Hammer Horror - JACQUELINE PEARCE (Alice Thompson in "Plague of The Zombies" and Anna Franklyn in "The Reptile") - Personally Signed Limited Edition Autograph Card issued by Strictly Ink in 2010.
Jacqueline Pearce (20 December 1943 – 3 September 2018) was a British film and television actress. Her roles included horror and comedy; she was best known as the villain Servalan in the British science fiction TV series Blake's 7.
Pearce was born in Woking, Surrey, in 1943. Her mother left the family when she was 16 months old and she grew up between her father's home and a foster family. She attended the Marist Convent School for Girls at West Byfleet. She trained at the British stage school Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) and at Lee Strasberg's Actors Studio in Los Angeles.
Pearce starred in two Hammer horror films, The Plague of the Zombies and The Reptile, which were filmed simultaneously on the same location and both released in 1966. Other film roles include Sky West and Crooked (1965), the Carry On film Don't Lose Your Head (1966), Don't Raise the Bridge, Lower the River (1968), White Mischief (1987), How to Get Ahead in Advertising (1989), and Princess Caraboo (1994).
As well as appearing in the BBC children's programmes Dark Season (alongside Kate Winslet) and Moondial, Pearce appeared in the Doctor Who serial The Two Doctors as Chessene, a bloodthirsty alien. She was associated with Doctor Who through her appearance in The Fearmonger as Sherilyn Harper, an audio drama by Big Finish Productions, and as Admiral Mettna in the webcast story Death Comes to Time. Pearce returned once again to Doctor Who from 2015, this time opposite John Hurt, as a regular in the Big Finish audio series based on the adventures of the War Doctor, portraying Cardinal Ollistra, a leader of the Time Lords in the Time War who often clashes with the Eighth Doctor and the War Doctor over how far the Time Lords should be willing to go to achieve victory.
She remains best known for her role as Servalan in the British science fiction TV series Blake's 7 (1978–1981). The character was originally written for one episode however was expanded to a regular role over four series due to Pearce's popularity.
She appeared in the role of Rosa Dartle in the 1974 BBC dramatisation of Charles Dickens' David Copperfield and a television version of Christopher Hampton's stage play The Philanthropist as Araminta first broadcast in 1975. She also appeared as an associate of the assassin Carlos in the television movie, The Bourne Identity (1988).
Pearce also made guest appearances in TV series such as Danger Man, The Avengers, Man in a Suitcase, Public Eye, Callan, Dead of Night, Special Branch, The Zoo Gang, Spy Trap, and The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles.
Pearce suffered from clinical depression during periods of her life. She was the subject of the third volume of MJTV's "The Actor Speaks" interview/drama CDs, with a special piece written for her by Tanith Lee.
Pearce was diagnosed with lung cancer in August 2018 and died on 3 September 2018 at her home in Lancashire.
Quatermass and the Pit (titled Five Million Years to Earth in the United States) is a 1967 British science fiction horror film from Hammer Film Productions, a sequel to the earlier Hammer films The Quatermass Xperiment and Quatermass 2. Like its predecessors, it is based on a BBC Television serial Quatermass and the Pit, written by Nigel Kneale. It was directed by Roy Ward Baker and stars Andrew Keir in the title role as Professor Bernard Quatermass, replacing Brian Donlevy who played the role in the two earlier films. James Donald, Barbara Shelley and Julian Glover appear in co-starring roles.
The storyline, which is largely faithful to the original television production, centres on the discovery of a mysterious object buried at the site of an extension to the London Underground. Also uncovered nearby are the remains of early human ancestors more than five million years old. Realising that the object is in fact an ancient Martian spacecraft, Quatermass deduces that the aliens have influenced human evolution and the development of human intelligence. The spacecraft has an intelligence of its own, and once uncovered begins to exert a malign influence, resurrecting Martian memories and instincts buried deep within the human psyche.
Nigel Kneale wrote the first draft of the screenplay in 1961, but difficulties in attracting interest from American co-financiers meant the film did not go into production until 1967. The director, Roy Ward Baker, was chosen because of his experience with technically demanding productions such as A Night to Remember; this was the first of six films that he directed for Hammer. Andrew Keir, playing Quatermass, found making the film an unhappy experience, believing Baker had wanted Kenneth More to play the role. Owing to a lack of space, the film was shot at the MGM studios in Elstree, Borehamwood rather than Hammer's usual home at the time, which was the Associated British Studios, also in Elstree.
