''On the Beat'' is a 1962 British

comedy film A comedy film is a category of film which emphasizes humor. These films are designed to make the audience laugh through amusement. Films in this style traditionally have a happy ending (black comedy being an exception). Comedy is one of the ol ...

directed by Robert Asher and starring

Norman Wisdom Sir Norman Joseph Wisdom, (4 February 1915 – 4 October 2010) was an English actor, comedian, musician and singer best known for a series of comedy films produced between 1953 and 1966 featuring a hapless onscreen character often called Norman ...

Jennifer Jayne Jennifer Jayne (14 November 1931 – 23 April 2006) was an English film and television actress born in Yorkshire to theatrical parents. Born Jennifer Jayne Jones, she adopted her stage name of Jennifer Jayne to avoid confusion with the Holly ...

and

Raymond Huntley Horace Raymond Huntley (23 April 1904 – 15 June 1990) was an English actor who appeared in dozens of British films from the 1930s to the 1970s. He also appeared in the ITV period drama '' Upstairs, Downstairs'' as the pragmatic family so ...

Plot

Norman Pitkin (

) works at

Scotland Yard Scotland Yard (officially New Scotland Yard) is the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police, the territorial police force responsible for policing Greater London's 32 boroughs, but not the City of London, the square mile that forms London's ...

as a car cleaner, but dreams of becoming a policeman as his late father was. The police reject his request to join the force, but later recruit him to work undercover in disguise. He has turned out to be the double twin of a suspected jewel thief, an Italian crime boss in London. In addition to his criminal activities, this man is a ladies' hairdresser. Norman disguises himself as the suspect and gains entry to his salon. Once inside, after some inevitable mishaps, he manages to find the stolen goods, knock out the suspect, wrap him up in a curtain/wall rug, and bring him to justice. As a reward, he is offered a permanent position in the police and marries his love, the ex-girlfriend of the man he brought to justice (whom he had rescued earlier in the film when she was attempting to commit suicide by jumping in the river).

Cast

Production

''On the Beat'' was shot at

Pinewood Studios Pinewood Studios is a British film and television studio located in the village of Iver Heath, England. It is approximately west of central London. The studio has been the base for many productions over the years from large-scale films to te ...

and on location around

Windsor Windsor may refer to: Places Australia * Windsor, New South Wales ** Municipality of Windsor, a former local government area * Windsor, Queensland, a suburb of Brisbane, Queensland **Shire of Windsor, a former local government authority around Wi ...

. The film's sets were designed by the

art director Art director is the title for a variety of similar job functions in theater, advertising, marketing, publishing, fashion, film industry, film and television, the Internet, and video games. It is the charge of a sole art director to supervise and ...

Bert Davey Bert Davey (1921–2002) was a British art director.Gomez p.210 Selected filmography * ''Time Is My Enemy'' (1954) * ''Devil's Point (film), Devil's Point'' (1954) * ''Stolen Time'' (1955) * ''The Traitors (1962 film), The Traitors'' (1962) * '' ...

. It marked a return to

Rank Rank is the relative position, value, worth, complexity, power, importance, authority, level, etc. of a person or object within a ranking, such as: Level or position in a hierarchical organization * Academic rank * Diplomatic rank * Hierarchy * H ...

for Wisdom following two films for

United Artists United Artists Corporation (UA), currently doing business as United Artists Digital Studios, is an American digital production company. Founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks, the studi ...

, although the latter handled the film for distribution in North America.

Reception

The film was one of the 12 most popular movies at the British box office in 1963. According to ''Kine Weekly'' the four most popular films at the British box office in 1963 were ''From Russia With Love'', ''Summer Holiday'', ''Tom Jones'' and ''The Great Escape'', followed by, in alphabetical order, ''Doctor in Distress'', ''The Fast Lady'', ''Girls! Girls! Girls!'', ''Heaven's Above'', ''Jason and the Argonauts'', ''In Search of the Castaways'', ''It Happened at the World's Fair'', ''The Longest Day'', ''On the Beat'', ''Sodom and Gomorrah'', ''The V. I. Ps'', and ''The Wrong Arm of the Law''.

Music

A slightly different arrangement of the film's title theme, by composer

Philip Green Sir Philip Nigel Ross Green (born 15 March 1952) is a British businessman who was the chairman of the retail company the Arcadia Group. He owned the high street clothing retailers Topshop, Topman and Miss Selfridge from 2002 to 2020. As of Ma ...

, was recorded for a

production music Production music (also known as stock music or library music) is recorded music that can be licensed to customers for use in film, television, radio and other media. Often, the music is produced and owned by production music libraries. Background ...

library, and may be heard in many American

animated cartoons Animation is a method by which still figures are manipulated to appear as moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Today, most anima ...

of the early 1960s, particularly those from

Hanna-Barbera Productions Hanna-Barbera Cartoons, Inc. ( ) was an American animation studio and production company which was active from 1957 to 2001. It was founded on July 7, 1957, by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera following the decision of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to c ...

References

Bibliography

* Hunter, I.Q. & Porter, Laraine. ''British Comedy Cinema''. Routledge, 2012.

External links

*{{IMDb title, id=0056307, title=On The Beat
On the Beat Trailer
1962 films 1962 comedy films British comedy films British black-and-white films Films set in London Films shot at Pinewood Studios Films directed by Robert Asher 1960s English-language films 1960s British films