television version are covered in just two minutes in the Hammer film. In the process Landau played up the horror elements of Kneale's original teleplay. Aware that the film would be co-funded by American backers, Landau added a transatlantic dimension to the script: Quatermass's "British Rocket Group" became the "British-American Rocket Group" and the character of his assistant, Briscoe, was rewritten as a US Air Force flight surgeon. Quatermass himself was demoted to a doctor and written much more as an action hero than the thoughtful scientist created by Nigel Kneale. Some characters from the television version, such as the journalist James Fullalove, are omitted altogether. Judith Carroon's role in the film version is reduced to little more than that of the stricken astronaut's anxious wife, whereas in the television version she is also a prominent member of Quatermass's Rocket Group. A subplot involving an extramarital affair between her and Briscoe is also left out of the film version. Kneale was particularly aggravated by the dropping from his original teleplay the notion that Carroon has absorbed not only the bodies but also the memories and the personalities of his two fellow astronauts. This change leads to the most significant difference between the two versions: in the television version, Quatermass makes a personal appeal to the last vestiges that remain of the three absorbed astronauts to make the creature commit suicide before it can spore, whereas in the film version Quatermass kills the creature by electrocution. Director Val Guest defended this change believing it was "filmically a better end to the story". He also felt it unlikely that Brian Donlevy's gruff interpretation of Quatermass would lend itself to talking the creature into submission. Having fallen foul of the censors with some of their earlier films, Hammer had an informal agreement to submit scripts in advance of shooting for comment by the BBFC. When the draft script for The Quatermass Xperiment was submitted, Board Secretary Arthur Watkins replied, "I must warn you at this stage that, while we accept this story in principle for the ‘X’ category, we could not certificate, even in that category, a film treatment in which the horrific element was so exaggerated as to be nauseating and revolting to adult audiences". The BBFC were particularly concerned with the violence in the scenes where Carroon escapes from hospital and with how graphic the depiction would be of Caroon's transformation