Join us as we share details of recently rediscovered gems from the archives of AP Films, Century 21, and Gerry Anderson Productions, including rare snippets from Supercar, Space: 1999 and Four Feather Falls. Ever since we uncovered a collection of 35mm Thunderbirds prints gathering dust in a garden shed, the discoveries have continued to mount – with treasures ranging from some of Gerry and Sylvia’s early puppet productions right through to their final cult sci-fi collaboration.
Recent discovery highlights include: An unbroadcast scene from the Supercar episode “Jungle Hazard”, on-set audio rushes with Barbara Bain and Martin Landau on the set of Space: 1999, behind the scenes voice recordings with Nicholas Parsons and Kenneth Connor for Four Feather Falls, and assorted oddities from UK radio (with Patrick Allen and Michael Holliday).
In the Thunderbirds Unseen documentary series, we reveal the space age Supermarionation secrets that blasted UK television into the 21st century, inspiring films such as Star Wars and James Bond. In addition to crew interviews, we are aided by original documentation, recovered studio film material, and preserved audio tapes.
Experience the Supermarionation and Century 21 classics like never before with lost deleted scenes and alternative edits!
——————————————————————–
Find us online!
• Century 21 Films Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/century21films/
• Century 21 Films Twitter – https://twitter.com/century21films
• Thunderbirds Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/thunderbirds65/
• Thunderbirds Twitter – https://twitter.com/thunderbirds65
• Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/century21films
• Website – https://www.century21films.co.uk
• Shop – https://century21films.bigcartel.com/
——————————————————————–
About Us:
About Me:
Century 21 Films Ltd is a multi-faceted production company whose work spans drama to documentary, miniature effects to puppet shows. It was founded by a group of filmmakers who first collaborated on Filmed in Supermarionation, the story of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson’s hit puppet shows including Thunderbirds, Stingray and Captain Scarlet.
Since then, we have worked for a multitude of high-profile clients including ITV, BBC, Mammoth Productions, British Film Institute and the Halifax working on projects such Thunderbirds, Endeavour, Doctor Who and The Twilight Zone.
In addition to our regular filmmaking services, we specialise in ‘Supermarionation’ – the puppetry filming technique used to make shows like Thunderbirds and have collaborated with ITV repeatedly to provide specialised services. Our work has been featured on The One Show, This Morning, Good Morning Britain, BBC News, ITV News and Mastermind.
#filmedinsupermarionation #thunderbirds #century21films
source
Searching tenaciously! 🤠🐴
Unbelievable ❤❤❤
i found some lost nicholas parsons radio shows called Listen to this space from 1966. They were on reel to reel tapes, also lost desert island discs show from 1968…..all now back in the archive.
Fascinating and entertaining as always! Nice to see Joy Laurey mentioned, I've been reading a fair bit about her recently as her story comes into a book I'm working on about a particular aspect of British TV history.
Fascinating. Long may your detective work prove fruitful.
Given the, erm, stereotypical portrayal of certain characters, it may be just as well that some recordings are lost.
Fascinating and well done to everyone for preserving this material.
Wow, this is a cinematic King tut's tomb.
Conclusive proof that Analogue tape is far more robust than digital.. I have Cassettes which play perfectly after forty years and reels which someone recorded on the earliest of domestic machines. Finding a reliable signal on the guard track was epic. Great investigative work you have done.
1:18 – I can see this replacing the "bottles of beer" road song – "22 films in a garden shed – 22 films in a shed . . . " etc. etc. Never before in the world of man have so many vehicle occupants been so unfortunately afflicted.
Can you read all three guard bands simultaneously to increase the bandwidth a bit? I imagine that might need a non-existent type of head though…
Not as spectacular as some of your other finds (with the notable exception of Julie Davie at 3:24 😊😍 ) – but it's still great to see all the research you folks do. Thank-you one-and-all.
It's great that these reels have been discovered and Century 21 Films pouring over them and finding these small treasures which others may not have had the foresight to do, thanks to you guys being enthusiasts and fans of the original shows, these recorded / rediscovered oddities are going to be preserved forever ( hopefully), thankyou for the effort and time bringing these treasures to us fans.
These recent discoveries are fantastic. You must of spent hours going through the tapes and there could still be more than you know on them, if you have not played them in every way, even if the sound is poor it could be enhanced digitally these days.
Unknow track sounds suspiciously like Paul McCartney
Absolutely incredible! Thank you to Century 21 and team for finding and preserving these gems, what a stroke of luck! Thanks also for sharing your behind the scenes processes, film preservation and restoration often draws alot of interest but doesn't often receive the attention it should, so this insight is fascinating, thank you 😊 FAB!
Your devotion and success so far in preserving the history of Anderson's huge body of work is important culturally and historically and is endlessly fascinating and appreciated. Thank you!
Great documentary
Have the BBC radio shows you found been offered back? If not the Radio Circle would help get them back in the archives if missing – The Michael Holliday almost certainly is.
I'm thrilled you're forensically examining analogue media. Compared to the scads of digital fluff being generated, the C20th produced a manageable amount of data. Watching organisations like yours intelligently trawling through what remains is fascinating.
loved stumbling onto to this tonight!!!
Meanwhile, there's a Doctor Who or Dad's Army archivist complaining that his recordings have been reused for Thunderbirds…
And I dream I'm an Eagle
And I dream I can spread my wings
I've grown up watching all the gerry Anderson stuff like thunderbirds Joe 90 stingray captain scarlett and the mysterons supper car fire ball xl5 and the terrah hawks I was born 1962 about the time when the above programmes were first broadcast on itv except for the terrha hawks that was a lot later
Some of gerry Andersons stuff is now available on YouTube 😊
Rip gerry & sylvia Anderson ⚰
Gerry would be happy people thought of keeping these bits and pieces of APF/Century 21 history.
That's one hell of a find plus Jimmy Gibson must be a pensioner nowadays.
Has anything from the Adventures of Twizzle ever emerged? I believe there is now only one known episode in existence so any archive stuff on that would be greatly interesting. There was a story that many of the missing episodes had existed as betamax video copies in the middle east in the 1980s but nothing ever seems to have come of that so I would be interested if the archive status of that show had changed.
Amazing work in recovering this material, and digging away at those audio tapes to uncover hidden treasures. Thank you Century 21!
Incredible dedication to a great body of work.Well done century 21
Perhaps its not completely unlikely we will never see UFO spx outakes.
This is brilliant. If you post comments against the socialist british government they get taken down!