Carry On Again Doctor (1969)

 "Sir, I do not object to jiggery. But I do take exception to pokery.

It's the end of the '60s. And, worryingly, the Carry On series gives us a direct sequel to a recent hit in a way which might suggest they're running out of ideas. And, well... it's a bit of a curate's egg.

Yes, the ending, with the very '60s attitude to trans issues, is of its time, and couldn't be done today. Yet there's also an innocence to it, no suggestion of overt bigotry or cruelly cynical culture war nonsense. And the whole thing, particularly towards the end, is a very well constructed farce. And a well constructed farce is not an easy thing to write.

This is also a film crammed with excellent jokes, and most of the core Carry On cast at the top of their game. Kenneth Williams, Joan Sims and Hattie Jacques excel particularly, and Jim Dale is always a damn fine lead.

And yet... all that stuff in the overseas medical mission falls flat, with cheap looking sets and one note jokes. Worse, Sid James is wasted in a relatively small and poorly thought through role. There's such a contrast between these rather poor scenes and the rest of the film, in an actual medical setting.

And this is frustrating, because the rest of the film is as good as anything the Carry On crew have ever done, with script and cast both in sparkling form. When this film is good, it's very, very good.

Carry On Camping (1969)

 "Do you know, she's been showing me how to stick the pole up!"

It's back to the contemporary world of 1969 after all of the recent historical action, and another one of the best Carry Ons here- much though the setting really does give us a proper little time capsule anda reminder of how different we were as a country backin 1969.

It can't be denied, though- the humour is great here. The gag with Mr Fiddler and the sign at the entrance to the campis simply inspired. And all the regulars are in fine form here, with the addition of the wonderful Betty Marsden, who is hilarious (as a character called Harriet Potter!) and has superb comic chemistry with Terry Scott. The dynamic from Carry On Doctor between Kenneth Williams and Hattie Jacques is revived here... even revealing that this is the exact same Matron, in a nice little breaking of the fourth wall.

But my God... it was such a different time. Wearing a suit to the cinema. The older generation still insisting on no sex before marriage despite the fact that, now that it's the '60s and the pill exists, this shows a rather irresponsible and cavalier attitude to getting married. City gents with bowler hats. Hippies!

Most of all, though, the blokes' perving attitude to sex now... aspecially the eponymous Sid and Bernie, both clearly midde aged, lusting after presumably teenage pupils of a finishing school, which is rather icky, to say the least. Then there's Peter, the hen pecked husband, who discovers at the end that the answer to his problems is to give Harriet a damn good seeing to, after which he seems to be in charge. Yep. It was a very different time.

No denying it, though- this film is very, very funny.

Carry On Doctor (1967)

 "Matron doesn't approve of banging in the ward..."

Agh. I hadn't seen this film for decades, but then last night I watched it... and suddenly it felt very familiar indeed. I suspect I've seen this Carry On more times than any other, albeit early in my life. And that probably shouldn't be surprising- it's one of the most highly regarded. But I probably enjoyed the film less than I should have done because of the memories flooding back as I watched it.

It's strange seeing this while watching all the films in order. After several films set in historical times and other places, here we are again in a contemporary British hospital, in a 1967 of the middle aged, rather different to the Summer of Love that was happening for a few rich young people. This is a time of strict matrons, the trope of the nagging wife, innuendo, "sex maniacs" and cold baths.

Indeed, this feels much like the earlier films in the series, including the style of the opening titles, which allude to Carry On Nurse. Yet we're much firmly into the more innuendo-based humour, with Barbara Windsor's, er, assets playing a large role.

The farcical, very silly plot, as well as some nicely witty lines, make this one of the better Carry Ons. I loved the Invisible Man gag. Frankie Howerd, in his Carry On debut, is excellent in a very prominent role, although the fact that the usual cast is very much present and correct means that some of the regulars are stretched quite thin. Charles Hawtrey, yet again, has a surprisingly small role- off-screen problems?

Excellent film. Although it has me wondering- at what point did we stop referring to "the National Health" and start calling it the NHS, colloquially?

Carry On Cabby (1963)

 "She's taking a man's job."

Some Carry On films I've seen in my slow marathon through the lot of them, in order, have been better than others. But none of them have been actively bad. Until now.

The film is notable, I suppose, for the Carry On debut of Jim Dale in a fairly small but very noticeable role. Kenneth Williams is missed, but this isn't the first time he's been absent. No: what's fundamentally wrong is the script or, more fundamentally, the concept.

Sid James' character Charlie is a workaholic who works such long hours he badly neglects his wife Peg, played with aplomb by Hattie Jacques. So she sets up her own all-female cab firm in competition to teach him a lesson. There's comedy here... but there's also a lot of very real emotion. The tone is all over the place and the very real marital tension at the heart of the film both stops this feeling like a Carry On film. The mood just isn't right, however amusing the set pieces may be.

Also, Charles Hawtrey is shown lusting after women and even says "phwoooar" at one point. Er, this just doesn't work.

Some of the social attitudes shown are... interesting. The sexual politics, obviously. An odd undercurrent of almost prudery from the characters at times. The trade union stuff. The attitudes to sexual harassment. And the concluding scenes where Charlie is shown drunk but then gets into his taxi to save the day. Yeah. It was a different time. 

The film, however, just isn't any good. Unless you're making a point of watching the whole series, as I am, this one is eminently skippable.

Carry On Constable (1960)

 "A dog! That's a sign of Pluto, the darkest, most evil planet of all!"

Ok, this is no one's favourite Carry On film. The best years lie ahead. And yet... these films have an early format. Kenneth Connor has a type of character. Kenneth Williams is less camp, playing pretenbtious gits... yet the scene where he and Charles Hawtrey dress as old women is gloriously gay for 1960. Such nuances fascinate.

