Remembering Stanley Holloway - 1890 - 1982

One of the best-loved British entertainers of the 20th century, Stanley Holloway first trained for opera, then, post-World War I infantry service, became a seaside concert artist and music hall performer, making his London stage debut in 1919, enduringly famous for his classic monologue, "Albert and the Lion".

He made one silent film, The Rotters (d. A.V. Bramble, 1921), but entered films in earnest in the 1930s, revealing a huge demotic appeal that was noticeable in an essentially middle-class cinema.

His first talkie was a film version of his concert-party revue, The Co-Optimists (d. Edwin Greenwood, 1929), and some of his other 1930s movies enabled him to film his famous monologues (e.g., the animated films Sam and His Musket and Drummed Out, both d. Anson Dyer, 1935), but his real fame as a character star came in the 1940s.

He brings a bluff lower-middle to middle-class solidity and authenticity to such roles as the former Parliament House stoker in The Way Ahead (d. Carol Reed, 1944), the next-door neighbour in This Happy Breed (d. David Lean, 1944), the police sergeant in Wanted for Murder (d. Lawrence Huntington, 1946), the bottom-smacking porter in Brief Encounter (d. David Lean, 1945), the shopkeeper-councillor in Passport to Pimlico (d. Henry Cornelius, 1949), Alec Guinness's souvenir-making colleague ("Anne 'athaway cottages for string") in The Lavender Hill Mob (d. Charles Crichton, 1951), the embattled householder in The Happy Family (d. Muriel Box, 1952), the turning-worm husband in Meet Me Tonight (d. Anthony Pélissier, 1952, "Fumed Oak" episode), the true Labour man who tells MP Peter Finch "You learnt the words but not the music" in No Love for Johnnie (d. Ralph Thomas, 1961) - and so on.

As well, there are cherishable breaks with realism in, say, his Vincent Crummles in Nicholas Nickleby (d. Cavalcanti, 1947) and the Gravedigger in Hamlet (d. Laurence Olivier, 1948).

And, for many people, the crowning achievement of a great career was his originating of Doolittle in My Fair Lady (US, d. George Cukor, 1964), his famous song from which, "Wiv a little bit of luck", provided the title for his 1969 autobiography. By then, he'd become an institution on stage, screen and TV. He was the father of Julian Holloway.

World War II documentaries

When World War 2 started in 1939, Holloway was 49 and deemed too old to be sent on active service, so he decided to make his contribution in boosting morale for Britain in short propaganda pieces on behalf of the British Film Institute and Pathe News. He would narrate documentaries on behalf of film makers on subjects which were aimed at lifting morale in a war-torn Britain. So successful were these that he used his character's "Sam Small" and "Albert Ramsbottom" in a few pieces including "Albert's savings", written by Marriott Edgar and "Albert Evacuated". At the start of the war, Holloway became one of a list of actors, including Laurence Olivier, Michael Redgrave, John Gielgud and Noel Coward, who would regularly narrate morale campaigns for the family of serviceman at home in Britain, while their loved ones fought the war abroad. The stories were written by a host of poets and writers who included Arthur Koestler, Rudyard Kipling, E.M Forster and Marriott Edgar. Holloway's stories included;

• Albert's Savings - an 'Albert'-style monologue which instilled the nation of the importance of investing in Savings Certificates for the war effort, in a script written by Marriott Edgar in (1940)

• Worker And Warfront No.8 - About a worker who was to scared to get his wounds checked - and who then contracts blood poisoning in a script written by E.C Bentley in (1943)

These were later compiled into a DVD entitled 'Britain's Home Front At War: Words For Battle.

Post-war and into the 1950s, he was approached by Warner Bros, who were the new owners of Pathe News, and was asked to record several morale-boosting documentaries in a series called "Time To Remember", where he narrated over old news reels from significant dates in history. These included:

• Your country needs you! depicted 1915 - which looked at the training of Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener volunteer army.

• The better 'OLE depicted 1916 - which both looked at life in the trenches, and viewed coverage of the Eastern, Western and Home fronts abroad during World War 1

• Enough of Everything depicted 1917 - which looked back at the Russian Revolution, the US entry into the War and women at work.

