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Notes

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{{More footnotes|date=February 2019}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=January 2021}}
{{Infobox television episode
| series = [[Dad's Army]]
| image =
| caption =
| series_no = 3
| episode = 3
| director = [[Harold Snoad]]
| story = [[Jimmy Perry]] and David Croft
| producer = David Croft
| editor =
| airdate = {{Start date|df=yes|1969|09|25}}
| length = 30 minutes
| guests =
| prev = [[Battle School (Dad's Army)|Battle School]]
| next = [[The Bullet is Not for Firing]]
}}
"'''The Lion Has 'Phones'''" is the third episode of the third series of the British comedy series ''[[Dad's Army]]''. It was originally transmitted on 25 September 1969.

==Synopsis==
Captain Mainwaring teaches the [[platoon]] how to use a public [[Telephone booth|telephone box]] for emergency communication.

==Plot==
After a successful exercise in camouflage, Mainwaring delivers a lecture on communications. Apparently, the four main targets are the [[gasometer]], the railway bridge, the telephone exchange and the [[reservoir]]. They are vital to the town's survival, so two men will be posted at each location. If they see anything suspicious, they will phone Mainwaring via the nearest telephone box. Frazer asks Mainwaring what will happen if the telephone boxes are out of action, and many alternatives are suggested, including a [[heliograph]], tick-tacking, shooting a hole in the top of the gasometer and setting fire to it, and tapping the railway line and laying your ear onto it (Pike dismisses this idea by telling Jones that a train may come and run over your ear).

Pike and Godfrey admit they do not know how to use a telephone box; Mrs Pike believes they are unhygienic and Godfrey is hopeless with machines. After a hilarious practical demonstration, they march down to the telephone box nearest the reservoir. Pike is the first to get the lesson, but the recipient of the call is his mum, who gives Mainwaring and Wilson an earful. When a queue begins to form, Walker cons them into believing that telephone calls are going on [[ration]] from tomorrow.

That evening, while out on patrol, Frazer and Walker spot a German plane crash into the reservoir. Walker phones Mainwaring, then mysteriously vanishes. Mainwaring and the rest of the platoon arrive, and their verbal attempts to persuade the Germans to surrender result in heavy gunfire. Mainwaring writes GHQ's phone number on some paper and tells Jones to go and phone them and to memorise and destroy the paper afterwards, but Jones' muddle headedness as he says "Memorise and destroy the phone", and him reading the phone number upside-down (991 instead of 166), results in him ringing the Embassy cinema instead, and ends up believing that [[Googie Withers]] and [[Eric Portman]] are aboard the plane. He gets no joy from [[Emergency service|emergency services]] either, so [[Air Raid Precautions|ARP]] Warden Hodges helps Jones get through.

Eventually, Lieutenant Hope-Bruce of the [[Coldstream Guards]] arrives and tells Mainwaring that they've surrounded the reservoir. He pompously tries to get Mainwaring to leave the situation in the hands of the regular army, but is quick to cancel an incautious order for [[Mortar bomb|mortar bombs]] under Mainwaring's persuasion. Walker returns and tells Mainwaring that he's talked to the man in charge of the reservoir: he has opened the [[Sluice|sluices]], and the Germans will have to swim for it in less than two hours. Laughing, Mainwaring says they should leave the mopping up to the Coldstream Guards.

==Cast==
{{div col}}
*[[Arthur Lowe]] as [[Captain Mainwaring]]
*[[John Le Mesurier]] as [[Sergeant Wilson]]
*[[Clive Dunn]] as [[Lance Corporal Jones]]
*[[John Laurie]] as [[Private Frazer]]
*[[James Beck]] as [[Private Walker]]
*[[Arnold Ridley]] as [[Private Godfrey]]
*[[Ian Lavender]] as [[Private Pike]]
*[[Janet Davies (actress)|Janet Davies]] as [[List of Dad's Army characters#Mrs Pike|Mrs Pike]]
*[[Bill Pertwee]] as [[List of Dad's Army characters#Chief ARP Warden Hodges|ARP Warden Hodges]]
*[[Avril Angers]] as the Telephone Operator
*[[Timothy Carlton]] as Lieutenant Hope-Bruce
*[[Stanley McGeagh]] as Sergeant Waller
*[[Pamela Cundell]], [[Olive Mercer]] and [[Bernadette Milnes]] as the Ladies in the Queue
*[[Gilda Perry]] as Doreen
*[[Linda James (actress)|Linda James]] as Betty
*[[Richard Jacques (actor)|Richard Jacques]] as Mr Cheesewright
*[[Colin Daniel (actor)|Colin Daniel]] and [[Carson Green]] as Boys
{{div col end}}

==Notes==
#The working title for this episode was 'Sorry, Wrong Number', which was the title used for the later radio episode.
#The episode title is a reference to the 1939 propaganda film ''[[The Lion Has Wings]]''.
#When Jones accidentally rings up the cinema, they mistakenly believe he is enquiring about the 1942 film ''[[One of Our Aircraft Is Missing]]'' starring, as they tell him, Googie Withers. A poster for this film can be seen on the wall of the box office.
#In this episode, Sgt Wilson says "I have never heard you swear before, sir", when Captain Mainwaring says "bloody cheek". This is untrue, as Wilson has heard Mainwaring say "the rotten bastard" in ''[[The Showing Up of Corporal Jones]]'', an episode from [[List of Dad's Army episodes#Series 1|Series 1]].
#When the ladies join the queue for the telephone box, [[Pamela Cundell]]'s character is referred to as [[Mrs Fox]], the character she played two episodes previously, yet she is still credited as 'Lady in Queue'.
#In 2020, for the [[Dad's Army Appreciation Society]], [[Niles Schilder]] wrote four scripts about how the platoon would have dealt with the events of 2020. In one of the scripts, ''An Unauthorised Gathering,'' the platoon learn how to wash their hands in a similar way to how they learnt to use a public telephone box in this episode.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Schilder|first=Niles|title=fanfiction|url=http://www.dadsarmy.co.uk/fanfiction.html|url-status=live|access-date=2021-02-23|website=www.dadsarmy.co.uk}}</ref>

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Further reading==
*{{cite book|title=The Complete A-Z of Dad’s Army|author1=Croft, David |author2=Perry, Jimmy |author3=Webber, Richard |year=2000|publisher=Orion|isbn= 0-7528-4637-X}}

==External links==
*{{BBC episode|b00tn6gk}}
*{{IMDb episode|0552327}}

{{Dad's Army}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lion Has Phones, The}}
[[Category:Dad's Army (series 3) episodes]]
[[Category:1969 British television episodes]]

The Lion Has Phones - Revision history

Kurt at 19:45, 24 November 2022

Kurt: 1 revision imported

86.160.37.191: /* Notes */