''The Runaway Bus'' (also known as ''Scream in the Night'') is a 1954 British

comedy film The comedy film is a film genre that emphasizes humor. These films are designed to amuse audiences and make them laugh. Films in this genre typically have a happy ending, with dark comedy being an exception to this rule. Comedy is one of the o ...

produced, written and directed by

Val Guest Val Guest (born Valmond Maurice Grossman; 11 December 1911 – 10 May 2006) was an English film director and screenwriter. Beginning as a writer (and later director) of comedy films, he is best known for his work for Hammer Film Productions, ...

. It stars

Frankie Howerd Francis Alick Howard (6 March 1917 – 19 April 1992), better known by his stage-name Frankie Howerd, was an English actor and comedian. Early life Howerd was born the son of a soldier Francis Alfred William (1887–1934)England & Wales, Deat ...

Margaret Rutherford Dame Margaret Taylor Rutherford (11 May 1892 – 22 May 1972) was an English actress of stage, film and television. Rutherford came to national attention following World War II in the film adaptations of Noël Coward's ''Blithe Spirit (1945 f ...

and

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 ...

and an ensemble cast of

character actor A character actor is an actor known for playing unusual, eccentric, or interesting character (arts), characters in supporting roles, rather than leading ones.28 April 2013, The New York Acting SchoolTen Best Character Actors of All Time Retrie ...

s in a story about a bus caught in fog while a gang of crooks tries to carry off a heist. The film was shot at Southall Studios in

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

with sets designed by the

art director Art director is a title for a variety of similar job functions in theater, advertising, marketing, publishing, fashion, live-action and animated film and television, the Internet, and video games. It is the charge of a sole art director to supe ...

Wilfred Arnold Wilfred Arnold (1903–1970), also known as C. Wilfred Arnold, was a British art director.Ryall p.98 He was a prolific contributor to British films, designing the sets for more than a hundred. His brother Norman Arnold was also an art directo ...

. It was the film debut of Belinda Lee. The film is referenced in an episode of Frankie Howerd's 1970s radio series.

Plot

When heavy fog wreaks havoc with the plans of air travellers throughout

southern England Southern England, also known as the South of England or the South, is a sub-national part of England. Officially, it is made up of the southern, south-western and part of the eastern parts of England, consisting of the statistical regions of ...

, outspoken Cynthia Beeston, a forceful proponent of "Positive Thought", insists on being taken from London Airport to Blackbushe Airport, where she might be able to fly to Dublin. Harassed airline employees find emergency relief coach 13 and reserve driver Percy Lamb to transport her. Lamb is so hapless he cannot find his way around the airport, much less the roads. Beeston is joined by mild-mannered Henry Waterman, pulp-thriller addict Janie Grey and Ernest Schroede. To satisfy a regulation, stewardess "Nikki" Nicholls is assigned to shepherd them. Rounding out the party is airline first officer Peter Jones, who hitches a ride. Unbeknownst to most of them, robbers have stolen £200,000 worth of

gold bullion A gold bar, also known as gold bullion or a gold ingot, is a quantity of refining, refined metallic gold that can be shaped in various forms, produced under standardized conditions of manufacture, labeling, and record-keeping. Larger varietie ...

from the airport bonded store and hidden the proceeds in the

boot A boot is a type of footwear. Most boots mainly cover the foot and the ankle, while some also cover some part of the lower calf. Some boots extend up the leg, sometimes as far as the knee or even the hip. Most boots have a heel that is clearl ...

of the coach. Two of the crooks are caught. Under questioning by Inspector Henley, one breaks down and admits the gold was stowed on the coach and that the mysterious and notorious "Banker" is the mastermind. Henley informs Percy by radio, but the fog is so thick, Percy has no idea where he is. In mid-call, Peter pokes what Percy thinks is a gun into his back and tells him to keep driving. They wind up at a deserted, booby-trapped village used by the Army for training. When Schroeder finds a Sten gun, Peter grabs it. Schroeder then informs him that it does not work, and produces a pistol of his own. After a scuffle, it turns out that Peter is working for

airport security Airport security includes the techniques and methods used in an attempt to protect passengers, staff, aircraft, and airport property from malicious harm, crime, terrorism, and other threats. Aviation security is a combination of measures and hum ...

, while Schroeder is a police officer. Miss Beeston is revealed to be the Banker and she ends up with the gun, as her henchman Henry tries to start the coach. Percy saves the day: he had removed the rotor arm from the engine beforehand, and knocks the pistol out of Miss Beeston's hand with a stone.

