 | Puppets puppets puppets with the Secret Service |
Gerry Anderson's The Secret Service
The last of the super marionation productions is actually only marginally associated with Gerry Anderson. In my previous 'puppet puppet puppet' articles I noted that Anderson was a frustrated director for whom the industry had yet to catch up with. His previous productions of Supercar, Stingray, Fireball XL-5, Thunderbirds, and Captain Scarlet were all intended as proof on concept that he had a knack for action/adventure films that would have the Bond films shaking in their martini glasses. Unfortunately, it only got him a long line of puppet programs. By the time Secret Service came 'round, Anderson had moved on to live action with UFO, leaving the bulk of the work to David Lane and Reg Hill. Many scuttle this series as a failure which I feel is unfair. It lacks the action of Captain Scarlet and the magnificent array of machinery of Thunderbirds, but Secret Service was its own creature and in the end that's fine.
The Secret Service follows the adventures of a somewhat unassuming priest Father Unwin who is secretly an agent of a division of the British Secret Service called BISHOP. His servant and caretaker of the grounds Matthew is not only faking a country accent but also his assistant in his missions. Through the use of as device called a minimizer (hidden in a Bible), Matthew is shrunken to the size of a marionette, hidden into a briefcase and set on the scene of the action. The part of Father Unwin was placed by comedian Stanley Unwin whose skill was in speaking a mixed-up form of speech he called 'unwinese' and by a marionette based on him. Therefore some scenes featured Unwin
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