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Will the real Quatermass please step forward
01/12/2006 . Source: Mark R. Leeper 
Nigel Kneale, an important force in British science fiction drama, is dead. Mark looks back at his life and his greatest creation, Quatermass, as well as his other works such as The First Men In The Moon and 1984. Buy Quatermass in the USA - or Buy Quatermass in the UK  I knew I was sticking my neck out. I was a member of the University of Massachusetts Science Fiction Club. The club did not get much (any?) funding from the school, but we were allowed to show films in a campus auditorium and charge some small admission, fifty cents. We had to pick science fiction films that we thought would be something that would draw in people. The Films Incorporated Catalog listed Five Million Years To Earth.
I think it mentioned that it was a film with the character Bernard Quatermass. I knew this to be a sequel to two Quatermass films that I had seen, The Quatermass Xperiment (in the United States called The Creeping Unknown) and Quatermass II (in the United States called Enemy From Space). I thought they were pretty good films. How much worse could the third in the series be? I really wanted to see it if I had a chance. So I told the club I would vouch that this was a good film and would be a good choice to show.
So we showed the film on Monday, April 12, 1971, and I sat there hoping I had not screwed up and picked a loser. That was until the film started. Even the rambunctious college audience watched this film transfixed. I decided on the spot that it was the best science fiction film I had ever seen. I still have not seen a better one. The projectionist that night laughingly said that he cursed us. He had expected to put on the film and then study for his French exam the next day. Once the film was on he could not even open the book.
But Five Million Years To Earth got very little release in the United States. Virtually nobody saw it. For literally decades I kept telling people there a really fabulous science fiction film, the best science fiction film ever made. I am still considered sort of a nut on the subject, though the film has finally become known in this country. At that time only the British seemed to know the film and they shared my love of it. In Britain the film's hero, Bernard Quatermass, the film (under its true title Quatermass And The Pit), and the film's author Nigel Kneale were all household names.
At this time there were three Quatermass BBC plays. There was "The Quatermass Experiment", "Quatermass II", and "Quatermass And The Pit". "The Quatermass Experiment", made in 1953, was unexpectedly a huge media event. It virtually emptied the streets of London as people were all home watching the play. "The Quatermass Experiment," was the United Kingdom's first science fiction serial, and Quatermass was the first British television hero. As two more plays were made each was more successful than its predecessor was until churches started rescheduling services so that congregations and clergy would not miss the plays.
Each play was adapted into a film by Hammer Films of Britain, a studio that incidentally built their great success on horror and science fiction after having success in the field with the first two Quatermass films. The third film was not made until the late 1960s. The titles of the films were the same as the BBC plays but Experiment was intentionally misspelled "Xperiment" to emphasize the X-Certificate. These films each got a modest release in the United States with the terrible respective names The Creeping Unknown, Enemy From Space, and Five Million Years To Earth. In 1980 a final Quatermass story was made for television, called simply "Quatermass". It was never re-adapted into a film, but editing down the television movie made a feature film. In 2005 the BBC again produced a television version of "The Quatermass Experiment", doing it as a live play, the first in several years. The Quatermass plays were the inspiration for the Doctor Who series. Kneale was asked to write for DOCTOR WHO, but he did not like the series thinking it was too scary for a children's series.
But Nigel Kneale created much more than just the Quatermass stories over his long career. Kneale had lived on the Isle of Man, but had to leave for health reasons. He came to London as an actor, but decided that he would not have a distinguished career in acting and changed to writing, joining the BBC in 1948. In 1950 he won the Somerset Maugham Award for his collection of short stories, Tomato Cain. I am unaware of any science fiction stories that were published under his name and only one or two horror stories, yet he was one of the most important influences on British science fiction in the second half of the 20th century.
His medium was drama, and his plays always had a strong feel for character, frequently missing from science fiction drama. In 1954--one year after "The Quatermass Experiment" and one year before "Quatermass II"--he adapted George Orwell's 1984 performed with then-obscure actors Peter Cushing playing Winston Smith and Donald Pleasance as Syme. The result had such a disturbing effect on the public that there were calls for controls on television in Parliament.
Kneale would frequently adapt other authors' books to film including Look Back In Anger, The Entertainer, The First Men In The Moon, The Witches (a.k.a. The Devil's Own), and Sharpe's Gold. Some of his work is still considered classic in England, but has not come to the United States.
This includes a play, "The Stone Tape", and "The Year Of The Sex Olympics", a play that presaged Network And The Truman Show. Kneale also wrote the screenplay for HALLOWEEN III, but removed his name after too many changes were made. But Quatermass will always be his most famous creation.
On October 29 Nigel Kneale died at the age of 84.
Mark R. Leeper
© Mark R. Leeper 2006
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