Well, after delving amongst various final series of Quatermass/The Quatermass Conclusion related finds and ephemera, I was signposted towards a rather fine and fully stocked archiving of related imagery, press, promotional items etc at Professor Bernard Quatermass’ home in the social ether.
Upon arrival there, I had something of a wander around and good old perusal.
Below is a baker’s dozen of things around those parts that caught my eye…
Ah, the classic Conclusion image… “Earth’s dark ancestral forces awaken to a summons from beyond the stars.”
Interest piqued. Count me in…
The Manxman? Well, that’s an evocative way to start your article… It makes me think of, hmmm, Quatermass as superhero or maybe a creature from the dark side in one of his own tales.
And although I’m not madly keen on seeing behind the scenes of things and the possible breaking of the spell… well, this particular image, taken by Martin Wilkie, of working on a prop just seems to capture a particular moment in cultural time.
For fans of all things hauntologically Radiophonic maybe?
And talking of capturing particular things and times… this photograph of Dog Dish and Cat Dish seems to capture a very particular sense of some kind of flipside to the countryside and landscape.
The helmeted security/police in the background seem to place the series much more with traditional science fiction than it actually is… I quite like them, in a 1970s British television/repurposing of day-to-day objects/Blakes 7-esque kind of a way, while also finding them curiously jarring.
While this puts me in mind of later scenes in Zardoz, as the citadel has been breached.
Or possibly a gathering from Jeremy Sandford and Ron Reid’s documenting of the 1970s free festival scene in their Tomorrow’s People book?
And then wandering away from the final Quatermass series…
Well, for the title text and all it implies. Prescient could well be an apt word to use about now.
“You don’t have to ask ‘What’s doing the business?’… If you haven’t booked it, you don’t like money!”… “Let them know they will be chained to their seats!”
Say no more.
…and just what is happening in this from-over-the-seas video cover?
Ah, there’s nothing like wildly inappropriate cover/poster design.
A literal online translation considers the title to be “The Ship Of Lost Beings” but then quickly recognises it and changes it to Quatermass And The Pit.
Modern day technology hey? Innit marvelous (!)…
…and I shall end with a return back to the Quatermass final series, rounding the circle, as it were (or should that be ringstone round?)…
The poster is again from over the seas, in part because I’m fond of seeing what happens with such things when work travels elsewhere and also because it is a wandering back to one of the classic designs/images from the series…
…and then finally, this portrait of Professor Quatermass, as it seems to capture a certain quiet, weary dignity which is so much part of his character at this point.
(File under: Trails and Influences / Year 3 Wanderings)
Intertwined wanderings around these parts:
Day #177/365: Zardoz… in this secret room from the past, I seek the future…
Day #197/365: Huff-ity puff-ity ringstone round; Quatermass and the finalities of lovely lightning
Week #45/52: Quatermass finds and ephemera from back when
Elswhere in the ether:
Just in case you missed it, these images were gathered from here.
