Dr. Who & The Daleks: The Official Story of the Films E-Book

John Walsh

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Seitenzahl: 147

Beschreibung

The definitive guide to the making of the classic 1960s Dr. Who movies, lavishly illustrated and packed with insights into these beloved films.Dr. Who and the Daleks: The Official Story of the Films is the definitive guide to the making of Dr. Who and the Daleks and Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. The first and only big-screen adaptations of the long-running TV series, the films, starring Peter Cushing as the titular time-traveller, are beloved by fans – and the Daleks, in glorious Technicolor, have never looked better.Author and film expert John Walsh has unearthed a treasure trove of archive material, interviews and stunning artwork, and takes us through the whole process of translating the metal monsters from small screen to big. In-depth information on the production, design, casting and special effects is accompanied by full-colour illustrations, including props, posters, and behind-the-scenes photography – making it the perfect gift for fans of the films.

Leseprobe

THE OFFICIAL STORY OF THE FILMS

THE OFFICIAL STORY OF THE FILMS

For three little princesses:Charlotte, Annabel & Helena

ISBN: 9781803360188Ebook ISBN: 9781803360898

Published byTitan BooksA division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd144 Southwark StLondonSE1 0UP

First edition: September 2022

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A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

Dr. Who & The Daleks: Copyright © 1965 AARU Productions Ltd.Dr. Who: Daleks’ Invasion Earth 2150 A.D.: © 1966 AARU Productions Ltd.Images on pages 50, 53, 54, 63, 84 and 155 courtesy of the BFI Archive.

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THE OFFICIAL STORY OF THE FILMS

JOHN WALSH

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CONTENTS

6 FOREWORDs

8 INTRODUCTION

14 Dalek Nation

20 Dalekmania

24 From Small Screen to Big Screen

30 A Parallel Universe

32 Big Screen Daleks

42 THE CAST

44 Peter Cushing

48 Roy Castle

50 Roberta Tovey

52 Jennie Linden

54 Barrie Ingham

56 DR. WHO &THE DALEKS (1965)

58 Credits

59 The Shoot

66 Art Director

74 Director’s Chair: Gordon Flemyng

82 Matte Paintings

86 Music

90 Posters

96 Release

100 DALEKS’ INVASIONEARTH 2150 A.D. (1966)

102 Credits

103 New Casting

114 The Shoot

124 Locations

130 Stunts

134 Model Effects

140 Music

142 Posters

148 Release

154 LOST IN TIME - THE THIRD DR. WHO FILM

156 SIGNING OFF

6

PROLOGUE

FOREWORDS

Little did I know when director Gordon Flemyng came to my school for a mass audition for the part that it would have set me on this path. There were no script lines to read, just a friendly chat. Then, a few weeks later, I got a call to go to Shepperton Film Studios for a screen test.

I remember watching Doctor Who on television with William Hartnell and Carole Ann Ford as Susan. So I was thrilled that they were making this big colour feature film, and that I’d got the part. Luckily, I already had some experience acting in films with High Wind in Jamaica (1965), starring Anthony Quinn and the Children’s Film Foundation.

Peter Cushing was lovely to me. He became a surrogate grandfather when we were working. The other actors said he

had never worked with children before. Peter liked the fact thatmy Susan was intelligent for her years. She had helped her grandfather build the TARDIS, and he was teaching her everything; she was not just a typical 11-year-old. He even made sure I was signed up for the sequel before he agreed to take part.

I didn’t realise how big the films would be until I went to open stores in Birmingham and Manchester as part of the film’s publicity tour. When we drove into the town centre, there were thousands of children with their parents queuing up to see the display of Daleks. Only then did I realise how successful Doctor Who was. I got lots of letters asking for photographs, and I also got a chance to record a song. Havingthe opportunity to do something like that was tremendous, all by the time I was twelve!

