NORMAN HUDIS

(27 July 1922 - 8 February 2016)

The scriptwriter Norman Hudis will be forever remembered as the man who wrote the first six Carry On films from 1958 to 1962, i.e. Sergeant, Nurse, Teacher, Constable, Regardless and Cruising. He had already written several minor British films, mostly second features including his first, Breakaway (1955), The Flying Scot, Six-Five Special, The Tommy Steele Story and The Duke Wore Jeans, also with Steele. He constantly contributed scripts for television series such as Our House (1961-63), The Saint, Danger Man and Gideon’s Way, while in the US he wrote for The Man from U.N.C.L.E., It Takes a Thief, McCloud, Marcus Welby M.D. and Hawaii Five-O among many others. He also wrote several comedy films for the likes of Ted Ray, Donald Sinden, Leslie Phillips and Charlie Drake, mostly for Carry On producer Peter Rogers and director Gerald Thomas. The Carry Ons will give Hudis eternal fame or notoriety – not that the initial comedies were that bad. They may have been formulaic in their jokes but the early scripts were certainly better than the two dozen or more that followed Hudis’s initial template. He once had an idea for a Jewish comedy, Carry On Shylock Holmes, but the suggestion was never taken up. 

MICHAEL DARVELL