![]() ![]() Nigel Kneale cheerfully admitted, "we didn't get the kids". When majority of the sci-fi programming on television in the early 1950s was geared towards little tykes, Quatermass was meaty entertainment for adults. Television serials were a common programming feature but no show prior to this had been so engrossing and so plum absorbing to watch. When The Quatermass Experiment crackled onto teles all across Britain in the summer of 1953, the viewing public, two million Brits to be exact ( in a rough sort of way ), had not seen anything like it before. Cardboard instruments would do quite well for that task. B esides, Quatermass did not fight two-headed green-skinned aliens of mortal substance, but rather had to battle the most maddening of foes: the shifting, shapeless, unknown variety. Afterall, Britain was still recuperating from the destruction and chaos of WWII and it was make-do-and-mend men like Quatermass that were getting the nation firmly back on its feet again. A few rubber gloves, a microscope and some crude radar equipment would suffice for him. Unlike scientists today who rely heavily on computer-generated data, Professor Quatermass did not need any technology to help him in his quest to explore the unknown. ![]() The professor's unusual surname was plucked from a London telephone book and his christian name was dubbed in honor of astronomer Bernard Lovell, who in the 1950s was making news experimenting with his telescope at Jodrell Bank observatory. Kneale had won the prestigious Somerset Maugham Award in 1950 for his book, Tomato Cain and Other Stories and had joined the BBC staff of writers shortly after that. Professor Bernard Quatermass, head of the British Experimental Rocket Group, was the brainchild of screenwriter Nigel Kneale. In addition to these talents, Bernard Herrmann, a Hitchcock favorite, composed the subtle score for this episode and James Bridges, who penned the teleplay, won an Edgar Award the next year for this adaption.īefore The Invaders and other television series such as The X-Files popularized investigations of alien invasions there was Professor Quatermass, a pioneer in the field of experimental science who often encountered bizarre extraterrestrial happenings in and around London. In several key sequences, he uses tilted shadows to create a feeling of approaching danger. But applause must also go to the great cinematographer Stanley Cortez ( The Magnificent Ambersons ). The Hitch himself directed a few episodes of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour but in this case all honors went to Joseph Newman ( This Island Earth ), whose taut direction kept the story at an edge-of-your-seat suspense level and claustrophobically confined to the house. This episode is dripping with MacGuffins and old dark house horrors and the exterior sets for the Bates Motel ( Psycho ) were appropriately used as the Baker residence. Other elements that Lina White liked to include in her novels echoed that of the devices American mystery authoress Mary Roberts Rinehart used : lonely country houses, mysterious men on the prowl, night scenes and nurses. This once again reinforced the idea that women, especially forgetful women like Stella, were helpless without the protection of a man. Surely three women in a house - not counting an ill man in the upstairs bedroom - would not be considered "alone". When a frightened Maud anxiously turns on all of the lights in the house Stella quickly hushes her and shuts them off, remarking that "the darkness protects us, now if there is someone outside he can see in, and see that we are alone". In one scene we see Stella, Miss Adams and Maud cowering in corners for fear of their lives, suspecting that the killer has snuck inside the house. The concept of the defenseless female reverberates throughout "An Unlocked Window". ![]() ![]() This theme was emphasized brilliantly in Robert Siodmak's adaptation of White's novel, "Some Must Watch", re-titled The Spiral Staircase ( 1945 ), where our heroine is not only a young, timid woman needing protection but a mute as well. Many of Ethel Lina White's books focused on the vulnerability of women. Alfred Hitchcock had previously used one of White's novels, "The Wheel Spins", as a basis for The Lady Vanishes ( 1938 ). "An Unlocked Window" was based on a short story written by Welsh novelist Ethel Lina White in 1939. ![]()
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