Time & Space Visualiser, by artist and writer Paul Smith of Wonderful Books, is the first exploration of both the factual and fictional history of Doctor Who through a range of eye-catching graphics, presenting information about the show in a way never seen before.
 
As Paul explains in his introduction, 'information is a product of the way humans codify the world around us and how we categorise, interpret and represent that information is crucial to its utility and value' and Doctor Who fans apply this very edict to their own enjoyment of the television series and the way we store millions of facts about it.

With a 50 year legacy, information about the production of the series and about the hundreds of adventures the Doctor and his companions have had is food and drink to any self-respecting fan. We pore over facts and figures constantly, make endless lists, charts and surveys about the series which encompass our favourite stories, the number of times a certain monster has appeared in the series to how many scripts a certain writer may have contributed to the show.

Just imagine your charts and lists synthesised in visual terms and you'll understand where this book is coming from. Data isn't just a string of words and numbers, as Paul argues, because it can look great too and for a series like Doctor Who, probably one of the most researched and over-analysed television programmes in the world, there is an imperative to find new ways of looking at the fundamental facts and figures we associate with it.

The book is split into four sections and includes 'Production' which visualises the programme's creation, recording and those who have contributed to its success; an exploration of the narrative of the series in 'Fiction' and a look at settings, companions and villains; the broadcast and ratings of the show in 'Transmission', and 'Reiteration' which covers repeats, overseas transmissions, book, video and DVD releases of the series.

Each chart in each of these sections is accompanied by detailed notes discussing the background and context of the areas under examination, how the data was compiled and what it reveals. The results can therefore be appreciated by those interested in the possibilities of data visualisation while also presenting new angles to Doctor Who devotees who might think they know all there is to know about the show.

In 'Production' one of the first, most comprehensive, rather mind-boggling infographics is 'All of Time and Space', and is, by way of an example of how much data Paul includes in these analyses, a year by year, season by season, Doctor by Doctor set of charts which also trace how many times a certain monster or villain appeared across the 50 year span of the show, the companions featured in each era, the viewing figures, the most-prolific writers and, just for added geek cred, the duration of each story and who produced and script-edited it. It's a massive amount of information but elegantly and wittily presented in superbly clear graphics and iconography with accompanying expert testimony.

The rest of the section is devoted to a charts about the prevalence of 'A' and 'The' as prefixes to story titles or the very common use of 'the x of the y' as the name of an episode or story; a data set of the BBC director-generals and drama controllers who steered the programme for good or ill; which studios at Television Centre, at Lime Grove and Riverside were used to record the original episodes of the series where the graphic uses a delightful set of TV camera icons, and finally a chart of those composers who provided the incidental and theme music for the series.

When we move to 'Fiction' I think we get some of the wittiest visualisations of the Who universe, including the various UK and international locations for stories set on Earth by Doctor and, one of my favourites, the stories which have taken place either in the bowels or at the highest points of the Earth.

This covers the depths to which Professor Stahlman sank his drill in Inferno, complete with an eruption of green mutagenic slime; the Loch Ness home of the Zygons' ship and their pet Skarasen complete with own pied-à-terre cave; the Silurians' Derbyshire residence and, at the other end of the scale, Vesuvius, the remains of Atlantis and the Himalayan setting for Marco Polo's trek to Peking and the Detsen monastery besieged by Yeti.

The section concludes with an infographic on which of the classic monsters and Time Lords each companion met as well as which fate, out of being hypnotised, infected or kidnapped, befell them. There's also a colourful if complex chart of how companions arrived or departed; each decade's gender balance for villains; and how, using a very knotty looking graphic, each villain met their demise in the new series.

With the 'Transmission' section of the book you get some splendid looking charts about transmission times and patterns for the series and the first broadcast of episodes; the days of the week the series was shown; the broadcast times and actual duration of episodes. And if you're planning a whole rewatch of the series the book also lets you know just how much time you'll need to set aside to do that. Apparently, if you consumed one story a day it would take you 231 days or approximately 7.6 months to watch everything. At the rate of one episode a day you're looking at setting aside 2.16 years to get through them all. Very handy for any forward-planning.

There's also a very absorbing ratings chart for the seven seasons of the 2005 revival and that'll come in use when trying to settle those 'it isn't as popular as it was' arguments down the pub. For the classic series Paul charts the viewing figures against a fan appreciation index so you'll have fun working out which clunkers the fans hated but the general audience loved.

Finally, 'Reiterations' takes a look at repeat screenings and their ratings and includes an extraordinary infographic plotting where in the world Doctor Who has been shown and which stories were the most seen; a brain-twisting graphic showing the release schedule of Target book adaptations; a chart confirming that Uncle Terrance Dicks is indeed the king of the novelisation and a chronology of the show's releases onto VHS (it took 20 years to release everything on tape, by the way) and DVD (now clocking up 13 years).

The book concludes, fittingly in anniversary year, with a '50th events in the 50-year history of Doctor Who' wherein you will discover that the alternate-Earth Brigade Leader in Inferno was actually the show's 50th major villain, the 50th Dudley Simpson score was for Underworld and the 50th type of robot in the series were the Handbots in The Girl Who Waited.

You see, you need to know these things. And you can discover these nuggets and much, much more in Paul Smith's beautifully designed and written book which definitely earns the 'labour of love' sobriquet. It should be required reading for all Doctor Who data nerds.

Time & Space Visualiser: The Story and History of Doctor Who as Data Visualisations 
120 pages, full colour / Designed and written by Paul Smith
Published by Wonderful Books
Printed on demand through Amazon's CreateSpace
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com 
Softcover / 22x28cm
ISBN 978-0-9576062-0-3

Due for release on 13 July is Celebrate Regenerate, a new book packed with pieces from over 250 fan writers (including my good self) from all over the world that have been brought together by editor Lewis Christian.

