Scriptwriter
|
Best Film | Carry On Nurse |
| Films | 6 - Sergeant, Nurse, Teacher, Constable, Regardless, Cruising, |
Born on the 27th July 1923, Hudis started his professional life as a trainee reporter on the
Hampstead and Highgate Express. During WWII he was in the
 RAF in the
Middle East and wrote for the Air Force News. He had an early ambition to
become a serious playwright and he, in fact, did write several dramas including
Here Is The News. It did not get beyond a try-out but attracted good
reviews and earned him a place at Pinewood as a trainee scriptwriter.
After two years apprenticeship with nothing to show for it on the screen, he
took the bold step of going freelance. He became a prolific writer of B
movies, sometimes churning out three scripts at a time.It was Peter Rogers that gave him his first break by asking him to write The Tommy Steele Story. This too began as a B movie but was quickly prompted to main feature status. He followed up this with another vehicle for the pop star, perhaps because he felt a certain affinity with Steele as they both came from the same Cockney background. This script turned into The Duke Wore Jeans directed by Gerald Thomas. Rogers and Thomas had the rights to R F Delderfield's
The Bull Boys and were looking for somebody to turn it in to a film, Hudis was
the natural choice. The success of the film Carry On Sergeant as it was
renamed (the only thing remaining after the re-write being the basic premise)
lead on to Hudis writing five more for Rogers before he was lured to the United
States where he worke Hudis' Carry On scripts differ quite a bit from the later Talbot Rothwell scripts, with a more soft-centred approach. Unlike Rothwell's most of his scripts are tightly plotted and the ends tied up neatly. They are normally set around establishments or institutions where stern discipline is imposed by uniformed authorities, although it is the underdog who calls the shots. In Sergeant, it the soldiers who win the day when, after being a real shower decide to pull together and win the day. In Teacher, it the young ruffians, not the staff, who do all the running. Many of his scripts have an insider aspect to them, for
Sergeant he drew on his own experiences in the Services. In Teacher we
have him drawing on many of the issues of the day and in Nurse, his favourite
Carry On, it reflects everyone's hospital experiences. With Nurse he drew
on his wife Rita's experiences as she spent seven years as a nurse. As
Hudis recalls, when he was stuck for gags, he only had to shout downstairs and
ask her to recall a funny incident that she could remember. In Nurse we
see his use of real elements, when Kenneth Williams' reaction to Matron's
inexplicable demand that he should lie on top of the bed clothes is the kind of
reaction which every ex-patient can identify. "If a Doctor asks me to
hang by one arm from the ceiling
The script of Nurse, like those of Sergeant, Constable and Cruising ended in typical Hudis togetherness with Terence Longden and Shirley Eaton paired off and everyone's problems sorted out. It was Thomas who decided during editing to pull the famous daffodil joke out of the middle and use it as a climax. In doing so he created a classic ending which went beyond Hudis and later films always ended with a dash of sauce. "It is a thrill of a lifetime", said Hudis, when in 1959, he heard that Carry On Nurse was the top box office film of the year. The success of Sergeant, number three in the charts the previous year, had also taken him by surprise. He left it to others he confessed to find out what makes the box office tick. He simply regarded the assignment as a chance to prove himself a comedy scriptwriter. He died quietly at home at 93 on 8 February 2016. |
 Home |
 Trivia |
 Interviews |
 Articles |
 Gallery |