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The TARDIS is the latest invention of the Doctor, it can transport passengers
to another world, at another time. With his granddaughters, Barbara
and Susan, the Doctor demonstrates the machine to Barbara's boyfriend
Ian. Ian trips and stumbles against the control panel and the four
humans are instantly ejected away from Earth.
Landing in a vast petrified forest, they find a box of drugs mysteriously placed near the spaceship. Leaving these inside the TARDIS, they set out to explore a futuristic city glistening beyond the forest on the horizon. This, they discover, is the all-metal city of the Daleks.
A greedy war mongering form of life, the Daleks are shielded by mobile metal cones and armed with flame guns which can temporarily cripple. The cones and city protect the Daleks from radiation, which has ravaged their planet since a massive neutron war.
The Doctor and his party are taken prisoner. And Susan, the youngest and least affected by the polluted atmosphere, is sent to collect the drugs - assumed to counteract radiation - from the TARDIS. The Daleks' aim to copy the drugs, emerge from inside their protective city and ultimately to destroy the only other form of life on the planet - the Thals.
On her way Susan meets Alydon. Gentle and friendly, he is the leader of the Thals. It was he who had left the drugs for the visitors from Earth. He now gives Susan his white plastic cape and asks her to carry a message of friendship to the Daleks, together with a request for food for his starving people.
Back at the metal city, the Daleks trick Susan into inviting the Thals to collect food. But the Doctor deduces that the Daleks are generated by power from the metal floors. Covering their cell with Alydon's cape the humans capture their jailer. Cut of from the generating power the gruesome creature dies.
Meanwhile, an array of Daleks lie in ambush for the approaching Thals. The escaped prisoners shout a warning just in time. And, as the Daleks open fire most of the Thals escape from the city with the visitors. Discovering that they cannot be protected by the drug, the Daleks decide to explode a giant neutron bomb. This will increase radiation and exterminate the Thals.
The Doctor, Alydon and a party of Thals attack Dalek City. The Doctor is taken prisoner, but Alydon escapes to round up a relief army of Thals. Crossing massive chasms and monster infested swamps, Ian Barbara and two Thals enter the city through an unguarded front. In a corridor they are cornered by two Daleks who open fire,
Alydon and his relief army arrive just in time. They up-end
the Daleks, who are immediately destroyed by their own flames. In
the control room a countdown has already stared on the neutron bomb.
Daleks and Thals fight out a terrible battle. Ian helplessly tries
to switch off the mechanism. The Daleks fire on him furiously.
He ducks. and the whole panel goes up in flames. With the countdown
arrested and the power cut off, the Daleks are exterminated. The
Thals are free to live in peace and the Doctor and his party return to
the TARDIS.
Dr
Who: Peter Cushing
Ian: Roy
Castle
Barbara: Jennie
Linden
Susan:: Roberta
Tovey
Alydon: Barrie
Ingham
Ganatus: Michael
Coles
Dyoni: Yvonne
Antrobus
Temmosus: Geoffrey
Toone
Antodius: John
Brown
Elyon: Mark
Petersen
Thals: Ken
Garady, Nicholas Head, Michael Lennox, Jack Waters, Virginia
Tyler, Jane Lumb,
Bruce Wells, Martin Grace, Sharon Young, Gary Wyler
Daleks: Bruno
Castagnoli, Michael Dillon, Brian Hands, Robert Jewel, Kevin
Manser, Eric McKay, Len Saunders, Gerald Tayler
Dalek Voices: Peter
Hawkins, David Hawkins
Executive
Producer: Joe Vegoda
Producer:
Milton
Subotsky
Producer:
Max J. Rosenberg
Director:
Gordon Flemyng
Screenplay: Milton
Subotsky
Electronic Music: Barry
Grey
Music: Malcolm Lockyear,
Cinematography:
John Wilcox
Film Editing: Oswald Hatenrichter
Art Direction: George
Provis
Special Effects:
Ted Samuels
The
movie was based on the original Doctor Who story"Doctor Who In
An Exciting Adventure with the Daleks" by
David Whitaker (Target #16), first released in 1964; later renamed "The
Daleks". Cover art by Chris Achilleos, Arnold Schwartzman, Alister
Pearson, Peter Archer (various releases).
.
Released
on video in the U.K. 26th Feb 1996, and in the U.S.A. and Canada NTSC
format from Warner Home Video Catalogue # 6303094902.
..
Released
on DVD from Anchor Bay Entertainment November 20, 2001.
Run Time: 79 minutes.
• Widescreen anamorphic - 2.35:
• Audio: English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono)
• Color, Closed-captioned
• Commentary by stars Jennie Linden and Roberta Tovey
• Theatrical trailer(s)
• Poster and Stills Gallery
• Photo Essay History of Doctor Who
• Peter Cushing Bio
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Originally released in Britain in 1965, Doctor Who And The Daleks is a lightweight retelling of the first appearance of the dreaded Daleks. The movie, since it revamps the show's mythology a little bit (making the Doctor not a Time Lord but an absent-minded human scientist, though even by BBC-TV standards, the Doctor wasn't a Time Lord until 1969, and wasn't noticeably non-human until 1966). Out of necessity, it also rehashes some of the ground covered in the first episode as well. Peter Cushing's portrayal is about as different from William Hartnell's Doctor as any of Hartnell's TV successors were.
Shepperton Studios.
• As Susan
is being escorted from the Dalek city to fetch the anti-radiation medicine
from the TARDIS, watch the leftmost Dalek following her. At one point,
its upper half suddenly rises up 3 or 4 inches, then drops back down again.
• Shortly afterwards, as Susan opens the doors to the TARDIS, the interior
lights don't come on. (They do on every other occasion in the movie when
the doors are opened)