Fan-made and not for profit, the plus-300 page book is filled with reviews and articles covering every televised Doctor Who story. The reviews will be accompanied by a wealth of fan art and a few exclusive interviews with Series 1 director, Joe Ahearne; writer Tom MacRae, and writer Joseph Lidster which will be published alongside some other special features in the book.

There is still time to get your name in the book as a 'companion' supporter of the project and you may still want to contribute a review. The deadline for reviews of the final eight episode of Series 7, just transmitted, is 3 June 2013 and the deadline to get your name in the book is 1 July 2013.

For further information about how to buy a copy of the book and its availability as a PDF download then click on the link to Celebrate Regenerate's FAQ.

The cost of a physical copy of the book will be for manufacturing and shipping via Lulu.com only - no artists, writers or contributors are gaining any money from this project - and it is unauthorised and unofficial. The book is ultimately just for fun and it’ll make for a great addition to people’s bookshelves and / or downloads.

Following the review of Dr. Who and the Daleks our celebration of the centenary of Peter Cushing's birth and the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who continues with the second of the 1960s Dalek films being re-released and restored in high definition by StudioCanal, Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 A.D.

Roberta Tovey, who played Susan, remembers having conversations with producer Milton Subotsky about Aaru greenlighting a second Doctor Who film as they were completing the filming of Dr. Who and the Daleks in April 1965. Peter Cushing had also indicated he was willing to return to play Dr. Who but, with his usual charm, suggested this would only be possible if Tovey was invited too.

After the box office success of the first film, producer Joe Vegoda was keen to capitalise on 'Dalekmania' and, despite Subotsky briefly contemplating a cinema version of Terry Nation's The Keys of Marinus serial as a sequel, Aaru swiftly announced their second to feature the Daleks, The Daleks Invade Earth, in December of the same year.

Based on the Terry Nation six-part serial The Dalek Invasion of Earth, Subotsky again worked with the series' story-editor David Whitaker to shape the material into a feature length script. Whitaker, who this time would receive an on-screen credit, provided notes and suggestions to a script Subtosky had planned using a series of wall charts.

... the English Ladies Clay Pigeon Shooting Champion of 1961

As this process continued, Vegoda's Regal Films International company was swallowed up by British Lion and Columbia within a joint company called BLC and during a very troubled period for the British film industry when, as Marcus Hearn pointed out, 'the Vietnam war effectively enforced the recall of nearly all American movie investment in this country'.

The British film industry was on the verge of collapse and Vegoda needed to go elsewhere to finance The Daleks Invade Earth. Ever the entrepreneur, Vegoda negotiated one of the first product placement deals for a British film and persuaded Quaker Oats to invest in the production in exchange for some prominent advertising within the film for their cereal Sugar Puffs and a number of tie-in promotions to the tune of £50,000. This boosted the budget to £286,000. 

An attempt to re-engage the cast members of Dr. Who and the Daleks was thwarted after Roy Castle, who had undertaken a cabaret tour, and Jennie Linden both became unavailable. Subotsky substituted the characters of Ian and Barbara with two new roles, a policeman Tom Campbell (borrowing only a name from Nation's character David Campbell in the original which was then repurposed for the film as Ray Brooks' David) and Louise, as a niece and another member of Dr. Who's extended family.

Louise was played by Jill Curzon, the English Ladies Clay Pigeon Shooting Champion of 1961, who was recognisable from her regular role as Norma in the sit-com Hugh and I (BBC, 1962-7) and had also been seen in Disney's Dr Syn, Alias The Scarecrow (1962), 80,000 Suspects (1963) and The Intelligence Men (1965). Providing much of the film's comedy relief, Tom was played by comedy actor Bernard Cribbins, a familiar face to cinema audiences at the time with his roles in Two Way Stretch (1960), The Wrong Arm of the Law (1962), The Mouse on the Moon (1963) Crooks in Cloisters (1964) and Carry On Spying (1964).

He'd also recently worked with Peter Cushing on Hammer's She (1965) and on a one-off comedy special Cribbins for BBC 2 in February 1965. He returned to Doctor Who in 2007 as Donna Noble's grandfather Wilfred Mott. To facilitate Tom's introduction into the film, the opening pre-credit bank raid sequence was concocted by David Whitaker. Joining Cushing, Tovey, Curzon and Cribbins at Shepperton, where the film started shooting on 31 January 1966, were stalwart British actors Andrew Keir as Wyler, Philip Madoc as Brockley, 'the boy with The Knack' Ray Brooks, fresh from his appearance in said Richard Lester film, Roger Avon, Eileen Way and Sheila Steafel.

Now entitled Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 A.D., the first scenes completed were the interiors of TARDIS, now much simplified by art director George Provis and set decorator Maurice Pelling, and the opening bank raid which was staged on streets within the Shepperton backlot. As these were filmed, Provis completed construction of the Dalek saucer sections and interiors on Stage H, including a 150 foot landing base and accompanying ramp.

The rebel attack on the Daleks, their Robomen and the saucer was staged and shot using two of the remaining Dalek props from the first film but also incorporating newly built Daleks courtesy of Shawcraft. There were eight 'hero' machines and these and several 'dummy' versions were upgraded to incorporate changes made to Dalek design in the television series, featuring the iconic slats and mesh collars of their small screen counterparts. All were given black bases and the solid fibreglass fenders used in Dr. Who and the Daleks were replaced with rubber skirting to aid ease of travel on uneven surfaces.

