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There Was a Crooked Man (1960 film)

There Was a Crooked Man is a 1960 British comedy film directed by Stuart Burge and starring Norman Wisdom, Alfred Marks, Andrew Cruickshank, Reginald Beckwith and Susannah York.[2] It is based on the James Bridie play The Golden Legend of Schults. The film was one of two independent films in which Wisdom appeared in an effort to extend his range (along with The Girl on the Boat), as British audiences strongly identified him with his Gump character.[3]

For other uses, see There Was a Crooked Man (disambiguation).

There Was a Crooked Man

The Golden Legend of Shults
1939 play
by James Bridie[1]

Knightsbridge Films
  • 1960 (1960)

107 minutes

United Kingdom

English

The film's title is taken from the English nursery rhyme "There Was a Crooked Man".

Plot[edit]

A naïve explosives expert is tricked into working for a criminal gang.

as Davy Cooper

Norman Wisdom

as Adolf Carter

Alfred Marks

as McKillup

Andrew Cruickshank

as stationmaster

Reginald Beckwith

as Ellen

Susannah York

Jean Clarke as Freda

as Flash Dan

Timothy Bateson

as restaurant gentleman

Paul Whitsun-Jones

as taxi driver

Fred Griffiths

Ann Hefferman as hospital sister

as nurse

Rosalind Knight

as Dutchman

Reed De Rouen

as Ashton

Brian Oulton

as smoking machinist

Glyn Houston

as prison warden

Percy Herbert

Edna Petrie as woman at Assembly Hall

as Police Sergeant

Jack May

as General Cummins

Ronald Fraser

as American Colonel

Ed Devereaux

as foreman

Sam Kydd

as padre

Redmond Phillips

as receptionist at "The McKillup Arms"

George Murcell

Production[edit]

Hugh Stewart, who produced several of Wisdom's films for the Rank Organisation, stated that the film was financed by United Artists based on the success of The Square Peg (1959).[4]

Reception[edit]

Box office[edit]

Kinematograph Weekly called There Was a Crooked Man a "money maker" at the British box office in 1960.[5]

Critical[edit]

The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "Out of the rut in its satiric conception but uneven in quality, this is very much a one-man show, with Norman Wisdom at last achieving a personally sharp and distinctive comedy identity. Though the film relies mainly on parody, the best episodes are the frankly slapstick ones: Norman sharing a shower unobserved with a financier, Norman caught in the machinery of the wool factory, above all the climactic orgy of destruction, helped by Andrew Cruickshank's refreshing switch from straight "heavy" to farce. Otherwise there is too much that is sluggish and inconclusive, and the style does not always fit themood."[6]

Release and home media[edit]

The film was commercially unavailable for many years. It was aired by ITV on Boxing Day 1965. Wisdom biographer Richard Dacre wrote that he, Wisdom and director Stuart Burge were present when the Barbican Centre Cinema in London presented the next known public screening at a "Wisdom Weekend" in 1998. In 2008, it was shown in Darwen, Lancashire, where location shots had been filmed in 1960.[7]


The film was released on DVD on 8 May 2017[8] and as a Blu-ray disc on 30 April 2018.[9]

at IMDb

There Was a Crooked Man

at AllMovie

There Was a Crooked Man

at the TCM Movie Database

There Was a Crooked Man

then-and-now location photographs at ReelStreets

There Was a Crooked Man