30 Minutes After Noon
Encyclopedia
"30 Minutes After Noon" is the seventh episode of the 1960s Supermarionation
television series Thunderbirds
. Written by Alan Fennell
and directed by David Elliott
, it first aired in the United Kingdom on ATV Midlands on 11 November 1965. In a plot incorporating visual allusion to 1960s spy thriller films, in particular the James Bond
film franchise, "30 Minutes After Noon" sees the Tracy family attempt to rescue a British secret agent
caught up in the latest scheme of the Erdman Gang, a powerful international crime syndicate.
Drawing inspiration from the 1965 spy thriller film The Ipcress File
, a recent cinema release at the time of production, Elliott decided to bring Fennell's script to life with the use of "quirky visuals". As such, Elliott and his camera operator, Alan Perry, experimented with less conventional angles and techniques, introducing one scene with a long tracking shot
and presenting the characters depicted with a mixture of live-action close-up shots and forced perspective
. The music, on the other hand, is recycled from earlier Thunderbirds episodes.
Commentators such as historian Nicholas J. Cull
have praised Elliott and Perry's cinematographic innovation for imitating classic espionage film franchises. However, Supermarionation historian Stephen La Rivière regrets that its application throughout the episode is uneven: asserting that the switch in narrative focus from the fire to the infiltration of the Erdman Gang essentially splits the episode into loosely-connected halves, La Rivière remarks that the first part appears to have been filmed using conventional techniques. "30 Minutes After Noon" received an audio adaptation
in the 1960s and a comic serialisation in the 1990s.
Although the fire is brought under control, Prescott is cut off from outside help. News of the events in Spoke City soon reaches Tracy Island
. Jeff
dispatches Scott
in Thunderbird 1, while Virgil
and Alan
depart in Thunderbird 2 with brand-new fire-fighting apparatus. Lowered into the shaft in a protective cage fitted with diacetylene
sprinklers, Virgil and Alan clamp the stricken lift and return to ground level, whereupon Prescott is arrested. Police Commissioner
Garfield notes that classified documentation on criminal organisations, including the dangerous Erdman Gang, has been lost in the blaze. Prescott's explanation about the stranger is proven to be true when the charred remnants of the bracelet are uncovered.
An operation to expose the Erdman Gang leads to the enlistment of Southern, a British Secret Service agent, who will infiltrate the organisation and gather intelligence on its latest scheme. The Gang Leader contacts the undercover Southern and members Dempsey and Kenyon at Glen Carrick Castle in the Scottish Highlands
and briefs them on their assignment. The men are to drive south to the Nuclear Plutonium Store, where isotope
s for all British power station
s are based, and rig explosives to detonate at 12:30 pm, causing the largest nuclear explosion
ever and obliterating half of England. To ensure obedience, the charges are pre-set and contained in bracelets identical to the one planted on Prescott's wrist, to be unlocked at the store.
On their arrival, Southern, Dempsey and Kenyon use a ray gun to subdue robot guards and pass through one secure door to the next, ending up in the plutonium
vault. Southern reveals his true identity and threatens the others with a gun, ordering them to proceed to the Leader's proposed rendezvous point and capture him. However, after a robot catches Southern in an impossible grip, Dempsey and Kenyon unlock the bracelets and depart, jamming the door controls to trap Southern next to the nuclear explosion.
Southern's emergency call is transferred from his superior, Sir William Frazer, to International Rescue. Landing outside the Plutonium Store in Thunderbirds 1 and 2, Scott and Virgil use the Laser Cutter Vehicle to burn through the jammed doors. Inside the vault, Virgil releases Southern from the robot. As the time nears 30 minutes past noon, Scott lifts off in Thunderbird 1 with the bracelets and jettisons them into the sea to detonate in isolation. Meanwhile, on Jeff's orders, Lady Penelope and Parker
race to the Erdman Gang rendezvous in FAB1
and shoot down the Leader, Dempsey and Kenyon as the criminals prepare to escape in a helijet. Southern is permitted to recover from his ordeal at the Creighton-Ward Mansion.
