Quatermass

Professor Bernard Quatermass is a fictional scientist, originally created by the writer Nigel Kneale for BBC Television. An intelligent and highly moral British scientist, Quatermass is a pioneer of the British space programme, heading the British Experimental Rocket Group. He continually finds himself confronting sinister alien forces that threaten to destroy humanity.

The role of Quatermass was featured in three influential BBC science fiction serials of the 1950s, and again in a final serial for Thames Television in 1979. A remake of the first serial appeared on BBC Four in 2005. The character also appeared in films, on the radio and in print over a fifty-year period. Kneale picked the character's unusual surname from a London telephone directory, while the first name was in honour of the astronomer Bernard Lovell.

The character of Quatermass has been described by BBC News Online as Britain's first television hero, and by ''The Independent'' newspaper as "A brilliantly conceived and finely crafted creation... eremained a modern 'Mr Standfast', the one fixed point in an increasingly dreadful and ever-shifting universe." In 2005, an article in ''The Daily Telegraph'' suggested, "You can see a line running through him and many other British heroes. He shares elements with Sherlock Holmes and Ellen MacArthur."

Character

Little is revealed of Quatermass's early life during the course of the films and television series in which he appears. In '' The Quatermass Experiment'', he at one point despairs that he should have stuck to his original career as a surveyor.

In Nigel Kneale's 1996 radio serial ''The Quatermass Memoirs'', it is revealed that the Professor was first involved in rocketry experiments in the 1930s, and that his wife died young. The unmade prequel serial ''Quatermass in the Third Reich'', an idea conceived by Kneale in the late 1990s, would have shown Quatermass travelling to Nazi Germany during the 1936 Berlin Olympics and becoming involved with Wernher von Braun and the German rocket programme, before helping a young Jewish refugee to escape from the country.Murray, p. 188. According to ''The Quatermass Memoirs'', during World War II Quatermass conducted top secret work for the British war effort, which he subsequently refused ever to discuss.

By 1953 (in ''The Quatermass Experiment''), Quatermass is the head of the British Experimental Rocket Group, which has a programme to launch a manned rocket into space from a base in Tarooma, Australia. Although Quatermass succeeds in launching a three-man crew, the rocket vastly overshoots its projected orbit and returns to Earth much later than planned, crash-landing in London. Only one of the crew, Victor Carroon, remains; it transpires that he has been taken over by an alien presence, eventually forcing Quatermass to destroy him and the other two crewmembers who have been absorbed into him in a climax set in Westminster Abbey.

Despite this trauma, Quatermass continues with his space programme, now called the British Rocket Group, and by '' Quatermass II'' (1955) is actively planning the establishment of Moon bases. In this serial we see his daughter, Paula Quatermass, who works as an assistant at the Rocket Group, but there is no sign of a wife or other children. In the fourth episode of the serial he mentions that he never reached his twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, tying in with ''The Quatermass Memoirs later assertion of his wife's early death.

At the beginning of the third serial, ''Quatermass and the Pit'' (1958–59), Quatermass's funding is being cut and the Rocket Group is being handed over to military control, much to his disgust. Command is to be handed over to Colonel Breen, and Quatermass senses that he is being forced out: however, after the events of the serial, Breen is dead, Quatermass has helped to save the world and London is recovering from chaos.

It is not clear what happens to the Rocket Group immediately after this: the next time Quatermass is seen on screen (''Quatermass'', also released internationally as '' The Quatermass Conclusion'' and '' Quatermass IV'', 1979) he has long been retired, living in retreat in the Scottish Highlands. He has recently become the guardian of his teenaged granddaughter Hettie after her parents were killed in a road accident in Germany. After Hettie runs away from home, he travels to London in search of her and finds a dystopian world there. Quatermass and the scientist Joe Kapp establish that an alien probe is causing the collapse of society by feeding on the world's youth, and Quatermass forms a plan to drive the intruder away by the detonation of a nuclear bomb. He presses the button to detonate it himself, with Hettie's help, and they are killed in the blast as the planet is saved.

