Do you know what this is?  This is an innovative style of pottery that was made by an ancient people called the “Beaker Folk” who lived on the British Isles approximately 5,000 years ago.  Nearly everyone reading this remembers using “beakers” in chemistry class; and you might have wondered, as I did, where on earth that name came from.  They are glass now of course and have had some stylistic changes, such as a small spout added to the lip.  You will still find beakers in every chemical laboratory in the world. 
I was reminded of this fact last month when I watched my newly acquired DVD of the film where I had originally learned this:  The Quatermass Conclusion (1979), the fourth and last of the Quatermass movies that represent the crown jewels of British science fiction, if not science fiction films as a whole.  Sir John Mills stars as Professor Bernard Quatermass in this installment.  So how about a detour from all of that political stuff, and let me talk about these captivating movies. 😊

The Quatermass movies were originally shown as four-part or six-part serials on British television, beginning with The Quatermass Experiment in August 1953.  These shows were broadcast just two months after the June 1953 coronation of the still-reigning Queen Elizabeth II; the excitement of the upcoming event had led to widespread purchases of television sets by the British public for the first time.  The Quatermass Experiment and the other programs in the series were created and written by Nigel Kneale.  The Quatermass serial was a sensation, attracting audiences in the millions. 
Two years later, a theatrical release called The Quatermass Xperiment (also known as The Creeping Unknown) came out; this was the very first of the horror/science fiction movies that were released by the legendary British film makers, Hammer Film Productions.  The slight change in the title came from the “X” that was attached to the film in an early movie rating system.  The film’s director was Val Guest (not to be confused with Val Lewton who directed the 1942 Cat People film and others of that era).
I recently saw this movie again on Turner Classic Movies, and while host Ben Mankiewicz gave the film a respectful introduction, he was chuckling a bit about the “X” rating as he was addressing a 21st Century audience.  But I am telling you:  If you allow yourself to be caught up by The Quatermass Xperiment, looking past the antiquated special effects (that are still pretty damned impressive even by today’s standards), and listening closely to the film’s score that chills me to the bone every single time I see this movie, that “X” rating makes perfect sense to me. 
The storyline is about what happens to one of three astronauts, named Caroon, who had returned to Earth after a space flight.  (By the way, 1953 was four years before even the first satellite, Sputnik 1 was put into orbit).  The other two astronauts did not survive and were reduced to paste.  The film follows the Caroon thing as he deteriorates frighteningly into something that is not even close to being human.  The Quatermass Xperiment is unquestionably the first of the “body horror” films of the sort that David Cronenberg created so memorably decades later, from Videodrome (1983) on down. 
At one point, a film that was taken inside the spacecraft during the flight was recovered and exhibited for the scientists trying to figure out what had happened.  To me, this film within the film is reminiscent of the famous scene in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) where a stewardess is serving a passenger and the pilot; and in-between, she walks three-quarters around in a circular motion on magnetic shoes, since the two men were sitting in different compartments that were oriented very differently.  I don’t know whether that was intended as an homage to The Quatermass Xperiment, but it looked that way to me.