• Short Sharp Shower depicted 1926 - which touched on the events of 1926 including the General Strike, international politics, weather, record breaking feats, the death of Rudolph Valentino and life in post war Britain.

• The end of the Beginning depicted 1942 - which was about the events of 1942 and America's entry into World War II.

Personal life

• 

• Holloway was married twice, the first being to Alice 'Queenie' Foran. They had met in June 1913 in Clacton - On - Sea, while he was performing in a concert party and she was selling charity flags on behalf of the RNLI. Queenie was orphaned at the age of 16, something which Holloway felt he and Queenie had in common, as his mother had died that year and his father had seemingly disowned him and his sister Millie. He married Queenie in November 1913.

  They had four children: Joan, born on Stanley's 24th birthday in 1914, Patricia (b. 1920), John (b. 1925) and Mary (b. 1928). Years previously, Queenie had inherited some property in Southampton Row, London from her wealthy mother and upon her death in 1908, she would receive regular payments from the tenants who lived there During the First World War, while Holloway was away fighting in France, Queenie began to have money troubles as the tenants' cheques were not being received. Out of desperation, she approached several loan sharks in order to survive, thus incurring a huge debt about which Holloway knew nothing. By this time she had started to drink heavily, as the pressures from the war and being a lone parent with virtually no money had taken its toll. Upon Holloway's return from the war, the debt was paid off and they lived semi-happily until Queenie's death in 1937, at age 45, from Cirrhosis of the Liver

  Little is known about the children from his first marriage, although it is known that his youngest daughter Mary worked for British Petroleum for many years and elder son John worked as an engineer in an electrics company.

  Later life and death

  Holloway was still performing well into his 80s, touring Asia and Australia in 1977 with the Pleasure of His Company, a Noel Coward tribute show, and made his last appearance performing at the Royal Variety Performance at the London Palladium in 1980 aged 89. He died of a stroke 18 months later at the Nightingale Nursing Home in Littlehampton, Sussex, on 30 January 1982, aged 91. He is buried along with his wife Violet, at St. Mary the Virgin Church in East Preston, West Sussex.

  

  ( Stanley Holloway with wife Violet and Son Julian arriving at an American Airport in 1962)

Corrie at 50! The musings of Mavis -Remembering Thelma Barlow.

Over the course of the past half decade Coronation Street has delighted in serving up some of the greatest double acts ever to grace the small screen. Mavis Wilton (nee Riley) was one half of the funniest and warmest double acts during the Street's past fifty years. I am of course referring to that Of Mavis Riley and Rita Fairclough. I pay homage to the great Thelma Barlow whom, as Mavis, made dithering a well inspired art form!

Although born in Weatherfield, Mavis was brought up in Grange-Over-Sands where her parents, despite being tee-total, ran an off licence. Mavis first appeared in the Street in 1971 at Emily Nugent and Ernest Bishop's engagement party as a friend and colleague of Emily's from the mail order warehouse. Mavis was later a bridesmaid at Emily and Ernest's wedding. She was later to secure jobs at the local vets as a receptionist and the corner shop, but a more lasting job came when she was hired by Rita Littlewood to work at The Kabin newsagents at 14 Rosamund Street (around the corner from Coronation Street itself). Mavis and Rita were complete opposites - Rita, sexy and self assured, Mavis mouse-like and dowdy - but they worked together very well and a genuine bond of love and affection was formed between them. And one of the greatest Coronation Street double-acts was born. Rita often despaired at the wrong choices Mavis made in life, particularly when it came to men, and outsiders might have thought that Rita bullied her; in reality, Rita was only looking out for her.

In 1983, the unspeakable happened when not one but two men wanted to marry her. She wanted both of them, but had to choose between Victor Pendlebury or Derek Wilton. In the end she choose Derek, but jilted him at the altar as she wasn't convinced of the strength of her feelings for him. Her guilt at having done this turned to indignation when she learned that Derek had jilted her too, as he felt the same.

However, Mavis decided Derek was the man for her, after she found that he indeed did have functional XY Chromosomes. When Mavis finally said "I do" to him in September 1988, she meant it. Her marriage to Derek was a surrealist one - the other residents of Coronation Street looked upon them as something of a joke, but neither cared as they had each other. They would spend evenings reading aloud to each other reading the newspapers and discussing the events of the day. Their happiness was cut short in 1997 when Derek died suddenly. Mavis was quick to hit out at his funeral, at the people who had considered them a joke, saying that they had loved each other and that was all that mattered.