The Daleks captured everybody’s imagination. The show scared the life out of the children, who would be peering from behind the settee but wouldn’t turn it off. I don’t think anyone realised what a success they had on their hands. Its uniqueblend of fantasy and drama has made it endure for 60 years, and I’m thrilled to be a small part of that. Sometimes I worry that the feature films get forgotten, but then I see the fans’ great affection for them; I am sure Peter would be thrilled to see how much the public still loves him as Dr. Who.

I’m delighted that you will finally read the full story in John Walsh’s book.

—ROBERTA TOVEY

Since I can remember, I’ve known about the Daleks. The original film posters were framed on our walls, and my brother and I always puffed out our chests when we were described as “the sons of the guy who made those Dalek movies.” The guy was Gordon Flemyng. He’s the reason I thought a life in film was possible and obtainable. Dad was obsessed with film, storytelling, and the magic of the film set. Like father, like son – and the posters are still on the wall.

Driving down Sunset Boulevard in LA, I had never felt closer to him, knowing he had driven the same streets alone and pursued a film career. It was like I could feel him, and as I drove into studios for auditions, I would whisper, “Here we go, Dad.” My dad’s career made my career a possibility, not a fantasy – as the son of a policeman thinks about joining the force, a lawyer’s kid might join the bar, or the doctor’s son might consider doing the same. The Doctor!

—JASON FLEMYNG

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: THE OFFICIAL STORY OF THE FILMS

9

PROLOGUE

INTRODUCTION

OPPOSITE: PeterCushing leads his cast,Roberta Tovey, JennieLinden & Roy Castle,outside SheppertonStudios Stage H.Colourisation byClayton Hickman

BELOW: Daleks getsome workplacesupervision fromtheir leaders.

RIGHT: A restoredDalek from the InvasionEarth sequel.

Doctor Who has become a television institution since its launchin 1963. For decades it has been the mainstay family dramathat has brought millions of people together for Saturdayearly evening viewing. Through time and space and avariety of actors regenerating in the role, the monsters,the space ship, and the eccentric and mysterious time-travelling figure of the Doctor have kept the front pages ofBritish newspapers fascinated for six decades; and it showsno signs of coming to an end, after 862 episodes and anaudience estimated to be over 100 million worldwide. TheDoctor’s iconic nemeses the Daleks have kept the Time Lordbusy through the years – and never more so than when theymade their big screen debut in 1965.

George Pal’s 1960 big-screen adaptation of H.G. Wells’The Time Machine, featuring an intrepid time traveller andfemale companion, had been an enormous success withaudiences; it was also a big influence on the BBC’s newlyappointed Head of Drama, the Canadian-born SydneyNewman. He had been brought in to the BBC in 1961 toshake up the bleak and staid image of the department, andalthough other drama writers Donald Wilson and C.  E.Webber fleshed out the characters and storylines, it wasNewman’s vision to have a time traveller called the Doctorwhose time machine was larger on the inside than outside.

PROLOGUE : INTRODUCTION

9

There was little enthusiasm for the series within the BBC, and both of Newman’s first picks to run the series, producers Don Taylor and later Shaun Sutton, turned it down. It would be Newman’s former production assistant at ABC Television, Verity Lambert, who would get the Doctor off and running for his first adventures in space and time. She became the BBC’s first female drama producer.

Doctor Who had been on television screens for a year and a half by the time the first feature film, Dr. Who & The Daleks, premièred. The film divided fans for many years; Peter Cushing’s performance is only loosely based on the character of the first on-screen portrayal of the Doctor, by William Hartnell. But it would not be until late 1969 that the BBC launched its first full-colour television service, and even then it would not be until January 1972 that Jon Pertwee’s Doctor would confront his mortal enemy in ‘Day of the Daleks’. Whatever their opinion on the faithfulness of the big-screen adaptation, fans of the Daleks decided this would not deter them from seeing them for the first time in colour – and in widescreen Techniscope.

