Dispatches From TV Land - "Doctor Who: Spearhead From Space"

Greetings, students, and welcome to the John Maxwell Film School.  Class is in session, so let's get to it.  As you can see, it's time for "Dispatches From TV Land", where we take a look at the things from television that aren't sitcoms.  This week, on "Dispatches From TV Land", we make our way back to 1970, the furthest we've been so far at the Film School, to see how a Doctor gets his start.  Yes, it's a look at probably the most-famous sci-fi show in the world (next to "Star Trek").  It's "Doctor Who" and the debut story of my favorite Doctor in the series' run, Jon Pertwee.  Why is he my favorite? 

 

First, a little reason behind this.  Last weekend, the BBC made a grand gesture and put on a internationally-televised show to reveal the name of the twelfth person to play the Doctor.  It was Peter Capaldi, a man who once was in a punk band with Craig Ferguson.  It was nice to finally see a old face running the TARDIS after all the years of young bucks.  Hard to believe that back when Jon Pertwee got announced, all he got was his face on the six o'clock news.  Seeing how the world is still got that new Doctor glow, I thought it would be nice to see how the show was a long time ago.

 

January 4, 1970: the show has been off the air for six months since Patrick Troughton had finished his time as the Doctor in the last episode of "The War Games".  Excitement had been building for Pertwee over that time frame.  Then, as the opening titles roll, some people notice a change.  The show is now in color and suddenly, it has entered a new era.  Indeed, the Doctor had been exiled by his people the Time Lords and the TARDIS rendered non-functional.  He was now trapped on a world with a new face and new enemies.  However, our story doesn't start with where we left off.  Where do we?  Follow me and find out where Jon Pertwee's era begins.

 

The story opens with a swarm of meteorites entering Earth's atmosphere, coming down over a specific area of Britain.  This gets the notice of the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce, or UNIT.  In the midst of the swarm, the TARDIS materializes in the middle of the forest.  Out steps the Doctor, fresh from his forced regeneration...  and down he goes into the grass.  Boy, being suddenly turned into a different person can take a lot out of you.  Back with UNIT, we meet Dr. Elizabeth Shaw, of Cambridge, who is being hired by UNIT as a scientific advisor.  As she arrives at UNIT HQ, she meets with a familiar face: Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, formerly of the British Army.

Naturally, he tells Dr. Shaw, or Liz, as we all know her as, about the recent influx of alien invaders and how UNIT was formed to fight them.  Of course, she doesn't believe it at first and needs some proof, which the Brigadier has in his desk.  However, the meeting is interrupted by the news of the discovery of the TARDIS by meteorite-seeking troops.  Quickly, the Brigadier and Liz head off to a country hospital, where the press is there after a attention-seeking janitor alerted them to the strange goings-on.  This being the fact that their new patient has two hearts and blood that isn't human in the least.  It's as if he wasn't from here...  Maybe call in an expert on these things... he's already here.

The Brigadier and Liz breeze pass the press and into the room where our new Doctor is being kept.  Of course, the Brigadier knows the Doctor.  He looks like Patrick Trou...  Oh, wait, this man doesn't like that in the least.  The Doctor knows who he is and tells the Brigadier that.  He also gets a good look at his new face with help from Liz's compact.  Biggest complain?  The nose is too big.  Back to the story, it turns out there's a strange man among the reporters, who don't get their big scoop.  Back with the Doctor, he searches for his shoes and finds them... just to get the TARDIS key in them.  However, before he can enjoy his key, two men come in and kidnap him.  I know UNIT likes him but this is too far.

Of course, it's not UNIT but as they try to load the Doctor into a van, he makes his escape by wheelchair.  Fact: Pertwee did the stunt himself.  His escape leads him, after ditching the wheelchair, back to the TARDIS.  Part One ends as the Doctor gets close but is shot by a trigger-happy UNIT soldier.  Part Two starts with the news that the bullet only grazed him but he's put himself in a self-induced coma.  I don't blame him, he's had a rough day.  Back at UNIT HQ, Liz has been given a lab space and pieces of one of those meteorites that fell to Earth.  Meanwhile, we cut to a plastics factory, where we see dolls of all sorts being made.  Eventually, we see a secretary leading a man to the offices of the boss man.

