Holiday on the Buses (1973)
Directed by: Bryan Izzard
Written by: Ronald Chesney, Ronald Wolfe
Starring: Doris Hare, Michael Robbins, Reg Varney, Stephen Lewis
UK
AVAILABLE ON DVD
RUNNING TIME: 85 mins
REVIEWED BY: Dr Lener, Official HCF Critic
Sacked by the bus company for crashing two buses, Stan and Jack get jobs as drivers ferrying punters to and from a holiday camp in Wales, only to find that their old nemesis Blakey is there as the chief security guard, having also lost his previous job as inspector because of the continual slacking of Stan and Jack. Stan invites his family there, but this causes a series of disasters, while Stan and Jack still can’t stop chasing women half their age….
The third and last of Hammer’s critically derided films based on the TV series On The Buses, Holiday On The Buses is also by far the least. It certainly has its funny moments – I loved Stan accidently blowing up the drains when he throws a cigarette into the toilet, and the same toilet being discovered by two inebriated guys returning from an evening out who think that the toilet had been kindly put there in case anyone needed a wee – but then my childish mind tends to find toilets amusing anyway. There’s also more bedroom farce than before, which I usually enjoy. But far more time is now spent showing our two reprobates trying to get laid, which means that there’s less variety of comical situations, and I have to say that this time I was more on the side of Blakey in his battles with Stan and Jack. It’s nice to see a bit more of this terrific comic character, and he’s given a bit of pathos in this one, but that’s the problem, I felt so sorry for him that I really didn’t like our two ‘heroes’ much at all, even when Jack sleeps with the nurse he’s engaged to despite actor Bob Grant’s teeth being probably more horrifying than anything in the last few horror movies Hammer made. After all, Blakey was only doing his job when he used to be an inspector, trying to get the two layabouts to actually do their job properly. Reg’s sister Olive is also treated really meanly by the script, far more so than before. Her husband doesn’t seem to want her just because she’s supposedly ‘ugly’, and the way the slow camera pasn up her bikini clad body, intending to show that she’s not a ‘looker’, leaves a bad taste.
Every single female in the film appears to be ‘up for it’, even Reg’s mother who, in a slightly sweet subplot, ‘scores’ with an old Irish charmer. It’s all a bit limited, like a later Carry On film with a lesser cast, though little Arthur is now old enough to spray a room with ink, while the characters of Wally and Lil Briggs are from Ronald Wolfe and Ronald Chesney’s other hit L.W.T. sitcom Romany Jones. The ‘Pontins’ name is in nearly every shot, though the greater number of outdoor scenes in a film that was obviously filmed during the summer [as opposed to the winter like the previous two films] makes for a more appealing watch visually. I certainly didn’t hate Holiday On The Buses, which like its predecessors is a rather quaint relic [though there’s a quick flash of boobs in this one when a woman’s top falls off] of a bygone age unless you really are easily offended, and how stupidly politically correct we’ve become now [it would never get made today]. But it is extremely repetitious and often has a mean spirited nature, two things which hamper its effectiveness as a simple comedy.
Rating: 
Be the first to comment