Back Room Boy (1942)

Country of Origin: UK
Year of Production: 1942
Running Times:
Format: black and white     35mm
Ratio: 1.37:1
Sound: mono

PRODUCTION
Production Company: Gainsborough Pictures
Producer: Edward Black
In Charge of Production: Maurice Ostrer
Production Manager: Jack Swinburne (uncredited)

SCRIPT
Script: Marriott Edgar, Val Guest, J.O.C. Orton

DIRECTION
Director: Herbert Mason
Assistant Director: Mickey Delamar (uncredited)
2nd Assistant Director: Alf Keating (uncredited)
3rd Assistant Director: John Draper (uncredited)

PHOTOGRAPHY
Director of Photography: Jack E. Cox
Camera Operator: William McLeod (uncredited)
Focus Pullers: Jack Asher, Tony McCarthy (both uncredited)
Clapper Loaders: Terry Hunt, Gerry Lewis (both uncredited)
Stills: George Cannon (uncredited)

EDITING AND POST PRODUCTION
Editor: R.E. Dearing
Assistant Editor: John Shirley (uncredited)
Cutter: Charles Saunders (uncredited)

MUSIC
Music: Hans May
Music Director: Louis Levy

SOUND
Sound Supervisor: B.C. Sewell
Sound Recordist: Victor Wilson (uncredited)
Sound Camera Operator: Mickey Jay (uncredited)
Boom Operators: Charles Wheeler, Eric Reed (both uncredited)

MAKE UP AND COSTUMES
Make Up: Len Garde (uncredited)
Hair: Nora Bentley (uncredited)
Wardrobe: Hilda Collins (uncredited)

DESIGN AND SET CONSTRUCTION
Art Director: Walter W. Murton

MISCELLANEOUS
Continuity: Maisie Kelly (uncredited)

LOCATIONS
Studio: Shepherd's Bush Studios, London, England, UK

CASTING
Crowd Casting: Iside Head (uncredited)

CAST
Arthur Askey (Arthur Pilbeam)
Moore Marriott (Jerry)
Vera Francis (Jane)
Graham Moffatt (Albert)
Joyce Howard (Betty)
John Salew (Steve Mason)
George Merritt (Uncle)
Googie Withers (Bobbie)
Eileen Bennett, Philip Friend (uncredited bit parts)

Meteorologist Arthur is banished to a remote lighthouse after transmitting timekeeping pips over the radio in morse code. There he learns that former lighthouse keepers have been driven mad, apparently by sirens. And sure enough, strange things are afoot at Kelpie Rock - Arthur's baggage vanishes, someone has made his bed for him and a meal appears to cook itself. And is that really a mermaid outside on the rocks?

As this was Britain during the war, there are no real ghosts and no mermaids, just a strong, uplifting moral to keep the blitzed populace cheerful and to keep the censor board happy. When a group of survivors of a shipwreck start to disappear, the film briefly turns into a full blooded old-dark-lighthouse thriller with a genuinely palpable sense of dread and fear. But Askey's irritating clowning tends to spoil it rather badly.

1954
January
31: USA - television broadcast (on ABC)

1973
May
13: UK - television broadcast (on ITV)

1985
September
8: UK - television broadcast (on Channel 4)

1989
January
14: UK - television broadcast (on Channel 4)

1992
December
8: UK - television broadcast (on Channel 4)

1996
April
26: UK - television broadcast (on Channel 4)

1998
April
4: UK - television broadcast (on Channel 4)

MAGAZINES

Kinematograph Weekly no.1827 (23 April 1942) (UK)
review

Monthly Film Bulletin vol.9 no.100 (April 1942) p.41 (UK)
credits, synopsis, review

Today's Cinema vol.58 no.4712 (21 April 1942) p.9 (UK)
review

fake ghosts, lighthouses, spies

Last Updated: 19 October, 2008