By 1965 “Dalekmania” was at its height, the Daleks having been introduced on television in 1963. The Dr. Who film of

1965 and the sequel in 1966 benefited from that wave of that hysteria. Once the mania for all things Dalek had subsided, the films, too, had become distant memories for many cinema-goers. Fans over the years argued that Peter Cushing’s Dr. Who was not an official part of the Doctor Who legend; it was an unofficial side path and should not be recognised as part of the accepted timeline. It was simply not ‘canon’. In defence of the films, they were made before the first time that the Doctor ‘regenerated’, into Patrick Troughton in November 1966. Hartnell’s Doctor never had clearly established his origins: especially that he was not even an Earthling at all.

In subsequent years many tried and failed to make a big-screen adventure for the Time Lord. The fourth Doctor, Tom Baker, attempted this with a script he penned with fellow cast member Ian Marter, entitled ‘Scratchman’. But the legacy of the 1960s film adaptations endured. In 2014 the then-Doctor Who showrunner Steven Moffat (2009-2017) outed himself as Peter Cushing film devotee:

“When I started writing [the 50th Anniversary special] ‘The Day of the Doctor’, I knew I wanted every Doctor to make some sort of appearance [...] But what about Peter

OPPOSITE TOP:Bernard Cribbins entersthe white doors of theTARDIS and is greetedby Peter Cushing, whilstRoberta Tovey works ona new experiment.

OPPOSITE BELOW: Dr.Who examines theThal’s Dalek Citymap on Skaro.

BELOW: A press callphotoshoot for theThal actors, led byBarrie Ingham, secondfrom left.

Cushing?! Now, I love those movies, and I don’t care if you beat me up in the playground because they got Doctor Who wrong – they’re fun and funny, with great Daleks and a terrific Doctor. But they don’t exactly fit with the rest of the show, do they?”

In a further nod of approval and acceptance, when Doctor Who made its triumphant return to screens in 2005 after a break of sixteen years, the newly designed TARDIS bore the same white-accented police box design from the second film, Daleks’ Invasion Earth 2150 A.D.

1965 was the year of the epic motion picture. The top three films were James Bond’s fourth outing Thunderball, David Lean’s wintry saga Doctor Zhivago and, in the top spot, musical extravaganza The Sound of Music. Of the nearly 3,000 films released worldwide in 1965, few are being talked about and restored in high definition today. However, Dr. Who & The Daleks and its sequel have endured due to an audience

PROLOGUE : INTRODUCTION

11

appreciation for the films and the Doctor Who’s fan base’s fascination with the unconventional history of this continually intriguing Time Lord.

For this book, I was granted access to all materials in the vast StudioCanal archive, including unseen high-resolution photography, film elements and rare documents. For the first time these precious Time Lord relics have been given a 21st Century restoration by Clayton Hickman, whose work you will see throughout this book. Clayton has not recoloured the past. Instead, he has returned the photos to their original colour state, as much of the on-set photography, by Ted Reed

for the first film, and Bert Cann for the sequel, was shot on colour negative film. Additional portrait photography from the first film was by George Konig.

The photos would have been printed black and white on 8x10 photographic paper for newspapers and general publicity. This black and white material remains, whilst the original colour camera negative no longer exists. Clayton has allowed us all to go back in time to 1965 and 1966 to see what the on-set photographers, known as Unit Stills, would have seen during the production of the films. Our collective thanks to Mr Hickman, a true time-traveller.

ABOVE: The first multi-layered Dalek set for thesequel, Invasion Earth.

BELOW: Newlydiscovered and restoredimages from theStudioCanal archive.

OPPOSITE: Pressphotoshoot with RobertaTovey for the first film,flanked by new shinierand taller Daleks.

PROLOGUE : INTRODUCTION

13

14

INTRODUCTION

D LEK NATION

OPPOSITE: Terry Nationin December 1964 withhis iconic Daleks fromthe first television story.

BELOW: In 1973Allan Ballard wascommissioned by RadioTimes to photographTerry Nation at homefor Doctor Who’s TenthAnniversary Special.

