As a youngster I first viewed QUATERMASS 2(ENEMY FROM SPACE) on TV sometime in the eary 60's. It was shown on New York's CBS "The Late Show". The film would not show up again for viewing for at least another 20 years. Not till a Corinth Video release in the 80's. Anyway's the scene that had always stuck in my head in that 20 year interim was...
When Brian Donlevy was squeezing his pudgy body through the closing metal door of the dome. For some reason that really haunted and upset me. Why? There were far more grusome scenes in this film. Older & wiser(maybe) I can reflect on this and it kinda makes sense to me now. The aliens were luring a group of goverment bureaucrats into their trap for alien reconditioning. This I think is a perfect allegory for the Nazis sending their prisoners to the gas chambers in the concentration camps. It is that exact deception of "Leading the lambs to their slaughter". Right down to the soldiers in the film wearing gas masks in the dome. I really wonder if Nigel Kneale had these thoughts while writing this. It seems most likely.
The fact that some years after my first viewing of this film, I found out both my parents were "Heavy Duty" Holocaust Survivors! They didn't start really talking about their experiences to us kids until the late 60's early 70's. So why did this scene creep me out? Was it coincidence? Did I over-hear some conversation as a child? Some inbred intuition through blood?
Well thank you all for letting me vent....Dont want to be a downer here...But would love to hear some of your thoughts about this subject....P.S. I say Heavy duty survivors bout' my parents because my dad can be seen in a lot of war film footage and is seen in a very famous Margaret Bork White photograph(prisoners behind barbed wire)
When Brian Donlevy was squeezing his pudgy body through the closing metal door of the dome. For some reason that really haunted and upset me. Why? There were far more grusome scenes in this film. Older & wiser(maybe) I can reflect on this and it kinda makes sense to me now. The aliens were luring a group of goverment bureaucrats into their trap for alien reconditioning. This I think is a perfect allegory for the Nazis sending their prisoners to the gas chambers in the concentration camps. It is that exact deception of "Leading the lambs to their slaughter". Right down to the soldiers in the film wearing gas masks in the dome. I really wonder if Nigel Kneale had these thoughts while writing this. It seems most likely.
The fact that some years after my first viewing of this film, I found out both my parents were "Heavy Duty" Holocaust Survivors! They didn't start really talking about their experiences to us kids until the late 60's early 70's. So why did this scene creep me out? Was it coincidence? Did I over-hear some conversation as a child? Some inbred intuition through blood?
Well thank you all for letting me vent....Dont want to be a downer here...But would love to hear some of your thoughts about this subject....P.S. I say Heavy duty survivors bout' my parents because my dad can be seen in a lot of war film footage and is seen in a very famous Margaret Bork White photograph(prisoners behind barbed wire)