Colour schemes included silver and blue drones with blue headlamps, and leaders in red and silver with red headlamps, black, gold and silver with red headlamps and a gold and black variant with yellow lights. To ease direction, Flemyng often referred to Daleks as 'Bill' or 'Bob' and to cut costs Dalek operators were only offered the same rate as extras on the film, a situation the skilled operators did not agree with, and further dissension occurred when Robert Jewell, an operator who had worked well with director Flemyng on Dr. Who and the Daleks was then hired to train extras to operate the props.

Filming was disrupted by accidents, including an operator hastily rescued from a Dalek prop catching fire after being pushed down a ramp and stunt man Eddie Powell's broken ankle from a fall, after which he was whisked off to hospital, had his foot put in plaster and then returned to the set to complete his scene and continued to supervise the remaining stunt work on the film. Andrew Keir also hurt his wrist during the scene where Wyler and Susan escape in a van and he was shown to punch out the windscreen.

Cushing's ill health also forced Flemyng to reschedule and complete scenes which either did not require his presence, such as Susan and Wyler's betrayal by the two women in the cottage and Tom's comedy encounter with a food machine on the Dalek saucer, or could be patched with inserts once the actor had returned to the set. However, production was halted for two days and Subotsky made an insurance claim for £30,000 as a result.

During Cushing's absence Keir and Tovey completed the filming of Wyler and Susan's flight from London on the Shepperton street backlot which involved their van ramming a patrol of Daleks. Several lightweight 'dummy' props were created for the sequence and, though originally the van was only supposed to hit the 'dummy' versions, during the take two of the 'hero' props were also badly damaged.

Cushing returned, filmed the attempt by the Daleks to 'robotise' Dr. Who, Tom and Craddock (Kenneth Watson), and then joined the rest of the cast on Stage H's forced perspective set of the Thames riverside, complete with Post Office tower and St. Paul's Cathedral on the horizon, to film the arrival of TARDIS and the crew's subsequent capture by Robomen. This also included a stunt sequence depicting Tom hanging overhead from an open door where Cribbins was doubled by Jackie Cooper hanging off the door from a concealed strap around his wrist.

The mine and the Daleks' bomb room were covered next and, after the magnetic forces of the Earth are unleashed in the film's climax, several 'dummy' Daleks were used to show them being dragged into the bomb shaft, supplemented later with model shots using repainted Louis Marx Dalek toys. The film, now running behind schedule for the projected 11 March completion date, rushed to finish at Shepperton, with Flemyng working on Dortmun's (Godfrey Quigley) suicide run against the Daleks on the backlot, more mine sequences with Cribbins and the encounter with Brockley in the nearby woodlands with Cushing, Brooks and Madoc.

'like leftovers from an old film about the London Blitz'

Brockley's death in the hut at the mine complex, exterminated by the eight 'hero' Daleks, was not without its problems. The hut, packed with a large amount of explosives, resulted in a blast which damaged three of the prop Daleks. After the destruction of the mine was shot, cast and crew briefly went on location to a Thames-side jetty by Battersea Church Road where Dr. Who and Tom are confronted by the Dalek rising out of the river.

Flemyng recalled: 'We laid tracks down into the water when the tide was out and positioned a weighted Dalek on them, attached to a line. We then waited for the tide to come in and pulled the Dalek out of the water using the line.' Further location work, for the warehouse scenes where Tom and Dr. Who find a dead Roboman, was undertaken at the Bendy Toys factory in Ashford, Middlesex. This brought principal photography to an end on 22 March 1966. 

Post-production continued with visual effects, dubbing and scoring. Ted Samuels and his effects crew built an impressive motorised model of the Dalek saucer, three feet in diameter and with two contra-rotating rings of windows and lights, which was flown on wires across model sets of the London skyline and the mine workings and mounted on a crane for some scenes flying against natural sky. Scoring duties were passed to Bill McGuffie after Subotsky had made it clear he was not that enthusiastic about Malcolm Lockyer's music for Dr. Who and the Daleks. The film was passed with a U certificate by the BBFC on 10 June.

Even during the film's production, publicity and promotion was in full swing. Comedy actor Dora Bryan had opened a Dalek display in Lewis's Liverpool in February and various papers and periodicals interviewed Jill Curzon about her proficiencies with a shotgun and featured her in some cheesecake glamour shots with full-sized Dalek props and Louis Marx toys. Cushing was interviewd by London Evening News on 3 March and put the record straight for certain naysayers about his career: 'A lot of people have accused me of lowering my standards but I've never felt I'm wasting myself... I've kept working. And surely that's the most important thing.'

Behind the scenes reports appeared on Westward Television's The Film Makers in April, in a May edition of Boy's Own Paper and a Dalek photocall took place in New York, outside the Empire State Building, in a bid to generate interest in the film Stateside. A press show was held on 5 July and a Quaker Oats special promotional screening to the grocery trade took place on 11 and 18 July. To tie-in with this three and half million packets of Sugar Puffs displayed pictures from the film and featured a competition to win 500 battery operated Louis Marx toys and three of the full-size Dalek film props, all boosted by a television commercial and a nationwide tour of two dozen 'dummy' Dalek props to cinemas and supermarkets.

Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. opened at Studio One in London on 22 July and then went on general release from 5 August. It did not fare particularly well with the critics and, while Daily Cinema enthused the film had 'a lot more style and polish than its predecessor... just the job for the holiday season!', David Robinson of the Financial Times described it as 'a film of unusually low standards' and The Sun accused it of 'being a bit tatty, and hastily and clumsily thought out.'

