Here Come the Huggetts

Directed by	Ken Annakin
Written by	Muriel Box Sydney Box Peter Rogers Denis Constanduros Mabel Constanduros
Produced by	Betty E. Box
Starring	Jack Warner Kathleen Harrison Jane Hylton Susan Shaw Petula Clark
Cinematography	Reginald H. Wyer
Edited by	Gordon Hales
Music by	Antony Hopkins
Production company	Gainsborough Pictures
Distributed by	General Film Distributors
Release date	24 November 1948
Running time	93 minutes
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Budget	£100,000^[1]
Box office	£127,000^[1]

Here Come the Huggetts is a 1948 British comedy film, the first of the Huggetts series, about a working class English family. All three films in the series were directed by Ken Annakin and released by Gainsborough Pictures.^[2]

Jack Warner and Kathleen Harrison head the cast as factory worker Joe Huggett and his wife Ethel, with Petula Clark, Jane Hylton and Susan Shaw as their young daughters (all with the same first names as the actresses portraying them) and Amy Veness as their opinionated grandmother. Diana Dors had an early role.^[3]

Joe and Ethel had been introduced a year earlier in the film Holiday Camp and there would be two sequels, Vote for Huggett and The Huggetts Abroad (both 1949).

Plot

Factory worker Joe Huggett has a first-time telephone installed at home, for work purposes, but his daughters quickly find a lot more use for it. Diana, a flighty cousin of Ethel's (played by a 16-year-old Diana Dors), arrives for a not-very-welcome visit and causes problems at home and at Joe's workplace when Ethel persuades Joe to get her a job there. Eldest daughter Jane must choose between her fiancé who has been away in the forces and a new local admirer. Meanwhile, the family is planning to go to London to see the royal wedding, and Grandma Huggett joins them in camping out overnight near Buckingham Palace.

Clark, who began her career as a child vocalist on BBC Radio, sings the song "Walking Backwards".

Cast

Jack Warner as Joe Huggett
Kathleen Harrison as Ethel Huggett
Jane Hylton as Jane Huggett
Susan Shaw as Susan Huggett
Petula Clark as Pet Huggett
Jimmy Hanley as Jimmy Gardner
David Tomlinson as Harold Hinchley
Diana Dors as Diana Hopkins
Peter Hammond as Peter Hawtrey
John Blythe as Gowan
Amy Veness as Grandma Huggett
Clive Morton as Mr. Campbell
Maurice Denham as 1st Engineer
Doris Hare as Mrs. Fisher
Esma Cannon as Youth Leader
Alison Leggatt as Miss Perks
Dandy Nichols as Aunt Edie Hopkins
Hal Osmond as 2nd Engineer
Peter Scott as Office Boy
Keith Shepherd as Vicar
Edmundo Ros as himself (as Edmundo Ros and His Rhumba Band)

Production

Ken Annakin had directed three films for Sydney Box, then head of Gainsbrough Pictures. He was ambitious to do other work but Box offered him Here Come the Huggetts, featuring characters who were in the popular Holiday Camp, directed by Annakin. "I had to delay my dreams and ideas for ‘great films’, and churn out the Huggett series, because Sydney needed them," wrote Annakin later. "I owed him a debt and had to earn cash as quickly as possible to pay off the mortgage." There would be three Hugget films in all. Annakin added, "The Huggett years were not really such a bind. Jack Warner and Kathleen Harrison were a joy to work with. Jack would always come in with a new joke, and amuse us with his Maurice Chevalier imitations. Kathleen seemed to adore me and performed, marvellously and amusingly, everything I asked of her. Dinah Sheridan, Jane Hilton, Susan Shaw, Petula Clark and Diana Dors were a great team and fun to work with as well. However, the challenge was no longer there."^[4]

Filming took place in June 1948. The working title was Wedding Bells.^[5] Annakin said he had "a little affair with Susan Shaw" while making the films, although he did not specify which ones.^[6]