Review of “Five Million Years to Earth” (1967)

This was a bit different for our Saturday night pizza and bad movie, a flick my dearly beloved and I had seen on TV some time ago. We both remembered it in black and white because of the sets our families had back in the day. I must have been a munchkin, but I remember it scared the bejesus out of me. That was a while ago.

Plot:

A construction crew working on a London subway/underground extension comes across human remains, bringing in paleontologists and the curious public. Doctor Roney (James Donald) believes the fossils prove that essentially human-like creatures walked the earth five million years ago.*

While Roney is giving an unofficial press conference, one of the diggers (Bee Duffell) comes across what initially appears to be a pipe. A consultation with blueprints confirms no plumbing works are there. Another possibility, of course, is a bomb left over from the war.

The site is closed down, and the bomb squad is brought in. Roney objects to the conclusions of Captain Potter (Bryan Marshall), the man in charge of the bomb squad, as too young to have had any wartime experience. Potter sends a message to Colonel Breen (Julian Glover), who was once involved in enemy missiles.

Busy at the moment arguing with Quatermass (Andrew Keir) over the use of the rocket program, which is Quatermass’s expertise, Breen is too busy to take Potter’s call. Quatermass insists on peaceful use. Breen is looking forward to armed bases on the moon. Ouch. Breen’s been assigned to the rocket program with Quatermass.

Once Breen reads Potter’s message about a possible unexploded V-2 or something like it in the underground, he’s off the races and brings Quatermass with him.

By the time they get to the location, workmen have uncovered most of the item. They find another skull in a mud-filled pocket. It’s intact. So, how did a V-2 land with an intact fossil skull inside it…?

The crew exchanges looks.

Thoughts:

In the US, this was released as Five Million Years to Earth. In the UK, it was titled Quatermass and the Pit. Quatermass was a figure in British media, a fictional member of the space program who went about righting wrong and doing good, and so on and so forth.

When I first saw this movie on a black-and-white set, probably on a Saturday afternoon, it scared the bejesus out of me. It is creepy.

In checking the Civil Defense records, they find only a few incendiary bombs were dropped in the area. Nothing like a V-2. The houses were empty. Breen concludes they’d been evacuated.

On the way out of the underground, Police Sergeant Ellis (Grant Taylor) tells Quatermass that wasn’t the case. The houses had been deserted years before the war. People wouldn’t live there. He takes a flashlight and shows him and Roney’s assistant, Miss Judd (Barbara Shelley), inside the wrecked houses. People left because of noises, bumps, and seeing things, he tells them.

“A lot of nonsense,” he says.

When Quatermass points to scratches on the walls and asks what might have made them, an already agitated Ellis says, “Kids. Kids playing around.” He beats a hasty retreat outside. It was—warm in there. He wipes his face with a handkerchief.

Miss Judd notices an older spelling of the street name, one she says was an old nickname for the devil.

When she later shows Quatermass newspaper clippings of strange occurrences that coincided with digging for the underground in the 1920s, he pooh-poohs it all. They’re both scientists, don’t you know. Later, Quatermass listens when an abbey librarian (Noel Howlett ) translates from Latin a medieval account of similar things happening when people dug a well. Hmmm… is it the Latin or the guy that makes this credible? Or is Miss Judd just another hard-working assistant with an answer who goes ignored and, if one watches the ending closely, abused?

The special effects are so-so. You can see the strings. And the explanation is far-fetched. But again, this is creepy. Quatermass, the genius righter of wrongs and doer of good is just as vulnerable to mass hypnosis as the average Joe.

I liked watching this movie in color after all these years. It’s fun.



The only place I could find this movie online was here, at the Internet Archive. It’s probably best watched with headphones. The audio is a little murky, and the actors have funny accents.


*Early modern humans are believed to have emerged about 300,000 years ago.



Title: Quatermass and the Pit, aka Five Million Years to Earth (1967) (US title)

Directed by
Roy Ward Baker

Writing Credits
Nigel Kneale…(original story)
Nigel Kneale…(screenplay)

Cast (in credits order)
James Donald…Doctor Roney
Andrew Keir…Quatermass
Barbara Shelley…Barbara Judd
Julian Glover…Colonel Breen
Duncan Lamont…Sladden

Released: 1967
Length: 1 hour, 37 minutes