On the Buses (film)

On the Buses is a 1971 British comedy film directed by Harry Booth and starring Reg Varney, Doris Hare, Michael Robbins, Anna Karen, Stephen Lewis and Bob Grant. It was the first spin-off film from the TV sitcom On the Buses and was followed by two further films, Mutiny on the Buses (1972) and Holiday on the Buses (1973).

The films are set within a slightly different canon from the TV series: Stan and Jack work for a different bus company (Town & District instead of Luxton & District), and the three films form a loose story arc where Arthur and Olive become parents (despite their apparently sexless marriage).

The film was produced by Ronald Chesney and Ronald Wolfe for Hammer Films, and enjoyed major success in Britain, outdoing Diamonds Are Forever to become the highest-grossing film of 1971.

Plot
Stan Butler, a bus driver for the Town & District bus company, becomes worried that the overtime he is making – which his family is using to buy expensive items such as a washing machine – will soon end when the company rectifies its current lack of employees. His concerns become justified when the company decides to revoke a long-standing rule that prevents women from being employed as bus drivers, much to the chagrin of both Stan and his long-time colleague and friend, Jack. The loss of overtime that he was making forces Stan to persuade his sister Olive to get employment in the company's canteen. Following a disastrous start, she and her husband, Arthur, soon discover that she is pregnant, resulting in her losing her job and forcing the Butler family to send back the items they cannot afford to pay for. At the same time, Stan gets into trouble with the company while attempting to recover something of Jack's from a woman he had been seeing, when he manages to inadvertently demolish both a telephone kiosk and a bus shelter in trying to avoid being caught by the woman's jealous husband. Despite his efforts to lie about why he caused the damage, Blakey, the bus company's Inspector, takes delight in informing Stan that he has to undertake a driving test on a bus skid pan in order to keep his job. However, Blakey soon regrets supervising the test when Stan gets his own back by beginning the test with Blakey still on the bus being used for it.

Stan manages to pass the test, but he soon becomes worried that the employment of women drivers will affect both his and Jack's layabout lifestyle at the company. It would also reduce their pay and prevent Jack from conducting amorous flings with women on the company's time. The pair decide that the best way to prevent this from happening is to sabotage the company's new employment scheme by making the women drivers look bad, and initially pull off small pranks. Later, when Stan witnesses Olive being terrified of a spider, he and Jack gather some to plant in the cabs of the women's buses, causing further disruption with their driving. These, however, have little effect, until Stan comes up with the idea of lacing their tea with a diuretic, upon learning of what it does when Olive acquires some for her pregnancy. This results in the women drivers being forced to make frequent toilet stops whilst on their routes resulting in multiple delays.

As Olive's pregnancy draws closer to term, Arthur requests Stan's help in fixing the springs on his motorcycle's sidecar to prepare it for the trip to the hospital. While bringing the springs into the depot to get them fixed, amongst a few small things for the new baby, he and Jack discover that the company recently ordered a number of diversion signs to be made to divert buses away from roadworks in the town. Deciding to take advantage of this, the pair arrange for more to be made for their own use, then planting them out on the women's routes; thus causing even more trouble. One such false diversion causes a woman driver to get forced onto a motorway, causing her and Blakey, who was on board, to get in trouble with the police.

A mishap occurs in getting her to the hospital when the bike and sidecar breaks in half, but Olive manages to reach the hospital and give birth to a baby son, but the joyful arrival soon brings disruptions to the Butler household as they struggle to cope with the new child. Meanwhile, Stan and Jack are delighted to learn their sabotage efforts were a success when the company announces its decision to no longer employ women bus drivers. Their celebration is short-lived, however, when they learn that Blakey re-hired the women drivers they tormented as inspectors, and they promptly separate the two onto different routes.

