Quatermass 2 (also known as Quatermass II) is a 1957 British science-fiction/horror film based on the BBC Television serial Quatermass II. The film was made by British film studio Hammer Film Productions and is a sequel to their 1955 film The Quatermass Xperiment which was also based on a television serial, The Quatermass Experiment. In America, the film was released under the title Enemy From Space.

Cast

• Brian Donlevy as Bernard Quatermass

• William Franklyn as Brand

• Bryan Forbes as Marsh

• John Longden (aka John Longdon) as Lomax

• Tom Chatto as Vincent Broadhead

• Sid James as Jimmy Hall

Background

The film was directed by Val Guest, and the script adapted by Guest and the writer of the original television series, Nigel Kneale. Kneale had been unhappy that he had been unable to work on the previous Quatermass film adaptation because of his BBC staff contract: however, in 1956 he had left the staff of the Corporation to become a freelance writer, enabling him to work on the film.

The Quatermass Xperiment had been a successful and popular film for Hammer, so much so that they had wanted to make their own sequel originally written for the cinema. Kneale had denied them the use of the Quatermass character, however, so the film – 1956's X the Unknown – was made with a new character and not as part of the Quatermass series.[1] After the transmission of Quatermass II on the BBC in 1955, however, Hammer were quick to buy the rights to make another bona fide Quatermass film.

As with the first film, Quatermass 2 stars American actor Brian Donlevy as Professor Bernard Quatermass. This makes him the only actor to have appeared on-screen as the character twice, although later actor Andrew Keir would also play the role twice, once on film and once on the radio. Nigel Kneale was not a fan of Donlevy's portrayal, and regarded him as the least successful of all the film and television Quatermasses. Also appearing in the film was Sid James, later famous for his roles in Hancock's Half Hour and Bless This House on television and the Carry On films in the cinema.

Quatermass 2 is generally regarded by fans and critics as the least successful of Hammer's three film adaptations of the serials[citation needed], although Kim Newman praised it as "extraordinary" in The Penguin Encyclopedia of Horror and the Supernatural (1986). Comparing the film with Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Newman noted that, while Don Siegel's film is "a general allegory" about dehumanisation and conformity, Quatermass 2 is "a specific attack on the Conservative government of the time, down to the inclusion of several characters obviously based on real political figures".

Quatermass 2 was also useful to fans as it had been available on VHS and DVD before the original television serial was released on DVD for the first time in 2005. Hammer would go on to adapt the third BBC serial, Quatermass and the Pit, in 1967.

The film is regarded as being the first 'numbered' sequel, a practice that would become much more prevalent during the 1970s.[2]

References

External links

• Quatermass 2 at the TCM Movie Database

• Quatermass 2 at Britmovie