Crook's Tour

Last updated

Crook's Tour
Crook's Tour.jpg
Directed by John Baxter
Written by Barbara K. Emary
Max Kester
John Watt
Produced by John Corfield
Starring Basil Radford
Naunton Wayne
Greta Gynt
Abraham Sofaer
Charles Oliver
Cinematography James Wilson
Edited by Michael C. Chorlton
Music by Kennedy Russell
Production
company
Distributed byAnglo-American Films
Release date
  • 3 September 1940 (1940-09-03)
Running time
80 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish

Crook's Tour is a 1940 British comedy spy film directed by John Baxter featuring Charters and Caldicott. [1] It is adapted from a BBC radio serial of the same name. [2]

Contents

Plot

Charters and Caldicott are touring the Middle East (Saudi Arabia) with fellow Britons. After their vehicle breaks down they meet a caravan and a local sheikh invites them to dinner. After a glass of wine the sheikh offers to lend them two camels and tells of his fears that someone is spying on his oilfield.

They return to Baghdad where they go to a night club. Here two spies are expected and a Mata Hari type figure (the glamorous La Palermo) delivers a note (hidden on a record) to them in error, because they order exactly what the true spies are meant to order (as a code). When the real spies arrive (two Americans) and make the same order the mistake is realised.

Meanwhile our two heroes are flying to Istanbul. Here they are directed to a false hotel. La Palermo is to sing there to let them know something is up. They plan to kill the pair. They put them in a room with a booby trap bathroom... just a large hole dropping into the Bosporus. Charters slaps someone on the back, believing it to be Caldicott, and he falls in. Fearing reprisal for this accidental death they catch a plane to Budapest. Charters' sister Edith arrives in Budapest and struggles to track their hotel. La Palermo breaks into Caldicott's room to try to find the record. The next evening they track down La Palermo singing in a local night club, singing "Gypsy Lover".

The pair give the record to an English contact but are astounded when he says he does not play cricket.

They take a train eastwards to the edge of Hungary. They climb to a hilltop castle where La Palermo is. They are caught and are shot by firing squad, but La Palermo has organised blanks in the guns and they all escape together. A driver rushes all three to an airport then they take a boat across the Adriatic before going back to London. La Palermo kisses Caldicott as their train approaches London.

Cast

Availability

The film is available as a supplement on The Lady Vanishes Criterion Collection DVD and Blu-ray. [3]

Related Research Articles

<i>Young and Innocent</i> 1937 film by Alfred Hitchcock

Young and Innocent, released in the US as The Girl Was Young, is a 1937 British crime thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Nova Pilbeam and Derrick De Marney. Based on the 1936 novel A Shilling for Candles by Josephine Tey, the film is about a young man on the run from a murder charge who enlists the help of a woman who must put herself at risk for his cause. An elaborately staged crane shot Hitchcock devised, which appears towards the end of the film, identifies the real murderer.

<i>The Rock</i> (film) 1996 American action thriller film by Michael Bay

The Rock is a 1996 American action thriller film directed by Michael Bay, produced by Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer, and written by David Weisberg, Douglas S. Cook and Mark Rosner. The film stars Sean Connery, Nicolas Cage and Ed Harris, with William Forsythe and Michael Biehn co-starring. In the film, the Pentagon assigns a team comprising an FBI chemist and a former SAS captain with a team of SEALs to break into Alcatraz, where a rogue general and a rogue group of Marines have seized all the tourists on the island and have threatened to launch rockets filled with nerve gas upon San Francisco unless the U.S. government pays $100 million to the next-of-kin of 83 men who were killed on missions that the general led and that the Pentagon denied.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Naunton Wayne</span> Welsh actor (1901–1970)

Naunton Wayne, was a Welsh character actor, born in Pontypridd, Glamorgan, Wales. He was educated at Clifton College. His name was changed by deed poll in 1933.

<i>Dead of Night</i> 1945 British film

Dead of Night is a 1945 black and white British anthology supernatural horror film, made by Ealing Studios. The individual segments were directed by Alberto Cavalcanti, Charles Crichton, Basil Dearden and Robert Hamer. It stars Mervyn Johns, Googie Withers, Sally Ann Howes and Michael Redgrave. The film is best remembered for the concluding story featuring Redgrave and an insane ventriloquist's malevolent dummy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Noah Beery</span> American actor (1882–1946)

Noah Nicholas Beery was an American actor who appeared in films from 1913 until his death in 1946. He was the older brother of Academy Award-winning actor Wallace Beery as well as the father of prominent character actor Noah Beery Jr. He was billed as either Noah Beery or Noah Beery Sr. depending upon the film.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Basil Radford</span> English actor (1897–1952)

Arthur Basil Radford was an English character actor who featured in many British films of the 1930s and 1940s.

<i>Night Train to Munich</i> 1940 film

Night Train to Munich is a 1940 British thriller film directed by Carol Reed and starring Margaret Lockwood and Rex Harrison. Written by Sidney Gilliat and Frank Launder, based on the 1939 short story Report on a Fugitive by Gordon Wellesley, the film is about an inventor and his daughter who are kidnapped by the Gestapo after the Nazis march into Prague in the prelude to the Second World War. A British secret service agent follows them, disguised as a senior German army officer pretending to woo the daughter over to the Nazi cause.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robin Bailey</span> English actor

William Henry Mettam "Robin" Bailey was an English actor. He was born in Hucknall, Nottinghamshire.