I watched dozens if not hundreds of horror and science fiction movies when I was a kid, often with my sister Alison W. Pickrell.  Probably around the time I was graduating from high school, I tried to recall which ones had really stuck with me, and the film that came to mind as the best of the best was a movie having the prosaic title of Quatermass II.  (There is supposedly an alternative title of this film also, but I don’t know that I have ever seen it – Enemy from Space).  This one too started as a serial on British television and was released in 1957, also by Hammer, as their third horror film.  (The second Hammer horror film, X – The Unknown was originally intended to be a Quatermass film as well, and it is also a topnotch movie; but Nigel Kneale would not allow his character to be used in that production).
You might remember seeing numerous horror and science fiction movies over the years where alien beings take over humans in some way, and then use them as puppets or slaves for various purposes.  Quatermass II was the first movie to feature that plot point; and it has never, ever been more effectively undertaken.  The alien spawn lived in gigantic domes on a top-secret government installation since they could not live in Earth’s atmosphere.  Supposedly, the installation was being used to make food, but the “food” was highly toxic to humans and was really for the aliens. 
Bernard Quatermass became part of a fact-finding mission to investigate the facility.  At one point, the investigative team was trapped in a control room and began feeding oxygen into the domes.  One of the team members was tricked into leaving the control room after the “people” over the intercom promised him that he would be set free.  He was killed of course, and Quatermass realized that the oxygen pipe had been sealed:  “They’ve blocked the pipe with human pulp!”  You never see these kinds of concepts or that kind of dialogue in American horror or science fiction films; due to the relentlessly Pollyanna influence from Hollywood, movies from this country always seem to pull their punches. 
Many years later, I was the “MAI” appraiser in the San Francisco office of PKF Consulting; and my counterpart in the Los Angeles office was a man named Jeff Lugosi.  And yes, you are right:  He turned out to be the grandson of the legendary Bela Lugosi, who played the title character in the original film (and also on stage, I’ve heard), Dracula (1931).  He took me to his grandfather’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and told me many other stories about him, including what happened to the original cape that he wore while making the movie. 
I might have first met Jeff Lugosi while I was appraising the landmark hotel called the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel.  It is back to its glory days now, but when I valued it (in the early 1990’s), it was a bit rundown but absolutely dripping in history.  The location is almost directly across the street from Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, an even greater landmark Hollywood property; as Wikipedia described it:  “Among the theatre’s most distinctive features are the concrete blocks set in the forecourt, which bear the signatures, footprints, and handprints of popular motion picture personalities from the 1920s to the present day.”
The ballroom in the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel is where the first Academy Awards ceremony was held in 1929; considering what happened there, it is a tiny room, and I really wonder how they were able to fit the reported audience of 270 into that space.  The long-running series of celebrity profiles called This Is Your Life (hosted by Ralph Edwards) was made at the hotel; there was a display placard about that.  Marilyn Monroe shot a famous television commercial at the swimming pool and lived in the hotel for a time in what is now called the Marilyn Monroe Suite.  The striking and oversized Gable-Lombard Penthouse had regularly been the temporary home of the married couple, Clark Gable and Carole Lombard.  As if that weren’t enough, the adjoining building that was also part of the appraisal had housed the original Arthur Murray Dance Studio. 
One time I was talking with Jeff Lugosi, and he mentioned that his other grandfather, Brian Donlevy was also an actor and had been nominated for an Academy Award, etc.  I started thinking about it, and I realized that Brian Donlevy had starred as Professor Bernard Quatermass in Quatermass II (and also in The Quatermass Xperiment – I don’t remember ever seeing that movie as a child).  I told him that and probably made a complete fool of myself about how much I loved that movie.  I loaned him my copy of the videotape so that he could see the movie; he didn’t really get it, but I wonder if there was ever anyone else who completely geeked out over his other grandfather! 😊

Of all of the horror and science fiction movies that I saw in my teenaged years, the movie that really grabbed me was called Five Million Years to Earth (1967).  This is a different movie from 20 Million Miles to Earth (1957), a Ray Harryhausen, stop-motion animation showcase.  I was only going to mention that film in passing; but I noticed a poster for 20 Million Miles to Earth online, and the spaceship could be a twin of the one in The Quatermass Xperiment.  The British title of the film is Quatermass and the Pit.
In this movie, an ancient spacecraft having a series of unusual effects on people around it was discovered and later unearthed during an extension of the subway system called the London Underground.  (In the original television series, the spaceship was discovered while digging the foundation for a large apartment building).  But first, strange fossils of ape men with an abnormally enlarged cranium were uncovered.  Bernard Quatermass, a paleontologist named Andrew Roney, and his assistant Barbara Judd begin investigating and find that the area has been notorious for strange happenings, dating back even to Roman times.  The neighborhood where the excavation was occurring (and also the name of the nearest subway stop) is Hobbs End.  But this area was originally called Hobs End, with “hob” – as in hobgoblin – being a nickname for the devil. 
A hidden cavity within the spacecraft is finally opened and is found to contain several very large insect beings.  Quatermass, Roney and Judd eventually conclude that the ape men, though undoubtedly not extraterrestrial, had been artificially altered, presumably by the insect beings – as a way of colonizing the Earth by proxy.  Needless to say, the powers that be had a more “rational” explanation; and they continued fiddling around until the spacecraft ultimately unleashed its diabolical powers.

