Confessions from a Holiday Camp

Last updated

Confessions from a Holiday Camp
Confessions from a holiday camp.jpg
Promotional poster
Directed by Norman Cohen
Written by Christopher Wood
Produced by Greg Smith,
Michael Klinger (executive producer)
Starring Robin Askwith
Antony Booth
Bill Maynard
Doris Hare
Sheila White
Cinematography Ken Hodges
Edited by Geoffrey Foot
Music by Ed Welch
Distributed by Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc.
Release date
  • 1 August 1977 (1977-08-01)
Running time
88 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish

Confessions from a Holiday Camp is a 1977 British comedy film directed by Norman Cohen and starring Robin Askwith. [1] It wsd written by Christopher Wood. The film was released in North America in 1978 under the title Confessions of a Summer Camp Counsellor. [2] It is the last film in the series which began with Confessions of a Window Cleaner (1974).

Contents

Plot

Timmy Lea and his brother-in-law Sidney Noggett are working as entertainment officers at Funfrall, a typical British holiday camp. The staff are lazy and inefficient, preferring to laze by the pool rather than organise activities for the holiday campers. A new owner, Mr. Whitemonk, an ex-prison officer, takes over the camp and is determined to install discipline into the staff. He is on the verge of dismissing Timmy and Sidney; however, Sidney's suggestion of organising a beauty contest changes his mind.

Cast

Production

Producer Michael Klinger was not happy with the script, noting a number of problems that he felt detracted from the quality that set the series apart from its imitators. [3]

The holiday camp used in the film was Mill Rythe Holiday Village on Hayling Island in Hampshire. The railway station scene was filmed at Radlett. The water skiing scene was filmed at Ruislip Lido.[ citation needed ]

Soundtrack

The title track to the film was called "Give Me England" and was performed by scrumpy and western band The Wurzels, arranged and conducted by Ed Welch and produced by Bob Barratt. [4] It was released as a 45rpm single by EMI records Ltd (EMI 2677). The Wurzels released an album of the same name in 1977, which featured the track along with its B-Side "Speedy Gonzales".

Critical reception

Monthly Film Bulletin said "A holiday camp provides an all too appropriate backdrop for the strained and patronising low comedy of the relentlessly proliferating Confessions series. This latest addition is as styleless as any Carry On movie, but lacks even the flashes of genial spontaneity which sometimes redeemed that series. The smirking hero's amorous exploits are interspersed with tedious attempts at slapstick and egregious cracks about gays and foreigners. "Give me England every time", blares the xenophobic theme song, yet the film-makers’ essentially contemptuous view of home-grown mores is summed up in the presentation of Lea's father, who wears a cloth cap at all times, and when told to use his table napkin, promptly blows his nose on it." [5]

The Radio Times Guide to Films gave the film 1/5 stars, writing: "The Confessions films relied on a blend of saucy humour and "What the Butler Saw"-style smut. This was the fourth and last of these cheap comedies, with Robin Askwith as an over-sexed entertainments officer at a camp run by an ex-prison officer." [6]

Variety wrote: "[The] Confessions series has more than proved its worth at U.K. and assorted Commonwealth boxoffices. Yet understandably none of those working class masquerades (as a window cleaner, a pop performer, a driving instructor) received favorable reviews or were able to easily sell their sniggering, distinctly British humor to foreign markets. Confessions From a Holiday Camp, the series latest ... is no better, no worse, nor any different than its predecessors. Excepting the new profession, the film reprises virtually the same plot, cast, and production team as the former three. That means that Robin Askwith as the innocent Lea and Anthony Booth as his lecherous brother in law Sid go through their usual sex-addled Laurel & Hardy act, but this time in the guise of incompetent entertainment officers at Funfurall Holiday Camp. It also means that Linda Hayden, once again, strips off at every available opportunity. And that the talents of Doris Hare and Bill Maynard as Lea's parents are wasted another time around. Norman Cohen directs with his usual numbing dosage of slapstick, vulgarity, and innuendo." [7]