's script, director David Elliott
returned to the production feeling more inspired after seeing the 1965 spy thriller film The Ipcress File
, starring Michael Caine
. Elliott remembers, "The director
used all the old-fashioned shots—looking through a lampshade, etc. On Monday morning, Paddy [Seale, lighting camera operator
] came in and said, 'I saw a film this weekend,' and I said, 'So did I.' 'Was it The Ipcress File?' 'Yep. Right, that's what I want to do.'" Elliott therefore resolved to incorporate "quirky visuals" into his direction of "30 Minutes After Noon".
Elliott decided to open the Glen Carrick Castle scene with a tracking shot
around the three walls of the puppet set and coordinated the manoeuvres with camera operator
Alan Perry. In a pioneering development for a Supermarionation
production, forced perspective
is used in this sequence to present both a human hand and puppet characters in one frame. While the live hand, intended to belong to Southern, twiddles a pen in the foreground of the shot, the puppets of Kenyon and Dempsey are positioned across a table in the background. Although the puppets had been sculpted in scale, Kenyon and Dempsey appear to be of accurate size in relation to the hand. This technique was used again later in the episode when Scott removes the bracelets from the plutonium store.
Incidental music
for "30 Minutes After Noon" is for the most part recycled from previous Anderson productions. The "March of the Oysters" track from the Stingray
episode "Secret of the Giant Oyster" is emitted from the television of Hudson Building janitor Sam Saltzman. The Highland
theme from "Loch Ness Monster" is used for the scenes set at Glen Carrick Castle, while the miniature model itself also appears as Castle McGregor in this Stingray episode. It would make one further appearance in the Anderson productions as Glen Garry Castle in "The Trap", an episode of Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons
.
praises scriptwriter Alan Fennell
's "vivid imagination" and his complex plot for "30 Minutes After Noon", adding her opinion that "This was more a vehicle for live action than for the limited emotions of our puppet cast." Of David Elliott
's decision to invigorate the production with more innovative shots, Supermarionation
historian Stephen La Rivière expresses disappointment that the earlier sequences of "30 Minutes After Noon", in his view, are made up of standard camera work, being "filmed as normal" and detracting from the interest of the "quirky visuals" in the scenes depicting Southern's infiltration of the Erdman Gang.
La Rivière further discusses the structure of "30 Minutes After Noon", writing that the episode is divided into a pair of distinct plotlines (the intervention of the British Secret Service following the Hudson Building inferno). He argues that, in this manner, it is comparable to the first episodes of Thunderbirds, for which the production team doubled the runtime from 25 to 50 minutes and therefore needed to expand the stories with subplot
s or extra rescues performed by the Tracy family.
Historian Nicholas J. Cull
links this episode to another of Fennell's Thunderbirds scripts, "The Man from MI.5", in which the star character is a British Secret Service agent called Bondson. For Cull, "30 Minutes After Noon" is one of several Thunderbirds episodes which incorporates visual homage to the James Bond
film series. In particular, he comments on Southern's briefing scene, in which the characters of Southern, Sir William Frazer and an unnamed assistant are represented by hats placed on a stand: "Southern's hat is a trilby
, tossed onto the stand in best James Bond
fashion."
In a review published in Thunderbirds-related fanzine NTBS News Flash, "30 Minutes After Noon" is said to be "a thrilling, well-paced episode that brings together a very sadistic bad guy scheme and some innocent, and some not-so-innocent victims in peril, all providing plenty of action for International Rescue." The author considers the pacing to be "especially good" and also credits the "inventive camera work", commenting, "I don't think I've seen more use of 'real hand acting' in any other episode." The concept of the exploding bracelets is related to the Saw horror films, in which victims are seen to be trapped in dangerous situations and risking death if they do not carry out certain tasks put before them.