Appearances

History

Nigel Kneale conceived the character of Quatermass in 1953, when he was assigned in his capacity as a BBC television staff drama writer to create a new six-part serial to run on Saturday nights in July and August.Pixley, p. 3. Kneale initially named his leading character Professor Charlton,Murray, p. 28. but during the writing process decided he wanted something more striking and memorable.Pixley, p. 5.

A native of the Isle of Man, Kneale was inspired by the fact that surnames beginning with "Qu" were common on the island.Pixley, p. 6. The eventual name was picked from a London telephone directory; there was a family by that name who traded as fruiterers in the city's East End. The surname has its origins as a measurement of land assigned in the division of England by the Normans following their conquest of the country under William the Conqueror in 1066. The Professor's first name, Bernard, was in honour of the astronomer Bernard Lovell, founder of the Jodrell Bank observatory.

On television (1950s)

The director assigned to the serial, which was eventually named ''The Quatermass Experiment'', was Rudolph Cartier. A few months beforehand he had directed a play entitled ''It Is Midnight, Dr. Schweitzer'' for the BBC, and he offered the role of Quatermass to one of the stars of that play, André Morell. Morell considered the offer but declined the part, which Cartier then offered to Reginald Tate, another actor who had appeared in the play, who accepted.

The serial was a success, with the British Film Institute later describing it as "one of the most influential series of the 1950s". The following year the BBC's Controller of Programmes, Cecil McGivern—who had initially feared that viewers would not accept such an unusual name for the leading character—noted in reference to the impending launch of the rival ITV network that: "Had competitive television been in existence then, we would have killed it every Saturday night while 'The Quatermass Experiment''lasted. We are going to need ''many'' more 'Quatermass Experiment' programmes."Johnson, p. 21.

A sequel, '' Quatermass II'', was accordingly commissioned in 1955, but Reginald Tate died of a heart attack only a month before production was due to begin.Pixley, pp. 17–18. With very little time to find a replacement, John Robinson was picked as the only suitable actor available. Robinson was uncomfortable about taking over from Tate and with some of the technical dialogue he was required to deliver, and his performance has been criticised as "robotic",Hearn & Rigby, p. 6. although others such as Andrew Pixley in ''Time Screen Magazine'' have praised Robinson for doing compelling work after the initial episode of the serial.

By the summer of 1957, Kneale was working on the scripts for a third and final BBC serial.Pixley, p. 27. Titled ''Quatermass and the Pit'' and again produced and directed by Cartier, this was eventually broadcast in December 1958 and January 1959.Pixley, p. 47. John Robinson was no longer available to play Quatermass, so the role was offered instead to Alec Clunes.Murray, p. 67. Clunes turned down the part, and it was offered once more to André Morell, who this time accepted. Morell has been praised by several reviewers as having given the definitive portrayal of Quatermass. The serial itself has been praised by the BBC's own website as "simply the first finest thing the BBC ever made. It justifies licence fees to this day." Despite this success, Kneale was unsure about whether the character would ever return, later telling an interviewer: "I didn't want to go on repeating because Professor Quatermass had already saved the world from ultimate destruction three times, and that seemed to me to be quite enough."Pixley, p. 36.

Of the TV serials, ''Quatermass II'' and ''Quatermass and the Pit'' have been preserved in full. Only the first two episodes of ''The Quatermass Experiment'' now exist.

In films

At roughly the same time as ''Quatermass II'' was being transmitted by the BBC, Hammer Film Productions released its film adaptation of the first serial in British cinemas.Pixley, p. 21. Directed by Val Guest, it was retitled '' The Quatermass Xperiment'' to capitalise on the British "X" classification and starred American actor Brian Donlevy as part of a deal to help the film find US distribution.Murray, p. 45. Kneale, who had little involvement with the film, was unimpressed with this casting. "I may have picked Quatermass's surname out of a phone book, but his first name was carefully chosen: Bernard, after Bernard Lovell, the creator of Jodrell Bank. Pioneer, ultimate questing man. Donlevy played him as a mechanic, a creature with a completely closed mind."Hearn & Rigby, p. 7. Val Guest has praised Donlevy's performance, saying that "he gave it absolute reality".Kinsey, p. 35.

