Thunderbird 6

1 9 6 8 (UK)

The International Rescue team returned for a follow-up to the 1966 feature Thunderbirds Are Go with another tale of suspense and intrigue in 1968's Thunderbird 6. Based on the successful British TV series Thunderbirds, the film showcased Gerry and Sylvia Anderson's "Supermarionation" puppet characters in an around-the-world voyage fraught with peril.

The background: In the year 2063, Jeff Tracy and his sons serve, protect and defend the planet as the International Rescue team. Piloting the five Thunderbird vehicles (a rocket, transport vehicle, spaceship, submarine and space satellite), International Rescue responds to the call of danger no matter where the source. In this film, International Rescue's resident scientist,

Brains, has developed a new airship, designed as cross between a Zeppelin and an ocean liner. His teammates laugh the idea off until the New World Aircraft company decides to build the creation. Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward, butler Parker, Brains' lovely assistant Tin Tin and a few of the Tracy brothers join the airship's maiden voyage, but the inventor himself is stuck back in the lab working on the new Thunderbird 6.

As the airship makes its way from London to New York to the Grand Canyon and on to Africa, the team discovers that the airship's crew has been replaced with a group of saboteurs. The villains record the heroes' conversations, editing them into a false cry for help to lure International Rescue into a trap. The shadowy Black Phantom is the evil mastermind behind it all, hoping to steal the Thunderbird vehicles for his own nefarious purposes.

Scott and Virgil Tracy fly in to the rescue, but the airship is damaged and crashes into a thousand-foot tower, hanging precariously. The five Thunderbirds vehicles aren't up to the task of this rescue, but perhaps the ultra-secret Thunderbird 6?

Like the television series on which it was based, Thunderbird 6 had as its biggest draw the innovative puppet work of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson. Using traditional string controls and model effects, the Andersons took their craft light years beyond simple marionette work. Though neither this film nor its predecessor made much of a splash in the US, Thunderbirds gained an extremely loyal fan following, which has continued to grow in the ensuing decades.