It may surprise many to discover the most profitable Hammer Films production in British cinemas was not a Gothic tale of Frankenstein or the Mummy but the featurelength comedy of On the Buses. Yes, it was the screech of brakes rather than the screech of an owl that really set the box office turnstiles spinning.
Even though the jobsworth Inspector "Blakey", as played by Stephen Lewis, was nicknamed Dracula by the cheeky driver Stan (Reg Varney) and conductor Jack (Bob Grant), On the Buses was such a departure from the current crop of colourful horrors that it was heralded as: "A Hammer Special Comedy Presentation".
Mind you, Hammer Films had been built on comedy. The company's cofounder Will Hinds had been part of a music hall double act, Hammer and Smith. When Hinds went into cinema, the Hammer name stuck, and that first film was a comedy. The Public Life of Henry the Ninth (1935) was a timely pastiche on the Oscar-winning Alexander Korda epic The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933), starring Charles Laughton as the much-married monarch. The Hammer film starred radio comedian Leonard Henry as a cockney busker.
Hammer Films swiftly bought up the rights to the most popular radio programmes of the day, including Life With the Lyons, which starred Hollywood royalty Ben Lyons and Bebe Daniels. They had settled in Britain during the war and made a huge impact on BBC radio from 1950. Their domestic antics were brought to the big screen in 1954. Written and directed by Val Guest, a sequel The Lyons in Paris followed in 1955.
Hammer was quick to recognise the clout of television too, and capitalised on its success by producing I Only Arsked!, the 1958 film version of the hit Granada Television sitcom The Army Game. It recruited the series cast Alfie Bass, Charles Hawtrey, Michael Medwin, Geoffrey Sumner, and Hammer contract player Bernard Bresslaw, whose gormless catchphrase inspired the title.
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THE FEW ON SCREEN
Steven Taylor looks at the Battle of Britain across film and TV
Table Service
Rachel Toy looks at the history of Ridgway Homemaker tableware
Hever Forever
Claire Saul studies the newly refurbished Boleyn Apartment at Hever Castle & Gardens - a castle fit for a queen
Shining a Light
Tony O’Neil tunes into the history of the last manned lightvessel
The Man With the Goldeneye
Film stills photographer Keith Hamshere describes how he came to enter the world of James Bond
THE ORIGINAL GOLDEN BALLS
lan Wheeler looks back on 70 years of Tiger comic and Roy of the Rovers, and chats to the man who edited and oversaw both titles
To Play the Queen
Chris Hallam looks back on the life of one of the UK’s best known lookalikes
POOLING RESOURCES
Martin Handley looks at what life was like after the Vernons Girls
POSTCARD FROM= SUSSEX
Bob Barton indulges in pleasure piers and fairground delights, as well as fulfilling a long-held ambition to visit the home of Rudyard Kipling
Oh, Miss Jones
Chris Hallam looks back at the origins and legacy of Rising Damp, ITV's most successful sitcom