Carry On Emmannuelle (1978)

Carry On Emmannuelle, released in 1978, was the last of the Carry On movies and it’s the most notorious and reviled of the entire series. It’s difficult to find anyone with a good word to say about it. It’s one of those movies that everybody knows is rubbish, because everybody says it’s rubbish. Critics thought so at the time. Most online reviews start with the reviewer proudly announcing that he already knew this movie was trash before seeing it, and seeing it merely confirmed his worst fears.

When you approach a movie expecting to hate it then more often than not you will that you do end up hating it. What you need to do with a movie like Carry On Emmannuelle is to approach it with an open mind. So, is Carry On Emmannuelle really that bad? We shall see.

The movie begins with its own version of the famous sex-on-an-aircraft scene from Emmanuelle, but played for laughs.

Emmannuelle Prevert (Suzanne Danielle) has just arrived in London, to rejoin her husband Emile (Kenneth Williams). Emile is the French Ambassador. He is obsessed by body-building although it doesn’t seem to have had much result.

Emmannuelle has been looking forward to a nice reunion bedroom romp with her husband but Emile will go to extraordinary lengths to avoid doing his husbandly duty.

Emile is quite happy for Emmannuelle to find her carnal pleasures elsewhere. Which she does, but she wants carnal pleasures with her husband as well.

The movie has even less of a plot than most Carry On movies. Emmannuelle becomes obsessed by the idea that someone is going to try to assassinate her husband. Which provides an amusing sequence with Emmannuelle crawling around under the dinner table.

She then persuades the servants to recount their most outrageous sexual exploits, which is the weakest section of the movie.

And then the scandal breaks - the scandal being Emmannuelle’s sexual exploits revealed to the public, with Emmannuelle steadfastly refusing to apologise and then seducing her interviewer on camera.

The first half of this movie is quite good. It’s quite funny. It does lose steam a bit after that.

Making a kind of hybrid between a Carry On movie and the popular 70s British sex comedy genre was actually not such a terrible idea. By 1978 the Carry On formula was looking rather tame. Sexing up the formula a bit made sense. But in fact Carry On Emmannuelle doesn’t sex up the formula much at all. Maybe some of the sexual humour is marginally more risqué than in previous movies. There is however hardly any nudity at all in Carry On Emmannuelle. It actually doesn’t have much in common after all with the British sex comedies of that era. It’s really just a Carry On movie, made pretty much according to the established formula.

There were a lot of silly things said about this movie at the time. Critics pretty much accused producer Peter Rodgers of making a softcore porn movie. Which is wildly and ludicrously inaccurate. It’s only very very slightly sexier than the average Carry On movie of the 70s.

One of the many myths surrounding this movie is that Barbara Windsor stormed off the set in disgust. In fact she was never on the set. She was originally going to make an appearance but she was unavailable.

This movie includes quite a few of the Carry On regulars, with Kenneth Connors (as the ambassador’s sex-obsessed chauffeur) and Joan Sims (as the housekeeper) being in good form. Kenneth Williams is in good form as well, doing a typically outrageous French accent.

The movie’s trump card however is Suzanne Danielle as Emmannuelle. She’s funny and sexy and delightful.

It’s not a top-tier Carry On movie by any means but Carry On Emmannuelle really isn’t that bad. It’s a whole lot better than the preceding film in the series, Carry On England. I think it’s worth a look.

The ITV Studios DVD (part of their Carry On Ultimate Collection boxed set) offers a good anamorphic transfer. The extras include an excellent audio commentary featuring a couple of the cast members.

Carry On Cruising (1962)

Carry On Cruising was the sixth of the Carry On movies and the first to be shot in colour. A couple of regular Carry On cast members are missing from this one. Charles Hawtrey had demanded top billing and dropped out of the production when producer Peter Rogers refused his request. The official explanation for the absence of Joan Sims was that she was ill but in fact it seems there was a minor scandal over her personal life and she was dropped from the cast.

Which left Sid James, Kenneth Williams and Kenneth Connor as the only Carry On regulars in the film. Lance Percival took over Charles Hawtrey’s rôle while Dilys Lane replaced Joan Sims as ditzy blonde bombshell Flo Castle. Look out for Willoughby Goddard, Ed Deveraux, Ronnie Stevens and Anton Rogers in smaller parts, plus Liz Fraser as Flo’s friend Glad Trimble and Esma Cannon as the dotty Bridget Madderley.

They almost had to do without Kenneth Williams as well but he was persuaded to sign on by the promise of location shooting in exotic locales and a luxury cruise. In fact the only location shooting was done at Tilbury Docks and everything else was shot in the studio (although some footage of the P&O-Orient liner Oronsay was also used).