Mavis surprised Rita when she suggested that they should go into business together. They discussed the possibility of running a guest house in Cartmel, a town in the Lake District. Rita went along with this for a while, but both realised it was a bad idea - as Rita said "We'd end up throttling each other before t'week were out." Mavis went ahead with the idea, bought the guest house, and Mavis and Rita had an emotional farewell, ending a partnership of 25 years.

The Carry on Legacy - Carry On Sergeant (1958)

Proving that even great institutions have modest beginnings, Carry On Sergeant (d. Gerald Thomas, 1958), the first film in the Carry On series, started out as little more than an attempt to cash in on the huge success of the ITV sitcom The Army Game (1957-1961). The TV series was so popular that it had already led to its own movie spin-off, I Only Arsked!(d. Montgomery Tully, 1958). Producer Peter Rogers even went so far as to recruit two of the series' leading cast members, Charles Hawtrey andWilliam Hartnell as the titular sergeant. Hartnell, in any event, was only playing a comic variation on a character he had first portrayed in the classic wartime film The Way Ahead (d. Carol Reed, 1944).

Carry On Sergeant, loosely based on story material by the popular novelist and playwright R.F. Delderfield, was shot over a period of six weeks at Pinewood Studios and on location at the Queen's Barracks in Stoughton, Surrey, on a meagre budget of £ 74,000. The actors were paid a few hundred pounds each, but a number of them would return in many of the subsequent Carry On comedies, including Hawtrey, Kenneth Connor, Hattie Jacques and Kenneth Williams.

Although the film was a big box office hit, it is in many respects anomalous when compared with the later titles, particularly its romantic subplots and occasional sentimentality. Even the vaguely risqué story of a pair of newlyweds desperately trying to celebrate their wedding night is dispensed with surprisingly early on, in favour of fairly traditional service comedy high jinks. None the less, it introduces in embryonic form many of the themes and characters that would recur throughout the series, while many of the comic set pieces, such as Kenneth Connor's relentless medical examinations and the various training disasters, are still funny and confidently handled.

THE

MONTHLY FILM BULLETIN

Published by

THE BRITISH FILM INSTITUTE

Volume 25, No.296, September 1958, page 112

CARRY ON SERGEANT (1958)

Training Sgt. Grimshawe accepts a bet that his last platoon of National Servicemen before he retires will pass out as Star Squad. His hopes are dashed when he meets the recruits. As training proceeds each recruit makes his own contribution to the chaos, but on the eve of the passing-out parade, impressed by Grimshawe's relatively gentle methods, they decide to retrieve their reputation. To their own and the Sergeant's surprise they win the Star Squad award.

The professional skill of William Hartnell and Dora Bryan lends some reality and humour to this conventional farce, in which all the characters come from stock. Carry On, Sergeant is a traditionally English mixture of old farcical situations, well-worn jokes, and comic postcard characters. Charles Hawtrey, as a weedy incompetent, and Kenneth Williams, as a condescending intellectual, provide some genuine laughs. The rest of the humour is either overdone or half-baked.

---

The Monthly Film Bulletin was published by the British Film Institute between 1934 and 1991. Initially aimed at distributors and exhibitors as well as filmgoers, it carried reviews and details of all UK film releases. In 1991, the Bulletin was absorbed by Sight and Sound magazine.

The Ealing Greats - The Lavender Hill Mob (1951)

The Lavender Hill Mob (1951) was the second of three Ealing collaborations between director Charles Crichton and writer T.E.B. Clarke, the team responsible for Hue and Cry (1947) and The Titfield Thunderbolt (1953). Like those films, and Clarke's previous comedy, Passport to Pimlico. (d. Henry Cornelius, 1949), it is a piece of thoroughly good escapism.

The fantasy here is the perfect robbery - £1 million in gold bullion stolen from the Bank of England and smuggled to France in the form of Eiffel Tower paperweights - and it barely matters that, in the end, the meek master-criminals Holland (Alec Guinness) and Pendlebury (Stanley Holloway) are both captured.