Further proposed films in the series

Although Holiday Camp would turn out to be the last film in the series, a fifth and a sixth film, Confessions of a Plumber's Mate and Confessions of a Private Soldier, had been planned in 1977. Filming was set to begin on Plumber's Mate at the end of February 1978. Robin Askwith even expressed a desire to direct Private Soldier, but neither film materialised. In November 1977 the studio cancelled plans for future films. [8] [9] Columbia Pictures president David Begelman, who had been very supportive of the British film industry and who had greenlighted the first Confessions film, had been implicated in a cheque-forging scandal and either quit or was fired. His successor had no interest in financing low-budget, profitable British films. [8]

Producer Michael Klinger rejected a script based on Confessions from a Haunted House. [10] Plans to shoot a made-for-video Confessions film in the 1980s also came to nothing, [8] as did a proposed 1992 film, Confessions of a Squaddie, which was proposed with action due to take place in post-Gulf War Kuwait.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tony Booth (actor)</span> English actor (1931–2017)

Anthony George Booth was an English actor, best known for his role as Mike Rawlins in the BBC series Till Death Us Do Part. He was the father-in-law of former prime minister Tony Blair and the widower of Coronation Street star Pat Phoenix, having married her a few days before her death in 1986.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bill Maynard</span> English comedian and actor (1928–2018)

Walter Frederick George Williams, better known by his stage name Bill Maynard, was an English comedian and actor. He began working in television in the 1950s, notably starring alongside Terry Scott in Great Scott – It's Maynard! (1955–56). In the 1970s and 1980s, he starred in the successful British sitcoms Oh No It's Selwyn Froggitt and The Gaffer and appeared in five films in the Carry On series. After a hiatus from television work in the late 1980s, Maynard starred as Claude Jeremiah Greengrass in the long-running television series Heartbeat from 1992 to 2000, reprising the character in the spin-off The Royal in 2003.

Robin Mark Askwith is an English actor and singer who has appeared in a number of film, television and stage productions.

Christopher Hovelle Wood was an English screenwriter and novelist, best known for the Confessions series of novels and films which he wrote as Timothy Lea. Under his own name, he adapted two James Bond novels for the screen: The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker (1979).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Linda Hayden (actress)</span> English actress (born 1953)

Linda Hayden is an English film and television actress. She is best known for her roles in 1970s British horror films and sex comedies.

<i>Here Come the Double Deckers!</i> 1971 British childrens TV series

Here Come the Double Deckers! is a 17-part British children's television series originally broadcast in 1971 on BBC1, revolving around the adventures of seven children whose den was an old red double-decker London bus in a scrap yard. The programme made its US debut on 12 September 1970 at 10:30 am ET on ABC. The entire series was released on DVD in the UK on 1 November 2010.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sheila White (actress)</span> British film, television and stage actress (1948–2018)

Sheila Susan White was an English film, television and stage actress.

<i>Confessions of a Window Cleaner</i> 1974 British film by Val Guest

Confessions of a Window Cleaner is a 1974 British sex comedy film, directed by Val Guest.

<i>Confessions of a Driving Instructor</i> 1976 British film by Norman Cohen

Confessions of a Driving Instructor is a 1976 British sex-farce film directed by Norman Cohen and starring Robin Askwith and Anthony Booth.

<i>Salt and Pepper</i> (film) 1968 British film by Richard Donner

Salt and Pepper is a 1968 British comedy film directed by Richard Donner and starring Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawford, Michael Bates, Ilona Rodgers and John Le Mesurier. It was written by Michael Pertwee.

Carol Hawkins is an English actress, best known for her various comic roles in numerous television sitcoms and films in the 1970s and 1980s.

Sex comedy, erotic comedy or more broadly sexual comedy is a genre in which comedy is motivated by sexual situations and love affairs. Although "sex comedy" is primarily a description of dramatic forms such as theatre and film, literary works such as those of Ovid and Giovanni Boccaccio may be considered sex comedies.

