Summer Holiday (1963)

It’s hard to believe, but Peter Yates, the director of Bullitt (1968), started his career with this carefree musical comedy starring British pop icons Cliff Richard and The Shadows.

Don (Cliff) and his London Transport mechanic pals – Cyril (Melvyn Hayes), Steve (Teddy Green), and Edwin (Jeremy Bulloch) – convert a London double-decker bus into a mobile youth hostel and take a test spin across Europe.

They initially plan to go to the South of France, but an accident involving them with an old car belonging to three girls – Sandy (Una Stubbs), Angie (Pamela Hart), and Mimsie (Jacqueline Daryl) – results in a change of plan to go to Athens, where the girls have a singing engagement.

A stowaway ‘lad’ they discover along the way turns out, in fact, to be an American heiress named Barbara Winters (Lauri Peters), on the run from a wealthy show-business mum (Madge Ryan).

Though Don has made a point of assuring all and sundry (in song) that he intends to remain a bachelor until his dying day, he proposes to Barbara, and she confesses her undying love to him.

Don and his friends have to put on a show to stay out of a French jail, and he’s nearly forced to marry a farm woman by dancing Yugoslavian peasants with whips.

Then comes the inevitable misunderstanding. When Barbara’s mother triumphantly pounces on the party in Athens (accompanied by hordes of reporters), Don concludes he’s been made use of for a publicity stunt and (unjustifiably) blames Barbara and wanders off moodily through the glorious Athenian landscape.

Obviously, there’s a happy ending and all is sorted out eventually, with the bus and its passengers setting off to return to London.

Ron Moody is madly funny in a miming interlude, and Melvyn Hayes and Una Stubbs are outstanding among the young cast. Una actually auditioned for the film as a dancer but was picked out by Cliff for the role of Sandy, one of the main girls.

The European scenes for the film were shot in Greece, in temperatures averaging 44ºC (112º F) each day, even when the gang were supposed to be in Switzerland. The snow-capped mountains were added in post-production.

Three used RT double-decker buses were bought for the film and two of them were shipped to Greece by sea because low bridges made it impossible to actually drive them there.

Although Cliff did his singing at the wheel of a stationary bus with a moving background projected behind him, he did occasionally have to drive the bus for real. He received just one hour’s driving tuition at a bus depot in England before filming began.

Several weeks after filming was completed, distributors said the film was too short, so Cliff and The Shadows‘ Bruce Welch were commissioned to write an extra song: Bachelor Boy. A shoot was set up in front of a backdrop at Elstree Studios to film the number.

Summer Holiday became the second biggest British film of 1963, beaten at the box office only by James Bond in From Russia With Love. It also gave Cliff one of his biggest and most enduring hits in the form of the title track and a second signature song with Bachelor Boy. Both songs topped the charts and sold a million copies each.

Don
Cliff Richard
Barbara Winters
Lauri Peters
Cyril
Melvyn Hayes
Sandy
Una Stubbs
Steve
Teddy Green
Angie
Pamela Hart
Edwin
Jeremy Bulloch
Mimsie
Jacqueline Daryl
Jerry
Lionel Murton
Stella Winters
Madge Ryan
Magistrate
David Kossoff
Wrightmore
Nicholas Phipps
Orlando
Ron Moody
The Shadows
Hank B. Marvin
Bruce Welch
Brian Bennett
Brian Locking

Director
Peter Yates

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