Film / Holiday on the Buses

Book early, book twice - We guarantee you a really hot time.

Blakey: It means I'm 'ere to keep out all undesirables: Lads an' 'ooligans an' that.

Stan: Well, ya failed, ain't ya? Coz we're 'ere.

— Inspector Cyril "Blakey" Blake explaining his new job as Chief Security Inspector to Stan Butler.

Holiday on the Buses is a 1973 film and the third/final film spin-off of On the Buses. It stars Reg Varney, Stephen Lewis, Doris Hare, Michael Robbins, Anna Karen, Bob Grant, and Guest Stars Wilfrid Brambell, Kate Williams, Arthur Mullard, Queenie Watts, and Henry McGee.

After a disastrous accident caused by bus driver Stan Butler (Varney) and conductor Jack Harper (Grant) which Inspector Cyril "Blakey" Blake (Lewis) was unable to stop, all three men are fired by the Town & District depot manager (Michael Sheard) and have to find work at a Pontins Holiday Camp in Wales - the former two on the tour bus, and the latter as security inspector.

Once there, Stan uses his staff discount to bring his family - mum Mabel (Hare), sister Olive Rudge (Karen), brother-in-law Arthur (Robbins), and nephew Little Arthur (Adam Rhodes) - down for a holiday. Once there, it seems romance is in the air for all: Mrs. Butler gets rather close to Irish widower Bert Thompson (Brambell); Jack tries to shack up with the same Red Cross nurse, Joan (Williams), that Blakey has fallen for; Olive and Arthur are mistaken for a much more loving couple than in reality by Wally and Lill Briggs (Mullard and Watts); and Stan tries to woo many different girls - Mavis Hudson (Maureen Sweeney), whose overbearing mother (Eunice Black) keeps getting in the way; Sandra (Sandra Bryant), another worker at the camp; and Maria (Gigi Gatti), whose overprotective brother, Luigi (Franco De Rosa) roughs him up.

Despite all this, Hilarity Ensues as it is up to Stan and Jack to try to seem competent in front of Blakey and George Coombs (McGee), their manager, as they know that if anything goes wrong, they'll be unemployed again!

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Tropes on the Buses:

