Dr Who, his granddaughters Barbara and Susan, and Barabara's boyfriend Ian get whisked away in Dr Who's latest invention; TARDIS which can travel in time and space. They are taken to the planet Skaro in the distant future. It's a planet inhabited by two species (Thals and Daleks) that have been at war for centuries. Now Dr Who and his gang must help the Thals do battle against the Daleks in order to survive.
Dr Who and the Daleks is a 1965 AARU Productions and an Amicus (uncredited) production. It stars Peter Cushing, Roy Castle and Jennie Linden. It was directed by Gordon Flemyng. It is based on the Doctor Who serial The Daleks written by Terry Nation.
There are a few changes from the original serial. Notably, The Doctor is now human instead of a Time Lord and is called Dr James Who. I'll just give you a moment to take that in. All better? Right, Susan is still his granddaughter but she's now a child. Barbara is also his granddaughter and Ian is her clumsy boyfriend.
Oh no! Ian's clumsy antics have sent the TARDIS off somewhere before Dr Who was even able to set the co-ordinates, so they could be anywhere. Also for anyone who doesn't know, TARDIS stands for Time And Relative Dimension In Space.
It's so very sixties. It's like Doctor Who crossed with the Carry On films. Which I think is great. It might as well be called Carry On Doctor Who, then again if it had have been maybe we would have had Sid James as Dr James Who. “Daleks! BAHAHAHAHA!”
Ah! Daleks! This must have been amazing at the time. For the first time ever, audiences were able to see the Daleks, The Doctor's deadliest foes, in full glorious colour. But what I imagine they will have found a bit shit, will have been the change in weapons, instead of a video effect laser they now have ...a fire extinguisher. Apparently, they were originally going to have flame throwers but that was considered to scary for children. So why not just stick with what was already established in the TV series and just give them lasers?
The Thals are so very sixties. They have very strong blue eye shadow, pale make up, pale lipstick and a Twiggy/Mia Farrow haircut.
Bloody Daleks and their fiendish plans! They got Susan (who the Thals trust) to write a letter to them inviting them to the Dalek city for food. But the Daleks being Daleks have other plans; Kill them.
The Daleks have lava lamps! I love it! In the sixties, they were up to date with all the latest fads and trends because they are dedicated followers of fashion.
Dr Who discovered the secret hidden camera in their cell that the Daleks were using to spy on them. It was very cleverly hidden in plain view, and was after all a giant Dalek eye stuck out of a plain wall and set just above eye level. I'm surprised he even noticed it at all.
Ooh. They managed to defeat a Dalek and empty the casing by using a cloth to pull out the mutant creature inside and throw it on the floor. All we see of the mutant creature is a creepy hand crawl out from under the cloth. Then Ian climbed inside the Dalek in order to get the others out of the cell and fool the other Daleks.
I don't know if it's an intentional reference in the 1996 TV movie, but the eighth Doctor's costume looks similar to that worn by Peter Cushing's Dr Who in this. It's not exactly the same, some colours and styles are different but the actual clothing looks similar. Nice nod to the films if so, after all Steven Moffat uses the TARDIS design from the film for the TARDIS design in the Matt Smith run of the TV series.
I understand that a lot of painted backgrounds were used in old films due to the obvious fact that there was no such thing as CGI, and I'm fine with that. But the landscape painting of Skaro does look rather badly fake, now don't get me wrong it's a lovely painting and all but it's very obvious that it is a painting.
It's only just occurred to me that these Daleks haven't at any point spoken the word “Exterminate!” Hmm strange. Bit disappointing, for the first time ever Daleks are on the BIG screen and in FULL COLOUR, but they have fire extinguishers for weapons and don't shout “Exterminate!” I would have been a bit pissed off in 1965.
The ONE minute countdown at the end for the detonation of the bomb that will destroy the whole planet is a very long ONE minute. In the space of that ONE minute the Thals manage to break into the Dalek city and still have time to cause havoc for the Daleks.
That was actually pretty cool. In a bid to stop the bomb from detonating, Ian shouted “Daleks!” to which they all turned round and fired at him. But Ian dived onto the floor so they instead hit the big control system, stopping the bomb from detonating and cutting the power to the city and to their metal units, therefore killing themselves.
Hey! Another thing that's just occurred to me, there's no “VWOORP, VWOORP” noise when the TARDIS dematerialises. Tut tut, this is wrong.
All in all, I really like this film. If you're a fan of those fun sixties family films (like me!) then you'll love this. It's just such a fun film, it's so bright and beautifully colourful. The actors are great too, you've got the brilliant Peter Cushing as Dr James Who, funny man Roy Castle as Ian. Roberta Tovey is really good as Susan. Jennie Linden as Barabara was ok, she didn't particularly do anything that stood out to me, I'm assuming she was there mainly as eye candy but that aside, I just plain and simple really liked the cast. With the exceptions of him being made human (Dr James Who) and other pointless changes like the fire extinguishers and no “Exterminate!” it's still a really good film, after all the problems aren't exactly biggies. Essentially it's just one of those fun sixties films that I think anyone will enjoy unless of course you specifically hate Doctor Who and very sixties films or if you are a Doctor Who purist.
Dr Who and the Daleks 4/5
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