The basic premise is that Captain Wellington Crowther (Sid James), master of the cruise ship  Happy Wanderer, is appalled to find new faces among his crew. This upsets him a good deal. He is not a man who approves of change. He is convinced that the newcomers will be nothing but trouble, and of course he’s quite correct.

The newcomers to the crew, First Officer Marjoribanks (Kenneth Williams), Ship’s Surgeon Dr Bin (Kenneth Connor), chef Wilfred Hales (Lance Percival), steward Tom Tree (Cyril Chamberlain) and barman Sam Turner (Jimmy Thompson) go out of their way to impress the captain, with predictably disastrous results.

Flo Castle’s hunt for a husband causes further chaos.

Sid James plays it surprisingly straight as the captain which works since Captain Crowther is the one man who actually knows what he’s doing and is surrounded by well-meaning bunglers.

For a movie made entirely on a sound stage and on a modest budget Carry On Cruising looks quite impressive. The sets are extremely good. It doesn’t actually look cheap.

There’s no real effort to convince the viewer that the ship is actually moving and afloat (and there’s actually a gag about this in the movie) but that really doesn’t matter.

This was 1962 so the sexual innuendos, although plentiful, are somewhat restrained compared to later films in the series. There’s also not quite as much visual humour as in the later films. Fortunately the verbal humour is sharp and it’s more than sufficient.

This was Normal Hudis’s last Carry On screenplay before Talbot Rothwell took over the writing duties.

There’s a remarkably good-natured feel to this movie. Some of the characters may be bumbling incompetents but they’re very likeable. While Captain Crowther likes to give the impression of being a martinet he’s really quite amiable underneath. He doesn’t hate his crew, he just wants the cruise to go off smoothly and the passengers to stay happy. He actually likes the passengers.

The ITV Studios DVD (part of their Carry On Ultimate Collection boxed set) offers a reasonably good letterboxed transfer. The extras include an excellent audio commentary featuring Dilys Laye and Lance Percival.

Carry On Cruising is harmless fun and it’s recommended.

Carry On Regardless (1961)

Carry On Regardless was the fifth of the Carry On films. It was released in 1961.

Carry On films in general are not renowned for complex plotting but this one is almost entirely plotless. It’s actually nothing more than a series of sketches. That’s not really a problem. The quality of the sketches is variable but most are fairly amusing. The extraordinarily strong cast helps a good deal.

The premise is that a group of desperate unemployed people have answered a newspaper advertisement placed by the Helping Hands Agency. The agency is run by Bert Handy (Sid James). The agency claims to be able to provide people to do just about any temporary job that can be imagined. Naturally the enthusiastic but hapless assortment of misfits assembled by Bert Handy usually manage to make a fairly spectacular mess of things.

They create mayhem in a hospital, on a railway station, and at an Ideal Home Exhibition. They almost manage to break up numerous marriages. They are hopeless enough when sent to the correct assignments but when the scheduling system at the Helping Hands office goes awry and they start getting sent to the wrong assignments it all becomes total chaos.

There are some quite clever moments, and even some inspired ones such as the marvellous spoof of The 39 Steps (including the famous Forth Bridge train scene).

This film has most of the early Carry On regulars - Sid James, Kenneth Williams, Charles Hawtrey, Kenneth Connor, Joan Sims and Hattie Jacques. This was the final appearance by Terence Longdon who’d been made in most of the early Carry Ons and it’s the first appearance by the delightful Liz Fraser who ended up making four Carry On films. Sid James had joined the team in the previous entry, Carry On Constable, and was already becoming the star player.

The episodic format of this film meant that there were appearances in minor rôles by a truly extraordinary wealth of British comic talent - Patrick Cargill, Sydney Tafler, Fenella Fielding (who was later to be a memorable sexpot in Carry On Screaming), Eric Pohlmann, Howard Marion-Crawford and countless others.

A particular highlight is the appearance by Stanley Unwin. Unwin was a unique comic talent. His trademark was his ability to speak fluent Unwinese. This was a private nonsense language he’d invented. What made it clever was that it wasn’t mere gibberish. There was a system to the way he mangled ordinary words and it was always on the borderline between making sense and not making sense. You could more or less figure out what he was saying even when you couldn’t understand a single actual word. And it sounded like a real language and had a rhythm to it. Unwinese is used very cleverly in this film.

There’s some mildly risque stuff but it’s rather tame compared to the later Carry Ons. One of the fascinating things about the Carry On series is that they were made over a time period (1958 to 1978) that saw censorship go from being quite strict to being almost non-existent. At first it seemed like a good thing. The Carry Ons were arguably at their peak from about 1964 (Carry On Spying) to 1971 (Carry On Henry). They were able to get away with being cheerfully naughty without descending to crassness. By the late 70s crassness was becoming the order of the day and the decline of British comedy was well and truly under way. Comedy needs some limits. It needs some discipline.

