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.