Dr. Who and the Daleks (1966)

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

I haven't seen any DW episodes from the pre-Tom Baker era so I can't compare this film to its contemporary TV episodes, but I've seen a lot of SF films from this era and this is pretty standard product. I notice that it was made by the same team of Milton Subotsky and Max Rosenberg that made the Amicus horror anthologies in the 1970s, which I love, and compared to even those low-budget films this is super low budget and unsophisticated, but it does have the same earmarks of comparative good taste, especially in visual presentation (the use of Technicolor is outstanding) and casting. Jennie Linden and Roberta Tovey are both high-ranking companions.Peter Cushing's Doctor (who's given a somewhat different backstory than the Doctor in the TV series--he's apparently human, and the creator of the Tardis) is kind of underwritten and he plays him in the manner of one of Boris Karloff's kindly old mad doctors. With his white brushed-back mane of hair, velveteen jacket and checked trousers there's a visual similarity between him and Peter Capaldi's Twelfth Doctor. A baton has clearly been passed.

An elderly scientist named Doctor Who invents a machine that can travel through time and space called the TARDIS. He lives with his two granddaughters, Barbara and Susan. Barbara has a bumbling boyfriend named Ian who accidentally turns the TARDIS on and transports the four of them to an alien planet inhabited by the peaceful Thals and the destructive Daleks. Doctor Who tries to convince the Thals to reclaim their planet before the Daleks detonate a neutron bomb.First things first, we have to put aside comparisons to the TV Doctor Who. There's very little that's similar between the two, even though this movie is based off of one of the earliest stories from the show. The Doctor is human not an alien time lord and his name is literally Doctor Who here, not The Doctor. Judging this by its own merits, I thought it was watchable and sometimes even good. Peter Cushing is enjoyable, as are Jennie Linden and Robert Tovey as his granddaughters. Linden looks quite good in her pink capris. I wasn't crazy about Roy Castle, particularly when he's trying to be funny. It's filmed in a lovely Technicolor, which I always appreciate. The effects and sets may appear cheesy to some today but I think they're very creative and fun, as sci-fi designs usually were back in the day. The music's pretty good, too. This isn't likely to appeal to many modern Who fans but I think people who like Peter Cushing and Amicus will find something to enjoy about this.

"Dr. Who and the Daleks" was the first of two Doctor Who films made by Amicus Productions in the mid-sixties; the second was "Daleks – Invasion Earth: 2150 A.D". Both films starred Peter Cushing as Dr. Who, not William Hartnell who was the current television Doctor. Although they make use of many key features of the television series, such as the Tardis (a machine disguised as a police box and capable of travelling in time and space), and the Daleks, the Doctor's most iconic enemies, the films are not generally considered to form part of the official "Doctor Who" canon. Patrick Troughton, who succeeded Hartnell on television, is regarded as the Second Doctor, not the Third. I think the reasons are firstly that no mention is ever made of Cushing's character being a Timelord- he is always assumed to be an eccentric human inventor rather than an alien- and secondly that he does not feature in any "regeneration scene" as all the other Doctors do. The film opens in a setting about as far removed from the hi-tech world of science fiction as one can get, the cramped living-room of a small London house, decorated in a style desperately old-fashioned even by the standards of the 1960s. Dr. Who and his granddaughters Susan and Barbara are proudly showing his latest invention, the Tardis, to Barbara's boyfriend Ian. The accident-prone Ian accidentally activates the machine and the three suddenly find themselves on an alien world which turns out to be Skaro, the home planet of the Daleks. (The name is not actually used in this film, but "Skaro" is the name given in the television series and the second film).The planet is actually home to two races, the aggressive, warlike Daleks and the more peaceful humanoid Thals. (The Thals have much in common with the Eloi in H.G Wells's novel "The Time Machine" and in the film made of it in 1960). We learn that the Thals have not always been so peaceful; at some time in the past a nuclear war, fought between them and the Daleks led to the devastation of the planet, which remains heavily contaminated by radiation. The Thals are able to survive the fallout through the use of anti-radiation drugs, but the Daleks are forced to remain within their city. Because of their previous experiences the Thals have adopted a philosophy of pacifism and refuse to fight back even when threatened by the Daleks, until the Doctor is able to convince them of the soundness of the Just War doctrine. Further elucidation of the plot will probably be unnecessary; anyone familiar with the conventions of "Doctor Who" will realise that it revolves around how the Doctor and his companions assist the Thals to frustrate the evil schemes of the Daleks. This was the first "Doctor Who" story to be made in colour; the TV series continued to be made in black-and-white until 1969. It was also revealed that the Daleks have their own colour-based class system; the leaders are black, secondary commanders red and ordinary Daleks blue. Cushing's characterisation also looks ahead to the future; his Doctor, eccentric but kindly, is quite different to Hartnell's rather testy old man. Some later incarnations of the Doctor, especially Jon Pertwee's Third Doctor and Peter Davison's Fifth, may well have been influenced by Cushing's portrayal. Another feature that predicts the way the programme was to go is the use of humour, something that was increasingly to become a feature of the series in the seventies and eighties. (By the time of Sylvester McCoy's Seventh Doctor, a frequent complaint was that it was becoming too jokey). Roy Castle's Ian is, to begin with, a rather comical figure, clumsy and cowardly, but later he proves to have hidden reserves of courage. Castle, I must say, proved more successful than did Bernard Cribbens who played the equivalent role in "Daleks – Invasion Earth". I also liked Roberta Tovey's sweet young Susan, proof that not all child stars have to be brats. The television series was famous (some might say notorious) for its low budgets, especially in the special effects department, and the film was obviously made in a similar tradition. We only, for example, see the Dalek city from the inside, and what we see seems to have been put together by an enthusiastic Blue Peter presenter out of sticky-backed plastic. Pace George Lucas, however, one does not need a budget the size of a small planet to make effective sci-fi, and "Dr. Who and the Daleks" is really quite an enjoyable good-against-evil adventure story with a loveably eccentric hero in the best British tradition. It lacks the silliness and preposterous plot elements which sometimes marred Daleks – Invasion Earth". Forget all the arguments about whether the film is "canonical" or not. This is really vintage Doctor Who. 6/10

Early series of Dr. Who are renowned for their cheap sets and dodgy special effects but you'd think they might have made a bit more of an effort for the character's first big screen outing; although other reviews on IMDb claim that the film features better production values, I just don't see it, the use of a few lava lamps as decoration and a rotating plywood computer qualifying as rather crap in my book. Plywood (or possibly chipboard) also seems to feature rather heavily in the construction of the Dalek's city (sprayed gold to look alien, of course) and the inside of the Tardis, while the film's larger studio sets are completely lacking in atmosphere.In addition to the crap set design (seriously… lava lamps?), the film suffers from an incredibly dull script (the plot dumbed down for a younger audience), a baffling performance from the usually reliable Cushing who portrays the Doctor as a doddery old git, Dalek's that use fire extinguishers as weapons, a pathetic race of peaceful aliens, the males of which wear make-up reminiscent of Boy George circa his clubbing days, and a very silly ending that sees the Daleks counting down from 100 before using their most devastating weapon, giving the good guys plenty of time to spoil their plans. The less said about Roy Castle as comedy relief, the better. I only hope that the follow-up movie, Daleks' Invasion Earth: 2150 A.D., lives up to my fond childhood memories.