Band Waggon (film)
Encyclopedia
Band Waggon is a 1940 British
comedy film
directed by Marcel Varnel
and starring Arthur Askey
, Richard Murdoch
and Moore Marriott
. It was based on the BBC
radio show Band Waggon
.
in Central London
. After being called in for an audition with the BBC
three months before they were forgotten about and settled down to live there waiting for their big chance. One day an item from their clothes line
falls and hits Claude Pilkington, a senior figure at the BBC, who has them evicted. They are forced to pack up all their belongings and leave.
While driving home that evening one of the tyres on Pilkington's car gets a puncture from broken glass lying on the road. It has been put there by the owners of the Jack-in-the-Box restaurant, who hope their cabaret
act will be given a contract with the BBC and have so far failed to gain an audition. Pilkington sits unwittingly through their act, including singers Jack Hylton
and Patricia Kirkwood
, barely noticing it while he reads the newspaper. When he discovers that they have caused his puncture, he storms off in anger.
Meanwhile Askey and Murdoch have found themselves in the countryside. Needing somewhere to live they go to a local estate agent
hoping to pick up a cheap cottage. Instead they are offered a castle
for £3 rent, which the owner is trying to get off his hands as it is haunted. After they settle down in the castle they begin to experience a number of sinister happenings occur despite the estate agent's insistence that there is a "perfectly natural explanation for everything". When they encounter Jasper Blackfang, a ghost who claims to haunt the place, they flee and take shelter at the nearby Jack-in-the Box restaurant.
Emboldened by the realisation that the ghost is in fact the caretaker
of the castle, who has been living their rent free, they return along with Hylton and Kirkwood. They discover a broadcasting studios inside the castle, which the caretaker claims is being used by a pirate commercial station. In fact it is being used by Nazi agents in Britain, but the caretaker is unaware of this.
Frustrated by their failure to secure an audition at the BBC, they decide to use the studios to broadcast their own show. Arthur Askey does a performance on the same wavelength
as the BBC, interrupting a programme by Pilkington himself, who has to be faded out. Pilkington is furious by the interruption, but the pirate show generates huge interest amongst the general public. Pilkington, meanwhile, gets Scotland Yard
to hunt down the pirate station. Their determination to find the station is boosted by the realisation that the castle contains plans of British planes stolen by the Nazi agents, which are unwittingly held up by Askey during his broadcast.
Askey has organised a major hour-long performance which ends in a finale with where the police, BBC officials and Nazi agents all converge on the castle, while a time bomb
is ominously ticking down. The program is such a roaring success that the BBC are eventually forced to grant Askey, Murdoch and their associates their own show.
Cinema of the United Kingdom
The United Kingdom has had a major influence on modern cinema. The first moving pictures developed on celluloid film were made in Hyde Park, London in 1889 by William Friese Greene, a British inventor, who patented the process in 1890. It is generally regarded that the British film industry...
comedy film
Comedy film
Comedy film is a genre of film in which the main emphasis is on humour. They are designed to elicit laughter from the audience. Comedies are mostly light-hearted dramas and are made to amuse and entertain the audiences...
directed by Marcel Varnel
Marcel Varnel
Marcel Varnel was a film director. He was born Marcel Hyacinthe le Bozec in Paris, France.Varnel started his working life on the Paris stage but soon became a director of musical comedies. In 1925 he moved to New York working as director in several Broadway operettas, musicals and dramas for the...
and starring Arthur Askey
Arthur Askey
Arthur Bowden Askey CBE was a prominent English comedian.- Life and career :Askey was born at 29 Moses Street, Liverpool, the eldest child and only son of Samuel Askey , secretary of the firm Sugar Products of Liverpool, and his wife, Betsy Bowden , of Knutsford, Cheshire...
