Director Carol Reed's most famous creation is The Third Man (1949). Made just over a decade earlier, Bank Holiday (1938) is set on the other side of the Second World War, and the difference in the atmosphere of the two films is stark.
Bank Holiday takes place in August, as Londoners hurry to the seaside to enjoy a long weekend. The gallery of characters includes a young nurse (played by Margaret Lockwood), her lover (Hugh Williams), a family of five - with the mother (Kathleen Harrison) fashioning outré outfits and the father (Wally Patch) taking every opportunity to disappear into a pub - and a duo of girlfriends (Rene Ray and Merle Tottenham), travelling to attend a beauty pageant. Although she is supposed to be enjoying a romantic get-away in the fictional town of Bexborough (that part is acted out by Brighton), Lockwood's Catharine is preoccupied with the thoughts of a patient's husband (John Lodge) and the tragic case she left behind.
In its delivery, Bank Holiday is light-handed, playful, and non-judgemental. Characters frequently side-step expectations and norms, be it a misguided attempt to appear cosmopolitan, an extramarital affair, or theft. Yet, every single person is given space to become human, sympathetic, and complex; whether one is trustworthy is never truly called into question, and the police sergeant (brilliantly, memorably played by Wilfrid Lawson) will happily take a criminal on his word.
Without lingering on any conflict - and so stopping short of melodrama - Bank Holiday provides a realistic, if understated and codified, view of relationships and emotions: those often run their course, can be fleeting or shallow, but that is not an indictment on anyone.
Another curious aspect is the semi-documentary quality of the film. (Actual documentary footage of King George V and Queen Mary riding in a carriage during the Royal Silver Jubilee celebration of 1935 is included in a flashback, but the fictional narrative, steeped in the everyday life, also doubles as a faithful historical depiction.) One may discover that the Boots logo is still the same; that train journeys nowadays are - incredibly - an improvement on those conducted in England in the 1930s; that the modern ideas of comfort and luxury are quite elaborate in comparison to the ones enjoyed by Reed's characters. Unable to find 'room at the inn', hundreds of holiday-makers spend the night on the beach, under the open skies - in their usual clothes, with suitcases for pillows.
There is an ease to decisions, contrasted with a lingering unease in the background. The front page of a newspaper declares: 'War Clouds Over Europe'. A line of dialogue goes, 'Besides, you never know what is going to happen in the world nowadays. You got to try to be happy while you can.'
Try they did, and we get to see a glimpse of it still.
Bank Holiday takes place in August, as Londoners hurry to the seaside to enjoy a long weekend. The gallery of characters includes a young nurse (played by Margaret Lockwood), her lover (Hugh Williams), a family of five - with the mother (Kathleen Harrison) fashioning outré outfits and the father (Wally Patch) taking every opportunity to disappear into a pub - and a duo of girlfriends (Rene Ray and Merle Tottenham), travelling to attend a beauty pageant. Although she is supposed to be enjoying a romantic get-away in the fictional town of Bexborough (that part is acted out by Brighton), Lockwood's Catharine is preoccupied with the thoughts of a patient's husband (John Lodge) and the tragic case she left behind.
In its delivery, Bank Holiday is light-handed, playful, and non-judgemental. Characters frequently side-step expectations and norms, be it a misguided attempt to appear cosmopolitan, an extramarital affair, or theft. Yet, every single person is given space to become human, sympathetic, and complex; whether one is trustworthy is never truly called into question, and the police sergeant (brilliantly, memorably played by Wilfrid Lawson) will happily take a criminal on his word.
Without lingering on any conflict - and so stopping short of melodrama - Bank Holiday provides a realistic, if understated and codified, view of relationships and emotions: those often run their course, can be fleeting or shallow, but that is not an indictment on anyone.
Another curious aspect is the semi-documentary quality of the film. (Actual documentary footage of King George V and Queen Mary riding in a carriage during the Royal Silver Jubilee celebration of 1935 is included in a flashback, but the fictional narrative, steeped in the everyday life, also doubles as a faithful historical depiction.) One may discover that the Boots logo is still the same; that train journeys nowadays are - incredibly - an improvement on those conducted in England in the 1930s; that the modern ideas of comfort and luxury are quite elaborate in comparison to the ones enjoyed by Reed's characters. Unable to find 'room at the inn', hundreds of holiday-makers spend the night on the beach, under the open skies - in their usual clothes, with suitcases for pillows.
There is an ease to decisions, contrasted with a lingering unease in the background. The front page of a newspaper declares: 'War Clouds Over Europe'. A line of dialogue goes, 'Besides, you never know what is going to happen in the world nowadays. You got to try to be happy while you can.'
Try they did, and we get to see a glimpse of it still.