crook's tour 1941

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Crook's Tour (1941)

An unofficial sequel to the Hitchcock film The Lady Vanishes (1938) .

The film was based on the six-part 1940 BBC Radio series, broadcast between 23/02/1940 and 28/Mar/1940. [1]

Charters ( Basil Radford ) and Caldicott ( Naunton Wayne ) are touring the Middle East. After visiting Saudi Arabia they find themselves in Baghdad where they are mistaken by a group of German spies for the messengers who are to carry a song record by beautiful singer La Palermo (Greta Gynt) which contains secret instructions of the German Intelligence. Realizing their error, the German spies follow Charters and Caldicott to Istanbul and Budapest, trying to eliminate them and retrieve the record.

Technical Information

• black and white
• sound mix: mono
• aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• running time: 80 minutes
• production studio: Anglo-Amalgamated Film Distributors

The film is included on the following releases:

• The Lady Vanishes (1938) - Criterion Collection (USA, 2007)
• The Lady Vanishes (1938) - Criterion Collection (Blu-ray, USA, 2011)
• Internet Movie Database

Cast and Crew

People listed in bold also worked on (or appeared in) a Hitchcock film or television programme...

Directed by:

• John Baxter
• Basil Radford - Charters
• Naunton Wayne - Caldicott
• Greta Gynt - La Palermo
• Abraham Sofaer - Ali
• Charles Oliver - Sheik
• Gordon McLeod - Rossenger
• Bernard Rebel - Klacken
• Cyril Gardiner - K.7.
• Morris Harvey - Waiter
• Noel Hood - Edith Charters
• Leo de Pokorny - Hotel Manager
• Cyril Chamberlain - American (uncredited)
• Finlay Currie - Tourist on Desert Bus (uncredited)
• Peter Gawthorne - Bit Role (uncredited)
• Andreas Malandrinos - Nightclub Manager (uncredited)
• Patricia Medina - Hotel Receptionist (uncredited)
• Jack Melford - Desert Bus Tour Guide (uncredited)
• Charles Rolfe - Manservant at Castle (uncredited)
• Bill Shine - Bit Role (uncredited)

Produced by:

• John Corfield

Written by:

• Barbara K. Emary - adaptation
• Sidney Gilliat & Frank Launder - characters (uncredited)
• Max Kester & John Watt - original story

Photographed by:

• James Wilson
• Michael C. Chorlton
• Kennedy Russell

Notes & References

• ↑ See Project Genome: BBC Radio Times Archive . The series was repeated in August 1941.
• Sequels to Hitchcock Films
• This site is part of The Hitchcock Zone

https://tinyurl.com/y8czbh7a

Information

This article was written on 24 Nov 2016, and is filled under Reviews .

Current post is tagged

Charters and Caldicott , German agents , record , singer , spy , swimming pool , touring Near East , undercover agent

Crook’s Tour *** (1941, Basil Radford, Naunton Wayne, Greta Gynt) – Classic Movie Review 4696

The endearing Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne return for the third time in their quintessential Englishmen abroad guise as cricket-mad Charters and Caldicott (after The Lady Vanishes and Night Train to Munich ) in director John Baxter’s lively and often funny 1941 black and white British spy comedy-drama film Crook’s Tour.

The wartime story is about the Nazis thinking that Charters and Caldicott are spies while they are on holiday in Baghdad, touring the Middle East with fellow Britons. And so, by mistake, the Germans give them a record with vital information for the enemy. Their names are shown entered in a hotel register as Hawtrey Charters and Sinclair Caldicott.

Greta Gynt (born Margrethe Woxholt; 15 November 1916 – 2 April 2000).

Crook’s Tour is quite tattily made and weakly scripted, certainly if you compare it with Hitchcock’s The Lady Vanishes . But are hugely entertaing, and the amusingly daft po-faced performances keep it fun and alive. Greta Gynt glows as La Palermo, the glamorous nightclub singer femme fatale and double agent.

John Watt and Max Kester’s original story and screenplay are based on Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat’s BBC radio serial Crook’s Tour.

Also in the cast are Abraham Sofaer, Gordon McLeod, Charles Oliver, Bernard Rebel, Cyril Gardiner, Noel Hood, Morris Harvey, Billy Shine and Peter Gawthorne.

Radford and Wayne returned once more as Charters and Caldicott in Millions Like Us , their last screen billing.