Theirs is a harmless daydream, an ultimately mild gesture of defiance against conformity. For all the brilliance of their initial plan, they are finally undone by a very English failing, a lack of competence in foreign languages - Pendlebury's instruction to his French assistant not to sell paperweights from the boxes marked 'R' is misunderstood, because the English 'R' sounds like the French 'A'.

Holland and Pendlebury - both nice, gentle and unthreatening in their non-conformity (this is a crime without victims) - are light years away from the more menacing (though no more successful) gang of The Ladykillers (d. Alexander Mackendrick, 1955). Even their partners-in-crime, the Cockney professional thieves Lackery (Sidney James) and Shorty (Alfie Bass) carry not a grain of ruthlessness: they are so trustful of Holland and Pendlebury that they even risk losing their share of the profits (and presumably do).

The film gently satirises the Establishment, in the shape of Holland's unperceptive employers at the Bank, the media, and the police. The climactic car chase, in which Holland and Pendlebury almost, but not quite, outwit their police pursuers, wittily spoofs one in The Blue Lamp (d. Basil Dearden, 1950), also scripted by Clarke.

Although not as tidy in its plotting as Passport to Pimlico - we never learn what happens to Lackery and Shorty - The Lavender Hill Mob is as enjoyable as it is lightweight, and absolutely characteristic of Ealing, with its gang of likeable eccentrics who briefly challenge authority before passively accepting defeat.

THE

MONTHLY FILM BULLETIN

Published by

THE BRITISH FILM INSTITUTE

Volume 18, No.210, July 1951, page 292

LAVENDER HILL MOB, THE (1951)

Officials at the Bank consider Mr. Holland a meek, respectable and honest employee in the modest job of supervising deliveries of bullion from gold refineries to the Bank. Mr. Holland's dream, however, is to appropriate £1,000,000 in gold bars for himself, escape from his dull boarding house existence and live in luxury for the remainder of his life. He has, over the years, conceived a plan for the actual theft, and when Mr. Pendlebury, manufacturer of souvenir articles for export, sets up a small foundry in the boarding house he realises that here is an opportunity for him to melt the loot and smuggle it out of the country. Quickly seduced into entering the conspiracy, Pendlebury agrees to transport the gold to France in Eiffel Tower paperweights: two professional thieves, Lackery and Shorty, are brought in to help. Holland and Pendlebury go to Paris to collect their booty, and discover that six of the souvenirs have been innocently purchased by a party of English schoolgirls. In their efforts to trace the girls, they incur police suspicion. Holland and Pendlebury manage to steal a police car and broadcast false messages, but Pendlebury is caught. Holland escapes to Brazil, but the law catches up with him there.

Once again Ealing Studios have produced a bright and entertaining comedy, scripted by the author of Hue and Cry, Passport to Pimlico and others. With the exception of two unnecessarily long episodes on the Eiffel Tower and at the Calais Customs Building, amusing situations and dialogue are well paced and sustained throughout. The climax is delightful.

Alec Guinness as Holland and Stanley Holloway as the rhetorical Mr. Pendlebury play excellently together; in support, Marjorie Fielding as an ardent fan of crime stories, Edie Martin as the landlady, and Sidney James and Alfie Bass as the professional thieves are particularly good.

It is interesting to note that Ealing have sensibly disregarded the 90 minutes first feature rule, and cut the running time to 78 minutes.

The Monthly Film Bulletin was published by the British Film Institute between 1934 and 1991. Initially aimed at distributors and exhibitors as well as filmgoers, it carried reviews and details of all UK film releases. In 1991, the Bulletin was absorbed by Sight and Sound magazine.

Laurel and Hardy - Way out West.

To most Laurel and Hardy fanatics including myself, Way out West was considered to be one of the duo's best works. What you are about to read has had to be drastically condensed for this post. This script gives a fascinating insight in to how the film was originally written and I think the final story has neither gained nor lost in its editing. The eventual film ending supersedes the script ending as you will read.

SCRIPT TITLE F-14

Fade in to 'Brushwood Gulch' sign -camera pulls back and we see the main street with cowboys whooping it up and firing their guns. Dissolve to 'Honky Tonk Saloon'

INTERIOR SALOON-DAY

Line up of chorus girls on stage dancing behind 'Lola' who is singing.

