Quatermass
QUATERMASS
Anyone who wanted to bring back Professor Quatermass for another
adventure faced a formidable challenge. Not only would they be
following a trio of unquestionably groundbreaking TV serials but they
would have to overcome the thick wall of viewers' nostalgic memories
of being chilled by those flickering monochrome pictures. Quatermass
was an unusual series in many ways compared to its predecessors.
To begin with the whole television industry had totally changed in the
twenty years between this new saga and Quatermass and the Pit;
not only the technology but the philosophy. Whereas Rudolph Cartier
had ingeniously created a cinema like atmosphere for what was
essentially a studio-bound production, Quatermass was to be
made on film and mostly on location from the outset. As a result the
series has a much more naturalistic feel to it in comparison with the
moodily-lit, slightly stylised imagery of the fifties' adventures.
Taboos about what could be said and shown in TV serials had loosened
as well, allowing a grittier approach to the script. Not surprisingly
the writer Nigel Kneale plays on the fact that the Professor is an
something of an anachronism at the start of the story. That this is one of the few
glossy SF mini-series and a British production at that also adds to
its interest. But at the foundation of Quatermass is another
fine Kneale script with all the qualities that made the earlier
stories so memorable. Imaginative ideas, believable characters,
literate dialogue and a fistful of great images. It carries on the
programme's themes about humanity being taken over by a powerful alien
influence, as well as warning about our technology running out of
control. This time however the danger is not identified with a
specific scientific endeavour such as spaceflight, this time the
threat comes from our complete reliance on energy-hungry everyday
machinery. When that is largely taken away from people, they begin to
realise how fragile their society is. Yet ironically it is the
appliance of technology that ultimately saves the day. Kneale is not
anti-science but he wants it to be used responsibly. The Professor
once again becomes the voice of reason, the decent face of science in
a topsy-turvy world. Although reaction to the series at its premiere
was muted, time has been kind to the Professor's final adventure and
the series is now compared favourably to its predecessors by many SF fans.
"They call it Urban Collapse, so it's nobody's fault."
Initially the desire for a fourth Quatermass adventure came from
Hammer Films in 1969. Having enjoyed great success with their
adaptation of Quatermass and the Pit, both in the UK and the
all-important US market, the studio proposed Quatermass IV. Their
idea was to make a television mini-series in cooperation with the
BBC. Kneale had frequently castigated Hammer over its "vulgarisation"
of his first two scripts but the studio had redeemed itself in
Kneale's eyes because of the care they had taken with the third movie,
However the production fell through. But obviously the seeds had been
planted since in 1972 the BBC approached Kneale with an offer to make
a new story. Still called Quatermass IV at this point, the storyline
had the basic theme of social collapse and featured scenes at
Stonehenge but it was deliberately much more studio bound and a lot
closer in style to the fifties serials. The BBC were sufficiently
interested to assign a producer and green light some special effects
test footage overseen by Bernard Wilkie and Ian Scoones. These were
the scenes of the US/Russian space-station which is destroyed in the
first episode. Existing photographs show a quite different design to
the one which finally appeared, one which resembled the US Skylab. But
ultimately the BBC decided the proposed budget was too great and the
script languished for a few years.
Then in 1977 Star Wars exploded into the cinemas and everyone in
film and TV wanted to jump aboard the SF express. While the BBC
launched Blake's 7, Thames Television commissioned Euston Films to
realise Kneale's unused script. Eventually they decided to make it in
two versions, a four hour mini-series and a two hour film. (The final
cut was actually 105 minutes.) It was an approach which Kneale was
unhappy about because he feared that one or both formats would be
compromised, either the mini-series would be extremely padded or the
film would be incoherent. Using his undoubted skills as a storyteller,
he carefully plotted a story containing 'junctions'. At these points,
the TV version would embark on the metaphorical scenic route while the
film version would take the direct road to the next important piece of
the story. The skill lay in making the scenery valid to the story and
not just obvious padding. Generally the result is a great success and
it is rare that the viewer can unequivocally recognise a pure TV
sequence without prior knowledge. As a final touch, Kneale decided to
finish the Professor with a heroic death believing that he had taken
the character and the format as far he could without repetition.
"I think you and I imagine different things."
At the opening of the story a narrator, later identified as Dr Gurov,
explains that civilisation has descended into anarchy. Amongst the
madness and official hypocrisy, Professor Quatermass is searching for
his granddaughter Hettie. Befriended by an astronomer, Joe Kapp, he
is alarmed to discover that a beam of light from space is striking the
planet; each time removing a crowd of young people who had gathered at
its target. The Planet People, bands of hippies, believe that the
light is taking them to a new world but the Professor suspects a more
alien purpose is at work. While the Professor goes to London and is
forced to take refuge with a group of elderly scavengers, the beam
strikes Kapp's homestead, destroying his family. Slowly the Professor
pieces together a theory that the light is an alien space probe,
harvesting mankind as it previously had in the dark ages. Why, is
impossible to guess but the machine might be 'scared away' by luring
the light beam into a nuclear primed trap. But as he and a haunted
Kapp await the moment to manually trigger the bomb, a group of hostile
Planet People arrive and nearly succeed in sabotaging their plan. But
the timely intervention of Hettie, who is now amongst these Planet
People, enables the Professor to defeat the alien probe but at the
cost of their lives.
"Grand old space boffin. The original British Rocket
Group, practically built it with his own hands."
In a very deliberate move the first appearance of the Professor paints
him as victim, a bewildered, vulnerable old man which is quite a shock
compared to the viewer's memory of him as the bold, world-saving
scientist of old. One of Quatermass's major sub-plots is the Professor's
gradual regaining of his zest and abilities. As he explains at
beginning he had abandoned the Rocket Group years ago; probably in
protest at its increasing takeover by the government and especially
the military as indicated in Quatermass and the Pit. Since then he
has been living quietly in a cottage in Scotland, far away from the
urban collapse. Unfortunately when his grand-daughter runs away, the
realities of modern life are abruptly brought home him and at first he
is reeling from the despairing sights and sounds of a country sliding
into anarchy. But once the alien mystery begins he is on familiar
territory. More than that, he is needed by other people for the first
time in years and this brings out the fighter in him. This time
however he must fight without the backup of an organisation behind him
for most of the story, throwing himself much more on his own resources
and those of his friends. He had faced a similar isolation problem in
the previous stories but the wholesale collapse of the system emphasises
this sub-plot sharply. Age has certainly mellowed the Professor's
character, he is much more sensitive to people, particularly Kapp's
family. Trying to care for his granddaughter and his years in recluse
seemed to have reminded him that like so many dedicated men, he has
neglected his own family. He related to his daughter best when she
was part of his Rocket Group. It is unusual to see him sharing a meal
at their farm house and talking with children because in other stories
he has always existed in political/scientific circles, talking to men
of a similar background to himself. Interestingly he insists that Joe
Kapp leaves his investigations to look after his family because he
clearly sees the younger scientist making the same mistake he had made
in his enthusiasm. John Mills is excellent as the Professor, making
the character a solid core of decency and intelligence within the
series. Although he had not seen any of the earlier BBC series before
taking the part, his portrayal is reminiscent of Andre Morell's
character, a likeable, socially aware, responsible scientist. Asked
what had attracted him to the role, Mills replied, "The role was
offered to me, I liked it and I liked the scripts so, as they also
agreed to pay me something, I accepted!" Another inducement had been
that his wife had also read the scripts and she urged him to take the
job.
"I want a generation gap between me and them! I hate
them because they've given up."
Joseph Kapp is an ideal ally for the Professor. Not only is he a
gifted scientist in his own field but he has the street knowledge
which the older man lacks. The driving force behind a radio telescope
project, he is something of a younger version of the Professor. That
his operation is still funded and provided with fuel suggests he must
be an accomplished hustler and at the start of story he is content to
play the part of a cheerful TV expert and "sing for his supper".
Despite his lapsed Judaism and rationality he is very aware of his
roots, proud that he comes from a line of hard working ancestors. It
is this mixture of both personality aspects which drives his contempt of
the Planet People and their beliefs. Undoubtedly he is brave and
resourceful but his big character flaw is his stubbornness and
tunnel vision. When he is engrossed by his scientific work he neglects
his family and it is his realisation of this, added to the fact that
he was not with them when their home is obliterated by the beam which
leads to his shocking breakdown. It is disturbing to see this
formally steadfast man become wild-eyed and haggard. Sequences such
as him talking to the ghostly voices of his children in his mind or his
unnervingly calm conversation with the Professor when they meet again
in part four are very emotive. Simon MacCorkindale was approached by
the director Piers Haggard and was extremely impressed by Kneale's
script. In particular he was fascinated by Kapp's jewish aspects and
also that he was a family man since he had always been cast as the
romantic lead or a determined individual in the past.
In contrast to her scientist husband, Clare Kapp is much more
sympathetic to the Planet People. This is due to her personality
being much more overtly compassionate. She is a good match for Joe,
her humour and down to earth nature help leaven his sometimes over
serious personality. In addition she is also highly intelligent and
seems to share his background. There are several hints that she has
latent 'sensitive' abilities though they do not develop into telepathy
or telekinesis as the Martian genes did so spectacularly during
Pit. When she wonders about the ancient people who built the
stone circle behind her house there is a wistfulness that echoes the
hippy desires of the Planet People. Later when they bring the injured
young survivor of the Ringstone Round light beam back to the house she is peculiarly
drawn to her. She becomes distant, withdrawn and even starts using
the ley ley chant, ostensibly to soothe the girl. It is not properly
explained why her character changes like this. It may be an
unconscious influence by the girl or directly caused by the alien
machine. Barbara Kellerman gives an engaging, sympathetic performance
and Clare's death casts a pall over the remainder of the Kapp
storyline.
"I keep forgetting. Just for a moment. And then
I remember."
Whilst most of the Planet People are passive and herdlike, in their
midst lives a striking exception, Kickalong. His introduction is
excellently managed; a tall figure wading through a crowd all chanting
his name with a fiery gaze in his eyes. Throughout the series he
constantly takes the initiative, usually involving violent action,
whether that is seizing the Professor's megaphone to lead the chanting
masses, tricking and killing a frightened homeowner or goading Kapp
over the fate of his family. While most of the Planet People are
passive unless severely roused, Kickalong's main form of expression
seems to be violence. His cold blooded shooting of Kapp is carried
out almost casually. It raises the question of how much the
alien influence is affecting him. Either he is totally consumed by
it, creating his magnetic personality or his character was so strong
and passionate it was immune to the urge to surrender himself to the
beam of light. Instead he is taking advantage of the situation to form
a tribe for him to rule. Certainly it is because of the force of his
ego that his followers survive as long as they do. They leave
Ringstone Round at the crucial moment in order to rescue him from the
police van, later on they do not go to Wembley as all the other Planet
People in the home counties seem to. Yet he frequently predicts that
his group will travel soon and he deliberately leads them to a stone
circle in the last episode so he has certainly fallen prey to the
alien power in the end. He is the closest character that could be
called a villain but in usual Kneale style there are no really black
or white characters.
Almost inevitably Kneale brings some Cockney working class
characters into the plot. This elderly community, living in a
disguised underground shelter, provide a human counterpoint to the
world spanning battle with the alien probe. Although it would be easy
to portray them as piteous victims, Kneale takes care to stress their
initiative and support for each other in the face of a crumbling
society. They negotiate with the more reasonable of the gangs for
food and essentials, build a secure if salubrious hideaway and later
help to set the final nuclear trap. There are obvious comparisons to
the Blitz. These are very ordinary people, some ill-educated, so when
the Professor tries to explain the events at the stone circles they
misunderstand at first, their hope for a solution clouding their
understanding. All they can see is that the dreaded young have not
only taken virtually everything away from them but have now gone off
to their own paradise and left their elders in the mud. The moment
when one old woman starts singing "The Old Rugged Cross", mistakenly
tying her Christian faith with this alien visitation is moving in its
hopelessness.
Amongst this impressive cast are a pair of actresses who would later
move on to have far greater profiles. Sal, the young mother in
Kickalong's band, was played by Toyah Wilcox prior to pop stardom
while Brenda Fricker was cast as Alison, the third member of Kapp's
team who ultimately joins the Planet People, all a long way from
Casualty and her Oscar for My Left Foot. Other familiar faces are
Brian Croucher (Travis from Blake's 7) as a paycop, Gretchen Franklin
(Ethel from Eastenders) as one of the hidden old people, David Yip
playing another of Kapp's friends before he became The Chinese
Detective, Bruce Purchase as Kapp's best friend Roach (The Captain in
Doctor Who) and Kevin Stoney (I, Claudius and Doctor Who amongst
others) as the Prime Minister.
Probably the most memorable supporting character though is the
frantic TV director called Johnny Ingrams (Tudor Davies), whose studio
is commandeered by the army during episode three. A complete send-up
of every prejudice the viewer might have about TV folk, nevertheless
his camp antics bring a welcome burst of humour at just the right
moment while staying in tune with Quatermass's believablity. Ingrams is
responsible for one of the few popular programmes left on the BBC
schedules, The Tittupy Bumpity Show, a soft-porn cabaret show. As he
protests to an army captain, "You can't take it off! It's what used to be
called a family show!" The whole grotesqueness of the situation,
dancers in skimpy animal fancy dress miming sex while the human race
is tumbling to destruction, is very well caught. A amusing moment is
the embarrassed Professor smiling at the dancers, trying to reassure
them but rather taken aback by the entire scene. Unfortunately this
lightness of touch is lost a few minutes later when the Professor
delivers the crucial line, "The human race is being harvested!" and
one of the dancing girls screams and faints which is amazingly corny,
diffusing the drama instantly.
"These are mad people! They believe in mad things!"
Although Quatermass's £1.5 million budget sounds impressive, more in fact
than the cost of the first three put together, in television terms it
was only a medium amount for this size of series. Full credit then
must be given to Euston Films for making Quatermass look like a multi-million
epic. One of their triumphs is Kapp's radio telescope complex with its
eighteenth century observatory headquarters, stone circle and pre-fab
farmhouse. Incredibly the entire site is a mock-up made from scratch.
The filming ran fairly smoothly although at times it was an
uncomfortable shoot for the actors because of the unpleasant settings
such as the scrapyard where the old people hide out. One mishap
however occurred when John Mills was poked in the eye during a fight
scene and was half-blind for a week afterwards as a result.
Piers Haggard directs the action in a glossy, cinematic style and
makes good use of distorted camera lenses and atmospheric lighting.
As commented on earlier, Quatermass has a much more natural feel to the
stylised, sometimes stark monochrome world created by Rudolph Cartier
which makes the two directors hard to compare. But the Wembley
Stadium sequence while very dramatic with its shadows, overlapping
waves of noise and flaring bursts of gunfire, lacks the intensity and
aggressiveness of earlier crowd scenes such as the workers' riot in
Quatermass II. But individual moments that do remain in the mind are the young
girl chanting then collapsing through a bead curtain, her eyes staring
wildly and the nerve-racking climax as a wounded Professor drags
himself up the observatory steps, matter blurring around him,
stretching out his hand to detonate the nuclear bomb.
Marc Wilkinson and Nic Rowley's evocative synthesizer music lends an
enormous amount to the visuals. It underlines the gloom of the story
but then sometimes it suddenly lifts into a plaintive or delicate
theme. Surprisingly the cues around the advert breaks are
particularly haunting. Quatermass's opening credits were composed of a
series of stills from the series rendered in red and black upon which
were overlayed the titles, accompanied by an ominous electronic theme
tune. At the advert breaks an artwork identical to the cover of the
novelisation was used. An unusual touch was that the sky changed
colour with each episode, turning from red to blue to green.
