Summer Holiday (1963 film)
Directed by Peter Yates
Produced by Kenneth Harper
Written by Peter Myers Ronald Cass
Starring Cliff Richard Lauri Peters
Summer Holiday is a British CinemaScope and Technicolor musical film featuring singer Cliff Richard. The film was directed by Peter Yates (his debut), produced by Kenneth Harper. The original screenplay was written by Peter Myers and Ronald Cass (who also wrote most of the song numbers and lyrics). The cast includes Lauri Peters, Melvyn Hayes, Teddy Green, Jeremy Bulloch, Una Stubbs, Pamela Hart, Jacqueline Daryl, Lionel Murton, Madge Ryan, David Kossoff, Nicholas Phipps, Ron Moody and The Shadows. Herbert Ross choreographed the musical numbers. The film had its World Premiere at the Warner Theatre in London’s West End on 10 January 1963.
The story concerns Don (Cliff Richard) and his friends (Hayes, Green and Bulloch) who are bus mechanics at the huge London Transport bus overhaul works in Aldenham, Hertfordshire. During a miserably wet British summer lunch break, Don arrives, having persuaded London Transport to lend him and his friends an AEC Regent III RT double-decker bus (and not a later AEC Routemaster as often quoted). This they convert into a holiday caravan, which they drive across continental Europe, intending to reach the South of France. However, their eventual destination is Athens, Greece. On the way, they are joined by a trio of young women (Stubbs, Hart and Daryl) and a runaway singer (Lauri Peters), who initially pretends to be male, pursued by her mother (Ryan) and agent (Murton). The movie was a box-office hit, thus repeating the success of Cliff Richard’s earlier film The Young Ones (1961).
Soundtrack
See also: Summer Holiday (album)
There are 16 song and musical numbers in the film: “Seven Days to a Holiday”, “Let Us Take You for a Ride”, “Stranger in Town”, “Swinging Affair”, “Really Waltzing”, “Yugoslavian Wedding”, “All At Once”, “Summer Holiday”, “Bachelor Boy”, “Dancing Shoes”, “Foot Tapper”, “Big News”, “The Next Time”, “Les Girls”, “Round and Round” and “Orlando’s Mime”.
The film’s producers felt that female lead in the film, Lauri Peters, was not a strong enough singer after several test recording sessions and all of her parts, both in the film and on the soundtrack album were dubbed by session vocalist Grazina Frame. Frame had overdubbed female singing voices in Cliff Richard’s earlier film The Young Ones. Cliff Richard, Melvyn Hayes and the Shadows were recalled to Elstree some weeks after completion of shooting to record Bachelor Boy.
This was because the distributors felt the film was too short. Release Box office The film was the second most popular movie at the British box office in 1963, after From Russia with Love (Tom Jones and The Great Escape came next.) It helped Cliff Richard be voted by exhibitors as the most popular star at the British box office in the same year. However it flopped in the US, where it was released two days after the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
Cast Cliff Richard as Don
Lauri Peters as Barbara Melvyn
Hayes as Cyril
Una Stubbs as Sandy
Teddy Green as Steve
Pamela Hart as Angie
Jeremy Bulloch as Edwin
Jacqueline Daryl as Mimsie
Madge Ryan as Stella Lionel Murton as Jerry
Christine Lawson as Annie
Ron Moody as Orlando
David Kossoff as Magistrate
Wendy Barrie as Shepherdess (as Wendy Barry)
Nicholas Phipps as Wrightmore
The Shadows as themselves
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