Quatermass and the Pit

James Donald - Dr. Mathew Roney
Andrew Keir - Professor Bernard Quatermass
Barbara Shelley - Barbara Judd
Julian Glover - Colonel Breen
Duncan Lamont - Duncan Lamont
Bryan Marshall - Bryan Marshall
Maurice Good - Maurice Good
Edwin Richfield - Edwin Richfield
Peter Copley - Howell

Ingeniously scripted by Nigel Kneale, this science-fiction/horror picture opens like Powell and Pressburger's The Small Back Room, with soldiers and scientists confronting what appears to be an unexploded bomb deep in the bowels of the London Underground. Quatermass (Andrew Keir), a tweedy, bearded physicist with an exhaustive knowledge of folklore and the supernatural, quickly guesses this is no stray Nazi rocket. Whether workmen lobbing skulls at each other, a policeman recoiling in terror when he ventures into a house he fears is haunted, or the single-minded archaeologist (James Donald) trying to convince the press that he has made a major find, the film is strong on atmosphere and local detail. Only the malevolent little monsters strike a false chord - seen on a fuzzy television monitor they look suspiciously like cartoon characters.