Whitsun Holiday

Produced by: MSA Film Unit, Paris
Directed by: Peter Baylis
Country/Year: UK 1953
Length: 11'
Language: English
Format: 35mm, 1,37, mono, s/w

Whitsun, the Pentecost weekend, puts millions of Europeans on the road for a brief vacation in the spring air. The ﬁlm contrasts the way West Europeans are free to choose how to spend their time with the lock-step celebration of the World Youth Congress in East Berlin. The Marshall Plan ﬁlm unit produced few ﬁlms of an outright anti-Communist nature, but this is one of them, a witty piece of propaganda. According to Albert Hemsing, Peter Baylis (who wrote and produced the One-Two-Three-series) made this ﬁlm “almost as a personal statement.” Apparently, it received no commercial distribution, but a number of non-Communist trade unions showed it in union halls.