Carry On Films

One they never used to show on UK T.V very much I thought. Going back years now of course. Its one of my favourites and definatly the top one of the 60’s for me.

Carry On: Don’t Lose Your Head (1966)

In watching this today I realised I had never seen it all the way through before, just bits and pieces on the telly, and I must say it was a pleasant surprise. Williams is in cracking form as Citizen Camembert, the big cheese in charge of executing the French aristocracy and, as usual, gets all the best lines. Found this a lot funnier than I expected.

Yes, a good pic and the first to be made by Rank instead of Anglo-Amalgamated. IIRC (could be wrong though), a change at boardroom level for Anglo-Amalgamated spelled the end for the Carry Ons there but, whilst Rank were happy to take on the team, they were initially less keen on retaining the Carry On… prefix, which I guess they felt was already too inextricably linked with the other studio. Hence, the first two Carry Ons made by Rank - Don’t Lose Your Head (1966) and the inferior Follow That Camel (1967) - didn’t have “Carry On” in the titles. Rank relented in the end though, and the prefix was added to those two movies sometime later (on second theatrical runs, I think).

Carry On: Follow That Camel (1967)

Phil Silvers doing his Bilko schtick should have been an asset (I love the original Bilko series) but somehow, like the rest of the film, it falls flat. Very few laughs in this one for me. Although you can’t help but be impressed by the production team’s audacity in substituting North Africa with Camber Sands. Apart from that though nothing really memorable.
Possibly the weakest one so far.

[quote=“Phil H, post:19, topic:3484”]@Yod
If you want to see some more Merton Studio stuff Network also have a set called ‘The Scales of Justice’ which you might enjoy. A series of short films (only about 30 minutes or so each) which were made as support programme fillers for cinemas in the early sixties with a clear eye to selling them on to television in a few years. Only £7.50 for the set I think with about 13 films in it. All based around supposed real life court cases but most with such low level crimes that they make you smile at how different times have become. One is just about a divorce, another is about breach of promise. Not exactly hard hitting stuff but I do enjoy them and good to see the usual familiar faces showing up.[/quote]Cheers Phil, I’ll check them out.

To our Spaghetti stalwarts, Phil H. and Yodlaf. P.

Cheers, guys…!..and good on you!

Since I mentioned the EDGAR WALLACE box-set being for sale, you have both kept mentioning the ‘Network’ DVD release of ‘SCALES OF JUSTICE’…I’ll take the plunge and buy it!! Many thanks for the recommendation!

I love all these fantastic Black and Whites from another era …in my humble opinion a much more ‘innocent’, and certainly intentionally ‘morally-minded’ era of British TV. Is this such a bad thing?

Many Thanks, amigos…it is ‘LOVERSOFYESTERDAYIANS’ like ourselves that keep companies such as ‘Network’ alive…long may the oldies of yesteryear keep appearing!

By the way…Am I the first person to coin the phrase ‘Loversofyesterdayfians’?

P.S. Whatever…if companies such as ‘NETWORK’ care enough to keep churning out our memories of yesteryear…then good on them!! …I - for one - am all for re-visiting my youth…Roll on!!

During the time I couldn’t get into the forum I added the following to the watched pile in my Carry On marathon.

Carry On Doctor (1967)

A text book Carry On. Every regular is here except Kenneth Connor (who obviously took a few years out at this stage), Babs’ boobs are back (“What a lovely pear!”) and the series has become so established they can even do self referential gags. It also has Frankie Howerd in full “'ere missus” form. What’s more it was genuinely funny throughout. Definite candidate for top 3 for me.

Carry On Up the Khyber (1968)

After the previous triumph this one fell sadly flat I’m afraid. Reminded me too much of the disappointingly poor ‘Follow That Camel’. It had some good ideas on occasion (the finale dinner scene where the house is being destroyed around them is an obvious high point) but for the most part it just wasn’t funny enough and I found myself struggling to stay awake more than once. If ‘Doctor’ was a top 3 I’m afraid this one is probably bottom 3 so far.

