Holiday Camp

Last time I saw this was 1972 and it was dated badly even by then, now it might as well portray life on another planet. A planet that is very appealing! The British working class long ago got more spare cash in their pockets to skedaddle off to more distant sunnier shores for their 2 weeks a year. Instead back then they had 1 week in an enormous regimented boot camp under dull skies, packed like sardines into shared chalets. Every picture frame must have at least 20 people in it.

The first Huggetts film has the family off to Farleigh Holiday Camp, where various little stories unfold about the guests good bad and sad, a more down to Earth Grand Hotel if you like. Jack Warner as Dad and Kathleen Harrison as Ma (who definitely hadn't got 8 eyes like an octopus) were perfectly ordinary straight folk with no side with 2 grown up kids - decidedly, in Hazel Court's case - all of them excellent and stereotypical role models for the viewers. And what's wrong with that in these days where only the seedy and vicious are held in esteem in movies? Jimmy Hanley was an ideal beau for the daughter, young War widow Huggett, an uncomplicated young man bent on pleasure but straight as a die. Unsurprisingly Good won out in all the threads, although in Dennis Price's and Esme Cannon's case it was a melancholic and ambiguously puzzling end.

It was filmed in the hellishly cold (Warner's words) studio at Lime Grove during the big freeze of '47, something to bear in mind when watching everyone sunning themselves. For a glimpse into a totally dead Britain, unbeatable. Also an entertaining 94 minutes for those like me who aren't serious or researching for their University dissertations about life in post-War Britain.

I had a copy of his film in the early 90's and still watch it now. Liking nostalgia, this film gives a good insight to British life just after the 2nd world war. Primitive it may look as to how the English enjoyed themselves on holiday, but charming in its naivety. Kathleen Harrison plays her part as only she could, dizzy, funny, as well as showing us how Strong her part is in keeping the Hugget family together in chaos along with her hubby Jack Warner, a strong father figure who wanting to teach his children a lesson in the ways of life, shows his softer side in coming to their aid.

With my love and interest in old English films, I do look at who make such films as well as who stars in them. Muriel and Sidney Box name appear in many films made in England in the 40s/50s. Holiday Camp Being a Huggets film. I am on the look out for the other Huggets films. Just hope someone releases them on DVD

The Rank organisation enjoyed an enormous hit with this economy class 'Grand Hotel' depicting the lives of ordinary people newly freed of the constraints of the Second World War (although they still had to endure rationing) and like 'The Blue Lamp' (which also starred Jack Warner and Jimmy Handley) spawned a long-running series.

It reveals the darker aspects of austerity Britain: two men fight over a woman, another one gets pregnant, a pair of spivs prey on the eldest son losing him the then boggling sum of £19 and "that big nasty Denis Price" - as a friend once called him - preys on lonely women as a thinly disguised Neville Heath.

I can safely say that I have never been to an holiday camp - the BBC series "Hi-Di-HI" that ran in the UK in the 1980s always made sure that never happened. By then, though, we had international travel at our fingertips. In the late 1940s, people were still having their food rationed let alone being able to hop on a flight to Florida or Fuerteventura. The "Huggetts" - led by Jack Warner and the indomitable Kathleen Harrison take their family to one such camp for, ostensibly, a nice rest. Ha, well good luck with that - before long they are involved in dodgy card games, and absconded pair of expectant teenagers and a fleeing murderer. (You wonder why i never fancied such places?) The Huggetts were a famous cinema family in the 1940s, their decency and family values imbued well by the strong, likeable cast. Usually their efforts were all augmented by some guest stars - and here, with the rather lonely figure of Flora Robson and the distinctly caddish Dennis Price, is no different. It resonates now, as ever, because it is about ordinary people - not wealthy or profligate, just folks trying to keep their lives afloat after the war and there is plenty of pithy, quick witted comedy that, though dated and a little too stereotyped for 60 years on, is still enjoyable to watch.

This film introduced me to a British institution I was not familiar with, as the title says Holiday Camp. It's kind of like a cruise ship on land with organized activities like one where guests stay in various cabins. This film also introduced the Huggett family to the British movie-going public. The Huggetts are parents Jack Warner and Kathleen Harrison, son Peter Hammond and daughter Hazel Court. Like Ma and Pa Kettle who were introduced in The Egg And I, the Huggetts would go on to a few feature films and were a great favorite in the United Kingdom.

But they were second billed here to Flora Robson a kindly spinster woman who lost her true love during the first World War and who is rooming with a young woman Jeanette Tregarthen. Tregarthen is also pregnant but only her boyfriend Emrys Jones knows. Tregarthen's aunt Beatrice Varley a hatchet faced old harridan is there as well. Robson's performance as a woman who does a great kindness to Jones and Tregarthen is the highlight of the film. She was quite touching.

Also billed above the Huggetts is Dennis Price whose character is something along the lines of David Niven's Major in Separate Tables. But Price is a lot more sinister.

Young Peter Hammond gets good and taken by a pair of card sharps who work these camps, but those two get a nice comeuppance and Hammond learns a life lesson. Hammond is also bunking with Jimmy Hanley who played a lot of young juvenile leads in the 40s and 50s in British films. He takes an interest in Hazel Court and Hanley would also appear in future Huggett films.

This was a nice family comedy with a touch of drama and pathos and I can see why the Huggetts were so popular in the United Kingdom.