The episode achieved ratings of 5.2 million viewers when repeated on BBC2 in 1992.
in character as Parker
. "30 Minutes After Noon" was serialised in issues 18-20 of Thunderbirds: The Comic by Alan Fennell
and Malcolm Stokes in 1992, and re-released in the graphic
collection Thunderbirds in Action later that year.
Supermarionation
Supermarionation is a puppetry technique devised in the 1960s by British production company AP Films. It was used extensively in the company's numerous Gerry and Sylvia Anderson-produced action-adventure series, the most famous of which was Thunderbirds...
television series Thunderbirds
Thunderbirds (TV series)
Thunderbirds is a British mid-1960s science fiction television show devised by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson and made by AP Films using a form of marionette puppetry dubbed "Supermarionation"...
. Written by Alan Fennell
Alan Fennell
Alan Fennell was a British writer and editor best known for work on series produced by Gerry Anderson, and for having created the magazines TV Century 21 and Look-in....
and directed by David Elliott
David Elliott (director)
David Elliott is a British television director and film editor, who worked on various series produced by Gerry Anderson.-External links:...
, it first aired in the United Kingdom on ATV Midlands on 11 November 1965. In a plot incorporating visual allusion to 1960s spy thriller films, in particular the James Bond
James Bond (film series)
The James Bond film series is a British series of motion pictures based on the fictional character of MI6 agent James Bond , who originally appeared in a series of books by Ian Fleming. Earlier films were based on Fleming's novels and short stories, followed later by films with original storylines...
film franchise, "30 Minutes After Noon" sees the Tracy family attempt to rescue a British secret agent
Secret Agent
Secret Agent is a British film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, loosely based on two stories in Ashenden: Or the British Agent by W. Somerset Maugham. The film starred John Gielgud, Peter Lorre, Madeleine Carroll, and Robert Young...
caught up in the latest scheme of the Erdman Gang, a powerful international crime syndicate.
Drawing inspiration from the 1965 spy thriller film The Ipcress File
The Ipcress File (film)
The Ipcress File is a 1965 British espionage film directed by Sidney J. Furie and starring Michael Caine, Guy Doleman, and Nigel Green. The screenplay by Bill Canaway and James Doran was based on Len Deighton's 1962 novel, The IPCRESS File. It has won critical acclaim and a BAFTA award for best...
, a recent cinema release at the time of production, Elliott decided to bring Fennell's script to life with the use of "quirky visuals". As such, Elliott and his camera operator, Alan Perry, experimented with less conventional angles and techniques, introducing one scene with a long tracking shot
Tracking shot
In motion picture terminology, a tracking shot is a segment in which the camera is mounted on a camera dolly, a wheeled platform that is pushed on rails while the picture is being taken...
and presenting the characters depicted with a mixture of live-action close-up shots and forced perspective
Forced perspective
Forced perspective is a technique that employs optical illusion to make an object appear farther away, closer, larger or smaller than it actually is. It is used primarily in photography, filmmaking and architecture...
. The music, on the other hand, is recycled from earlier Thunderbirds episodes.
Commentators such as historian Nicholas J. Cull
Nicholas J. Cull
Professor Nicholas J. Cull is a historian and the director of the Master's in Public Diplomacy program at the University of Southern California.-Biography:...
have praised Elliott and Perry's cinematographic innovation for imitating classic espionage film franchises. However, Supermarionation historian Stephen La Rivière regrets that its application throughout the episode is uneven: asserting that the switch in narrative focus from the fire to the infiltration of the Erdman Gang essentially splits the episode into loosely-connected halves, La Rivière remarks that the first part appears to have been filmed using conventional techniques. "30 Minutes After Noon" received an audio adaptation
Radio drama
Radio drama is a dramatized, purely acoustic performance, broadcast on radio or published on audio media, such as tape or CD. With no visual component, radio drama depends on dialogue, music and sound effects to help the listener imagine the characters and story...
in the 1960s and a comic serialisation in the 1990s.
