Seaside Swingers (1964) Poster

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6/10
Another example of a good 'bad' film.
Scaramouche200417 February 2005
Warning: Spoilers
I have given this picture six stars, rather out of sentiment than as an actual rating of this film.

Years ago, this film was a personal favourite of my sister and her best friend and through them, my brother and I also became quite hooked. The film was only about twenty years old then (if that) and still therefore looked rather hip and trendy in my eyes. We thought the characters were hilarious, the songs catchy and the dances amazing.

However after years of being lost in the obscurity of a growing mind, I was recently presented with a copy and I couldn't wait to load it into the now almost redundant VCR and relive this page of my youth.

Regrettably I learnt a hard lesson from this. Sometimes it is best for your past to remain where it is, and be remembered for what it was...it shouldn't be relived.

If the British film industry has one failing then it is musicals. We make great war films, love stories, Romantic comedies...need I mention the greatness of the Ealing comedies of the fifties and the subsequent Carry On's...amazing.

But when it comes to musicals...forget it....We are hopeless.

I still like the songs, I still find the characters amusing, but as for the plot and those almost cringe worthy dance numbers, I am afraid it has left me questioning my youth...Was it mis-spent? Why did I like this film so much? A musical number would just spring up out of nowhere, bearing no relation to the story being told, and I cannot stress too strongly that when it comes to the dance numbers.....well certain viewers may find certain scenes distressing.

But still, once again a product of its time...the swinging sixties.

Every single song in here is worthy of praise and merit and are sung beautifully by John 'Great Escape' Leyton, Mike 'Come Outside' Sarne and team, with I think the best performances coming from The Baker Twins' singing Romeo Jones and of course Freddie and the Dreamers, one act I personally thought were better than the Beatles and who signified youthful innocence and exuberance in a world rapidly going mad and psychedelic. A world and genre that was eventually to swallow them without trace.

Despite all these negative remarks, it is a good film and a bad film in one. Believe me it is possible...some films like this one, cannot be taken too seriously, so we love them for what they are despite the fact that they are on the whole dreadful.

It had been twenty years or probably even more since I last saw this film, now I have seen it again, it will probably be twenty more, but it was fun to look back...albeit with a due sense of disappointment...it just wasn't the same somehow.

I guess it appeals more to the 10/11 year old me, than it does the mature thirty something, I am now.
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5/10
A working class musical
Leofwine_draca19 July 2017
Warning: Spoilers
EVERY DAY'S A HOLIDAY is a light and breezy British working class musical in much the same line as Cliff Richard's SUMMER HOLIDAY and the like. The story sees a bunch of juveniles shipping off for summer camp. The guys are all self-indulgent bores like Mike Sarne and John Leyton while the girls are impossibly perfect. While some light romantic material makes up the thrust of the plot, there's a lot of humour from the supporting players, including many underrated character actors of British cinema such as Charles Lloyd Pack, Liz Fraser, and Michael Ripper. The good news is that the musical hits are dated but engaging, with the likes of Freddie and the Dreamers headlining. It's good, cheesy fun as a result.
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5/10
Every Day's a Holiday
Prismark1020 May 2021
Every Day's a Holiday is a Cliff Richard musical without the Bachelor Boy himself.

It even has Ron Moody and Richard O'Sullivan who appeared in some Cliff Richard musicals.

Freddie and the Dreamers play some crazy cooks, in essence they take on the role of the Shadows.

The story involves a group off teens taking a job at a holiday resort and take part in a talent competition that will be televised.

Gerry Pullman has fallen for a girl but find himself dealing with a rival. The story is flimsy and silly.

The film is a little too cheesy and a bit of its time period. There is mirror scene where Gerry riffs Frank Sinatra but the Al Jolson scene is unfortunate. The cinematography is by Nicolas Roeg which is a plus for the movie.

It also has too many songs and they are rather forgettable, unlike say the songs in Summer Holiday.

However it does have some interesting dance numbers from choreographer Gillian Lynne.
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Soak yourself in British Invasion Style!
Year28897 May 2003
This is cross between Hard Day's Night and Summer Holiday which does nothing to threaten the dominance of either in the British 60's rock 'n' romance genre. I'll let others explain the finer points of casting and score. What I find so fascinating about "Seaside Swingers" is the bewildered holiday camp extras who thought they were going to have an uneventful and typically overcast two weeks at one of Butlin's more drab properties and ended up unwitting props in a third rate musical comedy about some rather aged looked teenagers trying to make a splash in the prepubescent world of rock 'n' roll.

The holiday camp must be seen to be believed. Americans will find it unbelievable that people actually spent the only two weeks they got each year going to what amounted to an overcrowded compound where the only entertainment was guessing how far apart the family would have to sit from each other in the "canteen" or large feeding area (which features prominantly in this film). The chalets referred to by the campers were extremely small motel-style rooms which were your base of operations at the camp.