Nina Hibbin of The Morning Star agreed and, after slamming the film's depiction of the year 2150 as looking 'like leftovers from an old film about the London Blitz', she turned on the distributors and concluded: 'I know British Lion has got its problems at the moment, but this tatty sort of film-making won't help them.' Takings, which initially matched the box office of the first film, soon tailed off and it seemed that public fatigue had finally put paid to 'Dalekmania'.

Accusing the film of resembling London in the Blitz is actually very accurate and this tone is one carried over from Terry Nation's far grimmer The Dalek Invasion of Earth, itself permeated by the Blitz and the shadow of the Second World War in its depiction of a battered London, the bravery of resistance fighters and a peculiarly British appetite for destruction that sees Battersea Power Station with its chimneys knocked off. In that respect Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. is grittier than its sleeker 1960s cinema counterpart, eschewing gloss and character development for a series of pacy action set pieces.

Flemyng takes the widescreen format and strives to fill it with visual interest, despite the lack of budget and extras, and manages to pull off some excellent uses of the forced perspective sets of a destroyed London, the two tiered set of the Dalek saucer including the ramp and its interior corridor and executes a great tracking view of the multi-levels of the Dalek bomb room with criss-crossing Daleks.

The film opens with a great pre-credit sequence, without dialogue and using an almost silent film like simplicity with a piano backing, as policeman Tom Campbell is attacked by jewel thieves and then stumbles into TARDIS before he is whisked away to 2150 A.D. Before the ship dematerialises there's an opportunity for Bernard Spear to do a comedy double-take as he reaches out for the police box in the aftermath of the robbery.

Thus we end up in a devastated future London, ruled by Daleks, and Subotsky retains the atmospheric setting of the original television serial along with its iconic moments such as the Dalek rising out of the Thames. Flemyng gets maximum value from most the cast, particularly Cribbins, Keir and a sinister Madoc. Cushing is at his best in the opening scenes and seems rather sidelined, perhaps due to the reported illness, in later sections of the film, especially when he disappears for a while after the attack on the saucer and Cribbins gets to indulge in some physical comedy pretending to be one of the Robomen.

The action set pieces dominate with victims of the Daleks falling off buildings, rebels attacking the saucer or Andrew Keir running Daleks over with his van in a profusion of explosions, stunts and kinetic camera work and editing. Underlining this is a jazzy, insistent score from Bill McGuffie which provides a memorable earworm with the theme for the marching Robomen. It may not be as glossy and otherworldly as Dr. Who and the Daleks but this still whips along very effectively and is enormous fun as Daleks get knocked over like skittles, flying saucers blow up vans and Philip Madoc gets exterminated inside a garden shed.

Sources:
'Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 A.D.' profile, Marcus Hearn, Doctor Who Magazine Spring Special, 1995
'Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 A.D.' Archive Extra, Andrew Pixley, Doctor Who Magazine 354, 2005

About the transfer
Again the Techniscope format does have its drawbacks with the graininess of the image. This is really evident in loss of quality in the process shots mixing live action and model or glass shots. Apart from that, this is a very clean looking transfer and colour, detail and contrast are very good throughout the 84 minute running time. Detail in faces, clothes and particularly the Robomen black PVC outfits is good. The Daleks, in their new silver liveries, don't quite have as much impact as in their big screen debut and the film, certainly a grittier but less glossy affair, is predisposed to silver, browns, greys and blues in its colour scheme where only the red of Susan's skirt, the lead Dalek's red livery and their big red bomb add some punch to the grade. The mono soundtrack is quite crisp and clear and only briefly suffers from some slight dropout toward the end of the film. Overall, a pleasing viewing experience.

Special Features
Restoring Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. (7:11)
Again we hear from BFI curator Jo Botting talking about the challenge to cinema from television and how scope formats were part of the arsenal used by distributors to get audiences back in cinemas. Marcus Hearn discusses Gordon Flemyng's use of widescreen Techniscope. Techniscope's poorer image quality was also a problem that faced Deluxe when they restored the film from a 35mm interpositive made in 1969 from the Techniscope negative. Grading and repair are discussed by Paul Collard and John Heath while additional manual frame repairs are demonstrated by Lisa Copson and Ian Pickford returns to explain the audio restoration. 
Interview with Bernard Cribbins (4:02)
An all too brief chat with 'national treasure' Cribbins about the legacy of the film, working with Cushing ('he always looked to me as though he was chewing a mint... and then he would speak') and getting the giggles with the Daleks. He also touches on his interview with Barry Letts for the role of the Doctor shortly after Jon Pertwee vacated the role on television. The sound mix on this feature does not seem to have a middle channel included and is directed to left and right channels, resulting in a very echoing quality.
Interview with Gareth Owen (4:08)
Author of The Shepperton Story, Owen returns very briefly to offer some basics about the production of the film, the various problems that affected the shoot and the poor press reaction.  
Stills gallery
A disappointingly small collection of back and white promotional images, behind the scenes stills, model shots, ad campaigns, the campaign book and a Jill Curzon colour promotional image. Not exactly comprehensive and it strangely doesn't include the many posters or lobby cards which were issued.
Trailer (2:37)
A trailer in which the voice over fails to mention the word 'Dalek' or the character 'Dr. Who' and leaves you with the impression that the Robomen were in charge and the Daleks were their henchmen. Not a patch on the iconic Dr. Who and the Daleks trailer.

Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 A.D.
Aaru Productions / British Lion Limited 1966
StudioCanal Blu-ray / Released: 27 May 2013 / Cert: U / Region B / Total Running Time: 84:14 / Colour / Feature Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 / Feature Audio: LPCM Mono 2.0 / English Language / English SDH / Catalogue No: OPTBD2530

To celebrate two anniversaries this year StudioCanal are this month releasing the two 1960s Dalek films - Dr. Who and the Daleks and Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. in honour of the centenary of their star Peter Cushing's birth and the 50th anniversary of the Doctor Who BBC series which spawned the two films. Both films have been extensively restored for their Blu-ray high definition debut.