It turns out that this man, named Ransom, has been getting a lot of help from the company in producing a doll for the American market... only to be fired without a reason, just a notice.  Naturally, he wants to know why.  The boss gives some silly excuse and Ransom is shown out, with him wondering what happened to his office space, now termed off-limits.  Back with the Doctor, he's had enough of the hospital and he makes another escape.  Here, he does something he'll do again: borrowing some clothes from the hospital.  He even takes the car belonging to a bigwig doctor and off to the TARDIS he goes.  It turns out the TARDIS has been moved into Liz's lab space.

The Doctor, with the help of his TARDIS-locator watch, finds his way to UNIT HQ.  He meets up with the Brigadier and meets Liz for the first time.  He, right away, inserts himself into the meteorite investigation.  He informs them that the pieces infer that the meteorites were hollow and that what was inside was taken somewhere.  Cut to the plastics factory, where Ransom breaks into his old office space.  There, he see mannequins on display and some large thing in the middle of the room.  Before he can really see what it is, one of the mannequins comes to life and springs on him the end of Part Two.  Part Three starts with Ransom escaping death.  We then learn that the strange man and the boss are in league together and learn Ransom was there.

Back with the Doctor, he and Liz are running test after test and getting nowhere.  After complaining that the latest in Earth tech is no good, he says he has a piece of tech that might help in the TARDIS.  However, the Brigadier has the key, so Liz decides to get the key when the Brigadier is interviewing Ransom about what he saw.  However, it turns out that the Doctor played a trick, as he tries to leave once inside the TARDIS.  He then learns that when the Time Lords ground you, they mean it.  Unable to leave, he goes back to the testing.  The Brigadier then decides to involve the Doctor and Liz as they visit the plastics factory.  Naturally, the company denies anything Ransom says but the Doctor thinks that what he said was the truth.

Meanwhile, the plastic factory is busy producing a new kind of mannequin: life-sized versions of real people.  One of the people chosen is General Scobie, the Brigadier's superior and connection to the Army.  In the midst of all this, we have seen scenes of a commoner hiding one of the meteorites in a trunk as one of the moving mannequins, called Autons, tries to locate it.  The commoner decides to tell UNIT about it, in the hopes of reward money.  They go to his house, where the Auton has arrived.  After a fight which shows UNIT is unable to kill a non-living thing, the Auton retreats.  The meteorite is taken back to UNIT HQ, where tests by the Doctor and Liz show it to have part of a life-form inside.  I was hoping for a chocolate center.

In quick order, the Auton makes its way to a UNIT tent and dispatches Ransom and heads off to... somewhere.  With this turn of events, the Brigadier decides to ask Scobie for some troops to guard the plastics factory.  However, before the order is made, an Auton replica of Scobie arrives at the real one's place to end Part Three.  Part Four has the Doctor and Liz decide that it's time to come up with a defense to the Autons.  Their work includes a visit to Madame Tussuad's, where they come across the real Scobie, subbing for his Auton replica.  They also meet up with Ransom's boss when he and the strange man come to collect the other Autons in the place.  They tell him that he needs to overcome the Autons' mind-control over him.

Back at HQ, our duo work the rest of the night on a weapon against the Autons.  However, as the sun rises, mannequins come to life in store windows in one of the show's most famous scenes.  Autons then starts blowing people away without care.  The country is under attack and UNIT is quick to move.  However, Auton Scobie won't hand over any troops.  Indeed, as the Brigadier, the Doctor, Liz, and a select group of soldiers descend on the factory, Auton Scobie tries to stop them.  Meanwhile, he has taken the remaining meteorite from HQ and taken it to the factor, where whatever's inside it join its friends in the giant box.