For a real soak in the British invasion style this is just the ticket but fast forward through the "Crazy Horse Saloon" number. It's atrocious.
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1/10
Complete garbage.
1bilbo31 May 2015
Warning: Spoilers
I watched this recently and had forgotten how bad Freddy and the Dreamers actually were !

Bands from that era are often remembered with fondness but the plain fact was that many of them were really awful but had high powered management.

This film looks like it was made up as they went along with a stupid story line that has so many flaws it would take too long to list. I can just hear the director saying "That was funny - keep that in."

The musical performances feature second rate songs - probably for copyright reasons - but they are so badly mimed to with the sync completely out. Cut into the musical performances are shots of audience members going ecstatic with joy. This reminded me of the Dave Clarke Five videos which were mimed in a studio and then audience shots were edited in.

Tripe
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2/10
Don't bother! A film that plumbs the depth of mediocrity
geoffm602952 December 2022
Set in a holiday camp, a bunch of pop artists, are featured singing uninspiring B type songs, and demonstrating that none of them can act. Mike Sarne, one hit wonder, and John Leyton, who had a couple of big hits, try hard, but with a threadbare storyline and awful dialogue, the film degenerates into a lot of manic leaping around without rhyme or reason. Freddie and the Dreamers are embarrassingly bad, since all of them were 'wooden' in the acting department, and their attempts at humour were as funny as a Sunday wet afternoon! A few years after the film was released, most of the singers drifted into obscurity and frankly I'm not surprised.
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5/10
Holiday Camp
richardchatten2 December 2022
I vividly recall my grandmother watching Freddie and the Dreamers cavorting about dressed as chefs on her new television and telling us all how much she liked him.

Seen today the biggest surprise the thing offers is the presence of Nicolas Roeg's name on the credits. Butlins at Clacton provides an attractive backdrop, the choreography by Gilliam Lynne is lively, but it's aggressive energy rapidly gets tiring and it seriously shows it's age when the hero sings to himself in blackface.

John Leyton signally fails to build on the profile he recently earned from 'The Great Escape while Mike Sarne is aptly dismissed as "White Fang, king of the woolpack" as the Honorable Timothy Gilpin. But Ron Moody and Michael Ripper make a surprisingly charming singing duo (we're expected to believe that Ripper was once a boy soprano), while Liz Fraser is always good to see.
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7/10
Dated but very "sixties"
Sylvester12 June 2006
Despite the hype at the time of its release, this musical offering was never particularly good and, if you are expecting to hear any classic sixties tracks, then go and buy a CD. For the most part the music consists of numbers which you would be disappointed to find on the 'B' side of a single. The dancing is similarly uninspired - the usual (for the time) jumping up and down and from side to side with arms outstretched, rather like a manic aerobics session. The love triangle and older versus younger generation plot is simplistic. The acting is variable with stalwarts such as Ron Moody, Liz Fraser and Michael Ripper there to balance the less able pop artistes. However, as a piece of sixties nostalgia,particularly with its holiday camp setting, the film is well worth a look and Freddie and the Dreamers are always value for money.
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3/10
Embarrassing for all concerned
JohnSeal28 February 2017
Warning: Spoilers
There is a limit to my '60s nostalgia, and it's reached in Every Day's a Holiday (or as it's known in the US, Seaside Swingers). The bottom of the barrel is scraped early on when John Leyton is seen in blackface, 'emulating' Nat King Cole by turning his Unforgettable into a grotesque parody of Al Jolson. This is an unpleasant reminder of a time long past when The Black and White Minstrels were considered wholesome family entertainment, and it sets the tone for the balance of the film, which is irredeemably awful and burdened with terrible songs and dance numbers. The only exception are The Mojos, who mime effectively and whose music at least has a bit more edge than (gag) Freddie and the Dreamers and Mike Sarne. And let's not overlook an all too brief appearance by Patrick Newell! Yes, I'm grasping at straws. This is a terrible film.
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6/10
Pleasant, Standard Early 1960s Youth Musical
boblipton20 June 2023
John Leyton's father worked like a dog to keep him in school, but while waiting for his proposed career to begin, he's trying to break into show business as a singer. He applies to a holiday camp, and gets the job -- as a children's entertainer. Disappointed but game, he struggles, making friends with the other young people working there, hoping for a break.

