Holiday Camp

This is one of my favourite films, I first saw it when I was about 18. It reminds me of when I was young and used to go on holidays with my family. ( Not that I was around in the war, I'm to young ). Jack Warner is brilliant in it and so are the other cast members.It's about what family's should be like. The plot of the film is, Joe Huggett and his family go to an holiday camp for a week, while they are there is a murderer is on the loose, a teenage girl is on the run with her boyfriend and finds out she is going to have a baby and she is only 15, quite scandalous in those days. All in all this is a great film, the cast are great, and it's a feel good film, it should be released on DVD.

Holiday Camp shows a fascinating look a life in the late 40's. After the depravation of the war years, the first holiday camp to open was guaranteed to be a success. The story starts with Joe Huggett (Jack Warner ) and his family arriving at the camp ,and in next to no time he is involved with card sharps, a murderer on the run and a young couple who have left home, when the girl discovered she is pregnant. This particular story line was very daring considering when the film was made. All in all a very interesting look at life after the war, and well worth seeing.

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.

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.

Isn't Jack Warner the wise Father and the nice man we all saw in the Dixon of Dock Green series in the 1950's. I spent some very happy moments as a teenager in the 1960's at Butilns Holiday Camp in North Wales. I can tell you it was in those days a very sophisticated place for a young lad out of a northern working class family. It was a magic place and seeing this movie brought it all back. Living in your very own (shared) "chalet". Coming home at night as late as you like and all activities laid on for FREE. I thought it was heaven. I loved the pretty daughter in the film and pleased to see on the IMDb that she is still alive and had a very eventful career in films. And Flora Robson giving more than a hint of the great actress she was. The blind announcer at the camp also played in many movies including the RED SHOES a classic film of the 1940's with Moira Shearer. (He played the conductor of the orchestra.) Loved the film and will see it again. regards, frank.