Leslie Phillips is absolutely a fixture in these early films, and both he and Kenneth Connor get contrasting love plots. That's an intrinsic part of the plot at this point. Although the pairing of Hattie Jacques and Sid Jameas- in a surpreisingly straight yet superb role- dominates here.

The cimedy is amusing but, like the previous film, not great. That is no condemnation, heaven forbid: the film should be judged on its own terms, those of a time where the sixties show no signs, yet, of swinging.

It's a fascinating glimpse of policing, and indeed life. sixty-three years ago. Policing is very military: police officers march in the morning and leave upon reaching their beats. "Phrenology" is not dismissed as a pseudoscience by self-declared intellectuals. 

This film isn't great. But it's perfectly good, and fascinating. Also... wasn't Hattie Jacques lovely?

Carry On Teacher (1959)

 "They've taken the pea!"

My very, very slow marathon of the Carry On films continues with this fascinating third film. It's still the '50s, of course, and the format hasn't settled down to that we will soon come to expect. The film is good, but not great. Funny, but not quite hitting the potential that will soon be realised.

The plot is simple; the popular headmaster plans to lreave, so the kids set up a series of practical jokes during a school inspection to ensure he stays. Meanwhile, two comical romances between inspectors and teachers are pursued. That's it. The jokes are quite funny. The cast is superb, but constrained by a certain early tameness in the material.

More fascinating are the social mores on display here. 1959 was only eighteen yesrs before my birth, but it's a world away. The opening sketches evoke St Trinian's and the Bash Street Kids, a hintat the gulf in time that is to come.

The school is a Secondary Modern. Discipline is far stricter than would be thinkable today. Child psychiatry is caricatured and mocked. and yeah, the beating of children is an unbridgeable gulf. In 1959, it was routine correction of children. In 2023, it's kinky sex and decidedly adult. It's interesting to note that all but one of the teachers dislikes caning children, but they all reluctantly accept it as necessary. We can only shudder.

This is quite good. But, more than that, it's fascinating both as an early Carry On and as social history.

Catweazle: Season 1, Episode 5- The Eye of Time

) "Thou ass-eared turnspit!"

I know I've done several episodes of Catweazle in a row and seem to be procrastnating over the last ever episode of Life on Mars. Bear with me; things are a bit hectic. Catweazle is short so it's something I can just about manage to blog when time is short. Life on Mars concludes soon, then other stuff will follow.

This is a fine little episode, amusing as ever with Catweazle getting some truly splendid dialogue for the mighty Geoffrey Bayldon to deliver. Even better, the wonderful, extremely funny and actually rather sexy Hattie Jacques is in this in a nice little role as a fortune teller in cahoots with the local betting shop. Catweazle has her number in a wonderful scene in which the two of them get to spar magnificently. It's a real treat to get a guest star of this calibre. In theory, with Catweazle being able to predict every horse race, he and Carrot can become millionaires and lead a life of luxury- but dad says no, and that's that. And Catweazle, for some reason, still wants to return to his extremely unpleasant time.

Yet again it's fascinating, fifty years on (this was filmed in late 1969) to see a Britain in which bets are "five bob" each way and a fortune telling is "seven and six".

Carry On Nurse (1959)

“The sex-mad fools!"

I never did intend to marathon the Carry On films. But here I am accidentally doing the first two in succession so I suppose I am. Just expect it to go rather slowly.

Just as with Carry On Sergeant, a film with which it shares an awful lot, this isn’t yet quite what we think of the franchise. Yes, there is a little in the way of mild double entendres but sex is actually, while important, still treated in a picture postcard and, well, 1959 way.

And it has to be said that there’s an uncomfortable scene early on where sexual assault is casually treated as comedy. This was a comedy commonplace in 1959 but is not nice to see today and, although I can never know, I like to think I would have said that before #MeToo.

There’s no justification for that sort of thing, then or now, but we can at least describe it as an isolated scene. The rest of the film is not, perhaps, quite as good as it’s predecessir and not, certainly, quite pointing to the greatness ahead, but it’s interesting. Interesting to see Kenneth Williams playing another intellectual and, rather than being at all camp, being given a heterosexual romance. Interesting to see Charles Hawtrey being given a highly visible yet rather minor role. Interesting, still, that Sid James isn’t there at all. Yet a young Joan Sims impresses in her debut, Hattie Jacques is wonderful, and Bill Owen is quite shockingly and unrecognisably young.

Still, this film is entertaining enough but never quite catches fire. Why it was the only film in the series to be successful in America is beyond me.

Carry On Sergeant (1958)

"Your rank?"

"Well, that's a matter of opinion..."

It's almost a cliche to point out that the first of the Carry Ons is not in any way like what we would later think of as a Carry On film. There's relatively little smut, not many of the tropes and it feels very much like a one-off comedy about National Service. William Hartnell is excellent in one of his signature sergeant roles- he was horribly typecast at this point- while Bob Monkhouse is, well, Bob Monkhouse. But the film is only mildly diverting, holding the attention but not exactly a laugh a minute. What raises a so-so script from mediocrity are the performances of certain members of its ensemble cast.

Charles Hawtrey, to begin with, is a huge comic talent wherever he appears. And you know exactly what to expect from him. Kenneth Connor is superb in his major role as Horace here, and a strangely non-camp Kenneth Williams impresses in what is only a middling part. Hattie Jacques is also superb as the exasperated doctor. This is a textbook case of a film being elevated by its cast.

Yet Hartnell, too, is an excellent straight man and it's a shame this is his only Carry On. It's a film well worth seeing for the performances and the curiosity value.