The Monsters Episode Three
Another mutilated body floating in the lake. The work of a prehistoric monster? Or is there a more human agency responsible?
The Monsters Episode Three
Written by Evelyn Frazer and Vincent Tilsley and directed by Mervyn Pinfield.
You will find the previous two episodes elsewhere in this Substack, plus how the serial was developed.
Transmitted Thursday 22 November 1962 at 7.56 pm.
Night time. As the froth and turmoil under the lake subsides, John Brent and Howard Milroy jump into a boat and row out towards something floating... Felicity is in a trance, staring out into the lake. On the other side of the lake, Professor Cato and his colleagues watch in puzzlement as Brent and Milroy row back to shore with a body. Swinton, the Chief Constable, and Hopkins, a ministry security man, help the boat men take the body on shore and then to the police station.
Due to the appalling state of the corpse, they can only ascertain it is a man wearing a frogman’s outfit. Adamson from the Manchester Daily Post enters the police station and is quickly rebuffed by Swinton when he asks about Brent, the dinosaur man. Professor Brent is on his honeymoon and is not hunting monsters.
Felicity is in a state of shock and is taken to her hotel room allowing Brent and Milroy to have a large drink. Esmee, sister of the first victim Pulford, is clearly troubled and wants to visit Cato. Before she leaves, Brent asks her what else could have made that wake in the lake if not an animal. Adamson enters and introduces himself. He remembers Brent’s article from the Zoologist where he put the case for the existence of the Loch Ness Monster. Brent explains he was only writing a scientific possibility. However, he wants the public warned not to come here. The man in the frogman suit may have been on his own private monster hunt. Brent is convinced that there are ‘giant aquatic animals in existence that differ from any living species known to science.’ And one of them is here. Brent has seen its wake twice. It is either a new species of giant marine reptile or an unexpected survival, probably a plesiosaur. Fossil remains have been found in estuaries and fresh water lakes. It is adapted for aquatic life but needs air. They may live in lime stone subterranean caves which can be found at the end of this lake underneath a promontory. They may deposit their eggs on land which once hatched make straight for the water. Adamson wonders if the caves are cemeteries since no bodies are ever found floating in the lake. Brent suspects that they submerge smoothly, and this could explain why plesiosaurs swallowed pebbles to act as ballast. When the lungs and air sacs collapse completely at death, they sink to the bottom of the lake. As for food, Brent points out the lake has a bad reputation for fishing.
Still in a daze, Felicity joins Brent as he points Adamson towards Marner who has also seen the creature. As Adamson hunts for his story, Felicity tells Brent that she knows they are not leaving tomorrow. She astonishes her husband by stating that Esmee knows who the dead man is. She saw the way Esmee looked at the corpse when it was brought ashore…
Esmee tells Cato she recognised Parsons by the bad chemical burns on his left arm. Cato is anxious. If she worked it out, the local doctor who dressed the wound will too. She wants to know what is going on and pleads with him to trust her. Cato asks her to wait a moment while he attends to something.
Elsewhere in Cato’s lakeside mansion, Messonier and Van Halloren, dressed in protective white overalls and wearing rubber gloves, are stuffing pamphlets into envelope. Cato tells them Parsons is dead and the police have recovered the body. He alarms them further by hoping the police will pay them a visit. Smetanov, a Russian scientist who defected and is now on the run from Special Branch, should arrive after the police visit. Indicating the radio equipment in the room and a large and illuminated wall map of the world, an anxious Van Halloren feels they should wait until everything is coordinated, but Cato will not allow Parson’s tragic death to interrupt their time table. The pamphlets must be ready for the morning collection. Cato is determined. They must wait no longer.
