Every Day's a Holiday

A feather-light musical comedy involving a group of college kids who enter a talent contest at a summer resort. Grazina Frame sings a catchy song called "1st time bitten, 2nd time shy," the Baker twins sing a fluffy piece of nonsense called "Romeo Jones," and Freddie & The Dreamers make an appearance singing "Don't do that to me." Anyone who enjoyed sitting through the likes of "Having a wild weekend" and "Ferry cross the mersey" should enjoy this one as well.

This is cross between Hard Day's Night and Summer Holiday which does nothing to threaten the dominance of either in the British 60's rock 'n' romance genre. I'll let others explain the finer points of casting and score. What I find so fascinating about "Seaside Swingers" is the bewildered holiday camp extras who thought they were going to have an uneventful and typically overcast two weeks at one of Butlin's more drab properties and ended up unwitting props in a third rate musical comedy about some rather aged looked teenagers trying to make a splash in the prepubescent world of rock 'n' roll.

The holiday camp must be seen to be believed. Americans will find it unbelievable that people actually spent the only two weeks they got each year going to what amounted to an overcrowded compound where the only entertainment was guessing how far apart the family would have to sit from each other in the "canteen" or large feeding area (which features prominantly in this film). The chalets referred to by the campers were extremely small motel-style rooms which were your base of operations at the camp.

For a real soak in the British invasion style this is just the ticket but fast forward through the "Crazy Horse Saloon" number. It's atrocious.

Every Day's a Holiday is a Cliff Richard musical without the Bachelor Boy himself.

It even has Ron Moody and Richard O'Sullivan who appeared in some Cliff Richard musicals.

Freddie and the Dreamers play some crazy cooks, in essence they take on the role of the Shadows.

The story involves a group off teens taking a job at a holiday resort and take part in a talent competition that will be televised.

Gerry Pullman has fallen for a girl but find himself dealing with a rival. The story is flimsy and silly.

The film is a little too cheesy and a bit of its time period. There is mirror scene where Gerry riffs Frank Sinatra but the Al Jolson scene is unfortunate. The cinematography is by Nicolas Roeg which is a plus for the movie.

It also has too many songs and they are rather forgettable, unlike say the songs in Summer Holiday.

However it does have some interesting dance numbers from choreographer Gillian Lynne.

I like silly 1960's pop music films and I was looking forward to enjoying this one and giving it a well deserved ten but.....it was fairly bad so just worth a five.

No decent tunes and the dance sequences were far too long and were just a bit of padding. Jumping on the pop music film boom of the time which would have disappointed paying customers who would have expected it to be a good watch.

Bad acting from almost everyone and no redeeming features. I did discover that Nicolas Parsons was young once which came a surprise as I thought that he was born old.

The "high spirited teens" were obviously in their twenties and not teenagers. One unusual feature for a pop film of 1964 was that there was no smoking in any scene, or if there was I missed it.

Not worth watching not even for nostalgia.

Other than the justly celebrated films of Cliff Richard and The Beatles, British pop musicals of the early 60s are not highly esteemed. They are generally seen as having been blatantly derivative at the time and hopelessly dated now. If "Summer Holiday" and "A Hard Day's Night" represent the very best of this somewhat narrow genre it is likely that "Every Day's A Holiday" would be considered - if at all - as one of the very minor also-rans. Having watched a recent repeat of this film, however, I found it highly entertaining. In essence it is a Cliff Richard film without Cliff, who is replaced, insofar as he can be, by John Leyton, a young actor-turned-pop star (and sometime Joe Meek protege). As in the Cliff films, the musical numbers are strung along a purposely lightweight romantic plotline, and both Ron Moody and Richard O'Sullivan are held over from the Cliff entourage. The cinematography, courtesy of a young Nic Roeg, makes this film a pleasure to watch, and the musical numbers, if undistinguished by the high standards of The Beatles and Cliff, are enjoyable. As in so many films of this period, the choreography - performed by an accomplished dance-troupe - betrays the unmistakable influence of "West Side Story". The likeable cast includes Mike Sarne, Grazina Frame, Liz Fraser, Nicholas Parsons, the late Michael Ripper and the late Hazel Hughes. Sarne (improbably but effectively cast as a young aristocrat-about-town, Tim) vies with the decently working-class Gerry (Leyton) for the attentions of the no less high-born Christina (Frame). Disappointingly for sociologically-minded film buffs there is only the most superficial investigation of the class issues inherent in the situation, but, of course, this is entirely as it should be in an escapist entertainment of this sort. (Indeed, in the naively optimistic mood of the mid-60s, class was starting to be perceived as not especially problematic, with an overall youth culture transcending such ancient barriers.) Unlike Gerry, who is hopelessly smitten, the vain and self-regarding (but strangely appealing) Tim casts his romantic net rather more widely, notably demonstrating - albeit with somewhat qualified success! - the "beatnik approach" to wooing. His dalliance with holiday camp manager Mr Close's (Charles Lloyd Pack) ripely sexy secretary Miss Slightly (Liz Fraser) prospers somewhat better, given her enthusiasm for sex (made evident early in the film), and her equally evident eventual inebriation. Indeed, in its rather innocent way, "Every Day's A Holiday" is pre-occupied with sex (as distinct from chaste romance) to a far greater degree than most of the youth films of the time; certainly far more than the Cliff films that it otherwise resembles. Most noteworthy among its various set pieces is a mind-bogglingly brilliant and surreal sequence featuring Freddie and the Dreamers as chefs. Nicholas Parsons plays a pretentious and overwrought TV director, first cousin, so to speak, to Victor Spinetti in "A Hard Day's Night", although from internal evidence (an allusion to Harold Macmillan during a bingo game), "Every Day's A Holiday" would seem to be the earlier of the two films. In addition to the "in-house" performers and Freddie and the Dreamers, there is a fleeting appearance by The Mojos. Despite the presence of these two bands, however, the ethos of the film is more Cliff/Shadows/Meek than Merseybeat. Highly recommended.