Missing Gerry Gee Episodes Re-Discovered at the NFSA

In the previous post, we determined that at least some of the missing episodes of The Adventures of Gerry Gee that had been re-discovered at GTV9 circa 1991 (a fact documented by both Ron Blaskett and Denzil Howson) had been retained in the GTV9 vault at Bendigo Street until the move to Docklands circa 2010. We also presented evidence from GTV9 staff member Peter Corrigan that these film reels had at that time been transferred to the National Film and Sound Archive. We even had an NFSA acquisition number to confirm the transfer.

My contact at NFSA Melbourne, Helen Tully, had left the previous year and the role had been taken over by Thorsten Kaeding. Eventually, after finding out that my emails to Thorsten were not getting through, I spoke to him on the phone. Thorsten said: “I’ll do some digging on the questions you’ve asked and get back to you as soon as I can”. A week later Thorsten replied in November 2020:

I have found information which indicates we received Gerry Gee film reels which have not yet been catalogued.

I will need to go to our warehouse to sight them and will then be able to report back.

Finally here was confirmation of what happened to some or all of the missing reels.

Then in March 2021, Thorsten replied to my further enquiry stating:

The material is queued for assessment by our conservation people (we check for decomposition, etc), once this is done I’ll be able to have a detailed look and get the information to you.

As of this writing I’ve contacted Thorsten again to enquire about progress with these Gerry Gee film reels. Update: As of October 2022 I’ve had further correspondence with Thorsten and I’m expecting to get an update soon on their status.

In the next post I will present a detailed list of the known Adventures of Gerry Gee reels and their locations.