In bed, Felicity watches Brent make notes for a research programme he christens ‘Operation Kingswater’. Radar equipment will reveal how many monsters are in the lake. One will be captured, penned and then transferred to an observation tank. Felicity asks why they can’t be left alone. Brent at first misunderstands her concerns – nobody will get killed but then patiently explains they are a living link with the dinosaur age. He wants to discover their place in the whole evolutionary pattern. This is the zoological story of the century. She suspects his desire for fame is also playing a part. She wonders why the monsters have suddenly become killers. Brent suspects they could be short of food which gives him an idea in how they’ll catch one. Felicity remembers the last time they gave the locals trouble they were being poisoned with lead washings from the pit and only stopped when a new pit was dug. Brent suddenly looks at her ‘talking nonsense so solemnly… in her charming honeymoon nighties.’ He leaves a message for Esmee. Felicity wants to know if they were lovers. He is frustrated with the question. Felicity tries to explain but Brent decides it is pointless to argue and leaves. She accuses him of jumping to conclusions about her reasons for questioning him, which is not a very scientific attitude. She is drawn back to the view of the lake from the window once more…
Marner realises he is not getting a second pint from Adamson and bids him goodnight. Adamson pockets a drawing of the monster Marner saw and spots Brent. The sketch doesn’t look like a plesiosaur. Brent agrees – it resembles one of the bird-hipped reptiles and they were plant eaters and even Marner hasn’t seen them stripping the trees of leaves. Brent is convinced that what they have here is dangerous, and he has no objection in being quoted.
Cato admits to Esmee that the whole business on the lake was faked. He tricked everyone into watching ‘a monster’. For the last five years he has been working on a secret project, a substance which produces a poisonous waste which they dispose of at the bottom of the lake using their miniature submarine so as not to poison the fish and attract attention. But the deaths, asks Esmee. The propeller sometimes gets jammed and Parsons was caught by it when he tried to free it. Parsons was also worried about her brother’s death. Pulford was killed by their Alsatian – he must have climbed over the fence and by the time Parsons found him, it was too late. He panicked and pushed the body into the lake. The monster rumour was just ‘a lucky accident’, a distraction for the police. To Cato’s surprise, Esmee sympathises with Brent. Esmee hates to see him making a fool of himself. Cato doesn’t want her to tell Brent the truth and unnoticed begins to open a draw on his desk but thinks better of it. Cato asks her to trust him and send Brent here. Cato offers to escort her to the main gate – the dog is loose within the grounds. He then takes out a glass phial which he puts in his pocket.
Superintendent Holt from Special Branch introduces himself to PC Mills at the station who explains he is requested to wait here for Swinton, Hopkins and Sergeant Oakroyd who are away on urgent business.
Swinton, Hopkins and Oakroyd enter Cato’s estate on foot but freeze when they spot the Alsatian - but he approaches them in a friendly manner. Cato calls it off and invites the nervous sergeant to pat the beast…
As the startled men file in to his study, Cato asks them if they are now satisfied the dog is not Pulford’s killer? He knows why Pulford was here: spying on him and his visitors on Hopkins’ instructions, whom he delights in riling. Swinton asks after Parsons. Cato says he hasn’t been seen since he set off on one of his underwater trips investigating the nocturnal habits of fish three hours ago. Swinton tells him Parsons has met with a fatal accident; the local doctor recognised the corpse. Cato fakes surprise at the news. Since Parsons had no next of kin, Cato is asked to identify the body. But to their surprise and Hopkins’ suspicion, Cato declines to do so immediately. Embarrassed, Swinton insists, but Cato questions this and this makes Hopkins - who despises Cato and does not disguise it - angry. What was Parsons up to? Smuggling the missing Soviet scientist Smetanov under the lake - under their noses? Swinton becomes uneasy with this interrogation, but Hopkins persists. Scientists Van Halloren and Messonier are here. What is the International Scientific Agency organisation which Cato heads and the others belong to? Cato explains they are an organisation which believes science has no frontiers, and knowledge should be shared by all and that this can only be achieved by peaceful and moral persuasion. Hopkins thinks only a fool believes that and Cato is happy with the title of fool. He leaves them as he fetches his latest pamphlet. Swinton cautions Hopkins reminding him that he hasn’t any solid evidence: Cato is obviously a crank, but he is being frank with them. Hopkins says if these men ‘run off the rails they can do terrifying damage.’
