"Ex-terminate!"-- Peter Cushing's DR. WHO Films (1965-66) in Blu Ray

DR. WHO AND THE DALEKS. An AARU production, distributed by British Lion Films Limited. United Kingdom, 1965. 1 hour 23 minutes, Aspect ratio 2.35:1 Panavision, Mono soundtrack. Director: Gordon Flemyng.  Screenplay: Milton Subotsky, based on the characters created by Terry Nation for BBC TV. Producers: Milton Subotsky, Max J. Rosenberg, Joe Vegoda. Cinematography: John Wilcox. Music: Malcolm Lockyer. Electronic Sound/Music Effects: Barry Gray. Art Direction: Bill Constable. CAST: Peter Cushing (Dr. Who), Roy Castle (Ian), Jennie Linden (Barbara), Roberta Tovey (Susan), Barrie Ingham (Alydon), Yvonne Atrobus (Dyoni).

DALEK'S INVASION EARTH 2150 A. D. An AARU/British Lions Film Limited Co-production, distributed by Amicus Productions, Continental Releasing/Walter Reade Organization. United Kingdom, 1966.  1 hour 24 minutes, Aspect ratio 2.35:1 Panavision, Mono soundtrack. Director: Gordon Flemyng.  Screenplay: Milton Subotsky, David Whitaker, based on the characters created by Terry Nation for BBC TV. Producers: Milton Subotsky, Max J. Rosenberg, Joe Vegoda. Cinematography: John Wilcox. Music: Bill McGuffie. Electronic Sound/Music Effects: Barry Gray. Art Direction: George Provis. Editor: Ann Chegwidden. Special Effects: Ted Samuels. CAST: Peter Cushing (Dr. Who), Bernard Cribbins (Tom Campbell), Andrew Keir (Wyler), Ray Brooks (David), Roberta Tovey (Susan), Jill Curzon (Louise), Roger Avon (Wells), Kenneth Marsh (Conway), Eddie Powell (Thompson).

Likely the most influential and possibly the most beloved British science fiction TV series, Dr. Who, originally a staple at BBC for twenty-six years between 1963 and 1989, only to be resuscitated in 2005 and still going strong today after fourteen years (reflecting the times by having its thirteenth doctor embodied by a female actor), has surprisingly not received much exposure as theatrical features.  Considering its amazing longevity and chameleon-like ability to adapt to the trends, tastes and concerns of successive postwar decades, one would think that the Gallifrey-based Time Lord would by now be popping up regularly in theaters all over the world in a MCU-like franchise of his (her) own.  But for whatever reasons, that particular timeline, to employ the series' lexicon, has not materialized, at least for the world in which this blog is being written.  Perhaps the character is so firmly rooted in a TV serial universe, with its witticisms and insouciance unencumbered by limited budgets and cheap video effects as well as arch, burlesque-like performances delivered by variably eccentric "Doctors," that it seemingly has never felt any particular need to branch out into a wider (but not necessarily more sophisticated or intelligent) canvas. Or maybe it was just a matter of dumb luck (or lack thereof), the series having never encountered the right combination of ideas, talents and circumstances to launch a durable and profitable feature film franchise: after all, few people could have anticipated that the Rocky saga would be revived in late 2010s with his erstwhile opponent Apollo Creed's son as the designated inheritor of the boxer hero's mantle. 

In any case, so far (1963-2019) we have had only two theatrical features starring the time-and-space-faring eccentric scientist, the brainchildren of two New York-born entrepreneurs, Milton Subotsky and Max J. Rosenberg, the honchos behind the Amicus Productions company.  It is the old and young Dr. Who fans' relative good fortune, then, that both theatrical entries are delightful entertainments made with higher than requisite levels of professionalism and imagination. The Subotsky and Rosenberg team got several things right for these two outings, the two foremost among them being, first, the foregrounding of Dr. Who's most iconic villains, the Daleks, in their stories, and, second, the casting of Peter Cushing as the good doctor, although in 1965, the fact that they were shot in Technicolor, unlike the monochromatic TV shows, was possibly the more important selling point.

In actuality, Dr. Who and the Daleks rather faithfully follows the pattern of the premier TV episode, "An Unearthly Child," in which a precocious schoolgirl Susan accidentally ensnares her teachers into becoming "companions" to the doctor's sojourn through time and space.  In the TV episode, too, the Doctor, played by William Hartnell, is explicitly introduced as Susan's grandfather, with little hint that either or both of them are member(s) of an alien race.  So the film really predates development and construction of the elaborate Dr. Who mythos that we now take for granted: that he/she is not an Earthling but an alien from Planet Gallifrey, one of scientifically advanced near-immortal time-and-space travelers called Time Lords, and is capable of regenerating his/her body into different forms when the current one critically nears its expiration date (hence providing an ingenuous "scientific" explanation for different actors portraying the same character every half-decade or so).