Hm. Generally regarded as one of the more popular titles among Carry On enthusiasts, along with Doctor, Camping etc.

“Hm. Generally regarded as one of the more popular titles among Carry On enthusiasts, along with Doctor, Camping etc.”

So I understand but I can’t see it myself.

Carry On Camping (1969)

1969 was a key year for pushing the boundaries in cinema. The Wild Bunch showed unprecedented levels of violence, Women in Love had full frontal male nudity and Carry On Camping took the much loved series into the realms of sex comedy for the first time. Facetious maybe but in watching this series from the beginning you can see a general trend towards more sauciness for a couple of years but with a seismic shift with this film. For a start with there are real life breasts on show for the first time, albeit in the context of co-opted footage from an original naturist documentary, but just as importantly Carry On Camping is the first film in the series in which the entire plot centres around people trying and failing to get their legs over. There had been some innuendo and “Phwoar!” moments up till now but here there is hardly a scene that isn’t about sex in some way or another. A sign of its times I suppose but also of the changes in law and censorship in the UK as the Theatres act of 1968 had a big influence in liberalising what was acceptable throughout the British arts scene. So the Carry Ons, previously a family friendly creature and now perhaps wishing to remain relevant, were now aiming at a more adult audience.

The problem for me in all this is that the series had been going on for some time now and its team of players were far from youthful so it became inevitable that we would be subjected to a bunch of older men leching and leering at young girls. Sid James was 55 when this film was made and the story has him shifting his amorous attentions from his non-compliant 30 something girlfriend to a troop of school girls. Frankly, this is just downright creepy. No wonder there are so many nonces being uncovered here from the UK entertainment world of the early seventies if everyone thought this was all right.

It’s a pity because there are some good laughs in the film (Babs’ famous bra busting scene, Terry Scott and his wife and pretty much every scene involving Kenneth Williams and Hattie Jacques) but the overlying creepiness of the rest of it spoils the total for me and pushes it well down my favourites list. I know others disagree with its merit, for many it is the quintessential Carry On, but for me it is the beginning of a downward trend for the series.

I’ve only seen a couple of Carry on films, a long time ago when the public channel shown a few, Camping was one of those, can’t remembre much, but cleary I wasn’t interested in the humour.

Now what I really liked was the Benny Hill Show, never lost one episode.

I’m not a great fan of these films but I’ve watched a few over the years. in my mind they’re inextricably linked to that actor with the wrinkled face, Sidney James. I don’t know if he was in all of them, many of them or only a couple of them, but when somebody says Carry On, I say: wrinkled face!

He wasn’t in all of them, Scherp but he was in plenty enough to make his face (and dirty laugh) synonymous with the series. A very familiar actor to those of us of a particular age in the UK as he was in a lot of films as well as TV series here for over 20 years.

I remember the comedian Marty Feldman talking about his profession, saying something like: I was born in a neighbourhood were you had only two options: becoming a thief or becoming a comedian. With my face becoming a thief was out of the question …

The same could be said about good old Syd: Once you’ve seen that face, you never forget it, and you’d recognize it in a line-up without looking.

I don’t know if Marty Feldman is a household name to the younger genreation, so just in case …

Carry On Again Doctor (1969)

I couldn’t remember if I’d ever actually seen this one before and having watched it now I’m still not sure. The best thing you could say about it is that it is forgettable.

I think that after all this viewing effort, they sould make a … Carry On Phil (or a Carry On Leyton) ;D

Carry On Leyton is already happening unfortunately and it is turning into the least funny farce ever made. Relegation looms ever larger with every passing week. :’( :’( :’(

Talking about Orient or did the Carry On franchise really make a trip to the stadium?

In Dutch these films were titled Zet 'm op. Carry on camping = Zet 'm op in de caravan.

Talking about Orient or did the Carry On franchise really make a trip to the stadium?

The Orient of course. Or should I say the third rate Albanian made Italian reality TV show our club has become. Which is actually worse than a bad Carry On film.
You couldn’t make this shit up really: