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IMDb > The Quatermass Xperiment (1955)
The Quatermass Xperiment
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The Quatermass Xperiment (1955)

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User Rating: 6.7/10 (941 votes)
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Overview

Director:
Val Guest
Writers:
Richard H. Landau (screenplay) &
Val Guest (screenplay) ...
more
Release Date:
June 1956 (USA) more
Genre:
Horror | Sci-Fi | Thriller more
Tagline:
It's coming for YOU from Space to wipe all living things from the face of the Earth! CAN IT BE STOPPED? more
Plot:
A missile, launched by the team led by Prof. Quatermass, lands in the English countryside. Of the three members of the crew... more | full synopsis
NewsDesk:
Sci-Fi Guru Val Guest Dead at 94 (From WENN. 23 May 2006)
User Comments:
Brilliant British SCi-Fi more

Cast

 (Complete credited cast)
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Additional Details

Also Known As:
Shock
The Creeping Unknown (USA)
The Quatermass Experiment (USA)
X the Experiment (UK) (informal alternative title)
more
Runtime:
82 min | USA:78 min
Country:
UK
Language:
English
Aspect Ratio:
1.37 : 1 more
Sound Mix:
Mono
MOVIEmeter: ?
V 20% since last week why?

Fun Stuff

Trivia:
The original British release billed Brian Donlevy and Jack Warner before the main title (The Quatermass Xperiment), with Margia Dean heading the supporting cast after the title. For the US release, Donlevy, then Ms. Dean, and then Warner were billed before the main title (The Creeping Unknown), moving Thora Hird up to the top of the supporting cast, the remaining order of which was not changed. Also, Val Guest did not receive co-screenplay credit on the US credits, Nigel Kneale's credit was altered to simply "Based on the play by", and the Acknowledgments credits were omitted altogether. more
Goofs:
Revealing mistakes: In some shots at Westminster Abbey, the wires guiding the creature's tentacles are intermittently visible. more
Quotes:
Insp. Lomax: Nobody ever wins a cold war. more
Movie Connections:
Referenced in The Fly Papers: The Buzz on Hollywood's Scariest Insect (2000) (TV) more

FAQ

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11 out of 12 people found the following comment useful:-
Brilliant British SCi-Fi, 26 December 1999

The Quatermass Xperiment is the first of the well-written British Sci-fi films based on Nigel Kneale's Professor Quatermass. The film tells the story of how a rocket had been sent up to space with three aboard and how it lands with seemingly two missing. The man in charge of everything is the professor himself, played starchily by Brian Donlevy. Donlevy's professor has no purpose except to succeed and to do anything and everything his way. He is certainly one of the prototypes of the determined, logical scientists to grace films afterward. The film has a slow start as it really spends a great deal of time showing the two different ways of looking and doing things. On the one hand is the Quatermass way, the logical, scientific, and survivalistic way, and on the other hand is the government way, slow, plodding, and indecisive. Through these the story unfolds that the one man that returned is in actuality a carrier of an alien that has grown through the consumption of human vitals into a slithering blob, growing bigger in stature all the time. Quatermass, with the aid of a Scotland Yard Inspector Lomax, wonderfully played with an amusing turn by Jack Warner, finally succeeds in saving our planet from the menace he was responsible for bringing down. Is he contrite? Does he see the errors of his ways? The film ends with his sending another rocket into space to explore the unknown. The film definitely sees the value of science over all us, including life here on Earth, through the vision, imagination, and drive of Donlevy's Professor Quatermass.

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