A thick fog has blanketed much of Britain for 48 hours, halting all air and rail traffic. At London Airport, no flights are coming in or going out, but the British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) and the other airlines are transporting people stranded at the airport by bus to other airports where flights are still operating.
Elderly and belligerent Miss Cynthia Beeston (Dame Margaret Rutherford), who believes the world should revolve around her and her alone, is able to commandeer one of the BOAC buses to take her and three other passengers – unaware ingénue Janie Grey (Belinda Lee), staid Edward Schroeder (George Coulouris), and milquetoast Henry Waterman (Toke Townley) – to Blackbush Airport.
A last-minute addition is suave Peter Jones (Terence Alexander), a pilot. Pretty and no-nonsense Lee Nicholls (singer Petula Clark), a flight attendant, serves as the attendant on the bus.
Unfortunately, their bumbling emergency relief bus driver, Percy Lamb (Frankie Howerd in his movie debut), has never driven to Blackbush and has enough problems working his way around London Airport in the fog!
The entourage is unaware that a £200,000 gold bullion robbery has just occurred and the robbery mastermind – nicknamed “The Banker” – has stashed the loot on their bus. The Banker is likely to be one of the seven of them, placing the lives of the other six in danger if The Banker is discovered and cornered.
The Police discover where the gold bars are – but the bus is lost somewhere in the fog.
TRIVIA
In the last half-hour of the last day of shooting, director Val Guest realised he hadn’t enough material in the can to qualify the film as a feature-length production. Frankie Howerd told Guest to point the camera at him, went into a prop telephone box and – completely unrehearsed – ad-libbed a five-minute scene of him talking to his grandmother.
Percy Lamb
Frankie Howerd Miss Cynthia Beeston
Margaret Rutherford Lee Nicholls
Petula Clark Ernest Schroeder
George Coulouris Henry Waterman
Toke Townley Peter Jones
Terence Alexander Janie Grey
Belinda Lee Detective Inspector Henley
John Horsley Duty Officer
Anthony Oliver 1st Transport Officer
Michael Gwynn 2nd Transport Officer
Stringer Davis 3rd Transport Officer
Richard Beynon Telephone Man
Reginald Beckwith Travel Girl
Marianne Stone American Traveller
Lionel Murton Receptionist
Lisa Gastoni Security Officer
Sam Kydd Detective Spencer
Alastair Hunter 1st Crook
Cyril Conway 2nd Crook
Arthur Lovegrove
Director
Val Guest
Video
Related Posts
Caine Mutiny, The (1954) Nominated for seven Academy Awards in 1954 (including Best Picture and Best Actor), The Caine Mutiny is a classic film (based on…
Child's Play (1954) A group of kids, led by brainbox Horatio Flynn (Christopher Beeny - later of Upstairs Downstairs fame - in an…
Crowded Day, The (1954) It’s the day of the staff Christmas party at the mammoth London West End department store of Bunting and Hobbs…
Romancing The Stone (1984) This dumb comic-book adventure has no comedy and is actually a less harrowing adventure than a peak hour trip on…
Reach for the Sky (1956) While many of Hollywood's tales about heroism during the Second World War were tainted by smug patriotism and unwelcome sentiment,…
Rude Boy (1980) England 1978. The mood is of disillusion, economic decline, political failure. Fascists demonstrate in the street. The left-wing clash with the…
Eight O’Clock Walk (1954) As an April Fool prank, taxi driver Tom Banning (Richard Attenborough) is led to an abandoned bomb-site by an eight-year-old…
Revenge of Frankenstein, The (1958) With his monster killed in a vat of acid, this direct sequel to The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) has Baron…
Elderly and belligerent Miss Cynthia Beeston (Dame Margaret Rutherford), who believes the world should revolve around her and her alone, is able to commandeer one of the BOAC buses to take her and three other passengers – unaware ingénue Janie Grey (Belinda Lee), staid Edward Schroeder (George Coulouris), and milquetoast Henry Waterman (Toke Townley) – to Blackbush Airport.