Cato selects three envelopes from a pile. Van Holleren and Messonier are surprised that Cato wants the police to open them.
Hopkins is sure Cato is up to something which is why he tried to rattle him and make him nervous enough to change his plans. Oakroyd wonders if the dog has been doped because it didn’t seem naturally fierce. Swinton agrees. Cato enters briskly and shows them the letters – their latest appeal which has been signed by many leading scientists which he expects will carry a lot of weight. The ones he gives to them are addressed to the Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary, and the Home Secretary. All three men tear open the envelopes and read the contents…
Esmee has told Brent that the monster wake was caused by Cato’s submarine and now he is trying to stop Adamson from writing his story. Brent fumes: Cato has turned him into a laughing stock. He also has Felicity to think about now that an ex-girlfriend has turned up. Esmee says she can’t really put herself in Felicity’s position as it wouldn’t have been the first time an ex-girl friend has turned up. She turns to go, pointing out it is also not the first time they have wasted all night talking… She abruptly goes to her room.
At a deserted crossroads, Smetanov is waiting impatiently for a pre-arranged rendezvous. A car pulls up. It is driven by Colonel Swinton who calls for Smetanov and whistles a few bars from the 1812 overture, a signal that reassures the Russian. Holt has been collected from the police station and identifies the man he lost on the train to Manchester the day before. However, Swinton acts deferentially to the fugitive; he is going to take him to his friends. He shows him something pinned to his lapel. Hopkins is also very polite. Holt, however, is cross – this is a Special Branch matter, and he has his instructions. So have we, says Swinton. Oakroyd suddenly assaults Holt and handcuffs him. We get a glimpse of an ISA emblem in Oakroyd’s button hole.
It is now morning. Felicity receives Esmee in her room who tells her Brent has gone to see Cato but didn’t want to wake up his wife. Felicity behaves strangely, as if she is in a trance again. She confuses Esmee by saying whatever she did, it was Felicity’s fault. Felicity suggests Esmee is tired and should go to bed and Esmee leaves her. Felicity returns to the window and asks what do they want? ‘It’s nothing to do with me… Leave us alone.’
Cato is on the radio – Control calling Number 1 agent. A light on the wall map indicates London. The date now is 22 November 1962 and at midnight, their experiment will begin. London confirms they are ready. Van Halloren enters and tells him Brent has arrived. Cato horrifies the others by saying he is going to tell him what they are planning to do now the police in this district are under their control. He asks them to remember what it is about the world which is worth saving. Van Halloren says he is fighting for survival and for everybody to be able to do what they are best fitted for. He chose his profession because he thought he could do some good, but his work was corrupted by those who wanted to find the quickest way to exterminate the greatest number of people for the cheapest price. Meissonier wants to save humanity because it is incapable of saving itself. Two thirds of the world population haven’t enough to eat and aren’t capable of making choices. Cato says they are giving Mankind a chance to control its own destiny. If he can’t persuade a young, educated and intelligent man like Brent that what they are doing is right, then clearly they are wrong. They all go to see him.
The initial meeting is abrupt and to the point. Brent knows the purpose of the submarine was to convince a ‘convenient moron’ that monsters exist in the lake, and ruin his career. Cato assures him within twenty-four hours the monster story will be as dead as his prehistoric reptiles. Cato wants to break ‘the international conspiracy of silence’ around biological warfare, which is worse than 100 megaton bombs. Meissonier calls chemical warfare untidy, and expensive. There are far cheaper methods of mass destruction on offer. Almost like a double act, Meissonier and Van Halloren share their knowledge. Nerve gas: a drop the size of a pencil point – and Van Holleren gently jabs a pencil on Brent’s cheek – is lethal in seconds.1 Meissonier once held a few grammes of botulinus toxin in a test tube and realised he had in his hands the means of killing fifty million people. Van Halloren offers micro-organisms – small pox, cholera, virus pneumonia typhoid, all lined up in projectiles. Brent doubts anyone would use that ‘kind of stuff’. The politicians and military leaders on either side of the iron curtain have their own logic about these types of weapons: they are a more humane and clean and cheap way of killing people. Van Halloren is aware of a virus that after it kills a population in six hours, consumes itself within another six. The atom bomb, says Cato, will soon become another tactical weapon.
