A Run for Your Money

Douglas Houston - Dai
Meredith Edwards - Twm
Alec Guinness - Whimple
Moira Lester - Jo
Hugh Griffith - Huw
Julie Milton - Bronwen
Clive Morton - Editor
Joyce Grenfell - Mrs Pargeter
Dorothy Bramhall - Jane
Edward Rigby - Beefeater
Patric Doonan - Conductor

A Run for Your Money was a fourth Ealing comedy released in 1949, although it tends to be overshadowed by the giants that preceded it. To have had a hat trick was a remarkable feat, and it would have been hoping for too much to expect a fourth winner. A Run for Your Money was by no means a failure, but it was somewhat uncertain in manner, and Alec Guinness was wasted in the part of a newspaper gardening correspondent sent, to his disgust, to cover the exploits of two Welsh miners who have come to town to collect the prize money they have won in a productivity competition. Upon their arrival in the town, they miss their newspaper escort and get separated. Mayhem ensues. It was Charles Frend's first comedy, and several writers were involved in the script, including the Welsh novelist, Richard Hughes, author of A High Wind in Jamaica. The theme was that of innocents abroad, the victims of female confidence tricksters and sponging drunks, with occasional bouts of Welsh male voice singing.
Extract© George Perry: Forever Ealing.