Production Notes
The series was produced by Ralph Smart, who wrote a number of stories for the series and who also produced The Adventures of Sir Lancelot. The show was made at the National Studios in Elstree.
The outdoor scenes were filmed around the mountains and lakes of Snowdonia in the UK. The film base and make up were at a small farm in Cwm-Y-Glo in Snowdonia. This is directly beside Llyn Padarn, a lake which can be seen in many of the location shots (as can cars driving on the A4086 road on the opposite side of the lake!). The crew used to walk up the mountain from their base as there was no vehicular access, and brought much needed work for at least three yearly shoots to a tiny corner of North Wales before tourism took off.
An accident very early on in production occurred to the star, Conrad Phillips, during filming in Snowdonia. He was asked to keep stepping back until he unfortunately stepped off a 12-foot drop, severely injuring his knee - something which ultimately lead to his premature retirement from acting. Conrad had to wear support bandages during filming but sometimes forgot, causing him to struggle with some of the action scenes.
Daily rushes were viewed at the only cinema in the area, that at Llanberis which was taken over from 08.00 until noon every morning for the duration of the shoot. The film was transported to Soho in London for developing and the rushes returned to Llanberris by 08.30 the next morning.
Although all three series had location scenes, the third was far more studio based and what location scenes there were mostly taken from unused and reused stock shots from the first and second series. A smaller crew went to Wales for this series and more money was saved by shooting "mute", i.e. without synchronised sound. In the days of strict union rules when demarcation was strictly enforced, this saved several technicians wages.
Though in some ways the same as The Adventures of Robin Hood, a brave bowman fighting against a tyrant, this was a much harder show with crossbow bolts often killing people and Tell fighting hard hand-to-hand battles, which often resulted in the death of the bad guy. Unlike the foppish Sheriff of Nottingham, Gessler was portrayed as a pig of a man, unshaven, often eating or drinking without any hint of manners and throwing his metaphorical as well as literal weight around. Goddard proved to be very active, despite his size. The series was repeated well into the 1960's.
Read more about this topic: The Adventures Of William Tell
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