Great Britain

Bawdy, brash and impudently vulgar, the larky adventures of bus driver Stan Butler (Reg Varney) and his lecherous conductor Jack (Bob Grant) made On the Buses into a smash hit television series. And when the comedy writers Ronald Wolfe and Ronald Chesney produced a full-length film for the cinema in 1971 it broke box office records all over the country, proving itself to be the second biggest money-spinning move of the year (Walt Disney's The Aristocats was No.1), even though it had only been on release for a few months. No doubt about it, Stan and Jack's randy goings-on, their unending battles with the ever-harassed inspector 'Blakey' (Stephen Lewis), and Stan's domestic problems with his loving mum (Doris Hare), dopey sister Olive (Anna Karen), and sour-faced creep of a brother-in-law (Michael Robbins), had the great British public rolling about from Land's End to John O'Groats and back again. The ribald comedy is the kind that never dates; but there is one sign of the passage of time that no red-blooded male will fail to notice. The micro-miniskirt was very much in fashion in 1971, so it's no wonder Stan and Jack have difficulty in keeping their minds - and their eyes - on their work. Not that their work is ever very much on their minds when there is Blakey to be scored off and amorous ladies to be scored with. But they get a shock come-uppance when the tormented Blakey brings in women drivers to put an end to their cocky certainty that shortage of staff means he can't sack them. Bang goes Stan's overtime money, and Jack can no longer rely on being free to keep his long-standing arrangements for a spot of how's your father. Yes, it's a bumpy road that lies ahead of Stan and Jack. It's trouble all the way for both of them before Blakey is forced to admit that he's boobed again and our two heroes can let their roving eyes rove free once more. MARJORIE BILBOW