Quatermass Experiment Secrets - Part 2 - Prof Simon 

I am an American and I have very much heard of Quatermass but agree with you that very few Americans have. About 10 years ago, I took the encyclopedia of 50's movies 'Keep Watching the Skies' and sat and watched all 200+ movies that I could find (most). The first two Quatermass movies stood out as my two favorite movies of the era. Nobody I have ever mentioned the name to has ever heard of these movies (or shows).

It's so refreshing to have someone very intelligent teaching something with British humor! Professor, I love these videos about hardly known incidents and hushed up topics. I never fail to learn fascinating things on your channel, and I haven't gotten through all your previous videos yet! Thankyou sir

To clarify, The Queen acceded to the throne whilst on an official visit to Kenya on 6th February 1952. Her Coronation was held 16 months later on 2nd June 1953 which allowed for a suitable and seemly period of mourning for the loss of King George. My parents and one of Dads friends an Austrian Holocaust survivor who lived in the next road were two who bought TV’s and apparently both houses were full of invited guests to watch the coverage. That evening there was a big Coronation party in the assembly hall of the local school of which I have a couple of photos featuring my 6 year old sister and our neighbours kids.

This is turning into a real cliff-hanger... Good stuff, Prof !

Very interesting indeed 👍 My favorite is Quatermass and the Pit ... 1967 I think. I love the story based round Central Line tube extension at Hobbs End and the original origin of the name 'Hobbs' etc ... Brilliant!

Just found it, Quatermass conclusion, looks like it's been remastered too :)

Fascinating. I was never able to watch any of the originals in the series as a child - my Father said they were too scary - but I fell in love with Nigel's writings after seeing The Quatermass Conclusion on Thames TV in the 70s and was delighted, a few years ago, to obtain some of the original TV productions on DVD (though there are, of course, some missing materials). The 'imposition' of media truly made the re-defining of our culture, and it's intersection with the rise of science fiction has truly become key in so much of that change. I also loved his comedic TV show, Kinvig. The Wimbledon arrival in the first tale always nods, I suspect, towards, Robert Wise's 'The Day the Earth Stood Still' (1951), where the saucer lands in Washington combined, I suspect with alien incursion notions found in Robert Heinlien's 'The Puppet Masters' (also 1951, but also released as a movie in 1994). Looking forward to part 2.

My old physics teacher used to work at Jodrell Bank radio telescope. He left us to go back there, he was a great teacher and got me interested in astronomy.

My late mum used to talk about the Quatermass BBC series which she thought were terrifying.

Well, you’ve got me on the edge of my chair. Can’t wait for the next thrilling instalment!!

This is great stuff I definitely will stay tuned, can't wait. Good Job Prof. Simon. Your channel gets better and better. Hope you wife has made a complete recovery.

Thanks for the video. Carroon is speaking German because one of the other astronauts was german - the alien entity, if you recall, absorbs ALL of the crew, compounding them into a single man, Caroon. He now shares the other astronauts' memories and personality centers. A brilliant and extremely unnerving idea for the time. Cheers.

Simon, this is so great. One obsessional cavill: I think the Queen gained accession to the throne in 1952, and was actually crowned on 3 June, 1953. I watched it on my aunts' TV - my parents did not yet have one. My aunts not only had to buy a TV specially for the occasion, but also had to have electricity installed in their house in order to have television, thus becoming one of the last houses to get electricity and at the same time one of the first to get a TV in the West of Scotland. (My grandmother, who had died a couple of years earlier, thought that electricity was dangerous and would only have gas and oil lamps.) Anyway, Quatermass and the Pit: I saw it in the cinema in my twenties and can remember being scared to look in the mirror afterwards in case I saw a Martian! Great film. Thanks for your deconstruction!

watched Quatermass and the pit, after watching your first video on this topic.

Loving this! I am 53 and have loved Quatermass since a kid. Used to live in Hemel Hempstead and there is a Quatermass Road and Close named after Q2 filming location during the development of the newtown. Thanks Prof!!!

I just wanna say I love your channel. Quatermass and the pit was one of my absolute favorite movies as a kid.

I remember as a kid in the 70's loving the film Quatermass and the Pit - where they find a buried UFO by an Underground station. I cant remember much so I will need to see these films again. Interesting series Prof. :)

The original broadcast of all the Quatermass shows could so easily have been part of the infamous 'lost episodes' . I'm amazed and thankful we still have them.......

"Five Million _Years_ to Earth", not "Five Million _Miles_ to Earth". When I was a kid, the film scared the living daylights out of me.

My mum says she remembers everyone talking about the Quatermass TV series and the 1984 one. Everyone watched them and were so invested in the dramas.