The Doctor, outside, tries his new weapon on Auton Scobie and it works.  The assembled groups of soldiers then must fight off Autons.  Of course, it's like shooting air but they give it a try anyway.  Meanwhile, the Doctor and Liz make their way into the Autons' own HQ.  There, they meet the strange man, who has done away with Ransom's boss.  He reveals that the box contains the Nestene, a living consciousness who like to take over worlds.  Not wanting to let them add Earth to their collection, the Doctor gives a good fight while he tries to activate his weapon.  Finally, he does, the Nestene dies, the Autons follow, and the Doctor decides to join UNIT as their scientific advisor... I hope he told Liz about that.

This story began the seventh year of the show's life.  Over the last six years, the show had gone through tons of story and two lead actors.  With this opening story, the tone changed from the days of old to a new start.  A few things about this story.  Until the series was revived in 2005, this was the only story to be done totally on film.  The reason was that there was a techicians' strike and the decision was made to take the production elsewhere in the meantime.  To me, that give it a movie-like quality.  I'm surprised that the BBC didn't edit the four parts together and release it as a film.  That's also one reason I love this story.  It looks nothing like "Doctor Who" of the time.

The Autons are a superb villain, in the level of modern-day foes.  The scene where the mannequins come to life and have a rampage is forever etched into the minds of British television viewers.  If you want the moment "Doctor Who" evolved past being a kid's show, it's that moment.  The Autons and the Nestene were so good that Russell T. Davies used them in the first episode of the revived series back in 2005.  Out of all the foes the Doctor encountered in his first 26 years, those were the one chosen to begin his new adventures in the 21st century.  Hopefully, Moffat might catch the hint and bring them back as Capaldi's first foes.  If they were good enough for Eccleston, they're good enough for an ex-punk rocker Scotsman.

Jon Pertwee adds his own spin on the Doctor right off, by taking an outfit from the hospital that Matt Smith would be jealous of.  The ruffled tie, the starched shirt, the cape, the whole thing shows that this Doctor has one heck of a fashion sense.  At the same time, he has a love of gadgets and science.  Most importantly to me, he will fight.  He's not afraid to get down and dirty to save the day.  The very fact that Pertwee was up to doing his own stunts shows that this choice was not the producers' and by the end of his first year, they managed to talk him into getting a stunt double so their star wouldn't break a bone.  He's my favorite Doctor because he has all the elements I want in a hero: great fashion, love of gadgets, cool car, and a smart sidekick.

Speaking of which, Liz Shaw is my favorite companion, even though she never traveled in the TARDIS.  Unlike most female companions, she has a brain.  The way she instantly warms up to the Doctor shows she sees his intellect and would side with him instead of the military thugs she was hired by.  Over the four stories she was part of, she see her earn a place by the Doctor's side.  However, the producers felt that the Doctor didn't need a smart sidekick and replace her the next year.  In this story, she shows her stuff, brain combined with beauty.  The attempts they made to make her look like the average companion in the later stories would fall flat.  Do me a favor, Moffat, and give me a scientist for the Doctor.

This very season gives me my two favorite "Doctor Who" stories, this one and "Inferno".  They serve as bookends to the season.  It's nice to see the Doctor paired with someone who isn't a frighten mouse or bone-breaking lion.  She has her fun at the Doctor and his gadgets and he has his fun at taking it in stride.  Jon Pertwee and Caroline John make quite a team and it's a shame that wasn't carried over into the next season.  Don't get me wrong, I haven't watched much of Pertwee with Katy Manning or Elisabeth Sladen, so my opinion might change.  In the meantime, I will take Liz Shaw over the others any day.  The 25 episodes she was in mark the first year the show was taken seriously by people and the starting point for the modern success the show has had.

In conclusion, this story I would show to anyone wanting to watch classic "Who".  If you're a fan of the current show and want to see the original, this is a good place to start.  It has all the marks of Moffat and the man himself has been unabashed in his love for the story.  Every time I watch, I love it ever more and I lament at an opportunity lost, to keep making the show on film out of the studio.  It's how the show is made now and seeing this in 1970 makes me wish other stories were made in this fashion.  Now, over the next two weeks, I'll be posting installments of "Movies I Haven't Seen"  Now, what do you get when you put Burt Reynolds and Jerry Reed in a film that doesn't have the word "smokey" in the title?  Next week, music takes the stage here as we play host to "W.W. and the Dixie Dancekings".


