Director: Val Guest
Year: 1954
Rating: 7.0
A very British comedy crime film full of droll humor and understated suspense
brought to us via YouTube. This is the sort of film that it seems the English
could knock off with ease and charm like afternoon tea and crumpets. A few
well-known names in the cast though not so much at the time. It is a simple
enough premise and its 78 minute running time serves it well. It is more
than a foggy London night - it is thick pea soup and all the planes have
been shut down. A few passengers though convince the airport to put them
on a bus to be sent to another airport where the fog has lifted a bit. At
the same time a gang has broken into a storage room at the airport and made
off with a load of gold bars. And hid them in the bus baggage compartment.
So off the bus goes with the passengers, driver and airport hostess through
the murky night. And one of them is the head of the gang. Which one is the
mystery.
Very enjoyable with large doses of broad humor provided by the driver played
by English working class comic Frankie Howerd. Not a well known name outside
of England but back in the 1950's and 60's he was quite popular, had his
own TV show and was gay though I expect that was not too public at the time.
His comedy clearly stems from the old music hall days and is full of bumbling,
stumbling and quips. I have never come across him before but though a bit
laid on thick I quite enjoyed his performance. He is in fact the lead here.
The identity of the hostess was a bit of a surprise to me - a name we all
know but not for her acting. But in fact before she became a famous singer
she had been appearing in films since she was a child in the 1940's. Petula
Clark. She is quite pretty in the film but I could have spent a week guessing
who she was and not come close. Unfortunately, she doesn't sing. In the cast
is another name few will remember - Belinda Lee. After seeing her in another
film - The Belles of St Trinians - I recall looking her up because she was
simply stunning - and discovered that she was a blonde sex bomb for a while
but didn't really catch on except with older men and died in a car accident
when she was only 25. She goes through this film well-filled out in one of
those 1950 bras that gave a certain oomph to women's breasts. This was her
first film after she was discovered by the director.
The main reason though that I watched this was because I saw a documentary
on her life earlier today - Dame Margaret Rutherford. She is quite wonderful
here as her usual battle axe with a sharp tongue, sharp umbrella and sharper
mind. I have always wondered why I had never seen Rutherford as a young actress
- in everything she is the old lady - either dotty or razor quick as in the
Miss Marple films. The reason is simple enough. She was not in her first
film until she was into her forties and even then she usually played older
characters. This has put me in the mood for her Miss Marple films which for
reasons unknown I have seen more than a few times.
This was directed by Val Guest a few years before he hit his stride with
a few films for Hammer - two Quatermass films, The Camp on Blood Island and
The Abominable Snowman - all much less gentle than this film!
