The Pit and the Pendulum Charles III and Charles IV only four persons were condemned. The Inquisition was, however, abolished during the period of French intervention (1808–13). The original source of the pendulum torture method is one paragraph in the preface of the 1826 book "The history of the Inquisition of Spain " by the Spanish priest, historian, and activist, Juan Antonio Llorente. relating a second-hand account by a single prisoner released from the Inquisition's Madrid dungeon in 1820, who purportedly described the pendulum torture method. Most modern sources dismiss this as fantasy. One theory is that Llorente misunderstood the account he heard; the prisoner
Quatermass and the Pit (film) rights to both these serials were acquired by Hammer Film Productions, and the film adaptations – "The Quatermass Xperiment" and "Quatermass 2", both directed by Val Guest and starring Brian Donlevy as Quatermass – were released in 1955 and 1957 respectively. Kneale went on to write a third Quatermass serial – "Quatermass and the Pit" – for the BBC, which was broadcast in December 1958 and January 1959. Hammer were once again interested in making a film adaptation, and Kneale, who had by then left the BBC and was working as a freelance screenwriter, completed a script in 1961. It