I never knew Hammer Studios did this type of science fiction until running across this picture as "Five Million Years to Earth". The title was changed for American audiences since "Quatermass and the Pit", didn't seem to have commercial appeal on this side of the pond. Besides the sci-fi quotient, there's a bit of a horror element in the story as well, with intimations of a devil at work in the Hob's End section of London where an underground tunnel has revealed an object of perhaps other worldly origins.
Surprisingly, the story has a rather ambitious concept even if the execution seems rather hokey by today's standards. While the British government and military decide that the 'space ship' discovered during an underground dig is a holdover from the Nazi war machine, physics professor Bernard Quatermass (Andrew Keir) forms a theory that a centuries old, dormant faculty resides in the vehicle, and when awakened it displays eerie properties of telekinesis, second sight and poltergeist type movements. British scientist Barbara Judd (Barbara Shelley) experiences a 'stored memory' of the deceased creatures on board the ship, which are captured on film as depicting a Martian hive cleansing. It's the professor's considered opinion that centuries ago, Martians kidnapped ape-like creature from Earth to experiment on, in order to survive their own planet when it became inhospitable.
Given all the tampering around and within the space vehicle, the Martian energy within it eventually comes alive to protect itself while destroying parts of London in the process. However in a "War of the Worlds" style resolution, it becomes a relatively easy matter to stop the rampage when Dr. Matthew Roney (James Donald) theorizes that he might ground the force's destructive power by maneuvering a metal crane into it's energy field. For the dormant Martians, that's all she wrote.
When I got a look at that so called Martian energy field with it's horned apparition look, I was reminded of a Star Trek episode that had an intergalactic villain with a similar appearance. Thinking that maybe one work influenced the other I looked it up, and the episode I'm referring to was called "The Corbomite Maneuver", the tenth episode of Star Trek's first season in 1966. It's probably a stretch to suggest that one of Gene Roddenberry's creations had an influence on this Hammer flick, but the energy devil looked a whole lot like Balok without the horns.
Surprisingly, the story has a rather ambitious concept even if the execution seems rather hokey by today's standards. While the British government and military decide that the 'space ship' discovered during an underground dig is a holdover from the Nazi war machine, physics professor Bernard Quatermass (Andrew Keir) forms a theory that a centuries old, dormant faculty resides in the vehicle, and when awakened it displays eerie properties of telekinesis, second sight and poltergeist type movements. British scientist Barbara Judd (Barbara Shelley) experiences a 'stored memory' of the deceased creatures on board the ship, which are captured on film as depicting a Martian hive cleansing. It's the professor's considered opinion that centuries ago, Martians kidnapped ape-like creature from Earth to experiment on, in order to survive their own planet when it became inhospitable.
Given all the tampering around and within the space vehicle, the Martian energy within it eventually comes alive to protect itself while destroying parts of London in the process. However in a "War of the Worlds" style resolution, it becomes a relatively easy matter to stop the rampage when Dr. Matthew Roney (James Donald) theorizes that he might ground the force's destructive power by maneuvering a metal crane into it's energy field. For the dormant Martians, that's all she wrote.
When I got a look at that so called Martian energy field with it's horned apparition look, I was reminded of a Star Trek episode that had an intergalactic villain with a similar appearance. Thinking that maybe one work influenced the other I looked it up, and the episode I'm referring to was called "The Corbomite Maneuver", the tenth episode of Star Trek's first season in 1966. It's probably a stretch to suggest that one of Gene Roddenberry's creations had an influence on this Hammer flick, but the energy devil looked a whole lot like Balok without the horns.