Cut to; INTERIOR. KITCHEN-DAY

Mary washes dishes and is pushed around by waiter (Fin). An old woman cook disgustedly looks on. Fin exits.

Cut to: INTERIOR. DRESSING ROOM-DAY

Fin enters, views Lola's next stage costume, Steps on its train as she exits, resulting in it ripping off. Fin sends her off with an Ostrich fan to cover things.

Cut to: EXTERIOR. PRAIRIE ROAD-DAY

Laurel and Hardy enter scene. Ollie is asleep on a horse drawn sled (Travois). The stream sequence stays the same but Stan does not do the hanky drying Ollie gag. When they get to the other side of the stream they argue about the correct direction they should be taking as the 'Brushwood Gulch' sign seems to be pointing in the wrong direction, an Indian rides up to them, they asked his advise, (wind alters the sign's direction) he points and off they go. Next they meet with the sheriff who says go in another direction. Laurel and Hardy argue as to who was right, Stan pretends to pull off Ollie's nose (thumb between fingers trick), Ollie threatens Stan with a rock to return his nose. Stan (angry) draws his gun and fires, Ollie winces and ducks, Stan misses, Ollie lays down thinking has been shot. Re-enter the Sheriff, with a hole in his Stetson, he kicks Stan in the fanny (backside). Prunella the donkey does the same to the Sherrif who reels headlong into a cactus bush. NOTE: In the movie the Donkey was called 'Dinah'.

Dissolve to: INTERIOR. SALOON-DAY

The exterior saloon arrival sequence is the same but has no musical interlude. Inside, Fin's false reading cash register is not mentioned. Laurel and Hardy have a conversation with Fin about their looking for Mary Roberts, Ollie searches his pockets for the 'deeds' while Stan unwraps a sandwich from his pocket (wrapped with the deeds). Fin exits. Enter Mary the kitchen girl, the boys now meet her for the first time, she is carrying a tray of sandwiches which Stan proceeds to devour.

Cut to: INTERIOR. SALOON APARTMENT-DAY

Fin enters and tells Lola of the deeds and his plan, she agrees to go along with it. The boys now arrive at the apartment and meet Lola for the first time. Lola on hearing of her supposed fathers death starts playing a sad lament on the piano which slowly leads the boys to a full flood of tears. Mary enters the apartment, and asks if the boys have dropped any papers (the deeds) Mary exits. The deeds are passed over to Lola. Fin suggests the boys stay at another hotel because his one has Ptomaine poisoning.

Cut to: EXTERIOR. SALOON-DAY Prunella slips her reins and wanders off.

Laurel and hardy exit from the saloon entrance and notice Prunella is not around and go to look for her. Around the back of the saloon they see Mary peeling carrots and feeding Prunella. Mary enquires on the name of the donkey and says her daddy had one with the same name and it could do tricks like sit down on the command 'Squat' and kick out on the command 'Let em have it'. Laurel and Hardy now discover that Fin had lied so the boys plan a retrieval of the deeds.

Dissolve to: INTERIOR. SALOON APARTMENT-DAY

The boys enter the apartment and have a fracas with Fin and Lola. Lola locks the deeds in the safe and they have a gunfight in the apartment. A bullet ricochets around the room and starts up a 'Victriola' causing it to play the same groove over and over: "Massas in the cold, in the cold, in the cold, etc. Stan has found refuge under a dining table. Another stray bullet shatters a ketchup bottle which drips over Stan who lays down thinking he is about to die. Ollie fires at Fin and misses, hits a deer head trophie that falls down antlers first onto Fin's backside. Fin swings around to fire another shot and his qun gets caught up in the chair springs. The boys see this and grab Fin and put his head through the half open door then put the door safety chain on. To stop Fin hollering Stan empties the entire contents of a soda bottle into Fin's mouth. Fin then exhudes the soda water in a constant stream all over Ollie. The sheriff now enters the apartment, chases the boys down the stairs and out into the street, he shouts after them to never return, Fin says "thats it-let 'em have it", enter Prunella etc.

Dissolve to: EXTERIOR. COUNTRYSIDE-DAY.

