galica, Poland; died April 10, 1992 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada) was a Canadian film and Polish birth. ... Cec Linder (sometimes credited as Cecil Linder; born March 10, 1921 in Galica, Poland; died April 10, 1992 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada) was a Canadian film and Polish birth. ... The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly known by the abbreviation CBC, is Canadas government-owned radio and television broadcaster. ... Lolita is a novel by Vladimir Nabokov, first published in 1955. ... 1962 was a common year starting on Monday (link will take you to calendar). ... James Bond, also known as 007 (pronounced double-oh seven), is a fictional British spy introduced by writer Ian Fleming in 1953. ... 2002 Penguin Books paperback edition Goldfinger is the seventh novel by Ian Fleming, featuring James Bond, secret agent 007, published in 1959. ... 1964 was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will take you to calendar). ... The CIA Seal The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is one of the American foreign intelligence agencies, responsible for obtaining and analyzing information about foreign governments, corporations, and individuals, and reporting such information to the various branches of the U.S. Government. ... Felix Leiter is a fictional character invented by Ian Fleming in the James Bond books, who also appears in the Bond movies. ...

John Stratton played Captain Potter, Anthony Bushell Colonel Breen and Christine Finn appeared as Barbara Judd. For the first time, Kneale used a character from a previous serial other than Quatermass himself: the journalist James Fullalove from The Quatermass Experiment, although like Quatermass he changed actor, with Brian Worth replacing Paul Whitsun-Jones. The Quatermass Experiment is a British television science-fiction serial, transmitted by BBC Television in the summer of 1953. ...

Nigel Kneale went on to continue his successful career writing for film and television, returning to the Quatermass character a final time with Quatermass in 1979 for the BBC's rival, the ITV network. He also penned feature films such as The Entertainer (1960 — based on another John Osborne play) and The First Men in the Moon (1964, from the novel by H.G. Wells). Nigel Kneale (born Thomas Nigel Kneale on April 18, 1922 in Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, England, UK) is a Manx television and film scriptwriter, who has worked mostly in the UK. He is best known for his creation of the character of Professor Bernard Quatermass, who has appeared in three... The cover of the 2002 UK DVD release of the serial. ... 1979 is a common year starting on Monday. ... Company logo Independent Television (ITV) is the name given to the original network of British commercial television broadcasters, set up to provide competition to the BBC. In England and Wales the channel was recently rebranded ITV1 by ITVplc who own the regional broadcasting licences for the regions. ... There are two notable works that go by this title. ... 1960 was a leap year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ... John James Osborne (December 12, 1929 – December 24, 1994) was a British playwright, the first of the Angry Young Men of the 1950s. ... First Men in the Moon DVD First Men In The Moon is a 1964 science fiction film directed by Nathan Juran. ... 1964 was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will take you to calendar). ... H. G. Wells at the door of his house at Sandgate Herbert George Wells (September 21, 1866 - August 13, 1946) was an English writer best known for his science fiction novels such as The War of the Worlds and The Time Machine. ...

Rudolph Cartier continued as an in-house director for the BBC, helming many more highly successful productions such as the opera Otello (1959), Anna Karenina (1961, starring Sean Connery) and Lee Oswald: Assassin (1965). He died in 1994, at the age of ninety. Rudolph Cartier (born Rudolph Katscher on April 17, 1904 in Vienna, Austria-Hungary; died June 8, 1994 in London, England, UK) was an Austrian television director, who worked almost exclusively in British television for the BBC. Cartier initially trained as an architect, but an enthusiasm for drama and the theatre... Otello is the name of operas by Gioacchino Rossini (1816) and Giuseppe Verdi (1887). ... 1959 was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Anna Karenina (Анна Каренина) is a novel by Leo Tolstoy that was first published in 1877. ... 1961 was a common year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ... Sean Connery Sir Thomas Sean Connery (born August 25, 1930 in Edinburgh, Scotland) better known simply as Sean Connery, is a Scottish film actor who has starred in many films and is best known as the original cinematic James Bond. ... 1965 was a common year starting on Friday (the link is to a full 1965 calendar). ... 1994 was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International year of the Family. ...

