To capitalize on Kneale\u2019s creation, Hammer cast American star Brian Donlevy as rocket scientist Bernard Quatermass, giving them an entr\u00e9e into the lucrative US market. Putting aside the curious notion that the British Experimental Rocket Group would be headed up by a Yank, Donlevy\u2019s brusque acting style was in stark contrast with Reginald Tate\u2019s more measured performance in the original. Tate\u2019s Quatermass did lose his temper on occasion, however, and both actors had little trouble tapping into the character\u2019s prickliness. The main difference is Tate\u2019s interpretation developed over six 30-minute episodes, while Donlevy had a mere 75 minutes from the moment he\u2019s introduced racing to the site where Britain\u2019s first manned space rocket has crashed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is a major change from the serial, which spends half its first episode with Quatermass and his assistants desperately trying to regain contact with their errant rocket and bring it \u2013 and its three occupants \u2013 down safely. In the interest of further streamlining things, Guest and Landau eliminate entire characters and subplots, placing the focus squarely on Quatermass and Victor Carroon, the one member of the crew who comes back in one piece, though not necessarily all there. Meanwhile, Carroon\u2019s wife Judith, who was Quatermass\u2019s first assistant and a brilliant mathematician in her own right on the telly, has her role reduced to that of the concerned spouse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Also MIA is a persistent newspaper columnist who shadows Quatermass every step of the way as he tries to solve Kneale\u2019s sci-fi spin on a locked-room mystery. In this, the professor is aided by Scotland Yard Inspector Lomax, a less antagonistic presence in the film, where he\u2019s the source of some of the comedy Guest injects into the proceedings to make them less grim. Regardless, there\u2019s little that can sugarcoat the implications of what the story\u2019s alien invasion could mean for all life on the planet if it isn\u2019t halted in time. It\u2019s worth noting, however, that while Kneale\u2019s script climaxes with the intellectual defeat of the creature, Guest opts for more of a pyrotechnical punch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Anticipating the film would be their first to garner an \u201cX\u201d rating from the British Board of Film Censors, for its (mostly implied) gruesomeness, Hammer dropped one letter from the title to emphasize that The Quatermass <\/em>X<\/em><\/strong>periment<\/em> was for adults only. When it was distributed stateside by United Artists the following year, the title was changed to The Creeping Unknown<\/em> since the name Quatermass meant nothing to American viewers. It was also shortened by a couple of minutes, eliminating some of Les Bowie\u2019s ghastlier special effects, which are aided by the cin\u00e9ma v\u00e9rit\u00e9<\/em> shooting style Guest employed. The space race was on, but Kneale was ahead of the curve, and Guest wanted his film to seem as plausible as possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Two short months after The Quatermass Xperiment<\/em> was released in the UK \u2013 becoming Hammer\u2019s greatest box office success to date \u2013 Prof. Quatermass was back on the Beeb in Quatermass II<\/em>, which Hammer again optioned. This time, Kneale insisted on writing the screenplay with Guest, though he was unable to persuade the company not to bring Donlevy back as the title character. (The sequel also underwent a name change for the American market, where it was known as Enemy from Space<\/em>.) He got his way one decade later when Andrew Keir was cast in 1967\u2019s Quatermass and the Pit<\/em>, adapted from Kneale\u2019s 1958 serial and directed by Roy Ward Baker. By that time, Hammer\u2019s reputation for gothic horror was firmly established, though it did attempt to vary the formula periodically until closing up shop in the early \u201980s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Meanwhile, Kneale had one more Quatermass story in his quiver, but that didn\u2019t see the light of day right away because the BBC passed on producing it in the early \u201970s. Eventually made by ITV in 1979 \u2013 simultaneously as a four-part miniseries and theatrical feature \u2013 The Quatermass Conclusion<\/em> was aptly titled, signaling Kneale was ready to give the beleaguered scientist a well-deserved rest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Streaming options for \u201cThe Quatermass Xperiment\u201d are <\/em>limited<\/em><\/a>, but it is available on Blu-ray from <\/em>Kino Lorber<\/em><\/a> and on 4K UHD from <\/em>Hammer<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Quatermass-Xperiment-2-1024x748.png\")
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