Of course this time period also charts the long sad tragic decline of the British film industry which was booming in the late 50s and had become a walking corpse by the late 70s.

This is possibly the most good-natured film of the series with the crew of misfits at the Helping Hands Agency actually having a certain camaraderie and even a certain affection for one another.

On the whole the format of loosely linked sketches works well and it helps to keep the pacing brisk.

The ITV Studios DVD (part of their Carry On Ultimate Collection boxed set) offers a very good anamorphic transfer and the extras include an audio commentary featuring Liz Fraser (who interestingly enough blames the Carry On movies for wrecking her career!) and Terence Longdon.

Carry On Regardless is perhaps not one of the very best of the Carry On movies but it’s far from being the worst. In fact it's unfairly underrated. It’s consistently amusing and it can certainly be recommended.

Carry On Cleo (1964)

Carry On Cleo was the tenth of the Carry On movies and one of the most successful. It was a box-office smash hit at the time of its release in 1964 and remains one of the most highly regarded movies of the series.

I’ve always had a preference for the Carry On movies dealing with historical subjects. They seem to lend themselves particularly well to the over-the-top and highly theatrical comedic style of the Carry On films. 

Carry On Cleo has the considerable advantage of some absolutely perfect subject matter - Julius Caesar’s invasion of Britain, the plot against Caesar’s life and Caesar’s and Antony’s romantic dalliances with Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt.

Hengist Pod (Kenneth Connor) is a British wheel-maker who has invented a new and highly advanced type of wheel - the square wheel. The advantages of the square wheel are obvious. Well, they’re obvious to Hengist Pod anyway. Along with his friend Horsa (Jim Dale) Hengist is captured by the Romans and sold into slavery. They end up in the galleys.

While all this is going on Caesar (Kenneth Williams) has sent Mark Antony (Sid James) to remove Cleopatra (Amanda Barie) from the throne of Egypt and replace her with her brother Ptolemy. Antony takes one look at the gorgeous Queen of Egypt and decides that it’s a much better idea to back Cleopatra against Ptolemy.

Hengist and Horsa end up in Rome where the bumbling and cowardly Hengist ends up being mistakenly given the credit for slaying half a dozen would-be assassins and becomes Caesar’s bodyguard. Caesar and Antony travel to Egypt where they are in competition for Cleopatra’s affections and Antony’s best chances of gaining those affections is obviously to assassinate Caesar. 

This film obviously has, by Carry On standards, a fairly substantial plot. More importantly Talbot Rothwell’s script has an abundance of gags nearly all of which come off. And the historical subject matter isn’t just a colourful background - the gags and the story are perfectly integrated and while there’s the usual supply of double entendres there’s also some genuine wit.

The actors throw themselves into their roles with tremendous enthusiasm. They clearly appreciated having such a strong script. Kenneth Williams, Sid James and Charles Hawtrey are wonderful but then they always were. Kenneth Connor gives one of his best Carry On performances. Joan Sims doesn’t get much screen time but she’s in blisteringly good form as Caesar’s neglected, jealous and shrewish wife Calpurnia. Amanda Barrie as Cleopatra is a delight. Jon Pertwee puts in an appearance as a mad soothsayer.

Carry On Cleo was a very fortunate production indeed. It was shot at Pinewood and producer Peter Rogers was able to use some magnificent sets that had been built for the mega-budget Elizabeth Taylor Cleopatra. They were never used for Cleopatra since the production of that film was moved to Rome but Carry On Cleo director Gerald Thomas was more than happy to make use of them. Some of the costumes (including those worn by Amanda Barrie) had originally been made for Cleopatra as well. As a result Carry On Cleo looks like an incredibly expensive movie. In actual fact it’s budget was a paltry £165,000 (compared to the $44 million that 20th Century-Fox poured into Cleopatra). Carry On Cleo looks absolutely gorgeous.

The movie was shot widescreen and in colour to take full advantage of the terrific sets.

The ITV Studios DVD, from their Carry On: The Ultimate Collection boxed set, includes an entertaining audio commentary with Amanda Barrie and Julie Stevens (who plays Horsa’s lady love). The transfer is extremely good. 

It’s all outrageous fun, and it’s worth it just to hear Kenneth Williams deliver the line that was voted in a 2007 poll as the funniest line in movie history. This may be the best of all the Carry On movies. It’s certainly in the top three. I’d even go so far as to rate it as one of the best movie comedies of all time. Very highly recommended.

