Spare a Copper

Spare a Copper
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Directed byJohn Paddy Carstairs
Written byBasil Dearden
Roger MacDougall
Austin Melford
Produced byMichael Balcon
Basil Dearden
StarringGeorge Formby
Dorothy Hyson
Bernard Lee
John Warwick
CinematographyBryan Langley
Edited byRay Pitt
Music byLouis Levy
Production
company
Distributed byABFD
Release dates
  • December 1940 (1940-12) (London)
  • 14 April 1941 (1941-04-14) (UK general release)
Running time
77 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish

Spare a Copper (also known as Call a Cop) is a 1940 British black-and-white musical comedy war film directed by John Paddy Carstairs and starring George Formby, Dorothy Hyson and Bernard Lee.[1] It was written by Basil Dearden, Roger MacDougall and Austin Melford and was produced by Associated Talking Pictures.

The film features the songs "I'm the Ukulele Man", "On the Beat", "I Wish I Was Back on the Farm" and "I'm Shy".[2]

Beryl Reid makes her film debut in an uncredited role, and Ronald Shiner appears similarly uncredited, in the role of the piano mover and tuner.[3]

The film title is a pun, using the colloquial term "copper" meaning a policeman, with the longer phrase "spare a copper" used by beggars – meaning "can you spare a penny" (to give to me).

Plot

The film is set in Merseyside where the battleship HMS Hercules is being built. War Reserve police officer George Carter aspires to become a member of the flying squad. A group of saboteurs are planning to blow it up. George manages to foil them. The saboteurs include fellow police officers who plan to shoot Formby in a remote area but he escapes in a motorised toy car. A crazy chase ensues ending in George going round and round a wall of death before foiling the plot.

Cast

Production

Working on the film as associate producer and writer, this production was an early assignment for director Basil Dearden: "it was relatively easy to fit the Formby films into the new demands thrown up by the war: whereas George had typically had to overcome rogues and villains in his 1930s films, these were now simply replaced by spies and saboteurs".[4]

Critical reception

The Times critic wrote in 1940: "the structure of Mr. George Formby's films do not alter very much, and the same blue-print that has done serviceable work in the past was taken out of its drawer for Spare a Copper".[4]

In a 1940 issue, Monthly Film Bulletin called it "a good Formby film... With a better story than most".[4]

TV Guide dismissed the film as a "mediocre WW II comedy".[5]

Halliwell's Film Guide comments, "one of the last good Formby comedies, with everything percolating as it should".[2]

George Perry wrote in "Forever Ealing", "the notion of unsuspected German spies in respectable positions was to recur in more serious Ealing films such as The Foreman Went to France and Went the Day Well? These comedy films were judged as very good for public morale at the time while delivering an important message."[6]

References

  1. ↑ "Spare a Copper". British Film Institute Collections Search. Retrieved 5 July 2026.
  2. 1 2 "Spare A Copper". Georgeformby.co.uk. Retrieved 23 February 2014.
  3. ↑ "Spare a Copper (1940)". BFI Film & TV Database. 16 April 2009. Retrieved 23 February 2014.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link)
  4. 1 2 3 Burton, Alan; O'Sullivan, Tim (2009). The Cinema of Basil Dearden and Michael Relph. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 9780748632893.
  5. ↑ "Spare A Copper Trailer, Reviews and Schedule for Spare A Copper | TVGuide.com". Movies.tvguide.com. Archived from the original on 28 February 2014. Retrieved 23 February 2014.
  6. ↑ "Spare a Copper 1940". Britmovie. Archived from the original on 5 March 2016. Retrieved 23 February 2014.
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