Until then, this is John Maxwell, saying CLASS DISMISSED!!!!!!


 

Animators' Alley - The Rescuers

Greetings, students, and welcome to the John Maxwell Film School.  Class is in session, so let's get to it!  The types of movies I reviewed vary in genre and content.  They, however, have one thing in common: they are live-action.  Live-action is basically a movie made with flesh and blood people.  This week, however, we take a dive into the world of animation.  Now, I consider myself a part-time animation historian for I love anything to do with it.  I collect cartoons like no one's business.  Of course, the mainstay of animation is Disney.  So, we take a look inside the world of Disney as I look at probably my favorite of their films.

 

First, a little background.  In 1966, Walt Disney died.  What a note to start on.  Anyway, after Walt's death, the studio named for him struggled.  While a run of low-budget live-action comedies and their prime time TV series kept the studio afloat through the late 1960s and 1970s, the animation was a different story.  The first two films after Walt's demise, 1967's "The Jungle Book" and 1970's "The Aristocats", were somewhat successful.  It was 1973's "Robin Hood" that showed the studio's troubles, with constant reuse of animation from earlier films.  The next film down the pipe would change the game.  That film was 1977's "The Rescuers"

 

As always, we begin our look with a summary.  For those who want to know, I'm doing this mostly from memory, I've watched it so many times.  Anyway, the film begins with a little girl, who we later learn is named Penny, throwing a message in a bottle from the deck of a old decaying Mississippi River steamboat.  The bottle takes a journey through opening credits, finally winding up in New York City, where it is found by a mouse.  Cut to... the United Nations.  Here, we see ambassadors from many nations doing whatever job the theory nuts think they're doing at the moment.  We then see mouse versions of them emerge from their luggage and make their way to the dark depths of the place.

 

An old steamer trunk is where the mice go.  It turns out that the trunk is actually the headquarters of the Rescue Aid Society, founded two thousand years ago by Euripides Mouse.  Apparently pulling a thorn from a lion's paw will lead to a international organization that survives all the ups and downs of human history.  Anyway, we meet here the two main leads of our story.  As the society members enter, they pass the HQ's janitor Bernard, voiced by Bob Newhart.  As the meeting begins with a song, we meet the female lead Miss Bianca, voiced by Eva "Get me off this farm, Oliver" Gabor.  Appropriately, she is the Society representative from Hungary.  Typecasting, anyone?  No, then on with the story.

 

The purpose of the meeting is the bottle.  With Bernard's help, they manage to remove the message from it.  The message is to Morningside Orphanage, New York.  The message tells that she wants to be rescued from her current situation in the bayou.  Curious about Penny's plea, Miss Bianca decides to mount a rescue.  When told to choose a partner, she chooses Bernard.  You see, she caught him singing the Society's song when she arrives, revealing that he wants to be part of the organization.  However, he objects, stating that he isn't actually up to it.  Miss Blanca convinces him otherwise.  This is Bob Newhart, the man who once dreamed an entire series, so I think he's up to the task at hand.  Then again, I could be wrong.

The trip to the orphanage begins with a bus ride and a walk through a zoo.  Naturally, knowing what certain animals eat, Bernard would like a new route.  Miss Bianca stirs him into the zoo.  However, his false bravery leads them into the dark depths of the zoo, where he tries to see what's around.  One growl and off they go!  Eventually, they go with Bernard's original route.  If I was a mouse, I'd take it, too.  At the orphanage, they find a box with Penny's things, with a notice on it saying "Hold until further notice".  They also find a cat, an old one.  The old cat is a nice character, worried that a pair of mice will result in job loss.  He does manage to talk about Penny and where she went.  He remembers that a weird lady tried to pick up Penny one day.