Plot
In Spoke City, office worker Thomas Prescott accepts an apparently innocent hitch-hiker into his car. However, the stranger's true intentions are revealed when he attaches a metal bracelet to Prescott's wrist, warning him that it contains a powerful explosive charge due to detonate in 30 minutes, and that the unlocking key is to be found in his office at the Hudson Building. Speeding to the building with police in pursuit, Prescott slips inside and leaves the bracelet in his office. It detonates as he is returning to the ground floor in a lift, obliterating the top floors and hurling Prescott to the bottom of the lift shaft ten levels underground.Although the fire is brought under control, Prescott is cut off from outside help. News of the events in Spoke City soon reaches Tracy Island
Tracy Island
Tracy Island is the home of the Tracy family in the Gerry and Sylvia Anderson 1960s television series Thunderbirds. Located in the South Pacific Ocean, the island's true function as the secret base of the International Rescue organisation is heavily camouflaged.Thunderbird 1 launches from a hangar...
. Jeff
Jeff Tracy
Jeff Tracy is a fictional character from Gerry and Sylvia Anderson's Supermarionation television show Thunderbirds and the subsequent films Thunderbirds Are GO and Thunderbird 6. The voice for the character in these shows was supplied by Peter Dyneley. The character also appeared in the live...
dispatches Scott
Scott Tracy
Scott Tracy is a fictional character from Gerry Anderson's Supermarionation television show Thunderbirds and the subsequent films Thunderbirds Are GO and Thunderbird 6. The character also appeared in the live action movie Thunderbirds....
in Thunderbird 1, while Virgil
Virgil Tracy
Virgil Tracy is a fictional character from Gerry Anderson's Supermarionation television show Thunderbirds and the subsequent films Thunderbirds Are GO and Thunderbird 6. The character also appeared in the live action movie Thunderbirds....
and Alan
Alan Tracy
Alan Tracy is a fictional character from Gerry Anderson's Supermarionation television show Thunderbirds and the subsequent films Thunderbirds Are GO and Thunderbird 6. The character also appeared in the 2004 live action movie Thunderbirds....
depart in Thunderbird 2 with brand-new fire-fighting apparatus. Lowered into the shaft in a protective cage fitted with diacetylene
Diacetylene
Diacetylene , with the formula C4H2, is a highly unsaturated hydrocarbon that contains three single bonds and two triple bonds. It is the first in the series of polyynes.-Occurrence:...
sprinklers, Virgil and Alan clamp the stricken lift and return to ground level, whereupon Prescott is arrested. Police Commissioner
Police commissioner
Commissioner is a senior rank used in many police forces and may be rendered Police Commissioner or Commissioner of Police. In some organizations, the commissioner is a political appointee, and may or may not actually be a professional police officer. In these circumstances, there is often a...
Garfield notes that classified documentation on criminal organisations, including the dangerous Erdman Gang, has been lost in the blaze. Prescott's explanation about the stranger is proven to be true when the charred remnants of the bracelet are uncovered.
An operation to expose the Erdman Gang leads to the enlistment of Southern, a British Secret Service agent, who will infiltrate the organisation and gather intelligence on its latest scheme. The Gang Leader contacts the undercover Southern and members Dempsey and Kenyon at Glen Carrick Castle in the Scottish Highlands
Scottish Highlands
The Highlands is an historic region of Scotland. The area is sometimes referred to as the "Scottish Highlands". It was culturally distinguishable from the Lowlands from the later Middle Ages into the modern period, when Lowland Scots replaced Scottish Gaelic throughout most of the Lowlands...
and briefs them on their assignment. The men are to drive south to the Nuclear Plutonium Store, where isotope
Isotope
Isotopes are variants of atoms of a particular chemical element, which have differing numbers of neutrons. Atoms of a particular element by definition must contain the same number of protons but may have a distinct number of neutrons which differs from atom to atom, without changing the designation...
s for all British power station
Power station
A power station is an industrial facility for the generation of electric energy....
s are based, and rig explosives to detonate at 12:30 pm, causing the largest nuclear explosion
Nuclear explosion
A nuclear explosion occurs as a result of the rapid release of energy from an intentionally high-speed nuclear reaction. The driving reaction may be nuclear fission, nuclear fusion or a multistage cascading combination of the two, though to date all fusion based weapons have used a fission device...
ever and obliterating half of England. To ensure obedience, the charges are pre-set and contained in bracelets identical to the one planted on Prescott's wrist, to be unlocked at the store.