• Actor Allusion: The nurse played by Kate Williams is called "Joan", the same name as the role she was best known for playing in Love Thy Neighbour.
• Affectionate Nickname: Doreen calls Betty "Bets".
• Agony of the Feet:
  • Blakey's big toe is broken during Stan's reckless bus driving at the depot, causing him to have to carry a walking stick and have his foot in plaster for the rest of the film. He also mentions that once his fracture cleared up, it brought on a case of gout, while it is injured further when Wally stomps on it during his waltzing lesson.
  • Blakey shuts the tour bus' cab door on Stan's foot.
• All There in the Script: Some names aren't given in the film:
  • Mavis' last name is "Hudson".
  • The girl who Stan makes out with during the moonlight mystery tour is called "Doreen".
  • The woman whose breasts come out of her top at the start of the film is called "Joyce".
  • The ship that Stan takes Mavis out on for a date is the "SS Platonic".
• Big Brother Instinct: Luigi doesn't take kindly to blokes who try to ruin his sister Maria's reputation. Stan ends up finding this out the hard way when Luigi roughs him up in the kitchen, while Blakey gets threatened for spreading rumours.
• Blind Mistake: When trying to find the toilet after her glasses are smashed, Olive follows a Man in a Kilt who she mistakes for a lady into the gents' toilet. Things don't get better on the way back, as she ends up wandering into the Briggs' bedroom and settling into Wally's bed.
• Blind Without 'Em: After Olive's glasses are smashed, she can't find her way around and has to rely on Arthur to guide her.
• Bratty Half-Pint: Little Arthur is quickly growing up to be a terror, getting on Stan and Arthur's nerves with his toy pistols and using a donkey to drag away Blakey's deckchair.
• Brief Accent Imitation: Stan uses a camp voice to mock Blakey while he practices waltzing with Wally.
• Camera Abuse:
  • The camera gets buffeted by branches during Stan's shortcut through the woods.
  • When Luigi drops Stan in a pot of soup, it splashes onto the camera.
• Comedic Underwear Exposure: Joan's bra is exposed when Blakey accidentally rips her top trying to get past her so he can attack Stan.
• Continuity Nod: Jack once more brings up something he learned doing his National Service. In this film, it's that he studied tides, while in the previous film, Mutiny on the Buses, it was that he knew how to wire radios.
• Clothing Damage:
  • While Blakey shows Wally how to waltz, Stan mocks him by warning him that he'll damage his tights.
  • When Olive's bracelet gets caught on Arthur's cufflink, she pulls away from him too fast and tears off his sleeve.
  • When Joan tries to restrain Blakey to stop him chasing after Stan, he rips her top open trying to get her off him.
• Crazy Jealous Guy: When Blakey discovers that Joan has been having it off with another man, he flies into a jealous rage and decides to try and kill Stan, who he believes is the guilty party.
• Crossover: Arthur Mullard and Queenie Watts reprise their roles of Wally and Lily Briggs from Romany Jones, which was another Britcom by Ronald Chesney and Ronald Wolfe, the creators of On the Buses.
• Disaster Dominoes: At the very start of the film; when Stan tries to drive out of the depot, he is distracted by Joyce's breasts and nearly hits a car. Bringing his bus to a sudden stop, he reverses, right into the depot manager's car and causes the raised hood to come down on him. As the depot manager rages at Stan to get that bus away from his car, Stan hurries forward and stops in the middle of the road, not seeing another bus going past the depot, causing the other bus to collide with the side of Stan's, writing off both buses.
• Distracted by the Sexy: The sight of Joyce's bare breasts causes Stan to lose track of what he is doing, and he nearly drives into a car that has the right of way.
• Doomed New Clothes: Olive's new bra gets soaked and covered in mud when the suitcase it is in falls into the river.
• The Door Slams You: When Stan and Arthur repaint the chalet's bedroom, Olive walks in on them and Stan takes the door to the face.
• Fan Disservice: Olive wears a bikini to the indoor pool that is much too small, and the audience gets a good look at her body.
• Flirtatious Smack on the Ass: Bert gives one to Mrs. Butler, who becomes rather embarrassed when she realises that Stan and Jack saw it happen.
• Florence Nightingale Effect: Blakey falls for Joan, the Red Cross Nurse at Pontins, after she treats his broken big toe.
• Freudian Threat: After being tricked into believing that Stan has had it off with Maria, her brother Luigi threatens him by violently chopping a long, phallic piece of meat with a cleaver to scare him off the idea of trying it again:
  Blakey: Oh, lovely. 'E's cuttin' 'im short!
• Gilligan Cut: After Stan tells Jack that Maria is a very shy bird, the film cuts to Maria pulling off Stan's clothes so the pair of them can have it off.
• Going Commando: Joyce doesn't wear a top when going to catch Stan's bus, which causes trouble for her when her top comes undone, and her breasts are exposed for all to see.
• Gratuitous Italian: Maria speaks mostly Italian phrases when she's about to have it off with Stan.
• Hospital Hottie: Joan the nurse. Blakey falls for her, but Jack thinks she's too hot to waste on a man like Blakey, so he has it off with her behind his back.
