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One Good Turn
One Good Turn
	Original UK Quad poster
Directed by	John Paddy Carstairs
Written by	Maurice Cowan; John Paddy Carstairs; Ted Willis; Sid Colin (additional scenes); Talbot Rothwell(additional scenes);
Produced by	Maurice Cowan
Starring	Norman Wisdom; Joan Rice; Shirley Abicair; Thora Hird
Cinematography	Jack E. Cox
Edited by	Geoffrey Foot
Music by	John Addison
Production; company	Two Cities Films
Distributed by	General Film Distributors
Release date	4 January 1955;
Running time	90 minutes
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English

One Good Turn is a 1955 British comedy film directed by John Paddy Carstairs and starring Norman Wisdom, Joan Rice, Shirley Abicair and Thora Hird.^[1] The main setting of the film is an English children's home, located south of London.

Plot

Norman lives at Greenwood children's home, south of London, where he grew up. He has stayed on and serves as carer and general dogsbody. He regards the staff and children there as his family, and when Jimmy, one of the boys, sets his heart on a model car which he has seen in a shop window, Norman is determined to raise the money to buy it. But he cannot afford it on his meagre wages, and Matron refuses to provide the money.

Norman joins the schoolchildren on a train excursion to Brighton, as he has never seen the sea. However, he loses his trousers before boarding. On leaving the train, he is chased by the police and disguises his appearance by joining the final stage of the London to Brighton walking race. Due to his advantage in joining so late, he wins, but fails to sell the silver cup he has been awarded to a pawnbroker, who thinks the trophy has been stolen. Norman acquires a top hat and tails and is eating candy floss by a stage door. The manager comes out searching for the orchestra conductor and mistakes Norman as the missing man (his candy floss stick look like a baton). Norman creates a disjointed performance and starts laughing. The laughter is infectious and soon the whole audience is laughing. After a short section of normality where the orchestra play Lohengrin Norman decides to move to big band music.

At this point the real conductor arrives and Norman tries to hide. As the orchestra play the William Tell Overture Norman runs around and causes chaos.

At a local fair, he sees he can win £10 by lasting three rounds in a boxing tent. He gets hypnotised to make himself a good boxer. This is succeeding but both the boxing and hypnotism are scams so they cheat him out of the money. The audience have seen what happened and have a whip-round for him, which raises fifteen shillings. Norman bursts into song as he stands by a cupie doll game at the fair. He gets enough money to buy the pedal car but a misunderstanding as it leaves the shop window leads to another police pursuit.

Norman returns to the Home, but finds it in a state of siege. The chairman of the trustees is also a crooked property speculator and wants to evict the kids so that a factory can be built on the site. The children defenders are successful and the home is saved. Little Jimmy says he no longer wants the car as he has been given a model plane.

Cast

Norman Wisdom as Norman
Joan Rice as Iris Gibson
Shirley Abicair as Mary
Thora Hird as Cook
William Russell as Alec Bigley
Joan Ingram as Matron Sparrow
Richard Caldicot as Mr. Bigley
Marjorie Fender as Tuppeny
Keith Gilman as Jimmy
Noel Howlett as Jeweller
David Hurst as Professor Dofee
Harold Kasket as Igor Petrovitch
Ricky McCullough as Gunner Mac
Anthony Green as Martin

Production

Producer Maurice Cowan made Wisdom's first film and wrote the story for his third. He so disliked working with Wisdom on this film that he never produced another film for the comedian.^[2]

According to Hugh Stewart, who became Wisdom's main producer, the film "was not particularly good. Paddy - who is very expert but only gets annoyed with people when they really don't know what they're talking about, wouldn't tolerate another film with Maurice."^[3]

Reception

The film was the 7th most popular movie at the British box office in 1955.^[4]^[5] According to Kinematograph Weekly it was a "money maker" at the British box office in 1955.^[6]

In a Radio Times review written many decades later, it was asserted: "this is the cleverly constructed follow-up to Norman Wisdom's smash-hit debut Trouble in Store. Arguably the best of his vehicles...Of course, the film is overly sentimental, but sentiment was part of Wisdom's stock-in-trade, and today, if we can look beyond the home-grown schmaltz, we can recognise the rare quality of a true cinematic clown".^[7]

References

^ "BFI | Film & TV Database | ONE GOOD TURN (1954)". Ftvdb.bfi.org.uk. 16 April 2009. Archived from the original on 13 January 2009. Retrieved 9 June 2014.
^ "Our "Zither Girl " had no hope". Sunday Times (Perth). No. 2924. Western Australia. 19 December 1954. p. 39. Retrieved 11 August 2020 – via National Library of Australia.
^ "Hugh Stewart". British Entertainment History Project. 22 November 1989.
^ "Dirk Bogarde favourite film actor". The Irish Times. Dublin, Ireland. 29 December 1955. p. 9.
^ Thumim, Janet. "The popular cash and culture in the postwar British cinema industry". Screen. Vol. 32, no. 3. p. 259.
^ "Other Money Makers of 1955". Kinematograph Weekly. 15 December 1955. p. 5.
^ "One Good Turn | Film review and movie reviews". Radio Times. Retrieved 9 June 2014.