oz1-600-758713 The Drummer in the Ballroom scenes ........is that Spike Milligan ?

Leofwine_draca HOLIDAY CAMP is a fine little British comedy production that feels like HI-DE-HI, albeit with a 1940s setting. It was popular enough to spawn sequels along with an associated radio series. The film has a larger-than-life family heading to a holiday camp for a weekend of excitement, so if you wanted to see what Butlins looked like in the 1940s, this is the film. Jack Warner and Kathleen Harrison are the ever-bickering couple, but the fun comes from seeing all of the different character sub-plots that mingle and interact as the story goes on. Dennis Price plays one of his ultimate cad characters, womanising everywhere he goes. Jimmy Hanley is a jilted sailor with a penchant for chocolate. Peter Hammond plays a gambling addict who gets fleeced by a couple of chancers. Flora Robson hunts for lost love Esmond Knight (stealing the film with his one-scene cameo, full of pathos). Hazel Court, future scream queen, is gloriously beautiful and lights up the screen whenever she appears. There's also a biggish role for the criminal underutilised in cinema Esma Cannon. If you're a fan of British comedy, then HOLIDAY CAMP is a real treat.

Spondonman 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.

tysonb 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.