Last Holiday **** (1950, Alec Guinness, Beatrice Campbell, Kay Walsh) – Classic Movie Review 2,592

The neat and nimble 1950 black comedy film Last Holiday stars the expert and excellent Alec Guinness, as a man told he has only a short time to live, in a subtly sentimental original story and screenplay by J B Priestley.

Director Henry Cass’s nifty and nimble 1950 British small-scale black comedy film Last Holiday stars Alec Guinness, who is his usual expert and excellent self in a subtly sentimental, neatly scripted original story and screenplay by the esteemed English novelist and playwright J B Priestley.

Last Holiday is an Ealing Studios-style comedy, and sometimes confused as their work, but it is made by rivals Associated British. A restrained and understated, very English dark-toned comedy, it is amusing and characterful, and a good showcase for Priestley’s dryly ironic and slyly witty sense of humour. 

Alec Guinness as George Bird and Helen Cherry as hotel receptionist Miss Mellows.

Guinness plays the sad and lonely farm machinery salesman George Bird, a northern Englishman who decides to have fun because he thinks he only has a brief while – maybe even just a month – to live when his physician glibly informs him that he is suffering from the rare malady of Lampington’s Disease. That disorder is so rare, by the way, that it doesn’t actually exist, a fictional disease invented for its plot and thematic importance.

Cashing in his life savings to take a last holiday at an expensive seaside hotel, he cheers up a rich gallery of fairly lovable stereotypes, including a Labour MP Cabinet Minister, a common bogus pretend titled lady, a new moneyman, and a sad war hero. He finds all sorts of opportunities are now open to him, offers of work and money gratuitously coming his way, but he thinks he is no position to take advantage of them. Cheery cockney Joe Clarence (Sidney James) takes his money to place a bet for him, and it wins him eight times his stake. At the same time, he returns the favour and seeks to help people in difficulty financially.

For the first time, and ironically only now that it’s all too late, Bird acquires friends, influence and money, and falls in love with Sheila Rockingham (Beatrice Campbell), the sweet young woman who is preoccupied with a wastrel husband, Derek Rockingham (Brian Worth). He freely and generously helps her by giving her money so she can bail Derek out. He also offers money to the mousy Miss Fox (Esma Cannon), downtrodden companion to the awful Lady Oswington (Muriel George), so that she can open her own gifte shoppe and be free of her.

Perhaps it is not quite Guinness’s best work, but the star performance is strong and the vehicle for him pretty good, and it is still a very enjoyable, civilised entertainment, smoothly done. The equally expert, vintage British characters actors help out as always, and help out a lot here. Priestley gives them plenty to chew on.

Kay Walsh is outstanding as the strict but kindly hotel housekeeper, Helen Cherry is charming as the cheerful hotel receptionist Miss Mellows, Ernest Thesiger plays the snooty and supercilious Sir Trevor Lampington (Thesiger), the doctor after whom Lampington’s disease is named, Madame Kirkwood-Hackett gives a Margaret Rutherford-style turn as the bossy Miss Hatfield, Coco Aslan plays the stereotypical Italian cook as Gambini, and Heather Wilde is sweet as Maggie the nice whispering maid.

During a strike by the hotel’s staff, all the oddball guests pull together in happy camaraderie, cooking and eating their own dinner. All is well, very well, or at least it seems that all is well.

Also in the cast are Bernard Lee, Wilfrid Hyde White, Jean Colin, Hal Osmond, Brian Oulton, Arthur Howard, Lockwood West, Campbell Cotts, Moultrie Kelsall, Eric Maturin and Ronald Simpson as Dr Pevensey, the quack whose Lampington’s disease diagnosis starts the plot off.

David McCallum Sr (26 March 1897 – 21 March 1972) is the blind fiddler at the start and end of the film. He was the Scottish leader and principal first violinist of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the London Philharmonic Orchestra and the Scottish National Orchestra, and the father of actor David McCallum.

It is shot at Welwyn Studios with location filming at Luton, Bedfordshire (for the shopping mall), and Torquay, Devon (for the seaside hotel, The Rosetor Hotel, since demolished).

Uncredited work was done on the screenplay by J Lee Thompson.

It was remade as Last Holiday in 2006 with Queen Latifah (as Georgia Byrd) in a project intended for John Candy but shelved on his death.

Last Holiday inspired cult Finnish director Aki Kaurismåki to make I Hired a Contract Killer in 1990, with his Ealing Studios-style script modelled on it.

Henry Cass is also the director of 29 Acacia Avenue (1945), The Glass Mountain (1949), Castle in the Air (1952), Blood of the Vampire (1958), The Man Who Couldn’t Walk (1960), and The Hand (1960).

The cast

The cast are Alec Guinness as George Bird, Beatrice Campbell as Sheila Rockingham, Brian Worth as Derek Rockingham, Kay Walsh as Mrs Poole, Wilfrid Hyde-White as Chalfont, Sid James as Joe Clarence, Jean Colin as Daisy Clarence, Helen Cherry as Miss Mellows, Muriel George as Lady Oswington, Esma Cannon as Miss Fox, Moultrie Kelsall as Sir Robert Kyle, Bernard Lee as Inspector Wilton, Coco Aslan as Gambini, Heather Wilde as Maggie the maid, Ernest Thesiger as Sir Trevor Lampington, Eric Maturin as Wrexham, Campbell Cotts as Cabinet Minister Bellinghurst, Brian Oulton as Prescott, Madame Kirkwood-Hackett as Miss Hatfield, Lockwood West as Dinsdale, Ronald Simpson as Dr Pevensey, David McCallum as the Fiddler, Meier Tzelniker as Baltin, Arthur Howard as Burden, Jack Arrow as lorry driver.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2,592

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