I've always been fascinated by the version of the TARDIS as depicted in the two Dalek movies of the 1960s, starring Peter Cushing - Dr Who & the Daleks and Daleks - Invasion Earth 2150 AD.
The TARDIS does not appear for very long in either film, because one has to appreciate that these are not really Doctor Who films. They are Dalek films, and as such they are only a vehicle for the appearance of the Daleks (who in the mid-60s were arguably far more popular than Doctor Who itself). In fact another departure from the TV series is that the ship is referred to as "Tardis" rather than "The" TARDIS in the opening scenes of the first movie. I shall therefore refer to this incarnation as Tardis from now on.
The function of Tardis is little more than that of a Narnian wardrobe - it gets the plot to the Daleks as quick as possible. After that, it has served its function and is sidelined for the remainder of both films. Which is all very well if all you want to see is Daleks. Not so good if you want to study the prop itself!
Dr Who & the Daleks
The first movie gives us very little material to go on. Tardis leaves Earth in what looks like dusk, and arrives on Skaro in a dark and sinister forest. The cast quickly move on to the Dalek city and apart from two brief visits back in the middle of the film and a goodbye scene, we see very little of the prop. The vast majority of shots are close-ups and only show as far up as the windows, and there are no detailed pictures of the lamp and roof. However what we can see in long shots seem to indicate it is the the same prop as used in Daleks - Invasion Earth 2150 AD. The inner doors are blue in this film, whereas they are white in the later one, but that is irrelevent if all you're interested in is the outside. It also becomes plain after close scrutiny of every Tardis shot in the film that we only see a few inches of the prop above the sign-boxes (at the very beginning, in Doctor Who's back garden), and we never see the full box apart from one short long-shot soon after arrival on Skaro. This long-shot is incredibly brief and seems to show Tardis with a lava-lamp on top!
Lamps aside, if you want to match up the colour of the box by the way, don't use these screen-caps as I've increased the brightness to bring out the detail, but a standard dark Royal Blue would seem to be the best bet. The close-up shot of Roy Castle entering Tardis shows the ratio between the panels and the door very well. However, there's something about those doors that doesn't quite match up with what we see later, possibly indicating that these doors are part of the "interior" Tardis set, and not simply the other side of the actual Police Box prop doors.
Daleks - Invasion Earth 2150 AD
Now that's more like it! Due to a requirement for the cast to be stranded in Dalek-invaded London, Tardis is quickly covered in rubble. This allows it to be on-screen for several shots, from several angles (including one from above, rare even in the Television series), giving us a good all-round view of the shape and design of the prop. Before Tardis leaves Earth we get a good look at the steps above the doors, and a nice close-up of the phone sign. At first glance it appears to be a very close match to a proper Met Box, although the windows are much simpler and don't have either frosted glass or that little ledge at the bottom of the frame. However there are quite a few design alterations that make this prop very different from either the BBC version or an original Police Box.
It's Wider
Specifically the doors are wider. The BBC prop was probably designed smaller than a real Police Box in order to fit the claustrophobic confines of the TV studio and the intimacy of the TV screen. For the Dalek movies we're in widescreen so size constraints can be more relaxed. Also, the cast have to be seen to get out of the Police Box as quickly as possible and with the minimum fuss. The same thing can be seen in the new TV series, where we don't want actors having to struggle to get through the doors each time they land in a new location.
However, a close look at the windows and door panels indicates that they still appear to be the same size and shape as those on a Met Box. How can we tell this? Well, we know that this was not a BBC production, so the movie design team would presumably not have had access to the BBC's blueprints for the TV TARDIS. They would most likely have used the original Metropolitan Police plans and modified them in the easiest and quickest way possible. And this appears to be what we see. The proportions of the windows and panels appear much the same as the Met plans, and the ratio between the width of the panels and the diameter of the St John Ambulance sign appears the same. These seem to indicate the panels are indeed the same size. So how can the doors be larger?
Well, there are a few brief shots where the prop (and therefore the doors) are face-on to the camera, and it can be seen that although the panels and windows are the same width as an original Met box, they are further away from the corner posts. This is where the doors have been widened. Rather than the windows and panels being in a line down the centre of the doors, they appear off-set closer towards the centre divider. The corner posts themselves appear to be the same width as a real Police Box, indicating that what we are seeing here is a modification of the original Met plans.
Roof
Next, the roof stacks. Something about these makes Tardis look blockier, chunkier, squarer than an ordinary Police Box. The roof doesn't seem to taper towards the lamp as much. Close inspection shows that although the roof stacks are quite high, each stack is not much more narrower than the one below. The roof also appears to have a much shallower pitch (although this is difficult to see, as the majority of shots of Tardis in the second movie are from approximately head height). This, together with the wideness of the box, adds to that general squareness that is so noticeable.
Base
The base is wider and much less deep than a Met Box, obviously avoiding the cast having to step up and down so far, and also probably reducing the overall weight of the prop.
Sign Box
This is quite a major difference, and yet it isn't immediately obvious. The Sign box is approximately the same height and distance above the windows (with the same three steps below it) as the Met Box, but it appears to be only about 3/4 of the vertical depth of the Met Sign Box. Not only that, but it extends more than 2/3 further over the corner posts (the Met Box only extends halfway). This reduction in depth of the Sign Box serves to shorten the overall height of the box (adding to its squareness) but also draws further attention to the roof stacks, and it's the roof stacks that seem to stand out in this prop. All these alterations produce a TARDIS prop that appears to be the closest to the original Metropolitan Police Box in terms of design, if not in size and shape.
Contemporary Comics
In fact it is interesting that depictions of the TARDIS in comics of the mid to late '60s show a rich dark blue TARDIS, with a large stacked roof, white windows and a St John Ambulance sign. This is even though the Doctor depicted in these comics is Patrick Troughton, whose on-screen TARDIS is by now quite flat-roofed, with dark windows, and no St John sign. I would hazard a guess that comic artists were using the movie TARDIS as their source material rather than what little they could see of the current BBC prop. Of course they could be using pictures of real police boxes, but somehow I think promotional shots from the Dalek movies would be more readily available, especially to artists who didn't live within the London area
The Avengers Cameo
It is not widely known that this prop has actually made three appearances on-screen. During filming for an episode of The New Avengers in 1976 ("Target"), a phone box was scripted to be blown up by a bomb in a child's pram. The prop eventually used had been standing around in the Pinewood prop store for the last decade and was in fact the version built for the two Dalek movies.
http://theavengers.tv/forever/newave-6.htm
Detailed shots of the prop in the Avengers episode are about as rare as those in the first Dalek movie, but at least they confirm the general shape of the box and the differences between it, subsequent BBC props, and original Metropolitan Police Boxes (unfortunately these are the last views anyone will ever have of the box, as it was actually blown up for the episode!).
It isn't on-screen much, other than long-shot, but the bomb close-ups give some idea of corner post detail, and there's a nice one of it next to Patrick MacNee for comparison purposes (according to http://www.how-tall.com Patrick MacNee is 1.83m tall, or 6ft in old money).
Bye Bye Aaru Tardis!
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