Rare Tom Baker movie screening

 

Tom Baker's career is very much split between theatre and television, with only a small number of cinema films. Had two movies he was booked for not collapsed at the same time, he would never have been working on that building site in Pimlico, and written a begging letter to a BBC producer looking for work.

Once he became the Fourth Doctor, he never returned to cinema in any significant way. 

Of the films he did make, Nicholas and Alexandra gets shown occasionally, as does The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, and one of his three horror efforts - Vault of Horror - used to be screened regularly. It's a long time since Frankenstein: The True Story has been on the box - but I personally can't remember any UK TV screening of 1974's The Mutations (aka The Freakmaker in the US). It will be getting a rare showing on the Talking Pictures channel this week - on Friday 7th October at 9.05pm.

Baker plays henchman to mad scientist Donald Pleasance, who's turning people into plant monsters in his experiments. Baker is facially deformed, and tries to conceal this with, of all things, a wide-brimmed floppy hat and scarf...