The modelwork is superb, both the space station and the space
shuttle sequences are extremely realistic and polished. Optical
effects such as the deadly beam appearing far way in the distance,
silhouetting Ringstone Round in a blaze of light or flooding an
underground car park with golden light are equally stunning.
"We tried to find explanations and all we found
were excuses."
Several newspaper columnists commented on the irony of ITV launching
its first night after the 75 day technicians' strike with an ex-BBC
programme. Critical reaction to the series was generally lukewarm or
disparaging. Ronald Hastings in The Daily Telegraph complained it was
a tame beginning. "A weary plot out of Survivors via George Orwell's
urban decay. The Professor seems far too unheroic and unresourceful
to carry much interest, especially without any giant jelly babies."
This last reference might have been an allusion to Tom Baker's Doctor
Who but curiously in The Daily Express preview for the opening episode the
day before, John Mills had said that the series was going to be, "Not
quite the usual Quatermass. There are no...giant jelly babies or
creepy crawlies!" Meanwhile over at The Times the programme was held
to be, "...only a so-so affair. You only have to read the novel to
realize how much his nightmarish prophesizing has been disapated with
slack speed and strip cartoon dialogue." However the reviewer did
concede that the show had "...two considerable assets. John Mills and
music promising frightening goodies that alas, rarely materialize.
Martin Jackson wondered in his Daily Mail column whether ITV was
trying to warn its viewers as it portrayed the urban nightmare,
"Switch us off again and this is what might happen!" He described the
scenario as the "nightmare of every Man Alive, Horizon or Risk
Business documentary suddenly come true." He also made the insightful
comment that Kneale was more of a social commentator that SF writer.
When the series came to a close four weeks later he summed it up as
"not the best of Nigel Kneale but it equalled any of his earliest
Quatermass stories." In The Guardian, Nancy Banks-Smith had obviously
already seen the entire series as she dropped heavy hints about
forthcoming events while reviewing the opening. "Mills moves from
Where Will It All End? to Where Have They All Gone?" But where had
that £1.5 million budget gone? "Not on the cast, the sets or the
wardrobe!" she tartly remarked. However she had liked the script,
"The tug and tension between youth and age is an interesting aspect to
the story."
"Hit him, hit him! You'd think she'd never had a stick in her hand before!"
For the first time the programme graduated to the front cover of the
TV listings, even if it had to share the cover with a collage of ITV
personalities celebrating the end of the strike and the return of TV
Times to the shelves. Inside, the second episode enjoyed a great deal
of coverage, probably because the editor had decided to combine two
week's worth of copy. In a nice piece of continuity, Nigel Kneale
provided an introduction to his latest adventure, just as he had in
the Radio Times of the fifties. The one page article looked back at
the earlier serials, briefly summarising them and explaining that each
of them was "rooted in its time". Regarding the new series he
prophesized about the Great Urban Collapse which he felt was
approaching and in fact his descriptions do seem very similar to the
situation we now have in Bosnia. "I find science fiction too often
mechanistic or facetious." It was the people, he said, that made the
Quatermass stories good and that was as true now as it was back then.
Accompanying his introduction was a photograph of Kapp's customised
van nosing its way through a crowded street market. A few pages
further, half a page was taken up with actress Barbara Kellerman
moving house. In between packing boxes she commented on her latest
role that, "The trouble with the future is that it always looks bleak.
I'm not surprised writers seldom feel optimistic about it."
Underneath a photograph of a scarred, battered Professor at Wembley
stadium was a brief feature on how make-up artists achieved the look,
basically by pouring a gallon of glue, chalk and powder over John
Mills. "I could hardly walk," he remembers, "but I think the
stiffness helped me portray a state of shock!" Finally on the
programme page there was a photograph of the Professor and Kapp
looking concerned at Ringstone Round. Next issue the listing page had
a photograph of the Professor with a loudspeaker while the actual
write-up rather oddly describes the programme as a series of
self-contained stories. For "An Endangered Species" the write-up
described the Professor as "...television's most celebrated boffin."
