With season nine of the new Doctor Who premiering on 19 September, it’s an ideal opportunity to revisit the one version of the character absent from the official Doctor Who pantheon: that played by Peter Cushing in Dr. Who and the Daleks, released 50 years ago on 23 August 1965.
Made by Amicus, a British production company best remembered for its low-to-medium budget horror films in the late 60s and early 70s, the film is widely derided by many fans and critics, unfairly in my opinion. I have a piece on the film on the British Film Institute site, which you can read in full here.
I know a lot of long-term Doctor Who fans who rate this higher than the original TV version, so it’s not completely unloved (not a view I share, as I think Terry Nation’s serial is almost as good as Quatermass & the Pit in vintage BBC SF terms). Personally, I prefer the second film but I think that my main issue with the pair of them is that Cushing (an actor I otherwise love) should have made for a much better Doctor than he did.
The presence of Roy Castle doesn’t help either…
Matthew,
Thanks for stopping by.
What you say is interesting because there are a lot of people who seem to detest the very existence of this film. As I say in the article, I don’t think it is that bad. The story is nothing amazing, but the look and feel is wonderful. In particular, the palette remind me of the work of Mario Bava on films like Planet of the Vampires. I agree that the second film in the series is much better, grittier and dark. Bizarrely, in my opinion, it didn’t do as well.
Cheers,
Andrew