<i>Confessions of a Pop Performer</i> 1975 British film by Norman Cohen

Confessions of a Pop Performer is a 1975 British sex-farce film directed by Norman Cohen and starring Robin Askwith. It is the second instalment in the Confessions series and continues the erotic adventures of Timothy Lea, based on the Christopher Wood novel Confessions from the Pop Scene, which was later re-published under the film's title.

Sue Longhurst is an English actress who appeared in several X-rated sex comedies in the 1970s.

<i>Bless This House</i> (film) 1972 British comedy film by Gerald Thomas

Bless This House is a 1972 British comedy film directed by Gerald Thomas starring Sid James, Diana Coupland, Terry Scott, June Whitfield and Peter Butterworth. It is a spin-off from the television sitcom Bless This House.

<i>Adventures of a Plumbers Mate</i> 1978 British film by Stanley Long

Adventures of a Plumber's Mate is a 1978 British sex comedy film directed by Stanley Long and starring Christopher Neil as Sid South. It was written by Stephen D. Frances and Aubrey Cash. Following Adventures of a Taxi Driver (1976) and Adventures of a Private Eye (1977), it was the final film of the series which attempted to occupy the same market position as the better-known and more successful Confessions series starring Robin Askwith.

<i>Lets Get Laid</i> 1978 British film by James Kenelm Clarke

Let's Get Laid, also known as Love Trap, is a 1978 British comedy film directed by James Kenelm Clarke and starring Robin Askwith, Fiona Richmond and Anthony Steel. A man returns to London after being demobbed at the end of the Second World War, only to find himself suspected of a murder in Wapping.

Michael Klinger was a British film producer and distributor. After Tony Tenser, then a publicist, became his business partner, the two men created the Compton cinema chain and distribution company and financed Repulsion (1965) and Cul-de-sac (1966) both directed by Roman Polanski. After their association ended, Klinger produced Get Carter (1971), starring Michael Caine, and Gold (1974), with Roger Moore in the lead, and was the executive producer of the 'Confessions' series of sex comedies with Robin Askwith.

<i>Confessions from the David Galaxy Affair</i> 1979 British sexploitation comedy film by Willy Roe

Confessions from the David Galaxy Affair is a 1979 British sexploitation comedy film directed by Willy Roe and starring Alan Lake, Glynn Edwards, Mary Millington, Bernie Winters, Diana Dors and Anthony Booth.

Gregory Ivor Smith was a British film producer who had successes in the world of theatre and television.

References

  1. ↑ "Confessions from a Holiday Camp". British Film Institute Collections Search. Retrieved 26 November 2023.
  2. ↑ Powers, Ned (7 April 1978). "At The Movies". The StarPhoenix . Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. p. 19.
  3. ↑ Klinger, Michael. "Michael Klinger Papers" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 5 January 2023.
  4. ↑ Jones, Martin Christopher (2001). Psychedelic Decadence: Sex, Drugs, Low Art in Sixties & Seventies Britain. Critical Vision. p. 78. ISBN   9781900486149.
  5. ↑ "Confessions from a Holiday Camp". Monthly Film Bulletin . 44 (516): 190. 1977. ProQuest   1305846527 – via ProQuest.
  6. ↑ Radio Times Guide to Films (18th ed.). London: Immediate Media Company. 2017. p. 196. ISBN   9780992936440.
  7. ↑ "Confessions from a Holiday Camp". Variety . 288 (2): 20. 17 August 1977. ProQuest   1401318031 – via ProQuest.
  8. 1 2 3 Askwith, Robin (2012). "Chapter 10: The Further Confessions of a Window Cleaner". The Confessions of Robin Askwith. Random House. p. no page number. ISBN   9781448118687.
  9. ↑ Wood, Christopher (2006). James Bond, The Spy I Loved. Twenty First Century Publishers, Ltd. p. 163. ISBN   978-1-904433-53-8.
  10. ↑ Klinger, Michael. "Michael Klinger Papers" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 31 March 2022.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.