Cinema audiences have been treated in recent months to 3D versions of films such as Up, Toy Story and My Bloody Valentine. Next week, however, a figure will be introduced whose appearance as a 3D star was first filmed more than half a century ago but, extraordinarily, has never been shown in public before: the Queen.

The footage of the Queen at the Coronation in 1953 and touring Britain was never shown in cinemas as first intended, but instead languished in a film archive.

Shot by two young documentary makers now in their 80s, Bob Angell and Arthur Wooster, it will be shown on Channel 4 next week as the highlight of a week-long season of 3D films.

But if it had not been for a chance remark, the film would still be in its canisters in the British Film Institute archive in Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire.

What prompted the search for the long-forgotten film was an outbreak of friendly rivalry between Mr Wooster and his son, David. Mr Wooster spent his life in movies, including working as a photographer on nine James Bond films, while his son is also in the business.

When David announced that he was to film the 2006 World Cup in 3D, he thought: "'I’ve got him, I’m going to do something he has never done.’ Then he told me, ‘I’m sure I did something in 1953 with the Queen’.”

That something turned out to be a 17-minute colour film, Royal Review, which had been commissioned by Pathé, the newsreel company. Shot on two cameras simultaneously to give the 3D effect, it shows the Queen as she has never been seen before. David Glover, a commissioning editor at Channel 4, said: “It’s the nearest thing to time travel that I have ever experienced.”

David Wooster said: “When we plugged it into our 3D editing suite, suddenly there it was in 3D — it was extraordinary."

There is footage of the Queen on her Coronation Day, travelling in the Gold State Coach from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Abbey, as well as shots of that other star of the day, Queen Salote of Tonga, winning the hearts of the British public as she braved the rain in an open carriage to wave to the crowds.

“It was an extraordinary day,” said Mr Angell. “There was a wonderful atmosphere. It never occurred to us, as we operated the only equipment of its kind in the world, that we would become part of history.”

Other sequences show the Queen at the Derby and the Highland Games.

Most remarkable of all, the two film-makers also shot the Queen ten days after the Coronation at Tower Pier, where she was greeting royal bargemen before travelling by river to Windsor. The pair were able to get much closer to the Queen than any modern-day film-maker would be allowed, and managed to get a close-up shot of the Queen, seemingly about to step out of the screen as she chatted to the red-uniformed flunkeys of the Royal Barge.

“She could not have come closer,” says Mr Wooster on the commentary to the documentary about their film. “That was the shot.”

By the time the film was finished, however, the fashion for 3D film was dying, and Royal Review never had a cinema release. “The 3D bubble had burst,” said Mr Angell. “But we got paid.”

Mr Angell, 87, and Mr Wooster, 80, did at least get a second chance to shoot the Queen in 3D. After Buckingham Palace officials saw their footage from 1953, the pair were invited to film her at a Buckingham Palace garden party this summer and at the annual swan-upping ceremony on the Thames.

Viewers can pick up free 3D glasses from Sainsbury’s stores around Britain. However, the programme can still be seen without the glasses, looking almost like an ordinary image.

The Queen in 3-D, Monday, November 16, 9pm, Channel 4, with the second part on Tuesday.

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