It's one of those British musicals of the early 1960s with every sort of pop music from music hall to blackfaced performer, all the way up to the early stages of what would become acid rock, in a series of performances that take up almost half of the movie's 94 minutes. The staging of the musical numbers varies from straightforward to expansive in the hands of choreographer Gillian Lynne and DP Nicholas Roeg, and the cast includes Ron Moody as an Italian singing teacher, sort of, Liz Fraser as a good-hearted secretary, Nicholas Parsons, and Michael Ripper. I don't recall any of the songs making their way across the Atlantic, but the variety and competence of most of them made watching this one a pleasant experience.
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4/10
Hi Di Hi Ho De Ho-Is it Maplins?Oh Dear No
malcolmgsw17 October 2022
This is a perfect example of how not to set a comedy in a holiday camp. Made by second string producers,Grand National Pictures,it was their penultimate film. This was one of a number of similar pop films that were produced at this time. The problem is that however many well known faces you populate the film with,if the material isnt any good the film wont work.

In fact using some performers,such as Freddie and The Dreamers,is a positive hinderance as they are so bad.

The comedy isnt funny,the songs and the singing is totally unmemorable and the dancing is cringe making. So this film is only for viewers who are nostalgic for this sort of film.
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10/10
Overlooked, undervalued and highly recommended
hernebay14 April 2001
Other than the justly celebrated films of Cliff Richard and The Beatles, British pop musicals of the early 60s are not highly esteemed. They are generally seen as having been blatantly derivative at the time and hopelessly dated now. If "Summer Holiday" and "A Hard Day's Night" represent the very best of this somewhat narrow genre it is likely that "Every Day's A Holiday" would be considered - if at all - as one of the very minor also-rans. Having watched a recent repeat of this film, however, I found it highly entertaining. In essence it is a Cliff Richard film without Cliff, who is replaced, insofar as he can be, by John Leyton, a young actor-turned-pop star (and sometime Joe Meek protege). As in the Cliff films, the musical numbers are strung along a purposely lightweight romantic plotline, and both Ron Moody and Richard O'Sullivan are held over from the Cliff entourage. The cinematography, courtesy of a young Nic Roeg, makes this film a pleasure to watch, and the musical numbers, if undistinguished by the high standards of The Beatles and Cliff, are enjoyable. As in so many films of this period, the choreography - performed by an accomplished dance-troupe - betrays the unmistakable influence of "West Side Story". The likeable cast includes Mike Sarne, Grazina Frame, Liz Fraser, Nicholas Parsons, the late Michael Ripper and the late Hazel Hughes. Sarne (improbably but effectively cast as a young aristocrat-about-town, Tim) vies with the decently working-class Gerry (Leyton) for the attentions of the no less high-born Christina (Frame). Disappointingly for sociologically-minded film buffs there is only the most superficial investigation of the class issues inherent in the situation, but, of course, this is entirely as it should be in an escapist entertainment of this sort. (Indeed, in the naively optimistic mood of the mid-60s, class was starting to be perceived as not especially problematic, with an overall youth culture transcending such ancient barriers.) Unlike Gerry, who is hopelessly smitten, the vain and self-regarding (but strangely appealing) Tim casts his romantic net rather more widely, notably demonstrating - albeit with somewhat qualified success! - the "beatnik approach" to wooing. His dalliance with holiday camp manager Mr Close's (Charles Lloyd Pack) ripely sexy secretary Miss Slightly (Liz Fraser) prospers somewhat better, given her enthusiasm for sex (made evident early in the film), and her equally evident eventual inebriation. Indeed, in its rather innocent way, "Every Day's A Holiday" is pre-occupied with sex (as distinct from chaste romance) to a far greater degree than most of the youth films of the time; certainly far more than the Cliff films that it otherwise resembles. Most noteworthy among its various set pieces is a mind-bogglingly brilliant and surreal sequence featuring Freddie and the Dreamers as chefs. Nicholas Parsons plays a pretentious and overwrought TV director, first cousin, so to speak, to Victor Spinetti in "A Hard Day's Night", although from internal evidence (an allusion to Harold Macmillan during a bingo game), "Every Day's A Holiday" would seem to be the earlier of the two films. In addition to the "in-house" performers and Freddie and the Dreamers, there is a fleeting appearance by The Mojos. Despite the presence of these two bands, however, the ethos of the film is more Cliff/Shadows/Meek than Merseybeat. Highly recommended.
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It is so cheesy, It's brilliant
BeauDandy757 October 2004
It's a rags to riches tale of 3 guys & 4 gals who meet while working at a holiday camp and end up entering and winning the annual talent contest. Everything moves along rather too quickly - the plot where Gerry (John Leyton) falls for the girl, loses the girl to Tim (Mike Sarne) and then is reunited with her happens in an instant and the fact that the group, The Lucky Seven, beats Freddie & the Dreamers in the contest is a bit too unbelievable and smacks of a touch of vote rigging. Still ... on the whole it is a very entertaining film.