• Hotter and Sexier: The film features nudity for the first time in the On the Buses franchise and being set in a holiday resort allows for more women in bikinis.
• Insult Backfire: At the end, to pay him back for all the crap he's done to him over the years, Blakey assigns Stan to work on a wrecking crew because of how destructive he is. Looking at Stan's face while he works, he's actually enjoying himself.
• Interrupted Intimacy:
  • Stan can't seem to have it off with Sandra during their date as Little Arthur keeps walking in on them or making noise from the bedroom, and then Mrs. Butler returns with Bert and completely spoils the mood.
  • When Stan and Maria are about to have it off at Mr. Coombs' place, they have to end it quickly as the Coombs come home early.
  • When Jack and Joan are having a tryst in her office, Blakey overhears the pair and bashes on the door in a jealous rage, causing Jack to try and make a quick escape.
• Ironic Name: The ship that Stan takes Mavis on to have it off with her is unnamed in the film, but in the trailer, it is called the "SS Platonic".
• Karma Houdini: Jack ruins Blakey's relationship with Joan, which causes him to try to attack Stan and lose his job at Pontins but doesn't receive any form of punishment for his actions.
• Karma Houdini Warranty: After years of slacking off, skimming money, and causing trouble for the depot, Stan and Jack finally get the sack.
• Lady Drunk: Bert's departed wife Gladys was mentioned to have been quite fond of gin.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Blakey lies to Luigi that Stan shagged Maria to get Stan beaten up by him, however, when Luigi learns that Blakey lied, and therefore he is the one who ruined Maria's reputation, he turns on him instead.
• Lots of Luggage: For the Butlers' trip to Pontins, Olive packs far too many cases to fit on Arthur's motorbike, and even what she can bring strains the clutch and requires everyone to have to push:
  Arthur: Are you mad? We can't take all that lot.
  Olive: Well, I only packed the essentials.
• Love Triangle: Blakey has fallen for Joan, which causes trouble when Jack starts to sweep her off her feet.
• Man in a Kilt: One passes by Olive who has lost her glasses. Olive mistakes him for a lady and ends up following him into the gents' toilets!
• The Movie: This was the third film spin-off of On the Buses.
• My Beloved Smother: Mrs. Hudson won't let Mavis have any time alone while they're on holiday at Pontins.
• Naked Freak-Out:
  • After Joyce's breasts are exposed in front of the depot, she reacts in embarrassment and tries to cover them.
  • Olive panics after she loses her bikini bottoms in the indoor pool.
• Never Trust a Trailer: The trailer makes it seems as if Blakey joins Stan and Jack on the day trip on the SS Platonic, but in the actual film he stays behind at Pontins.
• No Full Name Given:
  • We don't get to find out Joan, Maria, Luigi, Sandra, Betty, or Ethel's last names.
  • The same can be said for Mrs. Coombs, and Mr. and Mrs. Hodges' first names.
• Noodle Incident: We don't find out exactly what happened to the last guy who tried to get close to Maria, only that Luigi nearly killed him.
• Non-Fatal Explosions: When Stan drops a lit cigarette into the chalet toilet after it has had petrol drained down it, it blows up right in his face without harming him, while it also sends an explosion out of a drain right next to Blakey, who is simply thrown back unharmed.
• Not What It Looks Like: After returning from the toilets without her glasses, Olive makes a Blind Mistake and ends up in Wally's bed, where she is joined by Wally. When she realises what's happening, she screams and awakens Lill, who assumes that she is trying to have it off with her husband.
• Out-of-Context Eavesdropping:
  • When Olive tries to find the light switch in the dark, Wally and Lill overhear her from the next chalet over and believe she's trying to find Arthur's penis. When the lights turn on and it is revealed that Olive has ruined the freshly painted walls, Arthur asks why she put her hands there and complains he'll have to paint them twice in two days. The Briggs however think he's talking about having it off.
  • Blakey hears Jack moaning from Joan's office and assumes that he's a patient in pain, rather than the fact that the two of them are having it off.
• Pain to the Ass:
  • After Stan blows up the Butlers' toilet, steam comes up out of Wally's and burns his rear.
  • When attacking Stan, Luigi drops him into a pot of soup and onto some eggs frying on a stove, and both times he wails in pain as his backside is scorched.
• Plot Hole:
  • The car Stan nearly hits and the green bus that does hit him are both driving the wrong way down a one-way road.
  • When Stan passes Arthur on the way to Pontins, the two are actually both driving away from the holiday camp.
  • After Stan zips up a suitcase, the contents somehow spill on the floor despite there being no hole or gap for them to fall through.
  • Olive's glasses somehow fix themselves after she breaks them during the dance.
• Posthumous Character: Gladys Thompson, Bert's former wife.
• Pun: When Olive tries to retrieve her luggage from a river:
  Olive: Arthur, I'm out of my depth!
• Rule of Pool:
