For almost sixty years, the science-fiction show Doctor Who has been a staple of television screens (the odd hiatus aside, of course). It has become somewhat forgotten in recent years that the show spawned two big screen adaptations - Dr. Who And The Daleks (1965) and (the rather less snappily titled) Daleks’ Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. (1966) - both of which were designed to bring to the big screen (in Widescreen and Technicolor) the programme’s most notable alien creations, the Daleks, whose success in capturing the attention and imaginations of the programme’s audience saw a brief craze of what the press dubbed “Dalekmania.” First appearing in the programme’s second story, the Daleks proved to be such a hit that not only were they brought back for another outing in the second series of the show but that they put Doctor Who firmly on the national consciousness and paved the way for the series to run for far longer than those behind the initial few stories could have imagined.
As the Daleks proved to be so popular, a whole raft of Dalek related merchandise was produced between 1964 and 1966 (perhaps the most notable were the ‘Dalek playsuit’ from 1965 and the frankly bizarre novelty song “I’m Gonna Spend My Christmas With A Dalek” by a group called The Go-Gos from 1964), mainly in part because the author of the first Dalek story, Terry Nation, had managed to retain all merchandising rights rather than them going to the BBC. It was with this merchandising craze in mind that the American producer Milton Subotsky, owner of the British film studio Amicus Films, acquired the rights to make three films based on Doctor Who, although only two were made. Amicus Films were often in competition with Hammer Films, and Hammer had had quite a bit of success with their film adaptations of the three Quatermass television serials by Nigel Kneale (The Quatermass Xperiment, Quatermass II, and Quatermass And The Pit). As such, it was perhaps fitting that Subotsky got the rights to the BBC’s other well-known science fiction programme, although to avoid putting parents off bringing their children to watch the films given Amicus’ association with horror, the films were produced by a subsidiary company, AARU Films.
It was perhaps unsurprising that the first film was an adaptation of the first story to feature the Daleks. Released at the peak of Dalekmania in August 1965, Dr. Who And The Daleks (directed by Gordon Flemying) found itself becoming the twentieth most successful film that year at the British box office as families flocked to see the Daleks in colour. The film managed to be relatively faithful to its source material (and condensed a story which ran for nearly three hours on television into less than half that time on screen), although there were some notable differences - in this film Dr. Who (yes, that is actually the character’s name in the film) isn’t portrayed as an alien who is cut off from his own world but is actually a rather eccentric (and clearly human) inventor. In the original television story, the Doctor has one granddaughter, Susan, but in the film, Dr. Who has two - Susan (Roberta Tovey) and Barbara (Jennie Linden); the character of Barbara in the television series having been a history teacher and repurposed for the film. Both granddaughters in the film are introduced reading science books while Dr. Who (played by Peter Cushing) is engrossed in the escapades of Dan Dare in the Eagle comic (a feature which may not have sat well with William Hartnell’s version of the character on television but would be in keeping with later interpretations of the role as the series progressed). The family’s reading time is disrupted by the arrival of Barbara’s boyfriend, Ian (Roy Castle), again slightly departing from the source material where Ian is a science teacher and colleague of Barbara’s; the Ian portrayed in the film is as far from the knowledgeable science teacher of the series as you could get, and is used for much of the comic relief in the film through his clumsiness. Indeed, the opening few scenes contains a fair amount of slapstick humour before Ian causes the four characters to take an accidental trip in Dr. Who’s latest invention - TARDIS (Time And Relative Dimension In Space) - to a distant planet in the far future.
From the arrival of the main cast to the alien world (unnamed in the first film but referred to as ‘Skaro’ in the follow-up, as the planet was named in the television serial), the film starts to stick far more closely to the source material: Dr. Who engineers a fault with TARDIS to force the four characters to investigate a city they noticed on arrival and our heroes soon realise that not only are they starting to suffer from radiation poisoning but they become prisoners of the natives of the planet, the Daleks. The film Daleks do look very imposing, although the effect when they use their weapons is not as impressive as what was managed on television at the time - on television the image was turned negative to give the impression of a ‘ray gun’ effect, whereas in the film, the Daleks shoot out clouds of gas from fire extinguishers (the original plan would have been for the film Daleks to shoot fire but that was deemed too dangerous and potentially frightening for younger audience members). Feeling the worsening effects of the radiation poisoning (from a neutron bomb used by the Daleks in a long ago war), Susan is sent to the forest where the other natives of Skaro are currently living, having come in search of food, the ‘horribly mutated’ Thals, in order to get the anti-radiation drugs they have.