The film opened in November 1967 to favourable reviews and remains generally well regarded.
Workers building an extension to the London Underground at Hobbs End dig up skeletal remains. Palaeontologist Dr Matthew Roney (James Donald) is called in and deduces that they are the remnants of a group of five-million-year-old apemen, more ancient than any previous finds. One of Roney's assistants uncovers part of a metallic object nearby . Believing it to be an unexploded bomb, they call in an army bomb disposal team.
Meanwhile, Professor Bernard Quatermass (Andrew Keir) is dismayed to learn that his plans for the colonisation of the Moon are to be taken over by the military. He gives a cold reception to Colonel Breen (Julian Glover), who has been assigned to join Quatermass's British Experimental Rocket Group. When the bomb disposal team call for Breen's assistance, Quatermass accompanies him to the site. Breen quickly concludes the buried object is a V-weapon, but Quatermass disagrees. When another skeleton is found within a chamber of the "bomb", Quatermass and Roney realise that the object must also be five million years old. Noting the object's imperviousness to heat, Quatermass suspects it is of alien origin, but Roney is certain the apemen are terrestrial.
Roney's assistant Barbara Judd (Barbara Shelley) becomes intrigued by the name of the area, recalling that "Hob" is an old name for the Devil. Though Quatermass at first dismisses her curiosity of local superstition, he becomes more intrigued after a member of the bomb disposal team witnesses a spectral apparition of Roney's apeman appearing through the wall of the buried object. Working with Barbara, Quatermass finds historical accounts of hauntings and other spectral appearances going back many centuries. They deduce that these events coincided with disturbances of the ground around Hobbs End.
An attempt to open a sealed chamber using a Borazon drill fails to make progress. However, a few moments after the drill is stopped a small hole is seen, though the drill operator, Sladden (Duncan Lamont), is certain it was not created by his machine. The hole widens to reveal the corpses of three-legged, insectoid creatures with horned heads. Roney and Judd work to preserve the bodies before they decay. An examination of the creatures' physiology suggests they came from the planet Mars. Quatermass and Roney note the similarity between the appearance of the creatures and images of the Devil, while Quatermass speculates on the ship itself, believing it to be the source of the spectral images and disturbances.
Quatermass and Roney reveal their findings to the press, attracting the ire of a government minister (Edwin Richfield). Quatermass theorizes the occupants of the spacecraft came from a dying Mars. Unable to survive on Earth, they chose instead to preserve some part of their race through creating a colony by proxy, by significantly enhancing the intelligence and imparting Martian faculties on the indigenous primitive hominids. The descendants of these apemen evolved into modern humans, retaining the vestiges of Martian influence buried in their subconscious. A disbelieving Breen offers an alternative: the 'alien craft' is a Nazi propaganda exercise designed to sow fear of an alien invasion among the London populace. The minister rejects Quatermass's theory in favour of Breen's and decides to unveil the missile at a public press conference in order to put Quatermass's controversial ideas to rest.
While dismantling his drill, Sladden is overcome by a powerful telekinetic force emanating from the alien craft and flees to the sanctuary of a church. Sladden tells Quatermass he saw a vision of hordes of the insect creatures under an alien sky. Quatermass believes this is a race memory. Seeking proof, he returns to Hobbs End, bringing a machine Roney has been working on which taps into the primeval psyche. While trying to replicate the circumstances under which Sladden was affected, he notices that Judd has fallen under the craft's influence. Using Roney's machine, he is able to record her thoughts. Quatermass presents the recording to the minister and other assembled officials as evidence of his theory: it shows hordes of Martians engaged in what he interprets as a racial purge, cleansing Martian hives of genetic mutations within their race. The minister and Breen dismiss the recording as a fantasy and move forward with their planned press event, ignoring Quatermass's admonishments that the ship and its influence are dangerous.
Disaster strikes the event when a power line is dropped within the craft. The charge to the hull increases the effect and range of the craft's influence on those Londoners affected by it. The streets of London erupt into violence as they go on a rampage reminiscent of the Martian purge, destroying those who are different. Breen becomes drawn towards the craft and is killed by the intense energy emanating from it. Quatermass falls under the alien control as well, but is snapped out of it by Roney, who is unaffected. The two men realise that a small portion of the population are immune. The psychic energy becomes stronger and begins to manifest into psychokinesis, ripping up streets and buildings and bringing down overflying aircraft, while the alien ship itself morphs into a spectral image of a Martian towering above the city, centered on Hobbs End. Recalling stories about how the Devil could be defeated with iron and water, Roney theorises the Martian energy could be discharged into the earth. Roney climbs to the top of a building crane and swings it into the spectre. The crane bursts into flames as it discharges the energy, killing Roney. The image and its effect on London disappear, leaving Quatermass and Barbara grieving in the ruins.