Laurel and Hardy are sprawled out under a tree talking about the deed retrieval, an Indian creeps up on them, Starn describes an idea to Ollie, the Indian says' "How", Stan explains again to Ollie, Ollie answers, The Indian says "How" again and a great deal of confusion ensues. On noticing the Indians presence Stan talks to the Indian in English ,but the Indian answers in sign language, Stan thinks he wants to do 'handies' so he shows him some 'finger wiggles' the Indian does not understand it so he beckons-come with me.

Dissolve to: EXTERIOR. COUNTRYSIDE-DAY to.

EXTERIOR. INDIAN CAMP-DAY

Indians war dance around a fire, suddenlly the drum beat stops. An Indian Chief approaches the boys who have been watching the proceedings. The Chief grunts and offers them three fighting knives, he grunts again and, quivering, they choose their weapons. Stan grabs the largest knife and Ollie grabs the smallest. The Chief grunts again and then says, 'that one is One Dollar and that one is Two Dollars.

Dissolve to: EXTERIOR. BRUSHWOOD GULCH-NIGHT

The boys, dressed as Indians creep along in the shadows, along comes the Sheriff, the boys assume the pose of Cigar store Indians. Stan has an arm raised holding a Tomahawk, Ollie is kneeling next to him, the Sheriff stops near by to light a cigar, he strikes a match under Stan's raised arm causing him to bring the Tomahawk down on Ollie's head. The match doesn't ignite so the Sheriff strikes again under Stan's arm, this time it ignites. The Sheriff lights his cigar, tosses the match and exits. The match lands on Ollie's feather headdress which bursts in to flames causing vast confusion and leaving Stan to put it out with his blanket.

Dissolve to: EXTERIOR SALOON-NIGHT

The boys approach the front entrance of the saloon, it has an expanding security gate which they peer through. Stan notices that it is not locked, so opens it trapping Ollie's nose in the slats. The doors are locked so they stack three barrels on to of each other which Ollie climbs. Using the handles of a rake, he attempts to pull himself up the last 2 or 3 feet to the balcony but the rake handle breaks and the babe falls through the three barrels finishing inside the bottom one which proceeds to roll down the incline.

Cut to: INTERIOR. FINS BEDROOM-NIGHT

Fin wakes up, leaps out of bed and grabs an old musket, he then returns to bed after a quick inspection out of the window.

Cut to: EXTERIOR SAI.OON-NIGHT

Ollie has cleared himself of the barrel remains and searches around the saloon for another possible entry point. Ollie sees a girder above an open window, he finds a rope which he throws over the girder and then ties around his waist, unable to lift Ollie Stan ties the rope to Prunella and gives Ollie an extra piece of rope which Ollie puts the end of into his back pocket, what he doesn't realise is, it's really a garden hose. Prunella is lead forward and as Ollie rises the hose catches on the tap and turns it on which proceeds to fill Ollie's trousers with water while he swings in the air. Stan sees the predicament and leaves Prunella while he turns off the tap. Ollie's weight now causes Prunella to be dragged backwards and Ollie descends rapidly down into and through the slanting cellar door. The donkey is now left hanging in mid air. Stan goes over to Ollie and undoes the rope which catches around his arm, resulting in the donkey dropping down and Stan going up in the air. Ollie quickly undoes the rope from Prunella and lowers Stan to the ground. Furious, Stan gr abs a piece of 2x4 and tries to hit Ollie. Ollie ducks and the 2x4 smashes the downstairs window of Mary Roberts bedroom.

Cut to: INTERIOR. MARY'S BEDROOM-NIGHT

The boys climb through the broken window and explain to Mary why they have returned, suddenly Fin is heard approaching, the boys hide. Fin enters Mary's Bedroom and steps on a mouse trap, hopping mad he tells Mary to go to bed and stop making so much noise.

FADE OUT and FADE IN

Below is a superb Back-lot still.