Cato worked in pyscho-chemical agents: lysergic acid derivatives whose effect is psychological. He has a photo of a terrified cat cowering from a mouse after it had been exposed to ISD-25. It has been tested on men, turning them into – and here Van Halloren quotes a British General after watching American tests: ‘cringing, confused and fawning specimens.’ Brent asks if that is what they are making here. Cato produces from his desk a phial of ISA 36. It induces a similar state of mental helplessness except the infected person simply craves direction and leadership. A few molecules is enough, Meissonier claims. The effect lasts for a week, but once under the spell, they can give themselves another dose until ordered to stop. Brent asks what are they going to do with it? Cato looks at his colleagues who eventually give their consent for Brent to be shown the laboratory.2
The map of the world highlights continents which has a laboratory containing ISA 36, and they now have enough to dose the whole world. They organised this through their conferences. The four of them are in control of four global areas where the drug will be distributed. Smetanov, for example, ‘controls’ Russia, China and India. Brent wonders if this is an insane joke, like the monsters. A signal will be sent on their shortwave transmitter and a liquid form of the agent will be released into the water. Even if you didn’t drink it, you clean your teeth or wash your face. ISA 36 can be absorbed through the skin. ‘A small thickly populated country like England will be affected very quickly.’ Within a week, Cato and his supporters will control the world and guide it away from destruction. Van Halloren reminds Cato that it is time for the letters to go, and contacts Agent 37 on the radio.
Back in the study, Brent declares their plan won’t work. The ones waiting for orders will get them from the wrong people. It will be chaos. He is told that letters impregnated with ISA 36 contain basic instructions and will be read by the ‘top sheep’ (as Brent calls them), and they will control the others on behalf of Cato. The New Order will spread from the top downwards. Van Halloren enters – Smetanov has arrived. They leave Brent alone, wondering if Cato is simply mad?3
Smetanov is escorted by Hopkins and Swinton into the laboratory and warmly greets Cato, Messonier and Van Halloren. Cato orders the police to join Brent in the study. Smetanov remembers being asked by Cato when they first met would he be sent to Siberia if he spoke to an Englishman?
Brent is still pondering what to do when Swinton and Hopkins enter, and he is shocked by their subjugation. He snaps at them to sit down, and to his horror they obey. Cato tells them to carry on as instructed. Brent realises Cato is really going to do it. They have been driven to fantastic measures because they are facing a fantastic predicament. Cato is passionate in his conviction that there is no other way and can offer no humility.
Felicity is trying to work through her feelings with Richard and Edward at the priory. She loves her husband very much but ever since they arrived here, she has said all the wrong things. She feels she is being pushed to do something but does not know what that is. She has a compulsion to go down to the lake where two men have been killed. That’s why she is here. Edward asks bluntly why doesn’t she trust her instinct and Richard agrees: ‘We are all His instruments. We can’t know what use he has for them.’ Felicity is a little embarrassed by the religiosity and decides she will visit the lake. Edward, although not a religious man, agrees with Richard. Their instinct as people was to opt out of modern society, but she appears to have taken the opposite approach. They wish her luck. Richard looks up at the mural where the maiden is kneeling before St Kindagrun and says, ‘Oh, holy man, I did not ask to understand the spirit of the great creatures. But this understanding was given me. And for this reason they sought me.’
