Scenes cut from Pertwee Auton eps

[johngrundy]

DWM's 'Missing Doctor Who' special sheds more light on two cut scenes from Spearhead from Space and Terror of the Autons. Though it describes the cut scene from TOTA in detail (what a shame it was let go) it's sadly thin on details for the SFS 'car park attendant' twist in ep 4.

Can anyone tell us a bit more about this scene? What occured? A gun battle with the auton? We see the Doctor and Liz drive past him in the car park - which is all that now remains of that scene.

Also will there ever be ANY chance of the policeman-killing scene from TOTA being found? Or would Barry Letts have wiped it from the tape at the editing stage?

Thanks for any help with my queries.

[Richard Bignell]

I covered all the cut scenes to Spearhead in the production subtitles on the DVD and Blu-ray.

There's not really much to say about the sequence in question other than the scene would have ended with the camera zooming in on the attendant showing him to be an Auton.

The scene in Terror of the Autons would have been lost as soon as the studio recording tapes were released for reuse.

[johngrundy]

Sept 9, 2024 18:25:48 GMT Richard Bignell said:

I covered all the cut scenes to Spearhead in the production subtitles on the DVD and Blu-ray.

There's not really much to say about the sequence in question other than the scene would have ended with the camera zooming in on the attendant showing him to be an Auton.

The scene in Terror of the Autons would have been lost as soon as the studio recording tapes were released for reuse.

Thank you, Richard, I will watch Spearhead again now with the production subs.

Any idea how the Auton reveal would have been shown in the zoom in? Would it have been 'vaseline' or some sort of gloss on the face to give it that plastic look, or an actual Auton mask? Would that cut scene have been with Derrick Sherwin playing the car park attendant?

[Richard Bignell]

Sept 10, 2024 7:23:26 GMT johngrundy said:

Any idea how the Auton reveal would have been shown in the zoom in? Would it have been 'vaseline' or some sort of gloss on the face to give it that plastic look, or an actual Auton mask?

You don't get that sort of detail in how film sequences are written up into scripts. However, looking at the footage of the cars leaving, it seems clear that it would have been the oiled-face as per Scobie rather than an Auton mask.

Would that cut scene have been with Derrick Sherwin playing the car park attendant?

Yes. All those sequences would have been shot at the same time.

[sonnybh]

The secretary at the factory also had made up face, which Terrence Dicks described as "Doll Like Prettiness" in the novel.

[johngrundy]

Sept 10, 2024 20:29:38 GMT sonnybh said:

The secretary at the factory also had made up face, which Terrence Dicks described as "Doll Like Prettiness" in the novel.

The novel expands on the Auton invasion greatly - with MPs as Autons! 

One mystery about the novel is that the UNIT land rover doesn't crash, instead the driver gets out to confront an Auton 'hiker' - only to be chopped down! Now, if Terrance Dicks worked from the script, was this hiker scene in the script originally? Was the land rover crash added before location filming? If not why did Terrance Dicks change this scene? Does the script still survive so we can know for certain? I've never seen Spearhead from Space published as a script book.  

[Richard Bignell]

Sept 11, 2024 7:19:21 GMT johngrundy said:

One mystery about the novel is that the UNIT land rover doesn't crash, instead the driver gets out to confront an Auton 'hiker' - only to be chopped down! Now, if Terrance Dicks worked from the script, was this hiker scene in the script originally? Was the land rover crash added before location filming? If not why did Terrance Dicks change this scene? Does the script still survive so we can know for certain? I've never seen Spearhead from Space published as a script book.  

What you see on television is what was scripted.

Writers of the early novelisations would often change things to make a more exciting book to read. As far as they were concerned, the stories would never be rebroadcast and they were free to tweak the stories in whatever way they wished if it made for better storytelling.

[Richard Develyn]

In The Day of the Daleks, in the novelisation, the Doctor and Jo meet themselves both at the beginning and at the end of the story (i.e. they see both points of view). In the broadcast, however, it only happens at the beginning. Was the end bit in the script? Was it filmed and cut out? I read it before I saw it and I was disappointed it wasn't there.

Richard

[Richard Bignell]

Sept 16, 2024 9:03:09 GMT Richard Develyn said:

In The Day of the Daleks, in the novelisation, the Doctor and Jo meet themselves both at the beginning and at the end of the story (i.e. they see both points of view). In the broadcast, however, it only happens at the beginning. Was the end bit in the script? Was it filmed and cut out? I read it before I saw it and I was disappointed it wasn't there.

Yes, the 5-6 page concluding scene is in the script and it was recorded. It was probably chopped for nothing more than timing reasons as it would have taken the episode a good couple of minutes over the accepted length.

[John Wall]

Sept 16, 2024 9:24:13 GMT Richard Bignell said:

Sept 16, 2024 9:03:09 GMT Richard Develyn said:

In The Day of the Daleks, in the novelisation, the Doctor and Jo meet themselves both at the beginning and at the end of the story (i.e. they see both points of view). In the broadcast, however, it only happens at the beginning. Was the end bit in the script? Was it filmed and cut out? I read it before I saw it and I was disappointed it wasn't there.

Yes, the 5-6 page concluding scene is in the script and was recorded. It was probably chopped for nothing more than timing reasons as it would have taken the episode a good couple of minutes over the accepted length.

Nowadays we’d have a “directors cut”.

[tom rogers]

Sept 16, 2024 9:03:09 GMT Richard Develyn said:

In The Day of the Daleks, in the novelisation, the Doctor and Jo meet themselves both at the beginning and at the end of the story (i.e. they see both points of view). In the broadcast, however, it only happens at the beginning. Was the end bit in the script? Was it filmed and cut out? I read it before I saw it and I was disappointed it wasn't there.

Richard

That was my experience but in reverse. When I read the novelisation I thought it a shame that the meeting a the end wasn’t filmed!