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Writing those notes for Caballistics reminded me that I still don't have a copy of any of the Quatermass series on tape or DVD!

Does anyone know if the TV serials or movies are available, and if not, are they likely to be at any point?

Cheers!

Don't think all of the series is here, but all the films seem to be.

Link: "Run-ning! LEAP-ing!"

As far as I'm aware, the original Quatermass Experiment TV series is 'lost', like the Dr. Who episodes, Steptoe and Son and Dad's Army.

I think the whole of Quatermass and the Pit survives, because I don't recall any parts being missing when it was re-broadcast around 1980.

As far as I'm aware, the original Quatermass Experiment TV series is 'lost', like the Dr. Who episodes, Steptoe and Son and Dad's Army.

Not quite - the first two episodes exist, but the remaining four were never recorded in the first place. The quality of the films is fairly dire, though - almost unwatchable. (If you've seen the Peter Cushing version of '1984' that they put on BBC4 every now and again, it's worse than that).

Quatermass II exists in full, but has never been released on video or DVD.

Quatermass and the Pit exists in full and has been released on both video and DVD - however, only as an edited compilation version which is missing several scenes (and, for some reason, the DVD picture looks worse than the video that was released in 1988!)

The Quatermass Conclusion is available as a DVD box set.

All three movies are also available (but I'd skip the first two with the drunken American and only watch the Andrew Kier one).

Episodes 1-2 of The Quatermass Experiment were recorded, the other four never were.

All of Quatermass II, ...and the Pit, and the last (1979) series still exist.

--Grant

Cheers, folks! Does anyone know if the BBC still hold copyright to the original serials? Are they the people to pester re: decent DVD releases of the Quatermass episodes that survive?

I think I'll be picking up the three films, but I've been warned off "The Quatermass Conclusion" which is apparently pretty bad. Irritating that it gets the multi-DVD special treatment, when the good stuff languishes...

Cheers, folks! Does anyone know if the BBC still hold copyright to the original serials? Are they the people to pester re: decent DVD releases of the Quatermass episodes that survive?

They do, and I also know that the guys who clean up the BBC Doctor Who releases are dying to have a go on Quatermass.

However, I hear that it's Nigel Kneale himself who's preventing the releases.

He has a martian in his attic, you know...

I enjoyed The Quatermass Conclusion. It's ptretty much what I imagined the future would look like at the time. Probably about as accurate a depiction of the future as Dan Dare was in the 1950s, I suppose.

But the ITV series correctly predicted the rise of the crusties when Two-Tone was all the rage.

Future! Shock!

I thought the Quatermass finale was pretty good.  Downbeat, cynical and depressing, with an open-ended climax as to whether the 'things' that were engineering a cull of humanity were stopped, or if they even took the slightest bit of notice of Quatermass' final sacrifice in the first place.
The vision of 'future' Britain, with mass unemployment, martial law and dead bodies littering the streets of cities fighting a losing battle to cling onto civilisation was brilliantly done, if rather symptomatic of dystopian science-fiction of the period.  The Sci-fi channel still repeat it occaisionally, too.

I loved the Quatermass conclusion, worth a watch, definitely.

Don't know if I really need to watch it after reading Bear's post...

;-)

a quick trawl of my work intranet today confirms what Grant says: Only the first 2 episodes of the first series exist, the second and third series survive complete.
 It's quite amazing there's anything at all, in fact, as all three series were were transmitted live. What remains is film which (I presume) was shot as the episodes were acted/broadcast. Given that TV programmes were by no means considered something worth preserving back then, it's a miracle anything survives, really.

Can't say why it's not been remastered and rereleased, the technology must be there to clean it up properly, and getting classic stuff like this available again has become an increasing priority for the Beeb over the past few years, as a cursory browse of the DVD racks will show. So I can only assume Lobo Baggins' theory is right there.

(Disclaimer: This message reflects the views of the poster only, and is not a statement of BBC policy)

I always thought Quatermass was one step above critical mass...

#ahem#

Dirty Frank - knowing who lives or dies is irrelevant to the plot, as it's established that Quatermass is going to make the supreme sacrifice LONG before the final moments of the show, and the final minutes are used instead to wrap up ongoing subplots, one of which touches upon Quatermass' backstory.
He comes across as a lonely old man, watching the world go to hell, but determined to see his niece one last time before it happens, and this is the central premise to everything else that happens in the show.
If you've never seen it before, how can you NOT want to see the apocalyptic finale to a true British sci-fi hero's life?

Hate to say it but I found it very boring and pofaced.

Apparently, in the credits for the terrifying "Prince of Darkness", John Carpenter, as screenwriter, is credited as "Martin Quatermass".

I've only seen the TV-movie edit of the last Quatermass (apparently 200 minutes chopped down to 105) and the editing left lots of weird, unexplained bits throughout.  But the tone and general creepiness helped me overlook the lack of logic.