Although there was no photograph this time, at the back of the TV
Times was a ten page 'Star Profile' of John Mills which looked back at
his distinguished career and eventful life. Amongst the many
photographs was one of a dusty Professor at Wembley. For the 1984
repeat, the first part was advertised with a photograph of the Kapps
while there was nothing for the second part.
"All touched with the fingers of the lightening!"
Merchandise connected with Quatermass includes Nigel Kneale's own
novelisation of the script, published by Arrow. This is a well
written, highly entertaining book and a lot more worthwhile than most
film/TV novelisations. It has special interest because Kneale
includes extra material and slightly alters the storyline. For
example the relationship between the Professor and Annie Morgan, the District Comissioner who helps him return to London, is
much deeper becoming physical; in fact he regains a lot of his lost confidence through
their love; the Planet Girl's condition is much more graphic; her
legs becoming elongated and far more crystaline. There are one or two
flashback sequences to the earlier adventures and other parts are
expanded, such as the pay cops being largely made up of South African
mercenaries. Kneale's prose is pacy and atmospheric; making it a pity
that he has not written more novels. Its cover features a portrait of
Quatermass in front of a radio telescope while the back panel shows a
stone circle silhouetted in blue light.
Unlike their predecessors the makers of Quatermass have been able to
exploit the burgeoning home video market, so far releasing the series
in three versions. The first was a rental only release of the feature
length The Quatermass Conclusion, with a fairly scrappy looking blue
tinted cover showing Kickalong. This was then re-released in 1985 on
sell-thru as part of the Thames Video Collection with a cover
depicting a stone circle illuminated by the light beam while in an
insert was a photo of the Professor. Most recently, in 1994 ITC
released the unedited four part version over two tapes, simply
entitled Quatermass. Disappointingly they used a 16mm print
which reduced the sound and picture quality. The cover bears a
distorted photo of the Professor, merged with a stormy landscape.
At the 1980 Starburst Awards, Quatermass won two of the catergories. Best
TV Director for Piers Haggard and Best Script for Nigel Kneale.
Kneale's attitude to his fourth outing for the Professor has varied
over the years. Back in 1983 during an interview in Starburst he
tartly remarked "It's a very comforting thought that nobody was
pleased with the outcome of The Quatermass Conclusion." He went on to
complain that he had made the story too predictable. However more
recently in Hammer Horror he decided that the four hour version of
Quatermass was his favourite of all the TV productions because it was the
most faithful to his original script. John Mills is much more
generous, praising the series as very good and wishing it could be
repeated now because "it was slightly ahead of its time." Simon
MacCorkindale thought that the four hour version worked extremely well
but the feature length adaptation was too abbreviated at the expense of
the characterisations. Quatermass's scale and the quality of its writing
makes it a highly enjoyable science fiction adventure. The tone is adult
and whole story is suffused with a chilly, funeral gloom that can only
be achieved in British SF since there is no need to compromise to US
TV's desire for neat, happy solutions. The final scene is a
masterstroke. The sun is shining on a peaceful country field where
children are playing. Gurov's commentary tells us that the
Professor's sacrifice was not in vain, that the alien machine was
successfully repulsed. But the children are playing around a stone
circle and singing a rhyme that hints that the machine will come again
and the harvesting will recommence.
Gareth Preston
Quatermass
Transmitted in four episodes between 24/10/79 and 14/11/79.
Reshown as two omnibus episodes between 9/5/84 and 16/5/84.
Reshown in two parts on UK Gold between 14/10/95 and 15/10/95.
Also reshown several times on the Sci-Fi Channel.
Episode One: Ringstone Round
Episode Two: Lovely Lightening
Episode Three: What Lies Beneath
Episode Four: An Endangered Species
Professor Quatermass: John Mills
Joe Kapp: Simon MacCorkindale
Clare Kapp: Barbara Kellerman
Kickalong: Ralph Arliss
Doctor Gurov: Brewster Mason
Annie Morgan: Margaret Tyzack
Alison: Brenda Fricker
Designer: Arnold Chapkin
Executive Producer: Verity Lambert
Producer: Ted Childs
Director: Piers Haggard
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