However, sadly, there was a falling out. They were to reappear in I See a Dark Stranger (1946), but Launder and Gilliat refused to give them the larger roles they wanted, so they were replaced by two similar but differently named characters. Radford and Wayne were contractually disallowed from playing Charters and Caldicott, but they continued playing similar double acts in more movies, such as Dead of Night  (1945, sequence directed by Charles Crichton),  A Girl in a Million  (1946, Francis Searle) and  Quartet  (1948, sequence directed by Ralph Smart). Another recurring cricket-mad pairing played by them were Bright and Early in  It’s Not Cricket (1949, Alfred Roome), as well as in Helter Skelter (1949, Ralph Thomas) and  Stop Press Girl  (1949, Michael Barry).

Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne as Charters and Caldicott in Night Train to Munich..

Radford and Wayne’s four official Charters and Caldicott film appearances are in The Lady Vanishes (1938), Night Train to Munich (1940), Crook’s Tour (1941), and Millions Like Us (1943).

But they also appeared in The Next of Kin (1942) as careless talkers on train, Dead of Night (1945) as Parratt and Potter, A Girl in a Million (1946) as Prendergast and Fotheringham, Quartet (1948) as Garnet and Leslie, It’s Not Cricket (1949) as Bright and Early, Passport to Pimlico (1949) as Gregg and Straker, unnamed in Helter Skelter (1949), and Stop Press Girl (1949) as The Mechanical Types.

Radford and Wayne also appeared as Charters and Caldicott in two BBC radio serials, Crook’s Tour (1942, remade as the film) and Secret Mission 609 (1942).

Radford and Wayne appeared in various guises on radio with their Charters and Caldicott-style characters renamed for rights reasons. Their self-contained eight-part radio series, made roughly annually, were very popular on BBC radio and they starred as Woolcott and Spencer in Double Bedlam (1946) and Traveller’s Joy (1947), as Berkeley and Bulstrode in Crime Gentleman, Please (1948), as Hargreaves and Hunter in Having a Wonderful Crime (1949), as Fanshaw and Fothergill in That’s My Baby (1950), and as Straker and Gregg, their characters in Passport to Pimlico, in May I Have The Treasure (1951) and Rogue’s Gallery (1952). But Radford died suddenly of a heart attack at 55 in mid-production on Rogue’s Gallery, with Wayne left alone to complete the programme.

Crook’s Tour is directed by John Baxter, runs 80 minutes, is distributed by Anglo-Amalgamated Film Distributors, is written by Barbara K Emary, Max Kester and John Watt, based on Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat’s BBC radio serial Crook’s Tour, is shot in black and white by James Wilson, is produced by John Corfield, and is scored by Kennedy Russell.

Release date 24 May 1941 (US).

The cast are Basil Radford as Charters, Naunton Wayne as Caldicott, Greta Gynt as La Palermo, Charles Oliver as Sheik, Gordon McLeod as Rossenger, Abraham Sofaer as Ali, Bernard Rebel as Klacken, Cyril Gardiner as K7, Leo de Pokorny as Hotel Manager, Morris Harvey as Waiter, Noel Hood as Edith Charters, Finlay Currie as Tourist, Andreas Malandrinos as Nightclub Manager, Patricia Medina as Hotel Receptionist, Jack Melford as Tour Guide, Bernard Rebel, Billy Shine and Peter Gawthorne.

The film is on The Lady Vanishes Criterion Collection DVD and Blu-ray.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 4696

Check out more reviews on http:// derekwinnert.com

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Crook's Tour (1940)

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Crook's tour.

Directed by John Baxter

Charters and Caldicott are touring the Middle East. After visiting Saudi Arabia they find themselves in Bagdad where they are mistaken by a group of German spies for the messengers who are to carry a song record by beautiful singer La Palermo which contains secret instructions of the German Intelligence. Realizing their error, the German spies follow Charters and Caldicott to Istanbul and Budapest, trying to eliminate them and retrieve the record.

Basil Radford Naunton Wayne Greta Gynt Noel Hood Charles Oliver Gordon McLeod Abraham Sofaer Bernard Rebel Cyril Gardiner Leo de Pokorny Morris Harvey Cyril Chamberlain Finlay Currie Peter Gawthorne Andreas Malandrinos Patricia Medina Jack Melford Charles Rolfe Bill Shine

Director Director

John Baxter

Producer Producer

Writer writer.

Barbara K. Emary

Original Writers Original Writers

Sidney Gilliat Frank Launder John Watt Max Kester

Editor Editor

Michael C. Chorlton

Cinematography Cinematography

James Wilson

Composer Composer

Kennedy Russell

British National Films John Baxter Productions

Primary Language

Spoken languages.

