Quatermass II (BBC)

I watched the original The Quatermass Experiment a couple of years ago and really enjoyed it because it was the birth of populist television in the making. The Quatermass phenomenon became one of the BBC's greatest post-war triumphs and to watch these old, scratchy prints (although they have been cleaned up as much as possible for DVD) is like watching magic in motion!

So I came to Quatermass II with some excitement. I love these old B-movie type productions (whether they are TV or films) because I love to see what achievements they made with small budgets and technical expertise. And also, of course, they're often rollicking good yarns too.

Not so with Quatermass II. It starts well, building tension and gradually (and I mean gradually) unravelling the truth of what is going on at the mysterious synthetic food plant at Winnerdon Flats. It is slow, but I can accept that because the atmosphere is developed well by the director, and there's some nice location filming (especially when Quatermass goes to the factory, which I think was actually a Shell plant in Essex).

Episode 5 is called The Frenzy, and despite the expectation that this is when the action picks up and all hell breaks loose, it's quite the opposite. As soon as the villagers revolt and try to destroy the alien menace, the pace slows right down to a crawl, it gets horrifically talky and the direction takes a nosedive. It's almost as if the actors were left to their own devices for the final two weeks while Rudolph Cartier was off on holiday or something. It's a shambles.

The acting throughout is stilted at best. I'm not a fan of John Robinson's portrayal of Quatermass, and he plays the part as if he's only just read his lines for the first time. Sometimes that shows, as he falters over his words and often looks completely lost. I guess this might be because he was a very late replacement for Reginald Tate, who played Quatermass in the first serial in 1954 but who died of a heart attack while filming the location scenes for Quatermass II. Robinson must have come to this project very late, and it shows.

Elsewhere, we have the wet Monica Grey as Quatermass's daughter Paula (who looks desperately into camera to deliver her lines at any opportunity), and the bushy-browed Hugh Griffith as Dr Pugh, a man I wouldn't trust to make the tea, never mind go up in a space rocket to save the world.

The best performance of the entire six episodes is undoubtedly from Roger Delgado (who 16 years later would became the Master in Doctor Who), who plays a Fleet Street journalist chasing the secret of Winnerdon Flats alongside Quatermass. But when he gets possessed by the alien gas, Delgado puts in a fantastic performance which puts his colleagues to shame, and as he desperately tries to relate his story to his editor over the phone, the possession takes hold and he eventually succumbs. Delgado proves that not everyone acting for the BBC in the 1950s was doing so with a plumb in their mouth and a broom up their backside. Episode 4 (The Coming) is probably the best episode because of his sole contribution.

All in all, it's a disappointing serial. I think Quatermass is sorely miscast, and while Nigel Kneale's story is essentially good, it is adapted in quite a workmanlike way, particularly in light of the previous year's wonderful first serial. I think Cartier really drops the ball toward the end, resulting in a very dull episode 5 and a chaotic and confused finale.

Quatermass II, originally transmitted October 22nd - November 26th 1955.
Written by Nigel Kneale; directed by Rudolph Cartier.

Casting the Runes (1979) & Ghostwatch

Last night was Hallowe'en (I'm a stickler for that apostrophe!) and time for the traditional spooky evening of DVD watching in my household. We watched two cult items, and here are my thoughts on them.

ITV Playhouse: Casting the Runes

This 50 minute adaptation of an M R James ghost story was first shown as part of ITV Playhouse's eleventh season, and was recently released (inexplicably) on its own DVD by Network.

I've never read any of James's original stories, but am a great fan of TV and film adaptations of his work, so when I read that Ghost Story for Christmas aficionado Lawrence Gordon Clark was behind this, I had high expectations.

Sadly, it's not up to the same standard as Clark's finest work with the BBC. The story starts with an extremely atmospheric and well shot prelude where we see a man and his dog pursued by a strange something across a beautiful snowy field. The man is John Harrington, and his death seems to be down to the fact he wrote a scathing review of the latest supernatural book by author Julian ("big man") Karswell. Harrington ends up dead in a field, and his dog is never seen again (dogs never do well out of stories like this).

