Jack Warner and Kathleen Harrison head the cast as factory worker Joe Huggett and his wife Ethel, with Petula Clark, Jane Hylton and Susan Shaw as their young daughters (all with the same first names as the actresses portraying them) and Amy Veness as their opinionated grandmother. Diana Dors had an early role.[3] Clark, who began her career as a child vocalist on BBC Radio, sings the song "Walking Backwards".
Factory worker Joe Huggett has a first-time telephone installed at home, for work purposes, but his daughters quickly find a lot more use for it. Diana Hopkins, a flighty cousin of his wife Ethel, arrives for a not-very-welcome visit and causes problems at home and at Joe's workplace when Ethel persuades Joe to get her a job there. Eldest daughter Jane must choose between Jimmy Gardner, her fiancé who has been away in the forces and a new local admirer Harold Hinchley. Meanwhile, the family is planning to go to London to see the royal wedding, and Grandma Huggett joins them in camping out overnight near Buckingham Palace.
Ken Annakin had directed three films for Sydney Box, then head of Gainsborough Pictures. He was ambitious to do other work but Box offered him Here Come the Huggetts, featuring charDiana Hopkins acters in the popular Holiday Camp, directed by Annakin. "I had to delay my dreams and ideas for ‘great films’, and churn outThe Huggett series, because Sydney needed them," wrote Annakin later. "I owed him a debt and had to earn cash as quickly as possible to pay off the mortgage." There would be three Hugget films in all. Annakin added, "The Huggett years were not really such a bind. Jack Warner and Kathleen Harrison were a joy to work with. Jack would always come in with a new joke, and amuse us with his Maurice Chevalier imitations. Kathleen seemed to adore me and performed, marvellously and amusingly, everything I asked of her. Dinah Sheridan, Jane Hylton, Susan Shaw, Petula Clark and Diana Dors were a great team and fun to work with as well. However, the challenge was no longer there."[4]
Filming took place in June 1948. The working title was Wedding Bells.[5] Annakin said he had "a little affair with Susan Shaw" while making the films, although he did not specify which ones.[6]
Reception
Film reviewer Stephen Vagg described the film as a breakthrough role for Diana Dors, who played Ma Ethel Huggett (Harrison)'s niece Diana Hopkins.[7]
References
1 2 Spicer, Andrew (2006). Sydney Box. Manchester: Manchester University Press. p.210. ISBN9780719059995.
↑ HERE COME THE HUGGETTS Monthly Film Bulletin; London Vol. 16, Iss. 181, (Jan 1, 1949): 2.
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