<i>The Next of Kin</i> 1942 film by Thorold Dickinson

The Next of Kin, also known as Next of Kin, is a 1942 Second World War propaganda film produced by Ealing Studios. The film was originally commissioned by the British War Office as a training film to promote the government message that "Careless talk costs lives". After being taken on by Ealing Studios, the project was expanded and given a successful commercial release. After the war and up until at least the mid 1960s, services in British Commonwealth countries continued to use The Next of Kin as part of security training. The film's title is derived from the phrase "the next of kin have been informed" as used by radio announcers when reporting on the loss of personnel in action.

<i>The Lady Vanishes</i> 1938 film by Alfred Hitchcock

The Lady Vanishes is a 1938 British mystery thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Margaret Lockwood and Michael Redgrave. Written by Sidney Gilliat and Frank Launder, based on the 1936 novel The Wheel Spins by Ethel Lina White, the film is about an English tourist travelling by train in continental Europe who discovers that her elderly travelling companion seems to have disappeared from the train. After her fellow passengers deny ever having seen the elderly lady, the young woman is helped by a young musicologist, the two proceeding to search the train for clues to the old lady's disappearance.

<i>The Lady Vanishes</i> (1979 film) 1979 film by Anthony Page

The Lady Vanishes is a 1979 British mystery comedy film directed by Anthony Page and written by George Axelrod, based on the screenplay of 1938's The Lady Vanishes by Sidney Gilliat and Frank Launder, in turn based on Ethel Lina White's 1936 novel The Wheel Spins. The film stars Elliott Gould, Cybill Shepherd, Angela Lansbury, Herbert Lom, and Arthur Lowe and Ian Carmichael.

<i>Riders of Destiny</i> 1933 film

Riders of Destiny is a 1933 pre-Code Western musical film starring 26-year-old John Wayne as Singin' Sandy Saunders, the screen's second singing cowboy. It was the first of a series of sixteen Lone Star Westerns made for Monogram Pictures between 1933 and 1935, by Wayne and director Robert N. Bradbury, and the first pairing of Wayne with George "Gabby" Hayes.

<i>Millions Like Us</i> 1943 film

Millions Like Us is a 1943 British propaganda film, showing life in a wartime aircraft factory in documentary detail. It stars Patricia Roc, Gordon Jackson, Anne Crawford, Basil Radford, Naunton Wayne, Moore Marriott and Eric Portman.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charters and Caldicott</span> Fictional characters

Charters and Caldicott started out as two supporting characters in the 1938 Alfred Hitchcock film The Lady Vanishes. The pair of cricket-obsessed characters were played by Naunton Wayne and Basil Radford. The characters were created by Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat. The duo became very popular and were used as recurring characters in subsequent films and in BBC Radio productions. Charters and Caldicott have also been played by other actors, and they eventually had their own BBC television series.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Greta Gynt</span> Norwegian actress (1916–2000)

Greta Gynt was a Norwegian dancer and actress. She is remembered for her starring roles in the British classic films The Dark Eyes of London, Mr. Emmanuel, Take My Life, Dear Murderer and The Ringer.

<i>I See a Dark Stranger</i> 1946 British film

I See a Dark Stranger – released as The Adventuress in the United States – is a 1946 British World War II spy film with touches of light comedy, starring Deborah Kerr and Trevor Howard. It was written and produced by the team of Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat, with Launder directing.

<i>Helter Skelter</i> (1949 film) 1949 British film

Helter Skelter is a 1949 British romantic comedy film directed by Ralph Thomas and starring Carol Marsh, David Tomlinson and Mervyn Johns. A radio star becomes involved with a wealthy heiress. The title is a common expression to describe a situation of "chaotic and disorderly haste".

<i>Its Not Cricket</i> (1949 film) 1949 British film

It's Not Cricket is a 1949 British comedy film directed by Alfred Roome and starring Basil Radford, Naunton Wayne, Susan Shaw and Maurice Denham. It is the second of two starring films for Radford and Wayne who appeared as supporting players in ten other films. It was also one of the final films made by Gainsborough Pictures before the studio was merged into the Rank Organisation.

<i>The Calendar</i> (1948 film) 1948 British film by Arthur Crabtree

The Calendar is a black and white 1948 British drama film directed by Arthur Crabtree and starring Greta Gynt, John McCallum, Raymond Lovell and Leslie Dwyer. It is based on the 1929 play The Calendar and subsequent novel by Edgar Wallace. A previous version had been released in 1931.

<i>A Girl in a Million</i> 1946 British film

A Girl in a Million is a 1946 British comedy film. It is notable for featuring Joan Greenwood in an early starring role; and Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne in their comedy double act as two cricket-obsessed Englishmen, this time called Fotheringham and Prendergast.

References

  1. "Crooks Tour (1940) - John Baxter | Synopsis, Characteristics, Moods, Themes and Related". AllMovie .
  2. "Return of Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne in 'CROOKS' TOUR'". 16 August 1941. p. 30 via BBC Genome.
  3. "The Lady Vanishes - Criterion Collection". DVD Talk .