Carry On Constable (1960)

Carry On Constable was the fourth film of the Carry On series. After the enormous commercial success of Carry On Nurse in 1959 it was obvious the series was going to be a consistent money-spinner and producer Peter Rogers was anxious to maintain a stock company of regular cast members. By the time Carry On Constable was released in 1960 that had more or less been achieved. Most of the stars who would become so familiar to audiences had been assembled - Kenneth Williams, Kenneth Connor, Hattie Jacques, Joan Sims, Charles Hawtrey and Sid James (who made his Carry On debut in this film).

Norman Hudis wrote the scripts for the first six films after which Talbot Rothwell took over and wrote most of the remaining films. The Norman Hudis Carry On movies have a rather different flavour compared to the later movies. The acting is much less excessive. Even Kenneth Williams is quite restrained. The actors are making an attempt at playing actual characters in a film rather than playing directly to the audience. There’s not quite as much of a madcap quality.

Whether you prefer these earlier films or the later Talbot Rothwell-scripted ones is a matter of taste. Personally I prefer the Talbot Rothwell films but the early films do have their charm.

Carry On Constable doesn’t have a great deal in the way of plot. A flu epidemic has caused a major manpower shortage in the police force and the station run by Inspector Mills (Eric Barker) has been hit particularly hard. Mills is understandably relieved when three replacement officers arrive. His relief soon turns to dismay. The three are fresh out of police school and Constable Benson (Kenneth Williams), Constable Charlie Constable (Kenneth Connor) and Constable Tom Potter (Leslie Phillips) are a trio of bumbling incompetents. Even worse Mills has had to resort to putting Special Constable Timothy Gorse (Charles Hawtrey) onto full-time duties.

It’s up to the experienced Sergeant Wilkins (Sid James) to whip these hapless recruits into shape. Sergeant Wilkins has his own problems - Inspector Mills is trying to get rid of him.

What follows is more like a series of comic episodes with only the thinnest of connecting narratives. The three new constables manage to make a mess of just about every situation in which they find themselves. There’s a great deal of slapstick humour. There are of course plenty of double entendres but not quite as many as in the later Carry On movies. It’s mostly gently amusing rather than laugh-out-loud funny but it has its moments and it’s good-natured fun.

This was the third Carry On movie for Leslie Phillips. Peter Rogers was anxious for Phillips to continue as a regular but although Phillips enjoyed making these movies he decided enough was enough and didn’t want to become part of a permanent comic team. Phillips was a fine comic actor and he does well as the skirt-chasing rather aristocratic playboy Potter. 

Sid James had started his career as a serious actor and he plays Sergeant Wilkins surprisingly straight. Kenneth Williams might be more restrained than in the later films but there are signs of the inspired comic madness that was to come. Hattie Jacques as Sergeant Laura Moon (who has a bit of a thing for Sergeant Wilkins) is as delightful as ever. Kenneth Connor is quite over-the-top as the insanely superstitious Constable Constable who falls hopelessly in love with WPC Gloria Passworthy (Joan Sims). Shirley Eaton makes one of her several Carry On appearances in this movie. There’s a galaxy of British comic talent in minor roles.

Although filmed mostly at Pinewood Studios there’s a surprising amount of location shooting in this film.

The ITV Studios DVD (part of their Carry On Ultimate Collection boxed set) offers a fine anamorphic transfer and includes an audio commentary featuring Leslie Phillips, who has some truly outrageous anecdotes to tell about the making of the movie.

My own view is that the series was at its peak from about 1962 to 1971 with Carry On Henry being the last of the great Carry On movies. Carry On Constable can’t really compare with classics like Carry On Spying, Carry On Cleo or Don’t Lose Your Head. Carry On Constable might not be one of the best of the Carry On movies but it’s amusing and enjoyable. Recommended.

Don't Lose Your Head (1966)

Don't Lose Your Head, released in 1966, was the thirteenth of the Carry On films and the first to be distributed by Rank, Anglo-Amalgamated having dropped the series because its new managing director disliked them. Rank initially planned to drop the Carry On prefix from the titles but soon changed their minds when they discovered that the Carry On name was a major drawcard. Don't Lose Your Head was later retitled Carry On...Don’t Lose Your Head and released in the US as Carry On Pimpernel.

The film is obviously a spoof of The Scarlet Pimpernel but since he did not have the rights to Baroness Orczy’s books producer Peter Rodgers somehow managed to convince her estate that the movie had nothing whatever to do with the Scarlet Pimpernel!

The movie is set during the Terror in Paris, with French aristocrats being slaughtered en masse. The man in charge of the executions is the implacable Citizen Camembert (Kenneth Williams), assisted by the bumbling Citizen Bidet (Peter Butterworth). Two bored foppish English noblemen, Sir Rodney Ffing (Sid James) and Lord Darcy Pue (Jim Dale), decide to do something about this. Soon the Black Fingernail is rescuing French aristocrats from under the very nose of Citizen Camembert.

