The Clicking of Cuthbert (film series)
1924 film series

The Clicking of Cuthbert is a 1924 British silent comedy series of six 30-minute short films, all involving golf. The series, directed by Andrew P. Wilson and starring Harry Beasley, was based on short stories by P. G. Wodehouse. These stories were originally published in various magazines; some of the stories had been featured in the collection The Clicking of Cuthbert (1922), while others were later included in the collection The Heart of a Goof (1926).
The films were generally faithful to Wodehouse's original stories and used some of Wodehouse's language in the intertitles. However, some major new subplots and gags were added, including a mischievous caddie played by Harry Beasley. The framing device of The Oldest Member was removed, leaving Beasley as the only regular in the series. The films have been restored, and three have been made available together on video: Rodney Fails to Qualify, Chester Forgets Himself, and The Long Hole (retitled The Moving Hazard).
Films
All six films featured Harry Beasley, credited as The Caddie.
The Clicking of Cuthbert
The first short film had the same title as the series. Based on the short story "The Clicking of Cuthbert", collected in The Clicking of Cuthbert.
“The Clicking of Cuthbert (film series)” enters the record as 1924 film series. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Clicking, Cuthbert and film can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“The Clicking of Cuthbert (film series)” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Clicking, Cuthbert and film provides the most credible route into that argument.
Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Oct 27, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q7100378. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1924, 1922 and 1926.
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This entry incorporates text from “The Clicking of Cuthbert (film series)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.