There are flower-children types swinging dowsing pendulums and homing in on all the megaliths in England. One of them is Professor Quatermass's granddaughter. In urban areas law and order is rapidly breaking down, the little semblance of peacekeeping provided by white South African rentacops. On TV a nationwide broadcast by Professor Quatermass interrupts the "Tittupy Bumpity Show" to howls of protest. As another commentator rightly points out: "We're getting there."
John Mills steps into Brian Donlevy's shoes and is a worthy successor.
Nigel Kneale does have one weakness with his Quatermass stories. And that is the denouement. In Quatermass 2 (to a lesser extent) Quatermass and the Pit and this one, when the denouement is delivered it goes over people's heads. There is nothing wrong with the denouement in itself, it is just revealed in such an abstruse way, that you need to watch the thing a second or even a third time before you get the message. In this case I had to read the book to make sure I had got it right. The denouement, if you can fathom it, is a good one.
All in all, this is a worthy Quatermass epitaph.
John Mills steps into Brian Donlevy's shoes and is a worthy successor.
Nigel Kneale does have one weakness with his Quatermass stories. And that is the denouement. In Quatermass 2 (to a lesser extent) Quatermass and the Pit and this one, when the denouement is delivered it goes over people's heads. There is nothing wrong with the denouement in itself, it is just revealed in such an abstruse way, that you need to watch the thing a second or even a third time before you get the message. In this case I had to read the book to make sure I had got it right. The denouement, if you can fathom it, is a good one.
All in all, this is a worthy Quatermass epitaph.