While rescuing the Duc de Pommfrit (Charles Hawtrey) from the guillotine Sir Rodney meets and falls in love with the beautiful Jacqueline (Dany Robin). Citizen Camembert intends to use Jacqueline as bait in a trap to capture the Black Fingernail, but first they must learn his identity. Camembert and Bidet set off for England in order to discover this essential fact, along with Camembert’s mistress Désirée Dubarry (Joan Sims). Camembert travels in disguise as a French aristocrat. While Camembert tries to trap the Black Fingernail the Black Fingernail is trying to trap him.

Having an actual plot helps things along. And being a spoof of swashbuckling adventures this movie has more action than previous Carry On films. The action scenes combine actual action with (naturally) lots of visual humour and the combination works very well. The movie ends with a long and remarkably ambitious action set-piece which is not only funny but a pretty decent swashbuckling adventure fight scene into the bargain.

The script is of course packed to overflowing with double entendres. Talbot Rothwell had by this time become the regular writer for the series and this is typical of the fine scripts he provided during this period.

The best of the Carry On movies were, in my opinion, those with historical settings. They tended to look rather more opulent than those with contemporary settings and somehow the distinctive Carry On humour seems to work best in period costume. Of course the historical Carry Ons also tended to have stronger plot lines which gave them a bit more discipline and this in turn seemed to make the outrageous acting performances even funnier.

Don't Lose Your Head is actually quite lavish visually with some attractive location shooting and (by low-budget movie standards) some truly sumptuous costumes and sets. And Alan Hume’s cinematography is impressive, especially given the very tight shooting schedule.

The genius of producer Peter Rogers was his ability to achieve fairly high production valuers while keeping budgets very low. Rogers’ financial tight-fistedness caused some tensions with cast members who felt they should have been paid more but the low budgets were essential to the success of the series since they more or less guaranteed that the films would always turn a profit.

This entry in the cycle features most of the regulars and they’re all in splendid form. It would be quite unfair to pick out any one performance as a standout - by this time the regular Carry On repertory company was functioning like a well-oiled machine and it’s the teamwork that provides the magic.

The ITV Studios Home Entertainment Carry On Complete Collection DVD boxed set includes all the Carry On movies plus the short-lived Carry On Laughing TV series. The anamorphic transfer for Don't Lose Your Head is impressive and extras include a commentary track with star Jim Dale.

Don't Lose Your Head has always been one of my favourite Carry On movies. It looks great, it’s delightfully funny and as a bonus it has some fun action scenes. It’s a thoroughly enjoyable swashbuckling romp with the characteristic cheerfully but innocently risque Carry On verbal humour. Highly recommended.

Carry On Henry (1971)

Carry On Henry was perhaps the last of the great Carry On films. The franchise declined during the 70s as changing tastes forced the films to become more overtly crude, and as the regular cast members slowly dropped by the wayside. Carry On Henry has most of the old team still in place and and still at the top of their game. It also benefits from remarkably  high production values and a genuinely clever script by Talbot Rothwell.

I’ve always been particularly fond of the historical Carry On movies - they seemed to be ideally suited to the Carry On treatment.

Henry VIII, having disposed of one unwanted wife, is looking forward to his marriage with Marie of Normandy (Joan Sims). He has been assured that she is a rare beauty and it is also a politically advantageous match, Marie being a favourite cousin of the King of France. This time he is certain he has married wisely and everything seems to be going swimmingly until the wedding night when Henry makes a horrific discovery on his wedding night - his new queen is addicted to garlic. And Henry cannot bear the thought of even being in the same room as someone who has eaten garlic, much less sharing a bed with her.

Of course the marriage must be annulled but there are difficulties. In fact Rothwell’s script throws in a whole series of hilarious difficulties as Henry constantly changes his mind. He doesn’t want his new queen but he does want the very generous present the King of France has offered him to celebrate this illustrious marriage. Further complications ensue - the queen becomes pregnant but Henry knows that whoever the father is it certainly isn’t him. Suspicion falls on Henry’s equerry, Sir Roger de Lodgerley (Charles Hawtrey). 

And Henry has his eye on a new prospective queen - the voluptuous Bettina (Barbara Windsor).

Somehow his chief advisers, his Chancellor Thomas Cromwell (Kenneth Williams) and Cardinal Wolsey (Terry Scott), have to find a way to do the impossible - to keep Henry happy, to keep the King of France happy, to keep the Vatican happy and find a way for Henry to get his hands on both the French king’s 50,000 gold pieces and the luscious Bettina. They also have to deal with a plot by the disaffected Lord Hampton of Wick (Kenneth Connor) to overthrow the king.