Doctor Who’s launch episode on 23 November 1963 was a mixture of contemporary time travel and prehistoric melodrama. Public reaction was muted, and while the show’s debut had understandably been overshadowed by the assassination of the American President, John F. Kennedy, the previous day, low ratings of six million viewers suggested this might be a short-lived series. However, the following story, by a young writer called Terry Nation, was entitled ‘Dead Planet’, and introduced the world to the Daleks. By the end of the seven-week run, ratings were over 10.5 million.

Welsh-born Nation got his first professional writing break, on radio comedy, for Spike Milligan, Eric Sykes and Frankie Howerd in 1955. Milligan had bought his first comedy sketch, saying he thought the writer ‘looked hungry’. Nation’s first major television writing commission would be for Tony Hancock’s ITV series in 1963. He had initially turned down an offer from scriptwriter David Whitaker to write for Doctor Who, but at age

33, when the costs of his new young family began to press, he took on the second story for William Hartnell’s Doctor, and the Daleks were born. The first Dalek serial was initially entitled ‘The Survivors.’ This would then change to ‘The Mutants’ during production, and the title was kept through to broadcast.

Growing up during the Second World War shaped Nation’s storytelling. He based the Daleks on the Nazis and their obsession with conquest at any price. The ‘Dalek Invasion of Earth’ television serial in 1964 bears this parallel out most vividly.Nation was keen to move away from the science fiction staple of a man in a monster suit. His inventive but straightforward concept, that his Daleks would have no legs and glide like the long-skirted dancers of the Georgian National Ballet, would cement the legacy of the alien invaders.

It fell to in-house BBC designer Raymond Cusick to build the full-size Daleks. Cusick came up with concept art in less than an hour, inspired by his initial sketches of a pepper pot

14

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16

: THE OFFICIAL STORY OF THE FILMS

on a table. This was only to give an idea of the basic design. He originally wanted a much more complex looking machine but was limited to a budget of just £60 (approximately £1,000 today). Cusick knew he needed someone inside to operate it, so designed it to the scale of a seated man.

Despite his iconic design being seen the world over, no royalties would be paid to Cusick because of his status as permanent in-house staff within the BBC. However, Terry Nation held onto the story rights for his metal monsters. Nation would write or approve all future stories for the Daleks and would benefit financially from the wave of popularity that spin-off merchandise would generate. His estate continues to approve all commercial Dalek projects and protects their legacy.

In 1987 Nation told Doctor Who Magazine that he recognised Cusick’s “tremendous contribution” to the Dalek design. “Cusick didn’t get anything, to my understanding. I think they may have given him a hundred-pound bonus, but he was a salaried employee, and I think he knew the nature of his work, and it was what he did every week. The copyrights resided with the BBC and myself, so that before they could merchandise

anything, they had to have my agreement. I was very lucky.”

By the time of the first motion picture, Dr. Who & The Daleks, Nation was in high demand on other projects and asked a trusted colleague to keep an eye on his valuable assets. In an interview from the documentary Dalekmania, Terry Nation explained, “I went to a couple of meetings, at the beginning. But by this time, I was absorbed into doing something else. And I asked David Whitaker to translate my television screenplay into the screenplay for cinema.”

Nation was not critical of colleague Whitaker’s work but did question the performance of the leading actor Peter Cushing. “With Dr. Who & The Daleks, I was giving it away at this point. I’d done that story, my name was going to be over it anyway, it was all going to be based on my work, and David Whitaker was eager to do it, so that’s what we did. I would have gone back very much closer to the thing we did on television. I’ve seen those first seven episodes, and they are really good. They are very well-constructed. I thought Peter Cushing played the Doctor very well. I would have liked to have seen a little more snap, but he was very loveable, and that’s the way he wanted to play it.

ABOVE LEFT: TerryNation and RaymondCusick in 1964 posingwith a TV Dalek.

ABOVE RIGHT: Cusickinspects his creations.

INTRODUCTION : DALEK NATION