Another SUPERMANIA exclusive, courtesy of photographer ‘ParkStreetParrot’ who tells his remarkable story about discovering the cast & crew of Superman IV: The Quest For Peace on location towards the end of the shoot –
“The photos were taken on 10 October 1986, a few weeks before the M25 opened (the official opening ceremony occurred about a mile from this location between Junction 21 and 22, by Margaret Thatcher)
Its a long time ago, but I must have had a day off, I received local intelligence that this was happening (I had a relative that was involved in the M25 project ).
There was remarkably little security by today’s standards. I arrived with my trusty Canon A1 and took a couple of rolls of film. Most of these pictures have never been seen before. I may have processed the films myself, I did that with black and white films. The quality is not so good and may have been down to poor processing!
I learned a couple of lessons at this event . I wanted to supply some pictures to a local newspaper, so I called them – but they asked me where it was happening and I told them so they sent their own guy! The second lesson was that you have to hang about, even if its getting tedious and nothing is happening – I didn’t do this and went home after about 3 hours. Later in the day, maybe because the light was better later, Christopher Reeve (or the stuntman) was filmed underneath the car, pretending to fly away with it – these were the pictures that appeared in the local paper a few days later – D’oh!!
Since that time, this part of the M25 has become one of the busiest sections (if you imagine a clock face its at the 12 o’ clock position), and the motorway has just been widened to accommodate another lane each side…”
The above is a selection of never-before-seen prints reproduced here with the kind permission of the photographer with more to follow in upcoming posts…!