Five Million Years to Earth (or Quatermass and the Pit)

Five Million Years to Earth
And it finally ends...long, long ago, TCM had a marathon to celebrate Hammer Films, the studio that dominated the horror genre in the late 1950s and 1960s.  I used my DVR to pretty much record every single film in the marathon and planned on reviewing all of them.  Embarrassingly, it took two years to get through them all (in my defense, I had lots of movies I wanted to review in between!!).  And now I am finished, at last!  I am not saying I won't review more Hammer movies.  I would love to!  But Five Million Years to Earth is the final film in that initial marathon.  And I am happy to say that I saved a winner for the end! 

While doing construction in London's Hobb' End Tube Station, workers find something metallic and huge.  They think it is a Nazi bomb leftover from World War II and immediately call in the military.  But something is a bit weird about this metallic structure and the army brings in brilliant scientist Bernard Quatermass (Bernard Lee, Dracula: Prince of Darkness) to investigate.  Alongside fellow researchers Dr. Roney (James Donald, The Great Escape) and Barbara Judd (Barbara Shelley, also from Dracula: Prince of Darkness), Quatermass tries to get to the bottom of the mystery.  Pretty quickly they learn that the structure is a space ship...and that is seems to carry some sort of demonic power that could endanger the entire country.  Oh, crap! 

Let's just get the bad out of the way first.  Five Million Years to Earth is pretty good, but there are a few problems.  I know I shouldn't dock points for special effects in a film made in 1967, but the aliens just look too silly.  Look at the picture above.  The aliens look like plastic!  I just couldn't get past that!  I also had a problem with the way the military was handled in the film, as represented by the stubborn Colonel Breen (Julian Glover, For Your Eyes Only).  Despite mounting evidence to the contrary, Breen keeps insisting that the ship is a German bomb.  After the 43rd time he tells Quatermass to shut his trap and go away, you just start to get annoyed. 

Okay, that's the bad.  What about the good?  Well, that is actually the rest of the film.  This is smart science fiction, with some good ideas and with something to say.  In fact, some of the messages seem to be remarkably similar to Prometheus except they seem to be better thought out and...well, make sense.  Much of the film is spent following Quatermass and Barbara as they investigate the strange happenings around Hobb's End, and some of it is pretty creepy.  Some people might find all this talking and thinking to be dull, but I found it all very interesting.  I really wasn't sure where this movie was going to go.  And eventually there is a big, exciting climax.  You just have to be patient and wait for it!

The acting is also quite good.  James Donald, Andrew Keir and Barbara Shelley have a sophisticated, adult chemistry, and genuinely seem to enjoy each other's company.  Julian Glover is quite good, even if I didn't like his character.  And I have to say that Glover looks almost exactly the same here, in 1967, as he did in 2004's Troy, which is pretty damn impressive. 

Anyways, Five Millions Years to Earth isn't perfect, but it is smart and clever science fiction, and probably the best of Hammer's non-horror films.  I would definitely recommend it!

MVP:
I'm going to have to go with Barbara Shelley, who also won my MVP for Dracula: Prince of Darkness.  Known as the First Lady of British Horror, she really was more than just your average scream queen.  No matter what is happening on screen, she is just completely believable.  And she really telegraphs fear incredibly well, better than most actors, I think.  Her fear just seems real.  I think it is because she doesn't overdo it, and does most of the acting with her eyes.  But to be honest, the real reason she wins the MVP is because she makes such an impact despite that fact that her hair is the most dated thing in the film and does its best to distract the audience!


BEST LINE:
Sladden is a worker with a super powerful drill.  Along with Breen, he prepares to drill into the interior of the ship. 

Sladden: I reckon this little beauty will cut through anything.  Cut steel armor plate six inches thick, just like that.  Oh, it was legal!  Some bloke got stuck in a storeroom.  But I got him out.  It was a secret job, like this one.

Colonel Breen: Then I'm glad you don't talk about it.

