1. Last Holiday (1950): Humble salesman George Bird (Guinness) visits a physician for a routine checkup and is told he has a rare terminal illness and less than a year to live. Originally dismayed and unaccepting of the news, he eventually becomes resigned to accept the physician’s advice: To take all of his life’s savings and enjoy himself in the time he has left. Being a lifelong bachelor with no immediate family to leave his modest savings, Bird decides to spend his last days at an upscale residential hotel with many British elite.
Bird’s generosity and unassuming attitude generate a great deal of interest among residents at the hotel. With an odd clarity of focus as his end draws near, he soon becomes an enigma, with aristocrats speculating about his lineage and possible nobility. Bird soon falls in love (possibly for the first time in his life) and is offered a fruitful business opportunity, but these events only serve to make him reflect on what he had not achieved in life.
Finally, Bird speaks to a hotel guest who is the namesake of the disease he was diagnosed with. The physician assures him there must be a mistake and that Bird does not have the disease. After a trip back to the city, Bird confirms the mistake, and is ready to begin life anew with his sweetheart and his business opportunity. The twist is that he never makes it back to the hotel. He ends up in a car accident on the way and is killed. The hotel guests, having learned the truth, have already dismissed Bird and their good opinions of him when they are informed that he has died.
By Richard Moody, James Conlon & Ben Lindley
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