LAST HOLIDAY

UK, 1950, 88 minutes, Black and white.
Alec Guinness, Kay Walsh, Beatrice Campbell, Gregoire Aslan, Bernard Lee, Wilfred Hyde White, Helen Cherry, Sidney James, Muriel George.
Directed by Henry Cass.

Last Holiday was written by J.B. Priestley. It offers a starring role for Alec Guinness, who was at the beginning of his very successful film career. After working in David Lean's Great Expectations and Oliver Twist, he made the move to comedy with Kind Hearts and Coronets and was to be a mainstay of British comedy during the early '50s with The Lavender Hill Mob, The Man in the White Suit, Father Brown, The Ladykillers.

The film has a touch of irony: a doctor making a mistake about a diagnosis and telling a young man that he has only months to live. The young man decides to live in style before he dies - and his goodness and charm have an effect on a whole range of people at the hotel where he lives. The diagnosis proves incorrect - but the young man ironically dies in a car accident. Alec Guinness shows his qualities of screen presence, acting talent as well as comic style.

1.Entertaining British comedy of the '50s? The work of J.B. Priestley? Alec Guinness as star? British character actors?

2.Black and white photography, the English countryside, the luxury hotel? The workplaces? Musical score?

3.The title, George and the diagnosis, his holiday - and the irony of his reprieve and then death?

4.Alec Guinness as George Bird: his work, the ordinary young Englishman, alone? The diagnosis and his acceptance? His giving notice? Taking the money, the luxury hotel? His friendship with the manager? His stay, enjoying himself? Interaction with the guests, transforming them? The gambling and winning the money? His friendship with Mrs Poole? The possibilities - jobs being offered him, reliance on his expertise? His encounter with Lampringham, the irony that he did not have the disease? The return to the doctor, his reactions? Driving - and the freak accident, his death? People's response to him - friendly, self-critical after his death, beginning to doubt that they should have been friends with him? And yet the good that he did in his last holiday?

5.The hotel manager, foreign, guests? The way people treated him? The strike - and the guests entering in and doing the work? The friendship with George?

6.Mrs Poole, her work at the hotel, her wisdom, friendship with George, attraction? The problems with the staff? Her meeting him, the discussions, her discovery of the truth, her sympathetic response?

7.Chalfonte, his jovial style, friendship, encouragement, the possibility of a job? Sir Robert, the ministry, the interest in machinery, his getting advice from George?

8.Joe and Daisy, their loud style, jovial? The gambling? Wanting George to come in as partner?

9.Miss Fox, her friendship with George, relying on him? Lady Osmington and her haughty style? Miss Fox subservient? George urging her to stand on her own feet - but her going back as Lady Osmington's companion?

10.Lampringham, his style, authority, arrogance? With the guests? With George, the diagnosis?

11.Sheila and Derek, Sheila's attraction to George, the marital problems, the money difficulties, the police investigating Derek? Derek and his reforming?

12.The hotel as a microcosm, England at 1950? The range of people, hopes for post-war England, traditions? George as a sign of contradiction, helping people, their responding well, their difficulties?

• Sheila and Derek, Sheila's attraction to George, the marital problems, the money difficulties, the police investigating Derek? Derek and his reforming?