INTERIOR. KITCHEN-NIGHT

Laurel and Hardy creep through the kitchen. Stan sees a tomato and stop to salt and pepper it. Ollie watches, then slaps at Stan who inadvertently shakes pepper in Ollie's face and they have a big sneezing session. The sneezing continues as they move into the main saloon where a number of musical instruments get banged. Tooted and Yanked causing lots of noise. When all of the noise has settled down they go upstairs to Fin's bedroom door to check if all is clear but off screen Stan is banging something. It causes Ollie to return quickly. Stan is attacking the safe with a hammer and chisel. They decide to take the safe downstairs on Ollie's back but he trips headlong down the stairs with an enormous crash.

Cut to: INTERIOR. FIN'S BEDROOM-NIGHT.

Fin awakes in his bed, Lola (in her bed) tells Fin to get back to sleep.

Cut to: INTERIOR. SALOON STAIRS-NIGHT .

Ollie is seen with his body stuck halfway inside and through the back of the safe. Stan opens the safe door to reveal Ollie's despondent face. 'What are you doing in there?' he asks. Ollie gives his woe begone look. Stan closes the door in Ollie's face!

Cut to: INTERIOR. SALOON STAIRS LANDING-NIGHT .

Fin appears on the landing with a lantern. Stan hides under a piano. Lola yells at Fin to return to bed.

Cut to: INTERIOR. SALOON STAIRS-NIGHT.

Stan returns from under the piano and helps Ollie out of the safe and they try to find the deed in the dark by a lighted match which soon goes out so they ignite a piece of paper which Ollie quickly sees are the deeds.

Cut to: INTERIOR. SALOON LANDING-NIGHT.

Fin appears again on the landing, he now has a lantern and gun, he trips headlong downstairs. Suddenly he hears a sneeze from inside the piano then the sound of the strings being touched. Fin goes up to the piano and puts his gun muzzle under the lid of the piano right at Ollie's head. Fin now sits at the piano and plays the notes until he finds a dud one then proceeds to bang the keys very hard. We see the boys getting a serious pounding to the face. Fin is then joined by Lola, Fin grabs the gun again and orders the boys out of the piano. The boys don't respond so he lets them have both barrels and the piano collapses along with the boys into a big tangle of strings. Lola rushes in ans grabs the deeds.

Cut to: EXTERIOR. SALOON-NIGHT .

Indian Warriors approach the saloon, one Indian at a window fires an arrow which hits Fin in the backside. Fin drops the lantern and kin the darkness the boys rush out to the kitchen where they meet Mary. They continue through to the back door where they encounter more Indians. Returning, they rush back through swing doors into the saloon meeting Fin and Lola en-route. Fin and Lola crash on to the floor. Stan, Ollie and Mary continue through the bar, Stan grabs a couple of bottles which he throws at Fin out of shot, he misses and they hit a harp by a broken window and rebound into Ollie nearly knocking him out. Ollie has an idea and they position the harp so when the Indians appear at the window Stan hands Ollie a bottle which he places in the strings and shoots it bow and arrow style to good effect. Fin and Lola mean while escape through the kitchen chased by an Indian. Lola climbs in to a big refrigerator. Fin gets cornered by an Indian who is approaching menacingly with a Tomahawk, afraid of being scalped Fin takes off his toupe which he gives to the Indian. The Indian is so dumbfounded that he rushes through the window to the outside. Fin climbs out of another window on to the back of Prunella and tries to ride her away. Meanwhile, Stan and Mary are handing bottles as fast as they can to Ollie and many Indians fall unconscious. Eventually, the Indians rush to the saloon and search for thje boys. They see a piano start to move, its legs are doing funny contortions. Mary, Stan and Ollie are in different corners of the piano acting as legs and as it dashes out of the saloon the Indians scatter in all directions.

Cut to: EXTERIOR. SALOON-NIGHT

The piano careers out of the saloon and down the main street followed by a large group of indians firing arrows and hitting the piano.

Cut to: EXTERIOR. SMALL CLIFF-NIGHT.

The Piano hurtles towards a cliff, unable to see where they are going the Piano runs off the cliff, tumbles through the air and lands upside down on the water. We see three pairs of legs stuck in the air as it drifts downstream.

FADE OUT

THE END

Remembering Alfred Burke - Public Eye

Alfred Burke, starred as the downbeat private detective Frank Marker in the popular television series Public Eye (1965-75). The character was intended as a British rival to Raymond Chandler's American gumshoe Philip Marlowe. Tough, unattached and self-sufficient, Marker could take a beating in the service of his often wealthy clients without quitting. "Marker wasn't exciting, he wasn't rich," Burke said. "He could be defined in negatives."