I

In the final film (the original television serials are simply called Quatermass), Professor Bernard Quatermass has long since retired and has been trying to find his granddaughter who has disappeared into a weird cult called the Planet People.  They have the appearance of hippies or flower children but are violently antipathetic to learning and science.  At one point, one of the cultists shouts:  “Stop trying to know things!”  The Planet People are normally found in the rural areas and are being mysteriously drawn to the stone circles that are found throughout Britain, with Stonehenge of course being the most famous.  Meanwhile, vicious gangs are raging in urban areas like London. 
Professor Quatermass runs into a group of the Planet People and commiserates with them.  He then tries to convince them that there is no planet to be taken up to – until a blazing beam from outer space smashes into the stone circle and vaporizes them, leaving just one survivor.  This is just one of numerous “harvestings” that are taking place all over the world; the worst occurs in the gigantic Wembley Stadium (where one of the two 1985 Live Aid concerts was held), where 70,000 people perished – Planet People and gang members alike.
Older people seem to be immune to the mysterious influence from space, and a group of older scientists and others plan to set off a massive bomb while a beam is in place (the incidents last just 20 seconds).  Right at the end, the eyes of Bernard Quatermass and his granddaughter meet, and they are able to work together to save the day.
Sometimes the leisurely pace of the television serial works better than the tighter and much shorter theatrical version, and vice versa in other cases.  In this instance, the serial version Quatermass is more effective than the comparatively rare theatrical version called The Quatermass Conclusion.  I am delighted to have them both, however. 
I had a near-complete Quatermass collection pre-Katrina that I mostly acquired at a video store just a few blocks down from our apartment in Greenwich Village, which had many connoisseur-grade items.  I despaired that I would ever find them again, until I checked on Amazon earlier this year and found a host of Quatermass products available, with most of them reasonably priced (though not the film version of Five Million Years to Earth).  For those of you who want to try to acquire your own Quatermass films, look carefully at the ads about the formatting – many of the DVD’s will only work on European players.

Without question, there is an homage to Five Million Years to Earth in one of the very best of the John Carpenter films, In the Mouth of Madness (1994), whose title is adapted from that of an H. P. Lovecraft novella, At the Mountains of Madness (1931).  (Guillermo del Toro has had a still unrealized film adaptation of this novella in the works for many years).  One of the novels written by the horror writer at the heart of the story, Sutter Kane, is The Hob’s End Horror, taken from the name of the neighborhood in London where the action in Five Million Years to Earth takes place.
In turn, there is a reference to In the Mouth of Madness in perhaps the very best screen adaptation of a Lovecraft story, Dagon (2001), a Spanish feature that was directed by long-time horror movie director Stuart Gordon.  The title is derived from one of Lovecraft’s earliest tales (which was written almost 100 years ago), but the story is actually based primarily on his 1931 novella The Shadow over Innsmouth.  In the film, the town’s name is “Imboca”, which is Spanish for “in the mouth”.  It has been many years since I have seen this film; but, paraphrasing a well-known warning label, some scenes in Dagon are likely too intense for my 21st Century self 😊 . 
In the Mouth of Madness follows the works of a highly popular horror writer whose readers are driven insane by the material – not at all unlike what happens to people who dare to read the dreaded Necronomicon by the “mad Arab” Abdul Alhazred that was invented by H. P. Lovecraft, or the second act of the equally horrific The King in Yellow that was referenced in a series of 19th Century tales by Robert W. Chambers. 
At an early point in the movie, the protagonist, an insurance investigator named John Trent is being held in an asylum; and the inmates begin singing along to the playing of the Carpenters song (as in John Carpenter, obviously), “We’ve Only Just Begun”.  Trent calls out, “Oh, no, not the Carpenters!!!”.  Immediately following this light-hearted moment, the recording slowly winds down, the oddest looking arm I have ever seen gives a couple of quick knocks on the glass, and the door to Trent’s cell creaks open – the film then takes a hard right turn straight into The Pit, with a parade of wild plot twists and fantasy and horror sequences that are almost beyond belief.  Eventually, Trent returns to the “real world” and finds that absolutely everything is going to hell, even seeing earlier scenes of this very film where he starts cackling at his own dialogue.
The cast of In the Mouth of Madness is one of the best ever assembled for a horror movie, including Charlton Heston (of all people) as the publisher of the Sutter Cane novels.  The star of In the Mouth of Madness is Sam Neill, a fine actor from New Zealand who has found himself being a primary or supporting player in an unbelievably long list of landmark movies besides this one, among them Omen III: The Final Conflict, The Hunt for Red October, The Piano, Jurassic Park, Jurassic Park III, and Event Horizon.
The author’s name in the film is Sutter Cane (blatantly adapted from that of real-life author Stephen King), and he is played by veteran German actor Jürgen Prochnow, one of the stars of the top-drawer war movie Das Boot (1985).  In the English-language version of the movie called The Boat, the German actors do all of their own dubbing of the English onto their original performances. 
One canny bit of casting is the inclusion in the film of long-time character actress Frances Bay (pictured).  I have seen her in dozens of movies and TV shows, where she always plays a sweet “little old lady” – but not this time.