  • After Olive insults him, Arthur uses his foot to push her into the indoor pool, causing her to lose her bikini bottoms.
  • Blakey pushes Stan into the boating pool with his walking stick after he believes he's been shagging Joan.
• Sequel Non-Entity: Although Olive and Arthur were expecting another child at the end of Mutiny on the Buses, their second child is nowhere to be seen here, just like Gloria, Stan's fiancée at the end of the film.
• Series Continuity Error: A line in the film claims that Blakey has worked with Stan and Jack since 1959, despite the fact that Stan mentioned he'd been on the buses since 1962 in Mutiny on the Buses.
• Sexless Marriage:
  • The Briggs are in one, although Wally tries his hardest to change this:
    Wally: Yeah, but, er... while we're still awake, what about, er, you an' me, er-
    Lill: You must be demented. Get back to yer own bed. Saucy old bugger.
  • The Coombs are implied to be in one as well, sleeping in seperate beds.
• Shirtless Scene:
  • Arthur has one at the indoor pool.
  • Mr. Coombs is shirtless before his shower.
• Short Cuts Make Long Delays: In order to get back to Pontins in time for Stan's date with Mavis, Jack has him take a shortcut. Jack's shortcut passes under a bridge that nearly takes the top off the bus and through the woods, where everyone sitting on the bus' exposed top deck gets buffeted by branches.
• Shout-Out:
  • Joan tells Jack that she's a fan of "Shake, Rattle and Roll".
  • A poster advertising that The Ωmega Man will be screened on Wednesday can be spotted.
  • When Arthur tries to get out of competing in the dance competition with Olive:
    Arthur: Olive and I have not performed together for far too long.
    Olive: Well, that's true.
    Stan: Blimey, I was only askin' for y'to do the milit'ry two-step, not the Last Tango in Paris.
• Silent Treatment: Arthur refuses to talk to Olive after the embarrassment she causes him during their two-step performance.
• Something We Forgot: When the Butlers set off for Pontins, they initially leave Little Arthur behind at the house.
• Special Guest: Wilfrid Brambell as Bert Thompson, Kate Williams as Nurse Joan, Arthur Mullard as Wally Briggs, Queenie Watts as Lill Briggs, and Henry McGee as Mr. Coombs.
• Speed Sex: When Jack and Joan are about to have it off in her office, she writes that she'll be back in ten minutes on the chalkboard outside. Jack takes offense to this, claiming he can do better than that, and changes it to thirty.
• Status Quo Is God: Even though Blakey was demoted down to a conductor and Jack was taken off Stan's route at the end of Mutiny on the Buses, the two are back to their old positions again here.
• Stuff Blowing Up: After Arthur uses petrol to clean some hardened paintbrushes, Olive disposes of it down the toilet in the chalet. This causes an issue when Stan throws a lit cigarette in the toilet and blows it up, which causes explosions to fire out of drains all around Pontins.
• Summer Campy: The film takes place in a Pontins Holiday Camp where Stan, Jack, and Blakey have to work after being fired by the bus company. The three aren't very good at keeping the campers happy, running terrible mystery tours, rigid dancing contests, and generally causing unintentional chaos.
• Tagline: "It's a laugh package tour.. so come along with 'the gang'".
• Teeny Weenie: Implied to be the case with Arthur in this cutting remark from Olive:
  Arthur: I borrowed them off of the Inspector. It might have escaped your notice that he 'appens to be rather bigger than me.
  Olive: Everyone's bigger than you.
• Time Skip: After Stan and Jack see Blakey at the Department of Employment, the film cuts ahead by six weeks to Arthur moaning about Stan's lack of a job.
• The Unsmile: Blakey instructs his security staff to give the guests a nice big smile, like he does, leading to all of them giving some rather painful-looking smiles.
• Visible Boom Mic: Film equipment can be seen in the reflection on the bus window when Stan stops outside the Pontins gates.
• V-Sign: When Blakey tells off Bert for forgetting to give Mrs. Butler a salute during his dancing lessons, Bert mocks him and says he'll give him one now to show he's sorry, before sticking two fingers up at him. Wally copies him, much to Lill's annoyance.
• Wardrobe Malfunction:
  • When Joyce runs to catch Stan's bus, her running causes her top to come undone and reveal her breasts.
  • Olive loses her bikini bottom after Arthur shoves her into the indoor pool:
    Olive: It's my bikini! I've lost the bottom half of it!
• What Happened to the Mouse?:
  • Joyce disappears after her exposed breasts set off the Disaster Dominoes that kick off the plot.
  • After Stan's failed date that ends when it's discovered Little Arthur messed up the walls, Mavis is never seen again despite the film only being half over.
  • Little Arthur is nowhere to be seen during the farewell ball.
• "Which Restroom?" Dilemma: After breaking her glasses, Olive spots a Man in a Kilt and mistakes him for a lady, leading her to accidentally follow him into the kitchen which she thinks is a toilet. Luckily, Blakey quickly catches her and escorts her to the right spot.
• Wounded Gazelle Gambit: Jack pretends to have an agonising pain in his leg to skip the queue at Joan's office, just so he can have time to shag her.

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