I remember watching it at my Aunt's house, at 19:00 hours for 5 episodes, 1 per week, and ran all the way home, as we had no TV, I lived about half a mile away. Frightened to death, although it gave me imagination to think of others that may be in the Universe

I remember the Million miles to earth. I saw it as a kid and loved it.

Thank you for uploading this series. In spite of my tender 39 years of age, I have always enjoyed very much watching vintage SF and reading classic comics. One point that I'd like to add though is that in the original BBC (1953, not the 2005 remake, which takes place in the Tate Modern Gallery) version Quatermass does not in fact electrocute Carroon but rather he applies to his better nature for him to fight the alien infection and kill himself in order to stop the spreading of the spores that were going to come out of his now almost altered entirely body, and thus save the Earth. It is in fact in the 1955 Hammer Films version where Quatermass simply flat out electrocutes Carroon in order to save the Earth. For anyone who is interested in the original ending here is a link to a RU-vid channel where there is an abbreviated version (helpfully split into 4 parts) of the lost Quatermass episodes. Part 3 ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-8b6XmP8a36A.html Part 4 ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-UvhqnpSdMXI.html Part 5 ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-UvhqnpSdMXI.html Part 6 ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-UvhqnpSdMXI.html I'll also add that I fact like to use those videos as a way of filling the gap whenever I watch my DVD of the (1950s) BBC Quatermass show. If the links don't work, simply type in 'Quatermass Experiment 1953 Part (3/4/5/6) Lost Episode Scenario' and go to Max Gowland's channel and you should easily find them. Wait! What is THAT THING outside my living room window? IT'S BLOODY BIG SPACE ROCKET GOING TO CRASH INTO MY HOME!!!!!!!! Let's hope that the cat is OK or that there are no foolish young couple out and about...

Thank you Professor Simon, that was excellent,I remember so well the guy with the cactus on his hand, was so scary to a six year old English child, and thanks to my Dear old Dad for letting us stay up and watch it.Also you were right, we had the only TV in our street and we had all our neighbors over to see Queen Elizabeth's coronation in our tiny semi-detached house.Can't wait to see the next episode with the you know what in the church yard.

Been trying to think of who you remind me of I finally got it, from one of my apprentices when he asked me a question I would answer wisely or so I thought😊 after an hour or 2 he said I only wanted the paragraph not the whole book, the beauty of it is tho when he was older he did exactly the same with his apprentices and blamed me for it, the force was strong within him and he didn't even know

Thank you, love Quatermass and most old Sci fi. Did you know that the director of Quatermass and the pit actually wanted Kenneth More to play Bernard Quatermass and made it an unhappy shoot for Andrew Kier.

Quequeg was the victim to the monster in the bottom of the Quagmire in X Files episode 22 Season 3 on Antenna TV then today I stumble in your show here. Synchronicity at its best I'm not going to mention how the number 22 has been a pain in my side but I am a new Fan to your channel. Great stuff here! Thank you

We used to have a bush at the back of our garden in Welwyn Garden City that my Old Dad used to call it Quatermass, he was born in September 1939 and never saw a banana till he served in Aden with the RAF, poor bugger was on rations till '53 fgs.

Welll! FMSWWAS, that was really enjoyable. I remember being scared shitless as a kid by Quatermass and then years later being so disappointed by 'The Pit' I have always wondered what had happened in between. Looking forward to the next episode, popcorn and ice-cream in hand :-)

One of the best scifi series ever. Was just talking about Quatermass and the Pit the other day with my Wife....Excellent movie!

You hooked me. I'm subscribing. Not because of this episode, but I've seen you in a couple other science related episodes, and well... basically... I just like you. 😃

I absolutely loved your presentation Prof. You are a great story teller. An excellant background on this series. I havent seen it all yet but am about to stay up all night if necessary and play at "catch up". Will get back to you later and give you my impressions.

Qm and the Pit is one of my top 10 old sci movies. Thanks Prof. Interesting history here just after I was born to boot.

The reason the sick astronaut spoke German was because one of the absorbed astronauts was German .

Crater Mass in the Pit blew me away. I managed to purchase a copy in HD format (Blu-ray), and found it to have most excellent replay value. Great film.

Happy New Year Prof! Great film. I can't wait to watch the rest of this series!

Thanks for doing this. In the U.S., QUARTERMASS AND THE PIT/FIVE MILLION MILES FROM EARTH was run often run on Sunday afternoons in the 1970s as an alternative to those who didn't want to watch sports or on the late night Saturday horror shows. I was surprised to find out there was more. It is amazing that they didn't shoot it, black and white as a movie which would have cost more, but provided them better control and not only would be the quality good for TV, the film could have also been marketed for the movie theaters and reruns for years. Many places did not have television coverage in those years. It is as if producers who came from the age of live radio were incapable of thinking outside the box. Old movie theater films which had already been run in theaters were shown on TV. In the U.S., a lot of the kinescope films (the process you described) of the DuMont television network were taken and dissolved to recover the silver from the film and then in the 1970's, someone wanted to free up storage space by dumping the remainder into a landfill. With Hammer revived, maybe we can get a QUARTERMASS IN THE 21ST CENTURY.

