The Holiday and British Film

 

From the cover: ‘Using the history of the British holiday as a framework, Matthew Kerry offers a refreshing insight into a previously neglected area of popular British cinema – the holiday film. Looking at key films from the silent period to the recent past, Kerry considers how these representations may reinforce feelings of national identity. The book includes production histories and textual analyses of films such as A Seaside Girl (1907), Holiday Camp (1947), Summer Holiday (1963), and Bhaji On The Beach (1993), and provides an exploration of their social function.’

Well, the books finished and out at last. Very pleased with the results. I’ve already heard that wisecrack “what’s next?” from a couple of folks… but never mind. Sometimes you need to stand still and enjoy the moment. They don’t come round too often. In coming weeks I’ll blog a few entries on the contents of the book here and also some extra thoughts that didn’t make it to the final draft.

Here’s a break down of the contents:

Introduction – Here I consider the analogy between film and the holiday. Jeffrey Hill considers that holidays are ‘imagined events’ claiming succinctly that holidays  ‘exist in the mind’ and are ‘capable of generating immense pleasures of anticipation and remembrance’ (Hill, 2002: 86). In some respects the idea of the holiday as an ‘imagined event’ is what links the holiday to cinema. Kuhn argues that a common feature of 1930s cinemagoers’ accounts of their visits to the pictures is a pattern of ‘anticipation, transportation and elevation’ with audience members looking forward to-, then being ‘carried away’ by the films, and subsequently hanging onto this feeling until their next visit (Kuhn, 2002: 229, 230 and 233).

Chapter 1: The British Holiday Film and Its Audience – In this chapter I offer a speculative analysis of the ways in which the holiday film might engage with society, and consider whether it reflects or critically engages with it.

Chapter 2: Theorising the Holiday – I look at the ways in which the holiday has been theorised including Urry’s ‘tourist gaze’ (2002) and theories of national identity (Anderson, 1991 and Billig, 1995) and consider how these might be linked to ideas about the British holiday film.

A patriotic advert for Blackppol Pleasure Beach

Chapter 3: The Postcard Comes To Life: Early British Film and the Seaside –

This chapter focuses on representations of the seaside holiday in postcards and films of the late Victorian and Edwardian period. Films under analysis include Landing at Low Tide (1899) and A Seaside Girl (1907), the latter being one of the few surviving films that Cecil Hepworth made in Bognor Regis.

A Seaside Girl (1907)

 

Chapter 4: Holidays With Pay: The Working Holiday of the 1930s – This chapter is themed around the idea of the working holiday on film, and I analyse the Fields film Sing As We Go (1934) and Formby’s No Limit (1935), to support my arguments. I also refer to the little-seen Sam Small Leaves Town (1937) and Bank Holiday (1938).

Chapter 5: Reconstructing the Family Holiday: The Holiday Camp in Postwar British Film  – In this chapter I consider how Billy Butlin appeared to capture the postwar mood with his large commercial camps, and how this idea was represented in the film Holiday Camp (1947). I examine how the film’s narrative works to ideologically reconstruct the family unit, and its traditional gender roles which had been deconstructed in the Second World War.

Chapter 6: From Austerity to Affluence: Holidays Abroad in Postwar British Film – In this chapter I investigate the foreign holiday in the latter postwar period. Films under analysis include Innocents In Paris (1953), Doctor At Sea (1955), Carry On Cruising (1962) and Summer Holiday (1963).

Cliff Richard in Athens for Summer Holiday (1963)

Chapter 7: Grim Nostalgia and the Traditional British Holiday of the 1970s – In this chapter anxieties concerning British identity in a period of cultural and economic crisis are examined by looking at the representation of the traditional British holiday in the 1970s. The films I analyse to support my arguments include Carry On At Your Convenience (1971), The Best Pair of Legs in the Business (1973), That’ll Be The Day (1973), Carry On Behind (1975) and Confessions From A Holiday Camp (1977).

Chapter 8: Interrogating Representations of National Identity in the Recent British Holiday Film – In this chapter I consider if there is a sense of Britishness that accommodates multiculturalism through the use of the holiday in Bhaji on the Beach (1993) and Last Resort (2000). I also look at other representations of the holiday film of the past few decades including Guest House Paradiso (1999), Kevin and Perry Go Large (2000), A Room For Romeo Brass (2000), Venus (2004), Somers Town (2008) and Never Let Me Go (2010).

The book’s conclusion summarises all of the above, and the Select Filmography lists all of the films mentioned in the book. I will post a more comprehensive list of Holiday Films elsewhere on this Blog.