everything you have heard about this movie is true.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

HOLIDAY CAMP is an important 1947 British film for several reasons. First off, it documents the rise of a British institution, the holiday camp, a place where the working class flocked in the years after World War II to enjoy the countryside and various activities like swimming and biking and dancing. The holiday camp planned all kinds of outdoors activities for people who otherwise never got out of the city.The films comprises several plot lines. The Huggett family (they would spin off into their own film series) epitomizes the working class family on the way up. They still hold to old morals and traditions but they are thrust into the post-war world where beauty contests and having a good time are now the norm. We also see a lonely spinster whose life has been wasted in pining for a boy who never came back from World War I and taking care of an ailing mother. Another plot follows a caddish womanizer who also seems to have a secret.Jack Warner and Kathleen Harrison are the parents. Peter Hammond is the hapless son, and Hazel Court the war widow with a baby. Flora Robson is the spinster who lets go of the past and finds a new purpose in life. Dennis Price is the cad with a secret.But it's Esma Cannon, the tiny (4 ft 10) actress who steals the film as Elsie Dawson, an endlessly cheerful old maid who throws herself into life and into the pursuit of "Mr. Right" even though the odds are against her. She chases after Dennis Price, takes part in every camp activity (including a swim-suit beauty contest), and cheers up everyone around her. The ending of the film and Elsie's fate are quite shocking.All of the stars are excellent. Co-stars include Esmond Knight as the "voice" of the camp (via loudspeakers), Jimmy Hanley as a possible son-in-law for the Huggetts, Yvonne Owen as a sharp-tongued friend, Beatrice Varley as a bitter old aunt, Emrys Jones and Jeannette Tregarthen as the troubled young couple, Susan Shaw as Patsy, Jane Hylton as the camp receptionist, Diana Dors as a dancer, and Patricia Roc in a cameo as herself.But it's Esma Cannon who you'll remember from this great film.

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!!

A portmanteau movie centred round the Huggett family deeply rooted in working - class culture,decent,God - fearing,patriotic,proud of their place in society and secure and optimistic about the future for both themselves and their country.60 years later their descendants,hedonistic alcohol - fuelled,violent,stain their country's reputation in countries their great grandfathers helped to free from the very sort of nihilism they display.Thanks to six decades of Social Progress, the Huggetts and their beliefs have become the stuff of satire.Those terribly clever Monty Python chappies started it with their "funny" knotted handkerchief and sleeveless pully wearing drones and now everything the Huggetts would have held dear is held to ridicule. "Holiday Camp" gives you a chance to redress the balance.It features the wonderful Mr Jack Warner as the paterfamilias,sports jacket,open - necked shirt,pens in his top pocket,he is 1940 - 50s man made carnate.Miss K.Harrison displays all the strength she would have needed in the absence of a husband to have kept the family together during the recently - ended war. The Holiday Camp was many a British teenager's first taste of relative freedom and I have fond memories of my first visit in 1952 when my parents would go off the shows and leave me to my own devices.Magic days indeed. Watching "Holiday Camp" may be a bit like looking through your grandparents' snap album,but as time passes inexorably and history is re -written,like your grandparents' snap album it will become a true record of the way we were rather than the way the social engineers wish to portray us.

I had a copy of his film in the early 90's and still watch it now. Liking nostalgia, this film gives a good insight to British life just after the 2nd world war. Primitive it may look as to how the English enjoyed themselves on holiday, but charming in its naivety. Kathleen Harrison plays her part as only she could, dizzy, funny, as well as showing us how Strong her part is in keeping the Hugget family together in chaos along with her hubby Jack Warner, a strong father figure who wanting to teach his children a lesson in the ways of life, shows his softer side in coming to their aid.With my love and interest in old English films, I do look at who make such films as well as who stars in them. Muriel and Sidney Box name appear in many films made in England in the 40s/50s. Holiday Camp Being a Huggets film. I am on the look out for the other Huggets films. Just hope someone releases them on DVD