Film, sequels and DVD

As with the previous two Quatermass serials, the rights to adapt Quatermass and the Pit for the cinema were purchased by Hammer Films, although it was until 1967 before the film was made, possibly because Kneale had been unhappy abot the previous Hammer versions. Hammer kept the same title, although in the United States the film was known as Five Million Years to Earth. Kneale adapted his own script, with Scottish actor Andrew Keir starring as Quatermass. The character's recasting from a rather stuffy Englishman to a fiery Scot works surprisingly well. Gareth Thomas (actor), later to appear in Children of the Stones and Blakes Seven makes a brief, non-speaking appearance in the film. The 1967 advertising poster for the films UK release. ... Hammer horror refers to horror films produced in the late 1950s through the 1970s by the British film studio Hammer Films. ... 1967 was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Scotland (Alba in Scottish Gaelic) is a country in northwest Europe, occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain. ... Andrew Keir (born Andrew Buggy on April 3, 1926 in Shotts, Lanarkshire, Scotland; died October 5, 1997 in London, England, British actor, well_known for his roles in several Hammer Films horror film productions during the 1960s. ... Gareth Thomas could be Gareth Thomas who played the part of Blake in Blakes 7 Gareth Thomas who plays Rugby Union for Wales Gareth Thomas the member of Parliament for Clwyd West Gareth Thomas the member of Parliament for Harrow West This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid... Children of the Stones was a television drama for children produced by HTV in 1976. ... Blakes 7 was a BBC science fiction television series created by Terry Nation that ran four seasons from January 2, 1978 to December 21, 1981. ...

The film, although not particularly commercially successful, is regarded as the most faithful Quatermass cinema adaptation, and a very good film in its own right. The film was released on Region 2 DVD in 2004. 2004 is a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

The scripts of Quatermass and the Pit were released by Penguin Books in 1959, as part of the series with script books of the previous two serials. Twenty years later in 1979 these were re-released by Arrow Books to coincide with the fourth and final Quatermass serial, Quatermass, which was then being transmitted on ITV. this i a dumb site! ... 1959 was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 1979 is a common year starting on Monday. ... Random House is a publishing division of the German media conglomerate Bertelsmann AG, which acquired it in 1998. ... The cover of the 2002 UK DVD release of the serial. ... Company logo Independent Television (ITV) is the name given to the original network of British commercial television broadcasters, set up to provide competition to the BBC. In England and Wales the channel was recently rebranded ITV1 by ITVplc who own the regional broadcasting licences for the regions. ...

This final serial starred John Mills, and proved to be the last screen outing for the character, bringing his story to a close. However, in 1996 Kneale penned a radio series entitled The Quatermass Memoirs for BBC Radio 3, which mixed a factual account of the character's history with a fictional strand of Quatermass writing his memoirs. Quatermass was again played by Andrew Keir for this production. John Mills as Professor Bernard Quatermass in the Thames Television science-fiction serial Quatermass (1979). ... 1996 is a leap year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year for the Eradication of Poverty. ... The Quatermass Memoirs is a British radio drama documentary broadcast in five parts on BBC Radio 3 in the spring of 1996. ... BBC Radio 3 is a domestic UK BBC radio station, launched as The BBC Third Programme in 1946. ... Andrew Keir (born Andrew Buggy on April 3, 1926 in Shotts, Lanarkshire, Scotland; died October 5, 1997 in London, England, British actor, well_known for his roles in several Hammer Films horror film productions during the 1960s. ...

In April 2005, BBC Worldwide released a boxed set of all their existing Quatermass material on DVD, containing digitally restored versions of all six episodes of Quatermass and the Pit, as well as the two existing episodes of The Quatermass Experiment and all of Quatermass II, along with various extra material. 2005 is a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar and is the current year. ... 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. ... DVD is an optical disc storage media format that can be used for storing data, including movies with high video and sound quality. ... The Quatermass Experiment is a British television science-fiction serial, transmitted by BBC Television in the summer of 1953. ... Quatermass II is a British television science-fiction serial, the second in the popular and influential Quatermass series written by Nigel Kneale. ...