The two films, produced by Aaru Productions, emerged out of the 'Dalekmania' created by the BBC transmission of Terry Nation's seven-part Doctor Who story The Mutants (aka The Daleks) in December 1963 and its sequel The Dalek Invasion of Earth almost a year later in November 1964. The Daleks were an overnight success in 1963 and ´Dalekmania´, as it was known, was one of the first commercial merchandise booms generated by a TV series. At its peak in 1964, it incorporated everything from sweet cigarettes, games, play suits, clockwork and battery operated toys to the Dalek and Dalek World books co-written by Terry Nation and David Whitaker, soap, slippers, wallpaper and the Go-Go's Christmas 1964 novelty record single, the prophetic 'I'm Gonna Spend My Christmas With A Dalek'.

Aaru Productions was formed by Joe Vegoda's Regal International Films to produce films in association with Milton Subotsky and Max J. Rosenberg's company Amicus. New Yorkers Subotsky and Rosenberg had originally established their own partnership with the production of Junior Science educational films made for American television and they had been involved with Eliot Hyman in the first negotiations with Hammer to remake Frankenstein from Subotsky's own script. While Subotsky was a hands on producer, writer and editor, Rosenberg, a financier and lawyer, was very much the silent partner in the company which would eventually become Amicus.

After producing low budget rock 'n' roll films, Rock, Rock, Rock (1956) and Disc Jockey Jamboree (1957) and the exploitation social problem melodramas The Last Mile (1958) and Girl of the Night (1960), they turned their attention to horror after Hammer's The Curse of Frankenstein had revitalised interest in the genre in 1957. Subotsky decided to move to the UK and then produced contemporary witchcraft drama City of the Dead (1960) in association with Vulcan Productions. In 1961, he formed Amicus with Rosenberg and music publishers Franklin Boyd and Cyril Baker, leading to the production of Richard Lester's musical comedy It's Trad, Dad! (1962) featuring a variety of jazz and rock and roll acts and 1963's Just for Fun, a comedy featuring current musical acts, directed by Gordon Flemyng.

Inspired by Ealing's ghost story anthology Dead of Night (1945), Subotsky sold the idea of a portmanteau horror film, in colour, to Paramount after Columbia rejected it as too costly. In May 1964, after two weeks shooting, lack of finance was causing problems and he and Rosenberg enlisted Regal Films International and its managing director Joe Vegoda to co-finance and distribute what would, at the time, be their biggest success, Dr. Terror's House of Horrors (1964). Subotsky also claimed a major coup by luring Hammer's dynamic double act Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee to lead the film, which also featured a number of musicians and comedians he'd previously worked with, including Roy Castle, DJ Alan Freeman, Kenny Lynch and jazz legend Tubby Hayes.

Vegoda, aware of television's increasing dominance and how lucrative adapting small screen successes for the cinema had become since Hammer's well-received adaptations of The Quatermass Experiment (1955) and Quatermass II (1957), approached the BBC during the shooting of Dr. Terror's House of Horrors to secure the screen rights to Doctor Who. He was not alone in his thinking as Walt Disney had already approached the BBC in an attempt to secure the rights to the John Lucarotti serial Marco Polo. Attracted by the publicity for the series and the imminent return of writer Terry Nation's creations, he struck a deal with producer Verity Lambert and Nation, securing the rights to the characters and concepts of the seven-part serial The Mutants for one film and an option for a potential sequel for the princely sum of £500.

'It seems a shame William Hartnell didn't do the film because he is so good in the part'

Bringing on board Subotsky and Rosenberg, Vegoda then suggested using his Aaru Productions to finance, make and distribute the film rather than associate it with Amicus's reputation for low budget adult horror. In November 1964, Kinematograph Weekly announced the production of Dr. Who and the Daleks as a 'science fiction comedy' starring Peter Cushing and Roy Castle.

Cushing was an international box office draw, better known to audiences than Doctor Who's television incumbent William Hartnell. It was also highly unlikely that Hartnell would be available to make the film because of the series' own punishing production schedule. Cushing wistfully noted in his memoirs: 'It seems a shame William Hartnell didn't do the film because he is so good in the part. I remember how I felt when they were casting for the film 1984. I was so keen to repeat my TV role but they gave it to Edmund O'Brien instead.'

By the end of 1964, the production was already in its early stages and director Freddie Francis, who had just completed Dr. Terror's House of Horrors and was already directing another horror film for Amicus, The Skull, was being lined up to helm Dr. Who and the Daleks. With a projected budget of £180,000 and Cushing due to take on the titular role three weeks after the completion of The Skull, the film was finally scheduled to begin shooting at Shepperton Studios on 9 March 1965.

Freddie Francis had been announced as director by Daily Cinema in January 1965 and he may have participated in some of the initial casting for the film. Ann Bell, who had appeared with Roy Castle and Cushing in Dr. Terror's House of Horrors was originally announced as playing Barbara alongside Castle as Ian. However, just prior to shooting, Francis had been replaced by Gordon Flemyng, another Amicus alumnus who had directed Just for Fun for them in 1963, and Bell had handed over to Flemyng's choice of Jennie Linden who had, ironically, made her first screen appearance in Francis' Nightmare (1964) for Hammer.

