Dalekmania
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Dalekmania | |
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Directed by | Kevin Davies |
Produced by | John Farbrother |
Edited by | Nick Elborough |
Production company | Amity Productions |
Distributed by | Lumiere Films |
Release date |
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Running time | 57 minutes |
Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
Dalekmania is a 1995 direct-to-video documentary released in the United Kingdom. "Dalekmania" is the name given to the craze or "mania" among children in the United Kingdom in the 1960s for all things associated with writer Terry Nation's creations, the Daleks,[1][2] who were then regularly appearing in the BBC's television drama series Doctor Who.
Production
Borrowing that name, Dalekmania is also a 1995
The documentary Dalekmania starts from the beginning, at least as far as the Dalek movies are concerned, and runs through their history, at the same time interviewing actors like
The actors give interesting personal accounts of the filming of these movies including anecdotes about the tough porters who were brought in from
The documentary also reveals that the men operating the Daleks were supposedly not treated particularly well, as none of the other actors can recall seeing anyone get in or out of a Dalek, or ever actually meeting a Dalek operator. They recall fond memories of working with cast members who have since died, including Peter Cushing and Roy Castle.
Also interviewed in the documentary is script writer and Dalek creator Terry Nation, who shares his thoughts on the differences between Doctor Who on television and the Dalek movies. He also explains the pride he took in his mechanical creations and the lengths he went to over the years to protect their image.
There are also contributions from fans of the films, in the form of Gary Gillatt and Marcus Hearn, editors of magazines concerned with Doctor Who. They attempt to explain the huge impact that the Daleks have had on the public imagination over the years.
The Daleks used during filming were made by London-based model maker Julian Vince, who was also interviewed in the documentary. However, his Daleks were not seen in the final edit due to rights restrictions issues with the BBC (i.e. the fact that the Julian Vince-created props were shown moving and were thus actual Dalek characters, rather than empty props). The sole-remaining Dalek prop in the final edit is a static first movie Red Dalek, seen with Michael Wisher as the cinema commissionaire, and this prop was built by Steve Allen and David Brian.
References
- ^ 1960s Cuttings at CuttingsArchive.org.uk Archived 27 September 2007 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Adverts at CuttingsArchive.org.uk