This piece of information leads our heroes to a pawn shop owned by a lady named Madam Medusa.  There, they find a first grader reader in Penny's name.  Speaking of Bob Newhart, they catch sight of Medusa herself.  Her appearance is Carol Kester, plus twenty-five years.  Medusa receives a phone call from her friend Snoops, telling her he has found a diamond.  However, his demand for more time is met with her saying she'll get down to where he is.  After a bit of fun with a suitcase and reckless driving, the two decide to follow her.  Their search for transportation leads them to a rooftop heliport.  Here, they find Orville the albatross, a clumsy bird who is their only means of getting to their destination, Devils Bayou.

Down in the bayou, as the song once went, we see Penny once again attempting escape.  Her disappearance does not go unnoticed.  Here, we meet Snoops.  My research on this film tells me that his design was based on a noisy art historian and he looks it.  Medusa is quick to organize a search, complete with fireworks to light up the place.  These fireworks end our heroes' flight with a spin dive and a near crash landing.  At this point, we meet the Devils Bayou chapter of the Rescue Aid Society.  They are provided with a dragonfly-powered leaf boat.  To make it clear his task, the dragonfly is named Evinrude.  Evinrude, powering leaves for many years.  Alas, Penny's escape ends in failure. 

Here, we learn of Medusa's evil plan.  You see, she's after a diamond called the Devil's Eye.  Its apparent location is in a cavern that fills up with water.  Snoops has been trying to use Penny to retrieve it.  However, he removes her from the cavern before the water gets too high.  Medusa's answer to this problem: simply leave her down there until the diamond is out.  Tell me that doesn't give you nightmares.  Meanwhile, our heroes deal with Medusa's two pets, gators named Brutus and Nero.  The two end up getting discovered.  However, they manage to evade capture and digestion.  Our heroes wonder how they can rescue Penny from certain death.  They decide to present themselves to the victim in question.

Sure enough, Bernard and Miss Bianca reveal themselves to Penny and tell her that she will be rescued.  However, Penny points out the odds of two mice rescuing her with two alligators guarding the way out.  The three of them discuss a escape plan.  The planning discussion is a nice scene, pointing out the pros and cons of each idea.  Eventually, they decide that it's time to involve the swamp dwellers, so they send out Evinrude to tell them.  However, a bat waylays him and the plan is stalled until they show up.  The dwellers, meanwhile, decide to wait for a signal.  In the meantime, the sun rises and back down the hole into the cavern.  The task is clear: get that diamond and no retrieval until the diamond is out of the hole. 

To add an incentive, Medusa decides to take Penny's teddy bear and hold it until she's done her job.  The heroes have joined Penny in her task.  They see that it's a pirate's cave and that the Devil's Eye might be on the other side of a large hole that leads the water in.  Naturally, the two mice are sent across.  The mice manage to discover the Devil's Eye in a skull.  Penny relays this discovery as the two mice try to remove the diamond from its holding.  However, the water starts filling the cavern.  Penny's pleas to be removed from the cavern are turned down.  With water slowly filling the cavern, the three of them work to remove the diamond.  Eventually, the diamond is retrieved and, after a brief moment of peril, Penny is pulled to the surface.

Of course, with the diamond in her hand, her true nature starts shining through.  She refuses Snoops' idea to cut it up as he was promised part of it.  Meanwhile, Evinrude attempts a flight from the bats and manages to arrive at where the dwellers are waiting.  With a gasping breath and some moonshine, he gives the signal... CHARGE!  The dwellers make their way to the riverboat with no time to waste.  Back at said boat, Medusa lines Snoops and Penny against a wall, promising death if they try to follow her.  She has placed the diamond in the teddy bear, so when the dwellers attack, she loses it to the bear's owner.  Meanwhile, the plan is put into motion and Penny finally makes her escape with the help of the dwellers.

In the aftermath, Medusa is defeated, the riverboat destroyed, Penny free at last, and the Devil's Eye in safe hands.  In an added bonus, the gators have turned on their master.  In the end, Penny is finally adopted, the Devil's Eye goes to the Smithsonian, and the Rescue Aid Society receives its first credit in human history.  Evinrude, however, brings another letter, and the cycle starts again.  The end.  So, what have we learned from this classic film from thirty five years ago?  To me, it's a prime example of a kind of story Disney should tell more often.  It's not a musical and it's not a fairy tale.  Does that mean it's better or worse?  Let us look at some elements and see how they add up against other films.

