Originally screened live as a mini-serial in 1958, when I was just an uninformed and impressionable young kid, Nigel Kneale's atmospheric horror drama scared the pants off me.
Many, many years on, I got the abridged and edited 3-hour BBC video. To my much more informed, and sceptical mind, there was little to offer. It was long, hammy, contrived, a strings-and-things special-effects package, and in many ways implausible. Some of the set pieces were pretty good for the vintage and evidently limited budget. And that classic 'Quatermass Oscillation' still knocks socks off any other sound effect in the business. But it's strictly for collectors.
Remember; by 1953 we'd already had 'War Of The Worlds', an Oscar-winning strings-and-things fest. We'd had the highly-charged and equally atmospheric bug-buster 'Them' in 1954. And of course, there had been the incomparably superior ghost-in-the-machine movie 'Forbidden Planet', from 1956. Admittedly; these were better-financed Hollywood efforts, but they set the effects standard, and should at least have offered some inspiration to the BBC.
In 1967, a misguided Hammer attempted to update the mini-serial into this pukka movie on an equally negligible budget. And to say that they failed would be an understatement. To a generation by then watching 'Doctor Who' (1962), 'Thunderbirds' (1965) and 'Star Trek' (1966) on television, any made-for-cinema work that was underfunded, was destined to be stuffed, roasted, and served up for Christmas.
I hadn't seen this wretched effort for ages and couldn't quite remember how bad it was (though I had been bitterly disappointed at the time). However, the opportunity came at 02:15 am this morning, and so I compromised my sleep to watch.
What can I say? It was actually worse than the abridged video. In 9 years, Hammer had learnt nothing. This effort was a drastically foreshortened version of the original, with sets and excerpts of dialogue lifted en-bloc. No bad thing if they were good enough to transfer, but they barely passed muster in the 1950's. Kneale's original story is long and complex; it just doesn't comfortably reduce to 90mins. And this is evident from the clumsy, hurried editing. As to plot details: a copper almost too scared to enter a 'haunted' house? Gimme a break! An army colonel claiming that ancient artifacts were Nazi propaganda? Even by 1967, forensic science was sufficiently sophisticated as to blow that claim to atoms. Breen would have been a laughing-stock and any politician who supported him would have been an electoral busted-flush. There was no place for a 'Piltdown Martian' in 1967.
The subway is a wonderfully atmospheric environment to place a horror and suspense movie. With it's lonely stations tailing abruptly into deep, dark caverns, its endless, echoing labyrinths and the obscure roaring rumble of trains in nearby galleries; it's a creep-fest gold mine. Check out 'Mimic' and several others. Who could possibly make a lash-up of it? Hammer - that's who.
The decent original cast led by Andre Morell was replaced by a bunch of largely unknowns. The 'animated apparatus' was even 'stringier' than before. And that blood-curdling 'oscillation' had been abandoned altogether. Now there was a baby thrown out with the bath water.
I cannot recommend this movie on any other pretext than as a guide to bad film-making. There is no doubt in my mind that I could do better. This is proof positive that Hammer really was composed largely of Ham. And looking at some of the other comments, praising this twaddle as 'classic', or 'one of the best...' simply convinces me that there are people out there so deluded, they would award 10 stars to a blank screen.
Check-out the abridged BBC video. It's long, slow, implausible and stagy, but all the best elements have still been retained. At least it's better than this. Come to that; so is a blank screen.
Pleasant dreams.
Many, many years on, I got the abridged and edited 3-hour BBC video. To my much more informed, and sceptical mind, there was little to offer. It was long, hammy, contrived, a strings-and-things special-effects package, and in many ways implausible. Some of the set pieces were pretty good for the vintage and evidently limited budget. And that classic 'Quatermass Oscillation' still knocks socks off any other sound effect in the business. But it's strictly for collectors.
Remember; by 1953 we'd already had 'War Of The Worlds', an Oscar-winning strings-and-things fest. We'd had the highly-charged and equally atmospheric bug-buster 'Them' in 1954. And of course, there had been the incomparably superior ghost-in-the-machine movie 'Forbidden Planet', from 1956. Admittedly; these were better-financed Hollywood efforts, but they set the effects standard, and should at least have offered some inspiration to the BBC.
In 1967, a misguided Hammer attempted to update the mini-serial into this pukka movie on an equally negligible budget. And to say that they failed would be an understatement. To a generation by then watching 'Doctor Who' (1962), 'Thunderbirds' (1965) and 'Star Trek' (1966) on television, any made-for-cinema work that was underfunded, was destined to be stuffed, roasted, and served up for Christmas.
I hadn't seen this wretched effort for ages and couldn't quite remember how bad it was (though I had been bitterly disappointed at the time). However, the opportunity came at 02:15 am this morning, and so I compromised my sleep to watch.
What can I say? It was actually worse than the abridged video. In 9 years, Hammer had learnt nothing. This effort was a drastically foreshortened version of the original, with sets and excerpts of dialogue lifted en-bloc. No bad thing if they were good enough to transfer, but they barely passed muster in the 1950's. Kneale's original story is long and complex; it just doesn't comfortably reduce to 90mins. And this is evident from the clumsy, hurried editing. As to plot details: a copper almost too scared to enter a 'haunted' house? Gimme a break! An army colonel claiming that ancient artifacts were Nazi propaganda? Even by 1967, forensic science was sufficiently sophisticated as to blow that claim to atoms. Breen would have been a laughing-stock and any politician who supported him would have been an electoral busted-flush. There was no place for a 'Piltdown Martian' in 1967.
The subway is a wonderfully atmospheric environment to place a horror and suspense movie. With it's lonely stations tailing abruptly into deep, dark caverns, its endless, echoing labyrinths and the obscure roaring rumble of trains in nearby galleries; it's a creep-fest gold mine. Check out 'Mimic' and several others. Who could possibly make a lash-up of it? Hammer - that's who.
The decent original cast led by Andre Morell was replaced by a bunch of largely unknowns. The 'animated apparatus' was even 'stringier' than before. And that blood-curdling 'oscillation' had been abandoned altogether. Now there was a baby thrown out with the bath water.
I cannot recommend this movie on any other pretext than as a guide to bad film-making. There is no doubt in my mind that I could do better. This is proof positive that Hammer really was composed largely of Ham. And looking at some of the other comments, praising this twaddle as 'classic', or 'one of the best...' simply convinces me that there are people out there so deluded, they would award 10 stars to a blank screen.
Check-out the abridged BBC video. It's long, slow, implausible and stagy, but all the best elements have still been retained. At least it's better than this. Come to that; so is a blank screen.
Pleasant dreams.