TRIVIA:

At the Hobb's End Underground Station, there are numerous posters of other Hammer Films on the walls, including Dracula: Prince of Darkness and The Reptile.

Blood from the Mummy's Tomb

Blood from the Mummy's Tomb

I am now convinced that the Mummy franchise was the weak link of the Hammer franchises. The original was alright, if a bit stuffy. Curse of the Mummy's Tomb was mediocre, and The Mummy's Shroud was terrible. I was dreading the thought of having to watch the fourth and final film of the franchise - imagine my surprise when I realized that Blood from the Mummy's Tomb is not half bad. It's actually one of the more creative mummy movies I've seen.

First of all, there isn't really a mummy. Archeologists led by Professor Fuchs (Andrew Keir) unearth the tomb of the evil Egyptian Queen Tera, but they don't find a decomposed and wrapped body. Instead they find a perfectly preserved (and barely dressed) body of the evil Queen Tera (played by Valerie Leon). That's strange. But even stranger is that her hand, which had been severed during her burial, still bleeds. At the exact moment the tomb is unearthed, thousands of miles away in England, Professors Fuch's wife dies in childbirth. But the child, Margaret, survives. What is weird is that as the older she gets, the more she begins to look like the young dead queen in the sarcophagus. That's odd. More years pass, and someone begins murdering members of the expedition one at a time. After her father is viciously attacked, Margaret (also Valerie Leon) begins to investigate the connection between the murders and Queen Tera's tomb.

It is a neat plot, based on a short story by Bram Stoker called Jewel of the Seven Stars. And this is actually an intriguing film. And I'm not sure why. There is a lot to not like here. First of all, the film can't make up its mind when it even takes place - sometimes it seems like 1970s swinging London, but certain characters are dressed as if it were half a century earlier. The acting is mostly unremarkable, and not even the usually dependable Andrew Keir is on his game.
And I think Valerie Leon was hired more for the way she wears the Egyptian neckpiece and not so much for her acting (see the picture over there). Oh, she's fine as the haughty and imperious Queen Tera, but as Margaret she isn't believable for a moment. Also, the ending of the film makes absolutely no sense. Just when we are going to get what I think is going to be an exciting climax, we get characters switching sides for no reason and then the movie just ends. Just ends. Without really even telling us what was happening.

And yet, there is a lot of good stuff in here. Maybe we can thank Stoker, but the story is actually interesting and creative. The movie leaves you guessing for most of its run time as to who the heroes and the villains are. Certain characters you are sure are going to live are killed off in surprising ways. The director Seth Holt (Scream of Fear) brings a lot of interesting tricks to the table with nice camera angles and atmospheric lighting that mask the film's small budget. And as usual, there is a flashback to ancient Egypt - scenes that invariably slowed down the previous Mummy movies, but here Holt incorporates the flashback into Margaret's nightmares, which gives them relevance.

I guess intriguing is the best word to use. Is Blood from the Mummy's Tomb any good? I don't know. Probably not. Too much of it doesn't work. But it is very intriguing and I found myself enjoying the journey it look me on. It's just a creative little oddity. If you're curious, check it out.

MVP: I'm tempted to say Queen Tera's neckpiece, but I think I might go with James Villiers as the scientist Corbeck. As one of the explorers on the expedition, he was present when the tomb was opened. He should be in danger like the rest of the group, but you would never guess so from his attitude. His snide and arrogant line readings are a hoot. He clearly thinks everyone in the world, with the possible exception of Tera, is beneath him and not worth his time. It's a fun performance.

Oh, who am I kidding? The MVP is supposed to be the best thing in the movie. And that is clearly Queen Tera's neckpiece. So there you go.


BEST LINE: Corbeck: "The meek shall not inherit the earth. They cannot be trusted with it."


TRIVIA: This movie seemed to be marked with tragedy from the beginning. Peter Cushing was due to star, but his wife passed away just before filming began. Andrew Keir stepped in to take his place. And then a week before the movie was due to be wrapped, director Seth Holt died and had to be replaced with producer Michael Carreras.