, Richard Murdoch
Richard Murdoch
Richard Bernard Murdoch was a British comedic radio, film and television performer.Richard Bernard Murdoch attended Charterhouse School. He then appeared in Footlights whilst a student at Pembroke College, Cambridge...
and Moore Marriott
Moore Marriott
Moore Marriott was a British character actor most notable for a series of films he made with Will Hay in the 1930s.-Career:...
. It was based on the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
radio show Band Waggon
Band Waggon
Band Waggon was a comedy radio show broadcast by the BBC from 1938 to 1940. The first season featured Arthur Askey and Richard Murdoch. In the second season, Askey and Murdoch were joined by Syd Walker, and the third season added Diana Clare for two episodes.Band Waggon was the first comedy show to...
.
Plot
Arthur Askey and Stinker Murdoch, two out-of-work performers, are living on the roof of the Broadcasting HouseBroadcasting House
Broadcasting House is the headquarters and registered office of the BBC in Portland Place and Langham Place, London.The building includes the BBC Radio Theatre from where music and speech programmes are recorded in front of a studio audience...
in Central London
Central London
Central London is the innermost part of London, England. There is no official or commonly accepted definition of its area, but its characteristics are understood to include a high density built environment, high land values, an elevated daytime population and a concentration of regionally,...
. After being called in for an audition with the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
three months before they were forgotten about and settled down to live there waiting for their big chance. One day an item from their clothes line
Clothes line
A clothes line or washing line is any type of rope, cord, or twine that has been stretched between two points , outside or indoors, above the level of the ground. Clothing that has recently been washed is hung along the line to dry, using clothes pegs or clothes pins...
falls and hits Claude Pilkington, a senior figure at the BBC, who has them evicted. They are forced to pack up all their belongings and leave.
While driving home that evening one of the tyres on Pilkington's car gets a puncture from broken glass lying on the road. It has been put there by the owners of the Jack-in-the-Box restaurant, who hope their cabaret
Cabaret
Cabaret is a form, or place, of entertainment featuring comedy, song, dance, and theatre, distinguished mainly by the performance venue: a restaurant or nightclub with a stage for performances and the audience sitting at tables watching the performance, as introduced by a master of ceremonies or...
act will be given a contract with the BBC and have so far failed to gain an audition. Pilkington sits unwittingly through their act, including singers Jack Hylton
Jack Hylton
Jack Hylton was a British band leader and impresario.He was born John Greenhalgh Hilton in the Great Lever area of Bolton, Lancashire, the son of George Hilton, a cotton yarn twister. His father was an amateur singer at the local Labour Club and Jack learned piano to accompany him on the stage...
and Patricia Kirkwood
Patricia Kirkwood
Patricia Kirkwood was a British stage actress who appeared in numerous performances of dramas, cabaret, revues, music hall, variety, and pantomimes. She also performed on radio, television, and movies...
, barely noticing it while he reads the newspaper. When he discovers that they have caused his puncture, he storms off in anger.
Meanwhile Askey and Murdoch have found themselves in the countryside. Needing somewhere to live they go to a local estate agent
Estate agent
An estate agent is a person or business that arranges the selling, renting or management of properties, and other buildings, in the United Kingdom and Ireland. An agent that specialises in renting is often called a letting or management agent...
hoping to pick up a cheap cottage. Instead they are offered a castle
Castle
A castle is a type of fortified structure built in Europe and the Middle East during the Middle Ages by European nobility. Scholars debate the scope of the word castle, but usually consider it to be the private fortified residence of a lord or noble...
for £3 rent, which the owner is trying to get off his hands as it is haunted. After they settle down in the castle they begin to experience a number of sinister happenings occur despite the estate agent's insistence that there is a "perfectly natural explanation for everything". When they encounter Jasper Blackfang, a ghost who claims to haunt the place, they flee and take shelter at the nearby Jack-in-the Box restaurant.
