Holiday on the Buses

I Know this is not a popular view ..but this movie is near-excellent! ...The very funniest of British 70s Comedy with a superb cast ofsubtle-nuance actors ...One of the funniest movies you will ever see in your Life!!! ....forget pompous garbage and just enjoy....a lot of people say this is the weakest in the series .. Its not ...its the Best of them all ...enjoy and have a Laugh !

Busmen Stan Butler, Jack Carter and Inspector Blake, a.k.a 'Blakey', (played by Reg Varney, Bob Grant and Stephen Lewis) are sacked from the bus company after writing off two buses and damaging the boss's car. They find work at a Welsh holiday camp and when Stan's family, Mum, Arthur and Olive (played by Doris Hare, Anna Karen and Michael Robbins) and their young son, Little Arthur, arrive for a holiday, chaos ensues...

Third and final spin-off from the popular ITV sitcom On The Buses. By now producing comedies based on popular TV shows was more profitable for Hammer than the traditional horror films they were renowned for. As another imdb user pointed out, you either love these films or you hate them. I personally love them, partly because I'm a fan of the series, having collected a number of episodes on video (and later DVD) and because the charm is still there. This is thanks largely to all the series regulars being present and the guest players, including Queenie Watts, Arthur Mullard and Wilfred Brambell ensure that there are some laughs to be had from the usual old jokes and comedy routines.

Know all the locations very well and have photo's of them and the newly installed plaque at Pontin's Prestatyn to mark the film by the Welsh film location society. The film is often criticized unfairly - but in my opinion it is better than any Hollywood trash and remakes that are continuously released to keep the ijits in jobs. Britain as it was ... and still is in many respects. Just watch with an open mind and enjoy the scenery (and visit it like I have LOL). British films are not about special effects, car-chases, Hollywood Brat pack etc, but about real situations that at least on one level we can all relate to. Just think back to your childhood holidays with the family ... or think of the old tales of them lol, and this film has them. A British Classic film,,, give me a Brit Flick any day rather than a Hollywood release full of fake people. HIghly recommended - the other two On the buses films are Rita, Sue and Bob Too, Letter To Brezhnev, Beautiful Thing. All down-to-earth British films about real life - must be viewed!!!

Four years before Robin Asquith got up to saucy antics in Confessions from a Holiday Camp, Reg Varney and his On the Buses pals caused chaos at Pontins, Prestatyn. Having been given the sack from the bus depot, Stan and Jack (Varney and Bob Grant) find work as tour bus operators at the Welsh holiday camp only to find that their nemesis and ex-boss Blakey (Stephen Lewis) is now working there as head of camp security. Also arriving at the holiday destination are Stan's family - his mum (Doris Hare), sister Olive (Anna Karen) and brother-in-law Arthur (Michael Robbins), and their troublesome son little Arthur (Adam Rhodes).

Opening with a busty brunette babe baring her breasts as she runs for a bus, Holiday On The Buses looks set to be racier than its predecessors, but turns out to be much the same as before, with no more nudity, but plenty of titillation and innuendo. Despite clearly in his late '50s, Stan still manages to pull tasty birds half his age, as does Jack (they both have what I call 'the Sid James effect'). The lads' conquests include sexy holiday-maker Mavis (Maureen Sweeney), Italian waitress Maria (Gigi Gatti), the camp nurse Joan (Kate Williams), and a pair of pretty new arrivals. None seem to mind Stan's greased back old man's hair or Jack's tombstone teeth.

This time around, the silliness involves Stan taking a short-cut in his open-top bus (passengers narrowly being killed by a low bridge), Stan's mum being romanced by a dirty old man (Wilfrid Brambell, THE dirty old man), Little Arthur creating havoc with an ink-filled water pistol, and Olive getting into the wrong bed. If you enjoyed the previous films in the series, then this one should prove entertaining enough as well, although it must be said that the formula has worn almost as thin as Robbins' hair and Varney is far too old to be playing a womaniser - probably for the best that they ended it here.

If you were growing up in Britain in the 1970s or early 80s, then Holiday On The Buses will provide you with a very potent hit of nostalgia that will doubtless get you talking about "the good old days". It's nobody's idea of sophisticated, and the arthouse crowd should avoid it like the plague, but if you approach it with an open mind you'll probably have a good time.

It's all very predictable, of course, but it fits in nicely with a sub-genre of British comedy best described as "everything goes wrong" where it sits alongside Fawlty Towers and Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em. There are plenty of minor stars on display soon, such as Grange Hill's Mr Bronson, regular Benny Hill sidekick Henry McGee, Joan from Love Thy Neighbour and the inimitable Arthur Mullard.

It's not quite Carry On, but it passes the time painlessly.