Four Feather Falls
Encyclopedia
Four Feather Falls was the third puppet TV show produced by Gerry Anderson
for Granada Television, from an idea by Barry Gray
.
negatives, so that they would appear as white flashes on the prints.
The series was the first to use an early version of Anderson's Supermarionation
puppetry
process, although the term was not coined until Anderson's next series, Supercar
. The original puppets produced for the series were made by Christine Glanville and had papier-mâché
heads. Because they were stationary, the viewer could not tell which character was talking unless its puppet moved up or down. This was unsatisfactory to Anderson, and the papier-mâché heads were replaced with hollow fibre glass heads with rods inside which could move the eyes — though the puppets could not blink — and wires which with a 12 volt current could move the mouths.
The wires used to control the puppets were eight feet long and made of tungsten
, an improvement on the curtain wire used in the two earlier series, and were only 1/200 of an inch thick. Being shiny, the wires had to be blackened. The puppets were made one-third life size with the puppeteer
s on a bridge eight feet above the set. The horses moved by being pulled along on a trolley which meant the viewer never saw their feet when they were moving.
Anderson paid singer Michael Holliday
£2,000 to sing the songs in the shows that were composed by Barry Gray
. Tommy Reilly
played the harmonica
and mouth organ
music for it, and for Tex Tucker when he played a mouth organ in the show. A number of people had been brought in for the voices and Denise Bryer suggested her husband for the voice of Tex Tucker. When Anderson asked if he had had any stage experience, she revealed that her husband's name was Nicholas Parsons
. Anderson liked Parsons' voice and he got the job.
The waterfall
in the pilot episode was produced by making a model version of a library film of a waterfall available to Anderson and fading from the model to the film of a waterfall running, so the water seemed to appear by magic. A lot of fantastic scenery and buildings were produced by Reg Hill
, his carpenter
Bill James and an assistant, Bob Bell. Anderson said that Bob Bell got arrested while getting shrubs and trees for the show by taking cuttings in a local park. Reg Hill meanwhile got hold of huge chunks of coal and painted them white for rocks for the mountain and desert scenery. Shortly afterwards polystyrene appeared and Hill then carved his own "rocks" from this and painted them grey. The show was filmed in a mansion on the side of the River Thames in Leatherhead. The film used was not very sensitive and under the strong lights needed, something would start to smoke if left there too long.
The series is set in the late 19th Century Western
town of Four Feather Falls, Kansas and features the adventures of its sheriff
, Tex Tucker. In the first episode, Grandpa Twink relates the story of how it all began to grandson, Little Jake. Tex is riding up from the valley and comes across a lost and hungry Indian
boy, Makooya and saves him. Later when reunited with his father, Tex is given four magic
feathers by Indian Chief Kalamakooya as a reward for saving his son, Makooya. Two of these feathers allow his guns to swivel and fire automatically (often while Tex's hands are raised) and the other two allow his horse (Rocky) and his dog (Dusty) to speak English
. As Tex, his horse and dog are very thirsty, Kalamakooya also makes a waterfall where there had been no water before and so when the town was built, it was named after Tex's feathers and the waterfalls.
Pedro was introduced as a villain in the first show and was teamed up with Fernando by the second show, so someone to talk to, to plan with, to blame when things went wrong as they always did. Big Ben was another villain who appeared from time to time, and Red Scalp, the renegade Indian, since it was a western show. Other villains turned up for just one episode.
The characters of the town were Grandpa Twink who did little but rest in a chair, Little Jake the only child in town, Ma Jones who run the town store, Doc Haggerty, Slim Jim the bartender of the Denison saloon, Marvin Jackson the bank manager and Dan Morse the telegraphist. Other characters appeared from time to time, for one episode, often just visiting town.
s in May 2005. It is the only Supermarionation series not yet released to DVD in North America
as of January 2006. Two British children's annuals were produced based on the show published by Collins in 1960 and 1961. They were both written by Sylvia Anderson and the first one featured a short text story based on the pilot episode of the TV series.