Emboldened by the realisation that the ghost is in fact the caretaker
Property caretaker
A Property caretaker is a person, group or organization that cares for real estate for trade or financial compensation, and sometimes as a barter for rent-free living accommodations...
of the castle, who has been living their rent free, they return along with Hylton and Kirkwood. They discover a broadcasting studios inside the castle, which the caretaker claims is being used by a pirate commercial station. In fact it is being used by Nazi agents in Britain, but the caretaker is unaware of this.
Frustrated by their failure to secure an audition at the BBC, they decide to use the studios to broadcast their own show. Arthur Askey does a performance on the same wavelength
Wavelength
In physics, the wavelength of a sinusoidal wave is the spatial period of the wave—the distance over which the wave's shape repeats.It is usually determined by considering the distance between consecutive corresponding points of the same phase, such as crests, troughs, or zero crossings, and is a...
as the BBC, interrupting a programme by Pilkington himself, who has to be faded out. Pilkington is furious by the interruption, but the pirate show generates huge interest amongst the general public. Pilkington, meanwhile, gets Scotland Yard
Scotland Yard
Scotland Yard is a metonym for the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police Service of London, UK. It derives from the location of the original Metropolitan Police headquarters at 4 Whitehall Place, which had a rear entrance on a street called Great Scotland Yard. The Scotland Yard entrance became...
to hunt down the pirate station. Their determination to find the station is boosted by the realisation that the castle contains plans of British planes stolen by the Nazi agents, which are unwittingly held up by Askey during his broadcast.
Askey has organised a major hour-long performance which ends in a finale with where the police, BBC officials and Nazi agents all converge on the castle, while a time bomb
Time bomb
A time bomb is a bomb whose detonation is triggered by a timer. The use time bombs has been for various purposes ranging from insurance fraud to warfare to assassination; however, the most common use has been for politically-motivated terrorism.-Construction:The explosive charge is the main...
is ominously ticking down. The program is such a roaring success that the BBC are eventually forced to grant Askey, Murdoch and their associates their own show.
Cast
- Arthur AskeyArthur AskeyArthur Bowden Askey CBE was a prominent English comedian.- Life and career :Askey was born at 29 Moses Street, Liverpool, the eldest child and only son of Samuel Askey , secretary of the firm Sugar Products of Liverpool, and his wife, Betsy Bowden , of Knutsford, Cheshire...
as Arthur Askey - Richard MurdochRichard MurdochRichard Bernard Murdoch was a British comedic radio, film and television performer.Richard Bernard Murdoch attended Charterhouse School. He then appeared in Footlights whilst a student at Pembroke College, Cambridge...
as Stinker Murdoch - Patricia KirkwoodPatricia KirkwoodPatricia Kirkwood was a British stage actress who appeared in numerous performances of dramas, cabaret, revues, music hall, variety, and pantomimes. She also performed on radio, television, and movies...
as Pat - Moore MarriottMoore MarriottMoore Marriott was a British character actor most notable for a series of films he made with Will Hay in the 1930s.-Career:...
as Jasper - Freddy Schweitzer as himself (accordion player)
- Bruce Trent as himself
- Michael StandingMichael StandingMichael Standing is a British actor, appearing mostly in the 1960s and early 1970s.Between an appearance in a 1964 episode of the TV series of The Saint and his final appearance in the 1973 opening season of The Tomorrow People in which he played Ginge, the biker heavy who became the Tomorrow...
as himself - C.H. Middleton as himself
- Jasmine BlighJasmine BlighJasmine Lydia Bligh was one of the first three BBC Television Service presenters in the 1930s, along with Leslie Mitchell and Elizabeth Cowell, providing continuity announcements and introducing programmes in-vision....
as herself - Jonah BarringtonJonah Barrington (journalist)Jonah Barrington was the pseudonym of Cyril Carr Dalmaine the radio critic of the Daily Express, a British newspaper, during the Second World War....
as himself - Peter GawthornePeter GawthornePeter Gawthorne was an Irish actor, probably best known for his roles in Will Hay films. Gawthorne was one of Britain's most called-upon bit part actors during the 1940s and 50s....
