QUATERMASS AND THE PIT (1957/BBC.Television) 210mins. TVM. UK.
Credits: Dir. & Sc: Nigel Kneale; Prod: Rudolph Cartier; Ph: A.A. Englander; Ed: Ian Callaway; Des: Clifford Hatts; Sfx: Jack Kine & Bernard Wilke; Military Advisor: Lt. Col. P.J. Hands; Mu: Christine Hillcoat; Mus: Trevor Duncan.
Cast: Andre Morell, Noel Howlett, Cec Linder, Kenneth Seeger, Anthony Bushell, Frank Crane, John Stratton, Harold Goodwin, Christine Finn, Nan Braunton, Brian Worth, Robert Perceval Van Boolen, Michael Bird, Michael Ripper, Michael Raghan, Arthur Hewlett, Harold Siddons, Alexander Moyes, John Rae, Malcolm Watson, Ian Ainsley.
Bomb disposal experts uncover some ancient bones while working on what appears to be an unexploded bomb in the Knightsbridge area of London. When Professor Quatermass, (Morell), and an archaeologist, (Howell), arrive at the site they discover that the "bomb" is actually an ancient space vessel containing fossilised creatures that landed on earth five million years ago. The "devil-like" creatures tampered with ape evolution to create man and their strange appearance explains the number of myths of "devils" throughout history. One of the fossilised aliens produces a huge energy cloud in its image to hover over London until Quatermass manages to dissipate the cloud with an iron crane.
An ingenious third television series originally aired by the BBC. in six 35 minute episodes.
The video release contains all six episodes edited together in one long feature.
Remade as a feature film in 1967.

QUATERMASS AND THE PIT (1967/Hammer/Seven Arts) 97mins. UK.
Aka: FIVE MILLION MILES TO EARTH (US).
Credits: Dir: Roy Ward Baker; Prod: Anthony Nelson Keys; Sc: Nigel Kneale; Ph: Arthur Grant; Ed: James Needs & Spencer Reeve; Art: Bernard Robinson & Ken Ryan; Sfx: Bowie Films Ltd.; Mu: Michael Morris; Sound: Sash Fisher; Mus: Tristram Cary. From the television series by Nigel Kneale.
Cast: Andrew Kier, Roger Avon, James Donald, June Ellis, Barbara Shelley, Hugh Morton, Duncan Lamont, Hugh Futcher, Bryan Marshall, Noel Howlett, Peter Copley, John Graham, Edwin Richfield, Bee Duffell, Maurice Good, James Culliford, Julian Glover, Keith Marsh, Grant Taylor, Thomas Heathcote, Robert Morris, Shelia Steafel.
"See women defiled by monsters from outer space! Men turned into killers by a mysterious power more incredible than anything today's science or fiction ever imagined!"
A spaceship discovered under a London Underground tunnel contains fossilised, demon-like alien life forms that Professor Quatermass, (Keir), concludes landed five million years ago and tampered with the ape creatures they encountered to create man, giving rise to the numerous legends of the Devil in Christian mythology.
A superb rendering of the popular British television series with the benefit of the big screen and Hammer's inky colour. The intellectual approach to the tale is made all the more credible by the convincing cast and some clever religious metaphors.

