''The Huggetts'' are a fictional family who appear in a series of British films which were released in the late 1940s by

Gainsborough Pictures Gainsborough Pictures was a British film studio based on the south bank of the Regent's Canal, in Poole Street, Hoxton in the former Metropolitan Borough of Shoreditch, east London. Gainsborough Studios was active between 1924 and 1951. The co ...

. The films centre on the character of Joe Huggett, played by Jack Warner, the head of a

working class The working class is a subset of employees who are compensated with wage or salary-based contracts, whose exact membership varies from definition to definition. Members of the working class rely primarily upon earnings from wage labour. Most c ...

London family. Along with the

Gainsborough melodramas The Gainsborough melodramas were a sequence of melodrama films produced by the British film studio Gainsborough Pictures between 1943 and 1947 that conformed to a melodramatic style.Brooke, Michael. (2014)Gainsborough Melodrama Screenonline Briti ...

, the Huggett films proved popular and lucrative for the studio. All four films were directed by

Ken Annakin Kenneth Cooper Annakin, OBE (10 August 1914 – 22 April 2009) was an English film director. His career spanned half a century, beginning in the early 1940s and ending in 1992, and in the 1960s he was noticed by critics with large-scale advent ...

and produced by Betty E. Box.

Overview and characters

The family first appear in the film ''

Holiday Camp A holiday camp is a type of holiday accommodation, primarily in the United Kingdom, that encourages holidaymakers to stay within the site boundary, and provides entertainment and facilities for them throughout the day. Since the 1970s, the term ...

'' (1947), in which the family consists of Joe, his wife Ethel (

Kathleen Harrison Kathleen Harrison (23 February 1892 – 7 December 1995) was a prolific English character actress best remembered for her role as Mrs. Huggett (opposite Jack Warner and Petula Clark) in a trio of British post-war comedies about a working-cla ...

), their daughter Joan (

Hazel Court Margery Hazel Court (10 February 1926 – 15 April 2008) was an English actress. She is known for her roles in British and American horror films during the 1950s and early 1960s, including Terence Fisher's ''The Curse of Frankenstein'' (19 ...

) and her baby, and their son Harry ( Peter Hammond).

Jimmy Hanley Jimmy Hanley (22 October 1918 – 13 January 1970) was an English actor who appeared in the popular Huggetts film series, and in ITV's most popular advertising magazine programme, '' Jim's Inn'', from 1957 to 1963. Early life Born in Norwich, ...

played Jimmy Gardner, who becomes romantically involved with Joan. Actors

Susan Shaw Susan Shaw (29 August 192927 November 1978; born Patricia Gwendoline Sloots) was an English actress. Early life Shaw was born Patricia Gwendoline Sloots on 29 August 1929 in West Norwood, London, to Edward John Sloots and Lillian Rose Lewis. S ...

and John Blythe also appear, and return (playing different characters) in the three Huggetts films that followed. ''Holiday Camp'' proved popular enough with post-war British audiences for the family to be spun off for a series of films of their own. In the first, ''

Here Come the Huggetts ''Here Come the Huggetts'' is a 1948 British comedy film, the first of the Huggetts series, about a working class English family. All three films in the series were directed by Ken Annakin and released by Gainsborough Pictures. Jack Warner an ...

'' (1948), characters Joan and Harry were replaced by three daughters: Jane (

Jane Hylton Jane Hylton (born Audrey Gwendolene Clark; 16 July 1926 – 28 February 1979) was an English actress who accumulated 30 film credits, mostly in the 1940s and 1950s, before moving into television work in the latter half of her career in the 1960 ...

), Susan (

) and Pet (

Petula Clark Sally "Petula" Clark (born 15 November 1932) is a British singer, actress, and songwriter. She started her professional career as a child actor, child performer and has had the longest career of any British entertainer, spanning more than 85 y ...

). Peter Hammond was recast as Susan's on-off boyfriend Peter Hawtrey, while Jimmy Hanley returned as Jimmy Gardner who is now engaged to Jane. Other regular characters in the series include Ethel's niece, Diana (

Diana Dors Diana Dors (born Diana Mary Fluck; 23 October 19314 May 1984) was an English actress and singer. Dors came to public notice as a Bombshell (slang), blonde bombshell, much in the style of Americans Marilyn Monroe, Jayne Mansfield, and Mamie Van ...

), Harold Hinchley (

David Tomlinson David Cecil MacAlister Tomlinson (7 May 1917 – 24 June 2000) was an English stage, film and television actor, singer and comedian. Having been described as both a leading man and a character actor, he is primarily remembered for his roles wit ...

), garage owner Gowan ( John Blythe) and Grandma Huggett (

Amy Veness Amy Veness (26 February 1876 – 22 September 1960) was an English film actress. She played the role of Grandma Huggett in '' The Huggetts Trilogy'' and was sometimes credited as Amy Van Ness. Veness was born Amy Clarice Beart in Aldeburgh, Su ...

). Blythe and Veness were the only actors, besides the main cast, to repeat their roles in all three films. The characters of Jane and Jimmy are missing from the second film but return for the final film, in which Jane is played by

Dinah Sheridan Dinah Sheridan (born Dinah Nadyejda Ginsburg; 17 September 1920 – 25 November 2012) was an English actress with a career spanning seven decades. She was best known for the films ''Genevieve (film), Genevieve'' (1953) and ''The Railway Children ...

. The first film revolves around the upheaval Diana's arrival at the Huggett home causes, as well as the impending wedding of Jane and Jimmy. The follow-up films were '' Vote for Huggett'' (1949), in which Joe stands for election, and ''

The Huggetts Abroad ''The Huggetts Abroad'' is a 1949 British comedy drama film directed by Ken Annakin and starring Jack Warner, Kathleen Harrison, Petula Clark and Susan Shaw. It was written by Gerard Bryant and Ted Willis from a story by Keith Campbell. It wa ...