The rights to the series remained with Granada until Carlton's recent acquisition of the company. Granada funded 39 episodes. All future Supermarionation ventures were funded by ITC, who later acquired the share capital in the company in 1962.
Made by AP Films with Director - Gerry Anderson
, Director of Photography by Arthur Provis, Art director by Reg Hill, Special Effects by John Read. Puppetry by Christine Glanville, Mary Turner and Roger Woodburn. Editorial Supervision by David Elliot, Production Supervision by Jim Marsh, Film Editor was Bert Rule. Dubbing Editor was John Kelly, Continuity by Sylvia Thamm (later married and became Sylvia Anderson
). Technical Advisor was Bob Ledbetter. Screenplay was by Mary Cathcart Borer.
in the style of Bing Crosby
. This song is sometimes described as the theme song to the series, but it was not as another song referring to the Tex Tucker character actually opened the episodes. The closing theme song was "Two Gun Tex of Texas."
Gerry Anderson
Gerry Anderson MBE is a British publisher, producer, director and writer, famous for his futuristic television programmes, particularly those involving specially modified marionettes, a process called "Supermarionation"....
for Granada Television, from an idea by Barry Gray
Barry Gray
Barry Gray was a British musician and composer who is best known for his work for Gerry Anderson.-Life:...
.
Production
The show was made on a tight budget and could not afford sophisticated special effects. To achieve the effect of the guns' muzzle flashes, small specks of black paint were carefully applied to the 35 mm35 mm film
35 mm film is the film gauge most commonly used for chemical still photography and motion pictures. The name of the gauge refers to the width of the photographic film, which consists of strips 35 millimeters in width...
negatives, so that they would appear as white flashes on the prints.
The series was the first to use an early version of Anderson's 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...
puppetry
Puppetry
Puppetry is a form of theatre or performance which involves the manipulation of puppets. It is very ancient, and is believed to have originated 30,000 years BC. Puppetry takes many forms but they all share the process of animating inanimate performing objects...
process, although the term was not coined until Anderson's next series, Supercar
Supercar (TV series)
Supercar was a children's TV show produced by Gerry Anderson and Arthur Provis's AP Films for ATV and ITC Entertainment. 39 episodes were produced between 1961 and 1962, and it was Anderson's first half-hour series. In the UK it was seen on ITV and in the US in syndication...
. The original puppets produced for the series were made by Christine Glanville and had papier-mâché
Papier-mâché
Papier-mâché , alternatively, paper-mache, is a composite material consisting of paper pieces or pulp, sometimes reinforced with textiles, bound with an adhesive, such as glue, starch, or wallpaper paste....
heads. Because they were stationary, the viewer could not tell which character was talking unless its puppet moved up or down. This was unsatisfactory to Anderson, and the papier-mâché heads were replaced with hollow fibre glass heads with rods inside which could move the eyes — though the puppets could not blink — and wires which with a 12 volt current could move the mouths.
The wires used to control the puppets were eight feet long and made of tungsten
Tungsten
Tungsten , also known as wolfram , is a chemical element with the chemical symbol W and atomic number 74.A hard, rare metal under standard conditions when uncombined, tungsten is found naturally on Earth only in chemical compounds. It was identified as a new element in 1781, and first isolated as...
, an improvement on the curtain wire used in the two earlier series, and were only 1/200 of an inch thick. Being shiny, the wires had to be blackened. The puppets were made one-third life size with the puppeteer
Puppeteer
A puppeteer is a person who manipulates an inanimate object, such as a puppet, in real time to create the illusion of life. The puppeteer may be visible to or hidden from the audience. A puppeteer can operate a puppet indirectly by the use of strings, rods, wires, electronics or directly by his or...
s on a bridge eight feet above the set. The horses moved by being pulled along on a trolley which meant the viewer never saw their feet when they were moving.
