The Huggetts (Jack Warner and Kathleen Harrison) were so well received in Holiday Camp it was decided to give them their own series of which this was first. It's another slice-of-life of the late 40s, based around the adventures of the Huggetts at home. They've got three daughters, but the filmmakers bring in a fourth girl to spice things up, a niece - a good thing too because she's played by Diana Dors who is fantastic and the best thing about the film.
Dors' character is slightly chubby, cheerful, lazy, keen to manipulate Harrison into doing everything for her, slack at work, boy crazy, out for a good time. She does get sexually harrased at work and leched on - she can handle it, but there are overtones (because what if she was the sort of girl who couldn't handle it?) Everyone's got a relative like this - that universal appeal of the character adds immensely to the fun.
The other three daughters are played by Jane Hylton, Susan Shaw and Petula Clark. Clark mainly looks cute and sings one song. Shaw doesn't do much. Hylton has a subplot - her boyfriend Jimmy Hanley (he of the receding hairline) is away and she has a little flirtation with David Tomlinson, whose characterisation is a bit too board - he should have been more real, more of a threat. It's like the actor decided to 'have fun" with the role and director Ken Annakin - whose handling otherwise is very good - couldn't bring him into line, or didn't want to.
The other subplot involves Warner and Harrison camping out to see then-princess Elizabeth get married, which is a lot of fun - and Warner has some issues at work.
Really the film could have done with another really strong subplot to support the one involving Dors - maybe something more serious - and three stars is possibly too generous but this was a fun film.
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