On their arrival, Southern, Dempsey and Kenyon use a ray gun to subdue robot guards and pass through one secure door to the next, ending up in the plutonium
Plutonium
Plutonium is a transuranic radioactive chemical element with the chemical symbol Pu and atomic number 94. It is an actinide metal of silvery-gray appearance that tarnishes when exposed to air, forming a dull coating when oxidized. The element normally exhibits six allotropes and four oxidation...
vault. Southern reveals his true identity and threatens the others with a gun, ordering them to proceed to the Leader's proposed rendezvous point and capture him. However, after a robot catches Southern in an impossible grip, Dempsey and Kenyon unlock the bracelets and depart, jamming the door controls to trap Southern next to the nuclear explosion.
Southern's emergency call is transferred from his superior, Sir William Frazer, to International Rescue. Landing outside the Plutonium Store in Thunderbirds 1 and 2, Scott and Virgil use the Laser Cutter Vehicle to burn through the jammed doors. Inside the vault, Virgil releases Southern from the robot. As the time nears 30 minutes past noon, Scott lifts off in Thunderbird 1 with the bracelets and jettisons them into the sea to detonate in isolation. Meanwhile, on Jeff's orders, Lady Penelope and Parker
Aloysius "Nosey" Parker
Aloysius "Nosey" Parker is a fictional character in the television series Thunderbirds, the feature films Thunderbirds Are GO and Thunderbird 6 and the 2004 live action film Thunderbirds....
race to the Erdman Gang rendezvous in FAB1
FAB1
FAB1 is the name given to the pink six-wheeled car in the Thunderbirds franchise.-The original series and films:In the original Supermarionation TV series Thunderbirds , as well as the films Thunderbirds Are GO and Thunderbird 6 , FAB1 is a modified Rolls-Royce...
and shoot down the Leader, Dempsey and Kenyon as the criminals prepare to escape in a helijet. Southern is permitted to recover from his ordeal at the Creighton-Ward Mansion.
Production
Initially unenthusiastic about how he would realise Alan FennellAlan Fennell
Alan Fennell was a British writer and editor best known for work on series produced by Gerry Anderson, and for having created the magazines TV Century 21 and Look-in....
's script, director David Elliott
David Elliott (director)
David Elliott is a British television director and film editor, who worked on various series produced by Gerry Anderson.-External links:...
returned to the production feeling more inspired after seeing the 1965 spy thriller film The Ipcress File
The Ipcress File (film)
The Ipcress File is a 1965 British espionage film directed by Sidney J. Furie and starring Michael Caine, Guy Doleman, and Nigel Green. The screenplay by Bill Canaway and James Doran was based on Len Deighton's 1962 novel, The IPCRESS File. It has won critical acclaim and a BAFTA award for best...
, starring Michael Caine
Michael Caine
Sir Michael Caine, CBE is an English actor. He won Academy Awards for best supporting actor in both Hannah and Her Sisters and The Cider House Rules ....
. Elliott remembers, "The director
Sidney J. Furie
Sidney J. Furie is a Canadian film director. Furie is perhaps best known for directing American Soldiers, The IPCRESS File, The Entity, Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, Lady Sings the Blues, The Boys, Gable and Lombard, Sheila Levine Is Dead and Living in New York and the Iron Eagle films.Also...
used all the old-fashioned shots—looking through a lampshade, etc. On Monday morning, Paddy [Seale, lighting camera operator
Cinematographer
A cinematographer is one photographing with a motion picture camera . The title is generally equivalent to director of photography , used to designate a chief over the camera and lighting crews working on a film, responsible for achieving artistic and technical decisions related to the image...
