The Trollenberg Terror (1956-67)
The Trollenberg Terror was a "Saturday Serial", written for ABC, and shown by ATV London and ABC Weekend TV, in which fictitious unexplained and gruesome deaths among climbers of the Swiss mountain "Trollenberg" are investigated. None of the six episodes from this series are currently known to exist.
The series was written by George F Kerr, Jack Cross and Giles Cooper under the collective pseudonym of "Peter Key".
Director Quentin Lawrence would make big screen version in 1958, which would play on a double bill with the movie version of ATV's The Strange World Of Planet X. Laurence Payne and Stuart Saunders reprised their roles in the movie version.
| Production company/ies | Written by | Directed by | Producer(s) | Designer | Other notable credits |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ABC | Peter Key (George F Kerr, Jack Cross, Giles Cooper) | Quentin Lawrence | Quentin Lawrence | Tom Lingwood |
Cast
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Episodes
- "The Mind Of Ann Pilgrim" (December 15, 1956)
- "First Blood" (December 22, 1956)
- "The Giggle Of Madness" (December 29, 1956)
- "The Power Of The Ixodes" (January 5, 1957)
- The alien menace is revealed in this episode.
- "The Trap" (January 12, 1957)
- "[Unknown name]" (January 19, 1957)
In the news...
Max North announced in the December 8, 1956 edition of the Manchester Evening News that a new ATV serial, called "The Trollenberg Terror", would be "a story of the Martians".
| The Leicester Evening Mail, on December 14, 1956, featured actresses Sarah Lawson (pictured, left) and Rosemary Miller (pictured, right), who had never heard of each other despite only living a mile or two apart. They would be playing sisters "Sarah and Ann Pilgrim, whose mind-reading variety act involves them in strange happenings." |  |
On December 17, 1956, John Ross wrote in the Leicester Evening Mail that "Something sinister is happening among the snow peaks of the Swiss Alps, but up till now the viewer is left in the cold...we weren't taken far enough into the plot to make us count the days to next Saturday." Ross also wrote on January 14, 1957: "THE Trollenberg Terror surges to its sizzling climax. The last time we saw Sarah Lawson she had the tentacle of some nameless horror from outer space round her pretty neck. "They" have reached the observatory. Can the trapped ones escape the slimy terror? Next week we shall know, and we shall be darned disappointed if we don't meet one of "them" face to face."
Norman Cook wrote in the December 17, 1956 edition of The Liverpool Echo: "Aided by the occasional snatch of macabre music I was happily abandoning myself to a few moments of televised terror when, at the crucial moment, the strangest of outside influences began to create a treble image on my television screen."
He continued, "The supernatural terrors of Trollenberg faded into insignificance beside the inexplicable electronic mysteries of the Cook television set. By the time I had manipulated the picture back to normal there was nothing more terrifying on the screen than a slightly overwrought young man being presented with a cheque for £3,200 for answering questions about British birds [on The 64,000 Question]. I hope to have better luck at Trollenberg with the second episode."
In the Sunday Mercury of January 13, 1957, Ian Beauchamp declared that "QUENTIN LAWRENCE deserves praise for the handling of the new Channel 8 thriller 'The Trollenberg Terror'. It has all the power of the old silent films' serials like 'The Clutching Hand' and 'Clubfoot'."