Cato asks Brent to imagine a world where money spent on war is spent on peace. Fear is the basic instinct of war and this will be eliminated within a week. Brent points out that knowledge cannot be destroyed and Cato agrees. Destroying weapons is only the first step: world government comes next. The Earth has become too small for nations to disagree. They have no lust for power, Cato says, only for peace. They want no colour bars, no poverty or famine. There is no alternative at this stage in human evolution. Brent is puzzled by the reference to evolution. Cato argues the dinosaur specialised in brawn but not brain, which is why they no longer exist.4 Man is going in the opposite direction, and they will wipe themselves out with his own weapons. What they plan to do is simply apply an anaesthetic while they perform ‘a vital operation’. Brent gets him to admit that there is an antidote, which Cato and his group have taken because he wouldn’t have been told all this without subjugating Brent with a gas and affecting himself. Cato says he isn’t going to dose Brent because he is a natural born optimist. Brent can’t talk to everyone in the world to persuade them and asks him to go away and think about it. And if Brent decides he doesn’t come back? Then no doubt he will betray Cato. Brent leaves, and Cato picks up the phone. He has a job for Swinton. Brent is not to leave Kingswater or to be allowed to use the telephone.
Brent is driving along the road alongside the lake but pulls up when he spots Felicity, sitting on a promontory out in the lake which is reached by a bridge. She turns to face him as he approaches. She explains she had to come here. The monsters are not fakes. There is the legend and she has seen the paintings. Brent tells her to forget it, more concerned with Cato’s plans. Felicity isn’t listening and Brent feels let down, wishing he was married to someone like Esmee. He notices a mist coming in. Brent walks back to the bridge, but Felicity is far behind. Suddenly, they look towards the water. There is a wake crossing the lake and it is travelling towards them.
Out of the water emerges the head of the monster and then the rest of its body is revealed. The shadow of the monster rises over Felicity. The monster looks down at them.5
The Cast:
Robert Harris (Professor Cato), William Greene (John Brent), Alan Gifford (Van Halloren), Mark Dignam (Hopkins), Clive Merrison (Colonel Swinton), George Pravda (Smetanov), Elizabeth Weaver (Felicity Brent), Gordon Whiting (Messonier), Kenneth Mackintosh (Edward), Philip Madoc (Richard), Norman Mitchell (Sergeant Oakroyd), Clifford Cox (Howard Milroy), Arthur Skinner (Superintendent Holt), John Devaut (Adamson) and Stuart Hoyle (PC Mills).
The technical credits will accompany Episode 4.
No attempt has been made to infringe the copyright of the authors or their estates in the presentation of this article.
NEXT TIME
The secret of the Monsters is revealed, and Cato’s plan goes into operation - but can anyone stop him saving Mankind from itself by enslaving it? Will anyone be capable?
COMING SOON
How they put the Task Force into Softly Softly…
And did someone call a Russian scientist called Kupin in 1961 about defecting to the West and not put a nuclear bomb onto a Sputnik?
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Van Holleren placing the point of a pencil on Brent’s cheek allowed director Mervyn Pinfield the chance to use more than one camera in a scene.
If you have got this far into the episode, you may have already thought of Davros’ famous speech in Doctor Who and the ‘Genesis of the Daleks’ and the Doomwatch episode ‘Enquiry’ which featured a chemical agent which induced crippling fear in order to paralyse a population, and that episode went out ten years after The Monsters. That the date of the story is 22 November is enough to give Doctor Who fans a tremble of excitement for in a year’s time the series will begin, over-shadowed by the death of a President.
‘Telecrit’ was happy with the story so far, and in light if how close the world recently was nearly plunged into another global war, he found he had great sympathy with Cato’s plan: ‘Our hero may well stop the scientists saving the world from itself – but I fancy the scientist’s cause has been argued so plausibly that not a few viewers will have changed sides.’
This was written before the asteroid strike became the accepted solution to why the age of the dinosaurs came to an end.
The monster head emerging from the lake was pre-filmed in a water tank. The promontory dialogue was recorded in the studio but the bridge scenes are on film. Whether this was a model or a full scale suited worn by a member of the Visual Effects team is unknown. There is no extra credit for the monster in this or next week’s episode. Indeed, the story appears to have no extras or walk on artists at all.