'' (1949), in which the family emigrate to

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

and get involved in smuggled diamonds.

Creative personnel

All four films in which the Huggetts appear were directed by Ken Annakin (making his feature film debut with ''Holiday Camp'') and produced by Betty E. Box, while

Mabel Constanduros Mabel Constanduros (' Tilling; 29 March 1880 – 8 February 1957) was an English actress, screenwriter and BBC Radio personality. She gained public notice playing Mrs.Buggins on the radio programme ''The Buggins Family'', which ran from 1928 to ...

and her nephew Denis Constanduros contributed to all four scripts.

Muriel Box Violette Muriel Box, Baroness Gardiner, (22 September 1905 – 18 May 1991) was an English screenwriter and director, Britain's most prolific female director, having directed 12 feature films and one featurette. Her screenplay for '' The Sevent ...

Sydney Box Frank Sydney Box (29 April 1907 – 25 May 1983) was a British film producer and screenwriter, and brother of British film producer Betty Box. In 1940, he founded the documentary film company Verity Films with Jay Lewis. He produced and co- ...

and

Peter Rogers Peter Rogers (20 February 1914 – 14 April 2009) was an English film producer. He is best known for creating the ''Carry On'' series of films. Life and career Rogers began his career as a journalist for his local paper, before graduat ...

were writers on ''Holiday Camp'' and ''Here Come the Huggetts'', and

Ted Willis Edward Henry Willis, Baron Willis (13 January 1914 – 22 December 1992) was an English playwright, novelist and screenwriter who was also politically active in support of the Labour Party (UK), Labour Party. He created several television serie ...

worked on the script for ''Holiday Camp'' and co-wrote ''The Huggetts Abroad'' with Gerard Bryant.

Allan MacKinnon Allan MacKinnon (1912–1980) was a British screenwriter and also a writer of mystery novels from 1945 to 1965. Novels * Nine Days' Murder (1945) * Money on the Black (1946) * House of Darkness (1947; reprinted in paperback: 1948, 1982) * Map of ...

co-wrote ''Vote for Huggett'' with the Constanduroses. The Huggetts' theme which appears in all three films was composed by

Antony Hopkins Antony Hopkins (born Ernest William Antony Reynolds; 21 March 1921 – 6 May 2014) was a composer, pianist, and conductor, as well as a writer and radio broadcaster. He was widely known for his books of musical analysis and for his radio progra ...

List of Huggett film appearances

* ''

'' (1947) * ''

'' (1948) * '' Vote for Huggett'' (1949) * ''

'' (1949)

Other appearances

Another film, ''Christmas with the Huggetts'', was planned but never made. A BBC radio series, ''Meet the Huggetts'', ran from 1953 to 1962. Both Warner and Harrison reprised the roles of Joe and Ethel, but here their family consists of daughter Jane (Marion Collins) and son Bobby (George Howell), rather than the three sisters of the film series.

Legacy and influences

Warner and Harrison were later reunited in the film ''

Home and Away ''Home and Away'' (''H&A'') is an Australian television soap opera. It was created by Alan Bateman and commenced broadcast on the Seven Network on 17 January 1988. Bateman came up with the concept of the show during a trip to Kangaroo Point, N ...

'', about a family in similar circumstances to the Huggetts who win the

football pools In the United Kingdom, the football pools, often referred to as "the pools", is a betting pool based on predicting the outcome of association football matches taking place in the coming week. The pools are typically cheap to enter, and may enc ...

. The 1952 film '' The Happy Family'', starring Harrison, was also influenced by the Huggetts. In the

fourth wall The fourth wall is a performance dramatic convention, convention in which an invisible, imaginary wall separates actors from the audience. While the audience can see through this "wall", the convention assumes the actors act as if they cannot. ...

-breaking pre-credits sequence of the 1949 film '' It's Not Cricket'', stars Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne mention the Huggett films in a contemptuous manner. This film was also produced by Betty E. Box.

Media releases

''The Huggetts'' boxset, including all three films and ''Holiday Camp'', was released on

Region Two DVD region codes are a digital rights management technique introduced in 1997. It is designed to allow rights holders to control the international distribution of a DVD release, including its content, release date, and price, all according to t ...

DVD in May 2007 by ITV Studios Home Entertainment.

Novelisations

In addition to co-authoring the screenplays, Mabel and Denis Constanduros collaborated on novelisations of ''Here Come the Huggetts'', ''Vote for Huggett'' and ''The Huggetts Abroad'', all three 1949, published in hardcover by Sampson Low, Marston & Co., Ltd. Each features additional material (some that seems to have been in the original screenplays but subsequently cut) and expanded scenes. There was also a separate novelisation of ''Here Come the Huggetts'' released in 1948 as part of editor Eric Warman's magazine-paperback Book of the Film series, written by one of his staff novelisers under one of the mandated house pseudonyms, Warwick Mannon; this earlier, shorter novelization coincided with the initial release of the film and follows it very closely. Finally, Book of the Film also published a novelisation of ''Holiday Camp'' by a different writer using another house name, Kit Pedlar, also coincident with the film’s release; it contains a long afterword about writing and making the film by

Godfrey Winn Godfrey Herbert Winn (15 October 1906 – 19 June 1971) was an English journalist known as a columnist, and also a writer and actor. Born in Kings Norton, Worcestershire, he attended King Edward's School, Birmingham. Film series introduced in 1947 Gainsborough Pictures films Comedy film series British film series British black-and-white films