One more movie that is worth mentioning in this list is another long-time favorite of mine called Lifeforce (1985), whose director Tobe Hooper also helmed the original Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974).  This horror/science fiction film is truly over the top, drenched in full-frontal nudity, deviant sexuality, and telekinetic battles (and worse) of the sort that were only hinted at in Five Million Years to Earth.  The capsule review in the New York Times TV listings when Lifeforce was on one of the local channels closed with:  “Pulverizingly brutal stuff.”
Based on a novel by Colin Wilson called Space Vampires (which I also had pre-Katrina), a titanic spaceship many miles in length arrives at Earth while hidden inside Halley’s Comet (which of course turned out to be miniscule in size in its 1986 arrival, compared to how we all expected it to be based on the 1910 appearance, when the comet’s tail actually bathed Earth if I remember right). 
The spaceship in the Lifeforce film looks a lot like that unique, elongated object called ’Oumuamua that has been determined to be the first interstellar object to be spotted traveling through our Solar System.  There are some who are still convinced that ’Oumuamua is some sort of spaceship.
At one end of the alien spaceship in Lifeforce are three humanoids, a woman and two men, with all three naked and unconscious.  They are brought aboard a joint exploratory American/British spacecraft called the Churchill that had been sent toward Halley’s Comet.  All three of the aliens make it to Earth and begin a seemingly unstoppable campaign of absorbing and collecting the “lifeforce” (or human souls) from the people of London and then, presumably, the rest of our planet.  At length, the surviving astronaut Tom Carlsen uses the close connection that he has with the female and is able to stop them. 
There have been many editions of Lifeforce, and I have acquired a half dozen or so over the years, both pre-Katrina and post-Katrina.  Every one of the videotapes or DVD’s that I have purchased seems to be different – and I can never remember that happening with any other movie.  In some, there is a lot of narration, and in others, none at all; sometimes there is a long introductory section aboard the Churchill, and other times they are almost immediately on board the alien spaceship; sometimes one of the male aliens speaks, and sometimes they are both mute throughout the film; the nature of an early sexual encounter by the “space girl” with a human woman is explained with differing levels of detail; and the amount of nudity exhibited by the space girl (played by Mathilda May) seems to vary considerably, though it is always copious. 
Steve Railsback plays the surviving astronaut Tom Carlsen; he famously gave a truly terrifying performance as Charles Manson in a TV movie called Helter Skelter (1976), and he is really on his game here as well.  Also on hand are Peter Firth, who has had several nude scenes of his own during his career (though not in this movie); and Patrick Stewart, many years before his turn as Captain Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Returning to the Beaker folk, which I mentioned at the start of this series of posts, they were a remarkable group of people whose very existence has often been in doubt among scientists.  Just this year, an extensive study of ancestral DNA determined that most of modern-day Britons trace their roots to this ancient people.