For a comedy film it’s quite an involved plot but it sets up a whole series of inspired farcical situations. While the screenplay is filled to overflowing with sexual innuendo it’s all good-natured harmless fun that never descends into outright crudity. There are gags in abundance and they’re very very funny.

Barbara Windsor does have a couple of brief nude scenes but surprisingly enough they actually have something to do with the plot.

This was the 21st Carry On movie and by this time the regulars knew how to get the maximum in laughs from any script and this time they are given terrific material to work with. Kenneth Williams is in scintillating form and he and Terry Scott make a superb team as the hapless constantly conspiring advisers. Sid James is perfect as the randy but perpetually frustrated Henry. Barbara Windsor is at her bubbly best. Joan Sims gets one of her best roles in the series and delivers one of the ripest French accents you’ll ever hear. Charles Hawtrey gets a bigger role than usual and takes foppishness further than anyone could possibly imagine it could be taken. Kenneth Connor has a fairly small part but makes the most of it. The supporting players get their chances as well, especially Julian Orchard’s outrageous turn as the French ambassador, the aptly named Duc de Poncenay.

Gerald Thomas directed every single Carry On movie. Apart from being very good at directing comedy he was a master of the art of bringing in a low-budget movie on schedule and on budget. 

The film was shot at Pinewood Studios and makes use of some magnificent sets (presumably built for bigger budgeted movies). The costumes are quite stunning. Cinematographer Alan Hume made sixteen Carry On movies and knew how to get good results without wasting unnecessary time. Carry On Henry was a very cheap movie but it actually looks quite lavish and rather polished. It shows what can be done on a tight budget when you have a cast of crew of seasoned professionals who get on with the job.

The ITV Studios DVD, from their Carry On: The Ultimate Collection boxed set, includes a number of extras. There’s a extremely short contemporary “making of” featurette which is worth watching for a very brief but screamingly funny interview with Kenneth Williams. There’s also an audio commentary featuring cinematographer Alan Hume who remembers the making of the movie as being non-stop fun.

Watching the movie is also non-stop fun. It’s not only the best of the later Carry Ons, it’s also one of the best of the whole series. Very highly recommended.

Carry On Sergeant (1958)

Carry On Sergeant was the movie that started the Carry On series. As is often the case with the first movie in a long-running series this one differs a little from the later Carry On movies.

For one thing it’s rather more plot-driven and the two major plot strands are taken fairly seriously rather than being just an excuse for a series of gags.

The first thing viewers will notice is that while quite a few of the Carry On regulars are here they’re mostly in secondary roles. Only Kenneth Connor has a really major role. Charles Hawtrey, Kenneth Williams and Hattie Jacques are all consigned to relatively minor roles among the supporting cast.

Sergeant Grimshawe (William Hartnell) is about to retire from the army after many years training National Servicemen. In all those years not one platoon he has trained has won the coveted Champion Platoon trophy. He is determined that his final platoon will win that honour. It’s not just the glory - he also has fifty quid riding on the outcome and fifty quid in 1958 was a lot of money.

Unfortunately the new recruits in Able Platoon are a particularly sorry lot. Private Golightly (Charles Hawtrey) is chronically unable to keep his mind focused on any soldierly duties. Private Charlie Sage (Bob Monkhouse) is too busy thinking of his beautiful new wife Mary (Shirley Eaton) to give much attention to the military virtues. Private Horace Strong (Kenneth Connor) is a hypochondriac who spends most of his time in the office of the camp doctor, Captain Clark (Hattie Jacques). Private James Bailey (Kenneth Williams) is an effete snobbish university graduate who makes no attempt to disguise his contempt for the Army. The other misfits in Able Platoon include a guitar-playing beatnik. And then there’s Private Herbert Brown (Norman Rossington) who has failed the army’s basic training course on no less than three occasions and has the reputation of being the worst soldier anyone has ever encountered.

Only Private Heywood (Terence Longdon) seems to have potential but he lacks any real interest.

The other major sub-plot concerns Private Sage’s attempts to find a way to spend his wedding night with his new bride. He had received his call-up papers on his wedding day. It’s the sort of sub-plot that would have given rise to a great deal of risqué humour in the later Carry On movies but it’s handled surprisingly delicately here. But then this was 1958 and there was only so much one could get past the censor.

Service comedies were very popular in the 1950s and this movie adheres fairly closely to the established formula with the long-suffering sergeant having to deal with totally inept recruits. Carry On Sergeant does vary the formula just a little though. You expect the sergeant to be a martinet who tries to make the lives of the recruits as miserable as they’re making his life but that doesn’t happen here. Sergeant Grimshawe might be a martinet by inclination but in his desperation to win that fifty quid he’s decided to try a completely different approach. He’s going to treat these recruits with gentleness, sensitivity and understanding. He’s going to be a kindly father figure instead of a stern authority figure. He doesn’t really think it will work but fifty quid is fifty quid and it’s worth a shot.

