| "30 Minutes After Noon" | |
|---|---|
| Thunderbirds episode | |
| Episode no. | Series 1 Episode 18 |
| Directed by | David Elliott |
| Written by | Alan Fennell |
| Cinematography by | Paddy Seale |
| Editing by | Harry Ledger |
| Production code | 18 |
| Original air date | 11 November 1965 |
| Guest character voices | |
| |
"30 Minutes After Noon" is an episode of Thunderbirds, a British Supermarionation television series created by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson and filmed by their production company AP Films (APF) for ITC Entertainment. Written by Alan Fennell and directed by David Elliott, it was first broadcast on 11 November 1965 on ATV Midlands as the seventh episode of Series One. It is the 18th episode in the official running order.[1]
Set in the 2060s, Thunderbirds follows the exploits of International Rescue, an organisation that uses technologically advanced rescue vehicles to save human life. The main characters are ex-astronaut Jeff Tracy, founder of International Rescue, and his five adult sons, who pilot the organisation's main vehicles: the Thunderbird machines. In "30 Minutes After Noon", International Rescue race to save a British secret agent caught up in the latest scheme of the Erdman Gang, a notorious criminal organisation.
Drawing inspiration from the spy film The Ipcress File, Elliott decided to realise Fennell's script through the use of what commentator Stephen La Rivière terms "quirky visuals".[2] Elliott and camera operator Alan Perry experimented with original camera angles and movements, choosing to open one scene with a long tracking shot.[3] The episode's incidental music is largely recycled from earlier APF productions.[4]
Commentators including media historian Nicholas J. Cull have noted that Elliott and Perry's cinematography emulates the visual style of 1960s James Bond films.[5] La Rivière, however, suggests that this visual homage is not evident throughout, arguing that the episode's first half uses more conventional filming techniques.[2][6] "30 Minutes After Noon" was released as an audio play in 1967 and serialised as a comic strip in 1992.
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