Although the pair are not happy about this and intend to quit their jobs, Stan soon sees a silver lining to their situation when he is twinned with Sandra, a new attractive female clippie for his route. The story ends with Stan and Sandra managing to cause trouble to Blakey by knocking down a sign onto him and the other inspectors, much to Stan's delight as he heads off to do his route.

Cast

 * Reg Varney – Stan Butler
 * Doris Hare – Mum
 * Michael Robbins – Arthur Rudge
 * Anna Karen – Olive Rudge
 * Stephen Lewis – Inspector Cyril 'Blakey' Blake
 * Bob Grant – Jack Harper
 * Brian Oulton – manager
 * Andria Lawrence – Betty
 * Pat Ashton – Sally
 * Jeanne Varney (daughter of Reg Varney) – Mavis
 * Pamela Cundell – Ruby
 * Pat Coombs – Vera
 * Eunice Black – Ada
 * Wendy Richard – housewife
 * Peter Madden – Mr. Brooks
 * David Lodge – Fred the busman
 * Brenda Gogan – Bridget
 * Caroline Dowdeswell – Sandra
 * Nosher Powell – Betty's husband
 * Terry Duggan – Nobby
 * Norman Mitchell – London Transport official
 * Claire Davenport – Peggy
 * Maggie Rennie – Gladys
 * Tex Fuller – Harry
 * Anna Michaels – Eileen
 * Ivor Salter – First Policeman
 * George Roderick – second policeman
 * Gavin Campbell – motorcycle cop
 * David Rowlands – parson
 * Hilda Barry – old woman
 * Moira Foot – Katy
 * Reginald Peters – medical orderly
 * Caroline Munro – poster girl (uncredited)

Production
The film was made on location and at Elstree Studios at Borehamwood, Hertfordshire. Stage 5 at Elstree was used for the exteriors of the bus station both in this film and in the later sequels.

The film includes shots of a London AEC Routemaster RM200 (VLT 200) undergoing the skid tests at the Chiswick Works skidpad.

The buses used in road shots were Eastern National Bristol KSW5Gs numbered 2359 (VNO857), 2367 (VNO862), 2371 (VNO866) and 2376 (WNO476).

Music
The lyrics to the "On The Buses" theme song (composed by Geoff Unwin and Roger Ferris) were written by Ferris, who produced the recording at Abbey Road Studios. Quinceharmon's vocal performance secured a release on EMI's Columbia label.

Release
The film opened at the ABC Ardwick & Studio 2 cinemas, both in Manchester, on 1 August 1971.

Box office
The film was the second most popular movie at the British box office in 1971, and returned more at the UK box office than the year's James Bond film Diamonds Are Forever. By June 1972, On the Buses had earned EMI a profit of £106,000. It eventually earned £1,500,000 in the UK and £1,000,000 overseas, making a profit to Hammer of £532,000. Its box office gross was nearly 28 times its budget.

Critical reception
The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "The latest film to exploit the success of a TV comedy series, On the Buses reaches a new low in British production standards. Most of it is in medium shot, flatly lit, edited and directed with little indication of pace or structure, and processed in extraordinarily bad colour. The attitudes informing the script – of idiot sexuality and rabid anti-feminism – are unpleasant in the extreme, with all the women drivers depicted as stupid cows of the butch Lesbian school, for no reason other than their take-over of men's work. The script is simply a series of old situation jokes and bad puns. By comparison, there is suddenly a lot to be said for the cheerful, vulgar knockabout of the Carry On... series."

Reviewing On the Buses in The Spectator, Christopher Hudson called it "a dullish adaptation of the ITV series".

The Radio Times Guide to Films gave the film 1/5 stars, writing: "Nostalgia masochists should account for the bulk of those tuning in to this atrocious film, in which women drivers are taken on at Blakey's depot, much to the frustration of those 'lovable' misogynists Reg Varney and Bob Grant."

Film critic Leslie Halliwell said: "Grotesque, ham-handed farce from a TV series which was sometimes funny; this is merely vulgar."