Summer Holiday

Redefines family entertainment. I had totally forgotten about this mini-musical until I came across it on the IMDb just five minutes ago, whilst looking for something else that I really don't care about now.

Dear old Sir Cliff! What a time to be 18/19! I was actually just 17 when this came out and so hopelessly in love with my cousin there WAS nothing else in my life at the time. God was feeling charitable towards me in those days and orchestrated events so that she happened to come to my hometown and stay over. I asked her to go to the local theater with me and we sat in the back row watching this film....least SHE did, I had other things on my mind! What does the plot matter? Cliff as a bus driver taking his friends (Cliff's backing group - The Shadows...how odd I can remember those names...Jet Harris, Tony Meehan and Hank Marvin....and I haven't even thought about them for forty years!) on a European vacation and picking up girls on the way - between songs of course.

God! I'd like to see this again! I still have the original 45 rpm release! (for those of you could really care).

If you didn't like the story, of which there was very little, you would have enjoyed the songs and the sheer teen exuberance of the whole idea - going on a summer holiday tour in an old London double-decker.

In my case, it was just the right amount of medicine for a thirteen-year old with bad case of angst and weltschmerz. I felt the song "The Next Time" was all about me. At the time Cliff Richard was the British counterpart of Pat Boone - clean cut, a little naughty sometimes but generally a "good boy." No parent complained about him.

Cliff's songs were very big hits in my country and we made good although somewhat senseless use of his "Bachelor Boy." As senior scouts we went camping at Mount Makiling, the former site of a World Scouting Jamboree. At 10:00 p.m. after taps when all lights should be out and everybody should be asleep, we would sing it boisterously and a scoutmaster would go up our camping ground, a long way from the tourist lodge where he was staying, to scold the delinquents into piping down. Only he didn't know it was us because the boys from other schools in the other tents never squealed on us. They must have enjoyed our singing.

It truly is incredible to think a film so good was made so long ago. Incredibly clever scenes were created with such limited special effects available, and the camera quality is watchable. The politics have not stood the test of time. From the border line kidnapping of women that attracts them to the men, to the lack of any pocs that aren't maids, there are serious 'room for improvements'. Although this does not really excuse the behaviour, I do think it's important to remember the period this was made in and not criticize the entire film for that. The songs may be the best bit, but after you watch it they will not leave your conscious mind for at least a month - you have been warned. With such and array of happy and sad songs, it may have one of the best musical numbers of that decade. All in all, it's a great film that everyone should watch at least once in their life.

I first saw this flick not in a theater, but on TV back in the late 1970s. It was a very pleasant musical (for what it is), and it shows the so-called 'carefree' days when such films would really matter!

I understand that a soundtrack album was released in the USA! I have been looking for that record for YEARS! Would anybody part with their copy??

After doing up a London double-decker as a sort of mobile home, Don and his friends set out to travel across Europe for a fantastic summer holiday. Along the way they pick up a group of English girls and a young boy. However when the young boy turns out to be a missing female celebrity the group find themselves getting into many adventures as her agents try to keep her 'missing' for as long as possible to get her the headlines. Meanwhile, Don has his own problems as the self confessed 'bachelor boy' finds himself falling in love.

Given that the cassette soundtrack to this film was officially 'the first album I ever bought', I took the chance (for the first time since then!) to watch the actual film again. With the thinnest of connections to the Olympics (the group's destination is Athens) this film was screened during the day of the opening ceremony of the 2004 games and I took the opportunity to video it for later viewing. The film was pretty much what I expected it to be in that it was cheesy, silly and not that good – just what you would expect from a pop musical of the period that aimed to be nothing more than inoffensive family fun. The plot is basically a road trip with a very obvious romance acting as the driving force for a series of amusing antics and pop songs. None of it is very good but it is reasonably OK and is worth seeing as a piece of fun.

The antics are not that funny but they have a great sense of 'clean fun' – hard to describe but easy to get into if you are in the mood for it. Of course, modern, more cynical audiences will find it a major turn off but it is quite fun in a very basic sense. Likewise the songs are hardly great and can be best described as 'clean' and 'wholesome' with the odd one being memorable or catchy but mostly them just doing the job and nothing more. The cast also fit with this 'clean fun' family ideal and the plot never dares suggest that a bus load of young men and woman would do anything alone in cramped rooms around Europe! Heck – one of the guys even complains about the number of girls on the bus – sorry? what?! They fall into pure, clean love and that's about it, with the cast never doing more than smiling. Complain all you want though, about his appeal to older fans, but Cliff Richard was a consistent presence in the UK charts and here he shows that he has a real light, natural charisma that suits the film perfectly – he is hardly giving a great performance but he is well suited. Hayes provides some laughs but the rest of the guys are a bit lame while the women are represented with sexless and poor performances from the flat Peters and the 'too smiley by half' Stubbs.

So no, it isn't a good film but it is good, clean family fun that may suit you for an afternoon viewing. The songs, the tone and the cast are all cheap and light – not adding anything to the thin plot or material but they suit a film that tries to be nothing more than family fun and, as such, it is rather enjoyable even if I should really know better.