Radio version of a 1933 Gaumont-British omnibus (no pun intended) film…
[Emlyn] Met with producer Angus MacPhail, then director Victor Saville described: “…taken
from somebody’s ‘treatment’, and I was to furnish the dialogue. A London bus, see, has a handful
of passengers when a crane crashes on it and kills some and not others, see? Open with the
accident, flash back to the separate lives, who’s going to die and who isn’t, and lead back to
accident at end, all-star cast led by Jessie as a chorus girl…”
“ ‘What about your part Emmer-lun?’ I suggested a smooth young blackmailer who follows his
victim into a hotel lounge.”
MacPhail referred to the concept as “The Bus of San Luis Rey.” The movie cast included
Edmund Gwenn, Emlyn Williams, Frank Lawton, Martita Hunt, and Ralph Richardson.
of a bomb landing on a Piccadilly hotel, with a bus documentary. At one minute to midnight on
Friday the 13th, lightning strikes a crane in London and, swerving to avoid it, a bus crashes into a
shop, killing two passengers. The film flashes-back 24 hours and tells stories both dramatic and
humorous about six people—all passengers on the bus. The characters include a chorus girl en
route to a date with a man she doesn’t love; a henpecked husband whose wife was cheating on
him; a blackmailer who’d been bleeding an unfortunate young man dry; a wise-guy crook who
was about to be caught by a nasty detective; and so on. Ultimately we discover which two die.”
“…13 characters who were on the bus getting their recent lives explored in intricate detail…”
“…lapsed photography of Big Ben winding back, to symbolize what events occurred thirteen
hours ago, up until the bus crash.”
crashes into a shop. We follow the events in the lives of the passengers prior to the accident.
Bus conductor Alf and his driver Fred spend the day at the Derby and Alf expresses his
forebodings about working on Friday the 13th. One of the horses they back is a winner, which
makes Alf think perhaps the day won't be so bad after all.
Mr Jackson plans to take his wife on a surprise cruise to celebrate their wedding anniversary.
He boards the bus after working late, little knowing that his wife has left him that very day for a
sleazy fellow named Max.
Cockney market trader Joe is being pursued by a detective, who believes he has stolen a valuable
china statue. Two Americans pose as antique dealers from New York City and they travel with
him, towards his lockup, on the bus.
Receiving a tip for a stock market certainty, Mr Wakefield asks his wife to hand deliver a letter
to his brokers. Afraid to admit to her husband that she has forgotten, Flora Wakefield slips out of
the house late at night, and catches the bus towards Wimbledon Common.
Blake is blackmailing a young couple, Frank and Mary, and is travelling on the bus with a
cheque for £100 they have given him to keep their secret. Blake knew Frank from a stint in prison
and is threatening to tell Frank's employers about his past.
Henpecked husband Ralph meets Dolly in a park. They flirt and kiss. When he takes the bus
home he discovers she has stolen his wallet. Smugly, the blackmailer Blake pays his fare for him.
Chorus girl Millie argues with her jealous fiancé, Horace, who insists that she give up her stage
career when they marry. When Horace fails to meet Millie at the stage door after work she boards
the bus intending to take up a variety agent's offer of supper at his house.
The aftermath of the accident. The bus driver and Alf are in hospital beds. Alf receives attention
from a glamorous nurse. Market trader Joe has also survived the crash. He enjoys watching the
detective and the two Americans searching through the wreckage of the china shop, which
includes the stolen statue he was carrying on the bus. Mrs Wakefield and her stock-investing
husband laugh with relief about her forgetfulness, which has saved them from financial ruin.
Henpecked Ralph's wife makes a great fuss of him as he has been injured in the crash; they are
reconciled. Chorus girl Millie and her beau are happily reunited. She has sprained her ankle in the
crash, so cannot dance for a while. Blake's blackmail victims receive a visit from a policeman who
informs them that he was killed in the crash, releasing them from worry. The cuckolded Mr
Jackson did not survive the accident.
Mrs Twigg and her nephew read about the crash in a newspaper. She observes that they were
extremely lucky to have got off the bus just before the crash. The, nephew, however wisely notes
that if the bus hadn't stopped to let them off, the crash would never have happened.
National Programme and Regional Programme, London (BBC).
September 11 and 13, 1935.
Lance Sieveking (scriptwriter, producer).
A. Neal Arden, Frank Atkinson, Marjorie Clayton, Edward Craven, Barry Ferguson, John Gabriel,
Edward Gathorne-Hardy, Lance George, Beatrice Gilbert, Hugh Hare, Johanna Hayes, Lauri Lupino Lane,
Eliot Makeham, Leslie Perrins, Henry Peterson, Mary Sheridan, Anne Twigg, Allan Wade, Deering Wells,
Bertha Woolcote
None.
September 11, 1935“Friday the Thirteenth”
September 13, 1935“Friday the Thirteenth”