Elstree Calling

One of the dressing rooms at Elstree Studios. Photo: © Elstree Studios Ltd.

While other film studios in the Fifties quivered at the thought of what damage the new box in the corner of the living room - the television set - would do to them and their takings, A.B.P.C. cleverly decided to embrace the medium.

With a mindframe of "If you can't beat them, join them", A.B.P.C. successfully went on to bid for and gain two ITV licences and subsequently made programmes at both their Borehamwood and Teddington Studios.

But film-making remained an important part of the company's work and for me the three film musicals they made in the early Sixties - The Young Ones, Summer Holiday and Wonderful Life - were full of charm.

Featuring the likes of Melvyn Hayes, Richard O'Sullivan, Una Stubbs Susan Hampshire and The Shadows, the three films gave Cliff Richard fans exactly what they wanted.

They also did what all films aimed at the younger generation do, they featured young people having fun, defying authority and showed "grown-ups" that young people have something important to say.

Light-hearted and featuring well-crafted song and dance numbers, it is easy to see why these cinematic vehicles for Cliff Richard triumphed at the box office.

Last year (2007), Melvyn Hayes recalled to me: "They were wonderful days. It was a joy to work at the studios."

Despite having a comparitively low budget, The Young Ones benefited from a large exterior set built on the back lot at Elstree. It boasted streets built to represent parts of London, and the youth club in which the action of the film revolves.

It stood for at least 15 years after the film wrapped and was re-used and adapted for a variety of film and television productions.

In 2007, I asked Gary Morecambe, son of comedian Eric Morecambe, for his recollections of of his favourite films made at Elstree.

Gary said "My all-time favourite, surprisingly, isn't the first Star Wars trilogy, but Summer Holiday.

"It was one of the first big colour movies I went to. Cliff went on to appear on a Morecambe & Wise show at the BBC, so it made the link to my happy childhood memory even stronger."

But Cliff Richard's films were by no means the only ones occupying the stages at A.B.P.C. in the early Sixties.

Other film productions made at the studios at this time included The Rebel, which starred Tony Hancock, Lolita, Crooks in Cloisters, which included Barbara Windsor and Bernard Cribbins in the cast, and Rattle of a Simple Man, which starred actor Harry H. Corbett, taking time off from playing rag and bone man, Harold Steptoe.

Vid. Caps.: The Young Ones

© Paul Burton 2008

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