Reception
Quatermass 2 received its first public airing at a trade show on 22 March 1957 with its première, at the London Pavilion, following on 24 May 1957. It went on general release, with supporting feature And God Created Woman on 17 June 1957. The film received an ‘X’ Certificate from the BBFC. It was released in the United States under the title Enemy From Space.
Quatermass 2 received mixed reviews on release. Campbell Dixon, in The Daily Telegraph found the film “all good grisly fun, if this is the sort of thing you enjoy”. The reviewer in The Times remarked, “the writer of the original story, Mr Nigel Kneale, and the director, Mr Val Guest, between them keep things moving at the right speed, without digressions. The film has an air of respect for the issues touched on, and this impression is confirmed by the acting generally”. On the other hand, Jympson Harman of the Evening News wrote, “Science-fiction hokum can be convincing, exciting or just plain laughable. Quatermass II fails on all these scores, I am afraid”. Similarly, the reviewer in the Daily Herald felt, “The whole thing is daft and full of stilted dialogue. At the end a detective says: “How am I going to make a report on all this?” I felt the same way”.
Read more about this topic: Quatermass 2
Famous quotes containing the word reception:
“To aim to convert a man by miracles is a profanation of the soul. A true conversion, a true Christ, is now, as always, to be made by the reception of beautiful sentiments.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“To the United States the Third World often takes the form of a black woman who has been made pregnant in a moment of passion and who shows up one day in the reception room on the forty-ninth floor threatening to make a scene. The lawyers pay the woman off; sometimes uniformed guards accompany her to the elevators.”
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)
“He’s leaving Germany by special request of the Nazi government. First he sends a dispatch about Danzig and how 10,000 German tourists are pouring into the city every day with butterfly nets in their hands and submachine guns in their knapsacks. They warn him right then. What does he do next? Goes to a reception at von Ribbentropf’s and keeps yelling for gefilte fish!”
—Billy Wilder (b. 1906)