On the Beat ** (1962, Norman Wisdom, Jennifer Jayne, Raymond Huntley, David Lodge) – Classic Movie Review 13,651

Norman Wisdom stars in two roles, would-be London policeman Norman Pitkin and Italian jewel thief Giulio Napolitani, in the 1962 British black and white farcical comedy film On the Beat.

Director Robert Asher’s 1962 British Rank Organisation black and white farcical comedy film On the Beat stars Norman Wisdom, with Jennifer Jayne, Raymond Huntley, David Lodge, Eleanor Summerfield, Eric Barker, Ronnie Stevens, Maurice Kaufmann, Dilys Laye, Esma Cannon, Terence Alexander, and George Pastell.

Some would say one Norman Wisdom is more than enough (though others call him a comic genius) but here he is in two roles, as Giulio Napolitani, an Italian jewel thief who loses his girl (Jennifer Jayne) and his liberty to his double, Norman Pitkin, a humble car cleaning guard at a Scotland Yard police parking-lot in London. He wants to be a proper copper, like his dad, but that means he’s going to come a cropper.

Wisdom works hard and skilfully playing the gormless chump, but too often draws out the gags and sometimes even laughs at his character’s own jokes, some of them actually his own jokes, as he co-wrote the script with Jack Davies and Eddie Leslie. A lot of it is harmless, but some of the badly dated humour is a bit offensive now, trading on Italian and gay stereotypes.

A fine gallery of more subtle comic talents – particularly Raymond Huntley, David Lodge, Eleanor Summerfield, Eric Barker, and Ronnie Stevens – provides some needed compensation, though Huntley especially deserves classier material.

It has an over-lengthy running time of 106 minutes when 90 minutes would be plenty.

It is shot at Pinewood Studios, Iver Heath, Buckinghamshire, England, and on location around London (including Seven Dials, Camden) and Windsor, Berkshire, England.

Release date: 11 December 1962.

Cast: Norman Wisdom, Jennifer Jayne, Raymond Huntley, David Lodge, Eleanor Summerfield, Eric Barker, Ronnie Stevens, Maurice Kaufmann, Dilys Laye, Esma Cannon, Terence Alexander, George Pastell, Jack Watson, Campbell Singer, Lionel Murton, Alfred Burke, Robert Rietty, John Blythe, Marjie Lawrence, Cyril Chamberlain, Peggy Ann Clifford, Jean Aubrey, Monty Landis, Fred Griffiths, Mario Fabrizi as newspaper seller, Tutte Lemkow, Larry Martyn, Julian Orchard, Anita Sharp-Bolster, Alister Williamson, Valerie Van Ost, Lisa Page.

English comic actor of Italian descent Mario Fabrizi died of a stress-related illness at his London home on 5 April 1963, aged 39, apparently depressed that he had not had an acting job in four months. His father was a visconte (viscount), a noble title that Mario inherited on his father’s death in 1959. He was famous on TV as Corporal Moosh Merryweather in The Army Game and as a regular cast member of Hancock’s Half Hour. The roles were always minor, though there were plenty of them from 1957 to 1963.

© Derek Winnert 2025 – Classic Movie Review 13,651

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