Daleks in New York (1972)

D. Henry Q. Fleming
Colour


Four years after their amicable split, which saw The Doctor fail to fight the daleks on TV for four years and the daleks get their own movie which at points seemed to last four years, we have their reunion. Despite Terry Nation’s best efforts the daleks hadn’t been successful by themselves. Most sensible observers saw that coming, as after all murderous pepper pots who bicker amongst themselves in grating metallic voices aren’t actually inherently cool. So we’re back to where we began, with him licensing his monsters for the TV show again and as a quid pro quo, that strange Victorian human inventor with a doctorate and the unlikely surname of ‘Who’ returning to the films.


Yes, here is Peter Cushing in his velvet coat, looking much the same but now sporting exciting 1970s side-burns.


There has been a change though, as whereas the first dalek story was a horror film for kids, with human beings on a strange planet in terrible danger, here we get – well, a mess. The tone of this film is so schizophrenic that it’s unclear whether the director, writer, crew or cast gave any thought at all to what this movie was aiming for. It’s both brooding urban menace and broad comedy, almost as if two films were actually shot and then haphazardly edited together by some cracked old drunk. The scary and ruthless army of daleks of the last (underperforming) film are replaced by battered daleks who’ve only just managed to drag themselves by their suckers out of their crashed spaceship. But having six daleks rather than six hundred works, as inspiration strikes and we have the great image of killer daleks lurking like muggers down dark New York alleyways. (Although clearly this production never went to New York as the film is either shot on sets or on that rare London street which could conceivably pretend to be New York.) Unfortunately, in-between the scary exterminations, we also have a couple of fun and playful daleks. And the silly daleks make their more ruthless brethren look by association just a bit, well, silly.


Cushing and his granddaughters arrive in New York (I’ve lost track at this point of the granddaughters’ names and the actresses playing them; for a character who seems so sexless, this Doctor Who’s progeny really do seem to go at it). What follows is a cat and mouse game with these rogue and dangerous creatures of Skaro, but at the same time the audience is supposed to find a couple of them sweet and endearing in their incompetent pootling around the Big Apple. So we have the daleks killing a mother who is pushing a pram, but we also have them trying to recruit a bubble-gum machine to their cause. We have them melting locks as they pursue the doctor, but then being befuddled by an escalator. It makes for a really mind-bending film and that’s before we get to Binky7.2.


My friends, if you ever wanted to see where George Lucas got inspiration for Jar-Jar Binks, then look no further than Binky7.2, the friendly dalek. This is a dalek who appreciates poetry, who tries to sing in his grating metallic voice and spends the film learning about humour and how to crack wise. This is the dalek the doesn’t buy into the others’ killing and world domination plans and the one who (SPOILER ALERT) ends up saving Doctor Who’s life and joining the Tardis as a companion by the end. Certainly a friendly travelling dalek goes a bit against expectations and makes a nice twist, but let’s be fair, it doesn’t bode well for more serious films ahead.