The Making of The Massacre
By Dean Rose

From the onset our goal for this reconstruction was to have the correct likeness of the actors for each role. Massacre boasts a relatively large and full cast for which there were no photos at all for many of the main characters, and just one or two for others. For some time I had been researching into the film and TV credits of each cast member and had managed to obtain a few references. As some of our other reconstructions were completed, it looked increasing likely that we would want to start on Massacre. So I therefore stepped up my efforts and ordered many different films from libraries and video stores in an attempt to locate the correct likeness of the actors in the original production. This proved to be quite an extensive search and finding all the cast members took the best part of two years on and off.

John Tillinger, who played Simon Duval, was by far the most difficult to track down any suitable material for. His filmography is fairly limited and to make matters worse very few of his films have made it onto video. Even more annoying was that the only tapes available had to be ordered from specialist video dealers in America. This made finding a likeness for the actor both time consuming and expensive. He had appeared in Diary of a Mad Housewife (1970), which was made only four years after The Massacre. Unfortunately he only has a few lines in one of the scenes and the quality was not really good enough to use in the recon. Further John Tillinger videos were ordered from America; A Little Sex (1982) and Lovesick (1983) but unfortunately these both showed a bearded and much older looking Tillinger once again only featuring in single scenes. It was becoming increasingly frustrating to find a good likeness of 'one scene Tillinger'. Finally a film called Resurrection (1980) was located from a hire shop which showed 'one scene Tillinger' looking fairly youthful. Unfortunately there were no close up shots of him and he actually only appears on screen for a few seconds but in this brief scene he manages a few facial expressions. Although not ideal this now seemed the best bet and at least we now had a suitable and useable likeness of him.

Eric Thompson (father of Oscar winner Emma) who played Gaston Leran, was another very difficult actor to find a likeness of. What made this particularly difficult was that he could be seen in two of the authentic photos. In some ways minimal authentic material can be more trouble that it's worth as ideally we now required a bearded Eric Thompson and also had to try and keep him in the correct costume throughout the recon. Thompson also had a very limited filmography and to make matters worse none of his films are available from libraries or to buy from video dealers. I managed to track down a copy of One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (1970), starring Tom Courtenay, from a video hire shop in America and Rick helped out with obtaining a copy of the tape. This is certainly one of the most depressing films I have ever seen and is apparently a very accurate representation about life in a Soviet prison. The good news was that Thompson featured in several scenes and had a beard. The bad news was that as he was a prisoner his head was shaved and he was dirty for most of the film. With this film on standby I found I was scouring the TV listings each week on the off chance that one of his films would be shown. As luck would have it soon afterwards satellite channel TCM screened Private Potter (1962) also starring Tom Courtenay, in which Eric Thompson appears in one of the main roles. A cleaner and more youthful looking (but clean shaven) Thompson seemed more appropriate for use in composite photos. Luckily there was an abundance of expressions, which we could utilise. Still regularly scouring the TV listings soon afterwards I spotted that BBC1 was screening the Michael Crawford comedy The Jokers (1966). This was the most contemporary film to The Massacre being made the same year in fact. Thompson appears as a customs official in only one scene. Although not very useful for the recon it was reassuring to know that his appearance in this film was consistent with that in Private Potter. A little work in Photoshop provided Mr Thompson with the correct costume and a fake beard.

Annette Robertson, who played Anne Chaplette, is often incorrectly credited as Annette Robinson. A quick search of the filmography for Annette Robinson (alias Annette Haven) revealed an extensive film career most notably in the adult film industry. Looking forward to researching material for her I was soon disappointed to discover that this was the wrong actress as she would have been about 12 years old at the time Massacre was filmed. Switching to the surname to Robertson, a more appropriate and promising film career was found. Once again the availability of videos that feature her was becoming a problem. I managed to track down a copy of a Kind of Loving (1962), which has Robertson in a couple of scenes but unfortunately wearing a very prominent and fashionable (for 1962) hair-band. It looked for a while that this was going to be the best we could manage until some months later I rechecked her internet filmography to find that additions had been made to it which included the popular (and readily available) Cliff Richard musical The Young Ones (1961). Once I'd bought the tape I was delighted to see Annette Robertson's name featured amongst the opening credits so immediately I knew that she had quite a major role. She actually features as one of 'the young ones' and is one of Cliff Richard's 'gang'. Luckily she features throughout the film with a variety of hairdos but there was more than enough material to supplement the recon.

