While the country was in the grip of Dalekmania during the six-week TV run of  'The Dalek Invasion of Earth', film producer Milton Subotsky seized upon the opportunity to buy the rights to make a Doctor Who adventure for the big screen. He cut a deal to make three feature films and aimed to remake the hugely popular Dalek television serials.

Once again Shawcraft was asked to provide the props and they produced a fresh set of moulds. In this third batch of props they opted to reproduce the enlarged fenders that had been used in the most recent television serial, 'The Dalek Invasion of Earth', as well as creating simplified guns and large lights. Perhaps due to the larger budget, they also took the opportunity to reinstate one of Raymond Cusick's original ideas which was to give the Daleks claws, rather than suckers. In addition to the obvious differences, a number of more subtle changes came about, not all of which were deliberate.

First, the most obvious: The hemispheres on the skirt are aligned extremely haphazardly. It is particularly noticeable when seen from behind, the rear-left column corner panel has hemis that are higher than those on the other panels. However this high placement is actually exaggerated due to the extremely low positioning of the column around to the left and in fact, on measurement the deviation is actually worse on side panel, then on the infamous rear hemis - See image below.

It may be no coincidence that almost any shot that might show this error is lit in such a way that the rear of the Daleks are in shadow. Only when the Daleks are seen from the front are they always fully lit and as a result it is surprisingly difficult to find a screen-shot to illustrate this misalignment.

Other differences between film and TV Daleks include the three horizontal rings which surround the "neck" mesh of the Dalek having steeper angles than their TV counterparts. Also the boxes which house the gun/arm joints are not square-shaped as on the TV props, they are trapezoid when viewed from the side. Lastly, the eye-stalks are longer than most TV props, but fractionally shorter than those in 'The Daleks Invasion of Earth' and their eye-rings are also mounted nearer to the middle of the stalk than TV Daleks. There are other minor differences such as the bottom of the eye slot, which is squared off and higher on film Daleks whereas TV props have a rounded slot. The diagram at the top of the page shows some of these differences.

The Daleks were painted to take full advantage of the colour format of the production. As became tradition in television series, a Black Dalek was leader, possessing a sucker-arm, and its neck rings and skirt hemis were painted an alternating gold and silver. The second-in-command was a Red Dalek with gold trim and black hemis, possessing a pincer claw. A further five drones were painted in two-tone blue and gold shoulder-bands, of which two had pincer-claws. Finally one additional blue Dalek was fitted with a flexible short silver arm and blow-torch attachment. This 'welder'-Dalek can be recognised in at least two control room scenes, in addition to its main scene cutting down a door. Below is a typical image from the film showing eight props, including the welder-Dalek just right of centre at the rear of the set, sporting its unusual, stubby silver arm.

Written sources and visual material agree that eight fully-working 'hero' props were created... although there is a scene in the film which causes a moment of doubt. There is one panning shot before the ambush that shows seven blue drones plus the Red Dalek. With the Black Dalek out of shot, this could mean there are actually nine full props... however in reality the extra blue Dalek is an impostor...

In addition to the fully-working props, a set of ten 'extras' were created, bringing the total number of props made for the film to 18. These extras were more roughly made and cast in large chunks instead of having individual components. The extras were used most famously in the chanting scene filling up the rear ranks of the Dalek numbers, but they also crop up in scenes were a Dalek is blown up, and also when one is pushed down an open lift shaft. The extras were relatively sophisticated as 'extras' go, possessing fully-poseable limbs and flashing lights. So sophisticated in fact that they were good enough quality to help carry the burden of promotional appearances.

Rather helpfully, these extras can be distinguishing at a glance because the shoulder collars have their inside edges pointing forwards instead of pointing away from the gun-boxes, giving them a distinctive zig-zag look (right). With careful examination of the collars it is even possible to differentiate the 'fakes' from the real Daleks in the chanting scene, shown below.

There was heavy promotion for this film which utilised all surviving screen props, including the 'extras'. For instance, a few months before the film opened in the UK, the photo below was taken in Cannes, France, in which we can see that they are a collection of the filler props with their distinctive 'zig-zag' appearance collars, not hero props.

It has been occasionally suggested that for promotional work such as this a whole new batch of props was made by Shawcraft which might further confuse the prop history, however evidence such as the picture on the left demonstrates that this was clearly not the case in Cannes. And if they were prepared to ship the originals to the south of France, it seems unlikely they'd build new ones just for UK publicity.

Can we be certain these aren't a duplicate set of props? Well, aside from the fact the other hero props in the same photo sequence have distinctive features which can help them be matched to the props on screen, the most obvious fact is that the blow-torch Dalek was only used in one scene in the film, and it would it have had very limited future use after the promotional work. Until anyone had seen the film its significance would have been meaningless, so there is no logic to building a second oddball. There is no question that this and the others are the film props. It is sad to see the state this blow-torch Dalek is in at Cannes. Its light covers are missing, many of the skirt hemispheres have caved in or dropped out of the body and the fender is very badly scuffed.

One of several Dalek-related promotions was in TV21 comic which offered the chance to win a real Dalek prop to lucky winners. This photo on the left shows the publicity for the launch of the competition taken in July 1965. The Daleks attending are two of the filler props, but it's not known whether the winners might have won one of these or a hero prop.

This photo (right) from the following month shows further exploits of the 'extras' as they continued the promotional campaign. It was taken at Selfridges in August 1965 and despite the missing eye-stalk the prop is in relatively good condition.

Once the film frenzy had passed, the guest appearances did not end there. This photo (left) shows the dutiful red leader hero prop (also with the black leader and other blue prop not pictured) this time opening a Lewis's in Stoke-on-Trent in 1966. By this stage their condition was very much worse for wear and they had already started to exhibit some of the careless refurbishments which would become even more puzzling in the 70s on other film props. Aside from the fact that only two eye-rings remain intact, there is a strange white cone-shaped addition to the end of the eye-ball. Not visible here but on the black Dalek the arm has been replaced with a much thinner rod. And also drilled into the fender are loops for towing the props along. In particular the strange addition to the eye is similar to a series of bizarre modifications to other props which you can read more about on the 'Daleks Invasion Earth 2150AD' page and the 'Planet of the Daleks' page.

This photo on the right from July 1966 does throw up one final riddle. It was taken in New York, outside the Empire State Building to promote the release of 'Dr Who and the Daleks', a year after it had been released in Britain. It shows a red Dalek with plunger (unlike the film prop which had a pincer), new-style lights, relatively little damage, and silver hemispheres (not black as in the film). And so, although there may not have been the suggested big batch of new builds just for promotion, this is certainly strong evidence that at least one new Dalek was built by Shawcraft and sent across the Atlantic to push the film on American audiences.

'Dr Who and the Daleks' was a modest success and Milton Subotsky's plans for a sequel went ahead, but before the big screens would see the Daleks a second time, their appearances would diversify and their exposure would reach saturation point.