Flemyng then cast the other roles and 11-year-old Robert Tovey was offered the part of Susan after she was screen tested reading Spike Milligan poems. This suited the style of family adventure Subotsky was aiming for in the script he had prepared, with some input from the television series' story editor David Whitaker, after Terry Nation indicated his unavailability to adapt his own serial for the big screen. The script also made changes to the original series' format: Dr. Who was now a homely, eccentric human scientist who invented TARDIS (not the TARDIS), Susan and Barbara were both now his granddaughters and Ian became Barbara's hapless boyfriend. Castle would also provide much of the slapstick comedy injected into the script by Subotsky.

Shooting finally got under way at Shepperton on 12 March 1965 on elaborate sets created by Bill Constable. Some of the first scenes to be shot were on his very effective sets built to represent the petrified forest of Skaro which took up 29,750 feet of space on Stage H, then one of Europe's biggest stages. Flemyng and his director of photography John Wilcox used a combination of bold coloured lighting and anamorphic lenses to suggest the unearthliness of the forest. Stage H also housed the swamp sets and the caves leading into the Dalek city.

These sets also incorporated the Thal's forest camp and along with actors Barrie Ingham, Geoffrey Toone, Michael Coles and Yvonne Antrobus as the blonde, pacifist Thals their ranks were swelled by 30 extras, including stuntmen, male models and Covent Garden porters chosen for their muscular physique. Many of them demanded extra money when they were told to shave their chests and arms in order to facilitate their transformation, via body paint, ornate make-up and blonde wigs, into the beautiful people of Skaro.

The Dalek city interiors took up 18,000 square feet of Stage A and were constructed from a mixture of hardboard and corrugated plastic sheeting sprayed gold and silver. As Subtoksy informed Kinematograph Weekly: 'We intend to make full use of the colour, spectacle and action that make the difference between large and small screen entertainment. One of the things we have to make it different and better is splendour.'

That splendour also came at a cost and the Dalek control room, incorporating a large back projection screen, a rotating series of panels featuring hired-in electronic equipment, smaller screens which showed stock footage of bubbles and flowers, and conspicuous set decoration using lava lamps added an additional £2,500 to the production bill for the Dalek city. The Dalek props were also a major expense. The television series' production team provided Subotsky with technical drawings of the Daleks, designed by Ray Cusick and built for the show by Shawcraft, the props and visual effects company based in Uxbridge.

Aaru approached Shawcraft to build eight new, fully operational 'hero' Dalek props at a cost of £350 each and, following Gordon Flemyng's desire for more colour and spectacle, they were provided with large fenders, large orange lights on their domes, some were given pincers rather than plungers and they sported a range of colourful paint schemes. The Dalek leader was given a black, gold and silver livery, a red Dalek was trimmmed in black and gold and the others given a blue and gold look. For several crowd scenes and the spectacular destruction of the Dalek control room, the Shepperton plaster shop built an additional ten 'dummy' Daleks out of fibreglass, not requiring an operator inside but with fully-poseable limbs and flashing lights.

The original intention was for the 'hero' props to utilise flame throwers but this idea was nipped in the bud for a number of reasons. Subotsky claimed that the BBFC's John Trevelyan advised against using flames if Aaru anted to secure their U certificate for the film while director Gordon Flemyng opted for the solution of using fire extinguishers for the Dalek guns simply because it would have been too expensive optically to incorporate rays or similar effects.

Depicting the innards of a Dalek also raised issues with the BBFC. A Dalek mutant was constructed by the effects department and technician Allan Bryce recalled: 'We made a green, writhing, ukky thing for the inside of the Dalek. Somebody was underneath the creature with their hands inside it, making it writhe. I think it was the editor's decision to cut that... that was an example of the sort of thing you couldn't show in a U certificate film.' Flemyng also corroborated this in his early discussions with the censor about how much of the mutant the film would be allowed to show.

Robert Jewell, Gerald Taylor and Kevin Manser, experienced Dalek operators who had worked on the BBC series were hired, much to Aaru's chagrin at having to spend more money than was necessary for their skills, to operate the 'hero' props and Jewell was paid an extra fee to train new operators.

When Subotsky started to edit the film he was suddenly aware that Flemyng hadn't realised the Daleks' dome lights were intended to flash in synchronisation with their speech, provided by the voices of Peter Hawkins and David Graham via ring modulator. Subotsky was left with a complex editing job where he had to rewrite dialogue during the overdubbing to try and match the sequences of dome lights, leading to some very stilted Dalek exposition in the film.

From filming on the forest sets and Dalek city sets, where the actors and extras had to negotiate the slippery fibreglass slopes leading up to the Dalek city, Ingham amused cast and crew by supplementing Alydon's rousing speech with a rendition from Henry V and Roberta Tovey earned herself a shilling from Flemyng for each first take she completed without error and the moniker 'One-Take Tovey', the schedule then moved on to completing the swamp scenes where the visual effects crew attempted to shoot the tentacle of a mutant which drowned the Thal Elydon. This was abandoned and reshot without showing the mutant.

The climax in the Dalek control room, where their entire command post explodes, was handled by Ted Samuels and his team, including Allan Bryce. They recreated eight of the wall panels and triggered explosions using fireworks and charges with a series of rubber bands hurling wooden balls at the panels to shatter them as the charges went off. Once these scenes were completed, Flemyng then moved on to shoot all of the Earth-based opening of the film, including Bill Constable's radical revisioning of the TARDIS interior which bore no resemblance to the television version. However, Roberta Tovey and Jennie Linden recall shooting the opening of the film first in the schedule so there may be some ambiguity about the order in which the film was shot.