--Grant

in more Quatermassy news, there`s a very good Goon-show parody around somewhere
 Oh and I read a terrific book of stories by the bloke who created Quatermass, Nigel Kneale. It`s called `Tomato Cain` and a lot of the stories are set on the Isle of Man.
  I realise this is not what you asked for, DF, but there you go

There was an open-air play version of Quatermass and the Pit done in a quarry in the middle of nowhere (well rural Nottinghamshire). I went on my birthday several years ago. It really rocked.

in more Quatermassy news, there`s a very good Goon-show parody around somewhere

Indeed, 'The Scarlet Capsule'.

'We can't stand here doing nothing! People will think we're workmen!'

Unfortunately, it's only commercially available as one of the heavily edited EMI releases.

which Quatermass series are we talking about here?..The one with John Mills in?..if so the whole series was broadcast on Sat1 the German channel in about 98 in english with German subs..

"Apparently, in the credits for the terrifying "Prince of Darkness", John Carpenter, as screenwriter, is credited as "Martin Quatermass"."

This is exactly right, as Carpenter was a massive fan of Nigel Kneale. The film itself is a sort of cross between Kneale's 'The Stone Tape' and 'Quatermass and the Pit'. Carpenter also got Kneale to write 'Haloween III', when they were attempting to broaden the fanchise, and Kneale used one of his old script ideas that caused teenagers to commit suicide, which had been rejected by the BBC in the sixties, as the main kernel of the idea upon which the film is predicated. However, Kneale and Carpenter fell out over changes made to his script, and Kneale asked for his name to be taken off. Carpenter then extensively re-wrote the script, adding in stuff like the theft, and later usage, of a monolith from Stonehenge: perhaps the most Nigel Kneale-sounding part of the film, even though it wasn't written by him!

The Quatermass Conclusion (released as a theatrical feature abroad, after appearing on ITV at home) is, in my opinion, ok. John Mills plays a desolate, somewhat wasted older Quatermass very well, and Kneale still has some good ideas up his sleeve. The problem is that the series should have been made ten years earlier - originally the series was pitched to the BBC about 1967/68, but they turned it down, coonsidering it too costly and too downbeat. By the time it came out on ITV, some of the concepts, like the flower people/hippy nanlogy, had dated rather badly. ALso, the colour phtography doesn't cover as  many ills as the b&w did with the previous serials. I'd recommend everyone to read Kneale's novelisation of the series instead.

Also, Nigel Kneale is still witholding the release of the second tv series, as he wasn't happy with the effects at the end of the series, or some of his writing on the last episode.

But who wrote the jingle?

51 days till halloween, halloween, 51 days till halloween - sil-ver shamrock!

If you get the DVD, it plays over and over in a thirty second loop, which plays until you are actually driven mad and dig out your own brain by jabbing pointy sticks in your ears.

some of the concepts, like the flower people/hippy nanlogy, had dated rather badly

...and there was me thinking it was quite prescient! I particularly liked the bits where the rival gangs started taking pot-shots at the planet people crowd walking through some contested wasteground. And the return of the Ironsides as riot police.

I have to admit liking the first two Quatermass movies, low budget perhaps, but there's an air of creepiness about them and Donlevy's non acting is pure oak.

For fans of these early Hammer movies, the print used for Quatermass 2 on DVD is stunning.
Snap it up!


Ed

Does anyone know if the TV serials or movies are available, and if not, are they likely to be at any point?

Dredging this thread back from the dead, I've just heard that there may be a Quatermass DVD box set out in February 2005.

Along with 'The Day of the Triffids', although that one's been appearing on provisional release schedules since 1992 and hasn't appeared yet.

No sign of 'The Nightmare Man', though...

Again dredging this thread back from the dead, it says on the BBC Cult site that there's a DVD Box set of all the surviving Quatermass material scheduled for next year...

Probably due out on the forth of April, along with 'The Nightmare Man', 'Day of the Triffids', 'The Flipside of Domenik Hyde' and the BBC adaptation of 'The Invisible Man' from 1984 which no one but me remembers.

You know, all those telefantasy DVDs make me think that the new Doctor Who may possibly be starting in April...

There's also an interview with Pat Mills about Charley's War and a review of the new Dan Dare collections by that bloke what writes Dead Ringers on the site at the moment.

Link: BBC Cults!

"Again dredging this thread back from the dead, it says on the BBC Cult site that there's a DVD Box set of all the surviving Quatermass material scheduled for next year..."

Oooh... I'm up for that.

Last I heard, The Nightmare Man wasn't due on DVD 'til July.

I vaguely remember the Pip Donaghy version of The Invisble Man too. Wouldn't mind seeing the two Dominick Hyde plays again but they've probably dated the most.

"The sentient flesh-eating plants will be stalking the Earth again on 21 February 2005'

Yay! :)

'dum-dum..du-dum du-dum'

>and the BBC adaptation of 'The Invisible Man' from 1984 which no one but me remembers.

No, I remember that... my physics teacher referred to it on a lesson about refraction.

Now all we need is a decent collection of Nigel Kneale's Beasts series and we're all set.