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| The beauty contest in Every Day's A Holiday (1964) |
As British society became increasingly affluent at the end
of the 1950s and beginning of the 1960s, the holidaymaker was confronted with
more choice about where to spend their annual vacation. With the increase in
people choosing to go abroad for one or two weeks, holiday camps had to target
new types of consumers, apart from families that had flocked to the camps in
the previous decade (as represented in the film Holiday Camp 1947). Butlin’s for example, encouraged honeymoon
couples and teenagers to visit his camps, with promotional films targeted at
both consumer groups in 1959 – 1960[1].
The lengthy honeymoon sequence filmed at Butlin’s, Bognor
Regis in The Leather Boys (1963), gives
us a good idea of what the camps were like at this time. As had become
increasingly common in British social realist films of the 1960s, the scenes
are shot on location, rather than studio mock-ups, although the black and white
photography tempers the gaudy colour schemes of the camp’s interiors.
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| Butlin's Bognor Regis - The Leather Boys (1963) |
In the
film Bognor Butlin’s is still populated by people of all ages, and there is
old-time dancing in the ballroom, although this gives way to the Twist as the
evening wears on and the dancers lose their inhibitions.
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| Dot (Rita Tushingham) does the Twist |
The
camp’s chalet gives Reggie (Colin Campbell) and his new wife, Dot (Rita
Tushingham), the opportunity to be completely alone together for the first
time, and on their third day, Dot complains that she hasn’t seen anything of
the camp since they arrived.
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| Reggie (Colin Campbell) and Dot in their chalet |
As we might expect from this genre of film, there
is a grim undercurrent to the jollity of the camp. As Dot becomes accustomed to
its attractions, she becomes increasingly loud and brassy, represented by the
bleaching of her hair into a back combed, candyfloss peroxide.
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| Dot in a Butlin's hair salon |
She
is determined to enjoy herself and gets drunk in a typical Butlin’s Beachcomber
bar – replete with tribal masks and palm tree decorations. Reggie sulks in
their chalet, and when Dot returns, all giggly and tipsy, he chastises her for
telling ‘dirty jokes’ to strangers.
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| Dot asks Reggie to tell a joke |
She
considers this all part of the holiday fun, but he reminds her that they are on
their honeymoon, rather than their holiday. This highlights the difference in
attitudes that a holiday and a honeymoon appear to invite, with Reggie not
wishing Dot to share their fun with anyone else. The disagreements that they
have during the honeymoon are the beginning of the problems which eventually
drive their marriage apart.
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| By the fountains at Butlin's, Clacton, Every Day's A Holiday |
In contrast to the relatively miserable experience described
above, the appeal of holiday camps for teenagers is best exemplified in the
rock ‘n’ roll musical Every Day’s A
Holiday (1964), which goes some way to cashing in on the success of Cliff
Richard’s Summer Holiday (1963), but
without the exotic locations. This film was shot at Butlin’s, Clacton, in
widescreen and Technicolor, and unlike The
Leather Boys, the holiday camp setting is celebrated as a place where
communities are constructed rather than undermined. The film also appears to be
an invitation to teenagers to either visit the camps for work, or for their
holidays, and therefore captures some of Butlin’s intentions of the time. As
Read points out:
The ‘Swinging Sixties’ brought a new
breed of holidaymaker, single teenagers. They had money and the freedom to go
on holiday without their parents. They leapt onto their Lambrettas and into
their Ford Cortinas and they headed for Butlin’s, where there was free
entertainment during the evening and free activities during the day (Read,
1986: 170).
In order to attract the teenage market, Butlin’s
incorporated rock ‘n’ roll ballrooms, juke boxes, coffee bars, and special
teenage chalets which could sleep four in double bunks. ‘During the summer
months it wasn’t unusual to find 3,000 single young people at one camp in any
one week’ (Read, 1986: 170).
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| Mike Sarne, John Leyton and Grazina Frame |
This was the era in which Every Day’s A Holiday was released. The film follows the exploits
of a group of youths who take summer jobs at Butlin’s, their romantic
encounters, and their involvement in a talent contest which is televised from
the camp. The film’s cast includes pop stars such as Mike Sarne (who had
previously had a hit with the single ‘Come Outside’), John Leyton (of ‘Johnny
Remember Me’ fame), Freddie and the Dreamers (as the camp’s chefs), and The
Mojos as themselves.