Seven days over schedule, the film completed shooting on 23 April 1965. Subtoksky was already talking to Cushing and Tovey about a sequel when filming came to an end and a number of publicity drives were already in place. Twelve of the Dalek props popped over to Cannes to promote the film and two props were loaned to the BBC as the end of the film's schedule neatly overlapped with the recording of the latest television adventure featuring the Daleks, The Chase. Dr. Who and the Daleks secured its U certificate on 16 June 1965 and the press screening took place on 22 June. Many of the sets were reconfigured for a 'Dalek City' tour which promoted the film in Manchester and Birmingham in July and displays were also mounted in Selfridges, London and in the Liverpool branch of Lewis' during August.

'... so close you can feel their fire' 

Mixed reviews greeted its general release on 25 June with The People enthusing, 'The kids will love it... their parents will find this gigantic schoolboy lark Dalektable' whereas Daily Cinema declared the script was 'juvenile and the direction uninspired' and The Daily Worker attacked the film for its 'Blimpish militarism'. It was a box office hit, perfect summer holiday film viewing, with British Lion reporting the best takings for any film they had previously distributed. A huge merchandising and promotional push ensured that by the end of 1965 it was one of the top 20 box office earners for the year and successful enough to generate a sequel.

Most fans of my generation were probably too young to see Dr. Who and the Daleks on the big screen (I was only two at the time) but for many this really was the first opportunity to see the Daleks in colour on the big screen. For those of us who missed it in 1965, television screenings in 1972 and 1974 introduced us to this very different form of Doctor Who. They offer an indication of how the original television text could be transformed by other media, Subotsky and Flemyng fulfilling their promise by making Dr. Who and the Daleks bold and colourful, where the Techniscope and Technicolor format utterly transforms the black and white terrors of the small screen into a pure slice of 1960s exploitation.

The film also reminds us just how pervasive 'Dalekmania' was in the 1960s, a golden period which sealed the success of Doctor Who through an overwhelming merchandising profile and one which wouldn't be repeated, arguably, until the return of the series to the small screen in 2005. After a suitably 1960s title sequence, all shimmering and shifting primary colours, it begins in a wonderfully tongue-in-cheek manner with Flemyng's close up of Susan and Barbara reading heavy science books which then pans to Dr. Who indulging in the comic strip adventures of Eagle. There's a sense here of Cushing's own childlike glee and Subotsky's transformation of the grim elements of Nation's script into a more family-friendly adventure.

The emphasis is on fun and Flemyng gets a very twinkly performance from Cushing, often quite an understated one, and very different from the curmudgeonly, abrasive television Doctor played by William Hartnell. The spectacle is also leavened with some trade mark buffoonery from Roy Castle, again a version of Ian in direct contrast to the heroic school teacher of the original, with plenty of falling over and bumping into doors injected into the film as ad-libs from Castle.

The major attractions here are colour and spectacle and Flemyng's use of the widescreen frame. When TARDIS lands on Skaro, he captialises on the vast forest set and gets an enormous sense of scale and colour. He uses well designed long shots, overhead shots and some striking low angle shots of the Daleks and the outskirts of the Dalek city and shoots through objects, trees and parts of Daleks. He even gets some cracking hand held shots in here and there - Susan's journey back to the TARDIS from the Dalek city - and some unusual point of view shots - a big close up of Ian bathing his face in the swap taken from under the water.

On that score, the film remains visually pleasing and attractive, as a magical side-step in the Doctor Who canon that still provides unsophisticated, big screen family adventure par excellence. It may lack the grittiness of the original serial, downplaying its emphasis on the Daleks' obsession with racial purity and dedication to a policy of genocide in favour of the quest narrative, a basic treatise on good and evil and the nature of heroism, but it more than makes up for that with Subotsky's notion of 'splendour'. The era's anxieties about the nuclear age may be submerged but the Daleks have never really looked better, bursting onto the screen as true 1960s icons, and only recently has the television series captured a fraction of their scale and colour as seen in these cinema incarnations.

Sources:
'The company of friends' profile of Amicus, Denis Meikle, Doctor Who Magazine Spring Special, 1995
'Dr. Who and the Daleks' profile, Marcus Hearn, Doctor Who Magazine Spring Special, 1995
'Dr. Who and the Daleks' Archive Extra, Andrew Pixley, Doctor Who Magazine 353, 2005

About the transfer
Techniscope was often regarded as a cheaper widescreen format and it can look quite grainy and soft when it comes to DVD presentation. This looks pretty good and retains the appropriate grain while also providing good levels of contrast and detail. Colour is particularly well rendered and costumes such as Barbara's salmon coloured ski pants, Cushing's brown jacket and Susan's light blue anorak benefit greatly from the grade. The sets also look great and the petrified forest, lit in vibrant greens and blues, and the Dalek city's schemes of gold, copper and silver are very well represented. Best of all, the Daleks look tremendous, full of detail and colour. A very pleasant viewing experience which emphasises Gordon Flemyng's visual sensibilities for composing in widescreen. The LPCM 2.0 mono soundtrack handles dialogue, sound effects and Malcolm Lockyer's swing inflected music with great clarity and there is very little evidence of drop outs or crackles and pops.

