"The Quatermass Experiment" (1953)
Movie: "The Quatermass Experiment" (1953)
“Professor Bernard Quatermass, Director General of the British Experimental Rocket Group, launches the first manned space flight from Australia. A malfunction sends the rocket and its three man crew thousands of miles off course. When the rocket returns to Earth, it crashes in Wimbledon. To the shock of Quatermass, his team, and the spectators who gather around the crash site, only one of the three crewmen, Victor Carroon, is still aboard. Carroon seems unwell, barely able to talk. Examinations of the rocket by both Quatermass and Scotland Yard’s Inspector Lomax reveal that something attacked the crew of the rocket as they were on course back to Earth. Even more alarming is that Carroon seems to be undergoing some sort of metamorphosis, which is accelerated by a botched kidnapping attempt by foreign agents. Written by Christopher M. Buckey {ChrisBuckey@nospam.msn.com}”
- Release Date: 18 July 1953 (UK)
- Run Time: 30 min (6 episodes)
- Country: UK
- Genre: Drama , Sci-Fi , Horror , Thriller
Trivia: Broadcast live, this was the first BBC Drama to be recorded onto film via the ‘telerecording’ or ‘kinoscope’ process. Telerecordings were made by filming the image off a specially designed TV screen with a film camera (either 16mm or 35mm.) Unfortunately, the results were judged to be unsatisfactory, and only the first two episodes were recorded, the rest being broadcast live. Because of this, only the first two episodes were preserved.
Goofs: Miscellaneous: During the scene in the Daily Gazette office at the start of Episode Two, the image collapses and turns negative before returning to normal. This was a fault during transmission preserved by the telerecording process.