Review of The Runaway Bus

I cannot imagine what people saw in this film. Frankie Howerd is irritating to me, not because he was more gay than Liberace (no problem there) but because the movie is not about him being gay. His character is supposed to be straight, but he was such a bad actor that he behaved all the time like a drag queen. The first few minutes of him --coming in and out of a window while complaining like Jim Parsons on steroids-- painfully last forever. Clumsy Howerd wasn't even capable to decently imitate driving; the mimic he does with the bus' steering wheel is incredibly idiotic. And throughout the film he keeps playing his one-note supposedly funny character, which manages to ruin the other film-noir plot the producers threw in. If forgiveness is granted to Howerd on the argument of his not being an actor but a comedian, then he should have been a comedian (i.e. funny). He wasn't. At some point the screen writers seem to find hilarious to make him fall in a ditch of dirty water. It is clear this type of pie-in-the-face humor is strictly for blue collar types. This is not what we foreigners have in mind when we praise British humour. Margaret Rutherford adds another insufferably rude character to the screen. The sole redeeming factor here is the beauty of an unrecognizable young Petula Clark as the stewardess, and Belinda Lee's sex appeal. Regrettably not reasons enough to like the film.