Elliott decided to open the Glen Carrick Castle scene with a tracking shot
Tracking shot
In motion picture terminology, a tracking shot is a segment in which the camera is mounted on a camera dolly, a wheeled platform that is pushed on rails while the picture is being taken...
around the three walls of the puppet set and coordinated the manoeuvres with camera operator
Camera operator
A camera operator or cameraman is a professional operator of a film or video camera. In filmmaking, the leading cameraman is usually called a cinematographer, while a cameraman in a video production may be known as a television camera operator, video camera operator, or videographer, depending on...
Alan Perry. In a pioneering development for a Supermarionation
Supermarionation
Supermarionation is a puppetry technique devised in the 1960s by British production company AP Films. It was used extensively in the company's numerous Gerry and Sylvia Anderson-produced action-adventure series, the most famous of which was Thunderbirds...
production, forced perspective
Forced perspective
Forced perspective is a technique that employs optical illusion to make an object appear farther away, closer, larger or smaller than it actually is. It is used primarily in photography, filmmaking and architecture...
is used in this sequence to present both a human hand and puppet characters in one frame. While the live hand, intended to belong to Southern, twiddles a pen in the foreground of the shot, the puppets of Kenyon and Dempsey are positioned across a table in the background. Although the puppets had been sculpted in scale, Kenyon and Dempsey appear to be of accurate size in relation to the hand. This technique was used again later in the episode when Scott removes the bracelets from the plutonium store.
Incidental music
Incidental music
Incidental music is music in a play, television program, radio program, video game, film or some other form not primarily musical. The term is less frequently applied to film music, with such music being referred to instead as the "film score" or "soundtrack"....
for "30 Minutes After Noon" is for the most part recycled from previous Anderson productions. The "March of the Oysters" track from the Stingray
Stingray (TV series)
Stingray is a children's marionette television show, created by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson and produced by AP Films for ATV and ITC Entertainment from 1964–65. Its 39 half-hour episodes were originally screened on ITV in the UK and in syndication in the USA. The scriptwriters included Gerry and...
episode "Secret of the Giant Oyster" is emitted from the television of Hudson Building janitor Sam Saltzman. The Highland
Scottish Highlands
The Highlands is an historic region of Scotland. The area is sometimes referred to as the "Scottish Highlands". It was culturally distinguishable from the Lowlands from the later Middle Ages into the modern period, when Lowland Scots replaced Scottish Gaelic throughout most of the Lowlands...
theme from "Loch Ness Monster" is used for the scenes set at Glen Carrick Castle, while the miniature model itself also appears as Castle McGregor in this Stingray episode. It would make one further appearance in the Anderson productions as Glen Garry Castle in "The Trap", an episode of Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons
Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons
Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, often referred to as Captain Scarlet, is a 1960s British science-fiction television series produced by the Century 21 Productions company of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson, John Read and Reg Hill...
.
Reception
Commenting on her website, Thunderbirds co-creator Sylvia AndersonSylvia Anderson
Sylvia Anderson , born 25 March 1937, is a British voice artist and film producer, most notable for collaborations with Gerry Anderson, to whom she was married from 1962 to 1975....
praises scriptwriter Alan Fennell
Alan Fennell
Alan Fennell was a British writer and editor best known for work on series produced by Gerry Anderson, and for having created the magazines TV Century 21 and Look-in....
's "vivid imagination" and his complex plot for "30 Minutes After Noon", adding her opinion that "This was more a vehicle for live action than for the limited emotions of our puppet cast." Of David Elliott
David Elliott (director)
David Elliott is a British television director and film editor, who worked on various series produced by Gerry Anderson.-External links:...