Anderson paid singer Michael Holliday
Michael Holliday
Norman Alexander Milne, known professionally as Michael Holliday was a British crooner popular in the late 1950s and early 1960s....
£2,000 to sing the songs in the shows that were composed by Barry Gray
Barry Gray
Barry Gray was a British musician and composer who is best known for his work for Gerry Anderson.-Life:...
. Tommy Reilly
Tommy Reilly
Thomas Rundle Reilly MBE was a Canadian classical harmonica player. He began studying violin at eight and began playing harmonica at aged eleven as a member of his father's band...
played the harmonica
Harmonica
The harmonica, also called harp, French harp, blues harp, and mouth organ, is a free reed wind instrument used primarily in blues and American folk music, jazz, country, and rock and roll. It is played by blowing air into it or drawing air out by placing lips over individual holes or multiple holes...
and mouth organ
Mouth organ
A mouth organ is a generic term for free reed aerophone with one or more air chambers fitted with a free reed.Though it spans many traditions, it is played universally the same way by the musician placing their lips over a chamber or holes in the instrument, and blowing or sucking air to create a...
music for it, and for Tex Tucker when he played a mouth organ in the show. A number of people had been brought in for the voices and Denise Bryer suggested her husband for the voice of Tex Tucker. When Anderson asked if he had had any stage experience, she revealed that her husband's name was Nicholas Parsons
Nicholas Parsons
Nicholas Parsons OBE is a British actor and radio and television presenter.-Early life:...
. Anderson liked Parsons' voice and he got the job.
The waterfall
Waterfall
A waterfall is a place where flowing water rapidly drops in elevation as it flows over a steep region or a cliff.-Formation:Waterfalls are commonly formed when a river is young. At these times the channel is often narrow and deep. When the river courses over resistant bedrock, erosion happens...
in the pilot episode was produced by making a model version of a library film of a waterfall available to Anderson and fading from the model to the film of a waterfall running, so the water seemed to appear by magic. A lot of fantastic scenery and buildings were produced by Reg Hill
Reg Hill
Reginald E. Hill was a British television producer and was most prominently associated with the work of puppet animator Gerry Anderson.-Professional life:...
, his carpenter
Carpenter
A carpenter is a skilled craftsperson who works with timber to construct, install and maintain buildings, furniture, and other objects. The work, known as carpentry, may involve manual labor and work outdoors....
Bill James and an assistant, Bob Bell. Anderson said that Bob Bell got arrested while getting shrubs and trees for the show by taking cuttings in a local park. Reg Hill meanwhile got hold of huge chunks of coal and painted them white for rocks for the mountain and desert scenery. Shortly afterwards polystyrene appeared and Hill then carved his own "rocks" from this and painted them grey. The show was filmed in a mansion on the side of the River Thames in Leatherhead. The film used was not very sensitive and under the strong lights needed, something would start to smoke if left there too long.
Plot
Western (genre)
The Western is a genre of various visual arts, such as film, television, radio, literature, painting and others. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the latter half of the 19th century in the American Old West, hence the name. Some Westerns are set as early as the Battle of...
town of Four Feather Falls, Kansas and features the adventures of its sheriff
Sheriffs in the United States
In the United States, a sheriff is a county official and is typically the top law enforcement officer of a county. Historically, the sheriff was also commander of the militia in that county. Distinctive to law enforcement in the United States, sheriffs are usually elected. The political election of...
