I had ordered the 1965 Doctor Who movie Dr Who & The Daleks from Amazon UK. I would have watched it from the library or Netflix but neither had it. The only copies of the movie available at Amazon US is one of those On Demand DVDs or the 2001 Image disc. Neither has any extras to speak of but the British dvd comes with several nice extras and it's just a bit more expensive.
The movie was produced by Amicus Productions under the AARU Productions name. Amicus mostly produced horror films and they wanted to branch out without turning people off with the connection to their horror titles. I've seen most of their output over the decades, thanks to home video, and some of their films are quite entertaining. The movie is directed by Gordon Flemyng and the screenplay is by producer Milton Subotsky and an uncredited David Whitaker. Terry Nation wrote the original TV serial. Flemyng directed a lot of British TV, including episodes of The Saint, The Avengers and Lovejoy. His son Jason Flemyng is an actor.
Dr Who And The Daleks came during the middle of the week and I watched it then. It was nice seeing the Daleks in colour. I watched the movie again today but this time with the commentary turned on. The story is based on the 2nd Doctor Who serial The Daleks. There are a lot of similarities between the two versions and a lot of changes. The basic plot elements are the same but the who the characters are has been re-written. Peter Cushing is a doctor who's last name is Who and he a human from Earth. Roberta Tovey is Susan and Jennie Linden is Barbara, they're the Dr's granddaughters. Roy Castle is Barbara's boyfriend Ian. Dr Who built his Tardis with Susan's help. Ian comes visiting and we see from his entrance into the house he's a bit of a clumsy guy. His visit to the Tardis sends them into the future to a radioactive planet where they all nearly die.
It's rather barren and dead. The trees and the critters crumble under their touch. They see a city in the distance and the Dr wants to travel there. The rest of them aren't too keen on it but the Dr tricks them and they head for the city. There they find the Daleks and get in all sorts of trouble.
The Daleks want to wipe out the other native inhabitants, the Thals. The Dr tries to convince them to make friends instead. The Daleks agree but it's a trick to get the Thals into the city to kill them. The Dr talks the Thals into fighting back which is against their peaceful ways. Peaceful ways only get you so far, especially with emotionless aliens or Wall Street wankers.
Like the tv Doctor this new version will help the down trodden and things will work out mostly ok for the Thals. The Daleks are destroyed and the Tardis will take off again. I enjoyed the movie's take on the Doctor. The movie had a respectible budget for a smaller production company. ₤180,000 is a lot more than they spent on any of the serials for the tv version. That bit of money makes the movie looks pretty good and there's plenty of nice big sets. The effects are typical of the time, not great but not awful. The story moves along fairly quickly and the dialog is mostly ok. Costumes and props are respectible. I had a fun time watching it and want to see the sequel. Soon.
Seems the Daleks like Lava Lamps. They have several in their work areas. Now that the movie is watched I listened to the Special Extras. The audio commentary is by Roberta Tovey and Jennie Linden. It was mostly pretty good. I enjoyed them talking about the movie. The extra I was mostly interested in was the 1995 documentary Dalekmania. It's got several cast and crew member interviews, including segments with Terry Nation, and plenty of clips that kept my attention through the 57 minute run time. There's a restoration featurette, an interview with Gareth Owen, a trailer and some stills. All in all a nice package and a good addition to my film collection. I have the UK DVD of the 2nd Doctor Who movie coming.
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