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The Quatermass Xperiment

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    C.D. Workman
    Senior Member

  • Quatermass Xperiment, The



    Released by: Kino Lorber
    Released on: December 2, 2014
    Director: Val Guest
    Cast: Brian Donlevy, Jack Warner, Margia Dean, Richard Wordsworth, Gordon Jackson, Lionel Jeffries, Jane Asher, David King-Wood
    Year: 1955
    Purchase From Amazon

    The Movie:

    A rocket ship has crashed into the British countryside near the village of Bray. Professor Bernard Quatermass and his assistant arrive to investigate, only to conclude that the rocket is one of their own. The men are members of a secretive space program, which had sent the rocket into space. They had lost contact with the astronauts on board, and now two of those astronauts have disappeared (though their suits remain behind), while the third is in a semi-catatonic state. That astronaut, Victor Carroon, is taken to a nearby hospital, where Quatermass and others perform a variety of tests to find out what is wrong with him. Meanwhile, his wife wants him returned home, so she bribes an orderly to assist in his escape. Little do they know that Carroon is evolving into some sort of Lovecraftian plant-animal hybrid in need of food.

    The Quatermass Xperiment is not, as is commonly believed, Hammer's first flirtation with the horror genre. The British Studio, which had been formed in the early 1930s, first toyed with the genre as early as 1935, when it had imported Universal star Bela Lugosi for The Phantom Ship. Thanks to his star power, the film—which provided a fictional solution to the real-life mystery of the Mary Celeste, a merchant brigantine found derelict off the coast of Gibraltar in 1872—was a moderate success, though the company ceased production after only a couple more pictures. Hammer wasn't resurrected again until the late 1940s, when it was tasked with supplying the British film industry with “quota quickies,” cheap, short films designed to meet legal requirements that British cinemas screen a certain number of domestically produced films. Several of Hammer's most notable quickies were borderline horror fare, including the Ripper tale Room to Let (1950) and the ghostly comedy Someone at the Door (1951). But it wasn't until the BBC provided the impetus that Hammer produced its first major success in the genre.

    In the early 1950s, the BBC hired a young writer by the name of Nigel Kneale to pen original dramas for the network. Kneale was fascinated by science, and in the summer of 1953 the BBC aired a six-part serial he had written, titled The Quatermass Experiment, on Saturday evenings. The serial proved a major hit with audiences, leading Hammer to pick up the rights to adapt the serial to the big screen. Though provisionally treated as a quota quickie (and on an even lower budget than usual for Hammer), the studio hired Val Guest, who had worked as a screenwriter before making the jump to direction, to helm the picture. To give the film greater appeal in North America, where the Quatermass name was unknown, Hammer hired American actor Brian Donlevy to star in the lead role. The film was produced and picked up by United Artists for release in the states, but the title was deemed too obscure. The film was renamed The Creeping Unknown and sent out on a double bill with The Black Sleep (1956). In the United Kingdom, the 'E' in 'Experiment' was dropped to advertise and exploit the film's X Certificate, a rating mostly given to films containing horror content.

    The film proved a major commercial success on both sides of the pond, leading Hammer down a new path into science fiction and horror. Not that the man who created the character of Quatermass approved. Kneale took major issue with Donlevy's portrayal of his beloved creation. It may have been a cynical ploy on Hammer's part, but casting a hard-nosed, Irish-born Yank in the role worked. Despite Kneale's complaints, Donlevy was pitch perfect as Quatermass. Gone was the professorial charm of the series' aging Brit scientist, replaced by a brutally frank and cold American not known for his diplomatic skills. His steely determination and single-minded dedication to the pursuit of scientific knowledge leaves no doubt as to how and why Great Britain has moved to the forefront of the space race, at least in the world of Quatermass. It has been alleged that Donlevy was frequently drunk on set, but if so, it never shows on screen. His he-man persona, which had served him well in many film noirs of the 1940s, doesn't fail him here.