, Tex Tucker. In the first episode, Grandpa Twink relates the story of how it all began to grandson, Little Jake. Tex is riding up from the valley and comes across a lost and hungry Indian
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
boy, Makooya and saves him. Later when reunited with his father, Tex is given four magic
Magic (paranormal)
Magic is the claimed art of manipulating aspects of reality either by supernatural means or through knowledge of occult laws unknown to science. It is in contrast to science, in that science does not accept anything not subject to either direct or indirect observation, and subject to logical...
feathers by Indian Chief Kalamakooya as a reward for saving his son, Makooya. Two of these feathers allow his guns to swivel and fire automatically (often while Tex's hands are raised) and the other two allow his horse (Rocky) and his dog (Dusty) to speak English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
. As Tex, his horse and dog are very thirsty, Kalamakooya also makes a waterfall where there had been no water before and so when the town was built, it was named after Tex's feathers and the waterfalls.
Pedro was introduced as a villain in the first show and was teamed up with Fernando by the second show, so someone to talk to, to plan with, to blame when things went wrong as they always did. Big Ben was another villain who appeared from time to time, and Red Scalp, the renegade Indian, since it was a western show. Other villains turned up for just one episode.
The characters of the town were Grandpa Twink who did little but rest in a chair, Little Jake the only child in town, Ma Jones who run the town store, Doc Haggerty, Slim Jim the bartender of the Denison saloon, Marvin Jackson the bank manager and Dan Morse the telegraphist. Other characters appeared from time to time, for one episode, often just visiting town.
Syndication
The series has not been repeated in Britain since the 1960s. In December 2004 it was announced that the rights had been acquired by Network Video, and was released on three Region 2 DVDDVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
s in May 2005. It is the only Supermarionation series not yet released to DVD in North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
as of January 2006. Two British children's annuals were produced based on the show published by Collins in 1960 and 1961. They were both written by Sylvia Anderson and the first one featured a short text story based on the pilot episode of the TV series.
The rights to the series remained with Granada until Carlton's recent acquisition of the company. Granada funded 39 episodes. All future Supermarionation ventures were funded by ITC, who later acquired the share capital in the company in 1962.
Made by AP Films with Director - Gerry Anderson
Gerry Anderson
Gerry Anderson MBE is a British publisher, producer, director and writer, famous for his futuristic television programmes, particularly those involving specially modified marionettes, a process called "Supermarionation"....
, Director of Photography by Arthur Provis, Art director by Reg Hill, Special Effects by John Read. Puppetry by Christine Glanville, Mary Turner and Roger Woodburn. Editorial Supervision by David Elliot, Production Supervision by Jim Marsh, Film Editor was Bert Rule. Dubbing Editor was John Kelly, Continuity by Sylvia Thamm (later married and became Sylvia Anderson
Sylvia 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....
). Technical Advisor was Bob Ledbetter. Screenplay was by Mary Cathcart Borer.
Music
Barry Gray, the show's creator, also composed the music for the series. The best known song to come out of the series was "Four Feather Falls", sung in some episodes by Michael HollidayMichael Holliday
Norman Alexander Milne, known professionally as Michael Holliday was a British crooner popular in the late 1950s and early 1960s....
in the style of Bing Crosby
Bing Crosby
Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby was an American singer and actor. Crosby's trademark bass-baritone voice made him one of the best-selling recording artists of the 20th century, with over half a billion records in circulation....
. This song is sometimes described as the theme song to the series, but it was not as another song referring to the Tex Tucker character actually opened the episodes. The closing theme song was "Two Gun Tex of Texas."
Cast
- Nicholas ParsonsNicholas ParsonsNicholas Parsons OBE is a British actor and radio and television presenter.-Early life:...
as Tex Tucker. - Denise BryerDenise BryerDenise Bryer is an English voice actress.Bryer voiced Billina in Disney's 1985 film Return to Oz, as well as The Junk Lady in the 1986 movie Labyrinth, and many other films. In addition to her work voice acting in film and television she also worked extensively on UK radio and children's recordings...
as Ma Jones and Little Jake. - Kenneth ConnorKenneth ConnorKenneth Connor MBE was an English comedy stage, radio, film and TV actor, best known for his appearances in the Carry On films.-Career:...
as Rocky, Dusty, Pedro. - 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....
as Grandpa Twink and Fernando.