A taxi company is threatened when an all-female firm sets itself up in business and starts to steal their customers.
Speedee Taxis is a great success, which means its workaholic owner Charlie starts neglecting Peggy, his wife. Suddenly a fleet of rival taxis appears from nowhere and start pinching all the fares. The rivals are Glamcabs, and they have a secret weapon: all their drivers are very attractive women. Who's behind Glamcabs? It's open warfare and only one fleet can survive.—Simon N. McIntosh-Smith <[email protected]>
In her husband Charlie Hawkins' life, Peggy Hawkins feels she plays not just second but probably third or fourth fiddle behind his first priority, his suburban London cab company, Speedee Taxis. What looks to be the last straw for Peg is what happens on what is their fourteenth wedding anniversary, when, despite his vow to make it a night for them, Charlie ends up out of circumstance working. Feeling the problem partly her fault for devoting her life to him, Peg figures one small part of fixing the problem is to make a life of her own irrespective of him, namely to get a job, which Charlie opposes. What Peg doesn't tell him about that job in addition, even after it's up and running, is that she has started her own opposing cab company, Glamcabs, their town which can realistically only support one cab company. What gives Glamcabs a leg up on Speedee Taxi is that Peg has solely hired as drivers young attractive women all wearing skimpy uniforms. What also gives Glamcabs a leg up on Speedee Taxi is that Charlie has no idea that in telling Peg about his ideas to take down Glamcabs, he is directly telling the opponent of his strategies. In what becomes a stalemate between the cab companies and the two company owners, what may be the only thing to break the stalemate is more important matters arising in their lives.—Huggo
Charlie Hawkins (Sid James) is the workaholic owner of thriving taxi company Speedee Taxis, but his wife Peggy (Hattie Jacques) feels neglected by him. Charlie out driving cabs before Peggy is awake and only returns home when she is fast asleep.Charlie misses their fifteenth wedding anniversary, because he's out cabbing. After being reminded by Peggy, Charlie gets her a fur coat, but then leaves before dinner for a staff meeting of his company. Charlie puts all his money into Peggy's account. Peggy only wants a cottage in the country to live out their life together. But Charlie can only think about inducting more drivers, making more money, and expanding his business. Charlie believes he is giving a life to all his drivers by providing them a respectable occupation.
Cab driving is a tough job. It is not easy to pass the police test to get a license. Cabs run day and night. Night service pays overtime but is very unpopular with the wife. They get only one night off a week.
Peggy wants to go dinner with Charlie, but Charlie takes an airport drop when the regular driver is absent. On the way back, he is flagged down by a farmer who must take his wife to the emergency room for delivery of his baby. After several false alarms while Charlie drives them back and forth, the baby is delivered in the cab on an isolated road. This makes Charlie super late for his dinner date with Peggy.Peggy decides to punish Charlie, with encouragement from Sally, who runs a small cafe.
Telling Charlie that she's going to 'get a job', she establishes a rival company, GlamCabs. The cars are brand new Ford Cortina Mk1's and driven by attractive girls in provocative uniforms.Flo (Esma Cannon), the wife of one of Charlie's drivers, gets the post of office manager with Peggy, when Charlie's driver Albright (Norman Chappell) complains that Flo cannot drive a cab since she is taking a man's job and that it is against union rules. Sally decides to spy for Peggy.
Peggy and Flo hire a garage and clean it up. Peggy buys 15 cars on lease. She launches her business with the help of Charlie's money.
Charlie continues to coach his mainly inept (and largely ex-army) drivers, including accident-prone Terry "Pintpot" Tankard (Charles Hawtrey), Ted Watson (Kenneth Connor), Flo Sims (Emma Cannon) & Len (Milo O'Shea). Ted is the company mechanic.Terry is an awful driver and Charlie invests a lot of time in training him.
Whilst Peggy refuses to tell Charlie what her new 'job' is. Charlie feigns a lack of interest, but he's dying to know. As Charlie unsuccessfully struggles to cope with his wife's absences and realizes just what she had to endure. Peggy's company becomes a thriving success due to the large number of male taxi passengers preferring to ogle her sexy drivers during journeys.
Charlie uses every trick in the book to stave his rivals off, but his mistake is to discuss all his strategies with Peggy, who simply outsmarts him at every turn. When Charlie decides to discount his services, Peggy gets to it first. Charlie decides to steal the rival's fares by listening in to their radio, & Peggy starts giving out false orders over radio.Charlie and his drivers start to sabotage GlamCabs cars only to find that the customers are more than happy to fix it for them.
Speedee rapidly starts losing money and faces bankruptcy. Peggy feels terrible for what she has done. Charlie and his drivers attempt to sabotage the rival company by sneaking Ted into their garage by making him look like one of the woman drivers (Ted was supposed to open the main gate after the girls had left), but they are chased off when the girls open the water hoses on them.In desperation, Charlie suggests a merger with his rivals, but is furious to discover who the real owner is and storms off.
A month later, Peggy is living at the office and Charlie has turned to drink, allowing his company to collapse around him. Peggy and Sally (Liz Fraser) are hijacked by bank robbers when they were in the bank to withdraw cash for payroll. Peggy manages to use the taxi radio to subtly reveal their situation and location, which was still being monitored by Speedee cabs. Charlie intercepts the broadcast and rallies the other Speedee drivers in pursuit. The robbers are cornered and captured.
Peggy and Charlie are reconciled, especially over the fact that she is expecting a baby.
