Last Holiday (1950)

Farm equipment salesman George Bird (Alec Guinness) – a meek and ordinary bachelor – is told by his doctor that he has just six weeks to live.

Since he feels well, he decides to give up his job, withdraw his modest savings, cash in his insurance policy and splash the lot on a holiday in an expensive luxury seaside hotel on the south coast of England to try and get as much enjoyment as possible in the short time he has left.

At the hotel, his natural reticence is misunderstood (he has told no one about his illness), and he becomes a man of mystery, dispensing good turns with understandable nonchalance. George has never been so happy before, and to top things off, he falls in love for the first time.

Housekeeper Mrs Poole (Kay Walsh) knows that George is not really a member of the upper crust, but the other wealthy guests think he is a man of money.

He is offered several jobs by his newly-made acquaintances – including a Cabinet Minister (Campbell Cotts), an inventor (Wilfrid Hyde-White), and a well-to-do Cockney (Sid James) who offers George a partnership in his business.

Almost inevitably, of course, George discovers that his doctor had made a mistake and that he is, in fact, perfectly healthy. But all the same, the holiday does turn out to be his last, for the film has an unexpectedly tragic ending.

Last Holiday was specially written for the screen by J B Priestly

George Bird
Alec Guinness
Sheila Rockingham
Beatrice Campbell
Mrs Poole
Kay Walsh
Gambini 
Grégoire Aslan (as Coco Aslan)
Daisy Clarence
Jean Colin
Lady Oswington
Muriel George
Derek Rockingham
Brian Worth
Miss Fox
Esma Cannon
Inspector Wilton
Bernard Lee
Joe Clarence
Sidney James
Billinghurst
Campbell Cotts
Sir Robert Kyle
Moultrie Kelsall
Miss Hatfield
Eveline Kirkwood-Hackett
Chalfont
Wilfrid Hyde-White
Wrexham
Eric Maturin
Miss Mellows
Helen Cherry
Michael
Harry Hutchinson
Trade Union Man
Hal Osmond
Prescott
Brian Oulton
Sir Trevor Lampington
Ernest Thesiger
Maggie
Heather Wilde
Dr Pevensey
Ronald Simpson
Burden
Arthur Howard
Baltin
Meier Tzelniker
William
Leslie Weston
Dinsdale
Lockwood West

Director
Henry Cass