German English

Alternative Title

Mystery Comedy

Releases by Date

Theatrical limited, 03 sep 1940, 24 may 1941, releases by country.

• Theatrical limited London, England

81 mins   More at IMDb TMDb Report this page

Popular reviews

Review by Karina Oliveira 14

"All night in the desert. No bed, no bath. Sleeping with people we've never been introduced to. You place us in a very, very disagreeable position."

-"I once read a book about a girl who fell in love with a sheek. " -" Sheikh is the correct pronunciation, old man." -"Well, it's sheek in 'Sheek of Araby'." -"Comic song is hardly a criterion."

-"You know, Caldicott, I can't help thinking if we had one camel with two humps, instead of two with one it'd be easier." -"Of course, the whole trouble is that the thing's too steep." -"If it was a two-humper, we could sit between the humps." -"Well, there'd hardly be room for both of us, you think?" -"Oh, I don't…

Review by Fint ★★½ 1

Weak comedy with Charters and Caldicott. But a weak comedy with Charters and Caldicott is far better than a weak comedy without Charters and Caldicott.

Review by bulletproofQpid ★★★ 2

"You will stand with your back to the wall. Now, gentlemen, you may have the choice..." "Choice?" "What? Of being shot or not?" "Of bandage or no bandage." "Oh, I see." "No bandage." "No bandage." "Very good."

Crook's Tour follows Charters and Caldicott, the two British gentlemen who were mostly concerned with cricket during the majority of The Lady Vanishes as they get into further shenanigans on yet another trip to see a test match. This time there are some romantic entanglements and some more spy stuff, but it all plays out comically and rather charming in that British manner. It's not as strong as The Lady Vanishes, but it's nice to see the old chaps again.

Review by RKO_Chester ★★½ 3

Part of my May 2021 reviewed movies of British folks in British films

Don't watch this by yourself if you are not British.

This very British film is much better when you are watching it with others. If you watch it alone, I think, this film is likely to be annoying (unless you are British and are used to the humour as delivered by the likes of Charters and Caldicott).

At least with a fellow viewer you can make comments to each other and remarks that will then make the goings-on in this movie by Charters (Basil Radford) and (Caldicott) Naunton Wayne more amusing.

5.5/10 = watchable and may be mildly amusing to some viewers.

Review by 🇵🇱 Steve G 🇵🇸 ★★★½ 4

Probably the least well known of the Charters and Caldicott films (or at least the ones where they were called that), Crook's Tour sees the lads caught in the middle of a complicated spy plot.

More complicated than it really needed to be, considering that most would be here to listen to Naunton Wayne and Basil Radford's wonderful interplay and terrifically disguised one-liners. Still, it was nice that John Baxter wanted there to be an actual plot here rather than just resting behind the two superb leads.

I still think it's fascinating that these two characters were ported across films that were totally unconnected. Almost unparalleled to this day, in fact? It's a shame they didn't do more where they…

Review by Mark Atkins ★★½

Silly little movie following the two comic standouts from Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes. It's interesting to see the same characters, written by the same writers, and portrayed by the same actors, appearing in another spy film from the same time period. It really casts light on how superior Hitchcock really is.

All the enjoyment from this comes from our overly proper British gentlemen heroes. At one point they have been captured by a Nazi officer who has told them he is going to kill them and starts talking about them. Their response is to politely request he stop referring to them in the past tense as they aren't dead yet.

Review by RetroHound ★★★

The two guys from The Lady Vanishes are on tour to the Middle East and get mistaken for spies. They just want to get home and see a cricket match or something. They are somewhat oblivious and very proper and I find them humorous. If you don't like their shtick you will hate this film because they are the film. They end up with a record that some spies are trying to pass on, and get chased and almost killed a few times but someone is tipping them off, and they also sort of bumble around and mess up the German spies' plans. I'm not sure when this is supposed to be taking place because in 1940 I don't think they could travel around as easily as they do, Great Britain was already at war with Germany.

Review by Paul D ★★½

"It's not playing the game. I can't put it any more strongly than that."

This is the third outing for Naunton Wayne and Basil Radford as the cricket obsessed Charters and Caldicott and the first in which they are not incidental characters, after their appearances in The Lady Vanishes and Night Train to Munich .

And I wish I could say that this is up to the quality of their previous two films but sadly it just isn't so. Not that that's in any way the fault of the leading pair.

