Holiday Camp (1947)

Director:

Ken Annakin

Writers:

Godfrey Winn (story)
Sydney Box (screenplay) ...
(more)

Release Date:

23 April 1948 (Sweden)

Genre:

Adventure | Comedy | Crime | Drama

Plot:

The Huggett family go to a holiday camp, and get involved in crooked card players, a murderer on the run, and a pregnant young girl and her boyfriend missing from home.

Plot Keywords:

Holiday | Camp | Sadist | Matron | Gambler

Cast

Flora Robson	...	Esther Harman
Dennis Price	...	Sq. Ldr. Hardwick
Jack Warner	...	Joe Huggett
Hazel Court	...	Joan Huggett
Emrys Jones	...	Michael Halliday
Kathleen Harrison	...	Mrs. Ethel Huggett
Yvonne Owen	...	Angela Kirby
Esmond Knight	...	Camp Announcer
Jimmy Hanley	...	Jimmy Gardner
Peter Hammond	...	Harry Huggett
Esma Cannon	...	Elsie Dawson
John Blythe	...	Steve
Jeannette Tregarthen	...	Valerie Thompson
Beatrice Varley	...	Valerie's Aunt
Dennis Harkin	...	Charlie
Susan Shaw	...	Patsy Crawford
Maurice Denham	...	Camp Doctor
Jane Hylton	...	Receptionist
Pamele Bramah	...	Beauty Queen
Jack Raine	...	Detective
John Stone	...	Detective
Reginald Purdell	...	Redcoat
Alfie Bass	...	Redcoat
Phil Fowler	...	Redcoat
Jack Ellis	...	Redcoat
Patricia Roc	...	Herself
Charlie Chester	...	Himself (as Cheerful Charlie Chester)
Gerry Wilmot	...	Himself - M.C. at Beauty Contest
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Diana Dors	...	Dancer (uncredited)
Jeremy Hanley	...	Bit Part (uncredited)
Bill Owen	...	Bit Role (uncredited)

Directed by
Ken Annakin

Writing credits
Godfrey Winn		(story)
Sydney Box		(screenplay) and
Muriel Box		(screenplay) and
Peter Rogers		(screenplay)
Mabel Constanduros		(additional dialogue)

Produced by
Sydney Box	....	producer

Original Music by
Bob Busby

Cinematography by
Jack E. Cox

Film Editing by
Alfred Roome

Art Direction by
George Provis		(supervising art director)
Richard Yarrow

Costume Design by
Julie Harris

Makeup Department
W.T. Partleton	....	makeup artist

Production Management
Arthur Alcott	....	production manager

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
William N. Boyle	....	first assistant director
Albert Becket	....	second assistant director (uncredited)
Don Weeks	....	first assistant director (uncredited)

Art Department
John Clements	....	draughtsman (uncredited)
Lionel Couch	....	chief draughtsman (uncredited)

Sound Department
Leslie Hammond	....	sound recordist
B.C. Sewell	....	sound supervisor
H.L. Bird	....	dubbing crew (uncredited)
Claude Hitchcock	....	boom operator (uncredited)
Archie Ludski	....	dubbing assistant (uncredited)
Eric Stockl	....	sound camera operator (uncredited)

Camera and Electrical Department
David Harcourt	....	camera operator
James Bawden	....	assistant camera (uncredited)
Steve Claydon	....	assistant camera (uncredited)
Len Harris	....	camera assistant (uncredited)
John Jay	....	still photographer (uncredited)
Ronnie Taylor	....	assistant camera (uncredited)

Editorial Department
Don Sharpe	....	first assistant editor (uncredited)

Music Department
Louis Levy	....	musical director

Other crew
Ann Besserman	....	continuity

Production Companies

• Gainsborough Pictures

Distributors

• General Film Distributors (GFD) (1948) (UK) (theatrical)
• Universal Pictures (1948) (USA) (theatrical)
• American Broadcasting Company (ABC) (1956) (USA) (TV)
• Ceskoslovenská Filmová Spolecnost (1948) (Czechoslovakia) (theatrical)
• J. Arthur Rank Film (1948) (Germany) (theatrical)
• Video Collection International (1997) (UK) (VHS)

Also Known As:

Runtime:

USA:97 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (British Acoustic)

Certification:

USA:Approved (PCA #12388) | USA:Passed (National Board of Review) | Sweden:Btl | UK:A (original rating) | UK:U (video rating) (1997)

Filming Locations:

Butlins Holiday Camp, Filey, North Yorkshire, England, UK

Company:

Gainsborough Pictures

Trivia:

The first film to feature the Huggett family. They proved so popular with post-wartime audiences that three more films featuring them followed.

Movie Connections:

Followed by The Huggetts Abroad (1949)

The nearest Esma Cannon got to being a lead actress

My first inkling of Esma Cannon was in the BBC t.v. comedy series "The Rag Trade" from the early 1960s in which she played a comic "put upon" machinist.She was a funny comedienne with her 4'10" height and way of speaking.In "Holiday Camp" she again plays a lonely spinster on the look out for a beau.Unfortunately a confidence trickster and "Mannequin" murderer, "Sq. Ldr. Hardwick" (Dennis Price), takes her out for a walk down a remote country lane and although we don't see her end in the film, we have to presume she became his next victim.Bear in mind this was a 1947 family film and the British Board of Film Censors would have clamped down hard on any graphic sex & violence."Holiday Camp" has quite a cast and although Charlie Chester & Patricia Roc get star billing you only see them (as themselves) for very short scenes.The real stars are Jack Warner & Kathleen Harrison as working class parents Mr Joe & Mrs Ethel Huggett along with their daughter,Hazel Court as Joan Huggett who has a toddler in tow.I did not hear whether she was a war widow or had an unfortunate accident but she finds a boyfriend in the shape of Jimmy Hanley (Jimmy Gardner) who has been left a "Dear John" letter by his former girlfriend.

There are some nice period touches like sweet rationing (Britain did not finally come off it until 1955 and I vividly remember my parents stocking up our rations so we could go away on holiday with our chocolate/butterscotch etc, (I was born in 1946).Of course contraception was not mentioned and a previous reviewer mentioned it was daring of Sydney Box (the screenplay writer) to include a subplot of a pregnant unmarried girl Valerie Thompson (Jeannete Tregathen) whose musical boyfriend Michael Halliday (Emrys Jones) cannot afford to keep them both.

Which brings me to Dame Flora Robson.I was surprised to see her in this type of film as she normally appeared in serious drama but even a Shakespearean actress wants some light relief occasionally.She plays Esther Harman a woman who lost track of her boyfriend in 1918 and supposed him dead with the millions of others.She keeps a photograph of them as young lovers in her handbag.Due to a very unlikely coincidence (which only happens in films), it happens her old lover, Esmond Knight, is now married with two boys and working (although blind as a result of a mine) as the holiday camp announcer.Although she meets him in his office, she does not divulge who she is as she realises he is a happy man.Rather Esther becomes a sympathetic mother-type figure to Valerie and admonishes Valerie's very disapproving aunt played by Gainsborough stalwart Beatrice Varley for not lending her support to her niece's desperate need.

Another subplot involves the perils of engaging cardsharps in pontoon, but Jack Warner thankfully comes to the rescue.Beauty parades, swimming, wonky bicycles, dances, entertainment on the stage, communal eating etc. its all there.I am so glad my parents took me & my two sisters down to the coast and avoided organised entertainment!!