as Claude Pilkington - Donald CalthropDonald CalthropDonald Calthrop was an English stage and film actor. He starred as the title character in the hit musical The Boy in 1917. He then appeared in 63 films between 1916 and 1940, including five films directed by Alfred Hitchcock.He was born in London and died in Eton from a heart attack.He was the...
as Hobday - Wally PatchWally PatchWally Patch was a British character actor, who had supporting roles in many films. He was born Walter Sidney Vinnicombe in Willesden, London on 26 September 1888...
as Commisssionaire - Jack Hylton and His Band as band
- Jack HyltonJack HyltonJack Hylton was a British band leader and impresario.He was born John Greenhalgh Hilton in the Great Lever area of Bolton, Lancashire, the son of George Hilton, a cotton yarn twister. His father was an amateur singer at the local Labour Club and Jack learned piano to accompany him on the stage...
as himself (bandleader) - The Sherman Fisher Girls as dancers
Soundtrack
- "The Melody Maker" – by Noel GayNoel GayNoel Gay was born Reginald Moxon Armitage. He also used the name Stanley Hill professionally. He was a successful British composer of popular music of the 1930s and 1940s whose output comprised 45 songs as well as the music for 28 films and 26 London shows...
and Frank EytonFrank EytonFrank Eyton was an English popular music lyricist best known for co-writing the lyrics of Johnny Green's "Body and Soul" with Edward Heyman and Robert Sour....
– performed by Jack Hylton, Patricia Kirkwood and Chorus with Jack Hylton and His Band and The Sherman Fisher Girls - "The Only One Who's Difficult Is You" – by Noel Gay and Clifford GreyClifford GreyClifford Grey was an English songwriter, actor, librettist and Olympic medalist. His birth name was Percival Davis, and he was also known as Clifford Gray, Tippi Gray, Tippi Grey, Tippy Gray and Tippy Grey.As a writer, Grey contributed prolifically to West End and Broadway shows, as librettist and...
– performed by Richard Murdoch, Patricia Kirkwood and Arthur Askey with Jack Hylton and His Band - "After Dark" – by Noel Gay
- "Heaven Will Be Heavenly" – by Harry Parr DaviesHarry Parr DaviesHarry Parr-Davies was a Welsh composer and songwriter.He was born Harry Parr Davies in Briton Ferry, Neath, South Wales and was a musical prodigy, having composed whole operettas by the time he was in his teens. He came to the attention of composer Sir Walford Davies, who encouraged him to study...
and Roma Campbell Hunter – performed by Patricia Kirkwood and chorus - "A Pretty Bird" – by Kenneth Blane – performed by Arthur Askey
- "Boomps-A-Daisy" – by Annette MillsAnnette MillsAnnette Mills was an English actress, dancer and broadcaster.She was born Edith Mabel Mills in Wandsworth, London. She had originally intended to become a concert pianist and organist, before becoming a dancer, subsequently finding fame as an international exhibition dancer...
– performed by Patricia Kirkwood, Richard Murdoch, Jack Hylton and Arthur Askey - "Band Waggon (theme song)" – by Harry S. Pepper – performed by the chorus during the opening credits and reprised at the end by Jack Hylton and His Band
- "Big Hearted Arthur" – by Robert RutherfordRobert RutherfordRobert Rutherford was an American pioneer, soldier and statesman from western Virginia. He represented Virginia in the United States House of Representatives from 1793 until 1797....
and Frank Wilcock – performed by Arthur Askey - "Old King ColeOld King Cole"Old King Cole" is an English nursery rhyme. The historical identity of King Cole has been much debated and several candidates have been advanced as possibilities...
" (traditional nursery song) – performed by Arthur Askey, Richard Murdoch and the trio of Charlie Forsythe, Addie Seamon and Eleanor Farrell