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Quatermass Xperiment
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Abominable Snowman
: :Made the same year as the gory gothic hit The Curse of Frankenstein, this smartly written, philosophically grounded Hammer studios adventure written by Nigel Kneale (who also wrote the excellent science fiction thriller Quatermass and its two sequels) was lost in the flesh and blood of Hammer's new vein of horror. Peter Cushing, best known for his ruthless portrayals of Dr. Frankenstein and his more tempered rationalist skew on vampire hunter Van Helsing, plays another scientist driven to prove his unpopular theories. Against the advice of his wife and a kindly ...
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Casino Royale
: :John Huston was only one of five directors on this expensive, all-star 1967 spoof of Ian Fleming's 007 lore. David Niven is the aging Sir James Bond, called out of retirement to take on the organized threat of SMERSH and pass on the secret-agent mantle to his idiot son (Woody Allen). An amazing cast (Orson Welles, Peter Sellers, Deborah Kerr, etc.) is wonderful to look at, but the film is not as funny as it should be, and the romping starts to look mannered after awhile. The musical score by Burt ...
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Day the Earth Caught Fire
: essential video:Despite its melodramatic title, which carried on a '50s doomsday naming convention, this taut 1961 English science fiction thriller offers an object lesson in the power of story over special effects. When both the Soviets and the West detonate nuclear tests simultaneously, the seismic double whammy jolts the earth off its axis and onto a new orbit sending it fatally closer to the sun--a fate that writer-director-producer Val Guest views from the street-level perspective of its principal characters, rather than an off-world vantage point. The street in question, however, ...
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When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth
: essential video:Despite its melodramatic title, which carried on a '50s doomsday naming convention, this taut 1961 English science fiction thriller offers an object lesson in the power of story over special effects. When both the Soviets and the West detonate nuclear tests simultaneously, the seismic double whammy jolts the earth off its axis and onto a new orbit sending it fatally closer to the sun--a fate that writer-director-producer Val Guest views from the street-level perspective of its principal characters, rather than an off-world vantage point. The street in question, however, ...
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Quatermass 2
: :Considered by many critics to be the finest in the series, Hammer's second Quatermass feature (adapted from the television serial by Nigel Kneale) is a subversive alien invasion story. Professor Quatermass (Brian Donlevy) stumbles onto a top-secret government base near a rural location that has been inundated by a steady stream of meteors. His investigations, which are met with distrust by suspicious townspeople and outright hostility by the base guards, uncover a conspiracy originating in the highest reaches of government. With few he can trust and fewer he can convince of ...
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Killer Force
: :Considered by many critics to be the finest in the series, Hammer's second Quatermass feature (adapted from the television serial by Nigel Kneale) is a subversive alien invasion story. Professor Quatermass (Brian Donlevy) stumbles onto a top-secret government base near a rural location that has been inundated by a steady stream of meteors. His investigations, which are met with distrust by suspicious townspeople and outright hostility by the base guards, uncover a conspiracy originating in the highest reaches of government. With few he can trust and fewer he can convince of ...
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Up the Creek
: :Considered by many critics to be the finest in the series, Hammer's second Quatermass feature (adapted from the television serial by Nigel Kneale) is a subversive alien invasion story. Professor Quatermass (Brian Donlevy) stumbles onto a top-secret government base near a rural location that has been inundated by a steady stream of meteors. His investigations, which are met with distrust by suspicious townspeople and outright hostility by the base guards, uncover a conspiracy originating in the highest reaches of government. With few he can trust and fewer he can convince of ...
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Carry on Admiral
: :Considered by many critics to be the finest in the series, Hammer's second Quatermass feature (adapted from the television serial by Nigel Kneale) is a subversive alien invasion story. Professor Quatermass (Brian Donlevy) stumbles onto a top-secret government base near a rural location that has been inundated by a steady stream of meteors. His investigations, which are met with distrust by suspicious townspeople and outright hostility by the base guards, uncover a conspiracy originating in the highest reaches of government. With few he can trust and fewer he can convince of ...
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The Abominable Snowman
: :Made the same year as the gory gothic hit The Curse of Frankenstein, this smartly written, philosophically grounded Hammer studios adventure written by Nigel Kneale (who also wrote the excellent science fiction thriller Quatermass and its two sequels) was lost in the flesh and blood of Hammer's new vein of horror. Peter Cushing, best known for his ruthless portrayals of Dr. Frankenstein and his more tempered rationalist skew on vampire hunter Van Helsing, plays another scientist driven to prove his unpopular theories. Against the advice of his wife and a kindly ...
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