The JohnBleasdale Universe
  • Home
  • LynchBLOG
  • BondBlog
  • Stanley KuBlog
  • SpielBlog
  • Blog
  • Film Writing
    • Festivals
    • Films reviewed (a-z)
  • Fiction
    • Bracken
    • Poetry
  • Contact
    • Biography

Quatermass and the Pit

10/6/2011

0 Comments

 
In my continued research for a novel (provisionally entitled Amateurs) which features a member of the Hammer production staff as a character, I rewatched Quatermass and the Pitt. The last time I saw this film was on a very small portable television (black and white), which I would position close to my bed to create a big screen effect. I come from a generation where our childhood homes (if they had second televisions) would usually have black and white televisions. There are tonnes of film that I watch (late night BBC2, Moviedrome etc.) in black and white that even today I'm surprised to see were actually in colour. Sometimes, I much prefer my black and white memories to my present day technicolor reality. A friend of mine used to adjust his TV set so he could watch films in black and white. He said that The Shining and Taxi Driver were much better drained of colour.
 Quatermass and the Pit is the third film to feature the sleuthing scientist and weird things investigator, a version of Arthur Conan Doyle's Challenger. It has an excellent creepy atmosphere and a ludicrous moment of horror when a workman is possessed by an alien force and suddenly becomes a performance artist interpreting Autumn through the medium of dance. This starts off daft but becomes weirdly scary. 
One thing to focus on when watching the film is Barbara Shelley's performance. Shelley was of course a stalwart of the Hammer troupe, a scream queen, but 1967 seems to have been the beginning of the waning of her cinema career. After this film, her credits are exclusively in  television. In Quatermass and the Pit, there is a definite sense that she can't be bothered anymore. Everyone in the film has a languid ease, despite the extraordinary events of the plot. The main scientist takes time off from examining the recently discovered alien corpse to flick through an old book looking for similarities. Even in moments when disaster seems imminent, characters react with a slowness that seems bred of not getting enough sleep. But that can't be so because on being confronted with the possible enormity of their discovery, Quatermass explicitly tells Barbara Shelley he's just had a good night's sleep and now he's changed his mind. 
So that can't be it.
Normally saying that an actress is sleep walking through a part would be to criticize them, but strangely Barbara Shelley dazed doziness actually adds to the sense that everyone is hurtling towards a horrific conclusion with their eyes half closed.     
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    RSS Feed

    Picture

    Author

    John Bleasdale is a writer. His work has appeared in The Guardian, The Independent, Il Manifesto, as well as CineVue.Com and theStudioExec.com. He has also written a number of plays, screenplays and novels.

    Archives

    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    October 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    June 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    January 2016
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    January 2014
    June 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
  • Home
  • LynchBLOG
  • BondBlog
  • Stanley KuBlog
  • SpielBlog
  • Blog
  • Film Writing
    • Festivals
    • Films reviewed (a-z)
  • Fiction
    • Bracken
    • Poetry
  • Contact
    • Biography
Follow this blog