Other Media
From the outset, Euston intended to create two versions of the story; a four-part serial for broadcast on UK television and a 100-minute film, The Quatermass Conclusion, for distribution abroad. While writing the scripts, Kneale was “careful not to pad, because I knew that was the obvious thing, but to write in material which can be removed”. There is one major deviation between the two versions; in the film version, the scenes where Quatermass, separated from Annie Morgan while transporting Isabel to London, encounters a band of elderly people living in a scrapyard is completely absent; this meant that two versions of the hospital scene where Isabel dies were shot – one with Quatermass present (the film version) and one without (the television version). There was little interest among film distributors in The Quatermass Conclusion and it received only a limited theatrical release.
The story was novelised by Nigel Kneale, his first book since his Somerset Maugham Award winning short story collection Tomato Cain was published in 1949. The novelisation expanded on the backgrounds of many of the characters seen in the story and added a deeper, more physical, relationship between Quatermass and Annie Morgan. It was this version of the story that Kneale was most pleased with.
The Quatermass Conclusion was released on VHS videotape in 1985 while the complete four-part Quatermass serial was released in 1994. Quatermass, along with The Quatermass Conclusion was released on region 2 DVD in 2003 by Clearvision in a three disc boxset; extras included a Sci-Fi Channel interview with Nigel Kneale and extensive production notes. A two disc region 1 DVD, released by A&E in 2005, also contained both the television and film versions as well as a History Channel documentary about Stonehenge.
Read more about this topic: Quatermass (TV serial)
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