Captain's Library: DOCTOR WHO MONTHLY "Dalek Movies"

Peter Cushing IS Doctor Who!

Sadly, most of today's audience doesn't even know he played Doctor Who...twice!

Note: I didn't say "The Doctor", since Cushing's version was not a Time Lord from Gallifrey, but an eccentric human scientist!

To be fair, the exact concept of who (or what) the character was didn't get defined until the final episode of the first Doctor's run, which was done after the first Cushing film!

In the Hartnell stories the Doctor is said to be from "another time, another world", but that can be just taken as his being from a future Earth (which certainly would fill both criteria).

Even when other characters from his home (like the Meddling Monk, who also had a TARDIS) were introduced, no clear definition of where (or when) they were from was presented!

(The terms "Time Lord" and "Gallifrey" were first used during the second Doctor's {Patrick Troughton] run.)

Though Cushing's two films were adaptations of BBC-TV serials ("Dead Planet" and "Dalek Invasion of Earth"), they are not considered part of the official canon of the TV series.

Here's the cover-featured story from Doctor Who Monthly #84 (1984), which was only available in America through Forbidden Planet's New York store!

(The series was made available to the US market through Diamond Distribution a couple of years later, but this particular issue wasn't.)

You can see Peter's Doctor Who in comic book form...

Doctor Who and the Daleks Part 1

Doctor Who and the Daleks Part 2

Daleks vs the Martians

Plus Peter Cushing in other Hammer Film roles...

Baron Victor Von Frankenstein 

in Curse of Frankenstein

Part 1

Part 2

Lawrence Van Helsing

in Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires

Part 1

Part 2

There's more cool Cushing stuff to come!

Bookmark us and visit often!

And check out other posts from the Peter Cushing Centennial Blogathon by clicking on the art below!

Captain's Library: DOCTOR WHO "Daleks vs the Martians"

Set between the two 1960s Dr Who films starring Peter Cushing...

...this tale was created for Doctor Who Magazine's 101st issue thirty years later in 1996!

As it turns out, it was, as we saw in Daleks: Invasion Earth, 2150 AD...

Some feel the Peter Cushing Doctor Who is an "alternate universe" version of the character, much as the current Star Trek films depict an official alternate version of the Classic Trek universe.
There's also speculation that the two films are actually part of the BBC's universe as movies portraying the Doctor's public image based on rumor and speculation!
Considering that Peter was offered the TV series role twice (after the 1st Doctor, William Hartnell, and 4th Doctor, Tom Baker, announced their departures) it's not unreasonable to assume the BBC would've found a way to incorporate material from the flicks into the series.
Note: Cushing turned down the first offer feeling he didn't want to do an ongoing TV series.
The second time, he was interested, but had no time in his schedule to accomodate a commitment of several months!
You can learn more about the genesis of this strip (and see larger scans of the art) at THIS POST at the amazing Peter Cushing Appreciation Society blog.
The official comic book adaptation of Doctor Who and the Daleks can been seen at Part 1 and Part 2.
(Plus a bonus page of videos HERE.)

Tomorrow:

An extensive text feature (with cool pix) about Peter's Dr Who films from an even earlier (and harder to find) Doctor Who Monthly!

And check out other posts from the Peter Cushing Centennial Blogathon by clicking on the art below!

Captain's Library: QUATERMASS II Conclusion

When Last We Left Our Rocket Scientist...

Professor Bernard Quatermass, head of the British Rocket Group, is pissed-off because his MoonBase project budget is being slashed by government pennypinchers.

Meanwhile, his assistants have examined several meteorites that fell nearby, and can't identify the composition of the eerily-symmetrical (and hollow) projectiles from space.

Quatermass and his aide, Marsh, drive to the nearby town where the meteorites were found and discover a top-secret government facility that duplicates the Rocket Group's design for the MoonBase inch-for-inch!

The duo also see the ground around the complex covered with meteorites!

When Marsh picks up an undamaged one, it cracks open and something leaps onto his face!

Before Quatermass can examine his wounded friend, armed guards from the facility order him to leave and take his dazed aide away.

Quatermass goes to Whitehall and learns from Member of Parliament Vincent Broadhead that the secret site is supposedly a synthetic food production facility, but despite millions of pounds in funding, has yet to show any results!

Broadhead, who opposes funding the facility, takes Quatermass along for an inspection tour of the plant.

During the tightly-supervised tour, MP Broadhead manages to sneak away from the group to examine one of the domes.

The MP reappears, burned by the contents of the dome, then collapses and dies in front of the tour group!

When guards try to restrain the panicked group, Quatermass manages to get to a car and smash through a gate and head back to London...

If the whole film has an X-Files vibe, it's not surprising, since there's a popular theory among sf cinephiles that Chris Carter "borrowed" plot elements from the entire Quatermass series for the X-Files mytharc and that the feature film X-Files: Fight the Future "appropriates" Quatermass II almost entirely, even down to matching cinematography of the 1950s film!

