The Runaway Bus

The Runaway Bus - 1954 | 78 mins | Comedy, Thriller | B&W

The Production Team

Director: Val Guest.
Producer: Val Guest.
Script: Val Guest.
Cinematography: Stanley Pavey.
Editing: Douglas Myers.
Art Direction: C. Wilfred Arnold,
Makeup Department: Jill Carpenter and Pauline Trent.
Sound Department: Cecil Thornton.
Original Music: Ronald Binge.
Music Direction: Philip Martell.

The Cast

Frankie Howerd - Percy Lamb
Margaret Rutherford - Cynthia Beeston
Petula Clark - Stewardess 'Nikki' Nicholls
Terence Alexander - Pilot Peter Jones
Toke Townley - Henry Waterman
George Coulouris - Ernest Schroeder
Belinda Lee - Janie Grey

Plot Synopsis

Written and directed by Val Guest, this modest comedy-thriller was a forgettable debut vehicle for comedian Frankie Howerd, and owes much to Arnold Ridley's oft-filmed play The Ghost Train.

BOAC relief bus #13 driven by hapless Percy Lamb (Frankie Howerd) tries to get a small group of passengers from a fogbound Heathrow airport to nearby Blackbushe aerodrome due to the insistence of forthright passenger Miss Benton (Margaret Rutherford). Simultaneously, crooks are robbing the airport security of £200,000 in gold bullion and Percy is horrified to discover they’ve stored the cache of stolen gold in the back of his bus.

Onboard Percy’s coach is Miss Benton, kindly Mr Waterman (Toke Townley), mysterious Ernest Schroeder (George Coulouris), pulp-thriller addict Janie Grey (Belinda Lee), Pilot Peter Jones (Terence Alexander) and Stewardess 'Nikki' Nicholls (Petula Clark) – one of whom is the criminal mastermind known as ‘The Banker’. En-route the bus loses its way in the fog and ends up stranded on an army training range.