The Secret Service

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The Secret Service

North American DVD release
Format Fantasy-Adventure
Created by Gerry Anderson
Sylvia Anderson
Starring Stanley Unwin
Country of origin Flag of the United Kingdom United Kingdom
No. of episodes 13
Production
Running time 30 minutes
Broadcast
Original channel ITV
Original run September 21, 1969 – December 14, 1969
  • This article is about the television series. For the form of government policing, see secret service.

The Secret Service is the title of a British children's Spy-fi series produced by Gerry Anderson and Lord Lew Grade's Century 21 Productions company for ITC Entertainment in 1969 and broadcast on some ITV stations in the United Kingdom. Created by Anderson and his wife Sylvia and produced by Reg Hill, the series was the last to use Gerry Anderson's trademark Supermarionation process which made use of specialised marionettes.

Contents

[edit] Overview

The Secret Service broke the pattern of most of the Supermarionation series that preceded it by being set in the present day (most of Anderson's other shows of the 1960s were set in the near or far future). It also made unprecedented use of live action footage, which was blended in with closeups of the Supermarionated puppets. Where in previous series, live action was limited to closeups of hands or feet, footage of real actors was often used when showing characters from a distance, driving a car, etc.

The series followed the adventures of Father Stanley Unwin, a priest who moonlights as a secret agent for an organization called B.I.S.H.O.P. (British Intelligence Service Headquarters, Operation Priest). Answering to a man known as "The Bishop", Unwin is partnered with Matthew Harding, who works as his gardener as cover for his espionage work.

Unwin uses a device called a Minimiser to shrink Matthew so that he can better sneak into sensitive areas undetected. Father Unwin carries Matthew to wherever he is needed in a specially-designed suitcase (perhaps not unconsciously reflecting the metaphorical title of an earlier spy series, Man in a Suitcase), communicating with him by means of a miniature two-way radio - Father Unwin's earpiece is disguised as a hearing aid.

The minimiser shrinks Matthew to a height of two feet (60 cm), which just happens to be the puppet's real height. This allows the puppet to interact with full-size sets and occasionally live actors whose faces are not seen in the same shot. The Minimizer is also often used to shrink enemy agents, literally bringing them down to Matthew's size. The actual miniaturisation effect appears to be achieved by filming the puppet in front of a blue screen, progressively reducing the size of the image in an optical printer and replacing the blue screen with a static background.

In a somewhat unusual occurrence in television history, the voice and (when required) physical actions of Father Stanley Unwin was actually performed by an actor named Stanley Unwin. Unwin, a popular British comedian, was best known for speaking in a form of gibberish he called "Unwinese" or "gobbledegook", a gimmick which was utilised in the series to allow the fictional Unwin to confuse his enemies.

According to the book The Complete Gerry Anderson, the decision to incorporate the real Unwin's mannerisms into the series proved to be its undoing. Lew Grade, seeking another series to sell to the United States, felt Unwin's gobbledegook would confuse overseas viewers and cancelled the series after viewing the first episode. Ultimately, 13 half-hour episodes would be produced and broadcast in the UK, but the series has rarely been seen in North America (shown only once in English Canada by CTV in the early 1970s); even in Britain it was not broadcast nationally (it was only shown in the ATV, Granada and Southern regions) and has never been repeated. It must be noted though that the French-dubbed version was aired in Canada numerous times in the seventies by Radio-Canada. It was also shown in New Zealand. Also in Japan, the Japanese-dubbed version with the title ロンドン指令X ( Rondon Shirei X lit. London Mission X ) was aired by NHK in the seventies . It is considered the least-known of Gerry Anderson's Supermarionation programs. Anderson, for his part, has been quoted as calling The Secret Service his favourite puppet program.

Ultimately, The Secret Service would be Anderson's last full-scale puppet series until the 1980s; for the next decade, he would work almost exclusively on live action productions such as Space: 1999 and The Protectors. It was also the final Supermarionation series, although, in 1973, Anderson would produce an unsuccessful pilot for another Supermarionation/live action hybrid series called The Investigator. (A later series, Terrahawks, used another form of puppetry called "Supermacromation".)

Production of the series occurred simultaneously with filming of Anderson's live-action series, UFO, and in fact Unwin's distinctive yellow 1917 Model T Ford "Gabriel" (seen illustrated on the DVD box cover, above) appeared in several UFO episodes as a prop car in a movie studio.

The series has been released on DVD in Region 2 and in North America.

[edit] Origins

Following Joe 90, Gerry wished to make another spy series, this time using the idea of a country vicarage as a cover. To confuse the antagonists, Anderson chose Unwin specifically, as he had enjoyed listening to Unwin on the radio as a young man, and Unwin's "Unwinese" was the perfect choice for coded-messages.

[edit] Episodes

Episode # Original Air Date (UK) Episode Title
1-01 21 September 1969 A Case for the Bishop
1-02 28 September 1969 A Question of Miracles
1-03 5 October 1969 To Catch a Spy
1-04 12 October 1969 The Feathered Spies
1-05 19 October 1969 Last Train to Bufflers Halt
1-06 26 October 1969 Hole in One
1-07 2 November 1969 Recall to Service
1-08 9 November 1969 Errand of Mercy
1-09 16 November 1969 The Deadly Whisper
1-10 23 November 1969 The Cure
1-11 30 November 1969 School for Spies
1-12 7 December 1969 Mayday! Mayday!
1-13 14 December 1969 More Haste, Less Speed

[edit] Translations

  • (French) : Service secret

[edit] External links

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