Some time later TV journalist Prudence Dunning mentions something derogatory about Karswell in one of her programmes, and soon enough she too has been cursed by the vengeful author. My advice is never become a writer if you can't take criticism.

But there's too much inconsistency and not enough brooding spookyness in this piece. Harrington's demise was thick with atmosphere, with a feeling of being watched and pursued, whereas all Dunning really gets is a giant rubber spider in her bed. Her efforts to break the curse by surreptitiously handing back to Karswell his runic slip of paper are half-hearted (donning a blonde wig and frilly blouse wouldn't even convince Stevie Wonder) and when she does finally manage to turn the tables, it's by impersonating a customs official at an airport, something I find so unconvincing (even for the pre-9/11 1970s) that it left me feeling disappointed and cheated.

I don't know if that's the same ending James originally wrote but it just feels like an all-too-easy attempt to be Tales of the Unexpected to me. The cast does a good job, but nothing that stands out, but it's Clark's location filming that makes the best impression - snowbound streets and countryside, and bonfires and fireworks, perfect viewing for a Hallowe'en night. It's just a shame the story's so unconvincing.

ITV Playhouse: Casting the Runes, originally transmitted April 24th 1979.

Written by Clive Exton from the M R James story; directed by Lawrence Gordon Clark.

Ghostwatch

Ghostwatch is infamous in the canon of cult British TV because of the almost hysterical reaction it got on its first (and only) broadcast. Produced and transmitted as part of BBC1's Screen One strand of one-off feature-length dramas, Ghostwatch attracted unprecedented media and public outcry because people thought it was real.

The problem was that it was made to look as if it was a live broadcast investigating hauntings at a house owned by a middle-aged mum and her two children. These days we're sick to death of this type of broadcast - Hospitalwatch, Springwatch, Crimewatch - but back then they were more popular, and more notice was taken of them.

Despite being billed as a drama, many were convinced it was real, happening live as they watched. There were strange cat noises behind the walls, scratches to the possessed teenager's face, "live" phone-ins, banging on the ceiling, quick glimpses of "something" lurking in the shadows and reflections of the house, and finally a full-on national seance, resulting in presenter Sarah Greene being sucked into a cupboard under the stairs, and Michael Parkinson being possessed in the studio.

It sounds silly, and some of it is. But back in 1992 so many people were convinced this was a real live broadcast, and that these girls were being possessed by a ghost, that switchboards were jammed, outraged leader articles filled the next day's papers and there was even one report of a young man killing himself because of watching Ghostwatch.

There's no denying that parts of it are effectively done. The scenes set in the studio, with a cynical Michael Parkinson interviewing the almost obsessive parapychologist Dr Lin Pascoe, are the most convincing, principally because of the trust the British public has in Parky. He was, and remains, a dependable figure, and provided an added layer of validity to the piece. This is also the case with Sarah Greene, a much-loved personality who had hosted children's TV through the 1980s and couldn't possibly be pulling the wool over viewers' eyes now...

Not so convincing is the use of cheeky chappy Craig Charles for the Outside Broadcast scenes (Charles was brought into this world simply to annoy, I think) and although the actress playing Pamela Earley was good, those playing her children were less skilled at pitching the reality right.

All in all, Ghostwatch is an effective and interesting piece of drama, a good experiment in distorting the narrative of both traditional TV drama and the up-and-coming reality TV. The quick glimpses keen-eyed viewers get of murderous disfigured paedophile Pipes are chilling, and the presence of Parkinson and Greene adds protracted weight until things really start getting silly toward the end.

Ghostwatch is much more convincing than some of the blatantly staged, desperate tripe today's Most Haunted trots out as entertainment.

Ghostwatch, originally transmitted October 31st 1992.

Written by Stephen Volk; directed by Lesley Manning.