Bank Holiday **** (1938, Margaret Lockwood, Hugh Williams, John Lodge, Wally Patch, Kathleen Harrison, René Ray, Linden Travers) – Classic Movie Review 6972

Director Carol Reed’s 1938 British Gainsborough Pictures black and white movie Bank Holiday is a highly engaging, expertly done, trailblazing documentary-style comedy drama about assorted London folk on a trip to sunny seaside town Bexborough (or Brighton) on a British summer Bank Holiday weekend.

It established the template for this popular kind of film, leading to Holiday Camp (1947), Here Come the Huggetts (1948) and the Carry On movies, and predicting TV’s soap operas The Grove Family and EastEnders.

Director Reed smoothly turns stereotypes into characters with the help of an excellent screenplay by Rodney Ackland and Roger Burford, and the devoted work of his splendid cast of performers on winning form.

Chief among them, Margaret Lockwood stars as nurse Catherine Lawrence and Hugh Williams as her lover Geoffrey, an unmarried couple who plan a dirty weekend at the Grand Hotel, René Ray plays a beauty queen called Doreen Richards who looks for glory at a beauty contest, while Kathleen Harrison and Wally Patch play the Cockney couple May and Arthur who look for simpler family pleasures as their kids kick up chaos.

The drama has dated but happily not faded, while the comedy is still extremely jolly and amusing, and the portrait of Thirties Brits at play just before World War Two is very revealing.

Also in the cast are John Lodge, Merle Tottenham, Linden Travers, Garry Marsh, Jeanne Stuart, Wilfrid Lawson, Felix Aylmer, Alf Goddard, Michael Rennie, Arthur West Payne, David Anthony and Angela Glynne.

Bank Holiday is also known as Three on a Weekend.

It is one of the six classic movies in The Margaret Lockwood Collection DVD box set.

Bexborough is a fictional town, and the scenes of the beach front and piers are from other British seaside towns, mostly Brighton. Geoffrey sees posters for a film at the Gaumont cinema, Sinners, which is also fictional.

The storyline concerning the unmarried couple enjoying a sexual relationship got the film into trouble with the US censor and the film was judged unsuitable for release. It was then re-edited and re-titled before finally being passed for release. It was cut from 86 minutes to 81 minutes (censored).

The main cast are John Lodge as Stephen Howard, Margaret Lockwood as Catherine Lawrence, Hugh Williams as Geoffrey, Rene Ray as Doreen Richards, Merle Tottenham as Milly, Linden Travers as Ann Howard, Wally Patch as Arthur, Kathleen Harrison as May, Garry Marsh as ‘Follies’ manager, Jeanne Stuart as Miss Mayfair, Wilfrid Lawson as Police sergeant, Felix Aylmer as Surgeon and Leonard Sharp as the petrol pump attendant Jack.

It is based on a story by Hans Wilhelm and Rodney Ackland.

It is shot by Arthur Crabtree, produced by Edward Black and scored by Louis Levy.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 6972

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