See also: The Quatermass Xperiment, Quatermass 2, and Quatermass and the Pit
Professor Bernard Quatermass was first introduced to audiences in two BBC television serials, The Quatermass Experiment (1953) and Quatermass II (1955), written by Nigel Kneale. The rights to both these serials were acquired by Hammer Film Productions, and the film adaptations – The Quatermass Xperiment and Quatermass 2, both directed by Val Guest and starring Brian Donlevy as Quatermass – were released in 1955 and 1957 respectively. Kneale went on to write a third Quatermass serial – Quatermass and the Pit – for the BBC, which was broadcast in December 1958 and January 1959. Hammer were once again interested in making a film adaptation, and Kneale, who had by then left the BBC and was working as a freelance screenwriter, completed a script in 1961. It was intended that Val Guest would once again direct and Brian Donlevy would reprise the role of Quatermass, with production to commence in 1963. Securing finance for the new Quatermass film proved difficult. In 1957 Hammer had struck a deal with Columbia Pictures to distribute their pictures and the companies collaborated on thirty films between 1957 and 1964. Columbia, who were not interested in Quatermass, passed on the script and production went into limbo for several years. In 1964 Kneale and Anthony Hinds submitted a revised, lower-budget script to Columbia but the relationship between Hammer and Columbia had begun to sour and the script was again rejected. In 1966, Hammer entered into a new distribution deal with Seven Arts, ABPC and Twentieth Century Fox; Quatermass and the Pit finally entered production.
The script of Quatermass and the Pit is largely faithful to the television original. The plot was condensed to fit the shorter running time of the film, with the main casualty being the removal of a subplot involving the journalist James Fullalove. The climax was altered slightly to make it more cinematic, with Roney using a crane to short out the Martian influence, whereas in the television version he throws a metal chain into the pit. The setting for the pit was changed from a building site to the London Underground. The closing scene of the television version, in which Quatermass pleads with humanity to prevent Earth becoming the "second dead planet", was also dropped, in favour of a shot of Quatermass and Judd sitting alone amid the devastation wrought by the Martian spacecraft. The script was sent to John Trevelyan of the British Board of Film Censors in December 1966. Trevelyan replied that the film would require an X-Certificate and complained about the sound of the vibrations from the alien ship, the scenes of the Martian massacre, scenes of destruction and panic as the Martian influence takes hold and the image of the Devil.
James Donald as Doctor Roney: Donald first came to prominence playing Theo van Gogh in Lust for Life (1956) before going on to play a string of roles in the World War II prisoner of war films The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), The Great Escape (1963) and King Rat (1965). Although not playing the title role, Donald was accorded top-billing status.
Andrew Keir as Professor Bernard Quatermass: Nigel Kneale had long been highly critical of Brian Donlevy's interpretation of Quatermass and lobbied for the role to be recast, arguing that enough time had passed that audiences would not resist a change of actor. A number of actors were considered for the part including André Morell who had played Quatermass in the television version of Quatermass and the Pit. However, Morell was not interested in revisiting a role he had already played. The producers eventually settled on Scottish actor Andrew Keir who had appeared in supporting roles in a number of Hammer productions including The Pirates of Blood River (1962), The Devil-Ship Pirates (1964) and Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1966). Keir found the shoot an unhappy experience: he later recalled, “The director – Roy Ward Baker – didn't want me for the role. He wanted Kenneth More... and it was a very unhappy shoot. [...] Normally I enjoy going to work every day. But for seven and a half weeks it was sheer hell.” Roy Ward Baker denied he had wanted Kenneth More, who he felt would be "too nice" for the role, saying, “I had no idea he [Keir] was unhappy while we were shooting. His performance was absolutely right in every detail and I was presenting him as the star of the picture. Perhaps I should have interfered more.” Keir went on to appear for Hammer in The Viking Queen (1967) and Blood from the Mummy's Tomb (1971). He reprised the role of Quatermass for BBC Radio 3 in The Quatermass Memoirs (1996), making him the only actor other than Donlevy to play the role more than once.