Cushing's doctor is presumed to be an Earthling scientist, although brilliant enough to have invented and built on his own a TARDIS (Time and Relative Dimension in Space machine) that looks like an early '60s police box on the outside.  Also the time-traveler introduces himself to strangers as "Dr. WHO," as if "Who" is his surname. Cushing presents his Doctor as stereotypically absent-minded, kind-hearted and almost child-like in demeanor, without the irascible, near-contemptuous, finishing-anyone's-sentence-before-he-or-she-even-starts-saying-it arrogance associated with many subsequent TV incarnations of the character. 

Commensurate with Cushing's interpretation of the doctor, Dr. Who and the Daleks is possessed of a classic-era SF adventure ambience, like screen adaptations of Jules Verne, taking time for the main characters to explore the alien planet Skaro and introducing Daleks and their background history through the unfolding of the plot, rather than tasking the doctor to deliver it through boring expository dialogue. The key sequences such as the protagonists disabling a Dalek with a Thal cape and gooey foodstuff for human prisoners (and getting a tantalizing and disturbing glimpse of a Dalek in its naked form in the aftermath), and the climactic battle fought while the Thal-massacring Dalek bomb is ticking in the background, are quite suspenseful. 

The set design and the eerie alien landscape, expertly filmed by John Wilcox (The Skull [1965], The Legend of Seven Golden Vampires [1974]) and occasionally portrayed through impressive matte paintings, do their job nicely, and in the Techniscope widescreen, manage to convey a uniquely cinematic sense of wonder unmatched by the TV series, until after 1990s when the gap between the two media began to close up. Ur, yes, there are some laughably dated elements like a collection of lava lamps lining up a shelf of the Dalek Control Room, but you have to be a raisin-hearted snob not to find all these, too, sources of nostalgic fun. 

Seen today, the only possible incongruous element for the core fans is Roy Castle (who had worked with Cushing in Dr. Terror's House of Horrors [1965])'s broadly comic acting, although his bumbling pratfalls and awe-shucks reactions to the proceedings are not allowed to overwhelm the film's brisk pace. Susan, played with gusto and wide-eyed charm by Roberta Tovey (A High Wind in Jamaica [1965]), is a key character in both features and her rambunctious activism gives especially the first feature a tone of a children's literature-juvenile adventure story. Likewise, Barrie Ingham (The Day of the Jackal [1974]) as the Thal leader Alydon pitches his performance at the right twinkle-in-the-eyes level, maintaining his classically-trained dignity with aplomb, despite the golden-mascara, blue-skinned alien makeup he was subject to. To the filmmaker's credit, Dr. Who and the Daleks refuses to condescend to the youthful demographic, and there are snippets of genuine mystery and intrigue in the film, greatly abetted by the riveting presence of the Daleks, looking snappy in their shiny, color-coded metallic bodies with blinking-red-lamp "ears."

The Daleks are even more prominently featured in the second outing, The Dalek's Invasion Earth 2150 A.D., with their deservedly famous first appearance, wherein a Dalek emerges from the River Thames to accost Dr. Who and his copper companion Tom (Bernard Cribbins, decades later cast as Wilfred Mott, a recurring character for the tenth David Tennant Doctor Who [2005-2010] series).  

This time around, Dr. Who and his granddaughters, Susan and Louise (Jill Curzon, replaced from the last film's Jennie Linden), as well as Tom, who had run afoul of a gang of jewelry store robbers in the well-done present-day-set bookend sequences, now travel forward in time to the Earth in the year 2150. Unfortunately for our protagonists, England of that particular timeline has been decimated and conquered by the Daleks, who are mobilizing the captured population to work in a Bedfordshire mine, drilling a super-deep tunnel to reach the Earth's core.  Invasion Earth swaps the first film's classical SF-children's fantasy atmosphere with a grittier, action-thriller aesthetic. Daleks brainwash a select group of captured British citizens into radio-controlled, black-vinyl-clad Robo-men, and flies over the devastated London in a flying saucer.  

