# X the Unknown

X the Unknown is a 1956 British science fiction horror film directed by Leslie Norman and starring Dean Jagger and Edward Chapman. It was made by the Hammer Film Productions company and written by Jimmy Sangster. The film is significant in that "it firmly established Hammer's transition from B-movie thrillers to out-and-out horror/science fiction" and, with The Quatermass Xperiment (1955) and Quatermass 2 (1957), completes "an important trilogy containing relevant allegorical threads revealing Cold War anxieties and a diminishing national identity resulting from Britain's decrease in status as a world power".

## Plot

The film opens in rural Scotland. In a deserted field, soldiers take turns familiarizing themselves with how to use a Geiger counter. Then, there is an explosion. One soldier dies of radiation exposure while another is badly burned. At the site, there is a Y-shaped crack in the ground with no apparent bottom. Dr. Royston of the Atomic Energy Laboratory, is called in to investigate. He is later joined by "Mac" McGill, who runs security at the UK Atomic Energy Commission. That night, a local boy witnesses an horrific off-camera sight. He dies the next day of radiation burns. Royston investigates and comes upon a tower occupied by an old man in possession of a canister left over from previous radiation experiments. Later, in a local hospital, a young doctor collapses and melts after witnessing the same off-screen horror as the boy.
The same evening, when two soldiers mysteriously die while guarding the Y-shaped crack, Royston's colleague Peter Elliott volunteers to be lowered into the pit to investigate. Before long, he encounters the same off-screen horror as witnessed before. However, he is pulled out of the pit in the nick of time. The army uses flamethrowers to try to kill the unseen creature but to no avail. Royston hypothesizes an explanation for the phenomenon. His theory involves a form of life that existed in distant prehistory when the Earth's surface was largely molten. This entity had been trapped by the crust of the Earth as it cooled. But every 50 years there is a tidal surge that these creatures feel, causing them to reach the surface and find "food" in the form of radioactive sources.
The thing is finally revealed – an ever-growing blob, now crawling its way toward the Laboratory to feed on cobalt being used there. Royston and McGill accurately predict its movement. They proceed to a location where they set up two large "scanners" on lorries and a canister of cobalt as bait. Peter drives the bait by jeep, drawing the blob's deadly attention. Eventually, the creature is neutralized and explodes. But as the team approaches the crack from which the monster had emerged, a second, more powerful explosion occurs, knocking several off their feet. Puzzled, the team continues approaching the crack, presumably to make further tests, as the film comes to an end.

## Production

The film was originally intended by Hammer to be a sequel to the previous year's successful The Quatermass Xperiment, but writer Nigel Kneale refused permission for the character of Bernard Quatermass to be used.
The original director of the film was Joseph Losey, working under the name Joseph Walton – Losey was an American director who had moved to the UK after being placed on the Hollywood blacklist. Although Losey did begin shooting the film and some of his footage is included in the final cut, he was replaced by Leslie Norman due to illness. An alternative version is that Jagger refused to work with him because of his blacklisting.
Norman was borrowed from Ealing. He had just made his directorial debut with The Night My Number Came Up (1955). He later said "I hated working at Hammer ... because I never got on with [Producer] Anthony Hinds."
Filming took place at Bray Studios in Berkshire. Half the film's budget was provided by Sol Lesser, a producer for RKO Pictures. This amount, $30,000, went towards the salary for Dean Jagger. Nonetheless, the American distribution deal between Hammer and RKO fell through due to the latter company's pending demise, and the film was distributed in the U.S. by Warner Bros.

## Critical reception

Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "X the Unknown intriguingly suggests a new addition to the science fiction repertoire of Things, but after a series of prolonged climaxes, with its potential victims staring directly into the camera and shaking with fright, the "Unknown" finally emerges as a type of rolling rubber mattress, disappointingly unhorrific in content and appearance. Scientific explanations for the object's arrival are disconcertingly vague; one is left with the impression that the "Unknown" has been created with the sole purpose of manoeuvring its elaborate destruction, and the script sometimes suggests this in a number of unintentionally comic lines. It seems likely, therefore, that enthusiasts may find the present adventure rather tame when compared with the more grisly experiments of Professor Quatermass."
Variety reviewed the film twice. The first reviewer, "Myro", wrote in 1956:
   X the Unknown is a highly imaginative and fanciful meller, with tense dramatic overtones which will help it along at the boxoffice. ... Made with creditable slickness, it tells a story which is completely absorbing, though totally unbelievable. There's little let-up in the action, and suspense angles are kept constantly to the forefront. Laboratory experiments in an atomic research station have an impressive, but familiar appeal, though ultimately they play a key role in the plot. War Office cooperated in the production, and its seal on a story of this kind should have some value. ... The scenes on the desolate moor, the sight of the grim atomic mass moving relentlessly towards its main target, the closeups of the radio-active victims, and the ultimate efficacy of the neutralizer combine in achieving a tense, almost horrific atmosphere. The acting, though mainly stereotype in style, is in the same vein, with Jagger, Edward Chapman and Leo McKern leading a vigorous cast. Marianne Brauns does a standout bit as the nurse, revealing a warm pert personality."
The next reviewer, "Whit", said the following year: "Poor and complicated science-fictioner not for discriminating audiences. ... This picture carries a complicated structure difficult to follow. The 'unknown' that serves as the menace in [this] science-fiction yarn is so vague that audiences may be overmystified. ...Roles are strictly static and Leslie Norman's direction isn't able to rise above what was handed him."
Films and Filming called the film "a welcomed change from interplanetary yarns."