Cast:
Brian Donlevy (Professor Bernard Quatermass), Richard Wordsworth (Victor Carroon), Jack Warner (Inspector Lomax), David King-Wood (Dr. Gordon Briscoe), Margia Dean (Mrs. Judith Carroon), Maurice Kaufmann (Marsh), Harold Lang (Christie), Lionel Jeffries (Mr. Blake), and John Wynn (Det. Sgt. Best) Directed by Val Guest (#224 - Casino Royale (1967))
Review:
"It wasn’t quite like anything fans had seen before. The success of the picture helped put Hammer on the road to specializing in sci-fi and horror movies.”
You may know the film as The Creeping Unknown, since that was the issue title when released in America (with a run-time of 78 minutes as compared to the British 82 minutes). But we are talking about a film made by Hammer Film Productions as one of their first big hits, and the reason for the X is because that was the Certificate (rating) it got from the British Board of Film Censors. The film is adapted from the 1953 television serial The Quatermass Experiment, which was broadcast for six episodes from July 18 to August 22 on the BBC (who agreed to a deal with Hammer for the rights to do a film). The episodes were transmitted live, but only the first two episodes survive due to the other four not even being recorded on their live broadcast. Each episode was written by Nigel Kneale and directed by Rudolph Cartier. Hammer co-produced the movie with Robert L. Lippert, the distributor/producer behind a number of American and British movies that had seen him finance and supply American stars for certain Hammer films in exchange for distribution of his films in the UK. With this film, American star Brian Donlevy was brought in to serve as the main character, as originally played by Reginald Tate. At director was Val Guest, who actually started out as an actor before he became a writer, first for London's edition of the Hollywood Reporter before a challenge by an interviewee had him writing his first screenplay, which led to a comedy career for a time before becoming a director in 1943. A director for Hammer of fourteen films (starting with The Men of Sherwood Forest), Guest wanted to make the film look as if it was filmed by hand-held camera. Kneale would write three further television serials (1955, 1958-59, 1979), with each being turned into feature films in 1957, 1967, and 1979, respectively. Hammer also did X the Unknown (1956), which was meant to be a sequel to this film before they had to do a bit of re-branding when Kneale refused to allow the title character of this film to be included, but Hammer would later be behind the 1955 and 1967 Quatermass features, with Guest directing the former.
It should be noted that Kneale was not too big on this film, one he had no involvement in and one that he did not like the casting of Donlevy. The ending being modified for one with action to decide the climax rather than a "talking down" as per the original probably didn't help either. As a film though, it does work out pretty well, primarily because it makes for a fundamentally sound 82-minute feature in balancing procedure and the eventual horror with useful and chilly atmosphere. Yes, it is a movie involving British astronauts being spooked by a mass of space from out there, but it is a clinically useful movie, never wasting its time on anything too pointless, aside from a few quiet characters. Donlevy is firmly in the middle between the general scientist cliche: he isn't a mad doctor nor is he exactly the one envisioned by Kneale, which certainly tried to appeal to scientific and moral authority, although he has been quoted as wanting to write a strong character that counteracted the "horrible people" in American sci-fi films. Honestly, I understand where he is coming for in his sensibility (I mean, he has more written works than most ever dream of), but I found Donlevy to be the ideal fit for what the film needs: hard-set in ways, regardless of the terror provided. He may seem like he was pulled out of a noir, but it works to his beat because of how he maneuvers the situation without becoming beholden to gobbledygook. If it was this guy that had to "talk the creature to death", we would laugh at it, so he seems right for what the script really wants in. He looks like a guy who cares about what he does in terms of basic execution and nothing else, which makes for quality tension when compared to the others - so yes, moving forward matters most. Wordsworth is the one notable interesting supporting presence, if only because he is the key man besides Donlevy to make an impression because of what he is asked to do as a slowly mutating (and quivering) shape. I enjoy seeing him play out the fear required to make this horror a relevant one to bring terror to proper shape (which evidently used bovine entrails and tripe). The stunt of electricity at a set to double for Westminster Abbey is a quality climax to go with a movie that for all of its low budget surroundings is generally involving, and I especially like the final little shot of Donlevy walking back without saying much to get back to what matters most in the logical sense: Beginning again.
As a whole, it may not compare to the original serial it arose from, but it does manage to make a useful impression for its audience that wants to enjoy what Hammer set out to do in horror sci-fi entertainment. It set the stage for them to seep further into the world of horror to entertain audiences in ways that hadn't been seen before, and for that, I think it makes the film a useful curiosity to look into.
Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.
Next Time: House of Usher.
No comments:
Post a Comment