Dr Who and the Daleks **½ (1965, Peter Cushing, Roy Castle, Jennie Linden, Roberta Tovey) – Classic Movie Review 3307

Written and produced by Milton Subotsky, director Gordon Flemyng’s 1965 sci-fi adventure provides Peter Cushing with his turn to play the good Doctor Who in this colourful if disappointingly lame comic-book version of the 1963 BBC TV serial The Dead Planet by Terry Nation. Looking stylish, this is an impressive production at Shepperton Studios by Amicus, shot in Technicolor and Technoscope, with a big budget of £180,000.

It is an eccentric grandfatherly scientist Doctor Who who accidentally starts his newly invented TARDIS (Time And Relative Dimension In Space) police telephone box time and space machine and whizzes off with his two grand daughters Barbara (Jennie Linden) and Susan (Roberta Tovey) and Barbara’s boyfriend Ian (Roy Castle) to the planet Skaro, where he meets the rotten robotic mutant Daleks for the first time. On Skaro, the peaceful race of Thals is under threat of nuclear attack from the Daleks and Dr Who and co must come to the rescue.

There is little of the real wit, pace, spark or characterisation here that adults now expect from their sci-fi movies. However, the movie is bright and jolly enough and tolerant kids and their nostalgia-minded grandfathers or dads might well be sufficiently satisfied.

Reliable and welcome as always, Cushing gives a stalwart performance, though, seeming far too kindly, he isn’t really ideal as Dr Who and Roy Castle’s comic relief is an irritant. Also in the cast are Barrie Ingham as Alydon, Michael Coles as Ganatus, Geoffrey Toone as Temmosus, Mark Petersen as Elyon, John Brown as Antodus and Yvonne Antrobus as Dyoni.

Sequel: Daleks – Invasion Earth 2150 AD (1966).

Original TV Doctor star William Hartnell (1908 – 1975) played Dr Who in The Dead Planet.

Jennie Linden is best known for Women in Love (1969), Dr Who and the Daleks (1965) and Nightmare (1964).

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 3307

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