    Donlevy's isn't the only great performance in the film. Richard Wordsworth is just as captivating as Victor Carroon. Though he doesn't say a word throughout the proceedings, his face and eyes contain a great deal of emotional expression, particularly during the scene in which he assimilates a cactus and again when he encounters a little girl near the canals. He goes for long spans of time without blinking and barely breathing, and the scene in which his eyes follow the movement of the flowers his wife holds is chilling. Phil Leakey's make-up appears realistic but restrictive, yet it never hampers Wordsworth's abilities. (Leakey went on to create the frightening visage of the monster in Hammer's groundbreaking The Curse of Frankenstein two years later). Wordsworth provided a similarly great performance at the beginning of The Curse of the Werewolf (1961) and became a fixture on British television.

    Other actors who have important but relatively small roles in The Quatermass Xperiment include Lionel Jeffries (The First Men in the Moon, 1964), Gordon Jackson (The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, 1969), and Jane Asher (The Masque of the Red Death, 1964).

    The film moves at a breakneck pace, yet it never sacrifices characterization for thrills. Instead, it mixes the two into a beautifully controlled amalgamation of drama, science fiction, horror, and investigative procedural, done up in cinéma vérité fashion. The camera treats people as if they are documentary subjects, and the dialogue frequently overlaps. Perhaps it was this realistic approach that resulted in a boy suffering from a ruptured artery during a screening of the film in the United States, leading a doctor to rule the film's extreme tension as the cause of death. The incident landed Hammer in the Guinness Book of World Records as producing the only film to ever scare a person to death.

    Video/Audio/Extras:

    Kino Lorber offers The Quatermass Xperiment on Blu-ray in an MPEG-4 AVC encode. The film is presented in 1.66:1 aspect ratio in 1080p high definition. The grain level is nicely maintained without being obstructive of detail, which remains fairly high, especially in facial close-ups and external shots. Quatermass's office desk, the rocket's interiors, the zoo's many cages, and the city's brick buildings provide a terrific showcase for the Blu-ray format's visual capabilities. There is very little crush, with most of the darker scenes maintaining a strong level of detail and shades of gray. There is a limited problem with print damage, speckling, a few scratches, and occasional flicker, though these flaws are never too distracting and some viewers will appreciate that they contribute to a more film-like experience.

    The audio is presented in DTS-HD MA 2.0. Conversations are clear and crisp, while the accompanying score is appropriately bombastic in action sequences without ever overpowering the dialogue.

    Kino's BD features a number of extras. First up is an audio commentary by director Val Guest and hosted by Marcus Hearn. Hearn steers the conversation where it needs to go without ever dominating Guest, who is provided ample opportunity to reminisce and shares a number of anecdotes as well as background information about the film's cast and crew. There are also two separate featurettes with Guest: “The Quatermass Xperiment: From Reality to Fiction” and an interview. The former is in high definition and runs almost 12 minutes in length, while the latter is in standard definition and runs approximately eight minutes in length. It, too, is hosted by Hearn. There is a degree of repetition between the two interviews and the commentary, with Guest understandably reciting some of the same stories. One of the most entertaining extras is an interview with director John Carpenter (Halloween, 1977; The Thing, 1981). Carpenter discusses his first viewing of the film and just how influential it was on him, which can best be seen in his intelligent science fiction-horror hybrid Prince of Darkness (1987); the director even credited his script for that film to “Martin Quatermass.” Running just shy of seven minutes in length, “Comparing the Versions” is an on-screen comparison of the British and American cuts, revealing just what was deleted for the film's U.S. release. Filmmaker Ernest Dickerson (Tales from the Crypt Presents: Demon Knight, 1995) provides a short commentary over images from the film's trailer in a segment of the online series “Trailers from Hell," which lasts approximately two and a half minutes. And finally, the film's original American trailer is included, as is the alternate U.S. opening credit sequence.

    The Final Word:

    The Quatermass Xperiment is one of the best science fiction films of the 1950s. It started the ball rolling for Hammer Film Productions, whose name became synonymous with horror over the next two decades. The performances are excellent, and Val Guest's direction is a revelation. Kino Lorber's BD release is worth a purchase, thanks to a solid transfer with nice image reproduction and a healthy rather than obtrusive level of grain. There are also numerous interesting extras worth any film fan's undivided attention.

    Click on the images below for full sized Blu-ray screen caps!



































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