The story sees them off on holiday, swanning around Iran, Turkey and Hungary, which seems a little odd in the middle of WW2, stumbling into a German plot to…

Review by Chance ★★★

Not as bad as the reviews here led me to believe, but it is rather dry, which is perfectly in character with Charters (Basil Radford) and Caldicott (Naunton Wayne). There’s some solid quips sprinkled throughout, but not really enough to sustain an entire feature length film. Charters and Caldicott have definitely had better and more daring adventures - see The Lady Vanishes and Night Train to Munich!

Side Note: They really expect me to believe that Caldicott, who has shared a bed with Charters twice now, would go chasing after some skirts! Ha!

Review by Jim Dooley ★★½

THE LADY VANISHES launched two “typically English” characters who delighted audiences.  Of course, the difference between how Hitchcock handled them and how other directors handled them is immediately evident.        Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne are back as Charters and Caldicott and, once again, are in the thick of things. In CROOK’S TOUR, it becomes necessary to create a most unlikely circumstance to plunge them into a story of spies that is very light on reality and heavy on songs.     Greta Gynt plays Dorothy Lamour ... ah, I mean La Palermo ... a dancing singer who performs with an owl.  She is the centerpiece with the musical numbers and in passing secret information to German spies…

Review by Nathan Phillips ★★

Tepid, poorly directed caper comedy lifts the cricket-obsessed comic relief characters Charters & Caldicott (Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne) from The Lady Vanishes and Night Train to Munich into their own ridiculous story of intrigue in the Middle East involving a secret message planted on a record. These two, so memorably droll in the Hitchcock film, were barely enough to sustain a short humorous sequence in the Ealing horror anthology Dead of Night , and they certainly can't carry a feature all by themselves. The film is so short on story content it has to rely on three or four interminable song and dance numbers from Greta Gynt to reach even a modest 80-minute runtime -- winding up with the extremely unlikely…

Review by Davitt ★★★

Packaged as a supplement on The Lady Vanishes Criterion Blu-ray, so I gave it a shot after being charmed by Charters and Caldicott in the main feature. Crook's Tour sees them taking center stage and bantering their way from locale to locale as unwitting players in a grand conspiracy against the British government. If that sounds familiar, it's basically the core plot of The Lady Vanishes , but minus any of the palpable excitement, tension, or realized supporting cast of Hitchcock's film. Crook's Tour is more an outright comedy, the larger plot having as much weight as an Abbott and Costello film. It doesn't offer much in the way of thrills or geopolitical commentary, but it has dry British humor in spades, and really why else would you be watching this?

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Zvenigorod's most famous sight is the Savvino-Storozhevsky Monastery, which was founded in 1398 by the monk Savva from the Troitse-Sergieva Lavra, at the invitation and with the support of Prince Yury Dmitrievich of Zvenigorod. Savva was later canonised as St Sabbas (Savva) of Storozhev. The monastery late flourished under the reign of Tsar Alexis, who chose the monastery as his family church and often went on pilgrimage there and made lots of donations to it. Most of the monastery’s buildings date from this time. The monastery is heavily fortified with thick walls and six towers, the most impressive of which is the Krasny Tower which also serves as the eastern entrance. The monastery was closed in 1918 and only reopened in 1995. In 1998 Patriarch Alexius II took part in a service to return the relics of St Sabbas to the monastery. Today the monastery has the status of a stauropegic monastery, which is second in status to a lavra. In addition to being a working monastery, it also holds the Zvenigorod Historical, Architectural and Art Museum.

Belfry and Neighbouring Churches

Located near the main entrance is the monastery's belfry which is perhaps the calling card of the monastery due to its uniqueness. It was built in the 1650s and the St Sergius of Radonezh’s Church was opened on the middle tier in the mid-17th century, although it was originally dedicated to the Trinity. The belfry's 35-tonne Great Bladgovestny Bell fell in 1941 and was only restored and returned in 2003. Attached to the belfry is a large refectory and the Transfiguration Church, both of which were built on the orders of Tsar Alexis in the 1650s.  

To the left of the belfry is another, smaller, refectory which is attached to the Trinity Gate-Church, which was also constructed in the 1650s on the orders of Tsar Alexis who made it his own family church. The church is elaborately decorated with colourful trims and underneath the archway is a beautiful 19th century fresco.