The Thals, it transpires, aren’t mutants at all (by human standards) and are a tribe of blonde haired, blue-eyed, peace loving farmers with a snazzy line in eye make-up. They are also very well spoken for a race of alien beings. Susan brings the drugs back and outlines the Thal’s predicament to her fellow travellers. Overhearing Susan’s conversation, the Daleks seek to lure the Thals into a trap to completely ‘exterminate’ them all so that the Daleks can be the masters of Skaro. While the story isn’t particularly revolutionary (even by the standards of the 1960s, it was very indebted to the film serials and comic strip of Flash Gordon), and ninety percent of the Daleks’ dialogue is exposition, the film rattles along at a decent pace and it is clear that Flemying is able to use the larger sets of Shepperton Studios to perform camera movements which the Doctor Who television series wouldn’t be able to do at that time (owing to the bulky cameras used in television and the confines of the BBC’s Lime Grove studios) - some are highly effective (such as shooting the leader of the Daleks from a low angle to show how imposing it is as it rallies the other Daleks ahead of their ambush of the Thals), while others provoked unintended laughter (most notably, the strange zoom in on Thal leader Alydon (played by Barry Ingham) when he announces that the Thals need to fight back). It is perhaps inevitable that some aspects of a film from over fifty years ago will provoke unintended laughter in an audience from today - including a peculiar piece of voice acting from the Dalek leader where one sentence was delivered very labouriously, before the following sentence was spat out in quick succession.
It is perhaps no shock that the Daleks are by far the main attraction in the film - Cushing’s Doctor is given very little to do, although Cushing does try the best with what little he is given although it does feel that his performance does owe quite a bit to William Hartnell’s (complete with misnaming Ian, as well as a fair amount of ‘Hmm’s’). Roberta Tovey does a great job as Susan, however - it was perhaps unsurprising that she was brought back for the second film. Roy Castle’s Ian is actually quite endearing, although Linden’s Barbara doesn’t make much of an impact in the grand scheme of things. While far from perfect, Dr. Who and the Daleks is quite an enjoyable, if somewhat camp, adventure romp as long as you don’t take it too seriously.
Despite its flaws, the film proved successful enough for Subotsky to write and produce a sequel - this one adapating the second Dalek television story. Featuring script contributions from David Whitaker (the first script editor for the television series and author of a fondly remembered run of comic strips featuring and named, The Daleks in 1965) the 1966 film Daleks’ Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. (again, directed by Flemying) proved to be a generally better film, although it didn’t do as well at the box office as its predecessor as by that time, Dalekmania was on the way out. Whereas the first film was set on a alien world, the sequel was set on Earth under Dalek occupation - although somewhat bizarrely, the besieged London of 2150 seemed to feature the same poster adverts as London 1966. It is into this world that Dr. Who, along with his granddaughter Susan, his niece Louise (Jill Curzon), and policeman Tom Campbell (Bernard Cribbins) find themselves becoming part of the human resistance to Dalek occupation. The Daleks have converted humans into Robomen (wearing black PVC uniforms and modified motorcycle helmets), who unquestioningly obey their alien masters.
Much like the previous film, Flemying gives the audience some really impressive camerawork (the way the camera follows Dr. Who and Tom around the cell on the Dalek spaceship as they concoct their escape plan was quite thrilling), and the bigger budget results in a much grander feeling in the film’s action. Where the sequel scores over its predecessor is the thrill of seeing Daleks on Earth, as well as featuring what can only be described as a ‘fruity’ and slightly camp performance from Philip Madoc as the shady black marketeer Brockley. Cushing, however, is once again given very little to work with, although Cribbins’ place as the comic relief character works better than Roy Castle’s Ian did in the first film, being less broad and more believable. Cruzon’s Louise, much like Linden’s Barbara, is given so little to do, one wonders why the character was even included. Tovey gives another good performance, although Susan’s role feels somewhat diminished in this sequel.
The 4K restoration of Daleks’ Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. highlights a particular issue with the restoration and enhancement of older films in that the flaws of the visual effects become more noticeable - whereas on an old VHS tape, for instance, the picture quality may have been enough to hide the strings holding up the Daleks’ spacecraft, the 4K restoration makes them all too obvious. Still, perhaps that just adds to the hokey, B-movie vibe of the film?
While far from being earth-shattering, both films are highly enjoyable, if camp and very much ‘of their time.’ The design of both the sets and the villainous Daleks are grander than what was seen on television at the time and they are still impressive, even now. While the plots are rather cliched and the human actors are not given much to do (be under no illusion, the Daleks are basically the leads for the films) and there are several moments of unintended humour in both films from some unusual production choices, they do make for enjoyable viewing and don’t outstay their welcome (both films are just under ninety minutes) - although perhaps non-Doctor Who fans may not see what the appeal is.
Reviewer - Andrew Marsden
on - 10.7.22
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