Electric Theatre: Daleks - Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. (1966)

Steve Kilpatrick cheers on Bernard Cribbins as he tries to stop London being exterminated

Electric Theatre is a rotating column where we invite some of our favourite people to write about London on film. It’s an opportunity to look at how the city has been represented on the big screen over the years, how its landmarks and structures have been used (and abused) and how various genres and directors extract wildly different performances from its streets.

For this instalment of Electric Theatre we’ve invited writer, composer and producer Steve Kilpatrick to write about the catchily titled Daleks - Invasion Earth 2150 A.D, in which Peter Cushing swaps Doctor Van Helsing’s crucifixes for Doctor Who’s TARDIS and the late, great Bernard Cribbins takes on some terrifying technicolour tin cans.

Welcome to the Electric Theatre. Please turn off your phones and refrain from talking for the duration of the entertainment.

Bernard Cribbins and Peter Cushing distinctly unimpressed by the London of 2150.

It’s Saturday morning, June 1978. Dad’s at work, and mum is having a well-earned lie in, while my sister and I have spent the morning playing as the Doctor and Leela, his bloodthirsty travelling companion.

The Doctor to late ‘70s kids is all teeth and curls, wearing a floppy hat and long multi-coloured scarf, and eats Jelly Babies. Once we’ve defeated whichever nefarious villains we’ve been pitted against, we make our way downstairs and switch on the telly to seek the swashbuckling thrills of The Flashing Blade or the intergalactic adventures of The Space Sentinels.

Instead, we tune in to a feature film in which a dazed London bobby staggers into a police box that, he is amazed to discover, is bigger on the inside. What? Wait! The TARDIS? However, the interior of this box is nothing like the TARDIS on TV. It’s basically a blacked out studio with tons of wires, gauges, knobs, buttons and dials strewn haphazardly around the place. To confuse things further, an elderly grey-haired gentleman with a moustache then introduces himself as “Dr. Who”, not “The Doctor”, or even “Dr. John Smith”. What is going on?

Our curiosity is piqued. We go with it. Before long, Dr. Who and the policeman find themselves in the future. London, 2150 A.D., to be precise. As they head towards the shore of the Thames, they’re intercepted by a creature emerging from the waves that, despite not having been on TV since 1975, is etched into every kid’s subconscious. A Dalek! I can’t believe it.

I have, for the first time, discovered the Amicus classic Daleks - Invasion Earth 2150 A.D., and life will never be the same again.

Technically, those bathing in the Thames should wear a hi-vis swimming cap.

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water

Action is really the key word for Invasion Earth. Coming in at just under 1 hour 21 minutes, the movie belts along at a hell of a tick and leaves absolutely no room to get bored. In just the first fourteen minutes we get to see a robbery, time travel, a murder, a girl being abducted, Tom nearly falling to his death, a spaceship landing in Sloane Square and, just in case you’ve forgotten, a Dalek emerging from the Thames. It’s at that point that the film really gets moving.

From an overenthusiastic copper swinging from a door knob two storeys up, to stunt man Eddie Powell plunging from a rooftop through a shopfront awning like a Woodbine smoking Jackie Chan, there’s daring stunts aplenty. Amazingly, Powell broke his ankle in the awning fall but somehow still managed to limp to his mark just in time to be exterminated by a bunch of tin thugs. 

Add to the mix the super cool partisan David, played by ‘the voice of Mr. Ben' Ray Brooks, busting out his huge Bowie knife at every opportunity and blasting Robomen left and right with his rifle. And sprinkle in plenty of Daleks being mowed down by Wyler (Quatermass’ Andrew Keir) in a van, and you’ve got all the thrills you need.

There’s plenty of comedy to enjoy too. From the Oliver Hardy-style look to camera that a witness to a robbery makes when the police box he’s attempting to make a call from dematerialises before his eyes, to Bernard Cribbins’ hilarious attempts to pass himself off as a Roboman by eating robo-snacks and taking robo-naps. However, in stark contrast to the comedic elements, the three most villainous characters in the film are not alien at all. Instead they are humans who are happy to sell out their fellow Homo sapiens for bread or gold, smirking while they do it.

Ray Brooks flouting TfL’s rules banning the use of rifles to ‘blast Robomen’.

Dalekmania

Daleks - Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. was the second of two films made by Amicus to cash in on the phenomenon of Dalekmania that was sweeping the UK at the time. Dalekmania had begun when the original BBC Doctor Who series introduced the metal monsters in 1963. The Daleks had become such a hit with kids that a products ranging from bendy toys to board games, from socks to slippers had been rushed to the shelves.

Amicus Productions, who were known at the time for their anthology horror film Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors, were keen to cash in on the growing trend for summer family films, and Terry Nation, the creator of the Daleks, was dead set on freeing his mutant offspring from what he saw as the confines of television and the BBC. Technicolor Daleks on the big screen seemed the logical next step.

The first Dalek foray into cinemas was Dr. Who and the Daleks (1965), an adaptation of the BBC’s first Dalek adventure, starring Peter Cushing as the titular “Dr. Who”. In the films, our favourite time traveller is no alien renegade from the future, but a human scientist who just happens to invent time travel in his back yard and has been born with the surname Who.

In order to appeal as a family film, Dr. Who’s character was softened from the TV version (played by William Hartnell as crotchety, bad tempered and often quite villainous) into something more akin to Clive Dunn’s Grandad. Instead of having the Doctor rather wickedly kidnapping his hip teenage granddaughter Susan’s two concerned schoolteachers Ian and Barbara, the Dr. Who of the movie has two granddaughters, Susan and Barbara.

The trio quickly become a time and space travelling quartet when Barbara’s boyfriend, the hapless Ian (played by the late, great Roy Castle) turns up and unwittingly sends them spinning off to the planet Skaro where a race of tall, beautiful, peace-loving farmers (the Thals) are seeking to form a peaceful alliance with the hideous, hate-filled monsters, the Daleks. In a rather conservative move, irksome to modern day viewers, it’s down to Dr. Who and his team to convince the Thals that violence is the answer and to strike the Daleks first.

Good to see the BT Tower made it to 2150.

Sequels and cereals

The first movie proved to be a huge financial success for Amicus, and its sequel, Daleks - Invasion Earth 2150 A.D., was put into production almost straight away, armed with an augmented budget. Thanks to Sugar Puffs stumping up some of the extra cash in return for some in-store promotions and product placement, the sequel could be bigger, brasher and bolder, with more action set pieces, special effects and explosions. The cheerleading for Honey Monster’s favourite snack isn’t subtle, giving viewers the impression that the denizens of London 2150 pretty much live on sugary puffs of wheat.