Reviews
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Halliwells Film and Video Guide 1998 EditionVillage policemen catch art thieves. Horribly incompetent remake of ‘Ask a Policeman’ with a totally untalented star team. |
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The Time Out film guide 7th EditionThis is matriarch humour, strayed from the bosom of clubland; only a Lancashire mother can truly appreciate the feature-length witless babble of Cannon and Ball dressed as Bobbies. Cannon has the brain cell, Ball the catchphrase (“Rock on, Tommy”). they both talk about pulling birds and going to the pictures, repeating each others lines endlessly, thereby requiring only half a script. Which is all they get. Its about country coppers whose station is under threat until Big Crime turns up on their doorstep. To complete the picture of the typical British Film Comedy cashing in on TV success, just look at the cast list, halve the budget you first thought of, and add in a gratuitous advert for British Leyland. |
See also the IMDB page for The Boys in Blue
1983 Spring Tour Programme
“The Boys In Blue” is the debut movie of Tommy Cannon and Bobby Ball
Producer Gregory Smith comments: “I saw them on television some two and a half years ago and thought them unique; and their managers, Laurie Mansfield and Stuart Littlewood, and I got together to talk over ideas. They weren’t then enjoying the exceptional countrywide success they have now. Nothing speaks louder than money, and when the film people could see the kind of response they were getting it made the job of setting up the film that much easier.”
The Rank Organisation’s financial stake in the cops and robbers movie is the largest they have made for a number of years and it marks a first-time feature film investment for Rank’s partners, MAM and Apollo Leisure Group.
Write-Director Val Guest and Greg Smith successfully collaborated on several feature productions and this happy liason plus Guest’s undoubted ability as a ‘comedians’ director’ dirtuall ensured Val would be asked to help Tommy and Bobby’s debut. In his own debut days, Val wrote sketches for the inimitable Sid Fields, scripted Will Hay’s classic comedy, Oh, Mr Porter, which is now in the National Film Theatre Library, and the first Crazy Gang films. Comedy men who owe their film start to Val include Peter Sellers, Frankie Howard, Jon Pertwee, Ronnie Corbett and Lionel Jeffries. Co-starring with Cannon and Ball in “The Boys In Blue” are: Suzanne Danielle, Eric Sykes, Roy Kinnear, Jon Pertwee, Jack Douglas, Arthur English and Edward Judd.
Tommy Cannon and Bobby Ball are the seargeant and constable of a village sub-station threatened with closure because the boys haven’t suffered a crime nor made an arrest in ten years,
True to comedy-cops tradition, Tommy and Bobby decide they will have to solve the mystery of nationwide art thefts to keep their station open – as well as their profitable supermarket next door (groceries delivered by police car) and betting business (over the station phone).
Vivacious Suzanne Danielle plays Kim who hinders as much as helps their crazy investigations. She is Girl Friday to the cockney lord of the manor, Roy Kinnear.
Bobby’s attempts to date Kim and track down the art robbers proves a frustrating combination for Tommy and Bobby.
Eric Sykes is the Chief Constable, Jack Douglas, the Chief Inspector, with Jack’s wife Su, appearing with him for the first time in a movie, as secretary to Edward Judd, the undercover detective the boys think is the criminal mater-mind. Jon Pertwee joins in the fun as a crafy coastguard.