Special Features
Commentary
Jennie Linden and Roberta Tovey reminisce about working on the film with author Jonathan Sothcott in this track from 2002 and featured on the original DVD release. Plenty of lovely anecdotes and warm memories about working with Peter Cushing and Roy Castle with the two actresses recalling Castle's restless creativity and Cushing's generosity and charm. Linden cites her close friendship with Cushing and his wife Helen and her regular visits to them in Whitstable. They both recount Cushing's fondness for toys and models and his talents as an artist. From discussion the search for the reality in the make believe of the film, the two actresses then continue at length about various scenes in the film, recalling the budget limitations, differences to the television programme, the sets and costumes and lots of running! Well worth a listen.
Dalekmania (57:30)
Fantastic documentary made for direct-to-video release by Lumiere in 1995 by Kevin Davies (The Making of Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy and More Than Thirty Years in the TARDIS). This intersperses clips from the films and interviews with the cast into a retro framing story of two children going to the cinema to watch the two Dalek films under the gaze of a cinema commissionaire played by one Michael Wisher. You'll hear from Dr. Who's granddaughters and niece Roberta Tovey, Jennie Linden and Jill Curzon, Thal actors Barrie Ingham and Yvonne Antrobus who all provide smashing personal anecdotes about making the films. Adding further background to the making of the films are Hammer historian Marcus Hearn and he is joined by, the then editor of Doctor Who Magazine, Gary Gillatt to recall the impact the Daleks had on the series and how, through the films, they became a huge phenomenon. This also features archive interviews with Dalek creator Terry Nation, plenty of fond recollection from the cast about working with Peter Cushing and Roy Castle to both of whom the documentary is dedicated. At the time this was released, the films were about to get their first VHS release in widescreen so this does now come across as something of an archive piece. A pity it couldn't be updated.
Restoring Dr. Who and the Daleks (8:26)
A look at how the film was digitally restored for this set. Film and television historian Marcus Hearn returns to provide some background to the shooting of the film in Techniscope and Technicolor and Subotksy's adaptation of the original Nation story. Jo Botting, BFI curator, explains the development and drawbacks of Techniscope as a widescreen format. We then pop over to Deluxe and get an insight into how the restoration was achieved from a 35mm anamorphic interpositive dating back to 1969. Steve Bearman, Tom Barrett and Ian Pickford of Deluxe also discuss the grading of the film, the clean up and stabilising of the image and the restoration of the optical soundtrack. 
Interview with Gareth Owen (7:41)
Owen, author of The Shepperton Story, tells us much about the making of the film but it's a shame he has to trot out the 'wobby scenery, wobbly acting' redundant fallacy about the television series. Apart from that, some interesting stories about Vegoda, Amicus, the formation of Aaru, the impact of 'Dalekmania' and how the Daleks were built for the film (which he attributes entirely to effects man Bert Luxford when Shawcraft built the eight 'hero' Daleks and Luxford likely oversaw the making of the 'dummy' versions at Shepperton).
Stills Gallery
A decent but limited selection of material including black and white publicity shots, a set of lobby cards and the campaign book.
Trailer (3:04)
Enter the world of the Daleks because now they're 'closer then ever before' and 'so close you can feel their fire'.

Dr. Who and the Daleks
Aaru Productions / Regal Films International / British Lion 1965
StudioCanal Blu-ray / Released: 27 May 2013 / Cert: U / Region B / Total Running Time: 82:57 / Colour / Feature Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 / Feature Audio: LPCM Mono 2.0 / English Language / English SDH / Catalogue No: OPTBD2529 

Mario Bava's first horror film in colour, I tre volti della paura (The Three Faces of Fear aka Black Sabbath, 1963), followed the making of La ragazza che sappeva troppo (aka The Girl Who Knew Too Much) in 1962 and was shot at Cinecitta and Titanus Studios. An anthology consisting of three tales, Bava's film joined an impressive tradition of earlier films utilising a sequence of stories, written either by a single or multiple authors, which were often individually handled by name directors.

In 1932, Edmund Goulding's Grand Hotel and Paramount's anthology If I Had a Million, a portmanteau film helmed by seven directors, provided early Hollywood examples of this format and it continued into the late 1940s with Tales of Manhattan (1942) and Flesh and Fantasy (1943). European directors popularised it in the 1950s. Roberto Rossellini directed segments in several anthology films, including L'Amore (1948), Les Sept péchés capitaux (1952), Siamo donne (1953), and Amori di mezzo secolo (1954). I tre volti della paura or Black Sabbath emerged just after Boccaccio '70 (1962) the Italian anthology film directed by Mario Monicelli, Federico Fellini, Luchino Visconti and Vittorio De Sica.

British studios, such as Gainsborough and Ealing, had followed suit. W. Somerset Maugham's short stories provided material for a trilogy of anthologies, Quartet (1948) and the two sequels Trio (1950) and Encore (1951). Ealing's Dead of Night (1945) is also regarded as one of the first significant examples of the horror portmanteau film, although this tradition had a long track record, starting with Richard Oswald's silent Unheimliche Geschichten (1919). It was British company Amicus who really put the horror anthology on the map with a string of successful films in the 1960s and 1970s, including Dr. Terror's House of Horrors (1964), Torture Garden (1967), The House That Dripped Blood (1970), Tales from the Crypt (1972), Asylum (1972), Vault of Horror (1973) and From Beyond the Grave (1974).

The Name of the Doctor
BBC One HD
18 May 2013, 7.00pm

The review contains spoilers

The problem with The Name of the Doctor is that, nostalgia and fan service aside, it feels familiar and comes across as an exercise in confirming some already astute guesses about Clara's mystery. The revelation about her is rather anticlimactic when it comes. Let's also get one thing out of the way. Anyone remotely believing the episode would reveal the Doctor's name was on a hiding to nothing. The Doctor's greatest secret isn't his name and I'm sure Moffat understands that, after all the attempts he's made to reinstate mystery into the Doctor's character and origins, an episode where the Doctor tells us his real name would be utterly counterproductive. He will always be Doctor Who?

So what is his greatest secret if it isn't his name? That he's already dead, at least in the physical sense, and what we're watching are the traces of a life already lived? Yes and no. It does seem rather apt given the funereal atmosphere in which The Name of the Doctor unfolds but the big secret is he's been hiding an illegitimate incarnation all these years. There's a mad man in the family attic and John Hurt's playing him.