At about 6 years old! Scared to death!

Awesome film, still scares me to this day……. Nice commentary

It is mentioned as something astonishing that 100% of television viewers that watched on 18th of July 1953 was watching The Quatermass Experiment. Since there only was one channel to watch, it seems quite normal. (ITV starting 1955 and the second BBC channel in 1964.) The astonishing thing would be if his claim that this was unprecedented is true. What was the alternative that people watched before? Especially on the 12th of May 1937. What was people watching on their sets instead of the coronation?

I was living the other side of the wold that had no TV whatsoever. I also would have been to young. Lovely story Professor Simon. Keep it coming I'm intrigued with where this is going.

I wonder if this influenced John Carpenter The Thing? I think this film has a very menacing atmosFear! All these movies are fantastic, setting a high standard for sci horror that very few can match today.

I can explain why the British astronaut was speaking German - the three astronauts that went up were British, German and Australian; they were "dissected" by the alien presence and then reassembled back as a single organism mostly with the body of Caroon but also with parts of the other two including the ability to speak German but also having the fingerprints from the Australian. I read the script book (Penguin Books) at this is perhaps clearest here.

My favourite Hammer film. Some years ago, I was waiting at traffic lights and found myself musing about the film and wishing that I had seen the original serial. "Not to be." I concluded. That evening I was at a birthday dinner and was shown one of the presents - a DVD of the original broadcast. There's a coincidence. I have to say it lived up to all expectations.

Yessss I’ve been waiting for this 😁

I’m so pleased you stopped doing film reviews Prof. love your work.

The abiding question for me is. Was Neale yet another in a long line of people in the media who had direct connections to the security services and in particular their work during WW2?. Even Noor Khan's father was the leading Sufi mystic in Russia. The SOE, according to Michael Bentine, had a full on mage as one of its heads.

I was also a child in the ‘50’s who was allowed to watch Quatermass. From a safe vantage point behind the sofa I watched and absorbed every millisecond of it, and Quatermass and the pit as well. I still remember later on the series with “ringstone round” and the concept of aliens “picking” young people as we would pick a flower to enjoy its fragrance before it dies. All incredibly engaging television, I did not know a person who did not watch these programmes, even the electricity board knew that the population would be making tea either before or after the show. Something similar happened with the series, again sci-fi, “A for Andromeda”. Which in some ways was more terrifying, the alien in the lab resembling a giant eyeball trapped inside a front-loading washing machine......

Can’t wait to watch this!!!

awesome film series...👍

The monsters come from within us, as portrayed by the forbidden planet.

WOW, is this FUN to watch! I CAN'T WAIT!!!

Thank you so much for this - and my mum tells me this was pretty bloomin' scary at the time it came out. Now it's one of my favourites too.

Simon, did you know that Nigel Kneale was married to Judith Kerr who wrote 'The tiger who came to tea'? Also 'When Hitler stole Pink Rabbit' - a rivetting and moving account of her escape when she was a child, with her family, from Nazi Germany, first to France then to England. I heard this read on Radio 4 as a Book at Bedtime.

Perhaps the Quatermass ‘experiment’ was conducted on the British population? With 100% viewership it perhaps set the ground work for the remaining series to successfully influence the subconscious, which, as you mentioned in the series opener, still deeply affects the British people.

A piece of history BBC history, what ever it was it was better than radio.

I was just seven when I watched it from a hiding place behind the sofa - scared to death. Watched it on the six inch CRT screen of my Dads home made TV built especially for the coronation. That cactus scene remains with me to this day.

Abso Fascinating! And Kudos to you Simon, for sifting through the shit and joining the dots.. Maybe you should change your forename to 'Sherlock'? My Family, has a very, very loose connection to Sir Bernard Lovell, so these 2 videos peaked my interest! Over 50+ yrs ago, I nearly crapped when I first saw the Quatermass II Film... This film and 'Forbidden Planet', 'This Island Earth', condemned me to the SciFi 'genre'... Over 60 yrs ago, I was hiding behind the sofa watching the Original 'Flash Gordon'.. Then it was the original 'Doctor Who' [William Hartnell] and his encounters with the Skaro occupants. I could go on for hours Simon...

Reminds me of that movie with Steve Railsback and the space vampires in London. That was a great movie, can't remember the name.

