Everybody knows the film of “Summer Holiday”. Even those who don’t think they have ever seen it. It’s the one with the bus in it. They can sing you the whole theme tune without breaking into a sweat. It seems to occupy a unique place in the collective subconscious of British culture. But where did “Summer Holiday”, indeed all those other Cliff Richard films, come from? What was the thinking behind them?

As with so much of British entertainment in the sixties, the example had come from the States, where Elvis Presley’s management had realised that they could get wider and easier coverage for their star by putting him into films. Less touring, more exposure. The fans were happy, Elvis was happy, and the producers were happiest of all.

In England, Leslie Grade, brother of Lew Grade and Bernard Delfont, had apparently noticed when Cliff and the Shadows appeared in concert at his cinemas, box office receipts were far more healthy than they ever were for the films. The entrepreneurial streak hit pay dirt. Why not make movies with Cliff and the Shadows and show them at the very venues (and others besides) where the boys were already doing such great business in the flesh.

The market for the films was clear - easy going family entertainment. Cliff’s management was beginning to move their star away from his Presley like leanings. He was becoming less of a curl lipped, lock up your daughter threat and more of the kind of boy that mothers wouldn’t mind at the tea table. The films went some way to achieving that. In “Expresso Bongo” the boy star was the victim of an unscrupulous agent, Lawrence Harvey. “The Young Ones” cast Cliff as the let’s do the show right here gang leader who ends up convincing the parents and the establishment that he’s only out to make everyone’s life that bit happier. The die was cast. Boy (and backing band) meets girl, some threat arises from the oldsters (parents, or establishment or even better, parents who were part of the establishment). Second act complications and oh dear all is lost until third act - Cliff saves the day through inventive brilliance and a song or two. It’s charming, feel good, tuneful fare that your granny wouldn’t even drop a stitch over.

“Summer Holiday” is probably the zenith of that brand of movie making. A Time capsule of that pre-Beatles era (the film was released just as the first sniffs of Mersey beat were wafting through the air) where love, rather than sex, was the reason d’etre for the boy meeting girl. The only risqué element in “Summer Holiday” is that good girls really shouldn’t go off around Europe on a Double Decker bus. What would the neighbours think? Heavens!!!

The film is redolent of a kind of innocence and naivety that now seems gone forever. Cliff changing his shirt bemoaning that girls are OK, but they are not blokes are they? Little Lauri Peters blushing to cue as she hands the topless Cliff his shirt. That scene cuts little ice these days. But it is all part of the “Summer Holiday” charm. It is all very well to come over with the postmodern analysis, but “Summer Holiday’s” only agenda was to get the kids into the cinema. And though it has that unmistakable feel of the sixties, the film doesn’t pull its punches on characterisation or stereotyping. Even the girls are feisty, outspoken characters with lives of their own. A rare thing indeed for the time. It’s a film of delightfully innocent pleasures, a small snifter of an era when you could look forward to fun and laughter on your Summer Holiday.