FIVE MILLION YEARS TO EARTH

Memory is a funny thing. Sometimes, I can recall events from my past with crystal clarity. At other times, I have at best a fragmentary recollection of people, places and events. Case in point, exactly when and where I first saw FIVE MILLION YEARS TO EARTH (1967), an outstanding British science fiction film from Hammer Studios. My memory is that I saw it on television, specifically a broadcast on the ABC-TV Sunday night movie. Moreover, I recall watching it at my buddy Blake Brown's house. I was a frequent guest at his house where we regularly stayed up until the wee small hours of the morning watching horror and science fiction films on television. If the movie did indeed air on a Sunday night, then it must have been during the summer because there's no way I would have been hanging out at his house on a Sunday evening during the school year. This is what I remember. This is what I'm sticking with.

Regardless of the provenance of that first viewing, FIVE MILLION is one of the great science fiction films of the 1960s, a film beloved by genre fans but not as widely known to general audiences as such other '60s sf touchstones as PLANET OF THE APES (1968) and 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (1968). Based on the popular BBC Television serial QUATERMASS AND THE PIT, FIVE was the third Quatermass adventure to be filmed. The first two were THE QUATERMASS XPERIMENT (THE CREEPING UNKNOWN in the U.S.) (1955) and QUATERMASS 2 (ENEMY FROM SPACE in the U.S.) (1957). Both of those films starred American actor Brian Donlevy who, frankly, played Quatermass as a bit of a dick.

In FIVE, Quatermass is played by British actor Andrew Keir, who does a great job. His Quatermass is a man of science who gets sucked into an incredible mystery that has staggering and profound implications. The remains of prehistoric ape-men are unearthed in an under-construction  London subway tube. As the digging continues, an alien space ship is uncovered. The military is in charge of the investigation, with Quatermass happening to be in the right place at the right time to take part, accompanied by his lovely assistant Barbara Judd (Barbara Shelley). Quatermass demonstrates his extraordinary mental acumen by making astounding leaps in deductive reasoning, all with a solid foundation of scientific knowledge. He's Reed Richards without the stretching ability.

 The corpse of an insectoid, grasshopper like alien is found in the ship (the creature reminds me of the Selenites in Ray Harryhausen's FIRST MEN IN THE MOON (1964)). But the real kicker is that the ship itself appears to have a strange power of its' own. Before the spectacular climax, Quatermass and company explore the origin of the Devil himself and mankind's racial memory of evil. Things get pretty wild and woolly in the third act but FIVE is nevertheless an extraordinarily ambitious, pure science fiction film, dealing with ideas, theories and concepts that are fresh and wildly imaginative.

The screenplay is by Nigel Kneale, who created Quatermass and wrote his original adventures for television. The direction by Roy Ward Baker is assured, the cast uniformly solid, the sets and special effects impressive.

FIVE MILLION YEARS TO EARTH is one of the great science fiction films of the 1960s. Check it out and see if you don't agree. Highly recommended.