The 1955 advertising poster for the film's UK release.

The Quatermass Xperiment is a 1955 British science-fiction / horror film, based on the 1953 BBC Television serial The Quatermass Experiment by Nigel Kneale. Taken from The Quatermass Home Page. ... Taken from The Quatermass Home Page. ... 1955 (MCMLV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 1955 (MCMLV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Poster for The Day the Earth Stood Still, an archetypal science fiction film Science fiction has been a film genre since the earliest days of cinema. ... DVD cover showing horror characters as depicted by Universal Studios. ... 1953 (MCMLIII) is a common year starting on Thursday. ... BBC Television is a service of the British Broadcasting Corporation which began in 1936. ... The Quatermass Experiment is a British television science-fiction serial, transmitted by BBC Television in the summer of 1953. ... 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...

This feature film version was adapted (and probably largely scripted in its final form) by the director, Val Guest, working with American screenwriter Richard Landau. It was produced by the Hammer Film Productions Ltd. company, who changed the title to The Quatermass Xperiment, with the strange spelling, in order to play on the film's British X-certification (adults only) status, claiming that it was the first British-made movie to have received such a classification. In America, the film was released under the title The Creeping Unknown in 1956, distributed by United Artists as the b-film to the American-made The Black Sleep. Some prints screened on British television have used the conventional spelling of "Experiment". The film director, on the right, gives last minute direction to the cast and crew, whilst filming a costume drama on location in London. ... Val Guest (born December 11, 1911) is a British film director, best known for his science-fiction films for the Hammer company 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. ... Hammer horror refers to horror films produced in the late 1950s through the 1970s by the British film studio Hammer Films. ... X-rated, X certificate, X classification or similar terms are labels for movies implying strong adult content, typically pornography or violence. ... The word Usa has more than one meaning: U.S.A. - The United States of America The United States Army Usa, Oita - A city in Japan The USA cable network USA Today national daily newspaper The University of Southern Alabama goes by the initials U.S.A. The patriotic cheer... The current United Artists logo. ... The term B-movie originally referred to a film designed to be distributed as the lower half of a double feature, often a genre film featuring cowboys, gangsters or vampires. ... The Black Sleep is an 83-minute, 1956, American black-and-white science fiction film, scripted by John Higgins from a story by Gerald Drayson Adams developed for producers Aubrey Schenck and Howard Koch, who had a four-picture finance-for-distribution arrangement with United Artists Corp. ...

The film starred American actor Brian Donlevy as Professor Bernard Quatermass, the lead role having gone to him in an attempt to appeal to the North American audience, probably at the insistence of Robert L. Lippert who helped finance the film, as he had many of Hammer's earlier films with the same casting stipulation (Lippert would distribute the British Hammers in the USA, in exchange for the Hammer distribution arm, Exclusive Films Ltd., handling Lippert's films in the UK). Other actors starring included future Dixon of Dock Green star Jack Warner as Quatermass' nemesis, Police Inspector Lomax; David King-Wood as Quatermass' space medicine specialist, and Richard Wordsworth in a memorable performance as the film's central figure, Carroon, an astronaut whose body has been invaded by an alien life-form and is being transformed into something unearthly and dangerous. Also appearing were, in a small cameo as a local drunk, Dame Thora Hird (surprisingly given fifth billing); Lippert's girlfriend Margia Dean as Carroon's wife; and Lionel Jeffries as a British bureaucrat. Jane Asher also made an uncredited appearance as a small child, her first screen role. Donlevy (right) with costar Ella Raines in Impact (1950) Brian Donlevy (born Waldo Bruce Donlevy on February 9, 1901 in Cleveland, Ohio, USA; died April 6, 1972 in Woodland Hills, California, USA) was an American actor, known for many film roles from the 1930s through to the 1960s. ... 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. ... Dixon of Dock Green was a popular BBC television series, which ran from 1955 to 1976, and later a radio series. ... Jack Warner (October 24, 1896 – May 24, 1981) was a popular British film and television actor. ... Dame Thora Hird (May 28, 1911 - March 15, 2003) was a veteran British actress born in the Lancashire seaside town of Morecambe. ... Lioniel Jeffries (born 10 June 1926 in London) is a British character actor and film director. ... Jane Asher Jane Asher (born April 5, 1946) is a British film and television actress and the author of several full-length novels. ...

The film was quite popular at the time, successful enough for Hammer to produce adaptations of the following two Quatermass serials, releasing them to the cinema as Quatermass 2 (1957) and Quatermass and the Pit (1967). It is also of special interest today as a complete copy of the original BBC television version of the story no longer exists. Categories: 1957 films | Films based on television series | Movie stubs | Science fiction films ... 1957 (MCMLVII) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The 1967 advertising poster for the films UK release. ... 1967 (MCMLXVII) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Corporate logo of the British Broadcasting Corporation The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is the national public service broadcaster of the United Kingdom (see British television). ...

Trivia

Quatermass creator Nigel Kneale has vociferously decried the film version of his teleplay, and is especially critical of the casting of and performance by Brian Donlevy as Bernard Quatermass. Kneale has at times alleged that Donlevy was drunk much of the time, although this claim is denied by Val Guest and others associated with the production.

The plot of the film seems to some to have been a major influence on a 1999 Johnny Depp movie The Astronaut's Wife, although it is not known whether the film really was an inspiration or whether this is merely coincidence. 1999 (MCMXCIX) was a common year starting on Friday, and was designated the International Year of Older Persons by the United Nations. ... Johnny Depp John Christopher Depp II, widely known as Johnny Depp (born June 9, 1963) is an American actor. ... The Astronauts Wife is a 1999 Sci-Fi motion picture staring Johnny Depp and Charlize Theron. ...

External links

• Page on the film at The Quatermass Home Page
• IMDb entry