Terence Fisher and British science fiction cinema

Sf has historically been one of the least-discussed genres in British film culture. Until the 1999 publication of British Science Fiction Cinema, edited by I. Q. Hunter, serious consideration of Britain's contribution to the genre had frequently taken place in the margins of studies devoted mainly to the more obvious attractions of American sf films. Few scholars seemed willing to disagree with John Baxter's summation, made in 1970, that, with the exception of 2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick UK/US 1968), which in any case was directed by an American, 'the great British sf film has yet to be made' (101). Hunter introduces his collection by conceding that 'the critical consensus remains, then, that British sf is a poor thing, responsive at periods to national discourses, but more often a shadow of its more ambitious, confident, expensive and expansive American counterpart' (6). A similar view seems to have prevailed in relation to the sf films made at intervals throughout his career by Hammer Film's leading director, Terence Fisher (1904–1980). Despite Winston Wheeler Dixon's assertion that Four Sided Triangle (UK 1952) 'far outdistances such conventional and overblown [American] 1950s genre films as The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) and Forbidden Planet (1956)' (4), Fisher's work in the genre has received scant attention, even from Dixon himself, and has been consistently overshadowed by Fisher's better-known Gothic horrors, such as his series of Dracula films.¹

This essay sets out to redress the balance by looking at the five sf films Fisher made during the 1950s and 1960s and at the significant part they played in the creation and development of an indigenous sf tradition within British film culture. For the sake of clarity, sf is defined here strictly in reference to Fisher's films with contemporary settings. This clearly differentiates them from films such as Curse of Frankenstein (UK 1957) or The Two Faces of Dr Jekyll (UK 1960), which might qualify as period sf but are taken here to belong principally to the Gothic strain in Fisher's work, or what might be described as a hybrid combination of sf and Gothic horror, and which have been extensively addressed elsewhere. The first two films considered here, Four Sided Triangle and Spaceways (UK 1953), made for Hammer, were key to the establishing of the genre of contemporary sf in Britain in response to developments in America. His later sf films, The Earth Dies Screaming (UK 1964), Island of Terror (UK 1966) and Night of the Big Heat (UK 1967), which were all made for small, independent production companies, play out and extend themes and stylistic approaches which had come to the forefront of the genre during the flowering of British sf films in the wake of The Quatermass Xperiment (Guest UK 1955). In the final part of the essay, I will seek to draw parallels between elements of Fisher's work in the contemporary sf/thriller genre and the concerns which underlie his better-known achievements in Gothic horror or period sf.

Fisher and the beginnings of a new wave in British sf

The difficulties inherent in making a clear definition of what constitutes sf have been well documented. J. P. Telotte describes it as a genre which 'tends to slip away, to evade its own evidence or facticity' (3), and opts for an approach which essentially uses the existing identified tradition of sf cinema as its own unifying definition. There is a reasonable assumption on his part that audiences will easily recognise the primary conventions of the genre, while being able to accommodate the changing nature of those conventions over time. For the purposes of this essay, it is useful to identify two key thematic strands within this tradition which are central to Fisher's particular contribution to the genre: first, anxieties about the possible consequences for humanity of advances in technology; second, a concern based loosely around the development of totalitarian or authoritarian political regimes, specifically in the aftermath of the Second World War. These two motifs overlap in the postwar period, particularly in relation to the...