An ABC TV press release introduced the character as a "thin, shabby, middle-aged man with a slightly grim sense of humour and an aura of cynical incorruptibility. His office is a dingy south London attic within sound of Clapham Junction. He can't afford a secretary, much less an assistant, and when he needs a car, he hires a runabout from the local garage."

Tall, sharp-featured, saturnine and with an incisive voice, Burke was perfectly cast as Marker. He thought up the character's name himself – originally the detective was to be called Frank Marvin. In 1972 the role brought him a Bafta nomination for best actor. The following year, Marker was voted the most compulsive male character in a TV Times poll.

Burke – who was always known as Alfie – was born in Peckham, south-east London, to Irish parents. His father, William, worked in a fur warehouse. He left school in 1933 to take a job as an office boy with a firm that specialised in repairing railway wagons. Soon afterwards he became a steward in a City club for businessmen, but left after an uncharacteristic dispute with a barmaid which ended with her squirting a soda siphon in his face.

He dared not tell his parents that he was out of work, so he ran away to Brighton, returning to London to take a job in a silk warehouse in Cheapside. He began to perform with a local amateur dramatic group run by a headteacher who persuaded him to apply for a London county council scholarship to Rada. Before the principal, Sir Kenneth Barnes, and his colleagues, Burke declaimed, "Is this a dagger I see before me?", read a Tennyson poem and played two parts from The Last of Mrs Cheyney. He took up his place at Rada in 1937.

Two years later he appeared on stage professionally for the first time, in The Universal Legacy at the Barn theatre in Shere, Surrey. The second world war then intervened. Burke registered as a conscientious objector, and was directed to work on the land. After the war, he went back to theatre work at Farnham, Surrey, where he met Barbara Bonelle, a stage manager, who became his wife.

Burke then did a series of tours with the Council for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts (which became the Arts Council). The tours were aimed at bringing culture to "the people" – in his case, in the Welsh valleys and the Lake District. In the late 1940s, he joined the Young Vic company and went on to spend time in Manchester at the Library theatre, at the Nottingham Playhouse and in London, appearing in Pablo Picasso's play Desire Caught By the Tail at the Watergate theatre. He was at Birmingham Rep for the three parts of Henry VI, which transferred to the Old Vic in London in 1953.

By the late 1950s, Burke had established himself as a serious stage actor and a useful character actor in films including the war movies Bitter Victory (1957) and No Time to Die (1958). He played the industrial agitator Travers in The Angry Silence (1960), in which a worker (Richard Attenborough) is shunned by his colleagues for refusing to take part in a strike. In 1964 he appeared in the science-fiction movie Children of the Damned, a sequel to Village of the Damned.

On TV, he took roles in episodes of The Saint, The Avengers and Z Cars, as well as several editions of ITV's Play of the Week. In 1964 his own script, Where Are They Now?, written under the pen name of Frank Hanna, was produced as a Play of the Week. The following year, he slid into the arms of a welcoming public as Marker. In between starring in seven series of Public Eye, he had leading roles at the Leeds Playhouse in Luigi Pirandello's Henry IV, in 1970, and in Pictures in a Bath of Acid, as the writer August Strindberg, in 1971.

Burke enhanced his TV popularity with parts including the father in The Brontës of Haworth (1973), Long John Silver in Treasure Island (1977) and Major Richter, a German commandant in occupied Guernsey, in the series Enemy at the Door (1978). He portrayed Richter as essentially decent, despite the dire obligations of war. After a recurring role in the series Sophia and Constance (1988), based on Arnold Bennett's novel The Old Wives' Tale, he continued to take small TV parts throughout his 70s and 80s. He had his highest-profile role for years when he appeared – albeit briefly – as Armando Dippet, the former Hogwarts headteacher, in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002).

He and Barbara had two sets of twins – Jacob and Harriet, and Kelly and Louisa – and they remained on good terms. He spent the last 25 years with Hedi Argent. They all survive him, along with 11 grandchildren.

Alfred Burke, was born 28 February 1918 and died 16 February 2011, aged 92.