The Quatermass Xperiment (1955)

Director:

Val Guest

Writers:

Richard H. Landau (screenplay) &
Val Guest (screenplay) ...

Release Date:

June 1956 (USA)

Genre:

Horror | Sci-Fi | Thriller

Tagline:

It's coming for YOU from Space to wipe all living things from the face of the Earth! CAN IT BE STOPPED?

Plot:

A missile, launched by the team led by Prof. Quatermass, lands in the English countryside. Of the three members of the crew...

Plot Keywords:

Monkey | Based On TV Series | Doll | Alien Life Form | Lion

Cast

Brian Donlevy	...	Prof. Bernard Quatermass
Jack Warner	...	Insp. Lomax
Margia Dean	...	Mrs. Judith Carroon
Thora Hird	...	Rosemary 'Rosie' Elizabeth Rigly
Gordon Jackson	...	BBC TV producer
David King-Wood	...	Dr. Gordon Briscoe (Quatermass' associate)
Harold Lang	...	Christie (man who helps Victor escape)
Lionel Jeffries	...	Blake
Sam Kydd	...	Police sergeant questioning Rosie
Richard Wordsworth	...	Victor Carroon (spaceship crew member)

Also Known As:

Shock
The Creeping Unknown (USA)
The Quatermass Experiment (USA)
X the Experiment (UK) (informal alternative title)

Runtime:

82 min | USA:78 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Italy:T | UK:PG | USA:Unrated | West Germany:12 | Sweden:15

Filming Locations:

Bray Studios, Down Place, Oakley Green, Berkshire, England, UK

Company:

Hammer Film Productions

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.

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: In some shots at Westminster Abbey, the wires guiding the creature's tentacles are intermittently visible.

Quotes:

Insp. Lomax: Nobody ever wins a cold war.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in The Fly Papers: The Buzz on Hollywood's Scariest Insect (2000) (TV)

Brilliant British SCi-Fi

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.