Produced by Merton Park Studios for the Children’s Film Foundation, this eight-part serial for children was screened in ABC cinemas in Britain on Saturday mornings in 1956.
This was the CFF’s first serial and starred future Man About The Housestar Richard O’Sullivan as Joey, a tubby 12-year-old junior Sea Scout.
Joey, Ben (Robert Peters) and Patsy (Jenny Jones) are fishing from a wharf in London when they accidentally endanger the plans of a gang of crooks and become involved in a breathless series of adventures.
These include a chase through the city streets, a hunt along a disused tunnel underneath Covent Garden Market, an encounter with an electronic brain, a motor-launch pursuit down the Thames, and a thrilling climax high up on top of a refinery building.
The serial – based on the 1954 novels Joey and the River Pirates and Joey of Jasmine Street by Robert Martin – was shot in Covent Garden, several other London streets, St Catherine’s Wharf, Holehave Creek in the Thames Estuary and the oil refineries at Coryton.
Real Sea Scouts and Sea Rangers from various parts of London took part in the film.
Joey
Richard O’Sullivan Patsy
Jenny Jones Ben
Robert Peters Alf Barber
Jack MacGowran Professor Dykes
John Longden Talbot
Vic Perry Mr Hampton
John Stuart Mr Wilberforce
Larry Cross Boxer
Larry Burns Narrator
John Slater
Episodes
Mystery in Covent Garden | The Secret of the Cellar | The Raiders’ Hideout | The Thing in the Basement | Caught by the Gang | Trapped in the Tunnel | Hot on the Trail | The Gang at Bay