Cast

as Percy Lamb *

as Cynthia Beeston *

as Lee "Nikki" Nichols * George Coulouris as Ernest Shroeder * Toke Townley as Henry Waterman * Terence Alexander as Peter Jones * Belinda Lee as Janie Grey * John Horsley as Inspector Henley * Anthony Oliver as Duty Official * Stringer Davis as Transport Officer * Michael Gwynn as Transport Dispatcher * Reginald Beckwith as Telephone Man *

Marianne Stone Marianne Stone (23 August 1922 – 21 December 2009) was an English character actress. She performed in films from the early 1940s to the late 1980s, typically playing working class parts such as barmaids, secretaries and landladies. Stone app ...

as Travel Girl *

Lionel Murton William Lionel Murton (2 June 1915 – 26 September 2006) was an English character actor. Born in Wandsworth, London, he was resident at Little Orchard, Weston Road, Upton Grey, Basingstoke, Hampshire, England, before his death at age 91. He was ...

as American Traveller *

Lisa Gastoni Lisa Gastoni (born 28 July 1935) is an Italian film actress. Gastoni was named "Best Italian Actress of the Year, 1966" as she received both the Nastro D'Argento Award and the Golden Globe Award from Italy's Foreign Press Association.} Biograp ...

as Receptionist * Richard Beynon as Transport Officer * Sam Kydd as Airport Security Officer * Cyril Conway as 1st Crook * Arthur Lovegrove as 2nd Crook * Alastair Hunter as Detective Spencer

Production

The huge success of

Norman Wisdom Sir Norman Joseph Wisdom, (4 February 1915 – 4 October 2010), was an English actor, comedian, musician, and singer, best known for his series of comedy films produced between 1953 and 1966, in which he portrayed the endearingly inept charact ...

in '' Trouble in Store'' led to British film companies signing up other comics from TV, radio and variety. The company Eros decided to make a film with Frankie Howerd. Guest says the idea to use Howerd came from Peter Noble.

had first met Frankie Howerd backstage in his dressing room at the

London Palladium The London Palladium () is a Grade II* West End theatre located on Argyll Street, London, in Soho. The theatre was designed by Frank Matcham and opened in 1910. The auditorium holds 2,286 people. Hundreds of stars have played there, many wit ...

where Howerd was topping the bill in a long-running variety show. The two men became friends. Howerd later said he "wanted to do a comedy thriller. Bob Hope’s first real success was in ''The Cat and the Canary''. I saw it when I was in the army and thought that if I ever get out I’d make a comedy thriller." Guest said that Howerd was initially reluctant to make a film, "Films? Oho, that's a dangerous game. Get your name up there outside a cinema and if they don't go in it's all your fault! Thank you but no thank you!" Howerd finally agreed, but made three demands. Firstly, Guest had to write a comedy-thriller, so that if the comedy part did not work, the thriller part might. Second, he did not want his name first above the title. And finally, he wanted his favourite comedy actress

to be in it. Howerd's biographer said that ''The Runaway Bus'' "was a kind of a cross between a cut-price version of ''The Cat and the Canary'' and a very half-hearted reworking of ''The Ghost Train''" which Guest had helped adapt for

Arthur Askey Arthur Bowden Askey (6 June 1900 – 16 November 1982) was an English comedian and actor. Askey was known for his short stature (5' 2", 1.58 m) and distinctive horn-rimmed glasses, and his playful humour incorporating improvisation an ...

. Shooting took five weeks, with a budget of £45,000. It was made at Southall Studios in

. In September 1953 the ''New York Times'' announced that the film would be called ''Scream in the Night'' and star Howerd and Belinda Lee, who the paper said had never acted before and was the seventy-seventh girl who auditioned. Howerd later said Guest "wrote the story but I mostly wrote my own part and we did it. In those days we didn't have much money so in order to make the film... you set the whole thing in a fog so you wouldn't use much scenery. The great advantage was having Margaret Rutherford in it." On the last day of filming, Guest realised that the movie was coming in at 72 minutes, three minutes short to qualify as a feature, so Howerd improvised a scene in a phone box.

Reception

The Monthly Film Bulletin The ''Monthly Film Bulletin'' was a periodical of the British Film Institute published monthly from February 1934 until April 1991, when it merged with '' Sight & Sound''. It reviewed all films on release in the United Kingdom, including those wi ...

'' wrote: "This is the first film to star Frankie Howerd. He is unable to bring to the cinema those qualities which have made him so successful on the radio and in the music hall, and relies on mannerisms and grimaces which, though often quite funny, are not sufficient to sustain a film. He is not helped by the script, which is at times so involved as to be almost incomprehensible; with a good "feed" and a script better suited to his own style of fantastic comedy he might be more successful. The supporting cast – notably Margaret Rutherford in one of her familiar characterisations and George Coulouris as the man from Scotland Yard – is so strong as rather to overwhelm than to support the star." '' Variety'' called it "boisterous".Review of film
at Variety Filmink said " Lee is gorgeous to look at and is quite funny; the film did not turn Howerd into a film star (that came later, off the back of TV success) but it is entertaining." Guest says the film was "enormously" successful. "Everybody made an enormous amount of money out of that... And it comes back time and time again you know it was re-released in movies, in cinemas again and was a very big hit."

References

External links

*
''The Runaway Bus'' at AllMovie

The Runaway Bus
at BFI
The Runaway Bus
at TCMDB {{DEFAULTSORT:Runaway Bus, The 1954 films 1950s crime comedy films 1950s comedy mystery films British crime comedy films British comedy mystery films 1950s English-language films Films about buses Films directed by Val Guest Films set in London Films shot at Southall Studios 1954 comedy films British black-and-white films 1950s British films Films set in airports Films scored by Ronald Binge English-language comedy mystery films English-language crime comedy films