Barbara Shelley as Barbara Judd: Shelley was a regular leading lady for Hammer, having appeared in The Camp on Blood Island (1958), Shadow of the Cat (1961), The Gorgon (1964), The Secret of Blood Island (1964), Dracula: Prince of Darkness and Rasputin, the Mad Monk (1966) for them. Quatermass and the Pit was her last film for the company and she subsequently worked in television and the theatre. Roy Ward Baker was particularly taken with his leading lady, telling Bizarre Magazine in 1974 he was “mad about her in the sense of love. We used to waltz about the set together, a great love affair.”
Julian Glover as (Lieutenant) Colonel Breen: Roy Ward Baker first met Glover when he directed him in an episode of The Avengers ("Two's a Crowd", 1965). Baker said of Glover's performance, “He turned in a tremendous character, forceful, autocratic but never over the top.” Glover recalled of the role, “I think I was too young for it. [...] I think I played it all right. It was very straightforward. Bit of a stereotype. [...] The obligatory asshole!”
Other actors appearing in the film include Bryan Marshall, Peter Copley, Edwin Richfield (who previously appeared in Quatermass 2), Grant Taylor, and Robert Morris. Duncan Lamont, playing Sladden, had appeared in the original BBC production of The Quatermass Experiment in the key role of the hapless astronaut Victor Carroon. Quatermass and the Pit also features an early film role for Sheila Steafel who makes a brief appearance as a journalist near the start of the movie.
By the time Quatermass and the Pit finally entered production Val Guest was occupied on Casino Royale (1967), so directing duties went instead to Roy Ward Baker. Baker's first film had been The October Man (1947) and he was best known for The One That Got Away (1957) and A Night to Remember (1958). Following the failure of Two Left Feet (1963), he moved into television, directing episodes of The Human Jungle (1963–64), The Saint (1962–69) and The Avengers. Producer Anthony Nelson Keys chose Baker as director because he felt his experience on such films as A Night to Remember gave him the technical expertise to handle the film's significant special effects requirements. Baker, for his part, felt that his background on fact-based dramas such as A Night to Remember and The One That Got Away enabled him to give Quatermass and the Pit the air of realism it needed to be convincing to audiences. He was impressed by Nigel Kneale's screenplay, feeling the script was "taut, exciting and an intriguing story with excellent narrative drive. It needed no work at all. All one had to do was cast it and shoot it." He was also impressed with Hammer Films’ lean set-up: having been used to working for major studios with thousands of full-time employees, he was surprised to find that Hammer's core operation consisted of just five people and enjoyed how this made the decision making process fast and simple. Quatermass and the Pit was the first film the director was credited as “Roy Ward Baker”, having previously been credited as “Roy Baker”. The change was made to avoid confusion with another Roy Baker who was a sound editor. Baker later regretted making the change as many people assumed he was a new director.
Filming took place between 27 February and 25 April 1967. The budget was £275,000. At this time, Hammer was operating out of the Associated British Studios in Elstree, Borehamwood. However, a lack of space meant that production was relocated to the nearby MGM Borehamwood studio. There were no other productions working at the MGM Studios at this time so the Quatermass crew had full access to all the facilities of the studio. Roy Ward Baker was particularly pleased to be able to use MGM's extensive backlot for the exteriors of the Underground station. The production team included many Hammer regulars, including production designer Bernard Robinson who, as an in-joke, incorporated a poster for Hammer's The Witches (1966) into the dressing of his set for the Hobbs End station. Another Hammer regular was special effects supervisor Les Bowie. Roy Ward Baker recalled he had a row with Bowie, who believed the film was entirely a special effects picture, when he tried to run the first pre-production conference. Bowie's contribution to the film included the Martian massacre scene, which was achieved with a mixture of puppets and live locusts, and model sequences of London's destruction, including the climactic scene of the crane swinging into the Martian apparition.
Tristram Cary was chosen to provide the score for Quatermass and the Pit. He developed an interest in electronic music while serving in the Royal Navy as an electronics expert working on radar during the Second World War. He became a professional composer in 1954, working in film, theatre, radio and television, with credits including The Ladykillers (1955). He said of his assignment, "I was not mad about doing the film because Hammer wanted masses of electronic material and a great deal of orchestral music. But I had three kids, all of which were at fee-paying schools, so I needed every penny I could get!". Cary also recalled that, "The main use of electronics in Quatermass, I think, was the violent shaking, vibrating sound that the "thing in the tunnel" gave off ... It was not a terribly challenging sound to do, though I never played it very loud because I didn't want to destroy my speakers – I did have hopes of destroying a few cinema loudspeaker systems, though it never happened". Carey went on to write the score for another Hammer film, Blood from the Mummy's Tomb, in 1971. Several orchestral and electronic cues from the film were released by GDI Records on a compilation titled The Quatermass Film Music Collection.. The soundtrack was released on yellow vinyl in the UK for Record Store Day 2017.
