Fun, sun, songs and a Routemaster (Summer Holiday (DVD))

Member Name: jaggynettles

Product:	Summer Holiday (DVD)
Date:	15/03/06 (1795 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: brilliant songs, feel good film

Disadvantages: the comedy is dated in places

I adore Japanese horror films. Anything by Nobuo Nakagawa, Takashi Shimizu and Hideo Nakata floats my boat. And yet, the film that’s been sitting at the top of my favourite film list for the last 20 years is, what some would call, a thoroughly "British" horror film.


THE CLIFF PHENOMENON

Frontman Cliff Richard, and his band, The Shadows, appeared in several films in the early 1960s; most notably the Young Ones, Finders Keepers, Wonderful Life and the film I’m reviewing here - Summer Holiday.

To anyone under 30, it's important to point out that back in the 1960s Cliff was not the cringe-worthy oldest Christian bachelor in town. Au contraire! Back then, Cliff's face adorned the bedroom walls of teenagers throughout Britain. He was my mum’s answer to Elvis - the epitome of cool with a bevy of young actresses at his beck and call, and boy could he sing.


THE CREW

Cliff Richard was already a No1 cinema attraction when Summer Holiday began production in 1962. This was Peter Yates directorial debut and, sure enough with Cliff on board, on its release in 1963, Summer Holiday broke all box office records in its opening week.

Commissioned by the Associated British Studios (Elstree), Summer Holiday was produced by Kenneth Harper and directed, as already mentioned, by Pete Yates (who later went on to direct Bullit). The screenplay was jointly written by Peter Myers and Ronald Cass, who also penned most of the songs in the film (we'll come to them later).

What seals this film as a wonderful musical comedy is the glorious tryst between the songs, the story and the choreography. Herbert Ross was the critically acclaimed choreographer who helped Summer Holiday on the path to being heralded as a "landmark musical" in British cinema history. Rather than serving as a vehicle to promote the songs, the dancing in Summer Holiday is intrinsic to the plot, in much the same way as it would be in Grease, 16 years later.


THE PLOT

Knowing what happens in this film will not spoil your viewing pleasure - I promise you that. However, to appease the majority, I will try my best to keep the ending to myself.

Cliff plays the lead role of Don - a bus mechanic employed by London Transport. He and his three work mates, Cyril, Edwin and Steve have a holiday booked and strapped for cash, Don asks the boss if they can borrow a London Routemaster bus so they can take to the South of France and use it as accommodation while there. The boss say yes, on the condition that they refit the bus themselves, and if the trip is a success, will look into establishing it as a proper travel business the following year.

Cue the music and off we go. With the bus kitted out like a mobile hotel, the four boys head off across to France.

Not far into their journey, they accidentally force a car off the road. The driver and her two passengers are none too pleased and after a brief fracas, we find out why. The three girls are a singing trio, Sandy, Angie and Mimsie, who have just seven days to get to a gig in Athens. As their car is now a complete write-off, the boys offer to cancel their own trip and drive them all the way to Greece instead.

Paris is their next port of call and on returning to the bus after a night out, they find a stowaway on board. Not wishing to be tied up with red tape, and with a deadline to meet in Athens, the boys and girls vote to take Bobby, the American runaway with them.

Nearly out of France and we, the viewers, discover all is not as it seems. Bobby is actually in disguise. "He" is a "she" - a successful American singer called Barbara, who is desperate to escape the claws of her domineering and fame-hungry mother, Stella. The plot thickens as Stella realises it would be great publicity to inform the media that her daughter has been kidnapped by a bunch of vicious English youths. Her plan works and she concludes that if the press interest is to be sustained, she must slow down the bus's progress to Athens.

The rest of the film sees our happy gang of girls and boys travelling through Switzerland, Austria, and Yugoslavia into Greece, picking up travellers on the way and scrapping out of dangerous predicaments that the invisible hand of Stella has created for them.

Spending time together gives Don a chance to get to know Barbara and despite his many protests about wishing to remain single, he slowly falls for her American charm, hook, line and sinker.