Nativity of Virgin Mary Cathedral

The Nativity of Virgin Mary Cathedral is the oldest building in the monastery and among the oldest buildings in the Moscow Region. It was built between 1404 and 1405 during the lifetime of St Sabbas and using the funds of Prince Yury of Zvenigorod. The white-stone cathedral is a standard four-pillar design with a single golden dome. After the death of St Sabbas he was interred in the cathedral and a new altar dedicated to him was added.

Under the reign of Tsar Alexis the cathedral was decorated with frescoes by Stepan Ryazanets, some of which remain today. Tsar Alexis also presented the cathedral with a five-tier iconostasis, the top row of icons have been preserved.

Tsaritsa's Chambers

The Nativity of Virgin Mary Cathedral is located between the Tsaritsa's Chambers of the left and the Palace of Tsar Alexis on the right. The Tsaritsa's Chambers were built in the mid-17th century for the wife of Tsar Alexey - Tsaritsa Maria Ilinichna Miloskavskaya. The design of the building is influenced by the ancient Russian architectural style. Is prettier than the Tsar's chambers opposite, being red in colour with elaborately decorated window frames and entrance.

At present the Tsaritsa's Chambers houses the Zvenigorod Historical, Architectural and Art Museum. Among its displays is an accurate recreation of the interior of a noble lady's chambers including furniture, decorations and a decorated tiled oven, and an exhibition on the history of Zvenigorod and the monastery.

Palace of Tsar Alexis

The Palace of Tsar Alexis was built in the 1650s and is now one of the best surviving examples of non-religious architecture of that era. It was built especially for Tsar Alexis who often visited the monastery on religious pilgrimages. Its most striking feature is its pretty row of nine chimney spouts which resemble towers.

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The Unique Burial of a Child of Early Scythian Time at the Cemetery of Saryg-Bulun (Tuva)

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Pages:  379-406

In 1988, the Tuvan Archaeological Expedition (led by M. E. Kilunovskaya and V. A. Semenov) discovered a unique burial of the early Iron Age at Saryg-Bulun in Central Tuva. There are two burial mounds of the Aldy-Bel culture dated by 7th century BC. Within the barrows, which adjoined one another, forming a figure-of-eight, there were discovered 7 burials, from which a representative collection of artifacts was recovered. Burial 5 was the most unique, it was found in a coffin made of a larch trunk, with a tightly closed lid. Due to the preservative properties of larch and lack of air access, the coffin contained a well-preserved mummy of a child with an accompanying set of grave goods. The interred individual retained the skin on his face and had a leather headdress painted with red pigment and a coat, sewn from jerboa fur. The coat was belted with a leather belt with bronze ornaments and buckles. Besides that, a leather quiver with arrows with the shafts decorated with painted ornaments, fully preserved battle pick and a bow were buried in the coffin. Unexpectedly, the full-genomic analysis, showed that the individual was female. This fact opens a new aspect in the study of the social history of the Scythian society and perhaps brings us back to the myth of the Amazons, discussed by Herodotus. Of course, this discovery is unique in its preservation for the Scythian culture of Tuva and requires careful study and conservation.

Keywords: Tuva, Early Iron Age, early Scythian period, Aldy-Bel culture, barrow, burial in the coffin, mummy, full genome sequencing, aDNA

Information about authors: Marina Kilunovskaya (Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation). Candidate of Historical Sciences. Institute for the History of Material Culture of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Dvortsovaya Emb., 18, Saint Petersburg, 191186, Russian Federation E-mail: [email protected] Vladimir Semenov (Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation). Candidate of Historical Sciences. Institute for the History of Material Culture of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Dvortsovaya Emb., 18, Saint Petersburg, 191186, Russian Federation E-mail: [email protected] Varvara Busova  (Moscow, Russian Federation).  (Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation). Institute for the History of Material Culture of the Russian Academy of Sciences.  Dvortsovaya Emb., 18, Saint Petersburg, 191186, Russian Federation E-mail:  [email protected] Kharis Mustafin  (Moscow, Russian Federation). Candidate of Technical Sciences. Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology.  Institutsky Lane, 9, Dolgoprudny, 141701, Moscow Oblast, Russian Federation E-mail:  [email protected] Irina Alborova  (Moscow, Russian Federation). Candidate of Biological Sciences. Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology.  Institutsky Lane, 9, Dolgoprudny, 141701, Moscow Oblast, Russian Federation E-mail:  [email protected] Alina Matzvai  (Moscow, Russian Federation). Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology.  Institutsky Lane, 9, Dolgoprudny, 141701, Moscow Oblast, Russian Federation E-mail:  [email protected]

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