THE YOUNG ONES
Color, 1961, 108 mins. 35 secs.
Directed by Sidney J. Furie
Starring Cliff Richard, Robert Morley, Carole Gray, The Shadows, Teddy Green, Richard O'Sullivan, Annette Robertson, Melvyn Hayes
Indicator (Blu-ray) (US RA HD), StudioCanal (DVD) (UK R2 PAL), Anchor Bay (DVD) (US R1 NTSC) / WS (2.35:1) (16:9)

SUMMER HOLIDAY
Color, 1962, 108 mins. 16 secs.
Directed by Peter Yates
Starring Cliff Richard, Lauri Peters, David Kossof, Ron Moody, The Shadows, Melvyn Hayes, Teddy Green, Jeremy Bulloch, Una Stubbs
Indicator (Blu-ray) (US RA HD), StudioCanal (Blu-ray & DVD) (UK RB/R2 HD/PAL), Anchor Bay (DVD) (US R1 NTSC) / WS (2.35:1) (16:9)

WONDERFUL LIFE
Color, 1964, 113 mins. 39 secs.
Directed by Sidney J. Furie
Starring Cliff Richard, Walter Slezak, Susan Hampshire
Indicator (Blu-ray) (US RA HD), StudioCanal (DVD) (UK R2 PAL), Anchor Bay (DVD) (US R1 NTSC) / WS (2.35:1) (16:9)

Before he became a long-running British solo pop favorite, brief disco hitmaker, and dueter with Olivia Newton-John, Cliff Richard was one of the biggest names on the youth music scene in the '60s usually with The Shadows as his backing band. Throughout that decade Richard and The Shadows starred in a total of four movie musicals, three of which were shot in CinemaScope with beautifully saturated Technicolor worthy of an MGM production. (The fourth, Finders Keepers, was shot flat and is actually owned by MGM now who haven't treated it very well on home video to date.) With their gossamer-thin plots and cheerful energy, the big three films were given DVD special editions back at the dawn of the format from Anchor Bay and finally made their collective American Blu-ray debuts in 2026 from Indicator as part of a vibrant set, Cliff in Color! The Technicolor Musicals of Cliff Richard. Drawing inspiration from the British music hall tradition, Vincente Minnelli and his ilk, and eventually the AIP beach party movies, all of them are not only fun but fascinating early showcases for a number of names like directors Sidney J. Furie and Peter Yates, cinematographer Douglas Slocombe, choreographer-turned-director Herbert Ross, and composer Stanley Black.

Already seen on the big screen in a musical supporting role in the much saucier Expresso Bongo, Richard made the leap to leading man with The Young Ones whose title song did indeed inspire and get covered in the cult 1982 sitcom. This was an early feature for expat Canadian director Furie, who made Dr. Blood's Coffin and The Snake Woman the same year before catapulting to a different tier entirely with The Ipcress File three years later. Essentially an updating of the old "let's put on a show" story, the film charts the efforts of a gang of perky, musically-inclined teens to save their West End youth club which has been targeted for demolition by hard-nosed developer Hamilton Black (Morley) to make room for office buildings. Unbeknown to the other kids, their leader Nicky (Richard) is actually Black's son, something that makes their plans involving a money-making anonymous radio hit very complicated -- and messes with his budding romance with Toni (Gray). That's basically the framework for a string of song-and-dance numbers, which feature both the awesome beat-flavored string work of The Shadows and more classical, sweeping production numbers.

Both Furie and choreographer Ross pull out all the stops here with a flurry of cinematic musical ideas, including some brief but inventive split-screen work that could have inspired Bye Bye Birdie right after this. Richard doesn't have to do anything too tasking acting-wise (and you'll never believe he and Morley share a shred of DNA!), but he's charismatic here and holds the camera's attention during his big song numbers which is all that matters. A major local hit when it opened, the film didn't fare as well in the U.S. where it was picked up by Paramount and released as Wonderful To Be Young!, but it's had a long home video life worldwide including that aforementioned 2002 DVD. That release looked nice for the time and featured a great audio commentary by Furie, filmmaker Paul Lynch, and journalist Waylon Wahl, which is carried over on the Indicator disc. The film itself looks terrific on Blu-ray with a nice 4K-sourced restoration making it a really colorful treat for the eyes, and the LPCM mono 1.0 English audio (the same as the other titles in the set) sounds excellent with optional English SDH subtitles provided. It's crazy this still hasn't had a U.K. Blu-ray release, but perhaps someday that will be corrected. The main video extra here is "The Years Have Flown" (14m4s) in which focus puller Robin Vidgeon talks about starting off in 1956, working with Slocombe on numerous films including this one, and dealing with the tricky nature of learning how to do a musical of this unprecedented scale in England. Also included are a silent 11m17s batch of silent behind-the-scenes footage mostly from the big brawl scene and the finale, plus two Super 8 presentations from the film, "We’ve Got a Show" (9m8s) and "Nothing’s Impossible" (9m7s) which give you an idea of how rough these looked for home viewing back then. The theatrical trailer is also included, plus a 47-image gallery of publicity material and a 12-image pressbook.