's decision to invigorate the production with more innovative shots, Supermarionation
Supermarionation
Supermarionation is a puppetry technique devised in the 1960s by British production company AP Films. It was used extensively in the company's numerous Gerry and Sylvia Anderson-produced action-adventure series, the most famous of which was Thunderbirds...
historian Stephen La Rivière expresses disappointment that the earlier sequences of "30 Minutes After Noon", in his view, are made up of standard camera work, being "filmed as normal" and detracting from the interest of the "quirky visuals" in the scenes depicting Southern's infiltration of the Erdman Gang.
La Rivière further discusses the structure of "30 Minutes After Noon", writing that the episode is divided into a pair of distinct plotlines (the intervention of the British Secret Service following the Hudson Building inferno). He argues that, in this manner, it is comparable to the first episodes of Thunderbirds, for which the production team doubled the runtime from 25 to 50 minutes and therefore needed to expand the stories with subplot
Subplot
A subplot is a secondary plot strand that is a supporting side story for any story or the main plot. Subplots may connect to main plots, in either time and place or in thematic significance...
s or extra rescues performed by the Tracy family.
Historian Nicholas J. Cull
Nicholas J. Cull
Professor Nicholas J. Cull is a historian and the director of the Master's in Public Diplomacy program at the University of Southern California.-Biography:...
links this episode to another of Fennell's Thunderbirds scripts, "The Man from MI.5", in which the star character is a British Secret Service agent called Bondson. For Cull, "30 Minutes After Noon" is one of several Thunderbirds episodes which incorporates visual homage to the James Bond
James Bond (film series)
The James Bond film series is a British series of motion pictures based on the fictional character of MI6 agent James Bond , who originally appeared in a series of books by Ian Fleming. Earlier films were based on Fleming's novels and short stories, followed later by films with original storylines...
film series. In particular, he comments on Southern's briefing scene, in which the characters of Southern, Sir William Frazer and an unnamed assistant are represented by hats placed on a stand: "Southern's hat is a trilby
Trilby
A trilby hat is a type of fedora. The trilby is viewed as the rich man's favored hat; it is commonly called the "brown trilby" in England and is much seen at the horse races. It is described as a "crumpled" fedora...
, tossed onto the stand in best James Bond
James Bond
James Bond, code name 007, is a fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short story collections. There have been a six other authors who wrote authorised Bond novels or novelizations after Fleming's death in 1964: Kingsley Amis,...
fashion."
In a review published in Thunderbirds-related fanzine NTBS News Flash, "30 Minutes After Noon" is said to be "a thrilling, well-paced episode that brings together a very sadistic bad guy scheme and some innocent, and some not-so-innocent victims in peril, all providing plenty of action for International Rescue." The author considers the pacing to be "especially good" and also credits the "inventive camera work", commenting, "I don't think I've seen more use of 'real hand acting' in any other episode." The concept of the exploding bracelets is related to the Saw horror films, in which victims are seen to be trapped in dangerous situations and risking death if they do not carry out certain tasks put before them.
The episode achieved ratings of 5.2 million viewers when repeated on BBC2 in 1992.
Adaptations
An audio adaptation of "30 Minutes After Noon" was released as a mini-album in the 1960s, narrated by David GrahamDavid Graham (actor)
David Graham is a British character actor and voice artist. Born in London, after a period in the R.A.F as a Radar Mechanic he trained as an actor in New York but has worked mainly on British television series....
in character as Parker
Aloysius "Nosey" Parker
Aloysius "Nosey" Parker is a fictional character in the television series Thunderbirds, the feature films Thunderbirds Are GO and Thunderbird 6 and the 2004 live action film Thunderbirds....
. "30 Minutes After Noon" was serialised in issues 18-20 of Thunderbirds: The Comic by Alan Fennell
Alan Fennell
Alan Fennell was a British writer and editor best known for work on series produced by Gerry Anderson, and for having created the magazines TV Century 21 and Look-in....
and Malcolm Stokes in 1992, and re-released in the graphic
Graphic novel
A graphic novel is a narrative work in which the story is conveyed to the reader using sequential art in either an experimental design or in a traditional comics format...
collection Thunderbirds in Action later that year.