Summer Holiday
Summer Holiday was the first film that I ever saw. Yes, the first film ever. In 1963, in a proper cinema.
I loved it. The plot? Oh, it doesn't matter - - but, since you are so insistent to know, Cliff Richard and some blokes who can dance - including Melvyn Hayes who later found telly fame in It Ain't Half Hot, Mum - are, somewhat unbelievably, bus mechanics and borrow a red London bus to go on holiday in Europe, with the idea of starting a tour company of similar buses.
They decide this because it is supposed to be summer, but in Britain it never stops raining. Some things don't change, then.
On the way they meet a girly singing trio with Una Stubbs in it, and their car has broken down, and the boys rescue them. And then they meet a young boy who turns out to be a girl, and she turns out to be an American singing star called Barbara who has fled her tyrannical mother, and they all set off to take her to Athens for some reason I forget. On the way they meet lots of Comedy Yugoslavians and mix up the words "bread" and "bride" in a way I once thought hilarious.
And by the end of it Cliff, whose character name I forget but it's something short and butch, and Barbara have fallen in love and defeated the baddies and got to Athens and they all live happily ever after. On the way, they do lots of set-piece dancing and singing in some very bright and cheerful early-Sixties clothes, and the Shadows keep popping up and playing guitars.
In short, you could compare it to the films of Ingmar Bergman or Ken Loach, but I'm not sure quite how. I hadn't seen it for perhaps thirty years, and then I watched it again, whilst doing lots of ironing, yesterday.
When I saw it the first time I wanted Cliff to marry Una Stubbs (and, actually, so did she in real life, I seem to recall, but he was less than interested).
Lauri Peters, who played Barbara, apparently created the role of Liesl, sixteen going on seventeen, in the original Broadway version of The Sound of Music. I didn't like her as much as I liked Una Stubbs, but I was very, very envious of her stripy dress with its "sticky-out" skirt as I used to call them, and I longed to grow up so I could wear one that was just the same.
Sadly, by the time I had grown up they were well out of fashion and I've never quite got over it.
Yes, of course, they don't make films like that any more: again - as often - I think of the first line of L.P.Hartley's excellent novel The Go-Between:
The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.
But I loved the film so much, with its jolly songs and bouncy dance routines and glorious Sixties optimism! Even now, I only have to hear the introduction to the title song and I feel a big burst of happiness.
Things like that have a big impression on children, don't they? I was pulled up a bit sharpish when I thought hey, when I saw that film for the first time I was only a bit older than my niece Flo is now: she's currently over here from Amsterdam as her family start their summer holiday. Here she is, pictured with The Communist who was home from the nursing-home for a visit a couple of days ago:
Her current musical passion is The Sound of Music. I wonder if she'll be thinking of it in over forty years' time with the same affection that I have for Summer Holiday.
I loved it. The plot? Oh, it doesn't matter - - but, since you are so insistent to know, Cliff Richard and some blokes who can dance - including Melvyn Hayes who later found telly fame in It Ain't Half Hot, Mum - are, somewhat unbelievably, bus mechanics and borrow a red London bus to go on holiday in Europe, with the idea of starting a tour company of similar buses.
They decide this because it is supposed to be summer, but in Britain it never stops raining. Some things don't change, then.
On the way they meet a girly singing trio with Una Stubbs in it, and their car has broken down, and the boys rescue them. And then they meet a young boy who turns out to be a girl, and she turns out to be an American singing star called Barbara who has fled her tyrannical mother, and they all set off to take her to Athens for some reason I forget. On the way they meet lots of Comedy Yugoslavians and mix up the words "bread" and "bride" in a way I once thought hilarious.
And by the end of it Cliff, whose character name I forget but it's something short and butch, and Barbara have fallen in love and defeated the baddies and got to Athens and they all live happily ever after. On the way, they do lots of set-piece dancing and singing in some very bright and cheerful early-Sixties clothes, and the Shadows keep popping up and playing guitars.
In short, you could compare it to the films of Ingmar Bergman or Ken Loach, but I'm not sure quite how. I hadn't seen it for perhaps thirty years, and then I watched it again, whilst doing lots of ironing, yesterday.
When I saw it the first time I wanted Cliff to marry Una Stubbs (and, actually, so did she in real life, I seem to recall, but he was less than interested).
Lauri Peters, who played Barbara, apparently created the role of Liesl, sixteen going on seventeen, in the original Broadway version of The Sound of Music. I didn't like her as much as I liked Una Stubbs, but I was very, very envious of her stripy dress with its "sticky-out" skirt as I used to call them, and I longed to grow up so I could wear one that was just the same.
Sadly, by the time I had grown up they were well out of fashion and I've never quite got over it.
Yes, of course, they don't make films like that any more: again - as often - I think of the first line of L.P.Hartley's excellent novel The Go-Between:
The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.
But I loved the film so much, with its jolly songs and bouncy dance routines and glorious Sixties optimism! Even now, I only have to hear the introduction to the title song and I feel a big burst of happiness.
Things like that have a big impression on children, don't they? I was pulled up a bit sharpish when I thought hey, when I saw that film for the first time I was only a bit older than my niece Flo is now: she's currently over here from Amsterdam as her family start their summer holiday. Here she is, pictured with The Communist who was home from the nursing-home for a visit a couple of days ago:
Her current musical passion is The Sound of Music. I wonder if she'll be thinking of it in over forty years' time with the same affection that I have for Summer Holiday.
posted by Daphne at 4:07 pm
4 Comments:
The dresses with sticky-out skirts are back in fashion. So I guess now you are (nearly) a grown up (happy birthday for Tuesday by the way) you could have one if you wanted.
Ah you mean short and butch Don ! Definitely not typecasting for Cliff though.
Yes I remember "cute as apple pie" 20 yr old Lauri Peters as she had dimples you could lose your tongue in ! Hmmm probably not the best description.
She went on to marry Jon Voight who had a little known daughter called Angelina Jolie who was briefly married to Billy Bob Thornton who once made a movie called "U Turn" starring......Jon Voight.
I wonder, at 65, if she still has those dimples ?
What goes around comes around. You know... Summer Holiday may have also been my first film. It was either that or "Jason and The Argonauts" at the long abandoned cinema in Hornsea by the sea. Do you think that Cliff inadvertently caused the wars in Bosnia and Kosovo?
The trouble with those dresses, Ruth, is that they rely for their effect on having a very slim waist. And I had one of those in 1963.
Jon Voight will always be Midnight Cowboy for me, Silverback - another of my favourite films.
As for the wars in Kosovo and Bosnia, Mr Pudding - - I'll ask the Communist, he generally has a very, very long and thorough explanation for such things. And after the war he helped to build probably the very bit of Yugoslavian road that Cliff was travelling along.
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