Pushed into production quickly for release the following year was Summer Holiday, which switched directors to Peter Yates (pre-Bullitt) but continues the concept of chipper teens having slightly dramatic adventures. Here Richard plays Don, a mechanic who piles into a borrowed double-decker bus with his buddies Steve (Green), Edwin (Bulloch, Boba Fett himself), and Cyril (Hayes) for a summer-long escapade heading to the French beaches. Along the way they pick up more passengers to stay on the bus along with a stowaway, Bobby (Peters), a seemingly young boy who's actually a lady in disguise fleeing from her mother. Mime troupe head Orlando (Moody) and the stowaway's mother cause detours and obstacles as the route eventually switches to Greece, with madcap detours through Austria and Yugoslavia-- all with copious singing and dancing along the way.

As popular as its predecessor, Summer Holiday refines the formula with a broader canvas of locales and even more ambitious musical numbers (with Ross returned for choreography). The songs are all fun and catchy, especially the title number and the striking "Bachelor Boy," and the cavalcade of characters keeps things moving along very briskly. Again The Shadows are a highlight here with a nice twangy musical shot in the arm when they show up, and the tone here is slightly friskier with the whole cross-dressing confusion making for a silly and implausible plot wrinkle. Not surprisingly this has had the most robust home video history of the bunch, including that Anchor Bay DVD featuring a valuable audio commentary with Yates and Jonathan Sothcott covering the production and casting as well as the film's surprisingly positive critical reception, plus the audience's hunger for these kinds of films. (That didn't translate to the U.S., where it was released by AIP and promptly tanked.)

To date this is the only one of the three films to get a U.K. Blu-ray release, though that turned out to be a disaster with that 2019 disc from StudioCanal suffering from an authoring glitch that made it lock up on the majority of players. Luckily you can toss that coaster in the trash with the Indicator Blu-ray looking sterling here with an immaculate 4K restoration, and those bright, sunny scenes never looked better. The Yates commentary is carried over here, and then you get "A British Phenomenon" (15m40s) with composer and author Neil Brand covering Richard, The Shadows, their cultural impact, comparisons to Elvis and The Beatles, and their role in the overall U.K. pop scene with a number of competing acts around at the time. Then musician Bob Stanley from Saint Etienne gives a nice 9m25s appraisal of Richard's persona, the novel use of a Stratocaster at the time, and the particular appeal of this film. After that you get two short newsreels connected to the film, "Cliff Drives London Bus!" (1m15s) and "First Night to Remember" (1m52s), the latter from the premiere including a very young Hayley Mills, followed by two Super 8 presentations (17m21s and a singing-only 8m9s edit), the trailer, and a 92-image gallery.

Finally Furie returned to the fold to direct the third and last film in the set, Wonderful Life, after directing The Leather Boys in the interim. The beach party influence is undeniable here in the story of singer Jonnie (Richard, of course) and his band who get stuck on the Canary Islands when they get chucked from their traveling boat gig. In the desert they stumble on a movie production being directed by Lloyd Davis (Lifeboat's Slezak) with insecure actress Jenny (Malpertuis' Hampshire) striking Jonnie's fancy. Brought on to perform various gigs on the film, Jonnie and company decide to sneakily turn it into a musical, which leads to parallel troubled productions and attempts to get effective songs on film without anyone noticing.

Shot with the much cheaper Techniscope format which alters the look this time, Wonderful Life is still cut from the same cloth as the previous films with some fun meta-commentary on musical filmmaking to boot. It's impossible for Hampshire to be anything less than charming, and she really shines in a protracted musical ode to cinema that works like a charm. The songs themselves are definitely of a lower caliber here, and the famously messy production history with improvised locations and frequent script rewrites means this is a shaggier, weirder vehicle for Richard. This one didn't perform up to the same level as the prior two films, but it still satisfied Richard fans and, as usual, didn't make a ripple in the U.S. under the weird title Swinger's Paradise. Again this one hit DVD from Anchor Bay with Furie and the gang doing a commentary likely from the same recording session, honestly appraising what works and what doesn't with Furie's memories coming back often at amusing points after not seeing the film for several decades.

That commentary is revived on the Indicator Blu-ray, which sports another fine restoration that brings out the best in the grittier cinematography here. In the new "Cats in the Canaries" (14m58s), Vidgeon returns to talk about his reunion with Furie, his new cameraman here, and the daunting challenges of shooting with noisy equipment out in remote locations. Of course, it wouldn't be a Furie release without biographer Daniel Kremer around, and his visual essay "Local and Global Heresies" (22m20s) examines how these pop musicals slot into the director's career among such wildly disparate studies of modern-day masculinity as Little Fauss and Big Halsey, The Boys in Company C, The Entity, and even Ladybugs. If you want to find out how, prepare to be illuminated. The really delightful 1964 short film Rhythm 'n' Greens (32m10s) is a light, cheeky survey of British beaches and their history starring The Shadows whose music pulsates through what amounts to a vibrant extended music video . Tying it all together, Robert Morley even serves as narrator. This one is presented in SD and hasn't been restored, but it looks watchable enough here. Also included are two newsreels, "Cliff Meets New Lady" (42s) introducing Richard to Hampshire and "Wonderful First Night" (1m44s) covering the Leicester Square premiere, plus the trailer and a 46-image gallery. The limited edition 4,000-unit package also comes with a 100-page book featuring a new overview essay by Steve O'Brien, archival press coverage of Richard and his early U.S. tours, press production reports, and Summer Holiday pressbook highlights.

Reviewed on February 25, 2026