If you've read our previous post on scriptwriter Nigel Kneale's 'Quatermass' films, you know the mere thought of Kneale's groundbreaking work for television and films reduces us to the level of slobbering, subservient fanboy.........
Throughout his lifetime (1922-2006), the prolific Kneale never considered himself or cared to be labeled as a science fiction writer. But his BBC teleplays and Hammer films chronicling the adventures of British Rocket scientist Bernard Quatermass captured the imaginations of multiple generations of audiences and filmmakers, their influence and impact still felt today.
In Quatermass's battles to thwart and defeat insidious, gruesome alien invasions, you can preview all the ideas, templates and tropes that eventually influenced science fiction/fantasy films and TV for years to come.....the "Alien" series, "Dr. Who", the "X Files" and countless others. (Irony of ironies: Kneale famously despised "Dr. Who", deriding it as a children's show designed to terrify children. Years later, the "Who" writers would freely help themselves to storyline ideas first dramatized in the "Quatermass" films....)
Fair warning here about Andy Murray's book......it's no easy-breezy Fanboy skimming of Kneale's remarkable career in teleplay and screenwriting. Densely written and exhaustively researched, it's rather slow and plodding in style.....an almost hour-by-hour detailed description of Kneale's many writing projects and his sometimes laborious struggles to bring them to fruition.
If you're willing to take the time to dive into it, Murray provides you with a full panoramic picture of Kneale's writing life......his triumphs (all of England glued to their TVs to watch the Quatermass TV mini-series),his disappointments (the all too typical Hollywood trashing of his screenplay for "Halloween III") and sadly, the maddening amount of fascinating projects that never saw light of day....(including "The Big, Big Giggle", his savagely acerbic view of the youth revolution culture....some of which survived in his farewell to Quatermass, "The Quatermass Conclusion.")
And personally, as someone who's held writing jobs to eke out a living, we're still seething over the descriptions of how the upperclass twits who ran the BBC royally screwed Kneale out his 'Quatermass' profits, paying him little or nothing out of the film deals they made with Hammer.
A Must Read if you've grown up with Kneale's work or are just now discovering it. As we said, not a quick book to get through, but for anyone who treasures those gifted folks who put pen to paper and spin out timeless, imaginative tales that stay with us forever......this true story's for you.
3 & 1/2 stars. (***1/2)
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