NORMAN HUDIS

9 Feb

(27 July 1922 - 8 February 2016)

The scriptwriter Norman Hudis will be forever remembered as the man who wrote the first six Carry On films from 1958 to 1962, i.e. Sergeant, Nurse, Teacher, Constable, Regardless and Cruising. He had already written several minor British films, mostly second features including his first, Breakaway (1955), The Flying Scot, Six-Five Special, The Tommy Steele Story and The Duke Wore Jeans, also with Steele. He constantly contributed scripts for television series such as Our House (1961-63), The Saint, Danger Man and Gideon’s Way, while in the US he wrote for The Man from U.N.C.L.E., It Takes a Thief, McCloud, Marcus Welby M.D. and Hawaii Five-O among many others. He also wrote several comedy films for the likes of Ted Ray, Donald Sinden, Leslie Phillips and Charlie Drake, mostly for Carry On producer Peter Rogers and director Gerald Thomas. The Carry Ons will give Hudis eternal fame or notoriety – not that the initial comedies were that bad. They may have been formulaic in their jokes but the early scripts were certainly better than the two dozen or more that followed Hudis’s initial template. He once had an idea for a Jewish comedy, Carry On Shylock Holmes, but the suggestion was never taken up.

MICHAEL DARVELL

Michael Darvell

Michael Darvell trained as a librarian at Watford and in Surrey before joining Ealing Libraries where he became Music Librarian for the borough. He edited Masthead, the magazine of the University of North London School of Librarianship, The Surrealist, the staff magazine of Surrey County Library, and contributed to the Assistant Librarian and London Librarian professional journals. A freelance film reviewer since 1970, he has written for Film, Films Illustrated, Film Review, Movie Maker and Radio Times, as well as editing Montage, the London film societies magazine, for ten years. A change of career saw him joining What’s On in London as Features Editor and he eventually stepped into the shoes of the late F. Maurice Speed (founding father of Film Review annual) as the magazine’s Editor. From 2007 to 2015, he was co-editor of the Film Review annual with Mansel Stimpson. As well as writing about films, Michael has reviewed theatre for The Stage newspaper, and has written about music theatre and cabaret for the Classical Source and Musical Theatre Review websites. He is also a former restaurant critic for the ViewLondon website. Michael has been a member of the London Film Critics’ Circle since 2005.

NORMAN HUDIS

GEORGE GAYNES

FRANK FINLAY