{"id":13103,"date":"2011-10-04T23:54:53","date_gmt":"2011-10-04T22:54:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/?p=13103"},"modified":"2011-10-05T02:21:53","modified_gmt":"2011-10-05T01:21:53","slug":"blu-ray-quatermass-and-the-pit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/2011\/10\/04\/blu-ray-quatermass-and-the-pit\/","title":{"rendered":"DVD & Blu-ray: Quatermass and the Pit"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The third and most interesting film in the famous British sci-fi franchise gets a worthy transfer to DVD & Blu-ray<\/a>, along with some solid extras.<\/p>\n

Nigel Kneale’s Quatermass TV series<\/a>\u00a0subsequently led to a follow-up film series: The Quatermass Xperiment<\/a> (1955), Quatermass 2<\/a> (1957) and a decade later Quatermass and the Pit (1967), which was called Five Million Years to Earth in the USA.<\/p>\n

Although better known for their horror films during this time, the character of Quatermass was something of a money spinner for Hammer at this point and proved very popular with audiences, who were both scared and fascinated by the possibilities of science.<\/p>\n

This film begins with the discovery of a mysterious alien ship beneath London and the subsequent investigation which sees Professor Quatermass<\/a> (Andrew Keir) called in by the British army to offer an explanation as to what it is about.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Director Roy Ward Baker<\/a> was probably best known at this point for directing A Night To Remember<\/a> (1958) – the ‘other’ film about the Titanic – and during the 1960s was also directing TV shows such as The Avengers, The Saint, The Persuaders! and The Champions.<\/p>\n

He keeps things tight here and despite a couple of dated visual effects, the film is surprisingly ambitious in its ideas: unlike the little green men of 1950s US sci-fi, we are presented with the radical concept that man might have evolved from alien creatures and that we could be psychically connected with them.<\/p>\n

Coming after a decade when alien invasion movies were essentially Eisenhower-era<\/a> metaphors for communism, this was pretty radical stuff.<\/p>\n

Quatermass is often seen as a weary Oppenheimer<\/a> figure in opposition to the complacent military and its worth remembering that it was made and released at the height of the Vietnam War<\/a> and a time of great social change.<\/p>\n

Often genre films are ignored for their political subtext, but it is precisely because of this that they can be trojan horses for more serious themes – the Quatermass franchise reflects the fear and promise of science and this one is especially interesting as it seems to reflect an uncertainty and mystery.<\/p>\n

As with a lot of the better sci-fi material in the 1960s (Arthur C. Clarke<\/a>, Philip K Dick<\/a>) it relied on the strength of its own ideas rather than epic scale and there is something quietly radical about a mainstream films questioning the historical origins of man.<\/p>\n

Although sci-fi movies would take a quantum leap the following year with 2001: A Space Odyssey<\/a> (1968), Quatermass and the Pitt marked out its own little corner of the genre and, like Kubrick’s film, was also shot at MGM British Studios<\/a> in Elstree.<\/p>\n

Even though it stays in roughly the same location, Arthur Grant’s visuals and Kenneth Ryan’s art direction give it a more detailed look than one might expect and the Nigel Kneale<\/a> screenplay skilfully juggles ideas with tension.<\/p>\n

Keep an eye out too for Julian Glover<\/a> as an army officer and compare his fate with the Nazi deaths at the climax of Raiders of the Lost Ark<\/a> (1981); then ponder his casting in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade<\/a> (1989) as he also features here.<\/p>\n

Was Spielberg a fan of this film, or was it just coincidence?<\/p>\n