The title sequence of Quatermass and the Pit/Five Million Years to Earth was devised to be evocative. Kim Newman, in his British Film Institute (BFI) monograph about the movie, states: "The words 'Hammer Film Production' appear on a black background. Successive jigsaw-piece cutaways reveal a slightly psychedelic skull. Swirling, infernal images are superimposed on bone – perhaps maps or landscapes – evoking both the red planet Mars and the fires of Hell. Beside this, the title appears in jagged red letters: Quatermass and the Pit [Five Million Years to Earth in the American version]."
Quatermass and the Pit premiered on 9 November 1967 and went on general release in a double bill with Circus of Fear on 19 November 1967. It was released under the title Five Million Years to Earth in the US in March 1968. The critical reception was generally positive. Writing in The Times, John Russell Taylor found that, “After a slowish beginning, which shows up the deficiencies of acting and direction, things really start hopping when a mysterious missile-like object discovered in a London excavation proves to be a relic of a prehistoric Martian attempt (successful, it would seem) to colonize Earth [...] The development of this situation is scrupulously worked out and the film is genuinely gripping even when (a real test this) the Power of Evil is finally shown personified in hazy glowing outline, a spectacle as a rule more likely to provoke titters than gasps of horror.” Paul Errol of the Evening Standard described the film as a “well-made, but wordy, blob of hokum”, a view echoed by William Hall of the Evening News who described the film as "entertaining hokum" with an "imaginative ending". A slightly more critical view was espoused by Penelope Mortimer in The Observer who said, “This nonsense makes quite a good film, well put together, competently photographed, on the whole sturdily performed. What it totally lacks is imagination.”
According to Fox records, the film required $1,200,000 in rentals to break even and made only $881,000.
The film was a success for Hammer and they quickly announced that Nigel Kneale was writing a new Quatermass story for them but the script never went further than a few prelimininary discussions. Kneale did eventually write a fourth Quatermass story, broadcast as a four-part serial, titled Quatermass, by ITV television in 1979, an edited version of which was also given a limited cinema release under the title The Quatermass Conclusion. Quatermass and the Pit marked the return to directing for the cinema for Roy Ward Baker and he went on to direct such films as The Anniversary (1968), Moon Zero Two (1969), The Vampire Lovers (1970), Scars of Dracula (1970), Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde (1971) and The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires (1974) for Hammer. He also directed Asylum (1972), And Now the Screaming Starts! (1973) and The Vault of Horror (1973) for Hammer's rival, Amicus Productions.
Quatermass and the Pit continues to be generally well regarded among critics. John Baxter notes in Science Fiction in the Cinema that “Baker's unravelling of this crisp thriller is tough and interesting. […] The film has moments of pure terror, perhaps the most effective that in which the drill operator, driven off the spaceship by the mysterious power within is caught up in a whirlwind that fills the excavation with a mass of flying papers.” John Brosnan, writing in The Primal Scream, found that, “As a condensed version of the serial, the film is fine but the old black-and-white version, though understandably creaky in places and with inferior effects, still works surprisingly well, having more time to build up a disturbing atmosphere. Bill Warren in Keep Watching the Skies! said, “The ambition of the storyline is contained in a well-constructed mystery that unfolds carefully and clearly”. Nigel Kneale had mixed feelings about the end result: he said, “I was very happy with Andrew Keir, who they eventually chose, and very happy with the film. There are, however, a few things that bother me... The special effects in Hammer films were always diabolical.”
It has been suggested that Tobe Hooper's 1985 Lifeforce is largely a remake of Hammer's Quatermass and the Pit. In an interview, director Tobe Hooper discussed how Cannon Films gave him $25 million, free rein, and Colin Wilson's book The Space Vampires. Hooper then shares how giddy he was: "I thought I'd go back to my roots and make a 70 mm Hammer film."
The region 1 release of Quatermass and the Pit from Anchor Bay includes a commentary from Nigel Kneale and Roy Ward Baker as well as trailers and an instalment of a documentary called The Worlds of Hammer devoted to Hammer's forays into science fiction.
A UK Blu-ray release of the film, was released in Oct 10, 2011 and was followed by releases in Germany, Australia and Italy.