There are a lot more physical action, including a few very impressive stunt works, and an abundance of footages of Daleks blowing up things and people, and being blown up in turn.  Missing from the second film is the distinctive sense of wonder of the first film, but on its own terms Invasion Earth is no less enjoyable, a muscular and trim action-adventure with the good doctor ingenuously turning Dalek's own technology against them to carry the day. Opened up from the largely Shepperton Studio-confined first film, Invasion Earth does create a credible rubble-filled dystopian environment in which many citizens have been driven underground, although it certainly does not look as far removed from 1966 as the year 2150 indicates.  Flemying's usage of Scope cinematography, again supervised by John Wilcox, leaves positive impressions, endowing Dalek's menace with appropriate scales and dimensions.  

In both films, but especially in the second one, Daleks indeed come off as powerful villains, seemingly inscrutable yet mean and efficient, their famous electronic voices at once supremely grating in a robotic-bureaucratic manner, and juicily psychotic in their single-mindedly declarative inflection (all Daleks sound like they are shouting to one another at the top of their voices, not just when they are ordering human beings around).  Even their magnetic demises engineered by the doctor, wherein they plunge down corridors and tunnels at terrifically high speeds, are thrillingly executed.

The Dr. Who films, while obviously not great cinematic works of art, might pleasantly surprise those contemporary viewers who had missed them out when they were fresh, and approach them with inherently lowered expectations. The vitriolic reviews of the '60s that Gareth Owen, a Shepperton Studio historian, cites in one of the supplement documentaries do sound overblown in their relentless negativity. I doubt that many will object if I state that both Cushing and the Subotsky-Rosenberg team have certainly made less pleasurable films than these two in their respective careers.  Obviously essential viewings for the fans of the Time Lord, the films are also heartily recommended to the fans of Peter Cushing and the '60s Anglophone SF-fantasy adventures. 

Blu Ray Presentation:

Studio Canal. The British Film Series. Region B. Video: 1080p High Definition 2.35:1. Audio: English Mono. Subtitles: English.  Dr. Who and the Daleks Supplements: Audio commentary with Jennie Linden & Roberta Tovey, documentary Dalekmania, restoration documentary, Gareth Owen interview, trailers, stills gallery.  Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 A. D. Supplements: Restoration documentary, Bernard Cribbins interview, Gareth Owen interview, trailers, stills gallery.  Street date: May 27, 2013.  Amazon list price: £13.00.  

As the restoration documentaries explain, both Dr. Who films had been digitally restored as a part of the fiftieth anniversary celebration of the TV series, based on the inter-positive elements struck from negatives in 1969, with color timing corrected and debris, blotches and damages cleaned up without applying an excessive level of DNR. The resulting Technicolor colorfulness is miles ahead of the usual dreary beige-colored faded prints routinely employed for TV broadcasts. Dr. Who and the Daleks especially benefits from the restoration process, although the visuals are still early '60s Technicolor and covered with fine sheets of grain. Again, the young viewers should be aware that these films do not possess the near-metallic "cleanliness" of the contemporary cinema, and its warm hues are close reflections of what they looked like during their theatrical presentations. The mono audio is also excellent, with a robust mixture of electronic sound effects (supervised by Barry Gray of the U.F.O. and Space 1999 fame) and expansive, dynamic music scores of Malcolm Lockyer and Bill McGuffie (neither film uses Ron Grainer's super-iconic electronic theme from the TV series, by the way).

The supplements for the first film start off with a fun audio commentary with two actresses, Jennie Linden and Roberta Tovey moderated by the Peter Cushing expert Jonathan Sothcott: the commentary focuses not surprisingly on the pair's on-set experiences, with recollections of Cushing, director Flemyng, Castle, makeup jobs on the Thals, and of course acting alongside Daleks, operated within by diminutive personnel.  Also included is approximately one-hour long Dalekmania (1995), a thorough examination of both feature films plus an exploration of Dalek memorabilia and fan activities (including some seriously committed amateur productions starring Daleks), previously available stateside through Anchor Bay DVD (Alas, the documentary has not been anamorphically re-formatted).

The Invasion Earth Blu Ray includes an interview with Bernard Cribbins, beginning with his connection with Peter Cushing starting with the Hammer production of She (1965), going through production memories, including a funny episode about Cushing and himself unable to maintain a straight face when the chief Dalek wrangler Robert Jewell gave Dalek's "exterminate" command in an Aussie accent. He also reveals that he auditioned for the fourth doctor role that ultimately went to Tom Baker.  Gareth Owen's interviews in both titles nicely complement the information found in Dalekmania in terms of more detailed production histories, including Sugar Puffs serial's product placement in the second film, involvements of Subotsky and Rosenberg, and the dreadful contemporary critical reception Invasion Earth was subject to.  The restoration documentaries are also rather informative, with the archivist/historians Rorie Sherwood and Marcus Hearn participating to discuss the process of restoring the 35mm Techniscope films of this vintage to their former glory.