The finale of the film takes place in Athens where many questions are finally answered. Do the girls get to their gig on time? Do the boys get a contract from London Transport or do they charged with kidnapping? Does Stella get her daughter back? And will Don stop being a bachelor boy?

You'll just have to watch to find out.


THE SONGS

1. Summer Holiday (instrumental)
The film opens with a brass band playing the film's theme tune to a group of holiday-makers defiantly sitting in deck-chairs despite the fact it's raining. This is filmed in Black and White to increase the doom and gloom feel of holidays spent at home. The band's tune is swiftly cut short when the heavens open to a torrential downpour. Good old English summers, eh.

1. Seven Days To A Holiday
If your friend asked you to work seven days overtime for zilch, what would you say? NO?! Well it's just as well you're not Don's pal. This is a top opening number for setting the pace of Summer Holiday. It follows the boys and their friends around the bus depot as they work and sing their way through turning the London bus into a little palace for the trip. The lyrics explain what the boys have to do to get it on the road, and serves to count down the number of days they have to do it.

2. Summer Holiday
Finally on the road and cue the song that most people will know. Summer Holiday was touched upon as an instrumental in the opening scenes but this is it in full swing. Perfect for establishing that the boy's road trip is finally underway. As Cliff drives, he sings away to himself and cheerily waves to the French country folk who all stop in their tracks to watch a red London bus trundling passed.

3. Let Us Take You For A Ride
There's nothing like a song to allay the fears of three young girls as they're being pulled and pushed into a bus by four strange men! The lyrics in this song discuss the state of the girl's car - rhyming "trunnion teeth" with "cogs beneath" and such to persuade them to abandon their jalopy. This is also the first dance sequence in the movie and it's great. The moves and techniques aren't technical but work well in tracing the steps required to get the girls and their luggage onto the bus and on the road.

4. Foot tapper
This is an instrumental beat number played by the Shadows. It became so popular it knocked Summer Holiday off the no1 spot in the UK charts that year. There's a lot of bass and bongos going on in the song, giving the gang a great opportunity to twist the night away and for Steve in particular to show of his techniques on the floor.

5. Stranger In Town
Ah - I think this is where Benny Hill got his inspiration. As the boys laugh at how ugly the old French ladies are (not very PC, I know) Cliff explains that beauty is in the eye of the beholder and if the rest of them weren't so shallow they'd see that. Cliff wanders into a park and singing this to himself. As he strolls, the park, all the old women start turning into fit young ladies and begin dancing with him. Towards the end of the song, he snaps out of his day-dream and finds himself being chased out of the park by a lot of angry old dames who haven't taken too kindly to his intimate advances.

6. Orlando's Mime
I have to say, this is my least favourite part of the film and I tend to forward it most of the time. To get out of a tight spot that Stella has levered them into, the gang have to convince a judge that they are part of the Great Orlando's troupe of mime artists. I hate mime artists at the best of times, and this scene lasts 20 minutes or so. Orlando's mime is an instrumental which lends itself to music you'd hear played by locals in a bar somewhere on the left bank - accordions, violins and mime - yuck!

7. Bachelor Boy
If Cliff knew that this song would seal his fate in real life, would he have sung it? It's a jolly little number, and probably the only other familiar song in the film. I've listened to the lyrics over and over again and I still don't really know what they mean. From what I can gather, his father demands that he doesn't make the same mistake he made by ever trusting a woman, but by the end of the song, Don decides he won't be a bachelor all his life… very confusing.

8. A Swingin' Affair
This is my second favourite song in the movie. It's an up tempo duet that tips its hat to Frank Sinatra. Sung by Don and Barbara, they tell each other they don't want to be tied down to anyone, ever. "We'll have a few laughs, we'll share the odd date". It's all going swimmingly until Barbara puts Don’s nose out of joint by flirting with 4 other men.