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| Freddie and the Dreamers sing 'What's Cookin'?' |
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| The Mojos performing in the South Seas Bar - note the window into the swimming pool behind them |
The film makes full use of the Clacton camp’s location, with
scenes around the pool, the infant’s playroom, the South Seas Bar, and the
Crazy Horse Saloon. Timely references are made in the film to the burgeoning
‘free love’ of the 1960s, and its consequences. In the opening scene the camp’s
secretary, Miss Slightly (Liz Fraser) is seen reading a book entitled Sex and the Unmarried Girl.
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| Liz Fraser |
Later on the
identical twins Susan and Jennifer (Susan and Jennifer Baker) are working in
the camp’s nursery where they tend to the children’s bath time, and sing ‘Romeo
Jones’. The scene offers an ideological representation of a woman’s place in
the home as the twins tend to the toddlers and sing lyrics that highlight the
importance of looking for an ordinary man ‘to hold forever’.
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| The Baker twins sing 'Romeo Jones' |
Butlin’s introduced an Every
Day’s A Holiday competition to tie-in with the film, with prizes to the
value of £1,500 including 95 holidays and £100 cash [2],
(ABC Film Review, January 1965: 24 –
25). Entrants had to list ten advantages of taking a Butlin’s holiday in the
correct order, in what appears to be a thinly disguised exercise in market
research: did entrants prefer the ‘variety concerts and repertory shows’ above
‘separate ballrooms for Modern, Rock ‘n’ roll and Old Time dancing’ for
example? (ABC Film Review, January
1965: 24 – 25).
Kinematograph
Weekly commented that ‘practically every known ingredient of
success has been mixed into this jolly film, and it should extend its appeal
well beyond the wide fringe of “pop” stardom. Good musical attraction for all
but stuffed shirts’ (Kinematograph Weekly,
November 5, 1964: 8). Whilst The Daily
Cinema’s review highlighted the
appeal of the youthful cast but also referred to the holiday setting as if this
was a now well-established formula in film:
The film follows the time-honoured
routine of getting together a bunch of attractive youngsters, dumping them down
in a holiday setting and providing just enough complications to delay the
inevitable happy ending for ninety odd minutes …It’s all good family fun with
loads of teenage appeal and most filmgoers should find it a sure cure for the
January blues (M.H. The Daily Cinema,
October 30, 1964: 6).
Monthly
Film Bulletin was less favourable, but appreciated
the director’s quiet ‘laughs at the real-life camp…notably during an amateur
beauty contest’ (Monthly Film Bulletin,
December 1964: 176).
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| Mass catering in Every Day's A Holiday |
This youthful representation of the British holiday camp was
relatively short-lived: Billy Butlin’s son, Bobby, took over the responsibility
for the camps in 1968, and decided to no longer take bookings from teenagers.
By this time Butlin’s had a reputation for being ‘a glorified knocking shop’
(Read, 1986: 171). Bobby wanted to bring families back to the camps, and by
1971, figures were up again, with the company taking record bookings (Read,
1986: 172). Butlin’s peak year was 1972, when six million holidaymakers visited
the camps (Barker: 2005).
*Seaside Swingers
was the American title given to Every
Day’s A Holiday. The film's release date is sometimes given as 1965. It was released at the end of 1964 / beginning of 1965.
Bibliography & Further Reading:
ABC
Film Review, January 1965: 24 – 25
Barker, Jonathan (Producer and Director), 2005, Coast, BBC/Open University
Butlin, Billy, 1982, The
Billy Butlin Story, A Showman to the End, London: Robson Books
Kinematograph
Weekly, November 5, 1964: 8
M.H. The Daily Cinema,
October 30, 1964: 6
Monthly
Film Bulletin, December 1964: 176
North, Rex, 1962, The
Butlin Story, London: Jarrolds
Read, Sue, 1986, Hello
Campers! Celebrating 50 Years of Butlin’s, London: Bantam Press
[1] BFI database: Butlin’s By The Sea Campaign: Honeymooners 1 (1959), and Honeymooners 2 (1960), and Butlin’s By The Sea Campaign: Teens 1 – 5 (1960). Winter breaks were also promoted in similar films.
[2] Butlin’s kindly offered to refund
deposits to any winners who had already booked a Butlin holiday and also give
them £5 spending money.
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