The movie, like many other animated films, was based on a book.  In this case, a series of books from writer Margery Sharp.  However, if you think that this is based on one of those books, you're wrong.  The movie is rather a hodge-podge of elements from the books, specifically the first two books.  To me, that doesn't subject from the story being told here.  It's just the minds behind the film wanted to tell an original story, instead of adapting one from the books.  With some films based on books, this is a plus, others a minus.  I feel that this is a plus, for it gets to stand on its own instead of being available for comparison to something else.  In this regard, being a fan of the books is second to being a fan of the story.

The major thing for me here, the reason I love this film, is the villain.  Madam Medusa doesn't rank high on most people's list of Disney villains.  However, she deserves a spot.  She is truly an evil mind.  Nothing will get between her and the diamond.  The key piece of evidence is the scene near the end where each are lined up against the wall.  She tells them that if they try to follow her, it's death.  Let me remind you that one of these people IS A LITTLE CHILD!  The fact that Medusa is carrying her teddy bear leaves us with one thought: that death awaits Penny.  The idea that killing a little girl would be bad never crosses her mind.  Luckily, the intervention of the dwellers and our heroes stops this.  So, before you list Disney villains, remember Medusa.

Another element is the music.  As I said, this is not a musical, like most Disney animated films.  There "are" songs.  They are part of the soundtrack, not the scene.  Truly some good mid-1970s soft pop in here.  The opening credits have a song, so does our heroes' flight to the bayou, and even a song for when Penny is feeling truly alone.  This separates the film from the dozens of Disney musicals by being just a film with a story, not a film with music that happens to have a story.  The incidental score is also good.  Some good cues are when Orville takes off and lands.  That is accompanied with "The Air Force Song".  This actually helps the comedy, as our flyer is in no shape to fly in the wild blue yonder, let alone serve our country.

Speaking of comedy, in the 1960s and 70s, Disney had something called the gimmick comedy.  These were live-action films featuring well-known television stars made for a low budget that were based on a gimmick.  A classic example is "The Shaggy Dog".  Here, I think Disney has made an animated gimmick comedy.  The gimmick here is that a pair of rescuers set to rescue a little girl happen to be mice and that they belong to an international organization going back to Ancient Greece (a look at their banner reveals a founding date of 408 B.C.).  Think about it, you have people like Bob Newhart, Eva Gabor, Bernard Fox, George Lindsey...  the list goes on.  We will feature some other gimmick comedies here.

One final element is the talent used to create this.  Now, for those of you who think Walt himself had nothing to do with it, think again.  It was Walt who bought the rights to adapt Sharp's book back in 1959 and had actually came up with the original story idea.  Also, this was "the" transition film for Disney.  It had the old talent and the new talent that would lead Disney to its second golden age in the 1980s.  The quality of animation wasn't bad, either.  I have an HD screen, and the film holds up, even in 1080p.  This film puts paid to the myth that 1970s Disney was bad.  True, the previous film reused animation to the point of why bother drawing new poses.  Here, that's not the case.  A high-quality film, for sure.

Now, let's add up these elements, and what do we get?  A true classic.  With the film now thirty five years old and counting, it hasn't lost its shine, much like the Devil's Eye.  It's easy to forget it in the sea of Disney musicals past and present.  However, this film deserves a place alongside "Snow White" and "Aladdin".  After all, it was the only Disney film to have a sequel that went to theaters, not shelves.  Before I tell you next week's selection, let me congratulate Peter Capaldi on becoming the Twelfth Doctor.  So, in honor of the event, we will look at a Doctor's debut story.  Next week at the Film School, a TARDIS will materialize in the classroom and out will fall Jon Pertwee as we look at his debut story as my favorite Doctor, "Spearhead from Space" 


Until then, this is John Maxwell, saying CLASS DISMISSED!