Barbara Shelley, an actress known for her statuesque beauty, passed away. Some of you may know her as Sorasta in some 1984 episodes of Doctor Who.
I know her from the 1967 movie Quatermass and the Pit, which was shown in America as Five Millions Years to Earth. This had a stunning effect on me when I was young. Unlike most female leads of the time in such movies, she played a crucial role in terms of research. She showed a skeptical Dr. Quatermass that the pit being excavated had a history going back centuries of odd occurrences. She also pointed out that the older name “Hob” for Hobbs End was a name for the Devil.
This movie is still available on eBay. There is a mini-series with the same name, but the movie has this badly-lit cover.
Barbara (which was the character’s name) had a couple other crucial roles in the movie, which you’ll have to watch to find out. I won’t show the poster for that movie, because it is horribly exploitational. But here is part of the poster for Village of the Damned.
I cut out the weird top of the poster. This was the original 1960 British version, which was far more creepy than the much louder 1995 American version.
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