I had always been curious to put a face to the voice of the Landlord played by Edwin Finn. He features as one of the adult workhouse workers in Oliver (1968). This source would have been ideal as his costume in this would have been suitable for the Landlord. Unfortunately, there were not enough close ups to be able to use this film as a source. Interestingly, his face also appears as the 'Supreme Being' in Time Bandits (1981), which helped go some way to finding out what he looked like. However, the most useful source came from the film version of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar (1970). This star studded production features many famous faces such as Charton Heston and John Gielgud. Edwin Finn is cast as Publius who is one of the main Roman escorts to Caesar. Although Finn does not say any lines, there are fortunately enough scenes that feature him at a close enough proximity and with enough variety of expressions to use as composites.

Cynthia Etherington played the minor role of the Old Lady who speaks to Steven outside Preslin's shop. She is so unknown that her filmography is not listed on the Internet. More by luck than judgement I came across a reference to her on a web site dedicated to the British comedy The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin in which she appears in a single episode, speaking only one line. Thanks to Rick's personal video collection we managed to obtain a poor quality copy of the required episode that we used for early composite work. The main advantage to this was that at least now we knew that the episode was going to be useful if we could get hold of a clearer copy. We then noticed that UK Gold were re-running the complete series of Reggie Perrin, so it was just a matter of waiting for the correct episode to be transmitted. It was quite funny that Derek and I were so paranoid about missing the episode that we each had video recorders set up and Derek even grabbed some frames during transmission for 'extra' quality.

Some of the other main cast were relatively easy to obtain. David Weston, who played Nicholas Muss, took many leading and supporting roles throughout the 1960s and although his hairstyle differs a little from scene to scene, we obtained his likeness relatively easily with The Masque of the Red Death (1964) providing all of this extra material. Erik Chitty, who has a very extensive filmography played apothecary Charles Preslin. Lust for a Vampire (1971) features some close up shots of him. We decided to keep him in this film costume as it eased the amount of composite work required and seemed appropriate. The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959) saw Andre Morell playing Dr Watson against Peter Cushing's Sherlock Holmes. A few screen captures from this allowed his character, Marshal Tavannes, to have a more varied range of expressions. The Norman Wisdom films The Early Bird (1965) and Press for Time (1966) were the source of material for a 1960s Michael Bilton, who portrays Councillor Teligny. This document only mention a few of the very many sources required for this reconstruction.

Eventually we managed to get material to use for all the main credited cast members, many of which were obtained from their other appearances in other Dr Who stories. We even got the correct likeness for many of the uncredited and non-speaking parts such as the priest in episode 2 (Hugh Cecil), and some of the guards (Leslie Bates, Pat Gorman, Mike Reid). Interestingly, Robert Bartlett, who played the small boy at the beginning of War of God was one of Fagin's boys in the musical Oliver (1968). It took some considerable time to identify him, but we managed it in the end. So remember, when you see The Massacre that even the boy seen at the beginning of the first episode is actually the correct person.

One unexpected bonus came when I managed to contact retired actor John Slavid, who played the guard Officer seen towards the end of Bell of Doom. He had actually forgotten that The Massacre was a Doctor Who story that he had worked on. As I described the part to him he suddenly realised that a picture he had of himself in period costume must have been from that production. He sent the picture to me and we confirmed it was indeed from The Massacre as we had the other set photos to compare it against. The picture showed him in costume on the set for Nicholas' room having a pretend sword fight. Although not a direct scene from the story, it was a very useful picture as it gave us a new angle for the set for use with composite work and more importantly a completely new authentic and unseen photo of the guard Officer in the correct costume.