THE QUATERMASS EXPERIMENT (1955/Hammer/Exclusive) 82mins. BW. UK.
Aka: THE CREEPING UNKNOWN; SHOCK.
Credits: Dir: Val Guest; Prod: Anthony Hinds; Sc: Richard Landau & Val Guest; Ph: Jimmy Harvey; Ed: James Needs; Art: J. Elder Wills; Sfx: Les Bowie; Mu: Phil Leaky; Mus: James Bernard. From the BBC. television series by Nigel Kneale.
Cast: Brian Donlevy, Ernest Hare, John Kerr, Richard Wordsworth, George Roderick, Margia Dean, Fred Johnson, John Wynn, Thora Hird, Margaret Anderson, Gordon Jackson, John Stirling, David King-Wood, Arthur Lovegrove, Harold Lang, Michael Godfrey, Lionel Jeffries, Henry Longhurst, Sam Kydd, Stanley Van Beers, Jack Warner, Gron Davies, Eric Corrie, Frank Philips, Maurice Kaufman, Marianne Stone, Barlett Mullins, Basil Dignam.
"You can't escape it! Nothing can destroy it! It's coming for you from space to wipe all living things from the face of the Earth! Can it be stopped ?"
Professor Quatermass, (Donlevy), investigates a rocket that has returned from 1500 miles into space with two of its three-man crew missing. The only survivor, Victor Caroon, (Wordsworth), is taken to a hospital, but he is unable to communicate to anyone exactly what occurred in the spacecraft. After Caroon's wife helps her husband escape, he runs off with one of his arms hideously mutated, eventually transforming into a plant-like mass on top of some scaffolding at Westminster Abbey where a television crew happen to be filming. Quatermass locates the creature and transfers all of London's electrical power to some cables and electrocutes the monster.
A British science fiction classic heightened by Wordsworth's superb portrayal of the infected mute astronaut. Assumably to help with the film's foreign markets, the original English Quatermass is replaced with an abrasive American character much to Kneale's dislike.
For the original television series "The Quatermass Experiment", the creature was created from a pair of rubber gloves with various attachments in which Kneale would waggle his fingers against an enlarged photograph of Westminster Abbey's interior.
Sequel: Quatermass II.

QUEEN OF OUTER SPACE (1959/Allied Artists) 80mins. US.
Credits: Dir: Edward Bernds; Prod: Ben Schwalb; Sc: Charles Beaumont; Ph: William Whitley; Ed: William Austin; Art: David Milton; Sfx: Milt Rice; Mu: Emile La Vigne; Mus: Marlin Skiles. From a story by Ben Hecht.
Cast: Zsa Zsa Gabor, Eric Fleming, Dave Willock, Laurie Mitchell, Lisa Davis, Paul Birch, Patrick Waltz, Barbara Darrow, Marilyn Buferd, Mary Ford, Marya Stevens, Laura Mason, Lynn Cartwright, Kathy Marlowe, Coleen Drake, Velia Norma Young, Marjorie Durant, Gerry Gaylor.
"Mankind's first flight to Venus...The female planet!"
In 1985 three astronauts, (Fleming, Waltz & Willock), and a scientist crash-land on Venus where they are captured by beautiful Venusians and taken to a city to be sentenced to death as Earth spies. Hateful of all men, the cruel masked queen, (Mitchell), tyrannically rules the planet, but a scientist, (Gabor), befriends the astronauts and explains that their queen was hideously scarred in a war she blames on man. Now the Queen wants to destroy the earth with Beta Disintergrator rays. Those who also want the evil queen vanquished arm the astronauts who attempt to dismantle the death ray machine, but although their plan fails, when the queen turns the machine on, the sabotage causes it to explode and kill her.
Although made to parody the science fiction genre, the script overplays the single theme and it becomes tedious. Most of the laughter comes from the poor dialogue and even poorer acting in a story that takes too long and to many inane avenues to get to the point.
The film features spacesuits from Forbidden Planet, sets and a spider from World Without End and shots of a rocket from Flight to Mars.

QUEEN OF SPADES (1954/Dynamic) 15mins. 16mm.
From the story "Pikovaya Dama" by Alexander Pushkin.
Cast: Monty Woolley.

QUEEN OF SPADES (1960) see Pikovaya Dama

QUEEN OF SPADES (1966) France.
Credits: Dir: Leonard Keigel. From the story by Alexander Pushkin.
Cast: Dita Parlo, Jean Negroni.
An uninspired retelling of the famous Russian story.

QUEEN OF THE GORILLAS (1957) see The Bride and the Beast