You might think this would diminish the comic possibilities but it doesn’t. If anything it enhances them since Grimshawe’s exasperation with their bumbling incompetence is even more amusing when he’s trying so hard to be Mr Nice Guy.

William Hartnell had appeared in ITV’s hugely successful service comedy sitcom The Army Game, which had inspired a spin-off movie made by Hammer Films, I Only Arsked. Hartnell was not in the Hammer movie but its cast did include a couple of Carry On regulars, Bernard Bresslaw and Charles Hawtrey. Carry On Sergeant was clearly an attempt to jump on what seemed to be a very popular bandwagon. It proved to have been a shrewd movie. Carry On Sergeant was a major box-office hit.

Perhaps the biggest surprise in Carry On Sergeant is Kenneth Williams. The superciliousness is there, and in fact most of the elements that would make so immensely popular in the later movies of the series are there, but he had not yet learnt how to make the most of those elements. Most importantly he had not yet discovered the joys of total excessiveness. His performance is very subdued and very restrained. At times he almost seems to be trying to give a serious dramatic performance.

While the later Carry On regulars in this film are mostly in supporting roles it’s easy to see why they would soon be promoted to bigger roles in subsequent movies in the series. They’re the best things in this movie.

Despite a few mis-steps and a few slow moments this is still a very enjoyable movie and it has plenty of genuine laughs. It’s also a remarkably good-natured movie. The ending has a touch of sentimentality to it that you certainly don’t expect in the irreverent world of the Carry On movie. The series had not yet hit its stride but this was a promising start. Recommended.

Carry On Screaming (1966)

Carry On Screaming! was the twelfth of the Carry On movies and the last to be made by Anglo-Amalgamated (after which Rank took over the franchise). While it’s often described as a spoof of the Hammer horror films it’s really a spoof of horror movies in general, and also to some extent of the Sherlock Holmes-type gaslight mysteries.

Carry On Screaming! actually has a more coherent plot than many of the Carry On films and it has a genuine horror movie plot although obviously played purely for laughs.

Harry H. Corbett, in his only appearance in a Carry On movie, plays Detective-Sergeant Sidney Bung. The role was originally intended for Sid James but Corbett is so good it’s hard to imagine that even James could have bettered his performance. Sergeant Bung is investigating a series of disappearances of young women and the trail leads him to the Bide-a-Wee Rest Home. The home is run by Doctor Orlando Watt (Kenneth Williams) and his sister Valeria (Fenella Fielding). Dr Watt has been dead for fifteen years but that doesn’t stop him from carrying on his work. His work consists of vitrifying corpses, regenerating the dead and creating monsters like Oddbod. Sergeant Bung is soon under Valeria’s spell and finds it increasingly difficult to remember his police duties.

The setup offers ample opportunities for classic Carry On humour and Talbot Rothwell’s script makes the most of it.

The production values are surprisingly high and there are some quite effective sets. Cinematographer Alan Hume worked on a number of excellent British horror movies in the 60s and 70s including Hammer’s Kiss of the Vampire and he gives Carry On Screaming! an authentic gothic atmosphere. There are scenes in this movie that would not look out of place in a horror movie. It’s a low-budget movie but it never looks cheap.

Fenella Fielding proved to be ideal casting. She vamps it up outrageously (her slinky red dress is a highlight) and she works particularly well with Harry H. Corbett and Kenneth Williams. Those three, along with Peter Butterworth as Detective-Constable Slowbottom, are the mainstays of the film. Charles Hawtrey is relegated to a minor role but makes the most of it. Jon Pertwee (later to become a major TV star in Doctor Who) goes gloriously over-the-top as a dotty forensic scientist.

The Carry On movies were, in my opinion, really starting to hit their stride in the mid-60s. They were starting to use historical settings (Carry On Jack being one of the first to do this) and the Carry On brand of comedy seems to work particularly well in period costume.

The Carry On movies were very much a phenomenon of their times. After the ill-fated Carry On Columbus in 1992 producer Peter Rogers made several further attempts to revive the series. It’s fortunate that he did not succeed. Screen comedy has changed radically since the heyday of the Carry On movies (and not for the better). The Carry On movies succeed so well because they don’t (unlike so much modern comedy) have a political  agenda to push and because they have a good-natured and cheerful but oddly innocent naughtiness to them in contrast to the crudity and the cruelty of modern comedy. The Carry On comedies don’t try to be edgy. They’re content to be funny. It’s the fact that they are somewhat dated that makes them so delightful and so refreshing today.