The songs are a bit corny but feel-good - the best being the gorgeous Baker Twins' "Romeo Jones" and the title song (although some of the lyrics should have been revised as they don't quite fit in with the music). I would also have to say that the serenade by Tim to Christina ("Indubitably Me") is incredibly catchy.

I first saw this movie around the end of the 70s and have to admit that my sister and I used to watch it on tape at least once a day. I was gutted when someone taped over it but am happy to say I have a new copy.

The film was re released in the early 80s as 'The Adventures of Tim' which is not surprising as, although Sarne's Character isn't really supposed to be the main one, he is hilarious throughout and steals every scene he is in.

If you want a film to cheer you up on a wet Saturday morning - you could do a lot worse than this one.
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10/10
The Fabulous Baker Girls
RDenial28 February 2006
This is not a great film and is badly dated. I gave it a 10 anyways based solely on seeing Jennifer and Susan Baker sing the song "Romeo Jones". I had not seen this film since the 60s yet this scene popped into my head recently as I recalled having a huge crush on these twin sisters when I was a kid. I had not thought of this in years and tracked down a copy of the film on eBay. The performance was as wonderful as I remembered and I still have a crush on these girls. They only were in a handful of films but they are completely adorable. I find it hard to believe that they were not in more films or offered a record contract. There is not much info on the web on the twins so I have no idea what paths their lives took after they quit making films. The rest of the cast is more than capable with John Leyton (the Great Escape), Ron Moody (Oliver) and Michael Ripper (Every Hammer film ever made), and do the best they can with a substandard script. There is a couple of bizarre performances by Freddie and the Dreamers and a busty Liz Fraser to liven things up, but the real attraction for me is the Baker Twins. Their performance so impressed me when I was 10 years old that it remained in my head for over 40 years. I am just glad that it worked it's way out of my subconscious mind so I could enjoy it all over again.
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10/10
Love it
kimfionawest24 August 2019
I know everyone has their own opinion about this film, but I absolutely love it, I'm 49 and I think we all need abit cheesiness in films, yes its simplistic and predictable but that was life back then at a Holiday Camps, when the smallest things made our children happy. The music I love, and if I need a film to cheer me up it's this one.
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9/10
A sign of the times.
gbftl19 February 2019
Judging this film after 55 years is unfair considering that this type of film would have been very popular back in the day, especially if you liked any of the singers/bands that appeared in it. Imagine the same film with Justin Timberlake, Boyzone or even the Supremes, and place it in its own time....all of the acts in the film had their own fans and followers and although it is not a masterpiece it was not meant to be, it's a simple film. If you are from this era you'll take it for what it is.
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A Fairly Typical Mersey-Beat Era Musical
Brainy-221 April 2000
A feather-light musical comedy involving a group of college kids who enter a talent contest at a summer resort. Grazina Frame sings a catchy song called "1st time bitten, 2nd time shy," the Baker twins sing a fluffy piece of nonsense called "Romeo Jones," and Freddie & The Dreamers make an appearance singing "Don't do that to me." Anyone who enjoyed sitting through the likes of "Having a wild weekend" and "Ferry cross the mersey" should enjoy this one as well.
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8/10
A frequently energetic, charmingly old-fashioned 60s musical lark!
Weirdling_Wolf26 October 2021
This frequently energetic, charmingly old-fashioned 60s musical lark is boisterously set within a colourfully, bustling seaside resort, making a suitably gaudy backdrop for a marvellous myriad of broad comedy vignettes, high-energy dance numbers, and positive, upbeat pop music, all enthusiastically performed by the scintillating, sparkling likes of John Leyton, Mike Sarne, Freddie & The Dreamers, Liz Fraser, and featuring another amusing turn from masterful Thespian Ron Moody as the kindly, but altogether duplicitous music teacher Professor Bastinado. Enjoyed as a deliciously frothy example of consistently wholesome, intermittently finger poppin' nostalgia, the effortless effervescence of 'Ever Day's a Holiday' remains joyously undiminished, and still makes for a jaunty momentary escape from the humdrum reality of increasingly shrill 24/7 news media, and the small screen hegemony of unrelentingly egregious fast food delivery adverts! James Hill's playful film's many highlights include a spicy rendition of 'What's Cooking?' by an amusingly animated Freddie & The Dreamers which is a most flavoursomely satisfying treat, as is a delightful 'Cor! Blimey!' comedy number from Hammer icon Michael ripper and partner in song Ron Moody, while it's all a bit of silly-headed nonsense, but sometimes silly-headed nonsense is an entirely welcome distraction! And it must also be said that said film also benefits greatly from the blissfully perky presence of the undeniably delicious-looking, blondely bomb-shelling Baker twins whose handsome looks belie a profound lack of musicality!
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