AP Films
TV company
AP Films or APF (renamed Century 21 Productions in 1966) was a British independent film production company of the 1950s until the early 1970s. The company became internationally known for its imaginative children's action-adventure marionette television series – most significantly Thunderbirds – produced for British ITV network companies Associated-Rediffusion, Granada, ABC and ATV. At its height, the company employed more than 200 staff.
Origins
Established in 1957 by editor-director Gerry Anderson and cinematographer Arthur Provis, following the liquidation of their employer Polytechnic Films, AP Films was set up, named after the initials of Anderson and Provis. They took with them producer Reg Hill, cinematographer John Read and secretary, then known as Sylvia Thamm. Thamm would later become Anderson's second wife. The company was created with the intention of it becoming a conventional film production house.
With no commissions and funds running low, APF were approached with an offer of collaboration with children's author Roberta Leigh and her colleague Suzanne Warner to produce the puppet TV series The Adventures of Twizzle for Associated-Rediffusion. With some reluctance, the company took on the commission and the programme was such a success that it immediately led to a further collaboration with Leigh for the first series of Torchy the Battery Boy.
In 1959, Provis left the company amicably following disagreements with Anderson over future strategy. APF then went on to make its first wholly independent production of Four Feather Falls, a puppet Western created by Barry Gray who was better known for his musical contributions to the company's productions, for Granada Television.
The public source identifies “AP Films” as tV company. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Films and company.
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Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2420344. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1966, 1957 and 1959.
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This entry incorporates text from “AP Films” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.