You can read the article HERE.

This comic strip was published in Hammer's Halls of Horror #23 (1978), a British b/w magazine that, along with articles about Hammer Films, was also running comic adaptations of both early and (then) current movies.

Written by Steve Parkhouse and illustrated by David Lloyd (who would later co-create V for Vendetta), this story has never been reprinted.

Tomorrow:

Enter the Captain's Theatre for some kool Quatermass (movie and tv) clips!

Here's a sample!

We hope you're enjoying our contribution to the Countdown to Halloween Blogathon!

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Captain's Library: QUATERMASS II Part 1

Our presentation of the first Quatermass story was so popular...

...that we're presenting the second Quatermass tale as the opener of our month-long contribution to the Countdown to Halloween Blogathon!

Will Quatermass make good his escape and get help?

What will Quatermass find inside the plant when he makes his own un-guided tour?

One hint: it ain't food!

Be here tomorrow for the thrilling conclusion!

Like the first Quatermass film which adapted the 1953 mini-series Quatermass Experiment, this 1957 flick was an adaptation/condensation of a BBC mini-series broadcast live in 1955.

Returning as the protagonist was Brian Donlevy as Bernard Quatermass, head of the British Rocket Group, which was apparently far ahead of NASA in terms of getting astronauts to the Moon, considering they had put men into orbit in the first film and were designing a MoonBase in this movie.

This comic strip was published in Hammer's Halls of Horror #23 (1978), a British b/w magazine that, along with articles about Hammer Films, was also running comic adaptations of both early and (then) current movies.

Written by Steve Parkhouse and illustrated by David Lloyd (who would later co-create V for Vendetta), this story has never been reprinted.

While we catch our breaths, a word from our sponsor

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Captain's Library: THE QUATERMASS XPERIMENT Conclusion

When Last We Left Our Hero...

The first manned flight into space by the British Experimental Rocket Group ends with a crash landing and only one survivor.
The other two astronauts' intact spacesuits are aboard the ship...but not the astronauts!
The remaining astronaut is alive, but catatonic, and his body seems to be infected with an unknown disease.
Meanwhile, blobs of organic material found in the ship appear to be the transformed remains of the two missing crew members.
The survivor's wife, fearing her husband will become a guinea pig for scientists' tests, has him spirited away from the hospital.
But the alien life-form inside him is transforming the hapless man into a creature who must absorb the energy of other living beings to survive...

In the original teleplay, Quatermass negotiates with the three astronauts' minds, still inside the creature, and convinces them to commit suicide to save the planet from the creature they're mutating into!
To fit the tv plot into a 90 minute movie, a sub-plot involving Victor Carroon's wife having an affair with the Rocket Group's doctor was jettisoned.
In addition, Carroon's kidnapping in the tv serial was by Communist agents, who are then killed by the mutating astronaut.
In terms of characterization, Brian Donlevy's cold, logical Quatermass is a far different version than the warm, paternal BBC-TV version played by Reginald Tate.
I think this was done primarily to reduce the amount of character interaction and dialogue not directly related to the main plot.

While the uncut British version has been released in the US on VHS, it is not on Region 1 DVD or BluRay (at least, not officially).
It is available in England both separately and as part of a Quatermass box set.
If you have a region-free player...

1n 2005, the original teleplay was reworked into a 97 minute production and broadcast live on the BBC!
Starring Jason Flemyng (X-Men: First Class, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen) as Quatermass, the cast included David Tennant (Doctor Who, Fright Night [2011]) as Dr. Briscoe, Indira Varma (TorchWood, Human Target) as Judith Carroon. and Mark Gattis (Doctor Who, Sherlock) as John Patterson.
While available in England on DVD, it has never been released in the US in any form, nor aired on BBC America!

The 11th Hour Web Magazine did a story about similarities between key plot points of The X-Files (both the series and first feature film) and the Quatermass series, showing how major plot elements from all four mini-series (and the film adaptations) were incorporated into the legendary "mytharc" by Chris Carter.

Finally, the BBC has a kool website devoted to all things Quatermass!
And here's the website for the 2005 remake.

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Captain's Library: THE QUATERMASS XPERIMENT Part 2

When Last We Left our Hero...

I love it when the strip itself recaps everything for you!

Tomorrow: the exciting and astonishing finale!

Nigel Kneale, the author of the original mini-series was not happy about the casting of American actor Brian Donlevy as Quatermass.
The American distributor, Lippert Pictures, insisted on name-value US actors as leads to help sell the British films to theatres.
Otherwise they wouldn't put money into the projects.
(When Hammer made a new US distribution deal with Warner Brothers in 1957, the casting requirement was dropped.)

BTW, I had mentioned yesterday that the original mini-series was six half-hour episodes.
They were, in fact, forty minutes each, with no commercials, for a total running time of four hours, which makes the compressing of the whole story into under ninety minutes in this film even more remarkable!

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