The Film They'd Rather Forget –Gerry Anderson, Sylvia Anderson & The Making of Crossroads to Crime
5,325
Published 2024-08-10
In this behind the scenes documentary, Gerry Anderson, Sylvia Anderson, David Graham and David Elliott remember a troubled B-movie production that involved timid stunt performers, wonky line readings, vocal cinema audiences, and executive feedback.
The film was produced and directed by Gerry Anderson, distributed by Anglo-Amalgamated and starred Anthony Oliver, George Murcell, Miriam Karlin, David Graham and Ferdy Mayne.
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About Us:
About Me:
Century 21 Films Ltd is a multi-faceted production company whose work spans drama to documentary, miniature effects to puppet shows. It was founded by a group of filmmakers who first collaborated on Filmed in Supermarionation, the story of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson's hit puppet shows including Thunderbirds, Stingray and Captain Scarlet.
Since then, we have worked for a multitude of high-profile clients including ITV, BBC, Mammoth Productions, British Film Institute and the Halifax working on projects such Thunderbirds, Endeavour, Doctor Who and The Twilight Zone.
In addition to our regular filmmaking services, we specialise in ‘Supermarionation’ - the puppetry filming technique used to make shows like Thunderbirds and have collaborated with ITV repeatedly to provide specialised services. Our work has been featured on The One Show, This Morning, Good Morning Britain, BBC News, ITV News and Mastermind.
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All Comments (21)
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Very entertaining hearing cast and crew's recollections of Crossroads to Crime. Thank you for uploading!
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Anglo-Amalgamated, flawless, slick and timeless. Quite a fan of Scotland Yard series....
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i watch a lot of British B pictures on Talking Pictures TV and for an entertainment of it's limited type it isn't really as bad as the anecdotes make out.
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How wonderfully British, what a great bunch of people.
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Barry Gray's music was/ is FAB. Re used in Supercar - The White Line and Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons - Manhunt.
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It was of its time and very good for for it.
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If you watch expecting a "so bad it's good" classic, you'll probably be disappointed. IMHO it's a perfectly reasonable example of the genre - the plot's a bit contrived and confused (something that affected much of Gerry's later work), the acting and scripting could be better, but it's a perfectly serviceable little period movie that kept me entertained.
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David Graham, the voice of a good half of Thunderbirds and several Daleks... ...dropping an F-bomb! Well that's my childhood shattered! 🤣
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But these are the best movies to watch.
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😊😊😊great
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Hmm. Yes. Unfortunate. But then, I remember thinking that the huge budget, all-star, full-colour sci-fi epic 'Journey to the Far Side of the Sun' lacked greatness, too.
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For £16.5k (that’s just over £500,000 in 2024 money) I’d say it was pretty good. It had a story, a beginning, middle and end, decent (albeit probably stock) sets and a few action pieces…What more do you want from a B movie? 😎
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I enjoyed this, looking back at the realities of making 1950s/60s British cinema, everyone involved are just trying to make a living, and we don't realise today how meagre the wages and resources often were... I've never heard of Crossroads to Crime before now, but Talking TV show a lot of these vintage cheap films and some are actually good, others are charming because of the time they were made in, and still others (like this film) are disposable filler. I was astonished to hear this was shot in around two weeks! But while there a certain charm to the Children's Foundation films of this era that charm comes from their naivity and simplicity - chasing a bed through London is absurd for instance, with potboilers like Crossroads to Crime we expect a little more substance, and instead get a very mediocre very basic plot that might have filled an episode of a Police show of the time like 'Scotland Yard', or Dixon of Dock Green'... There isn't enough meat to the bone for sustaining a 60-90 minute film. And that's the problem - not enough substance.
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Well, at least you couldn't see the strings.🤭
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Which documentary is this from?
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Quite frankly, I enjoyed it...... For the small budget and to do it in a fortnight.. I feel that it was very good? I think that they did a great job, and should certainly not be embarrassed with the result.... I'm not a film maker, but I'm sure that I could not have made it, even for much more time and money?
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Two weeks to shoot and £16k budget. It's impossible to get all the coverage to edit this properly, in that time. That makes it very static and it's overlit all the time :/
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I've seen the film, it wasn't great, but neither was it terrible.
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It was a real stinker, wasn't it? 😂
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I have the Network dvd of this film, its not that bad I love old British B films, ive seen a couple worse than this one.
