Carry On Up the Jungle (1970)

 "Game?"

"Any time, if you are."

This is... well, there are some good one liners, the cast is good as ever (although Kenneth Williams is glaringly absent)... but, well, it's hardly the best of the series.

Why? Well, there are the moments that make one wince- Bernard Bresslaw in blackface, the jokes about the "natives"- but this is a Carry On film from 1970 set in deepest Africa: such things are priced in.

Then there's the obvious cheapness. This is set in Africa yet clearly shot on a set in Hertfordshire, so much so that it feels almost claustrophobic at times. There are various lions, elephants and giraffes... all of them very obviously stock footage. If all of this were made into a joke, it would work... but breaking the fourth wall is not the Carry On style. Also, Terry Scott as Tarzan is... a courageous bit of casting, to put it mildly.

Perhaps I'm being a little harsh here? After all, the Carry Ons are coming off a run of very strong films, but might that be the problem? Is Carry On Up the Khyber going to prove impossible to top? I suppose the script and performances are as good as ever here, and it's certainly good to have Frankie Howerd again after all this time. But this film just feels... well, cheap.

Carry On Cleo (1964)

" Infamy! Infamy! They've all got it in for me!"

Yeah, like any other quote had the remotest chance of being chosen...

We know the format by now- the Carry Ons are six years in at this point, hugely popular... and this is the third instalment in 1964 alone. We know what territory the films can explore- this is the second to be set in the past. The cast is set- although this time Jim Dale is promoted to a more major role and we get a delightful cameo from Jon Pertwee.

We get a load of delightfully awful jokes (a soothsayer who says "sooth, sooth"!) and more fascinating little time capsule nuggets revealing the way things were in 1964- Caesar has difficulties in the senate when talking about the "winds of change" and is heard to protest that "You've never had it so good!" And, well, the less said about Cleopatra's blacked up bodyguard the better. It was another time...

On paper, this should have everything. But, for me, something doesn't quite click here, and I can't really say why. It's not the gleefully deliberate historical inaccuracies. The script may not, perhaps, be as good as other Carry Ons but it's perfectly good. The performances are excellent as ever.

Could it be, perhaps, that while Kenneth Williams is excellent as ever he may be a little miscast as Julius Caesar? Whether so or not, for me this one does,'t quite come off on the whole.

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 Cruising (1962)

 "He's one of the biggest bull shippers in the business."

Well, there are a lot of Carry On films. They can't all be good.

I suppose this is a transitional film in some ways. It's the first in the series to be made in colour, most obviously. It's 1962. The Sixties haven't exactly started swinging yet, but perhaps there's something in the air. We are, as Philip Larkin put it, between the end of the Chatterly ban and the Beatles' first LP. So we have, I suppose, a few tentative steps in the direction of the naughty humour for which the films will soon become known. Very tentative steps, mind.

Unfortunately, the film just isn't very good. Charles Hawtrey's absence doesn't help, but the script just isn't as funny. And the format is tired, worryingly similar to the film's recent predecessors. Sid James is stuck in another straight role as a captain having to cope with members of his crew being replaced by incompetent newcomers, a familiar format. This both wastes James' talents and is worryingly repetitive.

The main performances can't be faulted. Kenneths Williams and Connor are superb, as is Liz Fraser/ Esma Cannon, again, is an inspiration. But some of the more second string performers aren't bringing much to the party. Worst of all, the jokes just aren't as good. This is more of a straight farce than previous films, almost but not quite in the usual style.

Still, I suppose we're bound to get the occasional dud. Here's hoping the next one will be better.

Carry On Regardless (1961)

 "P.. P.. Panting?"

"No, that's the way I always breathe."

These early Carry Ons are fascinating... and, don't get me wrong, they're not unfunny. But it'll be a while before we get to the really good stuff. I'm afraid I'm anal about these things. I'm doing them in order.

Like most of the early films, this is a much gentler farce than would later become standard. It fits the early pattern. Surprisingly, Kenneths Connor and Williams predominate, with Williams slightly evolving from "intellectual" to "camp", and Charles Hawtrey sidelined a bit, although his boxing skit is hilarious.

Yet we have interesting, nay fascinating features here. A young, tough, Bill Owen, long before Last of the Summer Wine. Joan Simms giving an extraordinary performance in the wine tasting skit. The unique Stanley Unwin, with a language of his own. Incidentally, on the subject of said oddball, I suggest you type "Wubble U" and "Petal". This is a man of the '50s who looms large-ish in rave culture.

The film is... quite good, but no more than that. Sid James makes some progression towards the laughing lech he would become, but at this point is still far more of a straight man. Esma Cannon, as ever, is superb. Why is she not more well known?

Overall, though, it's clear why this film, while perfectly fine, is no highlight. It's a stepping stone. Greater stuff lies ahead.

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.

The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes: The Red Circle

 "Please vanish, both of you!"

Two superb episodes in a row: that's more like it. It looks as though there's hope for this final series after all.

I fear I recall little of the short story, but this is a nice little stiry about a very thinly veiled Mafia which manages to handle the tension well and to generate real fear. Never has the Granada Sherlock Holmes felt so much like The Godfather, but this is well written, and extremely well shot too.

Not only that, though- the cast is extraordinary. John Hallam makes an excellent villain, but it's truly delightful to see the lovely and talented Betty Marsden, as well as Kenneth Connor, both in straight roles- although sadly, for Connor, a posthumous one.

Yes, I know I've been critical in the past of adaptations of stories which are not really whodunits, or end up as something else following the adaptation. Yet The Red Circle, while abandoning all pretence of being a whodunit halfway through, still contains a gnuine mystery, and the shift to more of a suspenseful action thriller is, for once, handled well.

It's a nicely subtle ending, too: for once Holmes can't override the law and prevent a man ho acted in self-defence from being arressted for murder, even if we know damn well he will be acquitted.

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.