Hugh Burden | Through the Shattered Lens

Two meteorite showers have fallen in rural England and a poacher has come across a strange plastic polyhedron at one of the sites. Brigadier General Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart (Nicholas Courtney), the head of the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce (UNIT), fears it could be the start of another alien invasion. He explains to UNIT’s skeptical scientific advisor, Dr. Liz Shaw (Caroline John), that UNIT was specifically created to protect the Earth from such invasions.

Meanwhile, a bushy-haired man has collapsed in front of an old-fashioned blue police call box. He’s been taken to a hospital, where the doctors are confounded by the fact that he appears to have two hearts. The Brigadier, hearing the news, is convinced that the man is his old friend the Doctor and heads to the hospital.

The Brigadier is right. The man (Jon Pertwee) is the Doctor but, as a result of being found guilty of stealing a TARDIS and breaking the Time Lord code of non-interference, the Doctor now looks and sounds completely different. While the Doctor works to convince the Brigadier that he is who he says he is, a tentacled alien known as the Nestene is using the Autons, a race of plastic humanoids, to do its deadly bidding.

I’ve always really liked Jon Pertwee’s interpretation of the Doctor and the reasons why are to be found in his very first adventure. While Pertwee’s Doctor was just as intelligent and egocentric as the two Doctors who came before him, he was also a man (or an alien, I guess) of action. Rather than just stay cooped up in that hospital room, the Third Doctor is constantly trying to escape. When the Autons show up and try to abduct him, the Third Doctor doesn’t go without a struggle. Unlike the first two Doctors, this Doctor has no problem commandeering a car and then demanding one just like it in return for working with UNIT. Pertwee combined intelligence with action and humor and that brought a unique feel to his five years in the role. I’ve often seen Pertwee’s Doctor compared to James Bond. I think a better comparison would be to Patrick McNee’s John Steed from The Avengers. The Third Doctor was an intelligent, erudite gentleman who dressed well and knew how to throw a punch.

The majority of the Third Doctor’s adventure would involve UNIT in some way. Exiled to Earth and with a locked-down TARDIS, the Third Doctor was the most Earth-bound of the Doctors but, as shown in Spearhead From Space, that worked well for Pertwee’s interpretation of the character. Pertwee and Nicholas Courtney were a good team and, for Pertwee’s first season, Liz Shaw was a companion who was actually the Doctor’s equal. (I had a huge crush on Caroline John when her episodes were first broadcast on PBS.) The first Auton Invasion showed why UNIT was so necessary and also why it needed the services of the Doctor.

The Autons have a reputation for being the scariest of Doctor Who’s monsters. They definitely were creepy, with their expressionless, plastic faces. Imagine mannequins that can walk and who will also shoot you on a whim and you have an idea of why the Autons inspired many bad dreams in 1970. (Like the Cyberman in Tomb of the Cybermen, the Autons were soon at the heart of a debate about whether or not Doctor Who was too scary for children.) The Autons are certainly more scary than the Nestene, which was quite obviously a puppet and not very well-put together one at that.

Spearhead from Space was a wonderful introduction to Jon Pertwee’s Doctor and it remains a classic of the original series. The first serial to be broadcast in color, it not only allows us to get to know the Third Doctor but it also introduces a classic new threat. As this story ends, the Doctor is settling to his new role as an advisor to UNIT. Waiting in the future are many more adventures and the Master.

The 26th film in Mill Creek’s Fabulous Forties box set was the 1944 British film, The Way Ahead (or, as it was retitled when it was released in America, The Immortal Battalion).

Directed by Carol Reed (who was five years away from directing the great The Third Man), The Way Ahead is a British propaganda film that was made to boost the morale of both a weary British public and the army during the final days of World War II. Usually, when we call something propaganda, it’s meant as a term of disparagement but The Way Ahead is propaganda in the best possible way.

The film follows a group of British soldiers, from the moment that they are conscripted through their training to their first battle. (In many ways, it’s like a more refined — which is another way of saying “more British” — version of Gung Ho!) As usually happens in films like this, the newly conscripted soldiers come from all sections of society. Some of them are poor. Some of them are rich. Some of them are married. Some of them are single. In fact, when the film first begins, the only thing that they all have in common is that they don’t want to be in the army.

As they begin their training, they resent their tough sergeant, Fletcher (William Hartnell), and are upset that Lt. Jim Perry (David Niven, giving a very likable performance) always seems to take Fletcher’s side in any dispute. However, as time passes by, the soldiers start to realize that Fletcher is looking out for them and molding them into a cohesive unit. Under his training, they go from being a group of disorganized and somewhat resentful individuals to being a tough and well-organized battalion.

Though they’re originally skeptical that they’ll ever see combat, the battalion is eventually sent to North Africa. However, their ship is torpedoed and, in a scene that remains genuinely impressive even when viewed today, the men are forced to abandon ship while explosions and flames light up the night sky. By the time that they do finally reach North Africa, they are more than ready to fight…

The Way Ahead plays out in a semi-documentary fashion (it even features a narrator who, at the end of the film, exhorts the audience to stay firm in their commitment) and it’s a fairly predictable film. If you’ve ever seen a war film, you’ll probably be able to predict everything that happens in The Way Ahead. That said, The Way Ahead is a remarkable well-made and well-acted film. The cast is well-selected (and features a lot of familiar British characters actors, some making their film debut) and David Niven is the perfect choice for the mild-mannered but firm Lt. Perry. Even though I’m not a huge fan of war films in general, I was still impressed with The Way Ahead.

And you can watch it below!