The 1971 Doctor Who serial The Dæmons features plot elements which bear remarkable similarities to Quatermass and the Pit, including an extraterrestrial race that was the basis for legends of demons and magic being explained as psychokinetic force. In a parallel to Hobbs Lane, the setting of The Dæmons is a village named Devil's End. 1971 is a common year starting on Friday (click for link to calendar). ... List of Doctor Who serials Doctor Who audio releases Doctor Who spin-offs - includes a discussion of the many novelisations and original novels based on the series History of Doctor Who The Doctor (Doctor Who) List of supporting characters in Doctor Who, including villains and aliens List of robots in... 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. ...

Another Doctor Who serial, 1977's Image of the Fendahl, also has a plot strongly influenced by Pit, featuring a telepathic creature from the "fifth planet" known as the Fendahl. After the destruction of its homeworld, the Fendahl came to Earth and engineered 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 colonize the Earth. 1977 was a common year starting on Saturday (the link is to a full 1977 calendar). ... 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 October 29 to November 19, 1977. ...

Parody

The 1959 Goon Show episode The Scarlet Capsule, written by Spike Milligan, is a parody of the BBC serial, complete with the original Radiophonic wail. Fans regard it as one of the best episodes. 1959 was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The Goon Show was a hugely popular and extremely influential British radio comedy programme, which was originally produced and broadcast by the BBC from 1951 to 1960 on the BBC Home Service. ... Spike Milligan Spike Milligan Kt CBE (April 16, 1918 – February 27, 2002) was a comedian, novelist, script writer, poet, jazz musician (trumpet and guitar - also played the piano - and was a dab hand at raspberry blowing) and is best remembered as the creator, principal writer and performing member of The... In contemporary usage, parody is a form of satire that imitates another work of art in order to ridicule it. ...

Some workmen employed by Government's Dig Up the Roads Plan for Congesting Traffic Scheme, while working as an alternative to striking, 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. 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 remarkably convincing woman whose seductive voice causes the script to be heavily censored. Harry Secombe Sir Harry Donald Secombe, (September 8, 1921 – April 11, 2001), was a Welsh entertainer, with a fine tenor singing voice and a talent for comedy. ... Mushroom cloud from the nuclear explosion over Nagasaki rising 18 km (over 11 miles) into the air, August 9, 1945. ... Irish stew is a traditional Irish dish made from lamb or mutton as well as potatoes, onions, and parsley1. ... Serge is a type of twill fabric that has diagonal lines or ridges on both sides, made with a two-up, two-down weave. ... Bowler hat 1916 The bowler hat is a hard felt hat originally created for an English James Coke in 1850. ... A poltergeist (German for mischievous ghost) is widely believed to be an invisible ghost that interacts with others by moving and influencing inanimate objects. ... Peter Sellers Richard Henry Sellers (September 8, 1925 – July 24, 1980), better known as Peter Sellers, was a British comedian, talented comic actor, and performer on The Goon Show (a long-running BBC radio show, 1951-1960). ...

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. "Not a very good ending, but at least it's tidy, don't you think?" He is then struck down by an Irish stew. Slight modifications to the famous London Underground roundel indicate the name of each station on platform and some outdoor signs. ...

The series was also parodied by the popular BBC television comedy series Hancock's Half Hour, in an episode entitled The Horror Serial, transmitted the week following the final episode. In it, Hancock has just finished watching Hob on the television, and becomes convinced that there is a crashed Martian space ship buried at the end of his garden. Sadly, this episode no longer exists in the BBC's archives. Hancocks Half Hour was a famous BBC radio comedy series of the 1950s starring Tony Hancock. ...

References

• Pixley, Andrew (2005). The Quatermass Collection - Viewing Notes (1st ed.). London: BBC Worldwide. BBCDVD1478.

2005 is a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar and is the current year. ... St Stevens Tower - The Clock Tower of the Palace of Westminster which contains Big Ben London (see also different names) is the capital city of the United Kingdom and of England. ... 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. ...

External links

• The Quatermass Home Page — Fan Site
• IMDb page
• BBC site — I Love Quatermass
• Re-mastering the recordings for April 2005 DVD release