Despite Kneale's reservations about the casting, ''The Quatermass Xperiment'' was the highest-grossing film Hammer had made up to that point in its history, and has since been described by one academic as "the key British science fiction film of the 1950s".Hunter, p. 8. Hammer was keen to make an immediate follow-up, and wanted to use Quatermass in its 1956 film '' X the Unknown''; however, Kneale refused Hammer the rights, and the company created its own substitute character, Doctor Adam Royston.Kinsey, p. 41. Hammer did release an adaptation of ''Quatermass II'' in 1957, called '' Quatermass 2'' and this time with Kneale's involvement in the script.Kinsey, p. 50. To the writer's displeasure, Donlevy returned as Quatermass.

Hammer also purchased the film rights to ''Quatermass and the Pit'' (released in the US as ''Five Million Years to Earth''), as it had done with the previous two TV serials, although it did not release its version until 1967.Pixley, p. 39. This time the film was directed by Roy Ward Baker and starred Scottish actor Andrew Keir, after Morell had been offered and declined the chance to play the part again.Murray, p. 95. Keir's performance was well-received, particularly in contrast to Donlevy's portrayal. ''The Guardian'' newspaper wrote in 1997 that: "Keir also made many films... most gratifyingly, perhaps, the movie version of ''Quatermass and the Pit'' (1967), when he finally replaced the absurdly miscast Brian Donlevy."

Soon after the release of the ''Quatermass and the Pit'' film, Kneale was approached by Hammer about writing a fourth Quatermass story directly for them, but the idea came to nothing.

Possible remakes of one or more of the Hammer film adaptations were also mooted at various points during the 1990s, with Dan O'Bannon scripting a potential new version of ''The Quatermass Experiment'' in 1993, but again nothing was eventually filmed.Murray, pp. 183–185. In February 2012 Simon Oakes, president of the revived Hammer Films, announced that a new Quatermass film was in active development.

On television (1970s onwards)

By the early 1970s Kneale was once again regularly writing for the BBC, which announced plans to produce a fourth ''Quatermass'' serial in 1972. This ultimately was not made by the BBC, but Kneale's scripts were produced in 1979 as a four-part serial for Thames Television, titled ''Quatermass''. This time John Mills played Quatermass in an expensive and high-profile production, which was screened on the ITV network.Murray, p. 140. The production company Euston Films also released a 100-minute film version titled '' The Quatermass Conclusion'' or '' Quatermass IV'', for distribution abroad. There was, however, little interest among film distributors, and it received only a limited theatrical release.

Kneale was not keen to return to the character following this, telling one interviewer, "I blew him up... and I don't feel inclined to invent a 'Son of Quatermass' either."Pixley, p. 40. However, in the late 1990s he conceived an idea for a prequel serial, entitled ''Quatermass in the Third Reich'', set in Germany in the 1930s. The idea was submitted to the BBC, which turned it down.Murray, p. 188.

In 2005, the digital television channel BBC Four produced a new version of ''The Quatermass Experiment'', transmitted live as the original had been. Jason Flemyng starred as Quatermass. ''The Times''s television reviewer, Sarah Vine, commented of this production, "Jason Flemyng as Quatermass made a surprisingly good fist of things... the live performance lent the drama an edge that might have been lost in re-takes."

In other media

In addition to the character's various television and film appearances, Quatermass was also seen in a variety of other media between the 1950s and the 1990s. In 1955 Kneale was invited by the publishers of the ''Daily Express'' to write a new prose Quatermass story for serialisation in their newspaper; as he was unable to think of a new storyline, they suggested he simply adapt ''Quatermass II'', which he agreed to do.Pixley, p. 24. The serialisation ran in the ''Daily Express'' from 5 December 1955 to 20 December 1955, although Kneale was forced to draw it to a rapid conclusion when the paper lost interest in the project and instructed him to complete the story as soon as possible.Pixley, p. 26.

A script book for ''The Quatermass Experiment'', including some photographs from the production, was released by Penguin Books

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