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X: The Unknown

X: The Unknown (1956) Movie Poster
UK  •    •  81m  •    •  Directed by: Leslie Norman, Joseph Losey.  •  Starring: Dean Jagger, Edward Chapman, Leo McKern, Anthony Newley, Jameson Clark, William Lucas, Peter Hammond, Marianne Brauns, Ian MacNaughton, Michael Ripper, John Harvey, Edwin Richfield, Jane Aird.  •  Music by: James Bernard.
        British Army radiation drills at a remote Scottish base attract a subterranean, radioactive entity of unknown nature that vanishes, leaving two severely radiation-burned soldiers... and a "bottomless" crack in the earth. Others who meet the thing in the night suffer likewise, and with increasing severity; it seems to be able to "absorb" radiation from any source, growing bigger and bigger. What is it?? How do you destroy a thing that "feeds" on energy?

Trailers:

   Length:  Languages:  Subtitles:
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Review:

Image from: X: The Unknown (1956)
Image from: X: The Unknown (1956)
Image from: X: The Unknown (1956)
Image from: X: The Unknown (1956)
Image from: X: The Unknown (1956)
Image from: X: The Unknown (1956)
Image from: X: The Unknown (1956)
Image from: X: The Unknown (1956)
Image from: X: The Unknown (1956)
Image from: X: The Unknown (1956)
Image from: X: The Unknown (1956)
Image from: X: The Unknown (1956)
Image from: X: The Unknown (1956)
Image from: X: The Unknown (1956)
Image from: X: The Unknown (1956)
SPOILERS Hammer Studios excellent follow-up to "The Quatermass Experiment" the year before about this radioactive mud coming from the center of the earth looking to nourish itself, in order to stay alive, on radioactive material that's mostly in and around this British Atomic Laboatory in Scotland. Were told by the star of the film Dr. Adam Royston, Dean Jagger, that this "Thing" has been around since the birth of planet earth some 4 billion years ago and every 50 or so years when the suns pull on the earth is the greatest it comes alive and breaks through the surface looking for a meal. Now in 1956 with the dawn of the nuclearatomic age there's a lot more for it to eat, living exclusively on nuclear material, then ever before.

Making it's unannounced and unwanted appearance in the Scottish Highlands the thing, that's called the X Factor by Dr. Royston, cause havoc all around the countryside eating or absorbing everything in it's way as it zeros in on the Atomic Laboratory where Dr. Royston works and does his nuclear experiments. Looking like a glowing mudslide the X Factor coming and going from it's base of operations, a deep fissure in the highlands, leaves a trail of death and destruction by melting anyone unfortunate enough to get in its way.

Dr. Royston realizes what the thing, or X Factor, is up to when it breaks into his lab, through the air ducts, and eats the little jar of nuclear material that he's been experimenting with. Dr. Royston sees that it took the jar with it on it's way home, to the bottomless ditch, and then dumped it at this deserted tower, occupied by a local hermit Old Tom, Norman Macowan, after t sucked out all the radiation. This made Dr. Royston conclude that the next place that he X Factor is going to strike at is the Atomic facility where he works at.

Sure enough the thing makes it's way to the Atomic facility that evening and catches two of the workers Harry & Zena, Ian MacNaugton & Marianne Burns, making out in the restricted radiation room. It then attacks and kills Harry, by melting him into a blob of blubber, and drives the shocked and hysterical Zena, in what she saw in what happened to her boyfriend Harry, insane. Dr. Royston desperately trying to figure what to do in stopping this thing as it gets bigger and bigger every time it has a meal of radioactive material comes up with this concoction of scanners that when in sync can neutralize the rampaging radioactive mudslide. Thus causing it to enclose on itself, like a dying star, and then explode into total nothingness.

Not really knowing if he has the right frequency, in the scanners, to destroy the X Factor but not having enough time to find out Dr. Royston sets up a trap for the thing or X Factor at the base of the ditch when it came from and made itself at home. Dr. Royston having placed an atomic isotope with the director John Elliott, Edward Chapman, of the Atomic facility's son Peter, William Lucas, doing the placing the whole world waits for it to come up, from down under, to either eat or absorb it. It's nail biting time as we all wait to see if the right frequency is turned on by Dr. Royston to destroy the thing from the underworld as it shows itself, in all it's radioactive horror and glory. The world waits to see if Dr. Royston's was right in all the time he played around in his lab with a hunk of radioactive mud, and neutralizing it with high frequency sound waves, by doing the same thing to the uncontrollable radioactive mudslide; or as it's named in the movies title "X the Unknown".


Review by sol1218 from the Internet Movie Database.

 

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