QUATERMASS AND THE PIT

   1) UK tv serial (1958-9). BBC TV. Prod and dir Rudolph Cartier, starring Andre Morell (as Quatermass), Anthony Bushell. Written Nigel KNEALE. 6 35min episodes. (Released on video 1988 at 178 mins.) B/w.

   As in QATP's two predecessors, The QUATERMASS EXPERIMENT and QUATERMASS II, Kneale's theme is demonic possession, dressed up ingeniously as sf. Morell was the best of the BBC's three Professor Quatermasses, and most critics judge the tv serial better than the film version. The published script is Quatermass and the Pit * (1960) by Kneale. For details of the story see below.

   2) Film (1967; vt Five Million Years to Earth US) Hammer/Seven Arts. Dir Roy WardBaker, starring Andrew Keir (as Quatermass), Barbara Shelley, James Donald. Screenplay Nigel KNEALE, based on his BBC TV serial. 97 mins. Colour.

   Hammer's third Quatermass film, a decade after the second and the only one with an English actor (Keir) in the title role. The first two were The QUATERMASS XPERIMENT (1955) and QUATERMASS II (1957). Workers excavating a tunnel find an apparent unexploded bomb; it is actually a Martian spaceship. In a plot-turn deftly blending sf with speculation onJungian archetype, it turns out that racial memories have been coded in our brains by Martians during our prehistory: our image of the Devil is a distorted "memory" of the Martians' appearance (antennae equalling horns), and our irrational belligerence reflects the Martians' ritualistic culling of the weaker members of their species. The spaceship's power source is merely dormant, and as it comes to life (poltergeist phenomena being the first effect) it reinforces ancient nightmares. In the disturbing climax panicked Londoners begin an orgy of destruction as a Devil's head rises above the streets and paranormal powers are let loose. QATP is surely the inspiration for Stephen KING's novel The Tommyknockers (1987).Kneale's characteristic blend of GOTHIC and science is intelligent and entertaining. Although inferior to its tv original, which had more time to develop its irrational but mesmerizing thesis, the film is still above average.

   PN/JB

   See also: SUPERNATURAL CREATURES.