[7]
Hammer’s third Quatermass film is its best, plunging Professor Quatermass into a mystery involving a wrecked alien spacecraft in a London subway tunnel. Andrew Keir proves likable in the title role, replacing the overly-gruff Brian Donlevy who appeared in the first two films. He’s aided by James Donald (The Bridge on the River Kwai) and Hammer favorite Barbara Shelley (Rasputin: The Mad Monk) as scientists eager to study the extra-terrestrial findings. Julian Glover (Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade) plays the chief antagonist, a disbelieving military colonel who tries to stop Quatermass from sharing his theories with the press.
Quatermass and the Pit benefits from terrific opening and closing acts. The first thirty minutes set up a spooky, compelling mystery after excavators unearth alien skeletons next to the spaceship. The final twenty minutes are possibly the most exciting of any Hammer film, as the ship ‘comes to life’ and creates mass hysteria in the streets of London. (Tobe Hooper’s Lifeforce was surely inspired by this film.)
The second act is a little less solid, as Quatermass makes a number of fishy leaps in logic about the aliens and their reason for coming to Earth. Barbara Shelley gets one of the film’s standout moments when she essentially ‘communes’ with the dead aliens. Nigel Kneale’s script adds a few heady sci-fi concepts that seem superfluous and far-fetched, and the climax feels a bit rushed and confusing. Even though the film was given one of the studio’s biggest budgets (six million dollars), it still feels financially constrained — especially with some rudimentary special effects. But that never stopped Hammer from delivering remarkable work. Quatermass and the Pit is one of the studio’s most interesting stories. The execution, warts and all, is top-tier for the studio.
Directed by Roy Ward Baker (A Night to Remember). In America, this film was titled Five Million Years to Earth.