I was 9 when quartermass hit the screens and I remember being on the edge of my seat . Ps was the machine you mentioned a telly cine . I worked at the bbc in Manchester 30 years ago and i think they was using something like that then

I remember Quatermass from my boyhood, it gave me the creeps, so does this! Happy new year to you and yours prof.

As always, an excellent presentation! You can find the movie on RU-vid.

No! Not .....to be continued..... I am still traumatised from childhood by that line. Wheres my medication.

Interesting. I enjoy the way you present material in a logical way.

The one thing that I admire and love about British Drama is that it's more interesting than American Drama. I also loved the "Quartermass" series of movies. "X, The Unknown" and "Quartermass and The Pit" (aka "Five Million Years To Earth")

1985 Lifeforce Steve Railsback

Tension building... can't wait for the next episode

In the beginning there was you and Wallace. It was great. I couldn't understand why you didn't have 100,000 subscribers. I blame RU-vid algorithm's. Hitting your stride again with this one. Happy new Year

Stay tuned for next exciting episode guys , enjoyed that prof it were good

There is a movie where people make a colony on a empty planet, where something lives that changes in anything. A towel eats suddenly a user who thinks he uses a towel. The mothership is contacted to evacuate the people. When all people are in the spaceship, it eats them all. I forgot the title, who can help me ?

I had the script for Quatermass And The Pit in a penguin paperback in 1978? I loved it and still have it. The Hammer film was fantastic and probably more watchable than the BBC televised version. I thought it was almost as good as Day Of The Triffids (not the poor film, the book) my other favourite of the time. The Pit was genius. Even down to the street names. It worked really well as a printed script and no doubt was one of the first due to its popularity.

5 million YEARS to Earth.... Not miles.

You had me hanging on the edge of my seat 🙂

Quatermass was one my earliest sci-fi hero's , just my opinion I've always thought X file's Mulder character was based on Quatermass

Well done Professor 👍 Fascinating

Mr Kneale used to live around the corner from me in Barnes, I was too much in awe to say hello .

i was exposed to quartermass in 1976 in Rhode Island call creature double feature on channel 56 boston, 2 horror movies back to back

Invasion of the Body Snatchers was written in 1954, so if anything, Invasion of the Body Snatchers is a bit 'Quatermassey'

Gripping stuff! Can’t wait for the next episode.

As a small child, even the word Quatermass, and the theme music terrified me!!!!!! Phew!!!!

Layered with content - thanks Prf! 👍🏼

EXCELLENT

Great video

Happy new year! Really enjoying this new series Professor. 👍

Prof: Your Wrong. The TV version, ends with Quatermass pleading with the Creature for the sake of Humanity to stop what it his doing. The Human parts within the Creature (presumably all 3 Astronauts) somehow kill themselves and the Creature dies. (That's what my Dad told me, he was 12 years old when he watched it live). In the Film version it is changed, to being Electrocuted. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Quatermass_Experiment

if the Quatermass 'fly' episodes still existed; they could probably edit out the fly and fill in the missing sections :) fyi - If I remember correctly; the astronaut babbled in German because he had already absorbed his co-astronauts (one of whom was of German decent)

Brilliant. Been waiting for this one

I loved "5 Million Miles to Earth":)

Im gonna have to watch these movies! I may have seen one as a kid but not sure, it seems so familiar, maybe it's just because I'm so interested in stuff like this!! Maybe they should make remakes based on modern times!!

Is this where "Butel, Tutel" from Brazil came from?

Thank you

Wonder if you can help me out ...I love The Early Days of Radio Astronomy ...I moved to Australia in the 70's At the end of the 60 's in the UK there wàs a Science Fiction series centred around the Parkes Telescope in NSW ....the Story had Extra Terrestrials arriving ( looking very Human tho ) would love to view it again however forgotten it's name it must Have been Shot in Australia tho showed on British TV in Black and White ... Love your Show will Patreon shortly Jerry ( Australia )

It was a rerun on the afternoon film theater.

Genuine criticism not sure of your thinking but will still stick with it coz been with you since beginning

Excellent stuff, happy new year

I don't understand. I just saw the Quatermass Experiment on youtube and it was the whole thing as you describe. How'd they recovery it?

I saw this movie on one of those midnight scifi TV channels. On the whole i thought the central premise of the movie - space is dangerous for human beings, it's not safe - a bit ridiculous. WHY would an astronaut spontaneously mutate in a horrible monster? how typical of scifi of the pre-space exploration era. The explanation of Prof Simon is nice by the way.

Ding! Ding Ding! 3:08 .. 'steerable' a bit like Aracebo !!!! lolol :-)

Happy new year to you and your mrs Si

Reichenheim (one of the three astronauts) was German ,that is why Caroon speaks German ...he is a mix of 3 humans and alien