Ask a Policeman
| Ask a Policeman | |
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| Directed by | Marcel Varnel |
| Produced by | Edward Black |
| Written by |
Marriott Edgar Sidney Gilliat(story) Val Guest J. O. C. Orton |
| Starring |
Will Hay Graham Moffatt Moore Marriott Glennis Lorimer Peter Gawthorne Charles Oliver Herbert Lomas |
| Music by | Louis Levy |
| Cinematography | Derick Williams |
| Edited by | R. E. Dearing |
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Production
company |
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| Distributed by |
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (United States) |
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Release date
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Running time
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83 minutes |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
Ask a Policeman is a 1939 British comedy film directed by Marcel Varnel which stars Will Hay, Moore Marriott and Graham Moffatt. The title comes from the popular music hall song Ask a Policeman. The Turnbotham Round police force are threatened with dismissal by their Chief Constable and decide to manufacture some smugglers to keep their jobs. When they encounter real smugglers, their plans begins to fall apart.
Will Hay plays Sergeant Samuel Dudfoot, an inept policeman, stagnating in the sleepy village of Turnbotham Round (pronounced Turnbottom), where there has been no crime for a decade. After the Chief Constable tells them that there is not enough local criminal activity to justify their station's existence, three incompetent policemen decide to start manufacturing crimes to "fiddle the figures". Dudfoot, together with Albert Brown (Graham Moffatt) and Jerry Harbottle (Moore Marriott) create a crime wave by framing motorists in a speed trap and concocting false evidence.
They also leave a keg of whisky unattended in order to frame someone as a smuggler - and then accidentally discover a real smuggling ring!
Sergeant Dudfoot talking about his life as a policeman at Turnbotham Round during a radio broadcast. His staff Albert and Harbottle (played by Graham Moffatt and Moore Marriott) enter after they have been poaching and Harbottle ruins the broadcast.
The next day, Dudfoot receives a letter from the Chief Constable. The letter states that an investigation will shortly take place to see if the police force in Turnbotham Round is necessary at all since no arrests have been made in the ten years that Dudfoot has been a policeman. Dudfoot decides to set a speed trap and stops passing cars down a country lane just outside the village. After stopping and later releasing a man who has neither a license nor insurance, Dudfoot, Harbottle and Albert stop, question and knock out another driver who is actually the Chief Constable. They drive the unconscious Chief Constable back to the police station and lock him in the cell. Dudfoot then drives the Chief Constable's car into Harbottle's shop window to create the impression that the Chief Constable had just had an accident. However, when the Chief Constable comes round, he fails to be fooled by the 'accident', but the Squire intervenes and claims to have witnessed the accident, which saves Dudfoot, Harbottle and Albert from a lot of trouble.
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Wikipedia