The extras include an audio commentary featuring Fenella Fielding and Angela Douglas (who plays a small role as Jim Dale’s luckless gilrfriend Doris). Both actresses have vivid (and happy) memories of the making of the movie and contribute plenty of amusing anecdotes.

ITV Studios Home Entertainment have released this movie in their 16-disc Carry On Collection which includes every Carry On movie as well as all thirteen episodes of the short-lived Carry On television series. Every movie comes with an audio commentary and there are contemporary interviews with many of the key cast members. The transfer of Carry On Screaming! is anamorphic and it looks superb.

Carry On Screaming! was one of the best movies of the long-running series. It’s clever and it’s funny. What more could you want? Highly recommended.

Carry On Spying (1964)

The success of the early James Bond films unleashed a plethora of imitations, blatant rip-offs and spoofs. It was inevitable that there would be a Carry On Spying movie. The good news is that it’s one of the best of the Carry On movies.

Made in 1964, the film sees British Intelligence desperately short of agents. When a top-secret formula is stolen they are left with no choice - they must assign Simkins to the case. Simkins (Kenneth Williams) is generally regarded as their most incompetent agent so to give his mission a better chance of success three trainee agents are assigned to assist him - Charlie Bind (Charles Hawtrey), Harold Crump (Bernard Cribbins) and the voluptuous Daphne Honeybutt (Barbara Windsor).

Their search for the missing formula takes them to Vienna and thence to Algiers and they naturally leave behind them a trail of mayhem. Luckily their opponents from the sinister Society for the Total Extinction of Non-Conforming Humans (STENCH) are equally inept. The British do have one big thing going for them - among her other assets Agent Honeybutt has a photographic memory. But will this be enough when they go up against the dreaded chief of STENCH, the mysterious Dr Crow?

It’s classic Carry On silliness, loaded with double entendres but like most of these films it has a certain beguiling innocence about it. It’s good-natured fun, and it can’t even really be accused of sexism. Daphne Honeybutt is probably the least incompetent of the British agents. It’s pleasing to see Barbara Windsor getting more to do than in most of her appearances in these movies.

Dr Crow’s secret headquarters is fairly impressive and provides the setting for a great comic/action chase set-piece. Carry On Spying has all the ingredients you expect in a spy spoof movie.

Of course you either like this style of British humour or you don’t. If you do then this is an excellent example of the breed.

The Region 4 DVD has absolutely no extras at all, but the transfer is quite acceptable.

Carry on Jack (1963)

I have many cinematic guilty pleasures, not the least of which are the Carry On movies. Yes, they’re very silly and the humour is usually predictable, but that’s what makes them fun. Carry on Jack is one of the earlier entries in the cycle, and it has the Carry On crew all at sea as part of the British navy during the Napoleonic Wars.

Nelson may be dead, but the navy still has Captain Fearless (Kenneth Williams) in command of the frigate Venus. The ship is about to be joined by its newest midshipman, the unfortunately named Albert Poop-Decker (Bernard Cribbins), who has managed to spend eight-and-a-half years at the Naval Academy without actually graduating. But facing war with Spain as well as France the navy needs every man it can get, even including young Albert. Unfortunately on his last night ashore the hapless young officer finds himself in a brothel, in the company of a young lady named Sally (Juliet Mills).

Sally seems quite nice, almost the proverbial whore with the heart of gold, until she knocks poor Albert over the head and steals his uniform. Sally wants to go to sea as well. Or rather she wants to go to Spain, to find her lover. And she’s heard that the Venus has orders to proceed to Spanish waters. Next morning Midshipman Poop-Decker, bereft of his uniform, stumbles downstairs to find himself nabbed by the press gang, along with a cess-pit cleaner named Walter Sweetley (Charles Hawtrey). Poor Poop-Decker now has to serve as an ordinary seaman.

Meanwhile Sally is passing herself off as the young midshipman. The fact that she is very obviously female is somehow not noticed, this being one of the conventions of this sort of comedy. And needless to say Captain Fearless turns out to be anything but fearless. There are encounters with pirates, with a Spanish invasion fleet, and much assorted nautical silliness.

The Carry On style of humour is something you either like or you don’t like. If you do like it, this is a reasonable example of the breed. It’s one of the better Carry On films, but there’s still plenty of enjoyment to be had. Kenneth Williams is of course always a joy.

Perhaps the most surprising thing about the movie is that it’s not particularly sexist. Sally is probably the most competent of all the characters in the movie. That’s not to say that she really knows what she’s doing, but she at least has a rough idea which is more than can be said for any of the male characters.

The Region 4 DVD looks fairly OK but sadly it features no extras at all.