9. Really Waltzing
A grand full orchestra accompanies the boys and girls as they take to the floor in an Austrian restaurant to waltz. The lyrics are very tongue in cheek - "is this me here really waltzing, is this me here being so square" and "I know this kinda music makes me sick and you sick" and so forth but it gives Herbert Ross an opportunity for some great choreographed moves.

10. All At Once
I must confess, having watched this scene many times over now, this is where I now take my cue to go and make coffee. It's a beautiful melody that Don sings as he confesses he's falling for Barbara but after a while a get bored of it. In much the same way as I get bored when Olivia Newton John sings "Hopelessly Devoted" or John Travolta sings "Sandy" in Grease, I feel "All at Once" breaks the momentum of the film and it's a little too soppy even for me!

11. Dancing Shoes
Once again a song is necessary to calm down a girl when she's surrounded by strange men! Oh, the power of music. On a trip to find food, the boys corner a Yugoslavian farm girl and try to get her to understand that they wish to buy food from her. By the end of the song she's laughing her head off at them and takes them to her village

12. Yugoslav Wedding
A mix up about the boys intentions means that they find themselves in the middle of their own wedding. This is a great instrumental number with an Eastern European flavour which uses a full string section to build up the tension as the boys try to make an escape from the barbarous looking "soon to be" father-in-law, his friends and their long, leather whips!

13. The Next Time
This is my favourite song in the movie. Through no fault of his own, Don's loses the girl he loves and he's heart-broken. With Athens’ famous Acropolis as the back-drop, he ambles along singing this ballad accompanied by a guitar and a piano. It's a song that on first hearing made me sigh heavily - and still does now.

14. Big News
It couldn't possibly be a Cliff musical without the happy ending and this is a fast-paced big finishing number, sung by Don and members of the world press as he announces to one and all he's not give up his girl without a fight.



CONCLUSION

Some prefer Cliff Richard in his early, moody roles, but I feel he seems more at ease in more innocuous movies like this.

There are many reasons why this film works so well. There is a great cast of young, supporting actors who match Cliff's enthusiasm, and Lauri Peters is a great leading lady. The dance numbers are expertly crafted and although Cliff is no Gene Kelly, he exonerates himself by keeping within his range.

This film was produced on location throughout Europe and although the colours and cinematographic style are now very dated, it provides a great snapshot of what the scenery, high fashion and design were like in 1963.

This film WILL appeal to:-
Ladies who remember Capri trousers, anyone that likes singing along to musicals and eternal optimists.

This film WILL NOT appeal to:
Cynics or anyone who likes a bit of sex, drugs and random violence in the plot.

I'm banned from watching this film whilst my husband or long-suffering brother is in the house but this rule suits me. I feel very protective over "my film" and having endured their sniggering quips throughout it once, I have no desire for a repeat performance.

It's easy to mock the joviality of Summer Holiday. I won't deny it is kitsch and naff in places, but so are all the great musicals. The high spirits of this film are undeniably infectious and the songs are contagious. This is a real feel-good film and it's perfect to sit down to on a quite afternoon and just drink in the fun of it all.

The lively cast, foot-tapping dance routines and faultless soundtrack, complemented by the backdrop of some great European scenery, make Summer Holiday the only musical on my top ten list. And it's there to stay - no matter how many times I hear pals groan in disbelief.


PURCHASING

I have this on video but it's getting a little frayed round the edges now. You can purchase the film on DVD from Amazon for £8.99 but it is only available on Region 1 so you will need a multi-region DVD player to watch it. If you don’t have a multi-regional player, or prefer VHS, you can purchase it as part of a three-film box set for Region 2 / PAL.


Film Info

Released: 1963
Duration: No where near long enough - 107 mins.
Genre: Musical/Comedy
Director: Peter Yates
Writers: Ronald Cass and Peter Myers
Cast: Cliff Richard, Lauri Peters, Melvyn Hayes, Teddy Green, Jeremy Bulloch, Una Stubbs, Jacqueline Daryl, Pamela Hart, Ron Moody and The Shadows

Summary: A lively cast, great 1960s dance routines and faultless soundtrack